Moving Day

I apologize for the infrequent updates this last week. I'm currently in the process of moving 15 hours away and will have sporadic internet access at best. I'm hoping that I should be set up in my new home probably about Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. At that time everything should be falling back to a bit more normalcy.

New Mamoru-kun wa NorowareteshimattaTrailer

A new trailer for the Gulti/G.Rev developed arcade shooter Mamoru-kun wa Norowareteshimatta was posted on Sega's Youtube channel this week. The game's performance has been a little hit and miss from what I've read online, but this style of top down shooter is a pretty rare treat. Unfortunately there's no video footage of the game being played on this Youtube video and most other videos online are pretty poor examples taken from an off screen cam during a location test. I guess we just have to take what we can get...

Gradius ReBirth announced for Wii Ware

Even though it's not quite Gradius VI, Konami has announced a new Gradius game for release via Nintendo's Wii Ware download service. Unfortunately, outside of a logo and a single screen shot, the only things we know about Gradius ReBirth is that the game will be launching later this summer and that Konami has elected to back to classic sprites for the release. It'll be interesting to see if they end up incorporating any of the 3D elements from Gradius Gaiden, but from the looks of the Moai and their 'bases' in the screenshot it doesn't look like they will be.

Konami's official product page for Gradius ReBirth (including the one screen shot) can be found here.

Street Fighter IV System trailer

With E3 occuring this week in Los Angeles, new media from Street Fighter IV has been popping up across the internet. The video I've embedded below comes courtesy of Game videos and while it doesn't showcase anything new, it does at least provide a few seconds of footage for each of the characters in the game. Unfortunately the soundtrack also isn't as inherently cool as the Faith No More Street Fighter IV trailer, but you can't win them all...

Street Fighter IV Guide

Event Hubs, the group responsible for the great Street Fighter III Third Strike guide, has opened their initial strategy pages for Street Fighter IV. Currently the moves lists as well as basic game details have already been updated for the known cast of characters. I'm hoping that as time goes on, the Street Fighter IV guide becomes as all encompassing and visually impressive as the Street Fighter III guide is now. The use of videos in order to demonstrate specific examples really works well, especially with some of the more difficult techniques for new players to master.

Street Fighter IV is being released to arcades this week with the official launch scheduled for the 18th (all stats and data stored before then will be cleared on the day of the launch). Though some early reports are stating that some locations already have the final version of the game, I'm still looking for verification that this is accurate and not just testing versions pulled out prior to the game's release (since the last few test locations were able to keep the machines from my understanding).

Street Fighter IV will be here in the US at E3, ComicCon, and EVO. There's still no word on whether or not it's going to be offered through any sort of official arcade distribution channels however, so these may be some of the only chances US players will have to get their hands on the game prior to the consumer release later this year.

Street Fighter 4 Strategy Guide -- Moves, Hints and Tips