Drawn to Life

Gamasutra writes: Late last year, independent developer 5TH Cell released the unusual Nintendo DS adventure/platformer Drawn to Life, which allows players to draw their own hero and weapons directly on the system's touch screen. Just a year later, on September 8, it will release Lock's Quest, a hybrid that fuses tower defense-style strategy with exploration-driven adventure gameplay. Company co-founder and creative director Jeremiah Slaczka, speaking to Gamasutra at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, hopes the considerably different gameplay of the two titles will paint 5TH Cell as a wide-reaching studio.

In its conference call with investors to discuss THQ's holiday quarter sales, THQ president Brian Farrell has said that its 5th Cell developed DS platformer Drawn To Life is being prepped for a Wii release. Asked to give some insight into the cancellation of the PlayStation 3 version of its forthcoming Frontlines, Farrell laughed that as other publishers have expressed, Unreal Engine 3 is just not optimized for open world on PS3. Work could have continued on the title, but it would have been at least 60-90 days behind the lead SKUs, which THQ thought was not good for branding, and not a good use for a talented team. The cancellation, he said was simply due to the fact that the Unreal Engine didn't perform in an open world as we would have expected.

The Simpsons Game for PlayStation 2 has finally managed to take out the top spot in the Australian game charts -- seven weeks after its initial release -- according to data trackers GfK Australia. The DS version of the game also made it into the top 10, taking out the seventh spot. Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii -- last week's number one -- fell down to number two during the week of December 10-December 16. Drawn to Life for the Nintendo DS has reappeared in the overall charts at number three after a brief hiatus. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the Xbox 360 climbed up from the previous week to number five, while Activision's other chart topper -- Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock -- is nowhere to be seen. Halo 3 for the 360 has reappeared at number nine, while Nintendo's Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree bundle ended the week at number 10.

This week's top rental charts from U.S. game rental company GameFly, representing the most requested games for the week ending December 3rd, highlight both to-be-released and already released games in a unique demand-specific chart. This week's top five all-platform requests show little movement once again, after last week saw the list barely ruffled. Assassin's Creed still takes the top spot for a third week with Mass Effect in second for its second week in a row. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which spent the last two weeks at number four, slips a bit to the fourth spot to make room for Kane and Lynch: Dead Men to move up one spot into the fourth spot, but that's the only movement -- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune stays at number five, where it entered last week.

You may not know much about it, but Drawn to Life is one of the most exciting games on the DS for 2007. Blending play styles reminiscent of the RPGs of Square Soft with the adorable animalistic townspeople of Animal Crossing is just the start. There's a full-fledged Mario -style adventure platformer in there. On top of that, you get to draw your character and a vast array of objects in the world. To find out more about the world, and specifically the three Raposa villagers - who greet you when