We told you it was coming some time ago, despite the fact that we didn’t know if it would ever break Japanese borders. But now we’re fully aware, and we once again urge you to pick up this unique gem when it arrives.

It’s the PSP port of the original PS2 game, Shadow of Destiny, which is the very epitome of an adventure title laced with a surprisingly deep - and even philosophically-grounded - storyline. Konami has announced that it will release the game in North America some time next year and for now, that’s plenty good enough for us. You will play as Eike, the young man who must solve
the mystery of his own murder…again and again and again. It’s a little difficult to explain, but essentially, you must find new ways of preventing the mysterious murderer from successfully killing you. Early on, this could be as simple as getting a bunch of people to gather at the park, which makes for too many witnesses and the killer is forced to retreat. But things get far more complicated as time goes on so if you’re not willing to use your noodle, don’t bother with Shadow of Destiny. But if you are indeed intent on playing a game that really embraces an original concept and requires you to be both creative and even ingenious, this is the game for you.  Just trust me on this.

We’ll let you know when Konami nails down a finalized US release date; we’re hoping it won’t be too far off. If you’re a PSP owner and you never played the game on the PS2, you should definitely consider it.

You know, with all these awesome games hitting store shelves in the fourth quarter - so what else is new? - it can be a real pain in the wallet. This is why you need to look for some helpful retail deals…

Well, if this rumor from HotBloodedGaming proves true, you’ll have a chance to get one game completely free at Best Buy, thanks to a promotion that’s supposed to start on October 25. As you
can see by this leaked pic, they should be offering a Buy 2, Get 1 Free deal on all their video games; it seems you’ll also be able to mix and match to your heart’s content, too. Therefore, if you wanted to buy Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Brutal Legend and Borderlands, you’d really only have to pay for two of them, which is a damn good deal. Of course, as is always the case in situations like this, there are outstanding factors: first of all, it’s possible that not all Best Buy stores will be doing this so be sure to check things out ahead of time, and secondly, there’s always a chance that some games simply don’t count towards the promotion. A consumer needs to consider such things, right? And it’s not exactly official, anyway. But if it is, you won’t find it difficult to locate three titles you really want; heck, if you wait until November, you could probably find six games you want and do it twice. Hmm…wonder if they’d let you do that.

Also, be on the lookout for a price drop for the PSP Go. We’re not saying it’s definitely going to happen, but plenty of European retailers have already slashed the price of the new portable.

The franchise has had its fair share of ups and downs, but there’s no doubt it’s one of the most successful in industry history.

According to Videogamer, EA has just revealed that the revered and immensely popular Need for Speed series has topped 100 million units sold worldwide to date. It was the latest release -
Need for Speed: SHIFT - that allowed the franchise to hit this lofty plateau and overall, these titles have brought in over $2.7 billion in sales. Said EA Games president Frank Gibeau:

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Some of my fondest gaming memories are playing Phantasy Star 2 on the Sega Genesis in controller-swap co-op.  Over the years the traditional Phantasy Star series has died out, and since been reborn as an online pseudo-MMO similar to Guild Wars.  While I’d love to see a new strong story based Phantasy Star, there’s still fun to be had for the series in its current form.  The latest iteration of this is Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP; a game that closely resembles Phantasy Star Universe on the
Xbox 360.  The one key difference is lack of online play, and therefore no fees.  What we have instead is local AD-HOC co-op play for four players.

Phantasy Star Portable is divided into two separate game modes.  The single player story mode has players creating a character from four races and three classes, and customizing the look of the character with an incredibly in depth character editor.  The developers went as far as to allow you change your characters eyelashes, good luck trying to see them on the PSP’s 3.5″ screen.  After you are done with character customization, you’ll be off through various missions intertwined with comic book style cut scenes.  Honestly, the story didn’t interest me much, and after finding the skip all cut scenes button I rarely paid attention to what was going on.  Any progress you make with your character in this mode is transferable to the game’s Multi-mode, and this is where you’ll have the most fun. 
 

I don’t even see eyelashes.

 This four player co-op mode has players joining up via the PSP’s Wi-Fi connection to hack and slash their way through various missions.  I always enjoy seeing RPGs where players can fall into roles.  The ranged player in Phantasy Star Portable may fight the game’s lock on system a bit, but using dual blasters with an ice upgrade is something not to be missed.  The melee combat is equally as satisfying with a combo system that’s less about button mashing and more about timing.  At times it looked like we were in some sort of kung-fu action movie as we defeated the strange creatures of Phantasy Star; what’s up with all the chick-like things anyway?  Phantasy Star Portable even offers co-op specific missions, designated in the mission hub, that forces players to do various co-op actions.  Basically this means - “I stand on this pad while you go through that door.”

It’s all about level grinding, item collecting, and finding those oh so rare weapons that give you just a little bit of an edge in battle with your buddies.  The items and weapons truly are the focus of the game, with tons of options available at your finger tips thanks to a quick pallete for switching between them.  As you complete missions you’ll earn points, discs and grinders that let you upgrade and customize weapons further.  Depending on your character class you may find it difficult to use a weapon or piece of armor, so obviously you’ll want to trade it.  No such luck here as my partner and I couldn’t find this option buried in the myriad of menus.  It seems like an odd feature to leave out, so instead you’ll just be selling your stuff at the in-game shops.  Thankfully all the rare items are given to each player in the game when one player picks them up, so this helps balance it out.
 

Laser swords make everything cooler.

So even though you can’t trade the weapons and armor, there’s still the RPG fashion show aspect of the game.  Picking up that big halberd with the blue laser thingy always yields “ooohs” and “aaaahs” from the crowd.  If each player uses a different race or class you can see a great variety of the available items in the game.  Although we couldn’t test it directly, we heard some players were having slowdown issues when playing with more than three players, so you might want to keep that fashion show limited to two or three.

Fans of the recent Phantasy Star games will be right at home on the PSP with Phantasy Star Portable.  It’s pretty amazing what this little system can do, and my buddy and I easily blew through three hours of a Friday night.  If you can get passed the game’s quirks, there’s a lot of fun to be had in co-op here.

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[source]

Atlus U.S.A., Inc. today announced that Class of Heroes, the upcoming first-person dungeon crawler for PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, will be delayed until June 9th. The anticipated RPG, an homage to the genre classics, promises to bring expansive character and party customization options and deep, involved dungeon crawling to PSP system owners across North America.

“Just days prior to manufacturing, a show-stopping bug was discovered,” explained Aram Jabbari, manager of PR and Sales. “We will under no circumstance ship a product with foreknowledge of such an issue, and so we must delay the game to resolve the problem and deliver a final product to our fans that lives up to the high standards we aspire to and that they deserve.”

Cloud computing seems to be the new “in” thing, nowadays. First OnLive appears at GDC, which forces David Perry to announce his own similar service — which he was saving for E3 — and now Sony has trademarked something called “PS Cloud.” The trademark was registered “for use with a cloud computing data center management software, communications software, broadcasting services, and a long list of other terms,” according to Siliconera.

There are many ways that Sony could be utilizing a cloud computing system, including offering a similar service to OnLive, allowing users to share downloadable games/demos or improving the PSP’s remote play functionality. Whatever it is, we imagine it’s probably quite a way off and, like many other trademarks or patents, could never even come to fruition at all.

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Vogster Entertainment has announced a brand new game for the PSP Store called Unbound Saga. Although the name doesn’t provide any clues, Unbound Saga is actually a sidescrolling beat-em-up in the tradition of arcade classics like Streets of Rage. The downloadable PSP title is based on an upcoming Dark Horse comic book of the same name.

Players will take control of either Rick Ajax or Lori Machete as they fight their way through a city full of bad dudes. Luckily, environmental objects like garbage cans — and even enemy thugs themselves — can be picked up and hurled as weapons. RPG elements allow players to upgrade their fighter with 35 more unlockable moves and abilities. According to the developers, the game uses a detailed 3D engine to display the action on screen, although movement will be mainly on a 2D plane.

Right now we have no information on pricing for this game, but the publisher states that both the PSP game and the comic book will be coming our way in June 2009.

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Sega just confirmed it’s completed a deal to publish official games based on the 2010 Winter Olympics, to take place in Vancouver.

According to the announcement, “SEGA will publish a wide variety of games with winter sports and events including skiing, skating, and snowboard bearing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games emblem.”

“SEGA is extremely excited to once again work with ISM on a series of multi-platform games celebrating the Olympic Games,” says Sega COO, Okitane Usui.

“The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games offers gamers a collection of exciting sports to master, as well as a stunning location for players to take advantage of. We aim to bring fans around the world an exhilarating experience whenever they play any Olympic title.”

Press release after the break.

THE OFFICIAL VIDEO GAME OF THE VANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES – SEGA ANNOUNCES PUBLISHING AGREEMENT

TOKYO (February 5, 2009) — SEGA® Corporation today announced a worldwide agreement with International Sports Multimedia (ISM), exclusive licensee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to once again become the sole approved video game publisher of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. After an　extremely successful series of video games from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, this exclusive license will allow SEGA to once more publish the only official interactive entertainment software titles of the world’s most famous sporting event.
Through this agreement, SEGA secures the sole rights to publish console, PC/Macintosh, handheld, arcade, and mobile games worldwide. Under this exclusive license, SEGA will publish a wide variety of games with winter sports and events including skiing, skating, and snowboard bearing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games emblem.
“Working with SEGA has resulted in Olympic Entertainment Software achieving unparalleled success and we are delighted to support SEGA once again for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games”, says Raymond Goldsmith, Chairman & CEO of ISM.
“SEGA is extremely excited to once again work with ISM on a series of multi-platform games celebrating the Olympic Games,” says Okitane Usui, Chief Operating Officer, SEGA Corporation. “The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games offers gamers a collection of exciting sports to master, as well as a stunning location for players to take advantage of. We aim to bring fans around the world an exhilarating experience whenever they play any Olympic title.”

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It’s dark and mostly gray. And it has a familiar, popular flavor that increased my heart rate for reasons good and bad. This is my kind of, sort of “Killzone 2” campaign review.

“Killzone 2” is a PS3- exclusive first-person shooter from Guerilla Games with a cover mechanic and a great-to-hate sci-fi version of the Nazis. It has graphics that should provoke a debate about whether a game can look too good for its own good.

It has a campaign that took me nine hours, 15 minutes, 45 seconds and an almost-devilish 667 killed enemies to beat.

It’s got multiplayer I have not played, an exciting score, obligatory motion control gimmicks, obligatory vehicle missions, and obligatory supporting character death as a plot device.

You’ve played this game before.

It’s got a train level, a bridge level, a section where you wield an unstoppable weapon, a clipped ending and other elements that make it advisable to not play this game immediately after one plays “Resistance 2,” “Gears of War,” “Gears of War 2,” “Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare,” “Half-Life 2,” “Halo 2.” And there are other games it reminds me of, but to name them would be to spoil other elements of “Killzone 2″ that you don’t want to know about in advance.

At its best, “Killzone 2″’s campaign has you advancing down that bridge or through a palace courtyard, gaining inches against the Helghast. You fire at them through the smoke, when you see the orange of their eyes. During those best moments, dozens of soldiers advance behind and beside you and — like none of those games mentioned above — you are made to feel as if you control not just a gun but the morale of fighting men.

The game is at its worst at its ends, dull in the beginning hour and infuriating during a final battle that punishes the player for employing the combat strategies taught in the rest of the campaign. The developer that rewards a trophy for beating that final boss in under 20 minutes is the developer who must admit something went wrong.

A year from now few will discuss how this game played: smoothly, heavily, with lumbering guns and uncommonly helpful allies. A year from now people will still discuss the graphics: how good they do look.

Let a friend play and enjoy the show. There are so many characters on the screen, such detailed ruins of the Helghan planet. The rubble, the tanks, the explosions, the electrical storms and the wind — oh, the wind. You can see it. Red dust blows. Gray smoke billows. Light tries to rip through. Bullets do. Shadows stretch, as enemies bark from somewhere that a stereo sound system will not specify. If you play and your friend watches, he will see Hollywood. You will feel confusion, oppression. You’ll wonder if that wind makes for a better game or if all that dust - and the many Guerilla Games engineers and artists who labored to make it — did your friend a favor, but you the gamer a pain.

Unless you like the panic.

Then you’ll cheer and bellow at the intensity amplified by the orchestral strings as showdown after showdown feels thrilling and desperate enough to be a big budget finale.

The enemies are smart, the script less so. This game tells you nothing that video games haven’t already suggested about war. Your squadmates make no fresh jokes and curse in only the old ways. There is one bold writing decision. An armed ally makes a bad choice, one that would normally get him written out of the game: killed or turned evil. Instead, he sticks to our side, an annoyance so unusual for a game character that it’s welcome. We fight with someone we hate. That’s new. But the real stars of the game aren’t your hero or his allies. It’s those smart space-Nazi enemies. They are ferocious, thick with armor and cloaks. They all but goosestep to battle beneath the broadcasted battlecries of their wicked leader. The game makes icons of them, the chief visual fetish rendered on screen.

“Killzone 2″ is a linear war to be fought from cover at four difficulty levels, or contested in multiplayer skirmishes of up to 32 players, different classes and custom classes activated and crafted by earning experience in various match types. I can assess little more about the multiplayer until I play it, with access to it limited until the game’s release on February 27.

I can say little more about this PS3 exclusive’s relevance to system owners than what I’ve described above. Lacking co-op, it technically has less content than “Resistance 2,” offering a package more of the scale of the modern classic “Call of Duty IV.” Its middle will excite; its ending will enrage.

“Killzone 2″ is first at nothing but among the best in its stab at many familiar setpieces and technical achievements. Its bridge level is better. Its train level is better. Its graphics are better. Its enemies are better. It’s a good game in a crowded genre.

Unlike, say “Flower,” it’s the kind of game hardcore gamers ask for. You’ll enjoy it if your appetite for such flavors hasn’t been exhausted over the years or even over the last few months.

“Killzone 2″ will be out in North America on February 27. A demo of the game should be available on the PS3’s PlayStation Network the day before.

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Coming up this week in new videogames is EA’s follow up to its well received Skate game. Skate 2 will be available for both the PS3 and Xbox 360. Nintendo gamers on the Wii and DS have SimAnimals to play with, as well as some fireworks with Big Bang Mini (see a trailer on that here). The Sony PSP gets a good RPG release this week with Star Ocean: Second Evolution, which has been getting decent reviews. Check out the game releases below for the week of January 19 to January 23, 2009.

This week’s new videogame releases (1/19/09-1/23/09):
(subject to change)

Xbox 360:
Skate 2

PLAYSTATION 3:
Skate 2

Wii:
SimAnimals
Ultimate Shooting Collection

Nintendo DS:
Big Bang Mini
Inkheart SimAnimals
WonderWorld Amusement Park

Sony PSP:
Star Ocean: Second Evolution