The March Madness is over and what a long, strange trip that month was. From Simcity’s crushing disappointment to the stellar heights of Bioshock Infinite. From the fantastic reboot of Tomb Raider to the prequels of Gears of War: Judgment and God of War: Ascension. March was a month where it could be all things to all people with a little something for everyone.

Well, I hope you got what you wanted in March because odds are that April isn’t going to blow your mind with its offering. Not that there aren’t some gems here, but nothing on the scale of last month. This is more of a specific kind of month, with niche titles that appeal to fans of that sort of thing. See the poll below:

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The medieval multiplayer genre has taken off the in the last couple of weeks for whatever reason, with both War of the Roses and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare hitting the PC. While both games take place in a Middle Age setting, War of the Roses is a third-person combat game and Chivalry is in first person built on the Unreal engine. For no particular reason, I decided to pick up Chivalry this past Monday and I’ve been playing it for a couple hours a night and having a ball.

Unlike War of the Roses, which takes place during the actual conflict of the same name, Chivalry takes place in a fictional setting featuring a war between the Agatha Knights (Blue) and the Mason Order (Red). Players can be one of four classes, archer, man-at-arms, vanguard and knight, and can battle it out in a few gametypes like team objective and free-for-all. Team objective is currently my favorite mode as it’s a lot like Team Fortress 2′s Payload mode or Rush from Battlefield. While encouraging teamplay, it also features a host of wickedly medieval objectives like killing a village full of peasants or pushing a corpse cart into the enemy castle’s water supply.

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The long-rumored Sony version of Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers was announced on GTTV last night and the PlayStation blog put up a short trailer explaining the game. Called All-Stars Battle Royale, the game will feature Sony characters (including some third-party characters as revealed last night) duking it out on a variety of themed stages. Check out the game in action below!

The game is a little too similar to Super Smash Bros for my taste, but for some people this will be right up their alley. The characters confirmed so far are Kratos, Parappa the Rapper, Sweet Tooth, Fat Princess, Colonel Radec from Killzone and Sly Cooper. More will be revealed at E3, so stay tuned for that. Personally, I’m curious to see if Solid Snake will be coming back after his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and what the third party characters are. What do you guys think of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale?

Well, it’s been a rumor for many years and as of this writing it still technically is, but it has been all but confirmed that Sony is working on their own version of Super Smash Bros, but with Sony characters, naturally. The announcement has been teased and hinted at by many sources and should be confirmed tonight. Even if it isn’t a real thing, it’s still a fun thing to think about.

So that begs the question: who would you put in a Playstation All-Stars game? Obviously, Nathan Drake, Cole from Infamous, Ratchet (Captain Qwark? PLEASE???), Jak, Sweet Tooth, Sly and Kratos are the easy ones. But dig deeper than that. Who else would you want to see? Parappa? Gex? Maybe Solid Snake, since he became synonymous with Playstation? Let’s hear your dream roster!

Source: VG 24/7

Few things compare to the joys I’ve gotten from the Super Smash Bros. franchise. Whether it was after school on the Nintendo 64, skipping class in college with the GameCube or taking a break on the Wii, the Nintendo branded brawler is the perfect mix of insanity and trashtalk-inducing competition. If I were one of the other big console companies, I guess I’d be eying something similar for my own franchises.

And according to rumors, that’s just what Sony is doing. For a while now, there have been whispers that one SuperBot Entertainment has been hard at work crafting the PlayStation’s own take on the Smash Bros. style of mayhem. Until the last couple of weeks, these rumors didn’t have much substance to them. However, SuperBot employee Chris Molina’s twitter account recently outed not only the game’s existence, but also a few details like the inclusion of characters Kratos, Sweet Tooth and Parappa.

So what do you guys think of this idea? Would you play a Sony version of Super Smash Bros.? What characters would you like to see? What about a Microsoft version? Go!

Source – Gaming Everything

Image via Play Tribune

It’s GamerSushi weekend! For those of you that don’t know, the GamerSushi gang is getting together irl for the first time ever, here in hot and steamy Houston, Texas. For real. It’s hot here.

So far, we’ve watched some Aliens, played some Mortal Kombat, and have a barcade run to make later today. Also, all of us in the same place is going to make for a pretty entertaining podcast. As such, there won’t be much posting happening for the next couple of days, so I wanted to ask you guys what you’re playing.

Up until today, I’ve mostly been swamped in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is so far fantastic. It just feels like an old school PC game, and has a gorgeous atmosphere and great gameplay to boot. It’s got a lot of stuff I didn’t realize I was missing from games, and I love it for that.

So, what are you guys playing in honor of GamerSushi weekend? Go!

Hey readers, how’s your weekend going? Me, I’ve been doing a few things, including winning my first ever StarCraft 2 match! I know that’s not very impressive, but considering I haven’t finished placing yet, this is a pretty big deal for me. The guy I beat was probably even more Forever Bronze than I am, but still, I’ll take a victory when I can get one.

Besides that, I’ve been doing the Gears of War 3 beta with Eddy and having a LAN gaming marathon with my friends. I know that LAN parties typically refer to linking a bunch of PCs together, but I use it as a catch-all term for getting together with friends in the same room and playing a bunch of favorites. So far we’ve done Age of Empires 2, StarCraft 2, Halo 3 and right now we’re beating each other up in Fight Night Round 4. My poor boxer facsimile, he just can’t win a match. That may be my fault though.

Since I’m gaming with pals today, I was wondering what sort of games you play when you want to trash your friends. RTS games, FPS games, good old classic brawlers? Also, if any of you PC players want to rage on me for misusing “LAN party” by referring to consoles, go ahead. I can take it.

How’s your holiday weekend going, GamerSushi-ites? Me, I’ve been tucking into the Gears of War 3 beta again after doing a marathon Portal 2 session where I polished off the whole game, both single and co-op. I’m pretty sure that we’re going to do a “What Are You Playing” sometime this weekend, so we’ll table that discussion for later. Segueing from that, I am planning on checking out Mortal Kombat soon, which frightens me mostly because fighting games are one of the genres that I totally suck at.

To be totally honest, in a multiplayer standpoint, I’m really only good at first person shooters. Even though I’m loving the Gears 3 gameplay, I’ll admit that my Kill/Death ratio is pretty terrible, with one often outpacing the other (guess which one). The same thing goes for real time strategy games, where I can maybe hold my own in a campaign or a comp stomp scenario, but once I get out into the wild, everything just goes right down the tubes.

All that pales in comparison to how badly I perform at fighting games like Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Tekken and the like. I’ll maybe win the odd round, but more often than not I’m getting Hadoukened back to last week.

It’s rare that anyone admits that they’re bad at games, but we’re all friends here, so go ahead and let us know what genres you aren’t that great with. Fighting, racing, shooting? Drop them comment bombs, yo.

Hadoken.

That word alone is enough to send veteran gamers plunging into the mists of nostalgia, thinking of callouses earned in arcades and later, on the SNES and Sega Genesis as we attempted to pummel our friends, the AI and even a parked car, into submission while playing Street Fighter II. Back in the day, nothing was as big as Street Fighter II. This week marks the 20th anniversary of the game, so time for a trip down memory lane.

In the arcades, lines would form a dozen people deep. At home, the whole neighborhood would descend on the house of whoever had it and massive tournaments were held. Hell, fights broke out just over what character would be chosen, especially if you managed to score a couple of cheap wins against people. So, we honor Street Fighter II, the most popular and influential fighting game of all time.

And I ask you: what’s your favorite Street Fighter memory? How about your favorite character? Are you man enough to comment? Fight!

There are those certain types of games out there, the ones that have you discussing for days or weeks on end how you totally stomped your opponents, or some random happenstance that blew your mind. These are the games that get you back together with your friends on a nightly basis to trade blows and throw grenades, striving to be the best, to get the next unlock, or just compete for bragging rights.

Just by imagining these scenarios, you probably conjured up a list of your favorite experiences and the games they were connected to. Whether its the exact right combination of tight mechanics and engaging gameplay, or just the fact that you can destroy your environments in real time with your friends, there are multiplayer experiences out there that stick with us through different consoles and generations. Conversely, there are certain ones that, no matter how much they try to emulate the successful models, just can’t achieve that level of notoriety. This is a sort of nebulous aspect about multiplayer games, a “soul” for lack of a better term. Which games have it, and which games don’t?

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I’m not a big sports game guy buy any means, but Fight Night Round 4 is something of an obsession amongst my friends and I. Before a big night, we like to kick back with a few brews and a couple rounds of boxing that somehow end up taking half the night away. We even created near perfect facsimiles of ourselves in the game, and there’s something cathartic about beating your friends into submission (I imagine the same is true for them walloping me). Since Fight Night is a such a big hit with us, it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to imagine that we’re eagerly anticipating Fight Night Champion which releases March 1. There’s a new trailer out explaining the new Stamina system and the streamlined Corner Game. Check it!

Fight Night Round 4 was suprisingly addictive, and I imagine Champion will absorb many a night when it gets released. Anyone picking this up?

It’s kind of hard not to be amazed by what people are capable of. LittleBigPlanet 2 is still only in beta and yet more and more amazing videos keep coming out. Take this newest video for instance, which recreates Marvel vs. Capcom 3, managing to edge Capcom’s release date by a few months.

The dynamic camera movements are a nice new feature, as is the obviously over-dramatic voice recorded to announce the fight’s beginning. What really impressed me were the special moves that were on display, such as a missile and bomb projectiles. Also, a demo for LBP 2 will hit the PSN Store tomorrow and while it likely will just be a Story mode-based demo without any of the building tools, I am still anxious to get my grubby hands on it.

What do you think? What games are you looking to make using this handy new dev kit? I would love to see some RPGs, myself. Is anyone going to download the demo tomorrow? Speak!

I’ll admit that I’m anticipating The Force Unleashed 2 despite my current misgivings with Star Wars, but let’s face it: George Lucas’ eminent sci-fi franchise will continue to hold a special place in my heart despite all the attempts he makes at destroying my childhood.

The Force Unleashed is one of the few things in the last couple of years that I’ve enjoyed about Star Wars (except for the Republic Commando books), so a sequel is just what the doctor ordered. Despite the fact that I played it at PAX 2010 and liked it a lot, some people (Anthony) were worried about the lack of gameplay being shown in the trailers. Well, take a look at the launch trailer for The Force Unleashed 2 and let your fears be put to rest:

No too shabby if I do say so myself. October is kind of a ruinous month, considering that every Tuesday from here on out delivers a must-play game. Medal of Honor is next week, followed by Fallout: New Vegas then The Force Unleashed. It will be tricky to manage all these games, but how are you guys going about it? Is TFU2 a day-one purchase or are you saving it for the upcoming slump?

Being a nerd and a dude that both writes and studies numbers for my job, I suppose you could say I like statistics. While any marketing company can spin you a tale about how their games are being played online every day, it’s numbers that tell the true story, and without any of the other word garbage.

If you have the Nintendo Channel downloaded on your Wii, Nintendo has made a great deal of data available including charts and graphs and other fancy things to show fans which of their games average the most play time per user. This data is pulled from users who share their data with Nintendo via the Wii, and it figures out what users play and for how long. Each month, Kotaku pulls these 20 most loved Wii games for nerds like you and I to take a gander at.

This month’s edition of the statistics reveal a few interesting things, including the fact that Super Smash Bros (which averages 78 hours of play time per user) has been de-throned from the number one spot. You might be wondering which game would take down such a lofty title, one that formed some of the most fun I had on the Wii in my short time of owning one. Hit the jump to see the full list!

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I think Spider-Man may rank in first place for having the most alternate dimension spin-offs. You have Spider-Man 2099, Ultimate, Manga, India, 1602, Reign; the list goes on and on. Despite the fact that there’s dozens of Spider-Men to draw inspiration from for a game, we’ve generally stuck to the same old Peter Parker with a few exceptions (such as last gen’s Ultimate Spider-Man). Franchise new-comer Beenox decided to tap into the rich tapestry of Spidey’s history and bring together four different version of the web-slinger-Amazing, Noir, 2099 and Ultimate-for a cross-dimensions web-fest. With four different play styles and multiple possibilities, how well does Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions do in delivering the definitive Spider-Man game?

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Batman: Arkham Asylum was probably the biggest surprise of 2009 next to Wolverine. A big-budget super-hero game that actually captured the feeling of being Batman and was a blast to play? Almost unheard of in the video game industry, but developers Rocksteady pulled it off. Of course, a big success means sequels, and Arkham Asylum is no exception. Originally teased last year at Spike’s Video Game Awards show, the follow-up to AA will take place in Arkham City, a “heavily fortified” district in the heart of Gotham. Presumably this means more gargoyles to hang on.

Besides being in a different locale, Arkham City will feature a new cast of villains like Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, and Catwoman. Nothing much has been announced for the upcoming title, but Rocksteady promises this game will “deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.”

I think we can all agree that Arkham Asylum was fun, but there were things that needed to be improved about it, most notably the poorly designed boss fights. Almost every single boss encounter in that game was gimmicky or totally out of context (Scarecrow being the notable exception). What do you guys want to see from this bat-sequel? The game is dropping on PC, PS3 and the 360 in Autumn of 2011.

Source: CVG

By Internet standards, this news is a couple of days old, so by now it’s practically ancient history. However, that hasn’t stopped people from talking incessantly about this brand new Mortal Kombat short film that made its debut on the tubes and swelled to mythical proportions in just hours.

Here’s the rundown: it’s a gritty, well made depiction of the Mortal Kombat universe with some excellent production values behind it. No, it’s not a trailer for a new game, nor a trailer for a new movie. It is, however, a brief proof-of-concept that director Kevin Tancharoen made to pitch to Warner Bros., in the hopes of getting a new movie produced.

While I’m not quite as enthralled as the rest of the Web seems to be over this, it’s still pretty damn entertaining, and would make a great opening to a potential new Mortal Kombat film. If this guy gets picked to bring the next one of these to life, then sign me up.

If there are two demographics that are always open to crossovers, it’s comic book nerds and video game geeks. Honestly, growing up, if I saw that Batman and Spider-Man were appearing in the same book, I would pick that junk up post-haste. Same thing with video games. Super Smash Bros Brawl is probably one of my favorite party-fighters of all time simply because it allows you to play as either Sonic or Solid Snake.

Naturally, I’m a huge fan of Capcom’s crossover fighter series featuring the mighty Marvel heroes. Even though I routinely get my butt handed to me whenever I try to play it, I just can’t deny that having Ryu on the same team as Wolverine is incredibly awesome.

What do you guys think of the trailer? Very stylish, and there’s plenty of tantalizing silhouettes for us to puzzle over. I think I see Deadpool in one of the backgrounds. Anyways, what do you guys think? Excited for this game to drop next Spring? What combatants do you want to see slug it out?

Ah, the Wii. No other console in the history of gaming has done more to both bring together and tear apart the masses. While it is introducing a whole new generation of people to the joys of our hobby, the reception to Nintendo’s little white juggernaut by the enthusiast gamers has been nothing short of underwhelming.

Last year’s MadWorld, a black-and-white blood bath death match by Bayonetta creators Platinum Games, is a great example of the divide between the game’s target audience and the people who actually own a Wii. No one knows this better than Mike Hayes, President and COO of SEGA Europe, who recently commented that putting MadWorld on the Wii was a bit of a “mismatch”. He went on to elaborate why he thought that, in hindsight, MadWorld should have been a 360, PC or PS3 title.

“Clearly that was a mismatch with the Wii audience — particularly in terms of the amount of cross-ownership between Wii and the other home platforms. If you’re going to play a mature-rated game, you’re going to get your 360, PC or PS3 out to do so. But you can’t knock us for having a go.”

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Hey, did you know that Capcom put a version of Street Fighter IV on the iPhone? I didn’t, but it certainly is an interesting idea to say the least. Check out the video below:

The port looks like it captures the game unique art style, and it seems to run pretty well. The control style is mapped onto the surface of the phone via touch controls that emulate a classic controller set up. What do you guys think? Pretty sharp for an iPhone adaption, eh?