At the conclusion of Game Connect: Asia Pacific, the Game Developer's Association of Australia awarded the best game developers from Australia and New Zealand.

As Medieval II took home the most awards last year, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (DS, PSP) swept up this year's awards with five awards, including Best Game.

North American gamers are in for a classic-filled fun this coming Q1 of 2008 after Marvelous and Ignition Entertainment reached an agreement to bring upcoming DS titles Bubble Bobble Revolution and New Zealand Revolution Story as well as PSP game Rainbow Islands Revolution to North America.

The said DS video games are actually remakes of the original with upgraded graphics and a few level additions. Rainbow Islands Revolution for the PSP, furthermore, is a new entry in the Bubble Bobble franchise. Marvelous owns the rights to these titles and the North American versions will be published by Ignition.

"These games have such classic arcade appeal you will be looking for the slot to put your quarter. They are iconic classics that every DS and PSP system owner must have and we are honored to partner with Marvelous to bring them to North America," commented Ignition USA President Ajay Chadha.

 

Ignition Entertainment puts a new twist in the term "old school." In a recent announcement, the long time publisher of interactive software has teamed up with Marvelous Interactive in a long-term partnership which aims to bring many of its Japanese cult classic arcade games to locals here in North America.

Ignition is aiming to bring back some of the old time favorites a lot of newer gamers have yet to experience. Many old timers (you can include me in that list, sad to say) will remember gaming classics like Bubble Bobble, New Zealand Story and Rainbow Islands when they first came out on their respective consoles providing them with lots of arcade action for hours on end.

Soon, you'll be able to catch all of them in their newest incarnations for the next gen handhelds. Everyone can expect to see Bubble Bobble Double Shot and New Zealand Story Revolution on the Nintendo DS, while you can catch Rainbow Islands Evolution on the Sony PlayStation Portable.

All three games will be an exact port in terms of story content and gameplay, however you'll be blown away with some of the new upgrades all three games will be coming out with when they finally hit video game shelves. In any case, it's nice to know that Ignition is still willing to reintroduce games which would otherwise have fallen into the cracks of gaming obscurity. Hopefully, we'll all be seeing these titles soon enough on handhelds everywhere.

 He's not David Beckham, but in EA Sports' upcoming premiere soccer sim, FIFA 08, Melbourne Victory striker Archie Thompson will be the flag bearer for the A-League as it joins the FIFA series as one of the official playable competitions in the game.

Small compared to its other European counterparts, the A-League will finally get a chance at the limelight as it joins 29 other international leagues in this long-standing football sports franchise.

Also joining the roster of new leagues are Gambrinus liga of Czech Republic and FAI Premiere Division of Ireland. Archie Thompson will be carrying the name of Australia and New Zealand as their official ambassador for the game.

Thompson, perhaps most known for breaking the world record of most number of goals scored in a soccer game, was excited with the A-League's inclusion in FIFA 08. He had this to say:

I know that plenty of the boys at Melbourne Victory enjoy playing video games so it’s fantastic that we can now play as our favourite Hyundai A-League club either in a league or against other international Clubs.

Expect the release of EA Sports' FIFA 08 by September. It will be released on multiple platforms, namely the PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, DS, PSP, and Wii.

MTV has released a PSP-compatible flash game based on their reality comedy show Rob and Big. This Flash game was of course made to further promote the series, and was developed by New Zealand-based company Zodal.

In the game, players play as Rob Drydek, skating through three different levels while doing their best to avoid whatever stuff gets in their way. Along the way, players also collect DC logos. Each level also features a level boss that players have to take out by pressing certain key combinations before a timer runs out.

You can download the PSP version of the game below. Just extract and place inthecribpsp.swf into the root of your PSP's memory card and point your browser towards it. If you prefer the net-based version, click on the "via" link below.

Download: Rob and Big: In the Crib PSP Flash Game

As wee little QJ younguns, we used to love that stupid ninja who had an unlimited number of shuriken to lob around. Now, we're glad to see that The Legend of Kage has come back from the land of the dead to grace our PSPs in the upcoming American release of Taito Legends Power-Up!

A representative from Destineer Studios confirmed that the previously European-only release would be headed to U.S. shores. While this is great news for Taito fans looking for a compendium of games on their PSP, Xbox 360, and PC owners will still have to wait for any word of a Legends release for them.

In the meantime, we've listed the games that'll be part of the lineup for Taito Legends Power-Up below. Enhanced versions indicate that the game will be getting both the original version of the game and an updated game, though you can assume that it's going to be a graphical upgrade beyond anything else.

Taito Legends Power-Up Games List:

• Alpine Ski
• Balloon Bomber
• Balloon Bomber (enhanced version)
• Cameltry
• Cameltry (enhanced version)
• Chack 'n Pop
• Crazy Balloon
• Crazy Balloon (enhanced version)
• Elevator Action
• The Fairyland Story
• KiKi KaiKai
• Kuri Kinton
• Legend of Kage
• Legend of Kage (enhanced version)
• Lunar Rescue
• New Zealand Story
• Phoenix
• Qix
• Raimais
• Rastan Saga
• Return of the Invaders
• Space Chaser
• Space Dungeon
• Space Invaders
• Space Invaders Part 2

To prevent the sale of of Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV, Jack Thompson is suing Take-Two Interactive on the week of March 19. He previously tried to stop previous games such as Bully from being released. His reasons for contesting the release of the two games are consistent with his previous cases.

He is doing this to "prevent the sale of two hyperviolent video games set to be released this year and sold to anyone under 17 years of age." Now, from what we've seen, all of the games which Mr. Thompson has been complaining about has been given a rating of at least M for Mature by the ESRB. This rating means that the game is not to be sold to anyone under 17 years of age.

Now, Mr. Thompson does have a point: it is wrong to sell these games to children under 17. The ESRB set the rating there for a reason. However, the problem might stem from the findings of The United States Federal Trade Commission which stated that despite the 'Mature' rating on video games, they are still sold 42% of the time to kids under 17.

While we feel that it is necessary to lower that number, it is important to realize that the ESRB has no legal backing and is simply a voluntary system set up by retailers. It should also be noted that major retailers such as Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, and others have agreed not to sell M games to children below 17.

It was also said that "Take-Two aggressively markets its games to children" by posting its ads "in video game publications purchased by hundreds of thousands of kids under 17" and "on public transport in major US metropolitan areas." While this may be the case, video game magazines also cater to gamers who are of legal age. In addition, buses are also used by people who do play games and are old enough to play these games.

From all indications, it looks as though Mr. Thompson has his sights set on the target. More news on this as we get more information.

After Monster Hunter Portable 2nd was released - and hit sales of 700,000 on the first week, Capcom has announced that Monster Hunter Freedom 2 will be released in September 2007... In PAL regions.

PAL would normally mean UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. PAL, by the way refers to the region format - and it's devastating to know that North America is NTSC. It looks like Capcom did take its massive sales on the first week as a signal to ship global. The sad thing is, there hasn't been any announcements regarding a North American release.

Monster Hunter Freedom 2 will share all the goodness of the original Monster Hunter Freedom but with 50% more content. Anyway, let's keep our fingers crossed for a NA release date. Stay tuned.

Today, New Zealand. Tomorrow, the world?

Just in case you're a bit lost on what we're talking about, Japan may be DS territory, but in the land made famous by director Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the Pop culture arena, that's not the case. Apparently, the PSP and the aging console, PS2 top the New Zealand market, in terms of the October 30 - December 31, 2006 sales.

Gameplanet reports that according to the GFK sales tracking, the PS2 has 70.9% of the console market at their side while the PSP pocketed 73% of the handheld market. Hey, wherever it occurs, success is still success. General manager of sales and marketing of Sony Computer Entertainment, New Zealand, Warwick Light said:

With new platforms on the market, we stand by our belief that the gaming category is a long-haul race. The continued support and innovation of the PlayStation 2 platform shows that a console can enjoy a long lifespan and continue to grow its appeal to new audiences. Don't think that with the launch of our next generation console we will be forgetting about PlayStation 2 - far from it.

No surprise there, the PS2 has always been an overachiever of sorts. Hopefully, the PSP could follow the sales reputation of the PS2, not only in New Zealand but in other countries as well.

New Zealand: Is it just us, or it's getting a little Trekky in here?
Australia: No, we're feeling it too.
New Zealand: What are we going to do about it?
Australia: I do not know but resistance is futile...

Okay, that was geeky. Just to keep records straight, no such conversation took place. Thank God. It is true though that Star Trek fans from New Zealand and Australia will soon be getting their version of Star Trek: Tactical Assault (PSP, DS). Publisher Ubisoft announced today that they just signed an agreement with Bethesda Softworks, developer of the game for the handhelds.

Ubisoft also added that Tactical Assault will also see action on X360 for the said markets. Since no further details were given regarding the game, we wonder how the Klingon and the other races would look like in next-gen. All versions of the game are expected by December. We hope Captain Kirk's already landed in New Zealand and Australia to give us all an update by then.