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Japanese hardware sales, January 30 - February 5: Love song edition


We talk a lot of trash about Valentine's Day because it's hilarious and easy, but in all honesty, there's nothing wrong with two people using the greeting-card holiday as an excuse to express their love for each other. To make up for our maliciousness, we want to help facilitate that lovin' by providing some nice background music for your romantic evening.

Start off the night with the acoustic cover of Skrillex's Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites by Bear Cavalry embedded above. Once things get a little cozy, follow that up with this piano version of Intuition by Feist, and when the moment is right, throw on Glory Box by Portishead to shift the mood into overdrive. Leave that on repeat for as long as necessary, and then bring things back down with Bjork's All Is Full of Love. Now, get a room you two!

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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: QUBE Adventures

Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Klaus Silveira stretches our imaginations with a slingshottable, lovable cube named Qube, in the iOS title QUBE Adventures.

What's your game called and what's it about?

QUBE Adventures is a simple physics game that has QUBE, a small rubber cube with an intriguing wish for adventure, as the protagonist. The main objective of the game is to help QUBE get through the doors of the world beyond the clouds by throwing him around dozens of platforms, jumpers and more.

What inspired you to make QUBE Adventures?

I always enjoyed physics-based games and the gameplay possibilities that physics provides. As an indie game developer, I wanted to create a game that had an interesting mechanic, with addicting gameplay. I came up with QUBE, which reinvents the slingshot mechanic and mixes it with traditional platforming elements. It's meant to be a difficult game, easy to pick up yet impossible to master. I always disliked casual games and how they build their relation with the player: praising his small acts, congratulating the player for nothing, being a boring flatterer. I wanted to create a relationship just like old NES games did: put the player on his knees, make him beg.

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GTA 4 mod iCEnhancer 2.0 out now, like a car wash for your graphics



The famous iCEnhancer mod for Grand Theft Auto 4 has reached its biggest full number yet with the release of 2.0. The above video shows off its beautifying features -- the bugs are from Rockstar's video editor and won't appear in the mod, creator Ice La Glace says -- and a "natural" version of 2.0 is set to drop any day now.

Download iCEnhancer 2.0 from Ice's website by clicking the farthest-right icon (the one that looks like a "download" arrow, surprisingly) and enjoy the shininess of GTA 4 all over again.

MMO Week in Review: Rolling in piles of money

WoW Trading Card Game Art by Philip Tan
At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post.

Haters jeered this week as seven-year-old World of Warcraft dropped another 1% of its playerbase, but Blizzard had the last laugh, as the game is still the largest subscription game in the West and the company is still making money hand over fist, something that will likely only continue once Battle.net Balance is thriving and Diablo III has launched this spring.

Haha, just kidding -- we all know Diablo III is never coming out.

Enjoy the rest of the week's top MMO stories past the break!

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Retailers think Gravity Rush is out on May 29

We've been under the impression that Gravity Rush was slated to reorient our Newtonian perspectives sometime during the Vita launch window, but Amazon and Gamestop disagree, listing the title's release date as May 29, which is quite a ways away from the Vita's February 22 launch.

We called a local Gamestop to confirm the listing, and an employee informed us that Gravity Rush has a "ship date" of May 30 in their system, which lines up just about right. It's entirely possible that the end of May is within Sony's definition of the Vita's release window, but we won't know what's the dealio really-o until Sony elaborates on the game's "TBD" release date.

Skulls of the Shogun starts strategizing this fall

Skulls of the Shogun has been teasing us with cartoonish, captivating strategy since 2010, and as its previous release window of "early 2012" is rapidly passing us by, we can finally take heart in some solid news. Developer Haunted Temple Studios says it's "pretty confident" that Skulls of the Shogun will launch on XBLA in the fall.

Haunted Temple has been busy adding "a couple very cool features" and "a new platform," it says in response to a fan's inquiry on Facebook, and we can expect an official announcement with more information in the coming weeks.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is today's Steam Daily Deal

Sunday's Steam Daily Deal makes perfect sense to us -- at the end of the weekend, we often find ourselves wishing for the power to control time, to perhaps make the day a little longer, or start it all over again, or to reverse it to that one wonderful spring afternoon in 1995. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is therefore the ideal game to get lost in right now, especially since it's 66 percent off (just $1.69) on Steam for the rest of the day, however long you decide that is.

TopWare games takes 50 percent, a load off on GoG

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon, so stay in your pajamas, grab a mug of coffee and curl up in front of your computer with the final run of Good Old Games' weekend deal on TopWare titles. The TopWare Mix is half off until tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. EDT and includes Two Worlds, Jagged Alliance 2: Wildfire, Jack Orlando: A Cinematic Adventure, the Earth series and more. Check out the full lineup right here, but hey, take your time. It is the day of rest, after all.

We'd give nearly anything for this tiny Mass Effect to be real

The latest thing on our "List of Things That Don't Exist That Totally Should Exist" comes from Deviant Art user Pyroxene, whose 3D modeling skills have produced the adorable miniature Mass Effect scene seen above. It's like Jim Henson's Mass Effect Babies, or Poy Poy: Cerberus Edition, and we love it unconditionally.

Pyroxene originally set out to create three characters, but apparently the fun of chibi-fying some of gaming's most beloved characters is a little hard to let go of. Hit the source link for a high-resolution shot of the scene, as well as close ups of the individual models, their wire frames and the impressively compact textures used.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing sequel striking stores this sholiday season

Sega plans to release a sequel to 2010's Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, the kart racing game originally made for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and DS, at the end of this year, Kotaku reports. The New York Toy Fair outed the sequel with a display of new toys (At a toy fair? Surely not.), and an attendant confirmed its development. New characters and vehicles will be announced later this year, Kotaku says, some time before the holidays, we assume.

New Warp gameplay trailer totally explodes some dudes

Warp will be the first title released during the 2012 XBLA House Party that starts this Wednesday, and from the looks of this latest gameplay trailer, it seems as though your 800 Microsoft Points will net you a lot of adorableness, as well as an unquenchable thirst for exploded human bodies. ... continue reading.

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup has some helpful tips

As you're all well aware, Valentine's Day is on Tuesday. If you weren't aware, don't panic: We've got some helpful tips for how to make the day a memorable experience, regardless of your relationship status. For instance! If you've got a significant other, head down to the grocery store and buy small square pretzels, Hershey's Hugs and Valentine's Day-themed M&M's. Stack the Hugs on top of the pretzels and the M&M's on top of the Hugs, and then place the stacks into an oven set to low heat until the M&M's melt into the tops of the Hugs. Refrigerate over night, and by morning you'll have a delicious homemade treat for your SO.

If you're single, go ahead buy the pretzels, Hugs and M&M's, but don't bother with any of the other steps. After all, who are you trying to impress? Shove modest handfuls of all three ingredients into your face until the pain in your heart is masked by a sugary layer of processed regret. Alternatively, you can check out our favorite webcomics from this week and vote for your favorites after the break.

Another Rescue (Brawl in the Family)
Le Chat Avec Le Chapeau (Penny Arcade)
Voice (Nerf Now!!)
School of Hard Rocks (Life in Aggro)
Was Something Else Happening Today? (GameOver Nation)
I don't expect you to wait for me -- (Magical Game Time)
Codes for Calories (The Gamer Cat)

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Glimpse Street Fighter X Tekken's premise in these character prologue trailers

The best part of any cross-over fighting game like Street Fighter X Tekken is the contrived, often-hilarious excuse of a plot used to unite two franchises under the same roof. Judging from these 6 prologue videos, however, SFxT may have the least ridiculous concept ever seen in a cross-over ... continue reading.

Codemasters giving Dirt 3 a Complete Edition

Codemasters has announced that it's releasing a "Complete Edition" of Dirt 3, due out sometime this March for Windows, Xbox 360, and the PS3. The $39.99 release will include the full game, 12 new tracks in two different new locations and lots of new cars and liveries to play around with.

The two new tracks run through the snowy mountain roads of the Alps and some urban streets in Shibuya, Tokyo, and the new cars include the BMW M3 Rally, the Ford Escort Mk II and the Mini Cooper S Gymkhana, in addition to a slew of others. You can see a few shots of the game below, and read the entire press release after the break.

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PSA: Venus Patrol exclusives released to Kickstarter supporters

If you donated $25 or more to the Venus Patrol Kickstarter fundraiser back in September of last year, check your email: Gun Godz, the retro hip-hop FPS developed by Vlambeer of Super Crate Box fame, and Capsule, the "minimalist sci-fi/survival-horror" title from Canabalt's Adam Atomic are both waiting for you.

As we found out late last year, Capsule's heavily stylized visual aesthetic and atmospheric, claustrophobic sound design are best enjoyed while wearing headphones in a darkened room, as are Gun Godz's Wolfenstein 3D-inspired graphics and Doseone-infused hip-hop soundtrack.

Unreal Engine 4 to be seen 'later this year,' says Mark Rein

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Epic's Mark Rein did some hit-and-run teasing at DICE last week, telling G4 that "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4 and how much more profound an effect it will have." We've heard before that Epic is working hard on Unreal Engine 4, and while Epic doesn't expect to see games running on the engine until 2014, it makes a lot of sense that Rein would want to show it off, especially if we also see some next-gen console reveals later on this year.

As for what it'll look like, we can only say (and sorry for all of the technical jargon on this one) that it will probably look "very good." How do we know? Because 4 is higher than 3, silly. You probably wouldn't understand.

New shipment of Radiant Historia en route

It's funny how good news for JRPG fans is also often bad news for eBay moguls. Radiant Historia, a DS-exclusive time-travel JPRG from Atlus (which routinely auctions for $60 plus) is being reprinted and redistributed in North America, although this reprint will not include the soundtrack bundled with the original run.

Pre-orders are starting to pop up at various retailers, and Atlus is urging interested parties to take advantage of the opportunity before the new batch hits store shelves in late March. Considering that Atlus has not released specifics regarding how limited of a reprint this is, if limited at all, we recommend erring on the side of caution (and a $35.00 price tag) rather than taking your chances on an uncertain, seller-feedback-oriented future.

Namco Bandai profits up in Q3 2012, as are year-end projections

Namco Bandai's financial statement for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 has been released, and while the report contains a lot of tables and numbers and figures, it actually has very few pictures, which was a problem for our exceedingly limited attention spans. We did our best, though, and after concentrating really hard and taking our Adult ADD medication, we were able to produce actual, honest-to-goodness business information.

For instance! For the 9 month period ending on December 31, 2011, Namco Bandai reports a net income (which is the amount of earned money left over after all operating expenses and taxes) of ¥16.3 billion, or about $210 million, which is a 34.3 percent increase over the same period last year.

The company predicts an additional ¥2.19 billion ($28.3 million) in net income over the course of Q4, (which runs from January 1 to March 31, 2012), wrapping up fiscal 2012 to the tune of ¥18.5 billion ($238.4 million) in net profit over the course of the fiscal year. Provided these predictions stand the test of time, Namco Bandai's performance in fiscal 2012 will be a 90 percent increase over its performance in fiscal 2011.

Whew! Now if you'll excuse us, we have cat videos to watch.

Nintendo launches Rhythm Heaven Fever with a party at iam8bit

Los Angeles' iam8bit gallery played host to Nintendo last night, as the two companies launched Rhythm Heaven Fever with a full scale party. There were plenty of demos of the game on display, live painting by artists Yoskay Yamamoto and Mari Inukai, a live DJ spinning tunes, and a few photo booths where players could dress up and pose, or even dance for a video running on Nintendo's own site.

The event was a lot of fun, and you can pretend you were able to be there by browsing through the gallery below. iam8bit always does a great job with these events, and co-founder Jon Gibson promised us there's lots more on the way: He's currently working hard on the leetUP event that iam8bit is co-hosting at the beginning of next month, and says VIP tickets for that one have sold out already. We'll be in attendance, so stay tuned for more.

Beat Hazard Ultra now on iOS


Beat Hazard Ultra, the procedurally generated twin-stick shooter by 1-man indie powerhouse Cold Beam Games, is now available as a Universal App for iOS devices. As with the PSN, XBLA and Steam versions, Beat Hazard Ultra uses music stored on your device to generate its levels. The game can also use streaming radio apps as its musical muse, a feature which is unique to this version.

Beat Hazard Ultra supports Game Center leader boards and achievements, although the PSN version's online multiplayer fails to make the jump to iOS. Between Survival, Boss Rush and Chill Out modes, though, it certainly sounds like you'll get your dollar's worth out of the title, which happens to be the app's limited introductory price.

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