Crazy title, Flying heads and a Human Crab boss. It must be time for another Castlevania. Order of Ecclesia is the 3rd installment in the DS series and it adds a new Glyph attack system with over 100 combinations. Looks awesome…

Along with a promise of online play, the home versions of Street Fighter IV(Xbox 360, PS3) will include characters not seen in the arcade version.  Japanese publication Famitsu Xbox has confirmed fan favorites Dan Hibiki and Fei Long will join the roster at home.  Now who else cant wait to see Dan sign an autograph in HD.  Anyone?

Props: IGN for the story and Joystiq for the pic.

Rumor: According to Gaming Age, Sony will be adding an In-Game XMB in their next update.  Firmware update 2.40 is said to include a universal friends list, in-game messaging and the ability to listen to your music collection while playing any game.  VideoGaming247 also adds the long-awaited Trophy feature to the setlist.  VG247 claims an unknown date while Gaming Age is speculating a June release

Verdict: Sony has already announced a summer release for the in-game XMB so, nothing new there.  As for the other additions, they all seem like guesses.  The trophy support was originally shown alongside Home.  Sounds kind of odd that they would release it before Home, although it could just simply be built into the XMB in the meantime.  Either both of these sites caught a whiff of something or they decided to pile up the most oft requested features into one big update just for extra traffic.  In-game XMB is a definite, the rest of the features are wait and see.

Friday…1AM…Spike TV….Resident Evil 5…Watch It…

The following is an onstage demo for the new Guitar Hero: World Tour straight from the Wall Street Journal’s D6 event. The tracks setup follows in Rock Band’s footsteps and hey if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That must have been an awkward moment for Mark Rein Activision CEO Robert Kotick when the co-host cut him off by suggesting that it was called Rock Band. Most of the “band” consists of lucky audience members except for Tony Hawk on lead who is so focused. Don’t forget Tony….loosey goosey baby….loosey goosey.

THQ has officially delayed Saints Row 2 to October 14th of this year, a 2 month delay from the original date of August 26th. The reason given for the delay was due to product quality and marketing considerations. Im sure this had absolutely nothing to do with Grand Theft Auto IV immense success and the fact that the Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable content is due in August. Absolutely nothing.

During Ubidays, Ubisoft announced new titles and showed new footage on some of their previous announcements but one of their biggest franchises was missing. This seems to fall in line with a rumor that Xbox World 360 magazine caught wind of last week. A rumor which stated that Conviction went back to the drawing board. CVG was able to track down a Ubisoft spokesperson who had this to say:

“In reference to speculative stories that have appeared recently, in January of 2008 we announced that the game would be released in the fiscal year of ‘08/’09. And at this point in time we are not ready to be more specific than that. We will begin to communicate more once we feel the time is right for us and our fans.”

So it seems that the game is being reconstructed. It is quite unusual that the game would be missing altogether. I would have at least expected a teaser trailer of some kind. Well MGD….now we play the waiting game…
Update: A letter from the dev team has appeared on the official Splinter Cell ConViction forums:

“Hi guys,

Splinter Cell Conviction Team”

• When asked about 4 player co-op, Cliffy reiterated the GoW 2 mantra: “Bigger, Better, and More Badass” .
• The Host can now change options without restarting the entire room and players can vote for the next map they would like to play on.
• When taking pics, you are scored on your photos Dead Rising style.
• When the Scorcher is active reloaded, it’s range is increased.
• When the Boltok pistol is active reloaded, it’s rate of fire is increased.
• Hammer of Dawn is back. No details on any changes.
• Along with temporarily disabling nearby players, the smoke grenade can also knock shields out of an enemy’s hands
• The Y button is used for all executions when an enemy is downed, including weapon executions. The B button is still melee.
• The B button is used to break an enemy’s neck when using him as a meatshield.
• The Torque Bow’s execution revealed. You take the victim’s head and place it on the Torque’s blade tip, then use your foot to pop it off. Ouch.
• New Defensive moves introduced when down: You can use the A button to crawl away while leaving a blood trail behind you. You will eventually die unless revived. If you have a grenade equipped you can pull the R trigger to activate ‘martyrdom’. Basically blow yourself up along with any attacker trying to execute you. When you do not have a grenade equipped, pulling the R trigger causes you to raise your hand to request help. This flashes your man down icon so your team can find you. This brings up a lot of questions. Does this mean you wont show up on your team’s radar unless you warn them with the ‘R’ trigger? What happens when you want to warn your team but you have a grenade in your hand? Hopefully we will get the answers to these questions soon.
• Epic is considering implementing a live onscreen ticker that displays how much damage you are dealing and how many points you earn per match.
• Gears of War 2 may offer A.I. bots for multiplayer to help fill the new 10-man limit. This makes a lot of sense seeing as an A.I bot is used as the flag in the ‘meatflag’ gametype. Epic is well known for its multiplayer bots in the Unreal Tournament series. They would not go through the trouble of creating A.I. to be used for only 1 gametype.
• During the playtest, EGM spotted an Xbox LIVE status message that said someone at Epic was in Gears of War 2 watching a video–not playing a game. This is a surefire hint towards a Saved Films feature for GoW 2. A lot of games have begun to implement this in their titles ranging from Skate all the way down to the soon to be released Ninja Gaiden II. We are gonna have to wait and see on this one but no one can deny how awesome capturing footage would be. You can already take screenshots, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe that Epic would go all the way and allow recording. Don’t forget: “Bigger, Better and More Badass”.

Props go to Xbox 360 Fanboy…

(Update: Added line about Host options and smoke grenade)

Ok..this definitely needs a post of its own. Ubisoft showed a new teaser for Beyond Good & Evil 2 at the end of their Ubidays presser. I was expecting this announcement, but I still can’t believe its happening. Hands down, one of my most requested sequels and I know I have an entire nation of gamers behind me. Ace = Happy.

First up is the new Prince of Persia teaser. Although the trailer does a good job at teasing, it does not do a good job at showcasing the series’ new art style. The trailer does hint at cooperative moves with the game’s new female support, Elika.

Second video is a 13 minute Far Cry 2 Demo showcased on the Xbox 360. I don’t think this came out of Ubidays but hey…its still relevant.

The Third video is gameplay from Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. It looks awesome, sounds great and has an intense feel to it. I’ll be happy as long as Ubisoft releases it before we begin world war III.

DAAAAAH! The Rabbids are back. The newly announced Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party is due out this holiday season for the DS and the Wii. The Wii version will make use of the recently released Wii Balance Board. Don’t know about you guys but I will never get sick of the Rabbids.