So yeah, I haven't posted anything for ages. My life has been kind of hectic and after all the mess with Gamespot went down I didn't care much for this site anymore. However, I'm still around. Some times.

Anyway, check this out. Apparently Square-Enix created a subdomain which strongly gives the impression that one of the best--if not the single greatest--RPGs of all time is coming to the Nintendo DS. I know I am excited! How about you? It is not unlikely that they will redo the graphics like they did for Final Fantasy III and IV. How do you feel about that?

I think the new--not updated--graphics are alright, however, they also added in some voice work on those games. I still don't know how I feel about that. So, I want Chrono Trigger to come to the DS, but I am not particularly excited about a graphics overhaul. They might as well just clean up the old graphics and put it on a DS cartridge, but I guess they can't get away with that on a system like the DS.

That's enough rambling for now.

[UPDATE] I guess Gamespot finally caught on to this news, so you can now check out their story as well--they were slow to pick this up, though.

Check out this trailer, it is awesome! Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer is an old fashioned side scrolling shoot 'em up like R-Type, Gradius and more obscure titles like Einhänder and SteelSaviour. It has been a long time since a good old shmup was made (without being a bullet hell type of game) and I'm really excited about it.

The game is being developed by the newly formed SideQuest Studios and is initiated by online retailer Play-Asia. It will most likely be released this year and will be for Playstation 3 and PC. It's weird that Gamespot doesn't have a game space for this one.

I really recommend you download the HD (720p) version because it really shows the game's graphical qualities.

More information can be found here.

Beyond Unreal claims that Epic/Midway announced the system requirements for the much anticipated Unreal Tournament 3. However, I'm having trouble finding the official press release. I'll post it anyway because Beyond Unreal isn't often wrong about this kind of stuff (but remember: it's not official until someone actually finds the press release). So here it goes:

Midway and Epic today announced the minimum and recommended system requirements for the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3, the highly anticipated first-person shooter scheduled for release in November 2007. Please see below for all information regarding these requirements along with newly released screenshots from the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3.

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
• 2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
• 512 Mbytes of System RAM
• NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
• 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended System Requirements

• 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
• 1 GBytes of System RAM
• NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
• 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

For those of you who are interested in Epic's upcoming Unreal Tournament, here is a very interesting and informative chat log:

http://www.beyondunreal.com/content/articles/203_1.php

Apparently there will be no cross-platform mulit-player and the game will feel more like UT99. It seems like Epic is doing some things right. Oh and this quote makes me so happy:

"MarkRein[Epic]: Our PC fanbase is of ultimate importance to us. They are our bread and butter. We can't let them down or compromise their experience in any way to accomodate cross platform play."

It seems like Epic is doing some things right.

Check it out.

With Halo 3 now being on shelves, the first reports have been coming out with people claiming that their discs are scratched. Apparently the packaging of the limited edition has a design flaw. The packaging makes use of foam padding to protect the game disc. However, because of the padding, the center nub (the thing that is supposed to keep a disc in place) is too shallow to actually hold the disc in place.

I don't know if the reports are all true, but you would think that such things are tested in advance, right? Or perhaps they found out relatively late in the production cycle only to decide that a delay is out of the question?

So this girl from MIT has a t-shirt with a circuit board, some wires and a battery attached to it and she considers this creation a work of art. Apparently, when one decides to wear such art to the airport,one would be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and possession of a hoax device. A hoax device? What does that even mean?! Will I be arrested when I walk around with the non-functional science project I made in second grade? After all, it looks like a device but it doesn't actually work. That would be a hoax device, right?

The story gets better. Do you know what the commanding officer of the airport had to say about this?

""I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."

What type of device?! I mean it almost sounds like he just saw something that had something to do with electronics, so it must have been a bomb device, right?

"extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,"the commanding officer said. "She's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

Wait, what? Are you serious? I'm European so I don't know what, exactly, makes you Americans tick, but saying that the girl is lucky that she's not in the morgue sounds like someone is totally overreacting.