Labeling a Metroid warning as a Half-Life headcrab is a crime punishable by Metroid attack. Epic Fail. Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Joystiq hands-on: Skate 2
Joyswag: Samsung 22" widescreen LCD monitor
Law of the Game on Joystiq: Trademark infringement? Not like-wii
The Joystiq Free Game Club: Tap Tap Revenge
New games this month: August 2008

News
New games this week: Books edition
OFLC rates R-Type Dimensions for Xbox 360
Wild West Guns fire onto WiiWare
Virtual Console update adds speed and gore, lacks swords
Uncharted Trophies discovered in Europe, US
Dem-o-rama: Alone in the Dark, Wall•E samples on 360
Thailand's GTA IV distributor pulls game following murder
Iwata: Nintendo may slow down the new peripheral parade
Burnout Paradise 'Cagney' update rolls onto Xbox 360
This Wednesday: Braid makes timely arrival on XBLA
See what you're doing wrong with Geometry Wars' 3D camera
2K reveals some PS3 BioShock Trophies; Survivor mode still a mystery
Next TF2 update may feature 'new type of environment'
Saints Row 2 controversy concerns, graphics keeping it off Wii
Midway bleeds another $34.8 million in Q2
Obvious: Next Team Ico game will be 'really, really good'
Free Battlefield: Bad Company Conquest mode hits Thursday
See the Mirror's Edge demo recreated in Portal

Rumors & Speculation
Rumorang: 360 Arcade dropping to $199 on Sept. 7

Take a look at this recreation of 16-bit Samus Aran "made entirely of stone mosaic blocks which were hand-nipped to form a several hundred pixel depiction," according to the Flickr page. Now let's see how we can use mosaic blocks to recreate Metroid Prime-era Samus ... now that'd be an accomplishment (Thanks, Corey) Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Metareview -- Haze (PS3)
Readers pick best webcomic: Lego my statue
Tycho Brahe weighs in On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness
Wii Fanboy Weekly: May 15 - May 21

News
New Project Origin video compares, gushes blood
GameFly launches GamePie social network application for Facebook
Dragon Quest IV DS remake coming September 16
Sony announces Madden NFL 09 PSP bundle
New Lost Odyssey DLC to be found on Friday
Fallout 3 pre-orders come with soundtrack CD
Niko's voice earned about $100,000 from GTA IV
Midway shows off Superman in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Guitar Hero: World Tour trailer promises 'most realistic drums,' other stuff
Shane Kim: First console to 100 million wins
Killzone 2 delay a 'pure management decision'
James Cameron: Ubisoft's 'Avatar' game is in 3D
Guitar Hero: World Tour's new axe spotted in trailer
See Tekken film stars in costume
GameTap welcomes back Interplay, adding more Take-Two
Infinite Undiscovery releasing worldwide on Sept. 2
Itagaki: Ninja Gaiden Sigma is 'no good'
Battlefield: Bad Company demo arriving June 5 ... for some
New MGS4 screens sneak out
Capcom profits in FY07, wants into Chinese online market
Oh BTW, Square Enix has 'lineup' of Xbox 360 titles
New 'scream' shots of Silent Hill: Homecoming
Warriors Orochi ships over 1.5 million, sequel announced
'Count Castlevania' still not whipped up about Wii

Culture & Community
Cliff Bleszinski is done being CliffyB
A DIY Mario Kart Wii training wheel

Shacknews reports that several "key" employees of Austin, Texas-based developer, Retro Studios, have left the company. The studio is best known for its work on the critically acclaimed Metroid Prime trilogy, which concluded in August last year on Nintendo's Wii.

Staff members said to have been escorted off the premises last Friday include design director Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller and principal technology engineer Jack Matthews. There's no word yet on what their futures entail, but Shacknews notes that Retro Studios is in no danger of closing. Which is just as well, really, since we're in no danger of not wanting more games from them. We'll let you know when we hear more on this subject.

Update: There's some unconfirmed gossip from mysterious dealer in rumors, Surfer Girl, who mentioned that "something definitely went down at Retro" in a post dated Sunday, April 20th. An unnamed individual is quoted in the post as saying, "Pretty much no one at retro would agree to relocate at nintendo's behest, as asinine shenanigans are typically met with little fanfare."

Oh, Samus, did you lose all of your suit's abilities again? Is that why you're running around in Unreal Tournament III, picking fights with Master Chief? Wait, is your lawyer okay with this? Does he think all this modding magic is "great?"

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

This week on Ask Joystiq, we tackle Smash Bros Brawl's quirky saving preferences, universal disdain for Metroid II, the Smash Bros Brawl theme song, and the hunt for a classic Apple II platformer.

If you have any burning questions, unsolved gaming mysteries, or just a desire for musings from our knowledgeable cadre of writers, drop us a line at ask AAT joystiq DAWT com (and yes, we write it that way for a reason).

Q: If you haven't noticed by now, you cannot save your [Super Smash Bros. Brawl] game save to an SD card. However, you can save Vault data (Replays, Snapshots, and Custom Maps) to an external SD card. What gives?
-Andy

We asked Nintendo the same thing and got a predictable no comment, but we expect the answer has something to do with forcing players to unlock the game's myriad characters, stages, trophies and stickers on their own. This seems a little overbearing to us, though ... what does Nintendo care if we want to just unlock everything outright? This isn't like Xbox Live, where cheaters get an unfair advantage on the Gamerscore boards -- with SSBB, the only person a cheater is cheating is themselves.

Metroid II: Return of Samus often gets a bad rap from Nintendo fans for being the "worst" of the early Metroid games. We're happy, however, that some still regard it as a seminal part of the Metroid timeline. In the spirit of Metroid: Zero Mission, one intrepid fan has been building a full remake of the classic Game Boy title, and so far we're impressed with what we've seen.

Using Game Maker 7, DoctorM64 has been lovingly recreating planet SR-388 using graphics from Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion. He's even gone the extra mile and recreated many of the original Game Boy enemy sprites in full color. The project has been in development for three years, but has recently ramped up, with a newly released gameplay trailer (seen above), and a fully playable tech demo.

We're looking forward to seeing more of this project, and hoping that Nintendo doesn't swoop in and do what they do best. The PC-only tech demo is available on the project's blog, but check out a video of the tech demo in action after the break.

The above video demonstrates the true extent of Metroid fandom. This guy didn't just re-skin an arcade cabinet with fanart. He built the damn thing himself, and even included an illuminated Mother Brain behind a plexiglass window. That's dedication.

Unfortunately, the video's not really the best presentation of the unit, but we can't complain. Sure, it's overly dramatic, and moodily lit, and it has way too many quick cuts for us to really ogle the finer details, but this dude built a Metroid-themed arcade cabinet. What else matters?

We don't know the origin, only that we got sent this via friend of a friend (thanks, Sam and Matt) and that it touched us both as a Metroid reference and as an adorable cat. Not a lolcat, though -- it'd have to read something more like "morf boll akqwird." Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Readers pick best webcomic: Marketing 101
The Joystiq Guide to PSP Themes
Today's most traumatic video: Trauma Center: New Blood teaser

News
Quake Wars demo now available
Unreal Tournament 3 gets 'no guarantee' of Nov. release from Epic
Guitar Hero III coming to Mac and PC this fall
PSP gets firmware 3.70
Namco Bandai site shows Eternal Sonata and Beautiful Katamari coming to PS3
Uncharted coming to PS3 on November 20
Study: M rated games have higher scores, better sales
Igarashi favors Xbox 360 for next Castlevania
Ratchet & Clank PS3 demo on Oct 4
Capcom stock hits five-year high, boosted by Wii
PS3 named best 'media center' by European org.
Guitar Hero II DLC goes multi-platinum
Pre-purchase Orange Box on Steam, play TF2 beta next week
E-mail phishers targeting Xbox Live accounts
Sega bringing Crack Down and ESWAT to Virtual Console
The Engineer tells his tale in Team Fortress 2 trailer
Tom Morello to appear as Guitar Hero III boss
Sierra talks risk and new IPs

Rumors & Speculation
Purported copy of Halo 3 sells on eBay
Rumor: Ninja Gaiden 2 images leaked on Xbox Japan site
Rumor: Halo movie script leaked
Overheard: New Blizzard project codenamed Hydra
'Brutally Fun' countdown could signal 'Brutal Legend'

Culture & Community
COD4 dev becomes most popular gamertag
Is the PS3 above the average consumer's 'price ceiling'?
HBO acquires Second Life documentary
Halo 3 launch events in US and free Xbox Live Gold
Japanese arcade game driving beetle extinction

Remember those in-game references from Metroid Prime 3 hinting at the rumored 2D Metroid Dread's near-completion status? Turns out the joke's on us.

Speaking to CVG, Nintendo has confirmed that the company "is not making the 2D Metroid at this point in time." Metroid Dread for DS showed up on a Nintendo pre-E3 list in 2005 but never materialized after that. The wording does leave room for a three-dimensional title, but instead of getting our hopes up, we're just going to call this one dead.

Check out this awesome Samus Aran figurine being modeled by IGN forum user red3183 (via The Wiicast). If he stopped now, we'd still sit this high on our shelf of nerdy paraphernalia. Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Readers pick best webcomic: To Catch a Predator

News
PS3 gets firmware 1.92
Quake Wars demo due this month
Call of Duty 4 devs 'going after' Halo 3
SCi/Eidos admits takeover talks
Reminder: Gears of War maps now free
Veterans protest America's Army
33% of UK game stores in 'financial danger'
Kane and Lynch movie gets fast-tracked
Forty PS3 titles to be playable at TGS
Finally: Master P and Seth Green team for RPG
Mercenaries 2 slips to '08 -- happy delay
Xbox 360 HD DVD getting Euro price cut
Harvey Birdman gets on Wii's case Nov. 13
Wii Guitar Hero III gets no online initially
Motorstorm gets patched to 2.0
Sony raising money for PlayStation division with insurance unit IPO
Uncharted sidekick gets a dye job
WSJ: Sony prepping plunge into video download service
Nintendo trademarks Body Controller, others

Rumors & Speculation
Analysts believe 80GB to go $499 this year

Culture & Community
Survey: British (male) gamers not peeved by in-game ads
Heavenly Sword animated series: Part V

The Variety review of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption just goes to show the ramifications Nintendo's message that the Wii is a casual system can cause a title like Metroid. Just forget the debate if Nintendo abandoned hardcore gamers, or gamers abandoned Nintendo, for just a little bit. Like we went over in Joystiq podcast #14, whoever did what to whom, the two are currently experiencing what professionals might call "marital issues." The thing this review by Variety showed is that a mainstream publication notices something wrong with a non-casual title on a perceived casual system. Variety ends the first paragraph of the review saying, "Ultimately, gamers looking for a well paced, thrill-a-minute shooter with a compelling narrative are going to be disappointed. 'Halo' this ain't."

The Variety review has some kind words for the game, but it seems so clearly written with the realization that the marketing of the Wii console as a casual system doesn't click with this game. Another scathing point they make is Metroid is more "tedious than epic," they say the boss battles are "exhaustive affairs requiring dedication, patience, and most importantly, a familiarity with the vocabulary of videogames: double jumping, circle strafing, shooting weak points for massive damage, etc. Those who previously used the Wii only for party games will need a 13 year-old boy to explain it all." Whether this analysis is right or wrong isn't the point, 10 million people may own a Wii, but how many of those people actually move beyond the casual titles or would purchase a game like Metroid? The Wii was sold on casual fun, Metroid is not -- to an outside consumer -- a Wii title.

Despite being unofficially canned in November 2005, Metroid Dread, the rumored 2D-throwback project for DS, is back on the radar. New evidence has been uncovered by IGN (and other privileged Metroid Prime 3 reviewers) while scanning a certain panel found mid-game in this week's Wii release. Using Samus's scan visor, the message reads:

"Experiment status report update: Metroid project 'Dread' is nearing the final stages of completion."

Is Dread back from the dead? Maybe -- or perhaps MP3 developer Retro is just pulling an insider's gag. It's time for Nintendo to fess up.

GameTrailers finishes off their Metroid retrospective by quickly going over the retelling of the original Metroid in Zero Mission and then setting up the chronology of the series. From Metroid (Zero Mission) to Metroid Fusion, they go over the 10 games, which have sold over 13 million units and bundle up the series in a nice morph ball

Although the games bounce back and forth in the Metroid timeline, it's nice to know that there's an actual cohesive story in there compared to the debatable Legend of Zelda timeline. And now we look forward to this week when we finally get our hands on Corruption. Samus will be playable again in the near future with Smash Bros. Brawl, but we'll have to wait and see if the next full Metroid game takes place after Fusion, or if Nintendo squeezes another chapter out of the Prime series.

I spent a few delightful minutes at the Nintendo booth playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and displaying my poor sense of direction to a crowd of onlookers. I got just enough playtime to test out the controls (I didn't need to beat the game or anything!) I can safely say that after about five seconds of fantastically awkward movement, I felt not only comfortable playing the game, but, like with Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, I was enjoying just messing around.

The controls are exactly the same in normal or expert mode, with the exception of Wiimote sensitivity. Expert mode is way more sensitive, and requires much subtler movements. It also enables quicker motion. Looking around and turning with the Wiimote was awkward at first, but it immediately clicked and I was ready to run and jump around. Shooting, of course, is mapped to A, and jumping to B, so there was no problem there. Z on the Nunchuk locks on, and C activates the morph ball. Down on the D-pad shoots missiles. All of these worked well and intuitively. The only exception is scanning: I never quite got it, but it basically involved holding Z, moving the Wiimote to point at an area in the corner of the screen, then holding Z again. It's the only part that I can honestly say takes getting used to.

The best part of the controls is easily the grapple beam, which involves targeting a grapple point and making a lasso motion with the Nunchuk, then pulling back. Once I started doing that unconsciously, I felt pretty cool (I wasn't.) It seems that Nintendo has finally found a "hardcore" equivalent to Wii Sports: if not in popularity, at least in deriving actual enjoyment from the basic control scheme.

Oh, and, in case you were wondering, the game looks hot, especially on those big fancy screens Nintendo was using at their demo stations. We should all get some of those.