Worried about news that Capcom's Bionic Commando Rearmed was getting patched with Trophy support as well as new difficulty levels on PlayStation Network, with no mention at all of an Xbox Live Arcade patch? We feared the worst and asked Capcom to set us straight. A spokesperson told us, "Yes yes of course, same new Easier modes on both platforms." There you have it!

Eleven days ago Capcom's John Diamonon assured us that the patch (at least on PSN) "should be available real soon"; however, as of today, neither patch has appeared. We'll go ahead and assume the new release date is "really really soon."

Well, Capcom has proven that if you complain loudly enough, it will listen. After deciding against a Trophy patch for Bionic Commando Rearmed, fans offered "brutally constructive" feedback that made the company reconsider. In addition to Trophies, the upcoming patch will offer a few new features, such as a new "Normal" difficulty that grants players unlimited lives and the ability to respawn at the last checkpoint. The Super Joe Machine Gun has also been fixed, and the weapon will become more powerful across all difficulties.

The patch is currently in QA and "should be available real soon." The patch should hopefully end the "Crapcom" comments that plague PS3 sites ever since DMC4 went multiplatform.

Major Nelson received accurate information this week indicating that the Xbox "deal of the week" would be Bionic Commando Rearmed for 400 ($5). A small reminder: to take advantage of the deal, you must have an Xbox Live gold membership, otherwise it'll show as the standard 800 ($10).

It's also worth noting that the Metacritic average for BCR is an 85, while the super new and flashy Bionic Commando is 70. Which one is getting five of your dollars?

Major Nelson notes that this week's Xbox "deal of the week" (which actually lives up to its name, for once) is Bionic Commando Rearmed for 400 ($5). That's less than what you'll spend at the McDonalds drive-thru -- and a whole lot healthier.

The only thing diminishing our fanfare of this deal is that the PSN already dropped the BCR price last week. Either way, the price is something worth jumping for joy over. Sorry, Radd. Too soon for jumping jokes?

Update: The Major was apparently given misinformation. BCR is still $5 on PS3's PSN.

Capcom Unity has announced on its Twitter account that the excellent Bionic Commando Rearmed has received a price cut on the US Playstation Store. Specifically, the once $10 game is now available for only $4.99. If you haven't taken the plunge on the beautifully revamped remake, there's no time like the present.

After all, it's not like you get to explode the head of a resurrected World War 2 dictator every day. And, even if you did, it wouldn't be this cheap.

Stockholm, Sweden-based Grin, developer of last year's superb downloadable title Bionic Commando: Rearmed, recently told Develop magazine that while XBLA and PSN give smaller developers a chance to get just as much exposure as the largest publishers, the process of actually getting a game onto them can be daunting.

Grin CEO Bo Andersson expressed, "It's really nice that, whoever you are, you can get the same sort of attention [on XBLA and PSN]. I don't think the big publishers can muscle their way in for more exposure on the platform; it's a level playing field. That promotes quality." His brother Ulf, the company's creative director, admited that actually getting onto that field can be tricky.

"It's still much easier to make digital games on the PC than it is with XBLA and PSN. With the consoles' online platforms, Sony and Microsoft have their own rules and regulations to follow, and you have to have a pretty robust [bug testing] session to get your game out there," he said. "That's something which smaller independent developers run into." Sounds like Sony's Pub Fund could be quite useful for bringing on the extra bug-squashing muscle.

If you've got seven friends who don't mind changing their Xbox Live mottos to "Bionic Commando = RAD" you could win a Bionic Commando lunch box and 64,000 MS points for you and your buddies to split. Each of you will also get a code to download Bionic Commando Rearmed, if you're among the lucky chosen ones.

But we're not helping you. Seriously, we don't care if you're coming up on the May 13th deadline and you just need one more. The answer is no.

... OK, maybe. But we want the lunchbox.

Nordic Game 2009 is fast approaching and, like you, we're gearing up by listening to loads of ABBA, driving Volvos and wearing nothing but H&M clothing. That's all they do over there, right? Anyway, with the conference comes the obligatory awards show, though this one comes with a uniquely nordic theme. While über nordic games like LasseMajas and Englekræsj show up on the list, EA DICE-developed Mirror's Edge and Funcom-developed Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures are duking it out for two major awards: Artistic Achievement and Best Nordic Game.

We can't speak to the ... ahem ... games we've never heard of running against Mirror's Edge and Age of Conan, but retro remake Bionic Commando: Rearmed is also competing for the Best Nordic Game award, while Watchmen: The End is Nigh takes on the two for Artistic Achievement. The awards are set to be a veritable smörgåsbord of gaming, if you will. (Those are Swedish, right?)

[Via Edge]

In a rather exhaustive postmortem of Bionic Commando: Rearmed on Gamasutra, Capcom producer Ben Judd shared his opinion that excluding online play from Rearmed was "the right choice." Said Judd, "After seeing the large amount of headaches, additional production time and cost that comes with adding online, I'm glad we made the choice not to include it." He noted that many digitally distributed games are plagued with online problems and that "additional sales would not have been equivalent to the additional pains" needed to add online play to the game.

While we certainly have to agree that digitally distributed games have their share of online problems -- something any XBLA user can tell you -- we can't help but imagine the glories online play could have brought to Bionic Commando: Rearmed. At least we'll still be able to swing online in the upcoming 3D remake.

This year has brought us a slew of incredible Xbox Live Arcade titles so whittling the list down to five contenders is a difficult task. In the end the top honors went to the five titles we felt delivered on all promises made and showcased greatness, even through their shortcomings.

Read more about these five nominees:
A Kingdom for Keflings
Bionic Commando Rearmed
Braid
Geometry Wars 2
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Voting closes at 12:01am on December 30, 2008. Results will be revealed on December 30, 2008.

As games have evolved, so too has the role of storytelling in the titles we play. As we turn the corner on 2008, we asked multiple industry personalities across all walks of game development on titles such as Dragon Age: Origins, Bionic Commando and Guild Wars for their thoughts.

While narrative has taken on a larger role, time and again we end up being left unsatisfied in the final moments with endings that fail to wrap up stories in interesting or compelling ways. In our continuing week-long feature, we asked our diverse collection of industry personalities why so many endings in the games we play leave us cold.

As games have evolved, so too has the role of storytelling in the titles we play. As we turn the corner on 2008, we asked multiple industry personalities across all walks of game development on titles such as Dragon Age: Origins, Bionic Commando and Guild Wars for their thoughts.

How important are stories? How about endings? Over the next week this diverse group of personalities sounds off on these and other story-driven topics, starting today as we open up by asking whether or not narrative shares an equal burden as gameplay in carrying the video game experience.