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I adoredRetro Game Challenge, the localization ofGame Center CXfor the Nintendo DS. Sadly, not enough people were willing to take a risk on such a quirky title and odds for its sequel to see release in Western markets weresquashed to nillong ago. There may yet be hope for fans like myself who would love to experience a new round of retro-inspired games. Tiny Cartridge received curious videos over the last few days featuring footage fromGame Center CX 2which contained English text....

Some of you may not know yet, but a proposition just passed in California this past Tuesday banning all people from discussing retro videogames on podcasts of any kind. The actual proposition — titled Prop 8-BIT — read something like this, and I am paraphrasing here: Prop 8-BIT: RETRO FANS ARE STUPID! STOP TALKING ABOUT OLD GAMES WITH STUPID GRAPHICS! XBOX IS THE TITS! Conspiracy theorists like me believe this discriminating proposition passed due to the strong financial support of the numerous amounts of hardcoreHaloand FPS fans around the state....

When it wasfirst announcedthat the Wii would be getting its ownDead Spacetitle, fans ofthe original gameimmediately cried foul. It was fair to assume that like the console’s other big 360-to-Wii survival horror down-portDead Rising: Chop Till You Drop,Dead Space Extractionwould end up looking cheap and playing exactly likeResident Evil 4: Wii Edition. Those initial guesses couldn’t have been more wrong.Dead Space Extractionlooks great, nearly as good as its HD brother, and it plays nothing likeRE4....

After being involved in the creative process of a few indie games, I’ve acquired quite a taste for game making. I now feel that I won’t be completely satiated until I make a game all on my own. There’s just one problem — I don’t know a thing about programming. I’ve been going throughGame Maker 7‘s many tutorials little by little during my spare time, but I still don’t know a whole lot about what I am doing and why it does what it does....

When the assignment came down from on high to reviewMax and the Magic Marker, Destructoid’s illustrious founder, Niero, mentioned to me that he had been playing it over the weekend with his nephew and that they had spent their time crushing purple blobs with giant orange penises. It’s probably not what indie developer Press Play meant to have done when they came up with the child-friendly game, but that is one of the great wonders of games where the player is tasked with creating part of the game world....

Next week’sRock Banddownloadable content makes me happy — classic Ministry tracks! Music fromPsalm 69andThe Land of Rape and Honeywill come packaged in “Ministry Pack 02,” which is available next Tuesday. Here’s what you get: The pack will cost you $5.49/440 MS Points, and it’s the usual $1.99/160 MS Points/200 Wii Points per song. Now go, ding a ding dang your dang a long ling long.

Next week at E3, Nintendo is expected to reveal its Nintendo 3DS hardware to the world, and with it the first batch of software. According to our sources, Nintendo has been quietly wooing developers and publishers with a handheld 3D demo of its popular franchise,Animal Crossing. Word has it that the game will be revealed next week as a launch title for Nintendo’s handheld. When contacted with a request for comment, Nintendo’s response was as expected: “Nintendo does not comment on rumors or speculation....

The big questions after Microsoft’s press conference at E3 this year were, “Why do we need Avatars, and where didHalogo?” Even though Bungie can’t directly address Avatars, they didaddresstheir notably absent announcement of a newHalogame, which was rumored to be atactical shooter. Today,GameRushgot hold of some new details on what was actually to be shown at E3 before the publisher yanked the game at the last second. Apparently, the guys at Bungie had a 60-second “knock’em down” trailer planned for the audience....

Here’s a rather strange (and dismaying) rumor that has recently surfaced on theEurogamer forums. According to a poster there, Free Radical Design employees are currently sitting at a Holiday Inn, wondering why they’ve been locked out of their offices. This sounds like a good old fashioned shut down, if it’s true. Free Radical is famous for theTimesplittersseries and was supposed to be working on a fourth game in the franchise, along with the newStar Wars: Battlefront....

The latest trailer forSaints Row: The Thirdreveals one of the new gangs that the Saints will cross paths with, The Deckers. These are tech-loving criminals who are into hacking, fraud, and all the hands-off, mess-free stuff. Until, of course, they mess with you. Oh, and their story arc involves a great bigTronspoof, as the player invades a virtual reality. This game truly does have everything.

This is quite funny, probably because no videogame example could better highlight Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blatant hypocrisy better than THQ’s recent, awful,Conangame. The California Governor, as we all know, has tried to pass an unconstitutional videogame law in the past, and has been on the warpath against violent games for a while. How ironic that one such games isConan, a game that draws from the same violent, sexist, bloodsoaked stories as theConanmovies in which Schwarzenegger himself has starred....

Hearing that tri-Ace and Sega were working on an RPG together may not have been exciting news to everyone, as tri-Ace’s track record has been on and off in terms of quality for a while now. The new game, calledEnd of Eternity, marks the first time that tri-Ace has worked with any company other than Square-Enix on a project, and judging from these new screens, that could be a good thing....

Did you watch Sunday’s episode ofDoctor Who? Staggeringly good television, that was. Honestly, I wish that had been the finale. Not of the season. I mean for the whole ofDoctor Who. If they had chosen to deceive us as to the number of episodes in the season, aired “The Pandorica Opens” and then never produced another episode, it would probably be one of the most daring and brilliant moves in television history....