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[UPDATE] Ubisoft officially confirmed the game with a teaser trailer - watch it here! May 28, 2008

Knighted video game designer Michel Ancel revealed in an interview with JeuxVideo that a sequel to the critically- acclaimed commercial failure Beyond Good & Evil is currently in pre-production. A team of 10 to 12 people are working on the game, and for some head-scratching reason Ubisoft is not yet giving the full green-light for the project to go into real production phase. BG&E may have been a commercial failure but scour the nets and you'll find legions of fans that are still joining the party after finding the gem of a game in bargain-bins-- and those remaining copies are fast drying up; should you want yours, I suggest running to your nearest retailer (bonus hint: it was released in 2003 for the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and Windows PC).

Anyway, make this game Ubisoft! No dilly-dallyin'! Re-release the first BG&E (so the rest of the world can play the increasingly hard-to-find title) with a coupon for the sequel, bundle the first game when the sequel comes out, whatever, just don't let it die in a basement somewhere, 'kay? The way I see it is, even if you move it to production now, it'll still be 2 years too long for us players to get to it in stores, so chop-chop, I say!

Imagine, a remake of the first game on the Wii, like Capcom did for Okami (just make sure to do something more than just shake-motions like you did for the Prince of Persia 2 remake for the Wii, Ubisoft! -- i can see it now, the Dai-jo-wielding, the picture-taking are perfect for the Wii-mote), and the sequel on all current-gen platforms - Wii, PS3, Xbox360 - plus the PS2 (since it looks like it'll be around for another 5 years).

As adventure games go, BG&E is one of the finest I've played, and just to give you an idea, let me say this: when I upgraded from my Gamecube to the Wii (otherwise known as "Gamecube 1.5") I traded/sold/gave away all of my 'cube games except BG&E and Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. Sure the story's been done before (uncovering the workings of a government conspiracy beyond measure) but sneaking around as a journalist with a camera and infiltrating restrticted areas hasn't been this much fun since trying to get into the girls' changing room! I kid, I kid (for that you'd have to play Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - you'll know what I'm talking about). Plus, in BG&E you get a walking, talking pig as a sidekick! (watch the trailer below - no pigs in it, though - and a link to a thoughtful review from way back when in 2004.)
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Like another colleague of mine, I too have been lax in the updating department.
I'll come out and say it, I am Iron Man I mean, I was busy. And lazy.
We'll see how much longer this newfound impulse to blab lasts. Just don't hold your breath, 'cause I wouldn't myself.

And is it just me or was Robert Downey Jr. born to rock as Tony Stark?!!!

What else happened while I was blanked out...
Speed Racer was released (yeah, it's a pathetic two posts down that i wrote about 'first look'), Rain smoked Stephen Colbert on DDR (youtube), Grand Theft Auto 4 was unleashed and is taking names across the world (immigrant struggles), Metal Gear Solid 4 t-shirts aren't available at the New York Uniqlo store (at least not yet, bummer), I continue to suck at drums in Rock Band (pathetic), got new head phones (pretty cool - update soon), beat Guild Wars' first campaign (update soon again)...

read on when I write on, friends.

After nearly 2 months of previews and cover articles in print magazines around the world, and interview/sneak-peek features at gaming websites, NCsoft and ArenaNet have finally announced release details for the first (and probably only) expansion pack for Guild Wars as we know it: Eye of the North hits store shelves on August 31, at $39.99. That's the price for North America, while it'll be €34.99 for those in Europe. It will also be available through the PlayNC online store system as a download that day.

While the expansion covers the already-known continent of Tyria that was first introduced in the original Guild Wars game (the "Prophecies" campaign, as fans know it), Eye of the North will focus its eye on the northern part of that continent (durr. i couldn't help myself, my first pun-in-a-post) -- an area that will introduce 150 new skills, and of course more dungeons, items and weapons. And don't forget the 4 new races in the storyline, some of which should be playable in GW2.

If you haven't been keeping track, the game is the only way for (More)

If there's anything that gets me back to gaming, it's wacky and charming games like Katamari Damacy. Ever since its first release three years ago, it has turned into a series, milked by Namco (now Namco Bandai) with 2 sequels, both of which I have played. Admittedly, while I go against creator Keita Takahashi's wishes of keeping the game contained to one fling, I join many fans that think it's just too good of a thing to pass on more Katamari.

So after the rumors and musings have been gone around on the wires for some time, Silconera posted a company fact sheet apparently confirming that the latest game in the series, Beautiful Katamari, will be an Xbox 360 exclusive title. This is more info that seems to be in line with what N'Gai Croal of Newsweek mentioned only a day before.

In any case, I can only hope that it is not true. Main reason being that I don't have an Xbox 360. (collective gasps in horror)

Yes, it's true, no Xbox 360 in my game room. Maybe this will finally be the last straw -- it's been hard enough holding out on Guitar Hero II with the 360's downloadable tracks and all. Now there's a game with a big enough difference between platforms, albeit a bit unfair in console age(PS2 versus 360).