Thursday 27 April 2006 Electronic Arts has extended its exclusive licensing deal with football's governing body, FIFA, up to the year 2014, which means we have at least another eight versions of its FIFA football sim to look forward to. The licensing deal allows EA to include players' names and likenesses, official team logos and kits for all console, PC, mobile and web-based games. This is a major success for EA, as its FIFA branded football sim series has been a huge seller ever since the ...
» Read More

Wednesday 26 April 2006 Microsoft and EA are allowing gamers to play 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany on Xbox Live for free for a short time in May. To build footie fever among gamers before the FIFA World Cup starts, 360 owners with the free Live Silver membership will be upgraded to subscription-only Gold membership for one week from 8-15 May, allowing them to play just the EA football game. This upgrade will happen automatically once users go online. EA is calling this event its Free-for-All ...
» Read More

Take a good first look at Warner Brothers Interactive's new Roman era epic 300: March To Glory. The game is inspired by the upcoming movie 300, which is, in turn, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel. You'll be able to fight as one of the 300 Spartan soldiers lead by King Loenidas to take down Xerxes and his Persian army in a retelling of the Battle of ...
» Read More

411mania gives a rundown on this week's game releases. Highlights include Legacy of Ys: Books I & II, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Stoked, The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

Legacy of Ys: Books I & II (DS)
Ys I and II have seen many ports and remakes since the first one came out in 1987; they've seen the light of day on such systems as the PC-8801, Famicom, Master System, DOS, Apple II, Saturn, and PS2 to name a few. The most widely-known versions are contained in the TurboGrafx-CD compilation, and for years that release was considered the best. It's place at the top was eventually challenged by Ys Eternal as it sported upgraded graphics, effects, and artwork as well as extras like new characters and scenarios. Unfortunately, Eternal didn't include voiceovers and some say that the remixed music was not as good. Apparently, enough people weren't satisfied so another update known as Ys Complete, which is said to have better graphics but an inferior soundtrack, was unleashed. Despite my best efforts, I could not find any agreement amongst Ys fans as to which official release is the definitive version since each of the three does at least one thing better than the others.

Preferences aside, there is one thing that fans of the first two Ys games can agree on no matter which version they've played - Ys I and II have some of the best music you will find in a video game. Every place I visited for info makes note of how awesome the soundtrack is. Knowing this, I questioned whether or not it was a good idea to play the games on the DS for the first time when I could just as easily track down the PC version and patch it or download the Wii VC one. Granted, Legacy of Ys comes with a free soundtrack if you preorder and it is portable. Maybe it would be easier to just flip a coin...

-- -- --

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Wii) ...
» Read More 

A Sudanese hip-hop musician who escaped a life as a child soldier takes rapper 50 Cent to task over his video games in an upcoming album in a song titled "50 Cent".
» Read More 

411mania talks about this week's game releases. Highlights include Demigod, Dokapon Journey, The Dark Spire, the Final Fantasy XIII Demo + Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete, and Air Conflicts.
» Read More 

After 10-plus years of dominating the console flight market, Ace Combat is coming to PSP in just a couple of weeks. From our time with the title, we can say fans won't be disappointed by the series' portable conversion - multiplayer dogfights only sweeten the deal. As for today, we've got a splash of new screens and a sweet intro movie. The franchise hasn't really had a misstep yet (we'll ignore the Game Boy Advance one) and Skies of Deception looks to continue the high-flying ...
» Read More

Fans of the Ace Combat series have been waiting for a portable iteration in the long-running franchise. The wait will end this fall, when Namco Bandai ships Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception, for the Sony PSP.

Take a look and judge for yourself how the latest new game in the series will convert from PS2 to PSP come October 17.
» Read More 

As beloved as the Ace Combat series may be, we can't help but wonder why it's still not online. Who wouldn't want to hop in the cockpit of a sound-barrier-shattering fighter jet and spray missiles across the countryside? Well, that desire may be relieved somewhat by Ace Combat X's newly announced multiplayer modes. Two-player split screen's been done in the franchise already, but Ace X will offer five different four-player ways to smoke your friends out of the sky. The most interesting appears ...
» Read More

There's only been one handheld Ace Combat game in the series' 11-year history. It was for the Game Boy Advance, and was basically an overhead, bland-athon shooter. With the console-level power of the PSP, it looks like we may finally get to experience the same rabid-dogfight intensity of the PS2 Combats - shrunk down to a smaller scale, of ...
» Read More