Late Night Consoling

Once a premier home console action franchise, Konami's long running Castlevania series has essentially made its home on portable systems for several years now; though PlayStation 2 and Xbox saw a couple of 3D entries in the series last generation, they were both more infrequent and less well regarded than the more traditional 2D handheld games. Konami recently released the latest new 2D Castlevania, Portrait of Ruin, on Nintendo DS, and this week announced a remake of the new-to-the-west Rondo of Blood for PSP. Still, as fans have long clamored for the series to return to home consoles in its 2D glory, Konami has given little indication of any such plans one way or the other.

Yesterday, during a preview session of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP), Shacknews briefly spoke with Konami group manager Dennis Lee. Asked whether the series will ever come back to home consoles, Lee responded diplomatically, "There are a lot of us at Konami that know what fans want and we're working on delivering those things, but I have no official comment on that." When pressed further on the specific topic, Lee adopted a knowing smile and added, "Still, there is a lot of Castlevania coming. Stay tuned." Lee went on to suggest that there may be new franchise announcements sooner rather than later.

Lee's remarks can obviously be interpreted only in terms of speculation, but if nothing else the encouraging attitude demonstrated in his statements suggests that Konami likely has the idea in consideration. As Lee assured us, there is plenty more to come out of the Castlevania series and its producer Koji Igarashi; as for exactly what it is, we'll indeed have to stay tuned.

Reports from across the internet point to statements made by SCE Studios Liverpool development director Clemens Wangerin in Develop Magazine, stating that there is a Wipeout game in development for PS3. It has been long suspected that a new home console version of the popular futuristic racer is in the works, but these recent comments mark the first nearly-official confirmation. What is now Sony's Liverpool development studio was formerly the Psygnosis team, responsible for the original 1995 PlayStation series entry. According to Wangerin, the PS3 iteration of the game will feature control using the Sixaxis motion-sensing features of the PS3 controller.

Public service announcement: The franchise is called "Wipeout," not "WipEout." No, that is not a capital "E" in the logo. It's just how that particular typeface works. The publisher refers to its own series as "Wipeout." Look it up. If we were to treat that letter as a capital "E," we'd have to read the Wipeout Pure logo as "WipEout purE" or possibly even "wipEout purE," depending on how you interpret the "W," and do you really want to be the gamer--or even journalist--who participates in that kind of thing? No, of course not. Thank you for your time.

During its Gamers' Day press event last night in San Francisco, publisher Konami announced several new games: Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for PSP (Shack hands-on report), Dewy's Adventure (working title) for Wii (Shack first look), Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party for Wii, and Time Ace for Nintendo DS. The company also announced plans to partner with Hudson Soft to bring several of that company's games to North America: Kororinpa: Marble Mania for Wii (Shack hands-on report), Wing Island for Wii, Lost in Blue 2 for Nintendo DS, and Honeycomb Beat for Nintendo DS.

Konami also announced that actor Ron Perlman, who portrayed Hellboy in Guillermo del Toro's film adapatation of Mike Mignola's original comics, will be lending his voice talent to Krome Studio's upcoming Konami-published Hellboy video game for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PSP. The game will feature an original plot developed by Krome with the assistance of Mignola and del Toro, as well as film distributor Revolution Studios.

For more details on these games as well as hundreds of screenshots and pieces of artwork from Konami's upcoming lineup, check out our Konami Gamers' Day coverage.

Electronic Arts today made public the the soundtrack list featured in EA Chicago's upcoming hip hop fighter Def Jam: Icon. Consisting of 29 tracks, the list boasts artists such as Big Boi, Lil Jon, Ludacris, Mike Jones, T.I., and The Game. Music is an integral part of Def Jam: Icon, as gameplay is dynamically mapped to the rhythm of the background music, rewarding players for successfully syncing up powerful moves with strong beats. In addition to the included soundtrack, the game supports player-created soundtracks hosted from PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 hard drives or streamed from personal music devices; Def Jam: Icon automatically beatmatches the tracks to allow the dynamic gameplay system to operate regardless of the music being played.

For all 29 titles, check out the full list.

Capcom sent over an update on Lost Planet, noting that around March 9 the game will be receiving an update that will both add requested features and fix some bugs and balance issues that have been identified in the game.

As for new features, the multiplayer pre-game lobby will indicate with icons the location of each player as well as the quality of his or her connection. In various multiplayer modes and in the post-match results screen, an icon will be added to show who is speaking at any given time. Finally, in the post-match results screen, the game will darken the names of players who have left the match.

Half a dozen bugs will also be corrected, including instances of multiple Fugitives occuring in Fugitive mode, the game experiencing glitches or hanging during long lag periods, and others. For the full list, check out the update notes.

Last January, Konami and the state of West Virginia announced plans to adopt a Dance Dance Revolution-based fitness scheme in the state's 753 schools. The state hopes to lower its childhood obesity figures, which are among the worst in the nation. Following testing of the program that has been conducted by West Virginia University and the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency, it was determined that among a study of 50 overweight children, those who participated in the DDR regimen saw increased aerobic capacity and improved arterial functions along with a lack of further weight gain. The control group, which did not participate in DDR for the first half of the study then took part during the second half, saw regular weight gain during the first half and a stabilization during the second.

Konami also happily trumpeted the news last night during its Gamers' Day event in San Francisco.

Developer Nibris sends word that the title of its top-down Nintendo DS shooter Raid Over the River has been changed the simple abbreviation ROTR. Along with the announcement, the company sent over a screenshot of the game's splash screen (which suggests that in addition to the title becoming an abbreviation, the words being represented by that abbreviation have also changed) as well a rather unorthadox screenshot in photo form.

Also included was a fact sheet about the game, revealing that its single-player mode is split up into six campaigns of several missions each, with each campaign featuring its own time period and vehicle. Additionally, there will be hidden unlockable missions as well as some kind of multiplayer mode. Nibris plans to release the game this year.

Konami Gamers' Day coverage comes to us courtesy of GameSpot, 1UP, IGN, Game|Life, GameSpy, and others I'm sure.