In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious from the above screen shot, Noby Noby Boy comes from the mind of Keita Takahashi, creator of the Katamari Damacy series, and it is every bit as strange as it’s predecessor. The concept is simple: stretch Boy as far as you can, eating everything you can (including cats, houses, and people) along the way. With a fairly simple gameplay mechanic and charming graphics, Noby Noby Boy appears to be Namco Bandai’s attempt at recapturing the magic felt by gamers everywhere the first time they played Katamari Damacy. The results of that attempt are somewhat mixed.

I remember a time long ago when I heard the oh-so exciting news that my local arcade acquired a Street fighter III cabinet. This was back in 1997, long before that black void took the place once occupied by my soul. I rushed to the arcade, full of hope, and excited at the prospect of a bigger, better Street Fighter experience. Hands shaking with anticipation, I dropped a quarter in the machine, and prepared myself for a new challenge. Alex? Dudley? Yang? Who to pick? As it turned out, they all sucked. Every last one of them. After a very short time with the game, my shoulders slumped, and my head hung low as I made my way back over to the ever faithful Super Street Fighter II Turbo cabinet I had known and loved for so long. The new game was an epic disappointment.I guess after telling you that story, it’s probably pretty obvious that I was skeptical about a new Street Fighter game. I’m happy to report that Street Fighter IV has hit my skepticism with a devastating hodoken.

This week, Eric and Jenni go it alone while Mike tries to recover from a bad case of whooping cough. Topics include Street Fighter IV, some of the upcoming games for the PS3, and EA’s opinion on the recession.

The first game in the F.E.A.R series was easily one of my all time favorite shooters. It did a fantastic job of blending action with suspense and terror. It kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. Each time you turned a corner, you were presented with either a new fight, or a piece of disturbing imagery. Given the quality that oozed from every pore of the first game, I was highly excited to get my hands on F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. The million dollar question here: Does it live up to the legacy left by the original?

Have you ever looked out your office window at the bustling street below and sighed at the lack of color found on a city street? Have you ever closed your eyes on a rainy day, and pictured a lush, verdant meadow bathed in sunshine? Flower attempts to touch the part of you that longs for a beautiful landscape on a sunny day by putting you in control of the wind in a grass covered field. Your objective is to guide that wind and the flower petals in it from flower to flower in order to open them up, and bring new life to barren and dreary parts of the field.

Sony has been touting Killzone 2 as a graphical masterpiece for a long time now, and with good reason. The short level I played through in the demo looked amazing. Everything looks almost exactly as it did in that mind blowing target render Sony has been showing off for years now. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure this game would live up to the extremely high viaual bar Sony set for it, but this demo has put that skepticism to rest.

I’m always a little cautious when it comes to video games based on movies, television, or anime. Some of them are pretty good, but for the most part, they’re pretty terrible. When the first screen shots of Afro Samurai came across my desk in all their cell shaded glory, along with the news that Samuel L. Jackson would be doing voice work for the game, I was actually pretty hopeful for this game. With the high quality of the artwork, and the top notch voice talent, it was apparent right from the start that a lot of care went into the presentation of this game.

I’m a pretty big fan of the Star Wars: Battlefront games, as well as the Lord of the Rings books and movies. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about Lord of the Rings Conquest when I first heard about it. Combining the Lord of the Rings world with Star Wars Battlefront style gameplay should have been a recipe for pure win. Pandemic used the right ingredients, they just took the game out of the oven too soon.

You may have missed the most recent tiff between Microsoft and Sony. It was relatively low-key as far as these corporate slap-fights go. To quickly summarize the silliness, Sony came out and said that Microsoft and Nintendo’s consoles aren’t as cool as the PS3 because the PS3 comes with everything you need out of the box. Microsoft took offense to this and told Sony to shove it, not everyone needs Wi-Fi and having a variety of SKUs makes them cooler than Sony could ever hope to be.

In August of 2006 Kaz Hirai was quoted saying he and Sony saw the Playstation 3 as “having a 10 year life cycle.” By the time the PS3 was released that November, Sony was being attacked by many and defended by only a few stalwart cheerleaders of the brand. At that point Sony’s public relations nightmare was only beginning. The high price point, the missing exclusives, the lack of rumble—the internet critics found much to despise in the former golden child. Fast-forward to more than two years later, and the PS3 is trailing the Xbox 360 by a significant margin.