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There was word at an event in Tokyo recently that a new Ys game was in the works, and it seems it’s been confirmed that PSP owners will in fact be getting a brand new title very soon. CalledYs Seven, the title is beign worked on byNihon Falcom, who are also working on a remake ofYs I & IIbased on the 2001 PC version of the game. IGNreports that you will take control of hero Adol Christin from the previous Ys titles for this new adventure, and that the battle system has been retooled and you can engage in “party play”, whatever that may be....

Unless you’re an eleven-year old boy, chances are you’re not familiar with Templar Publishing’s‘Ologyseries of books. These large, ornate volumes explore the study of things like dragons, wizard spells and other magical information, all with a “serious” educational tone. The booksWizardologyandDragonologyhave sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and are now set to drive my spellcheck mad. NiK NaK (the new arm of Kuju Entertainment with a focus on games for young players) has announced that its first titles developed for the Wii will beDragonologyandWizardologyfor Codemasters....

Though there have always been plenty of “hardcore” games on the Wii, Nintendo’s marketing push for the console has generally remained focused on the budding “casual” market. Watch families playWii Sportson the couch! Watch random travelers playMetroid Prime 3at the airport! Nintendo seemed to be saying “Focus on the people, not the game! People are marketable! Games are not!” That’s just one of the reasons that the Wii has gained a reputation for being an “amateur console“....

Industry analyst Michael “They Were Slaughtered In The Thousands” Pachter has cast doubt on the prospect’s ofSony’s PSN Pass scheme, believing the reveal to be poorly timed and diminishing the initiative’s chances of success. “PSN Pass is not timed particularly well,” he said. “Curious if they make any money off this, I expect not.” The PSN Pass is Sony’s attempt to copy the consumer-unfriendly online passes of Electronic Arts and THQ....

No sooner than the game has hit the stores, People Can Fly, Epic Games, and Electronic Arts have announced the first paid downloadable content forBulletstorm. Called the “Gun Sonata” pack, the DLC will come with three new maps for the game’s cooperative “Anarchy” mode: “Sewers of Stygia,” “Hotel Elysium,” and “Villa.” The pack will als include two new single-player, score-based “Echoes” maps: “Crash Sight” and “Guns of Stygia.” While the on-disc “Echoes” are ripped from the single-player campaign, these areas are completely new for the downloadable content....

Like a lot ofpeople, I lovePikmin. What appears to be a cute, relatively kid-feiendly game is actually a tale of potentially endless, unspeakable horrors. It’s one of the few series that is simply too stressful for some people to play. It’s so easy to become attatched to your army of little baby carrot people, that death of even one tiny soldier has been enough to cause more than one of my friends to put down the game for good, unable to move on due to insurmountable guilt....

Your usual crew will conspire to ruin your week once again, and we’ll be needing your to aid your own mental abuse by providing us with questions to stray from! I’ve no idea what we’ll be talking about on the show, but videogames might come up at some point! Post a comment, ask a question, and we might answer it if we like it! What a gamble.

Oh noes! I hope you don’t have any big Xbox LIVE plans for next Tuesday, becauseaccording to Major Nelson, it’s going to be offline. Starting Tuesday June 16th from 7:01AM UTC (12:01 AM PST), Xbox LIVE will be down for up to 24 hours for maintenance. This is to prepare for the forthcoming LIVE features that were recently announced, of which there are too many to mention (Integration with Last.fm, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as new Avatar features, among them)....

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventureis doing something no other videogame has ever done by making real collectible toys be an integral part of a videogame experience. It’s a novel concept, one that has left many people scratching their head at such an idea. In this new ambitious take from developer Toys for Bob, I finally got to see first hand just how this whole concept works. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure(Xbox 360, 3DS, PlayStation 3, Wii)Developer: Toys for BobPublisher: ActivisionRelease: October 16, 2011MSRP: $19....

Thanks toPrototype 2, there’s no need for any last-minute shopping this weekend. Granted, it’s still going to happen,a lot, but now you’ll have no one to blame other than yourself. Since the game hit upSt. Patrick’s Dayas well, I can only hope we continue gettingPrototype-themed images for every holiday — no matter how insignificant — until it releases in 2012. This must happen. And hey, being able to play as a mutated baby would be cool, too....

Gaming for Android devices continues to ramp up with a strategy RPG you might remember from a few years back. NIS America put outSpectral Soulsfor the PSP a few years back, but now the game is coming to the Android platform asSpectral Souls: Resurrection of the Ethereal Empires, thanks to Idea Factory and HyperdevBox. As you can see in the above video, the SRPG looks great running on a phone, 3D battle scenes and all....

Whilewe’re still waiting for our WiiWare, things have already exploded and then died down for Japan’s version of the service. Their launch saw anice chunk of gaming goodness, and now things are picking back up with the release announcement ofMinna de Puzzloop. IGN reports thatMinna de Puzzloopwill see an April 22nd release date in Japan. If you thought that these screens looked familiar, its probably because this game goes by the name ofMagneticain the US....

I’ve never been a big fan of Will Wright’s games — when I was a kid, I foundSimCityandSimEarthtoo deep and confusing and, as a teenager, was quickly bored byThe Sims. A games desgin student at Anglia Ruskin University namedRobin Burkshaw, however, has me singing a different tune. It seems that with a little bit of wit and originality, you can create, or at least catalyze, a really interesting narrative out ofThe Sims 3: he created two homeless sims, gave them a few character traits, and then let them run loose....