Famitsu.com has broken the news on a new entry in Taito's Estpolis series. If the name doesn't ring a bell, the series was released outside Japan as "Lufia". The new game will be called Estpolis: The Land Cursed by the Gods and will be produced by the original game's development staff. Square Enix will be handling publishing duties.

After taking five for quite some time now, The Weekend Warrior just took his Conan the Barbarian-like sword and took it to the nearest smithy. This time, the DS and Wii Weekend Warriors have joined forces into the new Nintendo Weekend Warrior, bringing you all the big news from an Italian plumber's pipeline.


Originally posted 21 Feb 09 at 11:00PM

You may already know that the PS3 game Warhawk is just a roided-up remake of the PSOne Warhawk, but even before the PlayStation game, there was a Warhawk shmup title released for the Commodore 64. That's the Warhawk that this DS remake is based on. Screenshots and details after the jump.


Download: Warhawk DS Remake

Kain and Raziel of Legacy of Kain fame haven't shown themselves since Defiance on the PS2, Xbox, and PC. We were supposed to get another sequel, but for some reason it was canceled. The only thing to show for it: some concept artwork and renders from an artist's online portfolio.

Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: "Ohnoes, not another Spyro game..." The first three games on the PSOne were cool but after a while, Vivendi made a mess of things. Meanwhile, the Legend of the Dragon trilogy's a bit of a mixed bag so far... So maybe this third and final installment will make up for all that. Dawn of the Dragon was released last week, just in case you need reminding. But more so, maybe you still need more convincing? Here's a video with the cast of voice actors: Frodo Baggins, that other Goth Chick, and some other familiar faces.

Cid has been a staple character in the Final Fantasy series since time immemorial. And it's high time we celebrate (i.e. geek out on) this iconic character that's been around through the ages. Join us for a look back on the life and times of Cid. Are you sure you know them all? We got a chain-smoking pilot and a frog - there's also the guy in the Mega Man suit and even one that looks like Robin Williams. Think you're a Cid buff? Well, it's time to celebrate twenty years of Final Fantasy!

Peter Shea, one of the developers working on Codemaster's Race Driver: Grid, had some pretty strong words directed towards the developers and publishers of some Nintendo DS games. In a nut shell, he basically complained about the fact that "many publishers seem to think it's okay to treat a portable title on DS, as if it were a mobile phone game, or a PSOne game." Want to know more? Check out the full article.

This next one is rather short but the implications are quite sweet. We just learned that Japanese video game development studio Mitchell Corporation will be coming up with a Wii game this year as well as two new DS titles.

Best known for the Buster Bros. series of games, Mitchell Corporation is one of the older development studio that still exists today. It was founded back in 1960 and started making games for arcades; its later titles appeared on Nintendo DS and PlayStation 1 (PSOne)

Mitchell even made a title on Nuon - a technology that allows DVD players be compatible with 3D video games. Anyway, since their stint on the DS with Magnetica and Polarium, nothing was heard about Mitchell Corporation.

While we're hoping that the new titles would involve Buster Bros., we're not leaning towards it because Nibris is already making a new version known as Double Pang.

Masaya Matsuura, creator of the PaRappa the Rapper series of video games, was one of the keynote speakers at the recently-concluded GO3 conference in Australia. During his speech, his message was rather simple and direct: the gaming industry should come up with less violent titles and produce games that are more accessible to non-traditional players instead.

PaRappa the Rapper was first released on PlayStation 1 (PSOne) back in 1996 by video game development studio NanaOn-Sha. It is a rhythm-based title and was probably the inspiration behind today's hit Guitar Hero and upcoming game Rock Band (for the Xbox 360 and PS3). However, despite the success of Parappa Matsuura still has some concerns about this genre, especially for his homeland of Japan, since according to him,

It's very difficult to make brand-new systems for music-based games that involve more than just pressing buttons according to rhythm. Of course, we've tried several already, but unfortunately some of them are not successful. Another reason, everyone is buying flat displays. Flat displays have a delay, but sound doesn't delay.

The creator then commented that one solution for this is to come up with various alternatives to audio. However, he also cautioned that the musical game industry collaboration will not be initiated by the artists as most of them are highly conservative and want to do things by themselves, therefore developers may have to take the initiative.

Lastly, Masaya Matsuura couldn't help but applaud Nintendo for its stance during this cycle of the console war. He implied that the industry will not grow if focus will be given on traditional players as they are already a "captured audience." He explained,

Making good games that everybody can play is a very high priority for the game industry, because if we make games like X-rated videos, the industry won't grow. Nintendo is very smart to appeal to a much wider group of people because it is what's required now.

Could we blame skeptics from saying that "console RTS" won't work? Real-time strategy (RTS) and its close cousin, real-time tactics (RTT), have always been the domain of the personal computer, with its mouse and keyboard. The traditional console controller is ill-suited for the rigors of battle strategy. And with some disappointing attempts to port PC RTS titles to consoles - including the early Command & Conquer titles to PSOne and StarCraft on the N64 - somehow the cry went up from both sides of the gaming world: stick to the status quo.

This is where Electronic Arts, stubborn EA, comes in. Criticized as they are for a number of gaffes in the past year (alone), we'd always held that sometimes, even they can get some things right, or at least good enough. Backing EALA's bold attempts to put RTS into console gaming (starting with The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth II) might be one of them. And now a bolt from the blue dev, Tiki Games, plans to craft a real-time strategy title for, among others, the handheld PSP.

A crazy effort - ludicrous, even? Or is it finally time some boundaries are breached, some lines blurred? Is the core idea of real-time strategy breaking free (because there's not a star in heaven that they can't reach)? Short of beating the 360 Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars out of EALA right now for a review, we try instead to deconstruct the idea behind strategy games, and see where they fit in the matrix of the gaming console.

Short version of the verdict: it can, and it will - if you're willing to be as wily as Sun Tzu on a coffee high, that is.

Sun Tzu says: Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results. Intelligence analysis of strategy gaming on consoles after the jump, Commander.