The BioShock 2 special edition includes the game's score not just on physical media, but on an impressive vinyl record. However, if you want to hear the BioShock 2 soundtrack but don't want to be saddled with any tiresome tangible items, there's an option for you too.

GameTunes reports that the soundtrack, composed by Garry Schyman, will be released digitally through both the iTunes Music Store and Amazon's MP3 store. No price or release date have been mentioned yet. There are currently no plans for a CD version, so it's either a huge disc or no disc!

[Via Big Download]

Stickmen Studios, creator of WiiWare's Dragon Master Spell Caster, announced its next game today. Kung Fu Funk is a multiplayer party game, also for WiiWare, with a martial arts theme.

In a series of "1970's styled funky Kung Fu mini-games" (like catching flies with chopsticks, most closely associated with 1984's The Karate Kid), players will use the Wiimote to train themselves in "ancient 70's moves" before testing their comedy kung fu abilities in a "disco dojo showdown." It's all your favorite kung fu movie stereotypes translated into Wii minigames -- and set to Carl Douglas's 1974 hit "Kung Fu Fighting." Also, according to the press release, singing yaks figure into the game somehow!

Here's where it gets interesting: Kung Fu Funk somehow integrates research from Industrial Research Limited on upper body mobility, seemingly with the goal of teaching you some kind of actual motions. Or something!

In a recent legal battle fought in the Dallas courts, casual game publisher MumboJumbo was awarded $4.6 million in "damages" from ... casual game publisher PopCap Games? Really! According to a press release announcing MumboJumbo's win, the two companies entered into a publishing agreement in 2006 "whereby MumboJumbo would produce, distribute and sell certain PopCap games in North America." Following the trial, a Dallas jury "agreed that PopCap breached the contract when it went behind MumboJumbo's back and decided to market and sell its games on its own."

When we contacted PopCap for comment, a representative told us: "PopCap continues to believe that it did nothing wrong in this case, and will vigorously pursue its claims and defend itself through the appeals process." That said, given the basis of the jury's verdict (again, according the MumboJumbo's press release) is allegedly based on "PopCap's own internal e-mail messages, which showed the company employed a calculated use of false and misleading statements," we're not exactly sure how well the appeals process will go.

Ghoul Patrol is the sequel to Zombies Ate My Neighbors, built on the same engine and very much feeling the same. This time around, the game plays a little slower: the controls seem a little clunkier (I have to shoot my gun before I can start dashing?) and the environments are bigger and present far too many dead-ends ... literally. Still, it's a potent formula and on the whole, the game is great fun, even if it's not as endearing as Neighbors. Check it out in the latest VC in Brief episode above!

• Ghoul Patrol (SNES, 1 -2 players, 800 Wii Points)

Since it was first revealed back in 2007, there really hasn't been a lot of information released about Funcom's upcoming MMO The Secret World. We've learned a bit about its factions, enjoyed a handful of screenshots and watched a couple of nifty trailers (embedded after the break, for your convenience). Now, Funcom has opened a website for one of the game's locations, a sleepy New England town (yes, another one) by the name of Kingsmouth. The website is designed as though it were made by an actual chamber of commerce, including plenty of low resolution photos and awkwardly placed Google ads. According to Joystiq's sister site Massively, the site is also full of references to H.P. Lovecraft, which seems appropriate given the otherworldly nature of the game.

There is what appears to be a handful of screenshots in the site's gallery section, and the news section also mentions planning for "Kingsmouth Day 2010," which is set to go down on Saturday, April 3. Whether or not anything will actually happen on that day is anyone's guess.

Continue Reading

This is it folks. 150 episodes of the Xbox 360 Fancast are now in the can, and that's not counting the many special episodes we recorded for events like E3 or the X3F TV video podcasts like XBLA in Brief. That's a lot of episodes. To celebrate, we brought on one of our biggest fans, a man who also happens to be responsible for our fantastic podcast artwork. That's right, it's none other than Chris Majewski, better known to Xbox Live as Magic Whiskey.

As it happens, he's also responsible for some horrifying depictions of X3F's Richard and Alexander, both of which you can view after the break. We're not sure if they're safe for work or not, honestly. You'll just have to make that decision on your own.

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (MP3).
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in Zune Marketplace (MP3).
[RSS MP3] Add the Xbox 360 Fanboy Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Hosts: Richard Mitchell (SenseiRAM), Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander), Xav de Matos (Snypz) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad)

Guest: Chris Majewski (Magic Whiskey)

Produced by Richard Mitchell

Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta. Break: "Please Visit Your National Parks" by Oxford Collapse.

For fans: Xbox 360 Fancast Facebook group

Continue Reading

Here's a nifty app that's almost guaranteed not to make its way to America. x-Radar Portable released stealthily on the Japanese PlayStation Store yesterday for free. The app can detect a user's location and display a map with nearby points of interest. Users can take advantage of the PSP GPS accessory for the most accurate results, but PSPs only equipped with wi-fi access will still be able to use the service. PlaceEngine can determine your location via wi-fi, or you can manually input a train station to see what's nearby.

While most cell phones are equipped with similar services, x-Radar adds a few game-like attributes to make it distinctly PlayStation. For example, users will be able collect spots throughout the country and build a collection to share with friends. Like foursquare, the service will reward you as you discover new places, and you'll even be able to level up an avatar. It's certainly worth a look, provided you live in the land of the rising sun.

We hate to pick sides, but we think we've already settled on a favorite competitor of the two Doritos Unlock Xbox finalists. See if you can detect which one.

• Jill Robertson's "Avatar Crash Course": Maneuver your Avatar through a zany obstacle course.
• Justin Carpenter's "Harm's Way": It's just like your favorite racing game, except oh shit there are snipers shooting at you.

Both finalists will work with a dev team to turn their idea into reality before being judged by the community, but we frankly don't see the point. The visceral thrill of racing combined with the heart-pounding exhilaration of knowing someone's trying to shoot your gas tank? Watch out, Gran Turismo! ... Actually, watch out, everybody ... you know, because of all the snipers.

Maybe this is why Dragon Quest games haven't caught on in America like they have in Japan. Square Enix is promoting the DS remake of Dragon Quest VI the same way it did for IV and V: with a wonderfully goofy commercial featuring actors dressed up as hilarious semi-realistic versions of the game's Akira Toriyama characters. This ad totally fills us with nostalgia for a childhood that we didn't actually spend playing this game!

Check out the new ad after the break. Dragon Quest VI will be out in Japan this week, with a Western release to follow at some unspecified later date.

Continue Reading

We love the trend of adventure classics that maybe didn't get their due the first time around coming to iPhone, so we're excited to see it continuing this morning with the release of Broken Sword: The Director's Cut to the App Store. Not only does the Revolution Software release feature new art by Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, it's also around 20 percent longer than the original.

But Joystiq, is it possible that all this could be available for just $6.99? Indeed it is, little guy. Indeed it is.

Here were are again, folks, for another edition of "Turn a Tweet Into a Full Post." This time we've got word from the always exciting Twitter feed of Geoff Keighley that this week's episode of GameTrailers TV will reveal the fourth game from Japanese developer Platinum Games. So far, after inking a publishing deal with Sega in 2008 for four games, all we've heard of the mysterious fourth title is that it will be headed up by Resident Evil designer Shinji Mikami.

Considering the somewhat confusing wording of Keighley's tweet, we asked the man himself to clarify what we're going to see on Thursday evening. "It's an exclusive reveal trailer for the game inside the show this week. The news breaks during GTTV on Thursday night. We're really excited to have the Japanese developers/publishers working with us on reveals like this." He also pointed out that this countdown on Platinum Games' Japanese website has been counting down towards Thursday's reveal -- aha! For all the steaming hot scoops, you'll have to peep the show when it airs this Thursday evening/Friday morning at 12:30AM ET.

Spike TV's Video Game Awards show isn't simply about celebrating the best of the games industry. No, it plays host to numerous WORLD EXCLUSIVE trailers. But, just how many people tuned in to watch? According to a report by Variety's The Cut Scene, not too many: Roughly 647,000 viewers watched the broadcast in 2009, a 5-percent decrease from 2008's viewership, and a 30-percent decrease from 2007's. When accounting for DVR views, the total jumps to 691,000 viewers. (For comparison's sake, the most recent Golden Globe awards drew in 16.9 million viewers.)

The online numbers (via GameTrailers.com) should make it pretty clear what Spike TV is doing right -- and what it's doing wrong. The scene pictured above, featuring Mike Tyson and the cast of The Jersey Shore, got a paltry 16,000 views. The Halo: Reach trailer, on the other hand, got 584,000. Perhaps if the Video Game Awards focused on, y'know, video games, there would be more reason to stay tuned in.

While we Americans are forced to spend our layovers trying not to get chosen for random cavity searches, folks who end up with some free time at Hong Kong International Airport are given a much more pleasant distraction. According to travel news site The Moodie Report, HKIA now plays host to more than a dozen PS3 "game poles," which give visitors a chance to check out a number of the platform's biggest titles, like Final Fantasy XIII and Uncharted 2. Sounds like a pretty neat idea -- we're just glad Modern Warfare 2 isn't one of the featured games. That'd be ... uncomfortable.

[Via Kotaku]

This week's Nintendo Channel update is light on the content. There's the obligatory fresh episode of Nintendo Week (this week's episode is about marshmallows and marketing games on Nintendo platforms), but, outside of that, it's just a bunch of info videos for this week's NintendoWare Weekly offerings and some new, brief teasers for No More Heroes 2. Head past the break for a breakdown of this week's content.

Continue Reading

Listen, we're pretty sure we're only going to need two things to complete our first playthrough of Just Cause 2: A hookshot and an arm on which to attach it. Still, we admit that the bonus equipment that the game's pre-orderers will have access to looks pretty intriguing: A skull-emblazoned parachute? An outrageously powerful handgun? A hovering deathtank? Yes, please. (Check out the trailer above to see these bonuses in action.)

Even if you're vehemently opposed to pre-ordering a game, you need to watch this trailer, if only for the last 20 seconds. It's a real -- wait for it -- drag.

Halfbrick has uploaded a slew of new screens for its upcoming XBLA puzzle-platformer, The Raskulls, to the game's official site. There hasn't been much on the title yet, save for a brief trailer showing some gameplay and thoughts on the game from its art lead during our interview with Halfbrick, but these new shots show the game is coming along nicely. We have yet to get our hands on it, but if the recent trailer is any indication, it looks like a frenetic, friendship-endangering good time. Hit up the gallery below for the new screens.

PS3-owning billiards fans have something to look forward to this week. This Thursday's PSN update will feature Hustle Kings, a PSN-exclusive game promising "real pool, real physics" and "the real hustle with real balls." With all this talk about being "real," we won't be surprised if this game eventually gets patched with PlayStation Motion Controller support.

Sporting the standard $9.99 price tag, the surprisingly good-looking game also includes YouTube support to upload your best shots, in-game XMB music control, and online multiplayer. Check out the trailer after the break.

Continue Reading

WarioWare DIY's simplified game design interface, used to create five-second microgames in the style of previous WarioWares, seems a lot simpler in these screenshots, mostly because it's now in English and we can read it. Quite helpful, that.

And now that we can see it, it looks like an extremely user-friendly, but still complicated, programming language presented as if it's plain English. The game guides you through the creation of animation and sound, and then the development of the in-game actions and conditions. And with those tools, you can create the five-second DS microgame of your dreams!