Wii Gaming News

If Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and D.O.A.: Dead or Alive haven’t sated your desire for B-level fighting game-based films, then feast your eyes on this: The first trailer for Gordon Chan’s The King of Fighters live-action adaptation (/Film, via Kotaku).

Generic narrator? Unnecessary canted framing? Inexplicable use of the Batman Begins soundtrack? Ray “Darth Maul” Park? Swirling fire swords? This trailer has all of that and more! How any of it relates to The King of Fighters, however, remains to be determined.

Along with Park, who plays Rugal Bernstein, an evil black market arms dealer (in the game, anyway, who knows what his character will be like in the movie), the film also stars the not-Japanese Sean Faris (Never Back Down) as Japanese character Kyo Kusanagi, Maggie Q as everyone’s favorite cosplay choice Mai Shiranui, and Will Yun Lee (Elektra, Bionic Woman) as Iori Yagami, Kyo’s rival.

Splinter Cell: Conviction has gone through a number of changes throughout its tumultuous development, but one series mainstay it’s not changing is co-operative multiplayer. Although the details are nearly non-existent, the latest issue of U.K. magazine PC Zone has confirmed players will once again be able to work together to sneak through missions when Conviction launches in February.

The latest issue of PC Zone actually confirms co-op through its tease of the next issue, which will reportedly feature “hands-on, co-op reveal, and a brand new mode” for Conviction (via CVG). No other details were given beyond that, so we’ll have to wait another month to learn more (unless Ubisoft has additional plans to reveal the co-op and this mysterious “new mode” in mind).

Co-op first appeared in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the original Xbox, where it was a separate storyline from the main campaign. We’ll see how Ubisoft plans to implement it this time, whenever more details are revealed.

While the Wii and PlayStation 3 both already offer U.K. gamers access to the BBC’s iPlayer video streaming service, it looks like 360 gamers won’t be awarded the same option anytime soon. Telegraph reports that discussions between Microsoft and the BBC have run into a “stumbling block” over Microsoft’s insistence to only offer the iPlayer to Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

The problem for the BBC is that they cannot force U.K. residents to pay for access to BBC content, as it’s incompatible with their public service remit.

“Microsoft only wants to offer its users access to platforms it can charge for as this is the model it is pursuing,” said an anonymous source “close to the BBC” to Telegraph. “It wants to ensure that only those paying for Xbox Live Gold accounts can access its additional content services and even then there is usually a charge on top to get access to those. For example, to access the Sky Player on Xbox, you have to pay for a Gold subscription as well as a Sky subscription.

A product page on Nintendo’s U.K. website has revealed PixelJunk developer Q-Games’ latest project: Reflect Missile, a new DSiWare game being published by Nintendo (via Kotaku).

The product page describes Reflect Missile as an “action, puzzle, and strategy” game, and it appears to mix the strategic missile shooting of Missile Command and the block-breaking of Breakout. “Use the Touch Screen and stylus to launch an arsenal of missiles and destroy all enemy blocks in each stage. Enemies are surrounded by obstructing blocks, so you’ll need to think strategically and aim carefully to take them all out,” the description reads.

The game will feature multiple types of missiles, with some bouncing around the screen, some breaking through multiple blocks in one shot, or some that destroy multiple blocks within a limited blast radius. Reflect Missile will also feature 200 stages, multiple difficulty settings, and a quick-play option.

As the highest profile game to be released this holiday gaming season, it’s no surprise plenty of people have made Modern Warfare 2 something of a hot topic. Ever since its launch on November 11, members of 1UP’s community have been giving their opinions on the game — from the gameplay to the controversies surrounding the storyline. Because we like highlighting some of the best content from our bloggers and forum posters, we felt like pulling together some of the best comments for you to peruse over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Hopefully you’ll agree with some of the points made here — and if you do or don’t, feel free to chime in as well or post a link to something you’ve written about the game.

The PlayStation 3 version of Dragon Age: Origins has been criticized for framerate issues, but BioWare says that they are now familiar with the platform. Consequently, the studio is ‘definitely’ planning on putting more projects on the PS3.

“We did partner with Edge of Reality, so we partnered with folks who have had the experience, and that was a good process where we actually had some folks that knew how to do it but also, in general, just worked together with them,” co-founder Greg Zeschuk told Joystiq.

“We have quite a few people working in-house as well. We think it’s one of the key platforms, obviously, so we’re definitely going to be doing PS3. You know, I can’t say anything about Mass Effect in that regard but you know, I can definitely say… other things we do will definitely be on PS3.”

Little Big Planet is set to get one of its long-awaited features next week, according to a new post on the game’s site. Since the game’s release, fans have lamented the lack of online support for the creation features, and that’s finally one of the new additions of version 1.21. The update also adds a host of other changes, including matchmaking tweaking, improved save data, and increased profile space. There are also numerous minor updates, like an Auto-Reject function for game invites and Silver Sackboy badges for incomplete levels.

The update is due out next Monday, November 30, and has been named the “Leerdammer” update after a cheese that “becomes more pronounced with age.” Considering the size of the update, and the fact that Little Big Planet is over a year old now, it seems like a fitting name.

We’re getting our first look at Puzzle Quest 2, thanks to a teaser from GamePro. The January issue of GamePro magazine is set to give more details on the sequel, and for now we’ve been given a high-res screenshot (above) that shows a battle sequence. It seems to carry a lot in common with the original Puzzle Quest, with the addition of a new glove icon. No platforms have been announced yet, but given the sharp screenshot it’s a safe bet that it will be on PC, Xbox 360, and/or PlayStation 3. The previous installment had lower-res versions for PSP and DS as well.

D3 Publisher went on to make Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, which was well-liked but not quite as well-reviewed as its fantasy counterpart. We’ll see if going back to the original formula does its job at recapturing fans who were put off by the hex-puzzle-based space puzzler.

[Image courtesy of GamePro.]

A few days ahead of Black Friday, Steam is having an early holiday sale of its own. Valve has just announced that many of the service’s most popular games will be getting steep discounts, including Dragon Age: Origins and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The current sale features deals on seven titles, with price cuts ranging from 25 percent to 80 percent off. It’ll run until Friday at 8 AM PST, at which point a new set of deals will become available. Definitely worth keeping an eye on Steam if you’re looking to expand your library on the cheap.

In addition to the games that are currently on sale, Valve will also be offering deeply discounted publisher packs. At the moment, it’s possible to pick up either the LucasArts Premier Pack or the THQ Complete Pack for $49.00.

Looks like the Rock Band Network won’t be going live in November after all. Instead, the ambitious new service that will allow any musician to turn their music into a Rock Band track will be launching sometime in 2010 (via Kotaku).

“We’re working hard to get the Rock Band Network open public beta release of tools up before the end of the year, with our RBN storefront launching in early 2010. Exact dates still to be determined. The tools necessary for bands to start authoring and preparing their content for review are already live on http://creators.rockband.com/tools/download,” said a Harmonix spokesperson.

“The open beta launch will add access to the currently private website where all of the RBN community activity and peer reviewing of tracks will take place. People who join the Rock Band Network (bands, fans or otherwise) will be able to play and preview any song before it hits the store, so they should stay tuned for the official launch.”