The upcoming Street Fighter movie may be set directly to rape all our childhoods (as well as make it its drug-addicted, amnesiac junkie of a crackwhore), but at least this latest trailer of the upcoming home version of Street Fighter IV isn’t. Farthest thing from it – it actually shows one of the best fights ever to happen in the Street Fighter storyline, and does it with as much style and as much finesse as only the series’ creators only could. Make no mistake about, this shit is legendary and will go down in history. It’s Gouken versus Akuma.

Created in the same stylized cel-shaded 3D animation with all the inkbrush strokes and splatters as in all the trailers, this excellent piece of eye candy depicts both Akuma and Gouken in a battle so fierce and violent that the earth literally breaks up around them, sending them into a fiery abyss. And even then they continue, trading world-quaking blows as if nothing had happened. Gouken seems to get the upper hand, but then Akuma reveals just how much of a magnificent bastard he is and does that move we all know and love.

Forget the Legend of Chun Li. If the studio could have just gone with CGI, maybe got some assistance from Capcom, then we’d have an awesome movie on our hands. It may not be more ‘Hollywood’, but at least you’d be doing the series the justice it deserves.

Check out your game library right now. If you’re like me, then there’s definitely some games in there that you desperately want to beat (much more actually get some decent playtime in) but just haven’t found the time to. And with the steady flow of big-name titles, that neglected pile of unfinished (or even untouched) games might be piling up even as we speak. What if there was some way for you to finish the game, without having to skip even a moment of its content, but in a fraction or less of the time that it would take to actually sit down and fight your way through its challenges and obstacles?

It seems that Nintendo has been working on a system that does exactly that. Through a patent that was filed by Shigeru Miyamoto on June 30, 2008, we find out just how Nintendo can once more change the way people play games – or rather, not play them, but enjoy them all the same.

So what is it?

Basically, it’s a system that makes the game play itself, turning it into one full-length cutscene that you can jump into at any time you wish. Like for example, you’re in a part of the game where you have to explore this dungeon that promises to have a lot of backtracking, random enemy encounters and traps to contend with. You want to skip it, but what if there’s something in there that you want to see (like a story element or even the kinds of monsters you might be facing)? You switch the system on, the game plays the dungeon for you without skipping anything, you can watch it as it goes on, and you can immediately hop into the action when you see the game’s arrived at that critical junction. Of course, you won’t be able to save when the game is being played by the system. This feature is called ‘Digest’, and will be performed by the game automatically loading save states downloaded through the network. Another feature of this new system is the ’scene menu’, which lets players load to a specific part of the game without having to watch the game play itself. Kinda like that DVD menu style of Alone in the Dark.

Interesting? Definitely. Casual-pandering? Maybe. But it sure beats having a buddy come over and play a frustrating part of the game yourself (if you’re that not inclined to play that part of the game).

While we all like to enjoy games which not only delve into the complex human psyche with a deep and riveting narrative but also lets us play as effeminate girly-boys with zippers, belts and a dark past – it’s also fun to switch your brain off sometimes and just have some fun shooting people. Gears of War 2 gives us the chance to do that and do it beautifully, and it’s a Game of the Year titleholder for that alone – it’s just a shame it’s riddled with tons of multiplayer bugs. But you already know that. Why the long windup, then? Because those godforsaken bugs are finally getting fixed!
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You’d think that in a country where you can literally be savaged by a wild animal in your backyard, violent games would simply be treated as the harmless entertainment material that it is (bloody and violent, sure, but just another form of entertainment all the same). But Australia has done quite the contrary for some time now, treating games with depictions of violence much like the same way we’d treat a giant HP bar-wielding spider a split second after landing on our faces.

We may be seeing an oncoming change, h owever, as Australia has just lifted the ban on Silent Hill: Homecoming, giving it an MA +15 rating. This means that yes, people from Australia can now legally purchase and own the game and enjoy it until they get hypnotized by the violence and set off to emulate it in the real world. Soon we’ll see Aussies ducking and dodging in a robotic fashion while trying to club nurses with pipes.

No news yet if they’ve edited the content somehow to fit the MA +15 rating, though. More news on this as it develops.

Eidos has always been a very respectable game publisher, but more recently it’s been getting itself caught up in a tangled web of misguided PR decisions – one of which we can easily recall as the event that made Gamespot the laughing stock that it is now, i.e. Jeff Gerstmann’s firing over his Kane & Lynch: Dead Men review.

Well, this bit of news isn’t exactly as heinous as that, but it’s a bit disturbing: a reader with an @eidos.co.uk email address in his profile has continously been voting for an Eidos DS title in a magazine GOTY poll. The magazine in question? Australian Magazine Hyper.  The title of the game? Soul  Bubbles.

It may be a troll, but at the same time it may not be one, considering that he keeps on harping that the game has “without doubt the best use of touchscreen ever and hands down the most impressive physics”.

Eidos. Eidos Eidos Eidos. I feel nothing but pity for you.

You might have already read about Hearst Corporation buying out the 1UP Network. Well, we’ve got another update about that, and it’s a pretty grim one: most of the 1Up staff are being given the boot, including the highly-read and experienced writers. Yes, that means the big names in the site (i.e. Skip Pfister, Ryan O’Donnell, Philip Kollar, Jay Fresh, Cesar Quintero, Nick Suttner, Anthony Gallegos, Matt Chandronait, Shane Bettenhausen and former EIC James Mielke) have  been let go. The massacre also included most of the GameVideos.com team and the 1UP show production cast.

The place, we expect, has been reduced to shambles.

Mixed opinions about 1UP aside, we wish them the best in their future endeavors. Maybe they can join Gerstmann in Giant Bomb or something.

For those of us eager to see what awaits us this new year, well, here’s the feed right from Capcom’s PR department: their 2009 lineup of videogame gems just waiting to blow our socks off. Or mildly entertain us for a bit before we point our browsers to /v/ and rage at every little thing we don’t like about said games. But it’s all  good, right? Anyway, let’s get to them vidya gaems before I just copy-paste the entire damn PR press release.
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Let’s face it, times are hard – and major companies from all over the world will either be massively downsizing or closing up entirely.  It’s no surprise that even Sony, being the entertainment technology juggernaut that it is, is rumored to follow suit sometime this month. No, it’s not going to close down entirely – but there’s talk of it closing down some major divisions in order to stay afloat. When you consider this with the fact that they’ve just announced plans to let go of 8000 employees, well, it’s just a bit distressing.

What’s more distressing, however, is when we take this rumor and think about it for a second: just how many “major” divisions does Sony have that it can close down? Well, there’s evidently that division that churns out all those cameras and widescreen TVs, and then there’s the PlayStation division. The thought of either one bowing out of the fray is…well, unthinkable. Are we seeing the death of one of the well-loved brands of videogaming ever to entertain us? Let’s hope not.

Gears of War 2 was an excellent follow-up to the first game. It gave more of what was good about its predecessor – more violence, more weapons, more opportunities to royally fuck up the Locust – and added a couple of neat touches that, while unexpected, certainly did not go unappreciated. It’s such a shame, then, that it had to ship with quite a handful of bugs. Bugs that would then go on to seriously screw up multiplayer matches all over the world – that is, if the matchmaking system ever gave you a chance to get into one. Bugs that would be recorded for prosperity, and released via a youtube video, which you can view here.

While the bugs in Gears of War 2 aren’t as bad as those in other games, it is alarming how much of them got past QA. I mean, they’ve got playtesters for this sort of thing, right? And everyone knows that it’s just not enough to deliver a bug-free single-player experience – after all, one of the game’s biggest draws is multiplayer, and any bugs in that will only get your fanbase pissed. Let’s hope these get resolved and fast.

Well, I know ONE fellow Gamerblag member will be raging about this bit of news, but as it is, I’m currently raging too.

The full roster of the upcoming King of Fighters XII has already been announced, and as you can see from the picture above, one specific character is missing. One who’s always been a staple of the series, and definitely recognizable no matter where she gets to. Athena? Generic schoolgirl. Kim Kaphwan? Generic korean badass (although one of my favorite characters). But where the fuck is my fan-throwing, fanservice-drooling, cleavage-bouncing titty-monster MAI? OR YURI? OR WHIP FOR THAT MATTER?

They better be unlockables, Playmore. They’d better be.

For those of us unable to view images for some reason, here’s the roster in convenient list form:

• Ash
• Duo Lon
• Shen
• Kyo
• Benimaru
• Daimon
• Iori
• Athena
• Kensou
• Chin
• Terry
• Andy
• Joe
• Kim
• Raiden
• Ryo
• Robert
• Ralf
• Clark
• Leona

Not even Vanessa? NOT EVEN VANESSA?