Mega Man 9 - PS3 Network

The following is a guest editorial from frequent GamesRadar contributor Jim Sterling. For our response, and our thoughts on the fate of Mega Man, listen to TalkRadar podcast episode 168 this Friday.

To say that Capcom has found itself on the receiving end of some ill will lately would be an insultingly mild understatement. Since the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 last week, the publisher has suffered a swift and thorough backlash from fans, with the exclusion of Mega Man from Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom only embittering their brewing malice. It seems that, for all intents and purposes, Mega Man is dead. With Keiji Inafune no longer at the company, the character's last big supporter has fallen away and Capcom is free to bury the beloved blue hero for good. As I see it, however, this is not the moment to grieve a fallen warrior so much as to celebrate his timely demise. Mega Man's downfall is not a tragedy...

A lot of official game art comes through our inboxes every day. Produced by game developers and distributed by their public relations teams to the media, eye-catching official game art is the stuff that magazine covers are made of and are often posted on sites like this.

“Guns don’t kill people, bullets do.” But do they have to? Not at all, and in fact, this is all the destructive power you’re going to get out of shooting bullets.

We do a lot of list features here at GamesRadar, and each presents its own obstacles. So, just when we think we’ve done it all, a fellow editor throws the gauntlet down with an insurmountable challenge. “Does gaming have a greatest shoe?” Surely.

“I dare you.”

We’ve been trumpeting Mega Man 9’s release ever since we first revealed it back in July. Now that it’s out for WiiWare and PSN (and on its way to XBLA), we’re finally able to share some of our favorite nuances the developers threw in to make the experience all the more rewarding.

None of these are major, but their impact elevates the game to Miyamoto levels of greatness; Miyamoto is known for getting all the "little things" perfect, and this is the first game we've played in a long time that paid such attention to innocuous nothings that most gamers will pass on by.  

If you’re here, odds are you’ve had your ass handed to you a dozen or so times by one of the toughest games 2008 has to offer. Make no mistake, Mega Man 9 is one hell of a challenge, but with our handy guide there’s no way Tornado’s Man stage will give you any more guff. Unless you just plain suck, that is.

Would you look at that, a whole new podcast done sprung up unnerneath our feet! If’n we was a bettin’ folk, we’d rightly say this week’s podcast is a durn-tootin’ romp-a-bout filled with tales of lyin’, cheatin’ and some other such nonsense. Then we scoot on to topics akin to Rock Band, Force Unleashed, Mega Man 9 and a whole mess more.

Give ol’ T-Dar a try, ya shan’t regret it!

Capcom has revealed to us today that Proto Man, Mega Man’s mysterious robo-brother, will indeed be playable in Mega Man 9 via paid DLC. The materials we received say it’ll arrive the week of October 6 for 200 Wii Points, 160 Microsoft Funnybucks and plain ol’ $1.99 on PSN.

For the most part he plays the same as Megs, though he’s able to slide and charge his blasts.

Mega Man 9 is nearly upon us. Yesterday we revealed two new bosses from the game, Splash Woman and Plug Man, and today we’re slapping up some pics of the delightfully retro asset package.

Sound boring? Hm, then perhaps you should see for yourself

 The time is almost upon us, dear retro gamers, when we bend over and happily have Mega Man 9 kick us square in the ass with its unrelenting, borderline unholy level of difficulty. We’re reviewing the game right now and uh, yeah, it’s hard. More on that later – today we’ve got two EXCLUSIVE looks at bosses that will soon be laughing at how many Game Over screens they cause.