Kotaku

NetDevil's Jumpgate evolution is a concept that sells itself. Massively multiplayer Wing Commander, anyone? How about some co-operative Privateer? It's a game that combines twitch-action space combat with levels and experience points. It's an excuse to dust off those old flight sticks. You'll even be able to play as a trader, paying more combat-ready players a cut of the action to make sure you make your deliveries safely. Space convoy!

It sounds amazing and looks rather lovely for a game with a scalable engine, allowing it to run on computers old and new, which is why every time I write about the game I'm surprised more people aren't aware of it. Hell, when I sat in with Codemasters' Lilit Baron last week at E3, he almost seemed pleasantly surprised that I had been keeping up with the game. Codemasters is gearing up to cure the rampant ignorance over Jumpgate Evolution, and the screenshots and accompanying Q&A, which you'll find after the jump, are just the beginning.

We snuck in (legitimately!) to the Comic-Con 08 show floor prior to the opening of the show, poking around the nearly empty booths before we grabbed our press passes. There's a pretty sizable gaming presence this year — much bigger than the last. Konami, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Ubisoft, SOE, EA and Capcom are among the bigger publishers taking up a floorspace this year, with playable demos, limited edition merchandise and coveted swag ripe for the taking.

The Comic-Con masses were just admitted, mere minutes ago, into the show floor. Take a look at the virginal booths, before they were violated by the collectible hunting horde.

We'll be checking in with everyone (and finally getting our hands on the new Prince of Persia!) throughout the week.

Iwata Foresees Wii Supply Constraints For Christmas, Again

Yes, we know that the annual Christmastime Wii shortage is always unintentional on Nintendo's part. They're just constantly shocked, for three straight years, at how popular their console is.

Analyst Michael Pachter told Kotaku a few months ago to expect supply constraints for Wii this season, and speaking to Forbes, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata seems pretty certain himself that's how it'll go down, again:

"We are really intending to increase the shipments to the U.S., especially compared to last year," says Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's global president and CEO. "However, I can't give you a 100% commitment [that you'll be able to find a Wii this holiday season]. What I can commit myself to is that Nintendo is going to do its best to supply as many Wii hardware units as possible in order to meet demand there."

A Wii Bit Short On Supplies [worst pun ever, Forbes!]

Telltale Offering Loaded Sam & Max Collector's DVD

Telltale, creators of the Sam & Max episodic adventure series, announced a collector's DVD set for Sam & Max Season Two available today, packed with tons of extras. Telltale's announcement focuses on the game's collector's edition getting the same treatment that a TV series boxset would.

The Season Two Collector's DVD comes with all five PC games from the series, plus "hours" of region-free video with special features, developer commentary, a Christmas video short feature, promo trailers, concept art, desktop wallpapers and a MP3 soundtrack sampler.

Additionally, if you already bought the Sam & Max Season Two downloadable set, Telltalle will give you the Collector's DVD for shipping and handling costs only. It's $34.95 for the rest of ya, and should ship in August, the company says.

Full announcement follows the jump.

New Screens For Atlus' Dokapon Kingdom

Atlus loves to talk about how its upcoming PS2/Wii "party RPG," Dokapon Kingdom, is going to make you and all of your friends hate each other as you fight one another to be the best kingdom-defender and win the hand of Princess Penny.

But man, how can there be hostility when these screens look so damn adorable and hilarious, seriously? Fist-in-teeth, girl-squealing adorable?

You're looking at the official box art for Wii. Release date is October 14th, new screens after the jump!

E3 09 Opening Its Doors to the Public?

The only thing there was more of at E3 than games were complaints about E3's new, tidy, business-like format. Everyone from company execs to game developers to the working press seemed to have something unhappy to say about the show.

Coasting right there along with the complaints was a building buzz that next year's E3 was going to have to undergo some mammoth changes. Just how mammoth? According to a number of well connected sources I spoke with during the show, there's considerable thought going into opening the doors, this time officially, to the public at next year's big event.

Reached for comment earlier today, the Entertainment Software Association had this to say:

Penny Arcade Releases Fallout Comics

Bethesda just announced that the Penny Arcade guys have created a series of comics based on their upcoming RPG (Bethesda's not Penny Arcade's funny guy) Fallout 3.

Over the coming months the strip will tell the story of Vault 77: One man and a crate of puppets.

Fallout Comic

Afro Samurai Gets Comic-Con Appearance

Afro Samurai will be demoed to the public for the first time at this week's Comic-Con International in San Diego, Namco Bandai announced today.

The playable demo will give gamers a chance to check out what looks to be a pretty stylistic fighter based on the Samuel L. Jackson executive produced anime series. There will also be an Afro Samurai panel on Thursday featuring the creators behind the show. Panelist members will include Samuel "Snakes on a Plane" Jackson, THe RZA, Takashi Okazaki and Leo Chu. The group plan to talk about the development process, dish on some behind-the-scenes anecdotes and explain the inspiration behind the characters, music and story.

TwoFer

To: Ash
From: Crecente

Yesterday I ran out mid-morning to pick up a coffee and some allergy medicine. Somehow in the process of buying coffee I ended up with two volumes of The Super Mario Bros Super Show in my hand. I'm not quite sure how it even happened. One second I was milling about waiting for a hazelnut breve, the next, bam, bad 80s Mario cartoons. At least they were $12 for two.

So I'm checking out with my bundle of stuff and when I go to scan the two DVDs and alert comes up telling the cashier that she has to ID me... for Super Mario Bros cartoons. I make a joke about how they must now be IDing for horrible animation and bad acting, but she continued to give me the stink eye as she checked my ID and glared at what I suspect she thought was kiddie porn. Good times!

What you missed:
EA Signs Up Talent Agency To Bring Franchises To Movies, TV
Itagaki and Tecmo Go At it In Court, Alien Love-Child Suspected
Midnight Club: Los Angeles Hands-On
Namco-Bandai Rescuing Hellgate From Sinking Flagship?
Xbox Live Makes Horror Funny This Fall
Frankenreview: Final Fantasy IV DS
E308 Simon Jeffery, "We're Saving Aliens For Something Special"
Penny Arcade Adventures Coming To PS3
"Major" PS3 Exclusive To Be Announced In August?

Comic-Con: We've Arrived

Comic-Con may not officially start until tomorrow but the wheels of big Comic business are already rolling. This afternoon alone we met with folks from several publishers and developers to check out upcoming projects. Stay tuned later tonight for McWhertor's reports from the San Diego Convention Center.

He'll be covering all things video game related over the next five days, bringing you details from the show floor, live blogs from Comic-Con panels and all the news that breaks from Capcom, EA, Activision, Konami and much, much more.

For even more Comic-Con coverage that goes beyond the game-o-sphere, check out io9 for your extended sci-fi nerd fix. For those attending, let us know in the comments what Sailor Moon character you'll be dressed as.

E308 Simon Jeffery Destroys All of Your Hopes For Dreamcast 2, Shenmue 3, and Seaman 2

See Brian try to talk the head of Sega of America into launching Dreamcast 2 to take on the Wii.
Dreamcast 2? Seaman 2? Shenmue 3? Hear Simon Jeffery crush all of your Sega wet dreams.

If you're into all things Mike McWhertor, and who isn't, than you probably already know all about his video-game themed T-shirt venture: Meat Bun.

Today the shirtmaker dropped a sexy, new 1942-themed shirt on their site featuring Cammy from Street Fighter dressed up like a 1940's pin-up girl. The shirt comes in olive, gold and light blue and is currently tied for my personal favorite with Meat Bun's Street Fighter shirt.

If you're at Comic Con you should try to pick one up and then chase Mike down and force him to sign it or a body part in Sharpie blue.

Meat Bun

"Major" PS3 Exclusive To Be Announced In August?

The PlayStation Lifestyle blog promises that on August 3rd, a "MAJOR" PlayStation 3 exclusive will be announced that makes MAG, Killzone 2 and inFAMOUS look like "NOTHING" (yes, the author seems to like all-caps).

The blog also says it'll offer three hints on Saturday, July 26th, stressing that it is a "new" PlayStation 3 "exclusive." In this case, it's the author, not I, who put those words in quotes — does that make anyone else a little leery?

Right now, all that's up in the post is a reminder that the announcement is unrelated to Square Enix's event over the same August date. Uh, oo-kay? Oh yeah, and they've got three words listed, all of them crossed out with strikethrough:

Activision Blizzard Merger To Leave Blizz Team Intact, Independent

The newly-merged Activision Blizzard may be planning to cut redundant staffers in areas where there's overlap with Activision and Vivendi, but the company plans to leave the Blizzard team untouched.

Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl told MCV that it'd largely be business as usual for Blizzard. "It’s not like we need to go there and fix something," he said. "Blizzard will continue to operate as they have done in the past – fairly independently."

"It would be a big mistake for us to distract them with new ideas."

However, Tippl did mention to MCV one new use the company has in mind for Blizzard:

Midway Moves TNA Impact Team To San Diego

Midway recently combined its Midway Los Angeles studio with its San Diego one, a move the publisher says will help the TNA Impact! team work better with its other studios in Chicago, Austin, Seattle and Newcastle, UK. Midway looks ready to increase the focus on that studio, hiring more staff there as well.

Midway's third-party production, licensing and quality assurance groups are also in San Diego, so it makes sense they'd want the development team to be nearby them... wait, all this time Midway's quality assurance has been in a different city than its wrestling franchise development team?

...Hmm! Full announcement after the jump.

See? It was only a matter of time! The Hothead Games folks have apparently found their way around issues with the PlayStation 3 and the Torque Engine, and now Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is heading to the PlayStation Network this fall. Rejoice, and stop emailing Hothead to complain!

"We keep getting emails asking why our Penny Arcade game is not on PSN," said Hothead's CEO, Vlad Ceraldi. "We have always said we wanted to have our games on as many platforms as possible to give choice to gamers. All good things take time and we are very excited to be debuting our first PS3 title and look forward to bringing more games to this platform in the future."

The PSN version will feature similar pricing to the Xbox Live Arcade and PC versions, so expect to shell out around $20. Enjoy the first screens from the PS3 version below, and be sure to check out our review to help you decide whether or not you should be excited about this whole deal.

SouthPeak's Mister Slime DS Hits Retail Today

Southpeak's Mister Slime, which we last heard was coming to DS in April, actually hits retail today in North America. Oh, okay! It sounds fairly interesting, actually — players control Slimey, who must stop violence between warring clans, a rather serious pursuit for a young slime.

The gameplay uses both stylus and microphone to stretch and manipulate Slimey's arms toward anchor points in each level, which is how he navigates.

Screens plus more details after the jump!