An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Forget it. Play a round of Bejeweled instead. According to a new study, casual games are proven to be beneficial for your health. Details in the full article.

If you loved Insomniac Games' Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, then you'd be interested in what old pal Quartermann has to say about its next chapter. In the latest EGM issue, the gaming seer also talks about Tecmo Bowl and a possible challenger to Mario's platform game throne from Disney. We smell a hidden Mickey! All this and more after the jump!

So they say that learning is about asking the right questions. That's probably why John Master Lee of Hudson Soft started a Q & A session regarding the company's games. If you're curious as to what Hudson Soft has to say regarding some of its various titles, turn to the full article after the jump.

We can't have a whole slew of QuickJump QuickPeek special editions without having QuickList's own fanfare, now can we? As one of QJ.NET's mainstay features that crop up every now and then, this QuickJump QuickList special edition will be especially special to be redundantly descriptive. We're compiling a unique list of games from 2007 that we here in QJ.NET believe aren't worth missing out on. On to the list at the full article!

It's Capcom Gamer's Day today in London, and there's already a handful of announcements made that would surely make a lot of gamers happy. For instance, there's a new Street Fighter game being developed, and this time it's the fourth installment of the core Street Fighter franchise. Capcom was only able to present an animated concept trailer for Street Fighter 4, without any video clips of actual gameplay, though.

Lost Planet for the Xbox 360 and PC will finally make its way to Sony's PS3. The best part? All the bonus content from both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of Lost Planet will be included in the PS3 Blu-ray disc. A 16-player multiplayer mode will be thrown in as well, through PlayStation Network.

Capcom also announced a new game franchise, Dark Void (thus clearing up some of the rumors about Capcom's filed patent). It will be a sci-fi action game in third-person POV, and will feature air-vehicle gameplay as well as sky diving. Nothing else is announced about this new title, so we'll have to stay tuned for more.

More updates to come!

Ah, Castlevania. That's one gaming franchise that never ceases to shine. It's always good getting more news about the epic game series, and when it's coming from Castlevania's Koji Igarashi himself, it's all the more better. 1up managed to sneak in an interview with Igarashi, or IGA, and they talked about their current Castlevania project Dracula X Chronicles, as well as possible futures for Castlevania in other consoles.

PSP's Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles - based on a much earlier Rondo of Blood - is just about finished, with the US version already approved while they're still waiting to get approval for the Europe and Japanese versions.

As for the Symphony of the Night added into Dracula X Chronicles, IGA said that some content was changed in the PSP version compared to the downloadable SotN from PlayStation Network and Xbox Live: voice acting was improved (yes!), and they made drastic improvements to Maria's sprite compared to the Sega Saturn version. Michiru Yamane, music composer for the Castlevania series, composed a new song for the SotN credit track.

As for future Castlevanias, one of the things that is definite is that we'll have another title for the DS, and they're also thinking about the possibility of some whip-cracking action on the Wii, but there's a small problem. According to IGA,

As for a Wii version, I still think people would be exhausted if they had to swing it as a whip the entire time, but I am coming around to the idea -- I like the concept in theory, but I'd just have to make sure it could be done without players getting all tired.

Cracking whips around all day does sound a tad tiring and painful in the long run.

The Castlevania team, in the meantime, are thinking whether to go "traditional" and release games for the Xbox 360 and PS3. As to what "traditional" means to them, it doesn't necessarily mean the old-school 2D gaming. Said IGA,

Those are two steps for us, actually. Step 1 is figuring out the gameplay and step 2 is the graphics. We are still discussing step 1, so until we have the gameplay figured out I won't be able to say whether or not it will be 2D or 3D.

Those who want new downloadable Castlevania games won't have much hope to hold on to, however. IGA said that prices of downloadable games are quite too low to support the things that they want to do in the game, and will also result in low-fidelity games.

That's definitely so much info to chew on! But you can bet we'll have more as updates come our way. Stay tuned!

 

Weekends usually means slow news days, so we'll help you pass the time with a brief look at recent gaming related rumors. First up, something that appeals to the testosterone-laden. German gaming news site GameFront.de reports that in the rumor column in the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), it was speculated that Team Ninja is working on a PS3 iteration of the Dead or Alive franchise.

Other rumors reported include speculations that game developer Hudson Soft is working on a version of Bonk for the Wii and the Nintendo DS; Capcom's making a remake of the original Megaman solely for the PlayStation Network; Level 5's Professor Layton for the PSP is coming to North America; and, NIS's Disgaea series is coming to the PS3.

Surprising to see a lot of rumors on planned games for Sony and Nintendo recently.

Before we end this, we'll leave you with something interesting. It was noted in the same rumor column that the next Kingdom Hearts will be a spin off, and that it will appear on a "Hearty Console". Take that as you will.

Just in case you're not entirely familiar with the genre, Wikipedia defines serious games (or persuasive games) to be videogames that can be used as educational technology, but are often intended for an audience outside of primary or secondary education. If you've still got most of the radio tracks from Liberty City Stories, you're probably going to remember that crazy radio commercial for that fictional edutainment-game Pastmaster. There you go. Pastmaster equals serious game.

Anyhow, here's the news: To help usher in the Serious Games Summit of this years Game Developers Conference (GDC), Square Enix's established serious games unit discussed why the company decided to delve into the serious games genre. They also previewed its serious DS game which they claim intends to teach the joy of game development.

Gamasutra reports that Ichiro Otobe, Square Enix's chief serious games strategist, believes that despite sentiment that serious games are almost seen as charities, Square Enix knows that it can also be a profitable business. Otobe  emphasized his belief by citing Japanese serious game hits like Brain Training, English Training, and Cooking Navi for the DS.

Otobe admits thought that with serious games, the challenges for developers are numerous. For example they have to contend with a target audience which consists of people who are primarily not gamers.

Square Enix also revealed that their new serious game project for the DS, tentatively titled Project GB, is set to teach players the necessary skills required for game development. The game's ten man development team is led by Tadashi Tsushima of Vagrant Story fame, and it's set to teach folks programming, graphic design, music composition, and writing for games through hands on play.

Tsushima notes that he believes that when developing for serious games, the learning process should never be sugarcoated, as if learning was something bitter that should be eased. He says that the game should instead communicate the joy of learning Otobe concludes: "Without understanding the fun of learning, you can't create a game, you can only sugarcoat. You have to access yourself what is the core-fun of what you're trying to educate, and communicate that through gaming."

Wow. What could be more natural than learning to make games through playing a game? This is an amazing concept that Square has to get right. We're hoping though that Square finds ways to bring serious games to other platforms. A lot of folks looking to get into game development as a hobby would definitely appreciate being able to download something like Project GB over XBL, PlayStation Network, or Virtual Console.

What we like about N'gai Croal is how he's able to pull off asking some of the tough questions that would get other games and tech reporters shot (by French ninjas, no less). He let us know of a funny new post to his tech blog where he discusses, in an iTunes playlist style, who should be watching out for themselves in a future filled with Apple's iPhone. Some of them you might know because you own these pieces of tech now: the PSP and DS.

On the PSP side, which is at number seven, he notes how the development of the iPhone could eat into the mobile media industry that Sony's trying to get a handle on. He writes,

After all, the iPod has iTunes (with music, movies, TV and games); while the PSP has the PlayStation Network (for PS2 games that can run on the PSP's emulator and...nothing else right now - more than two years after its launch.)

Suffice it to say that with the advent of even more tech that's touch-screen enabled, Sony really ought to think about following suit, possibly integrating it with their now-famous XMB interface.

Nintendo's dual-screen handheld doesn't really have a lot to fear from the iPhone, at least when it comes to getting sold. The problem will lie in sustaining the interests of casual owners. Croal asks: "How long will it take publishers to bring knockoffs to the touch-enabled iPhone, along with other games that take advantage of the iPhone's audio, video and communications capabilities?"

While we could talk about how Apple should be afraid of its own iPhone announcement (it's at number two, by the way), one of them will really hit us hard. That's the one in which Croal talks about us, as Time's People of the Year. Do we really want to spend a couple of hundred dollars for a phone/medium-range PC/ portable movie theater? Personally, if my iPhone doesn't make my coffee in the morning, I'll stick to my bulky, but lovable, Hello Kitty custom-case home computer, thank you very much.

One of the most classic titles to ever come out onto the gaming industry is Lemmings. They're all over the place: from PC to PS, Xbox Live, and most recently even the PlayStation Network. Much to say, they're breeding like rabbits - in a sense.

These little critters have now been transported homebrew-style onto your DS, and you've got the Lem Project to thank. The team just released their LemmingsDS v3, and their newest version is crawling with the green-haired dudes. It's an open-source port of the Amiga-version Lemmings game engine.

If you've played a single Lemmings game in your life, you probably don't need any instructions to simply jump in and get on with the point-and-clicking. But for those few first-timers (as we're sure there probably still are), you might want to take a look at more developer notes in the "Read" link below.

For those who want to go advanced and create their own custom levels, the said "Read" link also contains all the important info you need to start churning out your Lemming wonderlands.


Download: [LemmingsDS v3 - Binary SC]
Download: [LemmingsDS v3 - Binary RAW]
Download: [LemmingsDS v3 - Source Code]