There once a movie called "Labyrinth." It starred the beautiful Jennifer Conelly and the cool-eyed wonder David Bowie. The others were pretty much just muppets and puppets (how DO you know which is which). It had a young girl (Conelly) go through a large labyrinth just to reach the Goblin King's (Bowie) tower and save her little brother (muppet?). Now there's a game called "Deep Labyrinth" that's was just recently released, is it going to be populated by muppets as well? Let's see.

Most RPGs are viewed from a third person's point of view. Naturally because they'd like to see the character they're playing. If the character doesn't look good, expect the sales to go down pretty sharp. Sorry, but most RPG players like seeing their characters portrayed as cool and handsome. First Person Shooters (FPS) on the other hand, just shows the arm. That's it. FPS players don't mind because they all look the same anyway. They're pretty much happy just wearing their ski masks and Army uniforms. What's important to them is the gameplay and the way bodies explode on grenade launcher impact.

Labyrinth has mixed the two game features together. Presenting: the FPRPG. First Person Role Playing Game. You basically just see your arms most of the time in this game, but instead of wielding M-16s or spades, you'll be fighting with swords, blocking with shields, casting spells, and using items. You'll be fighting dragons and monsters, naturally.

You'll be playing as Ace, a sixth grader. You and your dog will be in search of your parents who disappeared suddenly when they entered a mansion on the road. Dog goes in, boy follows (they never learn do they?--Dogs, I mean) and you're teleported into the "Deep Labyrinth."

The story,gameplay, and music from the people who brought you Chrono Trigger, FF VII, and Xenogears: Masato Kato and Yasunori Mitsuda.

Game released stateside: August 15, 2006.

Conelly not included.

MegaETk is a homebrew game for the Nintendo DS. Based on the popular Megaman series of games, MegaETk's most interesting feature is its capability to let players play in levels that they themselves created.

ETk reports that the game menu for MegaETk is almost done. The first boss has also been added, but there's still no HP bar as of now.

Here's the list of updates:

-Added: Game menu to select level, check hero status, etc..
-Added: Boss loader, etc.. all functions to play with a boss and move it
-Removed: level complete screen, it will go directly to shop now
-Fix: Hero's arm now blinks when hero does.
-Fix: Fixed collision with max X on map.
-Fix: Fixed arm position when using the stylus and moving to the wrong way..
-Fix: Sprites animations are paused when pausing the game.
-Most important Fix: After adding the level select menu. The game was running at very slow fps (3-6), after 1 hour I fixed that (phew..) optimizing and removing unneeded code :)
-Added: First step to save data.

Time for a screenshot. ETk says to ignore the door. It shouldn't be there.

Ever since cncds_project announced his Command & Conquer port for the DS, the DS community has been urging him to continue with project. Good news: seems like cncds_project has no intention of abandoning the project. Just five days since the last update, he gives us another progress report just to prove that C&C for DS is still on the go.

Although having qualms with the coding environment Blitz 3D, which has no function pointers and real classes, cncds_project was still able to make a few improvements on his upcoming post of the popular PC FPS game. Work on the map editor has began - the developer shares, "I'm going to try and build all my tools into one, so they can easily share format import/export code and you can do everything in one place." The CNCDS map editor will also be supporting command line options, he said.

Tile conversion routines will be the first things to be added to the editor. This will require cncds_project to fill in the missing features of the GUI system which, as he posted on his blog today, has been done. Although things are a bit slow due to the Blitz 3D's limitations, cncds_project assures that "What works looks great".

Currently, one cannot edit the map yet but one can already fire up the map editor and see the tiles and the blank map - all thanks to the .TMP conveyor that cncds_projetc spent a lot of time to write.

The CNCDS developer on the loading times of the game: it's shocking. He explains, "...it loads all it's data from the .TMP - which means it has to recreate the images, and then due to the GUI being 3D it has to convert these to textures (a limitation of the language). The whole process is quite slow - it's about a 15-20 second load time on the editor."

When cncds_project successfully makes the maps editable, he just might release the map editor to be able to get some early feedback. So keep your fingers crossed DS owners!

Italian homebrew developer for the Nintendo DS, NDS, has updated the NDeSmuMe application that he started getting his hands into last month. Just a quick refresher, the app is a Nintendo DS Emulator that runs on your PC and this will allow you to run NDS-related games and applications. If you could recall, it was YopYop who first dabbled on this one, but for some legal reasons, he had to stop it.

With this at hand, homebrew devs have tested their homebrew on the PC, so when they see a glitch, they could easily solve it, without having to change your focus from the PC to the Nintendo DS. Anyways, NDS was kind enough to share the source code of the app, and he promises to improve the emulator in the coming versions. For now, here's the changelog:

• Corrected bug in the 3D3
• Corrected a bug in the menu
• Added the function Open and Execute
• Improved the speed of execution (of 2 fps)
• Reduced the key rom
  

Changelog for the Source:

• Corrected the bug that did not allow to execute the emulator
  

Download: [DeSmuME 0.4.0]
Download: [DeSmuME 0.4.0 Source Code]

MechAssault: Phantom War, the first handheld installment of the series, features popular franchise elements modified for the Nintendo DS touch screen. In this science fiction third person shooter, players assume the role of a MechWarrior trained to control the BattleMech - the ultimate war machine of the 32nd century.

MechAssault: Phantom War also features over 20 other combat vehicles all designed to wreak havoc on the enemy and environment with an arsenal of powerful, upgradeable weapons. You read the hype now watch the trailer (link below) and see if Majesco delivers.

For those who thought that the Wolfenstein 3D game for the DS wasn't coming out at all, think again. The first-person shooter port for the DS' developer has posted some updates he has made to the project.

The developer talks about having done Major changes to the original SDL source port. The 3D renderer and most menus now run at 256x192 resolution with 320x200 for larger images.

The game will not have a washed out look to it as the colors are brighter now with the palette conversions and gamma correction done properly.

Even though with there are many sprites on the screen, it will still run at 30 fps. Remember the gameplay window with the status bar? That has been removed now, so the top screen will be solely used for 3D display while in-game. The status bar might be recreated on the bottom screen.

Check out screenshots of the old and new versions of Wolfenstein placed side by side.