Level-5 is a development studio near and dear to the hearts of gamers everywhere. As the current development team behind the latest Dragon Quest games, White Knight Chronicles, the entire Professor Layton series, as well as the criminally under-appreciated Dark Cloud series, Level-5 is one of the premier development studios in Japan. Thus, it’s actually kind of exciting to hear this bit of news. According toAndriaSang(viaGamasutra), Level-5 is looking to branch out of its native Japan to set up a branch in Southern California’s Santa Monica this September....

Miami is a notoriously non-nerdy place — in fact, wearing a Mario t-shirt around here could even earn you a few weird looks. Thank the gods, some people choose to ignore that and make their own fun things to do here, and one of the ones we’re looking most ofrward to is theInfinite Bits conventioncoming this October. Boasting some solid guests along with gaming on every console you can possible imagine (and a few you’ve probably never seen in the flesh before), it sounds just like the kind of party we want to hit up....

A few days ago leaked images of the newestWeekly Famitsutold us that bothPatapon 2andLocoRoco 2were confirmedfor the PSP in Japan. UnlikePatapon 2,LocoRocodoes not even have a tentative Japanese release date. Thankfully, someone at1Upfinally decided to start reading theFamitsuthis week. Among the smattering of information about the title, it has been revealed that it is already 75% complete. That figure means that I am currently 175% excited about the impending release....

Majora’s Maskmight be the most controversialZeldagame made (once everyone realized thatWind Wakerwas a sumptuous masterpiece and got over themselves). Some people say it’s one of the best in the series, others argue it might be one of the worst. The repeating day mechanic has been heralded as one of the most inventive and one of the most annoying. Needless to say it’s divisive game. If you ask Nintendo President Saturo Iwata, he falls down on the side of it being one of Nintendo’s most influential games....

If you’re anything like me or Chad, you probably remember drawing your own videogame levels when you should have been paying attention in math class. We all did it, and dreamed of someday becoming one of the creative minds responsible for the kind of games we loved as kids. But that was elementary school; we didn’t have the fancy computer software that surely helped envision this stuff. The real pros rock some serious tech, right?...

Konami has been caught with their pants down again. Earlier, their servers konked out after being dogpiled by users trying to register for theMetal Gear Onlinebeta. Now it seems that heavy traffic has also botched the launch of the public beta test. From theMGO Web page: We would like to thank all players for their keen interest in taking part in the beta test. However, we regret to inform you that due to extraordinary levels of traffic from all around the globe, we have been unable to run the service to the level we expected....

I will always cherish my memories of Nintendo’s E3 2008 press conference. That’s where they showed off Wii Music for the first time. It was awkward and amazing. There were accordians, puppy suits as instruments, and some of the most shocking air drumming you’ve ever seen. I hope that we can expect that kind of showing again when they announce the inevitableWii Music 2. It’s not a confirmed title yet, but Nintendo’s genius game maker Shigeru Miyamoto teased a sequel in a way....

Naughty Bearhad his time on consoles, but now he’s making his way to the iPhone and iPod Touch in a new on-the-go version that will have a new format and controls. Our bear will be ripping stuffing, but now with touchscreen input and a top-down viewpoint. A release says that the camera zooms in for up-close kills. Fun. In the gallery below you can see examples of both the overhead gameplay view and the zoomed in kill view....

The last time I covered a video forNeed for Speed: Hot Pursuit, I kindly requested that, in the future, they highlight the community features — what Criterion Games absolutely excels at — instead of whatever was being shown off at the time. This is it, people! Get to the war room! Or, perhaps just your room for watching YouTube videos. Either way. Producer Matt Webster runs down Autolog, which is the fancy name forHot Pursuit‘s competition-inducing backend that’s been designed to keep you playing late into the night....

Races, in a racing game? OLD! Cops and Robbers in a racing game? Uh, new … I think? Well, at least it’s new for theNeed for Speedseries, anyway. Need for Speed: Undercoverpits two teams of 4 players against one another in “Cops ‘N Robbers,” an online mode that’s exactly what it sounds like. EA Black Box has even gone to the trouble of creating a video to highlight it so you don’t have to put that imagination of yours to work....

Drunken NES – Nintendo BreathalyzerfromEM DashonVimeo. Drinking and retro gaming go hand in hand, so why not put a breathalyzer into a NES cartridge? Okay, so there’s no real logic in that, but I’m glad someone did it anyway. Homebrewer Batsly Adams fit a breathalyzer into a cartridge and made a little game out of it. You breathe into the DrunkNES (love the name) and you’ll get different reactions depending on how drunk you are....

Following up on theearlier reportthat zombies will be coming back to theCall of Dutyfranchise’s multiplayer, Activision has now announced new maps will be arriving in March. Call of Duty: World At War Map Pack 1will feature four maps, including the aforementioned undead assault area. In addition, there will be a map centered around the streets of Berlin, a jungle map and a subway system. No pricing has been announced at this time....

As promised, Metallica’s latest album,Death Magnetic, will be coming to toGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, day and date with the album’s retail release this Friday, September 12. The album will cost $17.99 for PlayStation 3 or 1440 MS Points for Xbox 360. The album features the ten tracks from the retail album, as well as two versions of the song “Suicide & Redemption” that feature extended solos by guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett....