The cast of LEGO Final Fantasy VII ... only Cloud is seriously lacking in the spikey hair department and Red XIII is nowhere to be found. Check out the highlights for this weekend:

Joystiquery
The Best of Big Download: July 20-26
Costumes of Comic-Con 08: Days 1 and 2
DS Fanboy Lite: July 19 - July 25
Japanese hardware sales, July 14 - July 20: Turn-based edition
Joystiq Podcast 058 - Merchant-off edition
WRUP: The Warehouse Edition
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup gets a Reality Check

News
Guitar Hero III 'Virtuoso Track Pack' now available
England, Wales prisoners lose access to 18-rated games
See first posters, date for Max Payne flick
Unlock the Uncharted Trophies beginning Aug. 22 ... or not
Marc and Dexter: Ecko making iPhone-only slasher
PlayStation 2 travels through time to kill children
Rock Band Weekly: Staind, Testament, Scars on Broadway, The New No 2
Super Street Fighter II HD beta gets time extension
Tera Patrick 'hired' as 'special' 'producer' on Saint's Row 2
Gears of War movie development soldiers on
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe adds a killing Joker
Bungie working on 'three distinct projects'
Peter Moore calls E3 'soulless,' calls for public event
Point your single oversized eyeball at this Resident Evil: Degeneration trailer
Wheelman pumps brakes, delayed until Q1 2009
EA Sports working on fixes for NCAA Football 2009 bugs
Microsoft's Frank O'Connor hints at 'HaloCon', comments on 'Bungiegate'
Warhammer Online launches Sept 23, says EA website
Cryptic Studios job listing reveals Star Trek Online
Toasty! Midway announces Mortal Kombat: Kollection for PS2
Gears of War 2 content unlocked by original Gears achievements, $130 Lancer bundle coming
Too Human demo classes unlock over time, internal clock shift makes them all available
Check out the star-studded Afro Samurai trailer
The NSFAmerica Dead Space 'Lullaby' trailer

Rumors & Speculation
Rumorong: Activision, Red Octane call shenanigans on World Tour set list
Rumor: Ratner to turn God of War film into geek tragedy
Rumor: Vader DLC bringing dark side to Xbox 360 Soul Calibur IV
Rumor: New Marvel vs. Capcom game may be coming 'sooner than you think'

Culture & Community
Rigopulos on why air drumming doesn't work

Square Enix is releasing a Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII PSP bundle for Europe to coincide with its June 20 release. The bundle includes a PSP Slim with the above art and a copy of the game for 189,90 Euros (US $293.43). According to Amazon France, if you bought a PSP Slim (169,20 Euros) and Crisis Core (36,99 Euros) separately, it'd cost you 20,70 Euros (US $32) more, so it's definitely a good deal to pick up the bundle (assuming, of course, you don't already have a PSP).

Fun fact: When the title finally reaches Europe, it will have been over 9 months since the Japanese launch and 3 months since the North American debut.

After enjoying Amazon's Xbox 360 deals yesterday, it is with much dismay that we report the online retailer is throwing yet another wallet-busting offer our way, this time for our oft-neglected Sony PSP. The very awesome (if you don't believe us, ask the podcast) Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is today's Gold Box deal, down from $40 to $26. Unlike yesterday's lightning deals, though, you have all day to order a copy. If tomorrow brings another video game bundle, we may very well go broke. Oh, Amazon, why do you curse our bank accounts so!

Remember back in the late '90s, when Square was so frustrated trying to fit their opus Final Fantasy VII onto the cartridge-based Nintendo 64 that they made their famous defection to Sony? Well, just a short decade later, China's Shenzhen Nanjing Technology Co, Ltd has apparently done what Square couldn't, squeezing the PlayStation epic onto a cartridge. And not just any cartridge .. a Famicom cartridge. How's it feel to be shown up, Square?

Of course, the conversion isn't perfect. According to a write-up from intrepid blogger CinnamonPirate (who unearthed the 2MB ROM from a Chinese blog) the polygonal graphics and cut scenes are gone, replaced with an impressively wide array of sprites, many stolen from other Final Fantasy games. The story remains surprisingly authentic, though, encompassing the entire three-disc epic while only leaving out a few optional side stories (bye bye, Yuffie and Vincent). The wide array of weapons, magic and materia from the original is a bit restricted in the port, but frankly, we're impressed that features like materia-leveling made it on to the 20+ year old hardware in any form.

The company behind the cart is apparently now primarily makes MP3 players, so our hopes for a Colecovision version of Final Fantasy XII will probably remain unfulfilled.

You only have to wait another two months or so, until March 25th, when Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII will grace the UMD trays of many a US PSP owner. Will the return trip to Midgar push PSP scales skyward, like it did in Japan? Will Zack's hair ever be truly competitive with Cloud's? Will you still cry, even though you know Aeris doesn't die this time? The above CGI clip released today won't answer any of these questions for you, we just wanted to share it with you.

Care to see just how useful the new Sony firmware update can be for the retro gamer on the go? GameVideos tested out the new Remote Play feature for PlayStation One games, specifically the target of so many remake requests, Final Fantasy VII.

Check out the video after the break, and hope for a time when a PlayStation 3 firmware updates allows for streaming PS2 play.

Square's big budget fan service film, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, is heading to Blu-ray and it's going to provide much more than an HD transfer. A new trailer showcased at TGS shows a few new scenes that expand upon the film's storyline. One scene took place in the alleys of Midgar as children afflicted with Geostigma appear to be melting goo. Another sequence shows Sephiroth stabbing Cloud through the chest, skewering him and swinging him like a piece of dead meat. Not only will the updated Blu-ray disc feature new scenes, but new special features that were cut from the original DVD will find their way into the collection, thanks to the spacious capacity of the HD movie format.

But that's not what has us most excited. The fight scenes from the film have been completely re-rendered with a feature we've long waited for: dirt. The always-fashionable Cloud and company will have perfect clothes no more! They'll have to invest in even stronger hair gel to survive the battles that they face. The press release explains it best: "Clothing that gradually dirties through intense combat, faces that darken with soot from explosions, and motorbikes pockmarked with gunshots - the Complete edition brings a grittier, dirtier look to the film's nonstop action."

The now-Incomplete edition will now be too clean for the Square Enix hardcore. The added sheen of the HD transfer will only accentuate the dirty details that Square has deemed necessary to include in this re-release. Of course, we can't wait for the next 2160p "Really Complete Edition" which will add even more wrinkles to the character's clothes and subtle acne on their backs.