Awesome Radical Gaming

The NPD group has released their sales numbers for November…so, I guess we should start with the bad news first. The PS2 is still outselling the PS3…embarrassing! To make matters worse, the PSP, PS2, and PS3 sales combined are less then the DS. The good news, the DS sold 1.53 million units and the Wii and 360 didn’t do bad, either. The totally monthly sales were $2.63 billion dollars, which is insane (and up %50 from last year).

The numbers are after the link.
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Ok, I need help. There are a ton of PS2 RPG’s I haven’t played and I am now the proud owner of a $100 gift certificate to Best Buy. With said gift certificate I want to get some PS2 games. PS2 games are getting cheaper and cheaper, and I figure now is a good time to buy before they’re all gone.

So, basically, if anyone is reading this that has played any of these RPG’s, which would you recommend and which would you stay away from?
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In a recent forum post a Blizzard community representative (Drysc) “confirmed” a new MMO from Blizzard.

No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO.

And that doesn’t mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.

I’m not sure it’s really an announcement when a community representative mentions it on a web board, but it’s still something. I mean, I know they are working on stuff other then Starcraft II and WoW expansions, I’m just saying I don’t feel like it’s official, yet. I’m thinking the two most obvious choices are a “World of Starcraft”, which would be totally awesome, or a “World of Diablo”, which would be equally awesome. I love Starcraft and I love Diablo, so I can’t lose here.

Atlus announced their newest North American release today, Baroque. It’s a dungeon-crawling RPG for both the Wii and PS2 (the PS2 is still totally “in”). They go on to describe the game as being dark, challenging, and totally immersive. Sounds like fun and I’m glad to see the Wii is getting in on the action.

Baroque originally came out in Japan on the Sega Saturn, way back in 1998. There was also a Playstation prequel, Baroque Syndrome, in 2000. I wonder why it took them so long to bring it to North America?

An interesting feature in Baroque…dying seems to be a good thing. Each time you die, you learn more information about the game world. It sounds like a glorified “Game Over” screen, but we’ll have to see.

Check out the official site here, where you can find a nice little trailer (the music is totally radical). Baroque is slated for a February 2008 release. The full press release after the link…
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Pokémon USA’s president Akira Chiba announced yesterday that he will be resigning from his position at the end of the year in order to pursue other opportunities. I guess I’d be pretty sick of Pokemon after that long, too. Chiba joined Pokémon USA, Inc in 2002.

Chiba will be replaced by Kenji Okubo, the current executive vice president, on January 1, 2008. Okubo will be in charge of all Pokémon efforts outside of Japan. This includes the Pokémon Trading Card Game, television series and North American and European licensing agreements.

I don’t really care, honestly, but I’m trying to be positive 100% of the time so no one can disagree with me. So, instead, I’ll say “Great job, team.”
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That’s for the U.S. alone, and maybe that does seem that huge, but apparently that’s one DS sold every five seconds. I love my DS, so I can totally understand the appeal. I would think the biggest selling point for the system are the games, the DS has so many titles that appeal to a broad audience.

“There’s no letup in sight,” says George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications.

Well done Nintendo…well done. The whole press release follows:
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Well, this list isn’t too shocking. World of Warcraft tops the PC list, probably because it’s totally awesome (maybe even too awesome). The Sims is still holding on though, with the number two spot. I don’t think I’ll ever forget playing that game for the first time…long story.

The PS2 is still dominating the console list (42%), I think at this point everyone should own two PS2, or you’re just not cool. I guess the only interesting part is that both the Gamecube and Xbox outperform their next-gen counterparts. How does that work with the Wii? I thought for sure the Wii would be beating the Gamecube at this point…seems strange. Click here to see the complete list…
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Sure, I don’t own a PS3 yet, but it still hurts just the same. LittleBigPlanet seems like it will be a really fun game and I was interested to see and hear more about it. Unfortunately, the demo won’t be a available before sometime next year…oh well. Here’s the official quote:

“I can officially confirm that there won’t be a demo this year,” Ron Eagle, senior manager of PR for Sony Computer Entertainment America told me. But he did say he’s played 30 of the games 50 planned developer-made levels and that it’s a lot of fun. He seemed genuinely pleased about his time with the game, but his company won’t be showing more “LBP” at least until next month. Eagle could only add that the full game is set for a 2008 release.

Hopefully the demo will hit in early 2008.

Three new maps are available for purchase today (the map Standoff is shown in the video above). The pack costs 800 points…I’m not really sure if I’m ready to drop money on three maps…I’ll have to speak to Gmoney, I’m sure he has them already some how.

Anyway, here’s the details:

Standoff’s symmetrical valley, with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types, while Rat’s Nest’s vast, labyrinthine passages bring something new to the “Halo” multiplayer experience: an indoor vehicle paradise, strongly influenced by the Campaign mode, ideal for big team battles. Finally, Foundry is the ultimate Forge map - players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, place stairways, walls, bridges and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map they can think of.

I made this post a couple of days, showing a trailer for Patapon. I really liked how it looked and the game play seemed pretty interesting. Well, Sony announced a North American release date for the game (Feb 2008) today which is totally radical. It also details some game play mechanics I was unsure about. The press release talks about how “drumbeats are used to command the Patapons to march, retreat, attack, and defend”, which clarifies that you can enter a series of commands, instead of being prompted by the game to enter specific commands. Here’s the whole press release:
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