Sega has announced that a new Bleach game will be headed to North American Nintendo DS units this summer. The game's called Bleach: Dark Souls, and it appears to allow users to play as members of the Hollow! More on this game after the jump!

The Tokyo Game Show is looming ever so near and we're prepping up for what the developers have in store for us. One such developer doesn't seem to want us guessing what they're offering come TGS: Sega. Sega's official website has been updated with their line-up for this year and we have to say the the list ain't too shabby. Not shabby at all.

Remember Ryu Ga Gotoku? It was better known as Yakuza on these and Europe's shores. Hopefully, we'll finally see a sequel (Ryu Ga Gotoku 2 doesn't really count as it was only released in Japan) and it's going to come busting to the PlayStation 3. It is currently called Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzen and is scheduled for spring of next year.

Sega is pretty much loaded in titles for the PS3, DS, PS2, and Wii, while the Xbox 360 and PSP rosters are a bit bare. The titles to keep an eye on are Bleach: The Third Phantom, Battlefield of the Valkyrie, Sonic Rush Adventure, and Ghost Squad, among others. Anyway, here's the list with their respective ETAs courtesy of Siliconera.

PlayStation 3

• Imabi Kisou - Oct. 25
• Sega Rally - Jan 2008
• Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzen- Spring 2008
• Battlefield of the Valkyrie - Spring 2008
• The Golden Compass - Spring 2008

Wii

• Ghost Squad - Oct 25
• NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams - Dec 13
• Mibiru & Tebri – Jan. 08
• The Golden Compass - Spring 2008
• Fushigi no Dungeon - Furai no Shiren 3: Karakuri Yashiki no Nemuri Hime - 2008

The rest of the list comes after the jump!

  

Five new screens of high-octane, sword-slashing beat-em-up action in this screenshot update of Sega's Bleach: The Blade of Fate for the Nintendo DS. We get you armed and up to speed in the third outing of the series that has DS owners scrambling to see just who has the most powerful bankai combo of all.

In this screenshot update, we get better acquainted with the game's richly-detailed visual style. The characters are crisp, sharp and very distinguishable from each other, with character portraits and mannerisms that convincingly convey emotion and conviction in battle. The game's backgrounds are no slouches compared to the characters, either, and they serve as great-looking battlegrounds where the action can get real hectic real fast. Unintentional bonus - Orihime giving an unfortunate opponent the what-for in one of the screenshots. Very cool.

Bleach: The Blade of Fate will be flash-stepping into store shelves come October 9 of this year. Enjoy the screenshots!

Here's the latest for the soon-to-be-released Bleach games: the US will be getting the same playable content as the Japanese version so they will also enjoy the same unlockable content and characters. In short, everything from the Jap version will be intact.

Bleach: Shattered Blade for the Wii promises to be sword-wielding fun using the Wiimote. It will have a total of 32 playable characters and features multiplayer combat.

Bleach: The Blade of Fate for the DS features a new kind of battle system that takes advantage of the two screens. To read more about the aspects of each game, check out our previous article.

Bleach: Shattered Blade and Bleach: The Blade of Fate will both be released this October 9. Hey look, screenshots!

    

Bleach fans in Europe have a couple of reasons to be happy as Sega just announced two new titles based from the animated series. The new video games are namely Bleach: Shattered Blade and Bleach: The Blade of Fate for the Wii and Nintendo DS respectively.

This time, the Bleach storyline follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki who has the power to see spirits from the afterlife, including warriors called Soul Reapers. Our main hero meets female dead warrior Rukia and received her powers. Kurosaki is then tasked to continue Rukia's mission of defeating the enemies known as Hollows.

"The content of the Bleach story lends itself perfectly to an action packed arcade fighting game with a heavy dose of mighty sword battles. Both the flexibility of the Wii and the portability of the DS have allowed us to bring the intense action of Bleach to a wide variety of gamers," commented Sega European Marketing Director Gary Knight.

The following are some of the features specific to each title. Both will be released during the early part of 2008.

Bleach: Shattered Blade

• Enables players to wield the Wiimote and Nunchuk as their weapons - slashing, jabbing, and lunging in furious battles like a real Soul Reaper
• Exclusive storyline created specifically for the Wii with 32 characters to choose from
• Once a new character is unlocked, players can replay the story episodes utilizing the characters special moves and weapons adding a whole new perspective to the storyline

More features and screenshots after the jump!

  

Online retailer Play-Asia has just announced the commencement of their Summer Smoothie promo, which will provide for a 20% price cut for all select goods in their extensive (virtual) merchandise shelves. Here's a sample of the major deals available for the promo:

• Xbox 360
• Blue Dragon (English/Chinese language version) (Asia, US$ 35.92)
• Shadowrun (US, US$ 47.92)
• Forza Motorsport 2 (US, US$ 47.92)
• PlayStation 3
• Def Jam Icon (US, US$ 47.92)
• F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon (US, US$ 51.92)
• The Godfather: The Don's Edition (Asia, US$ 39.92)
• Wii
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Japan, US$ 31.92)
• Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII (US, US$ 47.92)
• Cooking Mama: Cook Off (US, US$ 47.92)
• PSP
• DJ Max Portable 2 (Korea, US$ 39.92)
• DJ Max Portable 2 Orpheus Package ~Night Black~ (Korea, US$ 119.92)
• Bleach: Heat the Soul 4 (Japan, US$ 39.12)
• DS
• Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Konami's Best) (US, US$ 19.92)
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All (US, US$ 23.92)
• Final Fantasy III (US, US$ 35.92)
  

Play-Asia's Summer Smoothie is expected to last until July 12, Thursday, and will cover all items in stock, except for those released during the last 30 days. That's the basic rundown of this ongoing discount special - the full merchandise list should be available at Play-Asia's site via the read link below.

Jump Festa is basically a celebration of all things anime, manga, and gaming. Hosted by Shueisha, the guys responsible for the insanely popular Shounen Jump, the event attracts Major game publishers from all over Japan. We've come to expect that companies like Bandai, Square Enix, Namco, Konami, and Capcom will make major announcements for their  anime-based games or their RPGs at this event.

1UP reports that this year's main highlight is the Square Enix booth. A huge chunk of their upcoming lineup was on display, including Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix, as well as Seiken Densetsu: Heroes of Mana, FF Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, and the much awaited PSP game FFVII: Crisis Core. Unfortunately FF Tactics: The Lion war, and FF XII: Revenant Wings, them Ivalice games, weren't playable.

Squeenix also had a private movie theater showing of footage from their 2007 games, mostly FFXIII-related clips, although 1UP does say that at the end of the reel there was a very brief clip of a face of an armored man grimacing at the camera while in the middle of a battlefield, followed by the text "something new coming in 2007." 1UP speculates that it might be the long rumored MMO sequel to FFXI. New trailers for Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors for the Wii was also shown.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft had a large booth showing mostly Wii games, and Microsoft was pimping Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Table Tennis, and the localized version of Viva Piñata. Sega and Sony, were showing off their Bleach titles for their respective systems.

Capcom had Monster Hunter portable 2nd. Konami had it's new Death Note games (emo alert!)  and a few Yu-Gi-Oh and Prince of Tennis titles. Bandai Namco was also there in full force, with about 42 different Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, and Tales of -insert word here- games.

Given that the TGS FF Versus XIII trailer took a while before it was made public, we're guessing that it'll take a while before we see that supposed FFXI trailer that 1UP is speculating about. We're currently raiding/scouring YouTube and other video sharing sites to see if there any interesting clips and videos of the event that got leaked. We'll update you if we find some treasure. Stay tuned.

For images of the booths (in this case the Square-Enix one) you can go here.

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Gamefront.de reports that at Jump Festa 2007 new trailers for FFXIII were shown on the showfloor. In the new trailer, a new character for Final Fantasy XIII was seen. A blond motorcycle-riding man wearing a Bandana was featured. We'll update you when more news breaks.

I went to work today with a skip in my step, fresh from finishing Final Fantasy XII. I thought nothing could ruin my work day, until I heard this disturbing piece of internet news. Apparently Gamestop has a games 4 girls kiosk filled with questionable content.

Here's the entertaining quote from a Kotaku report regarding the offending kiosk:

Apparently the powers that be at Gamestop are still under the delusion that girls actually enjoy playing crap like this. The roster of insipid titles is truly painful to take in with the exception of Cooking Mama, which rocks! I mean look at that line up: Strawberry Shortcake, The Little Mermaid, That's So Raven, My Little Pony and something that I think is Hillary Duff.

Yes I understand that the games in the said kiosk targets girls, young girls, not women, and I am aware of the complicated and touchy subject that is "female preference regarding video game genres." Since this writer is not a female, he chooses to not get entangled in that mucky (flame-baity) subject. Instead I will focus on a topic that is much closer to home and is still related to this disgusting kiosk.

I have a sister, and the possibility that she might fall victim to this odd aberration is not a welcome one. I assure you, I will never, ever, ever, ever, let my younger sister suffer through the insanity that that is Bratz. This article is about that.

If not Bratz, and games of their kind, what proper games will I get my sister? And, for all of you QJ readers, if you'd like to introduce your sister to the world of gaming, what games can you get her? Also, if your younger sister is already a gamer, what games will you recommend that she get?

Get the rest of this article after the jump!

The DS-Xtreme was dispatched to several sites for review, and we were lucky enough to be one of those sites! The DS-Xtreme is a slot-1 flashcart which has up to 512mb (4Gigabits) of storage. This device will play NDS files, but will not play GBA files since they aren’t supported from the slot-1 of the NDS. This device just never ceased to amaze me every time I turned on my NDSL, and with future updates to come – this is a great product! In the full article after the jump, you will learn all about this new product, its revolutionary features and overall performance in my extensive review!

Visit: [DS-X Website]
Support: [DS-X Forums]
Purchase: [List of Online Retailers]

Comic Book DS is a PC application that lets you read your comic books on your Nintendo DS. What it does is it take your comics - be they zip, rar, cbz or cbr - and convert them into .nds  files which you can then install on your DS just like you would any piece of homebrew.

Just download and extract the available zip, run the PictoDS program and follow the instructions. After you've chosen and converted a comic of your choice, choose the generated DS file that's compatible with your DS, install it just like the way you would install homebrew and you're good to go.

The DS file generated starts out in thumbnail mode, with 10 thumbnails displayed per page. You  can select which thumbnail to view using the d-pad or the stylus. Here's how you navigate:

To display the next (or previous) 10 thumbnails, you can either click on the small hands or you can use the pad (while going on the right with the last image selected, or on the left with the first one selected).
To display a thumbnail in real size, you must either press the L button or click on an already selected thumbnail.

The program then switches to the OVERVIEW MODE
This mode displays a part of the image in real size on one screen and a overview on the touch screen.

Pressing again the L button will set the DUAL SCREEN MODE.
This mode displays the image in real size on both screens.
Pressing again the L button will set the THUMBNAILS MODE (and so on...)

We tried Comic Book DS on a Bleach chapter and it worked wonderfully. The quality was pretty good, although the text can be quite small if the page you're reading is not zoomed in, and when you zoom in it's kinda hard to see all the action. Still, Comic Book DS is a great program. We recommend you check it out.

  

Download: [Comic Book DS V1.0]