Capcom's Seth Killian has posted a friendly note for fighting fans on the official Capcom blog, reminding us that Street Fighter IV begins hitting Japanese arcades the week of July 21. Not all that helpful for those of stuck in the States. Thankfully, "S-KILL" also has the lowdown on where and when the general public can experience the game for themselves on this side of the Pacific.

The final coin-op version of SFIV will be playable July 24-27 at San Diego Comic-Con and at the Evolution 2008 fighting game competition finals in Las Vegas from August 8-10. As an added bonus for EVO 2008 attendees, Capcom will have the latest build of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix on hand as well.

It's hard to believe that a quarter-century has passed since the first LaserDisc-based arcade game from former Disney animator Don Bluth hit arcades. Dragon's Lair's use of hand-drawn animation set it apart from anything else at the time, and despite its simple trial-and-error gameplay, the game was a hit.

Digital Leisure, which has worked with Bluth to deliver countless home versions of Dragon's Lair, is offering a treat to fans of the classic for one week only. Anyone who purchases the DVD, PC, or Blu-ray Disc version from its online shop can have their copy signed by Bluth, designer Rick Dyer, and animators Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. We highly recommend the BD version, which plays exactly like the original coin-op and runs in full 1080p. The company is also offering signed Dragon's Lair "lobby posters" for $80 a pop. Lead on, brave adventurers – your memorabilia awaits!

In our quest to familiarize ourselves with the laws of nature (and subsequently defy them), this week we're going to share at least five abominations, one each day, that we've concocted in Spore Creature Creator. You can keep track of this our progress via our various profile pages:

• Justin McElroy
• Ross Miller
• Randy Nelson
• Alexander Sliwinski
• Kevin Kelly

For the final day, we tried to commit ourselves to pulling out all the stops, but a very long day of blogging left us with some epic failures that will never see the light of day (e.g. Big Bird). We do feel, however, that we have a much better understanding of Spore's limitations. (You can read about them in our gallery.) You can see all the creatures from the week starting here. Each page contains a link to the creature's respective Sporepedia page where you can download and edit our work.


Put your skills to the test and win some gear. BigDownload is offering BigPrizes to see your Spore creations.

Is 2D gaming headed for life support status? Last year Castlevania main man Koji Igarashi was vehement in his declaration that 2D games would never die. In fact, he felt so strongly about it that he had to use a PowerPoint slide to illustrate just how he felt about the issue. All the time and effort that went into making that graphic signifies a serious lust for all things 2D.

Well, a lot can change in a year. In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Iga said, "I'm glad that 2D is still somewhat alive. It's been fun." That almost sounds like a death knell. Say it ain't so, you whip-carrying developer! His argument last year was that it's much cheaper to develop 2D games when you don't have to render things in 3D, but that seems to be the equivalent of saying it's cheaper to ride a horse because it's not as expensive as a car. People want to go quite a bit faster than the horse will allow, and likewise with their games. Still, we're praying 2D gaming hasn't started to cough up blood just yet. Keep hope alive!

[Via DS Fanboy]

We've got a Street Fighter IV media dump from Captivate 08 and it's coming in two delicious flavors. For those who like your promotional materials a little bit artier, we've got the above trailer featuring a battle between Guile and Abel captured in moving, painted sand.

If you like things to be a bit more "you are there," we've got some shaky-cam videos of real people really playing real SF IV cabinets just after the break. Check both of them totally out.

Although Microsoft has yet to make a formal announcement about any games that fall into the company's new delisting policy for games on Xbox Live Arcade, we do know the criteria for titles in danger (six months old, 65 or less Metacritic score, less than 6% buy the game after trying the demo). There's no way of knowing what games have less than 6% adoption rate, but we do know what games are old and poorly reviewed.

We've revisted every single XBLA title on the chopping block (the demos, at least) to give quick impressions on the rogue's gallery of titles. Find out which games were the best of the worst and, well, worst of the worst. Meet the games who may be evicted from XBLA by hitting that fancy button above. Or don't ... don't press the button!

Vote: Your pick for best of the XBLA chopping block, and also the worst of the XBLA chopping block. (Update: The results are in.)

According to Nintendo of America's senior director of project development, Tom Prata, there are currently over 100 WiiWare titles in various stages of development. Speaking with IGN, Prata says there were no first-party titles for the WiiWare launch because the company wanted to showcase the diversity of WiiWare developers, from large publishers, like Square Enix, to smaller and indie developers.

The interview is actually more noteworthy for the lack of information Prata gave to some direct questions. He dodges whether there will be a hard drive in the near future for the Wii, or if Nintendo plans to lift the alleged 43MB size limit for WiiWare titles. He also wouldn't discuss which WiiWare titles have been the most popular. Prata did say, however, that consumers shouldn't hold their breath for WiiWare demos to become standard with available titles.

The font of incredible trailers continues to pour from the bounteous spigot of CAPtivate '08 -- the above trailer for Street Fighter IV went live rather subtly last night, only to deliver a patented E. Honda "thousand hand bitch slap" to our unprepared senses this Sunday morning. It even includes one of our favorite songs to sing from Rock Band: Faith No More's "Epic". We don't know why seeing Blanka go all sparky to the disjointed vocals of Mike Patton gets us so hyped, but our excitement for the revivification of what many would argue is the greatest arcade fighting series ever has just increased tenfold.

However, it should be noted that depending on your feelings towards Gamestop and their pre-order policies, you may view the last seven seconds of this righteous trailer as being decidedly un-epic.

If you're like us, the arcade shooter Galaga is probably sitting on your Xbox 360's hard drive gathering virtual dust. Even so, that doesn't mean Namco-Bandai won't jump at the chance to try squeeze a few more Microsoft Points out of the old girl. Now, according to a posting by the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbskontrolle (USK), the German version of the ESRB, it looks like the publisher could be doing just that with a new title called Galaga Legions.

We know next to nothing about the game beyond the fact that it's a shooter, but that hasn't stopped speculation that Namco-Bandai, the publisher behind cherished arcade re-imagining Pac-Man: CE, could be giving the same treatment to another classic quarter muncher. The notion makes us giddy -- our hard drives can always use more quality games. It's the fodder for future delisting that we can do without.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Our Xbox-toting brethren at 360 Fanboy recently came across a list of Xbox Live Arcade titles which may be up for expungement in Microsoft's spring cleaning of their online store. The list (available after the break) includes all titles that fulfill the first and second criteria of Microsoft's new standards -- that is, they've been available for six months, and currently hold a 65 percent or lower average score on Metacritic. A steady conversion rate (the number of people who purchase the complete title after downloading the demo, a figure only Microsoft has access to) is the only thing standing between these games and a date with the delete button -- so if you've been holding out on downloading Shrek-N-Roll, you may want to pick it up in an expedient manner.

Namco has told IGN that a patch for Mr. Driller Online (which should currently just be called Mr. Driller) is coming by the end of this month. When the game released in early April the online feature was fundamentally broken, as is evidenced by the video from X3F we've placed after the break.

As for the game's less-than-HD quality presentation? Don't expect a patch for that. The fix is pretty much designed to allow the game to keep the Online portion of its name without becoming a case of consumer fraud.

[Via X3F]

While Capcom's Street Fighter IV wowed us in February with its new fangled graphics and animation, it was the game's decidedly retro feel that grabbed us by the neck and assaulted our head like a barrage of Yoga Noogies. As it turned out, for all its 3D charm the fighter played like a sexed up Street Fighter II, which to be fair is just fine by us.

Now Capcom has released screenshots of Street Fighter II's bad guy quartet, Balrog, Bison, Sagat and Vega, all of whom make a return in the upcoming sequel. We can hardly wait to face down Vega's (or M. Bison for those of you with a name hang up) ever-annoying Psycho Crusher, something judging by the above pic has Ryu equally enthused.

Whether it's due to a certain game release or not, there will not be a new Xbox Live arcade addition this week. Major Nelson broke the news on his Twitter page and said he believes "people will be busy with another game this week."

Given the amount of money Microsoft spent in certain territories to get people to buy GTA IV, it kind of makes sense that it wouldn't want any distractions. XBLA should be back to its regularly scheduled release plan by next week.

[Via X3F]

Criticisms of the visual style of Street Fighter IV are a dime a dozen, ranging from gripes about exaggerated facial expressions to attacks on the, erm, girth of Chun-Li's thigh muscles. Now, it seems that the poor Chinese Interpol agent is once again under attack, though this time for the bizarre proportions of her hands.

A few new art shots on Capcom's official Street Fighter IV website have caught the attention of 1UP's Kris Pigna, who's become mono-maniacally focused on the portrayal of Chun-Li's appendages. We have to admit, the above image has given us pause as well. Not only is her one hand abnormally large -- and featuring a bizarre growth between her thumb and forefinger -- but her other hand is downright monstrous, with thick calloused digits and yellowed fingernails. Let's just hope this is an artistic snafu, and not some crazy new backstory about Chun-Li's mutant transformation.

WiiWare will include casual, simple, and hopefully cheap titles with its upcoming release outside of Japan. While some of the Wiiware efforts on display at the Nintendo Media Summit impressed and surprised me, I was more ambivalent about Pop.

The simple game is just about pointing and clicking on bubbles that drift by. Click a bunch of like-colors in a row, and rack up a bonus score that's activated when you pop a different-colored bubble. Miss the bubbles completely, and the count-down timer jumps ahead, moving closer to the end of the game. The only other catch is that your potential points and time keep rising with bubble-popping combos, but they aren't added to the game until you break the run. Get too greedy, and you'll run out of time.