Beyond some crappy scans and lots of speculation, real info on the WiiWare return of Mega Man has been scant. Well, GamesRadar just opened the flood gates with its exclusive, proper reveal of Mega Man 9, featuring a hands-on by Nintendo editor Brett Elston and an interview with series creator (and MM9 producer) Keiji Inafune.

Elston reports that Mega Man 9 is ... well, it's essentially an NES game – just as difficult as the original 8-bit installments of the famed series. "Mega Man 9 is easily on par or above the hardest games in the series," Elston says, adding: "Hell, we played for two hours and only made it to three bosses, and even then only beat two." Read on after the break for more new info.

Ben Heckendorn, a total techno whiz and contributor to Engadget, has completed his latest custom handheld ... this time cramming an Atari 7800 into something you can carry around with you. (It's no PSP slim, but hey.)

Heck's 7800 portable combines a 7-inch LCD screen with some notable goodies, including video out, rechargeable batteries, and a paddle controller (in addition to the basic D-Pad). As usual, Heck made the thing just to prove he could. His past creations cover a wide variety of gaming "dream tech," including a portable SNES, "PS360" controller, and a Wii "laptop." He's also the brains behind the Access Controller, a commercially available one-handed pad for PS2, PS3, and PC. The fella is crazy creative – give a look-see to his body of work!

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."

My surprise of the week: Space Invaders Extreme. I played a few rounds at the Nintendo Media Summit since there was no line for the lonely kiosk. (Its PR handlers had even abandoned it, working double-duty at the Crystal Chronicles station across the room.) But as soon as I began tapping the buttons, I was hooked; this update borrows the basic idea of Space Invaders and remixes it into a wild, fast-paced shooter.

Like the classic, enemy ships make formations above you, raining shots down the screen. Otherwise, nearly everything else has been squeezed, twisted, and stretched into a modern game. The transition deserves comparison to our lauded Pac-Man Championship Edition, but I haven't yet decided if its as elegant an update. Regardless, an update is an update, and Space Invaders Extreme betters nearly every other current shooter.

So, you think your classic gaming collection is pretty complete, huh? You think your unopened Vectrex and mint-condition Fairchild Channel F make you a true collector, do ya? Trust us, your collection means nothing unless and until you own your own Entex Adventure Vision.

Released for about two seconds back in 1982 (only about 10,000 were produced), the LED-based tabletop system is currently being sold on eBay complete with all four available games for a "Buy it Now" price of $5500. Amazingly, the auction has been up for nearly three days with no buyers, seemingly showing that people would rather put a down payment on a car than play a monochrome, 150x40 resolution version of Defender. There's no accounting for taste, we suppose ...

[Thanks, Steven R.]

While the game press and developers have largely moved on to the latest and greatest, the game players are apparently still stuck in the past to a large extent. Nielsen Media Research's recently released lists of 2007 consumer trends (PDF link) shows that 42.2 percent of console gaming minutes nationwide are spent on the PlayStation 2. In fact, more than twice as many minutes are spent playing the PS2 as are spent on all the current-generation systems combined. It's not just Sony's super-ubiquitous system that's still has legs, either -- the lowly Xbox and GameCube still combine for 21 percent of the country's gameplay minutes.

Perhaps this isn't that surprising, given the relatively large installed bases and libraries the older systems enjoy over their current-gen brethren. What's more surprising, though, is the 17.1 percent of console time spent on "other" consoles that pre-date the PS2. What's causing this relative popularity of retro gaming ? Are frat house's still having nightly Goldeneye tournaments? Are speed-running Super Mario Bros. players more prevalent than we thought? Do today's kids enjoy marathon sessions of Parappa the Rapper? Without more detailed data, it's impossible to know, but it sure is fun to guess, isn't it?

[Via Gamasutra]

PDF - Nielsen's 2007 Top Ten Lists

There's usually not that much overlap between the gaming industry (the gambling one) and the gaming industry (the one you actually are about). That seems poised to change, though, as the New York Times reports slot machine manufacturers are adding skill-based gaming elements to the one-armed bandits in an effort to attract new players. "We can't just make a slot thinking about the 55-year-old lady who comes to the casino a few times a month," said Rob Bone, marketing director for WMS Gaming. "We need to appeal to new buckets of players, or we'll die."

To that end, Bally Technologies has signed a deal with Atari to make machines based on Pong and Breakout, which let you play simplified versions of the games during a bonus round. Don't get too excited, though -- your gaming skills won't let you break the bank at Vegas. As the Times points out, "skill will take a player only so far as these machines are still calibrated to pay out less money than they take in." That's OK though ... back in the '80s we put money into these games without expecting to get any money back.

[Thanks Vlad]

Currently popular on GameTrailers, we missed Skullkid700's montage of Zelda commercials from earlier in the year. Since this sort of thing only gets better with age, we're highlighting it here. We've come a long way.

See the montage after the break. Yes, it includes the Zelda rap. You have been warned.

Gametrailers user, BlackSad03, has posted an old ad from NES game, Iron Sword, and we wish today's ads were as exciting. We enjoy the clip on so many levels, like watching the gameplay and being sucked into the sale itself. Must... buy... Iron Sword. Our favorite take is to imagine the production of the commercial and which PA had to swing the tentacle into the room.

The video is watermarked with "Gaming-Age.com," but we could only find an article there that references an equally great print ad for the game. So we send Gaming Age a nod, too.

See the ad after the break.

We can't help but love SNK. Like that girl in the back of the class who refuses to accept that big hair and jelly bracelets have long since gone out of style, SNK continues to hold onto the the idea that 2D is where it's at. While the company has already committed to supporting both the Virtual Console and XBLA with its back catalog of sprite-based games, SNK today announced plans to bring two of its more recent PS2 fighters to the U.S. as well, namely The King of Fighters XI and NeoGeo Battle Coliseum.

While the eleventh installment of anything boggles the mind, SNK promises that King of Fighters XI will see a return to the series' classic gameplay, with added refinement and a few new bells and whistles like the 'match-deciding' Judgment Indicator and Dream Cancel (aka 'the wake-up call'). In addition, the PS2 version will also include new features not found in the arcade original, including new characters, music, and bonus stages.

That's all well and good, but SNK's promise to bring 'fan-service megamix' NeoGeo Battle Coliseum to the U.S. is what seals the deal. The tag team fighter features a roster packed full of 40 characters from across SNK's catalog of favorites, including Metal Slug's Marco, Samurai Shodown's Hoahmaru, and even King of the Monsters' Cyber Woo. Maybe that girl in the back of the class is onto something.

[Via press release]

If you told us twenty years ago that, by 2007, there would be a pocket-sized device that could make wireless phone calls, take pictures, play music and show movies, we'd probably get a little dewy eyed at the techno-futuristic possibilities. If you told us that device would also be able to replicate the games of hundreds of upright arcade cabinets, we might very well have exploded with anticipation.

So far, the efforts to port the ubiquitous Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator to the iPhone have had pretty limited results -- anything more complex than Pac-Man or Q*Bert reportedly runs into some hefty performance problems. Still, we can't help but imagine the possibilities that will come with some more development time. After all, just look at how far we've come in the past twenty years.

[Via Engadget]

You can learn a lot from commercials. From this ad, for example, we learn that before he was Brian Fantana or the brother-in-law from Clueless, actor Paul Rudd wielded his Super Nintendo Entertainment System like some sort of holy relic, jamming games into its cartridge slot like he was thrusting jewel-encrusted daggers into the lone eye of a cyclops, attracting the attention and adoration of the neighborhood boys all the while.

We know what you're asking yourself and the answer is "yes." He has a nickname for his SNES. Its called the Octagon, but he also nicknamed his controllers -- his left one is James Westfall and his right one is Doctor Kenneth Noisewater. You ladies play your cards right you just might get to meet the whole gang.

Retro Treasures points us to a set of "handheld" arcade games (more like tabletop) up for auction on eBay. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Dracula have been preserved from the dark era of 1981 and are fully operational, supporting two players simultaneously and running off those not-necessarily-rechargeable things called C batteries. The auctioneer has several other tabletop arcade games on the block, including Donkey Kong and Q-Bert. The prices seem a little steep for some, but sometimes nostalgia knows no limits.

[Via Retro Treasures]

Don't want to wait until later this year try the latest spastic exergaming craze, Wii Fit? Are the Wii graphics just too high-res for you? Wish Wii Fit looked a touch more dangerous?

Gametrailers user, "neadha," answers the call to all three challenges, showing a homebrew balance game grafted to an old version of Pong. Standing on a skateboard deck on a cylinder, the Pong paddle slides up or down with every tilt. Or at least that's the idea. The game is so hardcore that the ball wings across the screen too quickly to react.

With a little tuning, the game might be cool. But clearly, a helmet is advised, lest this turn into Jackass. See the video after the break.