This year, to help you forget the fact that you're not rich enough to import a DSi, two further hardware bundles will be made available: an Ice Blue Lite with Brain Age and a case that looks like a Filofax, and a Mario Red model with an "M" stamped on it that ships with New Super Mario Bros., both priced at $149.99. It prints money, etc. If you take away that "M," these are basically two of Nintendo's newest European Lites. We admit to harboring mixed feelings about the "M." Would anyone else just prefer the plain red Lite?
Last night, we made a mistake and prematurely selected a winner for our latest contest. See, we usually run these things until Sunday night, selecting a winner via random drawing the following day and putting up a post that night. For those of you that regularly read us, you probably saw the post and thought nothing of it. Well, in reality, we made a mistake.
You see, the contest is still open now. When we set up the rules for these things, they're final, so we're obligated to keep the contest open for its full length, as we should. So, for those of you who want to win this game, get on over to the original contest post here and leave a comment. The contest closes tonight.
We apologize to the mixup and thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter. Thanks.
With this new trailer for Blue Dragon Plus, Ignition Entertainment seems to be honoring Blue Dragon and Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi the best way they know how: by releasing a trailer loaded with explosive, colorful CG, and not one second of gameplay. It does its job well, portraying the game as totally serious business.
The trailer originates from the new Blue Dragon Plus website, which currently doesn't have much else on it aside from a story synopsis and a few character profiles. Ignition promises more content in "late November." We can't wait to see more of this game, even though we've been waiting on Blue Dragon for quite some time already.
With Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia releasing on the DS this past week, how many of you have jumped into the latest Castlevania title? Have you finished it yet, ready to offer your opinions on the game's overall worth? Are you planning on picking it up? Or, do you think the frnachise needs a reboot or some other overhaul to freshen up what you think is a stale series? Let's talk Castlevania!
Update: Wow, we can be pretty boneheaded sometimes. We prematurely ended the contest and chose a winner, thinking it ended on Sunday night, as per our usual routine. This latest contest, however, wasn't supposed to end until the evening of Tuesday, October 28th. We apologize for the mistake and will be leaving the contest open, selecting the winner at random again, after it has officially concluded. Sorry to everyone involved, we'll do our best to avoid this mistake in the future. Please ignore all of that at the bottom.
Our latest giveaway has come to a close, so it's about time we crowned a winner, right? Who's the lucky individual walking away with a free copy of Kirby Super Star Ultra? Well, it's none other than:
Perhaps you've heard of N+. It's been covered only a teenybit here on DS Fanboy, so it's pretty unforgivable if this is your first encounter with the masochistic Ninja platformer. Masochistic may not even be a strong enough word, honestly. N+ has built up a reputation all across the vast internet as being ridiculously difficult, much like its web-based predecessor. Whether N+ is a solid recreation of the original N's gameplay is a somewhat controversial subject, but anyone who's given it a whirl can probably agree on one point: it is awesome for gaming on the go.
Your miniature ninja is blessed with amazing speed and skill, though it comes at a heavy price: a lifespan of precisely 1.5 minutes. As you might imagine, this makes N+ perfect for quick bursts of play, as you'll never spend more than a few minutes trying to clear a set of levels. Sound interesting? Stab that big button down there and come see why N+ is a beautiful thing indeed if you're looking for some quick ninja-flavored challenge in your daily commute.
Famitsu has a brief preview of the two newest weapons that will be available to Phantasy Star Zero players, the shield and the gunslash. Shields will be able to defend against any weapon, according to this machine translation, though can also be used to limited effect for walloping enemies. We don't really have much to say about the gunslash, a sword/gun combo, other than "gunslash" is a totally rad name.
Also featured is a third "new" weapon, which we should all be familiar with because it's a clenched, bare fist. We can't recall being able to fight with these in previous Phantasy Star games, probably because pummeling this with your mitts would be an act of grave stupidity. Oh, and you can also perform unnaturally high kicks. Those angles just ... aren't right.
For Atari's slightly weird cooking trainer/cookbook What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver (technically the box says What's Cooking? Jamie Oliver, but I don't think I want to call it that), I decided a traditional review probably wasn't the best idea. So I decided to take cues from my colleagues, the Cooking Guide experts, and make a gallery of my experience cooking a recipe from the game -- in this case blueberry, banana, and mascarpone pancakes. As the perfect garnish for this food metaphor, a somewhat abbreviated review appears below, followed by a link into my pancakes gallery!
Mama's so talented. No more is she limited to the kitchen, sweetly suggesting you chop vegetables before she tans that behind. Now she's free to rove in the gardens as well, pointing at the shrubbery and essaying commands. Of course, after this screenshot, we fully expect an English-Teaching Mama in the future. The sky's the limit, Mama! So long as you stick to traditionally feminine roles, anyway.
505 Games just announced that they'll have the latest in Mama's franchise on shelves in Europe in the spring, to coincide with the release of that region's Cooking Mama 2: World Kitchen for the Wii. Since World Kitchen is slated for November in the U.S., and no similar announcement has yet been made for Gardening Mama here, it doesn't look like we'll see the same dual release.
There's a ridiculous amount of cuteness available for the DS this week, and while cuteness is certainly a staple among DS games, the combination of Ninjatown and MySims Kingdom may just be enough to destroy the universe. If we're still here come Wednesday, it means we survived. Importers might want to pay particular attention this week to the Japanese releases, too, but of course, with Play Asia's current sale -- 15% off everything in stock through Halloween -- it's a good time to import anyway. Might as well rack up on those Japanese DS games before the DSi comes along to spoil the import party.
Atlus will publish Interchannel's DS remakes of the endlessly remade first two Ys games to North America next year. Japanese gamers are pretty familiar with Falcom and their venerable ARPG series, but it never really caught on outside of Japan, despite a decent number of releases making it over here on the Sega Master System, Turbografx-16 CD-Rom, Super NES, and other systems.
How familiar are you with Ys? Did you pass over the Virtual Console release in anticipation of the announcement of this DS game? Did that recent release pique your curiosity about the series? Or has Atlus's involvement gotten your attention? Alternately, you love these two games so much that you'll pick them up on every available system?
With two chocobo-centric games heading to the DS, cash-poor gamers may have to make a terrible decision: chocobo, or chocobo? Oh, the horror! They're both adorable, but one is packed with mini-games based on familiar stories, and the other is based on familiar (as in, old school) gameplay packed with aspects that will kick your ass. Similar in some ways, they are, but in the end? Very different.
If forced to choose, which would be your one chocobo game to rule them all: Cid and Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Maze of Time DS+ or Chocobo and the Magic Storybook: The Witch and the Girl and the Five Heroes.
If you want to import a Nintendo DSi at launch, that's what you're going to have to pay -- that is, if you can even get one. That's about $100 over its retail price, for a system with only two confirmed launch titles (the browser and the notepad program) and only two more known titles (mini-Brain Ages) on the way.
Have the prices affected your decision, if you were previously planning to grab one? Or have the reports of rarity, which are helping to drive those high prices, accelerated the decision process?
Ubisoft loves the DS. The system has aided them in accumulating mucho cash money during Q2 of the 2008-09 fiscal year. The company made €175 million (US $220.24 million), beating the previous year by a whopping 37%. With some big titles releasing during this time, such as Soul Calibur IV in Europe and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, It's no wonder they made so much. What's surprising, though, is that 39% of that total €175 million came from the DS, thanks to titles such as Imagine Teacher, My Secret World and PlayZone Sports Party. This is up from last year, where the company only made 23% of its profits from Nintendo's handheld.
For Atari's slightly weird cooking trainer/cookbook 
Mama's so talented. No more is she limited to the kitchen, sweetly suggesting you chop vegetables before she tans that behind. Now she's free to rove in the 
There's a ridiculous amount of cuteness available for the DS this week, and while cuteness is certainly a staple among DS games, the combination of Ninjatown and MySims Kingdom may just be enough to destroy the universe. If we're still here come Wednesday, it means we survived. Importers might want to pay particular attention this week to the Japanese releases, too, but of course, with Play Asia's current sale -- 15% off everything in stock through Halloween -- it's a good time to import anyway. Might as well rack up on those Japanese DS games before the DSi comes along to spoil the import party.
_cg_oct22_kjgfdhd_thumbnail.jpg "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars")
