Pedometer based games - Personal Trainer Walking, My Weight Loss Coach Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver and Pokewalker

New pedometer-based games have arrived with Nintendo DS releases like Nintendo's Personal Trainer - Walking and Ubisoft's My Weight Loss Coach both bundling pedometer accessories.

Even Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, destined to be two of the highest-selling titles in Japan this year they come with a PokeWalker that encourages players to walk with the accessory so they can gain XP for their creatures or earn currency in-game.

Bandai and SSD Company have their own standalone pedometer-based game coming out this July, Yuuhokei: Tenkatouitsu ~ Aruite Sengoku no Hasha to Nare, which loosely translates as Walking Meter: Unification ~ Become the Ruler of the Warring States by Walking.



As the title suggests, you can play as three different warlords from Japan's Warring States period (15th to 17th century) -- Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shingen, and Uesugi Kenshin. The game will also feature over 70 other warlords, such as Date Masumane and Akechi Mitsuhide. Though you might not recognize some of these names, these characters have experienced a surge of popularity recently in Japan with the Sengoku Basara games/anime.

The way the pedometer works, you keep the accessory in a pocket and amass troops by walking, increasing your army's ranks as you go about their day. According to Bandai, "you can dominate the enemy with your large army if you walk a lot." Your soldiers can attack with spears, guns, bows and arrows, and more.

There will also be a corresponding website where you can record your weight and how much you've walked. As you progress through your warlord's campaign/storyline, you'll also receive codes that you can put into the website to see details of local warlords and a map of Japan showing the areas you've unified.

Bandai's target audience for Walking Meter: Unification is men and women in their 30s who have an appreciation of history. The company has high hopes for this product, too, expecting to sell over 10 million units by the end of 2010.

And if conquering rival warlords and unifying Japan isn't your thing, apparently there are three other similar pedometer-based titles that've been released in Japan -- Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers), Haha wo Tazunete Sanzenri (a.k.a. Marco), and Kacho Kosaku Shima - all of which are based on manga/anime properties.

Heavy rain two gamesplay videos for you to enjoy

Heavy Rain is a cinematic and evolving thriller from Quantic Dream, the developer behind the critically acclaimed Fahrenheit.

Dealing with a range of adult themes, the game revolves around a sophisticated plot and strong narrative threads that explore a complex moral proposition. You assume the role of multiple characters, with very different backgrounds, motivations and skills, in a world shaped by Bending Storylines - a dynamic narrative design where your actions and decisions will shape your story.

Mass Effect DLC - We'll just have to wait...

The Mass Effect Download Content news that looked to be coming this week, only to have to put it back on the shelf for a little while longer as BioWare has twittered that, tragically, no DLC news is imminent.

“Due to circumstances beyond my control, any news of more ME1 DLC will have to wait. Sorry folks,” the tweet said.

EverQuest, FusionFall expansions plus Star Wars on Comic-Con

Loads this week in MMO news, and some is more interesting than what we have been offered in previous weeks.

FussionFall is getting an expansion for its 5 million users, the EverQuest I & II trademark rumors turned out to be new expansions, Star Wars will be on hand at Comic-Con, and Conan got a new update.

* SOE announced the sixth expansion for EverQuest II, and the 16th one for EverQuest at Fan Faire this week. Sentinel’s Fate, for EQII will see a level cap increase to 90 and will be releases February 2010. Underfoot, fro EQ is coming November 2009, and allows you to explore a new underground zone. More on Eurogamer.

* Cartoon Networks’ FusionFall now has over 5 million accounts and will be getting its first major content patch called Dexlabs Upgrade 1: Speed and Style which will bring vehicles to the game. It’s expected to launch this summer. More over on Massively.

* Book 8 for Lord of the Rings Online’s Volume 2, Mines of Moria, went live on Tuesday. With a few issues requiring some short down time a couple days since, it is up and running. The summer festival is also going on, and some changes have occurred regarding how to get a new horse. Instead of winning a race, you have to accumulate 50 festival tokens. Granted, this is being done so people will repeat the festival quests, making sure all the work put into it wasn’t for naught, but still, not too many players are happy about it. Loads of bitching in the OCC channel have proved this over the past few days. Fingers crossed this changes with the next festival.


Read the full post over on vg247

Pixie Lott sings her debut single Mama Do in Simlish for Sims 3 video game - with video

Pixie Lott joins the Sims 3 video game Electronic Arts announce the collaboration between exciting new pop singer Pixie Lott and the highly anticipated PC game from the EA Play Label, The Sims 3.



Activity kicks off with a Simlish recording of Pixies debut single, Mama Do available for simultaneous download with the English version of the game plus a music video showing Pixie singing a duet with her Sim character "The Sims 3 takes the infinitely creative world of Sims to the next level, and once again its music is no exception," said Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Music Marketing at EA. "Pixie Lott now joins artists like Black Eyed Peas, Lily Allen, Robyn and Natasha Bedingfield in bringing her tremendous vocal talents to the Simlish arena. Her amazing talent and love for the game makes Pixie a perfect ambassador for The Sims."

Square Enix new game teaser website launched- Hikari No 4 Senshi 4 Warriors of Light?

Is the new Square Enix teaser website for the trademark Hikari No 4 Senshi 4 Warriors of Light video game.

Who knows? Head over here and watch the countdown and listen to the music...

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/0706/

If you think you know use the comment option below to share your info.

Xbox 360 Pro to be replaced with Xbox 360 Elite console it's White to Black say AT

Ars Technica say the Xbox 360 60gb may removed from the range leaving the Xbox Elite at the top end. A price cut is also rumored this Summer.

Microsoft are also said to have a range of bundles to tempt buyer to the Xbox 360 platform. The Xbox Elite is basically the pro but in Black with a larger 120gb hard drive. If it's made available for the same price that's a win, win for the consumer.
Use gamezplay in your Google games searches.

Alien RPG (Role Playing Game) has been cancelled

Obsidian (the developers) have posted this on their forum...

Rumors have circled around a bit regarding the fate of the Aliens role playing game that Obsidian and SEGA had been working on. Unfortunately, it is true that we are no longer working on the game, and we wanted to finally announce that officially to everyone who has been following its development. We’re going to keep this forum up for another week for archival purposes and to allow you guys to finish up any open threads, and then we will shut it down since it is no longer a product that is in development.

Other games go ahead...

Two other Alien games will go ahead say Sega - Alien v Predator 3 and Aliens - Colonial Marines both FPS titles for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.



Alien v Predator 3

Is video game music appreciated enough?

We gamers are a lucky generation of people; we are witnessing evolution. Games are evolving right before our very eyes. We have witnessed the simple graphics of Pong evolve into the beautifully detailed environments of Uncharted and Crysis.

We even watched the simple, yet highly addictive, gameplay of Tetris evolve into finely tuned games like Modern Warfare and LittleBigPlanet. Even the story telling in games has evolved into plots that equal, and in some cases better, their Hollywood counterparts.

But perhaps the most unappreciated improvement in my eyes has been the soundtracks that have accompanied the games.

Read full post here on Kokugamer

Suikoden Tierkeis Nintendo DS video game

We all know the DS has a ton of great RPG’s to play. Suikoden Tierkreis is one of the new entries into the great RPG’s on the DS. I dare say that it’s in my favourite RPG this year on a handheld device.

The story revolves around your character (in game you are referred to as him regardless of what you name your character) Running into some soldiers trying to take over your town. You fend them off and start to find out who they really are, The Order. The Order believes in the One True Way in which that everything in life has already been determined and you cannot change it. They want people to worship the One King and follow a predetermined path for the rest of their lives. Well our hero and his friends don’t like that idea so they set forth to stop The Order and the One King. There are books called The False Chronicles you come across that grants certain people with the Mark Of The Stars. This unlocks what essentially is magic in the game. You soon realize that The Order is trying to collect them all to use to summon the One King to their world and you have to beat them to it. The story progresses easily and flows well enough to keep you engaged for the 30+ hours you will be playing the main story. The voice acting is terrible but still doesn’t get in the way of the story itself.

The graphics are very lush and easy on the eyes. I was amazed at the detail this game has. One of the best looking games on the DS in awhile. The soundtrack is ok but the music at the Castle/Fortress is kinda annoying unless you like Irish music.

The gameplay mechanics are pretty good overall. Moving around in areas are smooth and its not hard to get around finding where you need to go. The game has an overworld map that makes it easy to travel to other places once you have been there at least once. Menu systems are a little clunky and hard to navigate. Also, the way it handles weapons/armor when buying it sucks. It’s hard to tell if it boosts or lowers your stats. You basically have to remember what your stats are and see if the number is higher in the item you are trying to replace. Battling is your typical turn based style system in any basic RPG.

I didn’t find the game too challenging until the last part of the game which is a shame but the story is good enough for you to forget that and have fun throughout. The big thing about Suikoden games is that you can recruit 108 people on your team. This game has a cool way of finding the ones that you don’t find automatically in the main storyline. There are jobs that you can do throughout the game that can earn you money and sometimes special items. These jobs also unlock characters to add to your party. Some are easy to figure out, others are next to impossible without some sort of guide. The game makes you level up most of your characters by forcing you to make 2 or 3 parties of 4 characters in certain parts of the game. I like that for the reason being that you don’t just level up 4 guys and leave the rest to get drunk at the bar alone and sad. Getting some of the more powerful characters through the job system would help you out a lot with this but is not necessary.

This game has enough detail, depth, and story to keep you engaged for the 30+ hours it will take you to complete the game. If you are looking for a RPG to have tons of fun with, pick Suikoden Tierkreis up now. You owe it to yourself to play a wonderful RPG this year on the DS.

$30 out of $35