Last week, we had a mammoth of a game release with Devil May Cry 4. It's not going to be any different this time around, with the much-awaited Lost Odyssey by Mistwalker finally making its US debut. Other noteworthy games in this batch are Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts, RPG Maker VX, and a slew of other titles. Hit the full article for the rest of the list.

* Article originally posted Feb 11, 2008 at 01:12AM

It's been a while since we last heard about the Castlevania movie, and now we get news of the ambitious project being postponed due to an ongoing writer's guild strike. Will this game-to-movie adaptation ever see the light of day, or has it been killed outright with a stake to the heart and silver bullets to the spleen? Check out the entire scoop in the full article.

Back in October, Paul W.S. Anderson shared that production for the long-planned Castlevania movie adaptation will soon go full swing. Prior to all this, it was believed that the story of the Castlevania movie project will revolve around a knight from Transylvania hiding from the Turkish Army in Dracula's castle.

Well, you can all forget about that as the official plot of the movie has just been revealed. The plot after the jump!

Wired Life managed to snag a short interview with games producer Hironobu Sakaguchi during the Lost Odyssey E3 2007 presentation. The Final Fantasy creator talked about some particulars about his Mistwalker Studio's latest opus, Lost Odyssey, as well as the direction his well-renowned Final Fantasy series is taking in its quest to conquer next-gen consoles. Wired asked Sakaguchi about what made Lost Odyssey different from Blue Dragon, another one of his projects. He answered,

The world is different -- in Blue Dragon the characters are designed by [Akira] Toriyama, so the style is adjusted to his work. In this one, it's designed by [Takehiko] Inoue, so the taste is more realistic and the story itself is deeper and heavier. And the theme is more humanistic.

Sakaguchi also delves into the reason why he chose to adapt a turn-based game engine on a next-gen console game, where he can put to use the more spontaneous and modern real-time based battle system.

There are pros and cons for both sides, whether it's turn-based or action-oriented video games. For this theme and this design, turn-based is better than action-oriented, so I chose that. I'm trying to evolve turn-based games to the next generation.

Judging by the whole slew of trailers out for Lost Odyssey, Sakaguchi was right in making the action for Lost Odyssey turn-based. With its old school game system mixed with such deliciously rich HD graphics, Mistwalker's newest title is sure to draw a following from both veteran and newer players alike.

One of the more interesting highlights in the interview, however, is Sakaguchi's off-hand mention of the possibility that Yoshitaka Amano, the first Final Fantasy character designer (and still designing all Final Fantasy logos) will work alongside Sakaguchi and his game designing company, Mistwalker.

You may recall seeing a medieval-style art in the earlier Final Fantasy titles, such as Final Fantasy VI. Those are drawn by Yoshitaka Amano, who also created the ethereal Vampire Hunter D.

It will be quite interesting to see an FF installment featuring Amano's uniquely medieval designs in the future, and it's a good thing that it may become more than a possibility. Stay tuned here at QJ as we get more updates!

Read the full interview in the Read link!

Two new gameplay videos (as well as a downpour of screenshots) of Vampire Rain headed for you in this new batch of eye candy fresh for Xbox 360 owners. We get you the skinny on what's to look forward to the third-person shooter that has everyone talking.

The first video shows a brief moment of frantic multiplayer action - so frantic, that the player dies within four seconds. It's that fast, and no doubt it's going to be a race to see who frags the other player first if it's anything to go by in terms of multiplayer. The second video is a tad longer, letting us look into the scope of a sniper rifle used to pick off targets from afar. It's to note that the HUD is thankfully non-obtrusive and minimized, and from the ease of the kills, using the sniper rifle will be pretty much a breeze (good thing for those of us who easily get motion-sick while aiming).

A third-person stealth shooter with supernatural vampire horror? We thought we'd never see the day, but Artoon's Vampire Rain for the 360 looks like it could satisfy those of us who want a dash of horror in their espionage games. More updates about Vampire Rain as soon as we get them. In the meantime, enjoy the screenshots and the videos!

The boxshots and the two videos after the jump!

Just like marriage, gaming is all about timing. In this case, after the confirmation comes a date for the deed, right? Well, that's what we found on GameSpot recently with regard to the much-awaited Project Sylpheed game, as well as Vampire Rain.

In this case, Microsoft announced that Project Sylpheed and Vampire Rain are now scheduled for a summer release date in America. There's no word on an actual release date for the summer, but knowing it's just a few months away does give us all time to save up some cash for these two new video games.

For those who haven't heard of the two games. Project Sylpheed is an update of the arcade shooter known as Silpheed, while Vampire Rain is a new stealth-based shooter, focusing on the exploits of a vampire hunter as he shoots his way through swaths of vampiric monstrosities.

What's meaner than things that go bump in the night? Easy: vampire slayers that make those things go bump in the first place, that's what. And throughout Konami's Castlevania series, no one gave a better name to vampire slaying than Alucard and Richter Belmont did in Symphony of the Night. Buffy sure didn't know jack about vampire slaying than these two guys. And as tribute to the duo (as well as a tribute to the game's Xbox Live version), here are two vids featuring Alucard's Vengeance and Belmont's rage.

The game is already available on the Marketplace as we speak: 800 MS Points, with a little less than 100MB under its belt. See Belmont kick some undead booty behind the Full Article below!

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is now the biggest game expo around since E3, so it's a norm to see new developers and new games cropping up from every corner. Black Point Studios is one of them and they featured Chronicles of Cohen: Nails in the Coffin.

Checking from the trailer, the game is still in development (work in progress). The GDC video shows a short clip of the game's opening (those are some heavy duty boots). The video also has some renders of the game's characters, including the hero, the bartender, and some ugly zombies. The hero then shows some pretty colorful ways of getting rid of the uglies. It does have a Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossed with Night of the Living Dead feel to it. Whether it's a Resident Evil type of game is yet to be seen, though this far in development and it feels like the hero's Blade crossed with the cast of From Dusk til Dawn.

There hasn't been any info regarding Chronicles of Cohen: Nails in the Coffin so far, so keep checking back. In the meantime, check out the video below. Enjoy!

Yes, we know, a lot of people either hate or love Famitsu review scores, so we'll just show you a list of the games, the scores that go with the game, and leave the commentary up to you folks.

Here are the latest Famitsu review scores, oh, and guess who's on top.

Blue Dragon (Xbox 360, Microsoft): 10 / 9 / 9 / 9 - (37/40)
Phantasy Star Universe (Xbox 360, Sega): 8 / 8 / 7 / 7 - (30/40)
Need For Speed Carbon (Xbox 360, EA): 8 / 8 / 8 / 7 - (31/40)
Madden NFL 07 (Xbox 360, EA): 6 / 8 / 6 / 7 - (27/40)
Viva Pinata (Xbox 360, Microsoft): 7 / 8 / 8 / 7 - (30/40)
Vampire’s Rain (Xbox 360, AQ Interactive): 9 / 7 / 7 / 7 - (30/40)
WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2007 (Xbox 360, THQ): 8 / 7 / 7 / 7 - (29/40)

As expected, Blue Dragon gets top scores. This blogger would like to say something pretentious right now, but no commentary, remember? Okay, okay, we couldn't help ourselves, Look at the scores for NFS Carbon and Vampire's Rain, despite those games being decidedly "western," it's comforting that they still got relatively decent scores.

The business of driving back the ghouls of the underworld has always been a gritty one. Never thought it'd be one that Jonathan Harker would get into, though. Jonathan who? If you remember your Vampire Lit 101 lessons, he is the fiancee of Mina Murray, the woman who would be seduced by Count Dracula in the story... and this writer remembered him as a sissy. Then again, this is what he gets for watching Mel Brook's Dracula rather than Bram Stoker's original.

Anyway, 1UP had a bunch of screenshots and concept art, and a GameVideos video trailer for Harker, Foundation 9 and the Collective's definitely-not-sissy undead-killing title for the Xbox 360 (where we first had the preview), the PS3, and the Wii. And as these visually demonstrate, there are a thousand ways to maim, skin, disable, torch, neutralize, eliminate, and otherwise kill ugly vampires.

And the moral of the story? Never, ever, try to hit on the guy's girlfriend. Even if you are Nosferatu himself/itself. You'll just die full of holes, or worse. (Video below is a YouTube upload of GameVideos' trailer)

Harker is due to rise in 2008.

Screenshots and concept art after the stake - er, jump.