Shortly after its official announcement, Square Enix has gone ahead and shown off the first trailer to Chrono Trigger for the Nintendo DS. What have we learned so far? Well, let’s see. Akira Toriyama’s idenitfiable art style? Check. Yasunori Mitsuda’s memorable MIDI compositions? Also check. The Super NES quality-gaming grace we’ve come to know and love? A big red-marker colored check there. Assuredly, it doesn’t look all too different from its original iteration, but who cares? Time traveling, a fantastic battle-system, more than 12 unique endings, metal joints and silver points! If you don’t already own a DS, here’s Reason Number “A Billion and One” on why you should. If you have DS, buy another anyway and give it to your house pet.

Also, food for thought. What if Squenix decides to finally bring back Singing Mountain or Zeal Dungeon from the early prototype days as part of the newly planned content? Maybe even localise and pack in Radical Dreamers, while they’re at?

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OK, now I am really happy that Futurama is out of cold storage and running strong with two direct-to-DVD movies, even though The Beast With A Billion Backs (or Futurama Meets Day of the Tentacle, as I call it) left me feeling a lot less happy than after Bender’s Big Score. With the second movie still fresh, we now have a sneak peek at the next one on the list - Bender’s Game, as, usual a pun, this time on the award-winning sci-fi book, Ender’s Game.

Although we can’t really tell if there’s any inspiration for the movie from the book, we have indeed seen (and heard) a ton of references to Dungeons and Dragons, The Lord of the Rings and the recent Beowulf movie. Bender’s Game is scheduled to hit DVD retail shelves sometime at the end of this year. Hot diggety daffodil! Now if only someone would make another Futurama game. (sigh)

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Well, what more can we say? We’ve confirmed with local distributor e-Xpress Interactive a couple of days back that Soulcalibur IV will indeed not make it to Indian shores, thanks to the fact that it’s an Ubisoft game. Since Ubisoft doesn’t believe in offering any sort of sales concession when it comes to Indian markets, and e-Xpress, like anyone else, wouldn’t want non-existent profit margins, Indian gamers eager for Soulcalibur IV will now have to look at Play-Asia (as usual) for their imports.

Speaking to us about the situation, e-Xpress has clarified that rather than haggle with Ubi and import the games for “an obscenely high price”, they’ve elected to not import the game in all likelihood. But the real terrifying part of the conversation came when Fallout 3 came into the picture. In a press release issued last month, Ubisoft had claimed that it would be distributing Fallout 3 in some PAL territory countries in Europe including Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Which indirectly means that if India’s import were to happen via Ubi, there’s no chance of Fallout 3 ever being officially released for the consoles here.

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They usually say that when Judgment Day is near, we’ll see a lot of signs pointing to the Antichrist. So for all those who doubt that the PSP is it, first, we get news from Famitsu that the PSP is (surprisingly!) outselling the DS at least as far as this year is concerned. Then, two French exchange students in London get stabbed more than 250 times (one 80 times after he was dead) so that the perps can get away with two unbelievably rare and more-expensive-than-the-Kohinoor-diamond black PSPs. And if that don’t prove it, we’ve got the PSP wreaking havoc with lives here as well, and worse, we’re the ones who started it all.

When Abhinav’s friend got married a couple of months back, he decided that nothing would be better than blessing the happy couple (and the husband in particular) with a PSP. Talking about the London murders last night, Abhinav mentions that the couple, who’ve been enjoying a textbook romance, recently got into their first major fight. Over the PSP, and this time, it wasn’t the usual complaint we’re used to seeing.

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Now it’s not everyday Microsoft gets really generous with you, but we’ve been pretty darn happy that we’ve been swindling quite a bit of stuff from them over the last year. Sure, we had to give them all to our dear readers (who we’re required by law not to slander, torture, maim or kill.. unfortunately) but still, at least some of us got to go to cool parties, eat lots of free food and get hammered on free booze while they checked out boobs. And oh yes, games too.

Having worked our asses for over a year on the site without seeing a single penny tossed our way (come on, folks, be generous, nominate us in your wills, please?), and having lots of bad shit happen to me over the last couple of months, including getting disconnected from the Internet, getting my DVD player broken, an RRoD’ed Xbox 360 and my Dad checking out of the mortal realm last month, I am finally very pleased to announce that I have been awarded the Xbox India MVP 2008 award, which I guess makes me the second person in the country to win one, after GamingIndians’ Ogden Wernstrom, I mean, Sameer Desai, won the first one last quarter.

For all those curious (read: jealous) folks who’re interested in knowing what goodies I get, here’s a little list:

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[Click images for higher res version]

Looks like Bungie and the rest of the Halo gang were just kidding when they asked us all to finish the fight last September. Apart from the “Oh my God you DIDN’T!” cutscene post-credits and the newer rumors floating around the Interwebs about the Halo 4 announcement, it looks like Bungie’s (who’s probably upset at CoD4 and BFBC stealing a little bit of their thunder) dragging players back to Halo 3 with the upcoming Bungie day on 7/7.

With Bungie Day being a big thing every year, with the developers offering something for free, it looks like this time around, Halo 3 players will be getting a new map, Cold Storage, along with 7 exclusive new gamer pics and a Bungie Day dashboard theme. And to top off the cake with some delicious frosting, the Legendary map pack will also drop in price to 600 Microsoft Points to mark the occassion.

According to the official press release which details the new map:

This year marks the best “Bungie Day” yet, as eight million plus “Halo 3” players can now download Cold Storage, a free new multiplayer map inspired by the original map Chill Out found in “Halo: Combat Evolved.” The Cold Storage facility was once a vibrant, active research center on Installation 05. An accidental contamination resulted in an unforeseen outbreak, which compromised the Forerunner center. Now, emptied and silent, watched only by a local caretaker, the abandoned structure serves as a reminder of how something as powerful as science is ultimately beholden to nature.

We’ll leave you with these two new screenshots of Cold Storage from Bungie, so be sure to mark your calendars for 7/7 and get these goodies as soon as they go up, for they won’t be around the next day if you forget. In the meantime, head on over to the Bungie website and check out the new ViDoc showing off the map here.

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Ask any Xbox 360 fanboy what he wants for Christmas and you’ll get just one answer - whether they’re over 18 or not - Gears of War 2. As if all the dirt, the satisfyingly sickening gore and all the endless multiplayer whoring and grenade tagging wasn’t enough, we’re now just months away from becoming “I-eat-nails-and-horse-steroids-for-breakfast” macho men who seem to be stuck at that age where boys discover the F-word and a propensity for random violence.

Even as Gears of War 2, Killzone 2, Resistance 2 and a hundred other shooters jostle for attention come E3 2008, Microsoft has released a whole truckload of painfully-blinding HDR-overload screenshots for fans of the game to drool over and get their testosterone levels high enough to dry hump the Xbox 360 until it RRoDs. And since we’re huge fans of the game ourselves (no matter how funny we find the characters and the story) we feel obliged to share our high-res screenshot and concept art booty with all you folks.

And for all you multiplayer fans who blew me into little chunks every time I signed on, have fun with the all new MP screenshots, as well as the Before / After screens of Gridlock. Me, I’ll just go pin up that luscious Maria Santiago screenshot above my bed. ROWR!

CAMPAIGN / CONCEPT ART SCREENSHOTS

MULTIPLAYER / GEARS 1 vs. 2 COMPARISONS

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