At the conclusion of Game Connect: Asia Pacific, the Game Developer's Association of Australia awarded the best game developers from Australia and New Zealand.

As Medieval II took home the most awards last year, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (DS, PSP) swept up this year's awards with five awards, including Best Game.

Game designer Justin Cook and software engineer James Thomas expressed their thoughts about Rare and the Viva Piñata franchise in a recent interview. According to them, they wanted to blaze a new trail on the Xbox 360, and Viva Piñata was the fruit of that desire. Despite the risk of the game being overshadowed by Gears of War, Rare went ahead and did the best job they could, and it shows.

Thomas and Cook also mentioned that a DS version of Viva Piñata is due for release sometime in the future. Both men were particularly pleased with the DS version, and they mentioned that the modified game menu systems fit well with the stylus and the touch screen system. The result? Added accuracy and flexibility to an already wonderful game.

A sequel entitled Viva Piñata: Party Animals is also scheduled for release on October 30, 2007. Rare has passed the development torch to Krome for this installment, as the former is busy with a new hush-hush project. There appears to be a good working relationship between the two developers; Cook and Thomas said that both Rare and Krome are pretty much on the same team. In fact, Krome has been sending courtesy test versions of the sequel to Rare as a professional courtesy, and from what they've seen, both Cook and Thomas think that Krome has done a pretty good job so far.

One question that's probably on everyone's minds is: Can and will Rare revisit old favorites like Killer Instinct, in spite of the fact that Rare is now Microsoft-owned? That is certainly a possibility, as Rare Ltd. is still on good terms with Nintendo. While Nintendo has the option of releasing certain old titles for their Wii's Virtual Console, Cook and Thomas stated that certain titles remain entirely theirs (Banjo-Kazooie, for instance). In fact, Nintendo has actually asked them to do ports of games for Nintendo's format, a testament to the quality of Rare's titles.

To read up on the rest of the Rare interview, feel free to visit the read link below.

(Editor's Note: We're cooking up something specially hot for you guys with our weekly QuickJump QuickPeek! Some of you may have already noticed that this current issue - the 13th issue, no less! - has rolled out early! Why? It's because we're gearing up for a QuickJump QuickPeek TGS 2007 Special Edition once the festivities are done! So while we wait for that, we're giving you this Early Edition that focuses on other news that have cropped up during the week!)

It's Tokyo Game Show week! And even though it's the 13th issue of QuickJump QuickPeek, it's anything but riddled with bad luck! This "Early Edition" will be focusing on the non-TGS updates that have surfaced through the week, because really, the TGS might be one heck of a show stopper on its own (that's why it's getting its own QuickPeek Edition all to itself), but the days building up to the trade show saw a couple of astounding news as well. Almost every gaming platform has had some rather leaky business to deal with, and we're not letting the taps run dry.

Grab your pirate accent and sing your favorite shanty; there are more reasons to celebrate than just Talk Like a Pirate Day! Yaaarrr!

Click the Full Article link below for to read this week's Issue!

*Article originally posted Sep 21, 2007 at 02:28PM

Fans of the Right Hand of Doom heads up! We've got some new cool assets for Hellboy (PS3, 360, PSP) courtesy of developer Krome Studios and publisher Konami. Take note that the artwork are for all platforms while the screenshots are exclusive for the PlayStation 3.

Anyway, Hellboy is very much based on the movie, unlike the other video game Hellboy: Asylum Seeker that was released on the original PlayStation (PSOne) and Games for Windows (PC) platforms by Cryo Interactive. After all, movie director Guillermo del Toro is very much involved in the new title.

Aside from having Hellboy himself beating up the bad guys with his big stone hand or gun Samaritan, fans will also get some action from other characters like Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien. If you want to know more, you can always check out our previous reports or QJ.Net's exclusive interview with game producer Paul Armatta.

Hellboy will be released on all platforms sometime in Q3 2007.

See more artwork after the jump! Click on the Full Article link below.

For somebody who takes things that go bump in the night seriously, Hellboy sure knows how to "bump back". We've got a new trailer for Krome Studios' Hellboy, and you know it's not going to be pretty.

In this new trailer, our favorite red hellspawn shows us what he does best - flattening everything in sight. We also see a bit of action from Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien. We see some pretty - err, a variety of monsters and we can't help but feel sorry for them. Nobody wants to be at the business end of Hellboy's Right Hand of Doom or his gun the Samaritan for that matter.

Anyway, we'll quit babbling so you can enjoy the vid.