Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep comes out next week, September 7th to be precise. It’s a prequel to the original Kingdom Hearts game on the PlayStation 2. It tells the story of Terra, Aqua, and Ventus. If you’ve never heard of this franchise, it’s basically Final Fantasy meets Disney. Not turned based FF, this is an action RPG.

There aren’t a lot of great PSP games being released, so I just wanted to bring this game to your attention. I already played the Japanese version and it’s an excellent game. If you’re still not convinced, check out the newly released trailer below.

Birth of Sleep Launch Trailer

The release notes that comes with this:

• New searchable dictionaries:
  • Tanaka Corpus (divided into 3 parts)
  • Kanjidic (for studying purposes)
  • Surname (divided into 3 parts)
  • Given female name (divided into 2 parts)
  • Given male name
  • Given name gender not specified
  • Place names (divided into 4 parts)
  • Railway Station
  • Company name
  • Organization name
  • Product name
  • Unclassified name (divided into 3 parts)
• Wrote the logic and added 300 kanji images. Help needed with completing the set!
• Fixed a bug. Now Edict icon is immediately seen in menu when used SKIP/Stroke count search.

I have not tried it yet, but looks promising. For more details, visit the source!

Steve Sanders, "The Original King of Kong," plays at a launch party for the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum

Music has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Visual arts have the Met, Louvre and Guggenheim. Radio and TV have the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

So why are decades of priceless video game history relegated solely to “abandonware” sites, where old and discontinued titles are saved from oblivion only through the dubiously legal efforts of diehard fans?

“The game industry is a fast-moving business. … Unfortunately, as a result, it’s often so busy moving forward that it doesn’t do enough to preserve its past,” said Jon-Paul Dyson, director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.

David Crane, creator of cult classics like “Pitfall” and “A Boy and His Blob,” agrees.

“The game business is very much driven by the latest hit games,” he said. “Once a game is a few months old, it’s considered dated, and not exciting to video game buyers. It’s just the nature of a hit-driven business.”

Happily for video game fans, efforts to celebrate and pay tribute to pioneering games, software publishers and industry visionaries are quickly multiplying.

Ottumwa, Iowa, recently became home to the International Video Game Hall of Fame, with help from historian Walter Day, of “The King of Kong” and “Chasing Ghosts” fame, and celebrated game-scorekeeping organization Twin Galaxies.

Rochester, New York’s, Strong National Museum of Play maintains a catalog of more than 20,000 artifacts devoted to computer, console, arcade, hand-held and electronic gaming in its collection.

From “Pac-Man” to “Donkey Kong,” more than 250 vintage coin-operated machines are also on display at Laconia, New Hampshire’s, American Classic Arcade Museum, which is at the world-famous Funspot arcade.

And now, video games are headed to the Smithsonian.

Starting March 16, 2012, the museum plans to stage an exhibit titled “The Art of Video Games,” featuring game footage, video interviews, classic systems and selected games for visitors’ enjoyment.

It claims to be “the first to examine comprehensively the evolution of games as an artistic medium.”

“Get Lamp,” a documentary about classic text adventures, further debuted earlier this month, offering fans an unprecedented glimpse at the history and culture surrounding the field’s earliest smash hits.

But for a pop culture medium that’s touched tens of millions of lives, and profoundly influenced multiple generations since first storming bars and living rooms in the early ’70s, it’s hardly a sweeping homage. Insiders say misperceptions of the craft may be to blame.

“We’re no different than other art forms in their infancies,” suggests Bob Bates, founder of Legend Entertainment, whose output ranged from early text adventures like “Spellcasting 101″ to first-person shooter “Unreal II: The Awakening.”

“Classic TV shows got taped over to save a few bucks. Movie prints deteriorated in vaults and no one cared for a long time,” he said. “If we survive as an art form, at some point someone is going to look back at the early days and say, ‘Why didn’t anyone preserve all that material?’ ”

Some blame the general public’s reluctance to view the medium as a genuine art form and the subsequent dismissal of surrounding artifacts — from boxes to manuals and prototype cartridges — as “worthless junk.”

Others cite the hit-driven industry’s constant boom-and-bust cycle, which often results in corporate acquisitions that retain company names, but fail to preserve decades of history and supporting relics.

More distressing than the casual obliteration of countless priceless pop culture artifacts, argues “Leisure Suit Larry” creator Al Lowe, though, is what it ultimately costs the industry and fans as a whole.

“Someday, we’ll realize that we’ve let our heritage dissipate …” he says. “History is important, so that younger generations can learn from it.”

Insiders say electronic games were among the first modern entertainment forms to truly captivate and empower viewers.

As a result, according to gaming experts, even the oldest, seemingly most incongruous titles’ legacies can still be felt today.

“Thousands from foreign countries have told me that they learned English because of our games,” Lowe said. “Many more tell me that their choice of careers was influenced because they learned computer skills and problem-solving through our games and then became computer professionals.”

“People tell me about the many hours spent playing, how these titles entertained them through college or inspired them to get into the gaming business,” seconds Brian Fargo, founder of Interplay and inXile Entertainment. “It’s like my own fond memories of old shows like ‘H.R. Pufnstuf’ or ‘Speed Racer.’ … they live on in our creative conscious.”

Still, the irony for those like Fargo is telling.

While the effects of classic games are still being felt, most modern players would be hard-pressed to remember last year’s hits, let alone historical gems such as “Ultima,” “Pool of Radiance” or “Wizardry,” or publishers like Broderbund or SSI.

“The industry moves at light speed,” he confesses, “and newer generations just haven’t heard of many of these titles.”

But despite the narrow-mindedness of critics who disparage the medium and downplay its cultural relevance, says Electronic Arts and Digital Chocolate founder Trip Hawkins, it’s worth fighting harder to preserve its history going forward.

“Many early games introduced fundamental new technologies, inventions and themes and did crucial pioneering work that laid the foundation [for today's hits],” he explains. “Older titles will be remembered for their craftsmanship and timeless elegance.

“We had very little technology to work with … fundamental play mechanics had to be simple, engaging and addictive. Some of them have not been improved upon yet.”

Source: CNN

I played games since the 70´s and 80´s…I think it is a great idea to preserve those games and play them again like the old times…Have you played those games and had fun before? Sure I did!

If it doesn’t, I’m importing! I think it’ll cost $200-$229, I would be shocked if it’s any more than that.

Here’s a trailer for a game that should be available at the 3DS launch.

Kid Icarus Uprising

Source: Bloomberg Japan

Today is a big day for PC gamers. StarCraft 2 is out, a games that was years in the making! I have my copy and I can’t wait to crack it open. It’s a must buy if you’re a fan of RTS games. Hopefully no one in South Korea Dies while playing this game! I love games as much as the next guy, but you can’t play all day without eating! That’s insane…

I understand not everyone wants to drop $50 on a new game. Well, I have some more good news for you. Today EA released Need For Speed World, a free racing MMO! Yup, the game is free to play and you can download it right now from Here! My handle is DeeZee, just in case you want to find me and challenge me to a race.

Well, I’m going to be gaming for the rest of the day, hopefully some of you guys/gals will join me!

If for some reason you haven’t seen this game in motion then check out the trailer below. This is how a sequel should be! The fine folks at MM added a ton of new features to this game.

LBP2 Trailer

November can’t come soon enough!

The game comes out on September 18, 2010  in Japan. The U.S. release date will be sometime in the spring of 2011.  The games are exclusively for the Nintendo DS. I’ll import a copy; I’ve been playing Pokémon for so long that I can enjoy the game without understanding a word of Japanese. All I need to know is that I’m on a quest to be the best! I travel from town to town destroying everything that crosses my path! Isn’t that the point of every Pokémon game? Don’t tell me I’ve been playing them wrong for all these years!

Pokemon Black & White Extended Trailer

Toru Iwatani was due to speak at the Festival of Games conference in Holland when he casually displayed a simple scrap book filled with his original sketches for the game. Drawn on simple graph paper they give a compelling insight into what was to become a pop culture icon.

And they also show that the game’s unique look did not differ much from its original concept through to finished game.

Each one is marked with a stamp that means ‘Top Secret’ in Japanese, giving a sense of how truly revolutionary his design was in the late 1970s.

The game was a massive hit, spawning a number of sequels

Based on the concept of eating the original Japanese title was Pakkuman inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase paku-paku which refers to the sound of someone’s mouth opening and closing as they eat.

Iwatani designed the game with a female audience in mind with its ‘cute’ characters and chirpy music.

It took his team of designers one year and five months to develop – a record for a video game at the time.

It was first launched in February 1980 in Japan to a muted reception from the predominantly male gamers who were more used to shoot-em-ups.

But the game really took off when it was taken to the US and renamed Pac-Man.

Within months its addictive game-play had made it a phenomenon with merchandise and even a children’s TV cartoon produced to cash in on its popularity.

Last month Google posted the first ever interactive Google doodle to mark the 30th birthday of the classic arcade game.

It spent the weekend incorporated into the logo on the Google online search homepage.

Source: The Daily Mail / ControlNL

There some news or rumors that a possible “Movie” and a new version for this century is coming soon…Despite that, It is amazing how a simple game turned to be one of the most succesful franchises in history…and became a cultural icon!

Few things can drive a person to smash expensive electronics in a fit of pure and unadulterated rage. Having your girlfriend delete all your World of Warcraft level 80, geared-out characters while you run to the store for a pack of cigarettes is certainly one way to achieve this.

Such is the case with the video embedded below, which features the poor bastard’s girlfriend recording the experience while explaining her logic for deleting all those WoW characters.

“He thinks he’s going to be raiding all night, but let’s see about that,” she says in the video, and then proceeds to type out the required “D-E-L-E-T-E” confirmation before it processes the request.

Source: Geeks of Doom

If your girlfriend smash your figures, delete your anime or worst…your savegames, what would you do??…

Now, thats something cool…Isnt it?