Late Night Consoling

Ubisoft, not satisfied with loading up the Nintendo DS lineup, announced that it will bring the off-beat Japanese game Lumines to the United States. The press release describes the game: "Lumines brings a unique puzzle experience to PSP handheld system owners, offering gameplay reminiscent of Tetris while including new innovations and enhancements in technology that fuse music, puzzles and luminescence." The US version will feature quicker load times and changeable skins. It'll release in March, but Ubisoft did not indicate if it was a launch title. Screenshots can be found here.

With a lawsuit already underway in Japan, Tecmo revealed it opened one in the U.S. as well, seeking to put an end to hackers who create, host, and contribute in any way on infringing on Tecmo's games. The heart of the lawsuit is it wants to stop those hacks that add nude patches. Tecmo is also seeking recovery of damages for the infringement. Tecmo general manager John Inada told GameSpot, "What we've invested [in our games] is millions and millions of dollars…this is real cash, not play money. Regarding the M-rated skins, it's not an issue of nudity. It's simply the violation of our IP (intellectual property) and the code."

While it's been known that EA and Marvel were working together on a comic/game crossover, no details were revealed aside from the working title, EA vs. Marvel. However, in an interview with Newsarama, comic book writer Greg Pak explained, "...it's a super cool crossover miniseries which throws a team of classic Marvel characters against a team of brand new superheroes created by the brilliant folks at EA." The new title appears to be Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects.

Earlier in the week, DOOM 3 for the Xbox was delayed until April. Now, Activision and id Software revealed that the port will ship during the week of April 4. There will also be the release of the Limited Edition, featuring behind the scenes goodies and playable versions of Ultimate DOOM and DOOM II.

Riding high on its success, recently winning the AIAS award for Outstanding Achievement in Original Musical Composition, the soundtrack for Fable will be released next week on February 15. It'll feature 13 tracks, including the theme that was composed by Danny Elfman.

Ubisoft announced it has two new Nintendo DS titles in the works: a DS version of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and a videogame adaptation of Peter Jackson's King Kong. Both games were given loose release dates of later this year. Ubisoft also confirmed the speculation that it'll be publishing Bomberman DS and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith in the states.

Slashdot addresses a few "misconceptions" regarding the Cell processor. Ars Technica also dissects the Cell here and here. GameSpy talks with Marc Ecko about his Contents Under Pressure. IGN has some behind-the-scene shots of Resident Evil 4.