AQ Interactive has launched the official website for Anato wo Yurusanai, its upcoming sound novel game for the Sony PlayStation Portable handheld gaming system.

Since our last post on this title got a few "What's a sound novel?" comments, here's a short backgrounder. According to Wikipedia, the term "Sound Novel" is a trademark of Chunsoft for use in their novel games like Otogirisou and Kamaitachi no Yoru. Sound novels and visual novels are essentially the same thing. The latter is just the term used by non-Chunsoft developers.

Anyway, back to the game. The story revolves around a woman called Takeuchi Ririko who works at her father's private investigation firm. Things take a turn for the worse when Ririko's husband leaves her and her father mysteriously disappears. It's now up to Ririko to look for her father while she takes care of his P.I. firm at the same time.

The website doesn't have a lot of content at the moment, but there is a brief guide there on how the game can be played. You can also check out a few screenshots of the game there. Those interested can take a look at the official Anato wo Yurusanai website by clicking on the Read link below. The game goes on sale in Japan on November 15.

What does Resident Evil, Phoenix Wright and Devil May Cry have in common? Pretty boys. Shinji Mikami of course! A warm Happy Birthday goes out to one of the gaming industry's living legends who turns 42 today!

Mikami has been in the gaming industry for more than 15 years now and is responsible for a number of games we all know and love. Aside from the ever popular video games mentioned above, he's worked on such classics as Aladdin and Goof Troop during the days of the Super Nintendo, Dino Crisis and God Hand.

After working with the Resident Evil franchise with Capcom for almost a decade (so many zombies, so little time,) he joined Studio Clover in 2004 where he worked with Hideki Kamiya to produce Devil May Cry. He later founded Seeds Inc. together with Kamiya and Atsushi Inaba which was last heard to be in the process of developing a new game.

Certainly a lifetime of achievement can't be fully captured in a scant three paragraphs but cheers to Shinji Makima and again a Happy Birthday!

Homebrew developer vashts121 dropped by the QJ.NET PSP Development Forums the other day and announced a new build for his PlayStation Portable application Phaze Portal. This new build is essentially the same as the previous one, version 1.5, but with some very important fixes.

According to the developer, there are two new themes available now for users: pink and black. More importantly, the links were fixed as several of the hosts were changed. Those who have been using Phaze prior to this might be aware that the previous build ran out bandwidth.

Anyway, in case you missed our last report, here is the changelog for Phaze Portal v1.5. The download below will provide you with the patched version.

• Downloads now has music, demos, wallpaper, videos and images
• Forum added
• News on homepage and is also a link
• More games
• More apps, pixel fixer added
• Forum added
• Search added (Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia etc.)
• File browser under Search
• Plethora of links
• Two new themes (in About)

Download: Phaze Portal v1.5 (patched)
Visit: QJ PSP Development Forum

Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game (the Hugo Award winner and Nebula Award winner), is a recovering game addict - or at least that's one interpretation you can give his interview over at Gaming Today. Ender's Game is being turned into a movie by Warner Brothers, and at the same time Orson Scott Card is open to the possibility of his book becoming a video game.

For those not familiar with Ender's Game, just understand that it's one of the best sci-fi books ever written (in our honest opinions). A fast-paced story about violence, evil, war, and leadership. It's required reading, or so Wikipedia claims, at the Marine Corps University at Quantico.

And if it's good enough for the US Marines, it should be good enough for you gamers out there, right? Anyway, back to the interview. Orson Scott Card talked about being addicted to gaming:

The weird thing was that even when I wasn't playing, I felt a tremendous anxiety. I had responsibilities - there were cities waiting for me to tell them what to build! Now, I'm not insane. My conscious mind knew that it was just a game, and when I wasn't running the program, nothing was happening at all. But I invested so much tension in the playing of the game that it didn't go away when I left the computer. The call of duty was still there.

The interview also tackled what goes into writing a story for video games. Card said:

Games CAN'T have the kind of storylines that movies and books have, or they wouldn't be playable. ... What makes a game work is the opposite of what makes a story work. In a story, you are seeking to find out what really happened - why people do what they do, what the results of their choices are. ... In a game, the opposite illusion must be created. Even though most games absolutely force you to follow preset paths, the gamewrights try to give you the illusion that you are making free choices (even though you are actually, in almost all games, still being channeled through certain puzzles with fixed solutions).

As for Ender's Game, it won't just be one game in Card's vision:

• The Battle Room. This pivotal set in the book can be several game modules in real life.
• Space war games. The three wars (back in Mazer's time all the way to Ender's time).
• Story-based games. Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.
• MMORPG. This one is based on the Battle School in Ender's Game.
• The Fantasy Game. The "mind game" from the novel.
• The Hive Queen. It's like Civilization (a game franchise that Card was addicted to).
• Post-war war. Card describes this as being like Risk.

Well, Mr. Card, there are quite a few fans here at QJ.NET who would be first in line to get a game that follows the Hegemon.

Today we got a few pieces of character art and screenshots of Fate/Tiger Colosseum, the upcoming PSP fighter based on the PC title Fate/Stay Night. Yeah, some of these were included in the mag scans we posted before, but these are better quality. This 3D fighting game features characters from Fate/Stay Night which, while the title sounds a bit weird, has some pretty good character designs. Anyway, check 'em out below.

  

Fate/Tiger Colosseum from Cavia and Capcom will support multiplayer action as well as the standard single-player story mode that was supervised by the writer of the series' original scenario. It features cel-shaded chibi-style anime graphics Oh, and here's a factoid for those of you unfamiliar with the game: the original Fate/Stay Night was an "eroge". If you don't know what that means, check Wikipedia. Fat chance that this new title will feature some of the stuff in the first game, though.

More screenshots and character art after the jump!

The lone screenshot from last November was the first look we had of 2K Sports' newest major league baseball game The BIGS. This time we've got the newest batch of screens for your eyes only.

The BIGS, aka MLB: The BIGS, is a multiplatform (Xbox360, PS3, PS2, PSP, and Wii) sports title developed by Blue Castle Games. It features online capabilities for up to four players, minigames to train the players (we imagine it might be like Virtua Tennis), and power ups. As far as the visuals go, we really can't complain. We're intrigued as to what the batter and pitcher are doing in the middle of a busy city street but we've yet to see those outrageous special effects.

We'll quit with the prattle now and keep our noses peeled for more info on this. The BIGS is slated to slide on the shelves in June 25 (according to Wikipedia). Check out the screens for now.

More screenshots come after the jump!

IGN reports that Ubisoft has launched a new website at rev64.com which appears to be a teaser for a new Tom Clancy title. The interactive site features a kind of radio voice over, a scrolling information ticker, and a few clickables that trigger some new audio clips.

The site also includes the familiar Soldier logo, which IGN tags as a Rainbow Six logo. However, a quick look at the packshot for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 shows that it has actually become synonymous with pretty much ALL Tom Clancy titles.

So, what is it? We're guessing that it's either a whole new title or a kind of compilation of all the Tom Clancy games. The links found on the site mention a "Ghost Leader" and a "Splinter Cell", among others, leading us to believe that this new title will somehow bring all of the Tom Clancy teams together in one large campaign.
The game also looks like it'll be set somewhere in in a near-future Europe or, possibly, Eurasia. The voice over mentions a war going on in Europe. The 2026 Stockholm Winter Games is also mentioned, which would make the game take place in or after that particular year, and the mention of Korean teams, UEFA, and other European game leagues adds to the whole Eurasian flavor.

The ticker on the left side of the site also mentions that the subject has "distaste, enmity, antipathy for dialects of Slavic descent." Slavic dialects, according to Wikipedia, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia. The EEC logo on the side of the ticker could also mean European (or Eurasian) Economic Community, and there is mention of reverse immigration into Asia.

We'll bring you guys more details on this as they surface.

 

Chris Kohler of Wired informs all of us that the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has announced the debut of gaming.wikia, an open-source gaming magazine.

What's amusing about this is that like all other wiki's, you can go in and finally edit out the annoying parts of other people's articles. Admittedly, this blogger thinks that the mentioned scenario will probably happen to a lot of his posts. Other self-explanatory wikia's include Tunes.wikia, Cars.wikia, and Health.wikia.

Will this end up as the ultimate gaming resource for the gaming community? Or will this end up as a NeoGAF induced with massive amounts of alcohol?

Penny-Arcade's Skeletor strip seems oddly prophetic. Anyhow, if you want to check out the new resource, feel free to head there via our "read" link below.

In the dark, early days of the Internet, when BBS boards and gaming magazines made of combustible paper still ruled supreme, videogame myths enjoyed a healthier existence. What videogame myths you ask?

Ever heard from a friend of a friend that he had a friend was able to play Leisure Suit Larry 4? Remember the rumors of the existence of the notorious Cow Level before the release of Diablo II? Yeah folks, videogame myths - rumors that have passed from mouth to mouth and are now part of gaming lore.

Below are infamous videogame myths that immediately come to mind. The first three are old ones - and legendary ones at that. The last game is a bit more contemporary and stands as an example of how quickly videogame myths get busted nowadays.

The full article awaits after the jump! (No really, unlike most of the games about to be mentioned, this is no wild goose chase, it's really there. Just click on the" Full Article" link below.)

Most 80s cartoons were made to help market toys and other franchise-related merchandise. We're wondering if that Saturday morning magic will work on this generation's electronic occupation.

Given, the huge buzz generated by the now in contention Ghostbusters' game (thank the gods Dan Akroyd confirmed it), it seems there are a lot of franchises from way back when that could get a great boost if it gets adapted for our gaming interests.

But how would these 80s cartoons translate into "generation now" video games? Which platforms would each game be for? How would each game play? This article will imagine what would happen if we turn 80s cartoon shows into "generation now" games.

We'll start with two 80s cartoons that share the same universe (yes 80's uber geeks, we know that Etheria and Eternia are different places, but the two series did cross multiple times) He-Man and She-Ra, and then we'll move from there.

Read the rest of the article after the Jump!