This week we set our sights on game boxes hosting familiar (and some not-so familiar) mascots of yesteryear. After digging through the Game Informer vault we began to notice several trends. Unlike sports titles, the majority of mascot boxes don’t brag about their technological triumphs. Instead, they tack on as many bad puns, rhyming verses and bright colors as possible. Not to mention comically dated phrases like “radical,” “thrashin’” and “dig it?”

As reported by IGN, the "mysterious" game is actually Final Fantasy Gaiden, and is destined for the DS. The game is also being referred to as Four Warriors of Light, with the likelihood being that two other party members will be riding the teaser site's dragon before the countdown ends.

THQ has been publishing WWE video games for years, creating a dominating franchise that has gone largely unchallenged. But, it looks like it’s undoing might be a result of a bitter rivalry from within.

The licensing agreement THQ holds with the WWE is set to expire at the
end of this year. Jakks Pacific – the toy manufacturer for WWE, and THQ's partner in the license – notified World Wrestling Entertainment that it intended to renew the contract to create video games for the franchise for another five years.

Unexpectedly, THQ filed a lawsuit in the California Superior Court, asking the state to declare that Jakks cannot make such decisions and that THQ is not obligated by Jakks actions.

That situation becomes even win-ier when swag is involved, and to that end 2K Games have put together possibly the most winning-est preorder bundle for a video game yet, in the new NBA 2K10: Anniversary Edition.

Twitter isn’t just good for finding out what celebrities are doing; it’s also good for finding a job. Hopefully. Last week one of Blue Omega Entertainment’s programmers tweeted that the company’s entire workforce had been laid off by publisher Codemasters.

Blue Omega recently released the critically abused Damnation, and the game’s poor sales may have contributed to the layoffs, but several former employees at Blue Omega allege that a round of lawsuits between the two companies may have played a factor as well.

"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with Starcraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with Starcraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games," a Blizzard representative told GameSpot. "While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with Starcraft II and safeguard against piracy."

Regardless of the company’s possible plans for humanity, we received news today that Robot Entertainment’s Web site is now up and running, including “robot blogs!”

Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant will hit store shelves on July 28th, the second book in the franchise written by New York Times bestselling author Karen Traviss. The story of the new book picks up where Gears of War 2 left off. To stave off the Locust Horde, humanity has been forced to
 destroy the last firm bastion of protection they had. The survivors head out into the wilderness to reconnect with the other humans. Marcus, Dom, and the rest of the Gears find that the unlucky folks who’ve been living outside aren’t exactly happy to see them.

Jacinto’s Remant will release on the same date as the latest online expansion to Gears 2, All Fronts Collection. The new downloadable pack includes all the previous multiplayer maps, plus seven new maps and an entirely new campaign chapter entitled “Road to Ruin”.

All 20 original hip-hop songs found in the Wii critical hit (and commercial flop) Mad World have been gathered together on one disc for purchase through Sumthing Else Music Works. All the backing tracks were written and produced by Naoto Tanaka, but each track ends up being a collaboration with a hip-hop artist who adds the raps. Wordsmith, Ox, and S.O.U.L. Purpose are only three of the artists represented.

If the meeting point between hip hop and video games is your thing, check out the downloads, available at either sumthingdigital.com or on iTunes.

Shooting from 23 percent to 28 percent, 2009 showed a marked increase in females purchasing home consoles. The change is being correlated with the Nintendo Wii, which increased in usage 19 percent over the last year. Portable gaming systems are also going strong with women, boasting a four percent increase.

As Mike Florio reported in an article on profootballtalk.com, the Supreme Court announced today that it will listen to arguments as to whether the NFL’s 32 teams count as separate or a single entity with regards to marketing deals. To simplify, the question the Supreme Court will try to answer is whether the NFL has the right to make blanket decisions for all of the league’s teams, or whether the owners of individual teams should be able to work out deals themselves. Wait, was that any simpler to understand?

Let’s just get right to the point that interests us: video games. For years now EA Sports have enjoyed an exclusive deal with the NFL that gives them sole rights to portraying players, team names, and logos in video game form, making the Madden series the only place for NFL fans to turn to for a realistic and up-to-date football video game. If the Supreme Court rules that each team has the right to negotiate their own terms for how their team is marketed however, it would not only destroy that agreement, but possibly the entire Madden series.

The first Mass Effect is one of the most replayable games in recent memory. A variety of choices, from moral dilemmas to romantic interests, ensure that every time through the game players are provided with something new. In addition to seeing how different situations resolve depending on your decisions, Mass Effect also has another powerful incentive to entice gamers into replaying the adventure: New Game Plus.

The term (popularized by Chrono Trigger on SNES) refers to beginning a
new playthrough after beating the game. However, instead of starting at square one, the players begin with the stats, abilities, and equipment their characters had at the end of the previous playthrough. In other words, you start over with an end-game character, complete with all of the powers and advantages that affords.

New Game Plus is the perfect option for players who want to re-experience the story without being robbed of the effort they invested into maxing out their characters. Unfortunately, according to a post on BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 forums, the second entry in the series will no longer support this feature. Responding to post asking whether New Game Plus will be in Mass Effect 2, lead designer Preston Watamaniuk responded:

“The short answer is no.

“The reason is progression. We have been working very hard to make sure we design the abilities system to offer smooth progression into ME3 from ME2. Allowing double progression on characters makes that almost impossible. We have to have reasonable knowledge about where a character could end up finishing all content on a playthrough. We also want to offer choice of character build within specific classes.

“We replaced that feature with playing after you were done because it preserves progression and allows for smoother downloading of PRC [post-release content].”

I was a huge fan of the first Mass Effect, but I find this news extremely disappointing. First of all, I’m a fan of New Game Plus in all of its incarnations, and I’d love to see it become a standard feature in every game. That’s one reason its omission from Mass Effect 2 is frustrating; BioWare is removing something it did right the first time around.

More significantly, taking out the option to restart with your end-game Shepard erects an re-entry barrier that didn’t exist in the first game. I played through Mass Effect several (six? seven?) times, and I still find myself wanting to go back and do it all over again; New Game Plus provides a way for me to enjoy the story again and try some different choices without having to slog through the tedium of low-level play.

The decision to replay a game becomes much less tempting in the face of having to start all over at level one. Leveling up takes time and effort, and when I’ve already invested large quantities of both, it’s hard to muster up the resolve to do it all over again with a new character.

No matter how upset the Mass Effect fan in me gets, I also realize that the designers are facing complications that I don’t fully understand. The Mass Effect series is particularly unique in the way it attempts to carry over a player’s choices from one game to the next. Watamaniuk’s reference to a “smooth transition” Mass Effect 2 and 3 essentially confirms that your abilities – not just your decisions – will make the transition from the second game into the third. While that’s exciting, it also seems like a weak reason to cut out New Game Plus. If my Shepard’s abilities and skills would get too powerful in a second run, go ahead and disable level progression for subsequent playthroughs. I don’t care if my character is static after I beat the game – I’ve already accomplished the primary objective. I just want the ability to exercise the power I’ve already earned while enjoying the different shapes the story can take.

Players mourning the loss of New Game Plus will get a kind of consolation prize; unlike the first game, Mass Effect 2 will allow you to keep playing the game after the credits roll. But isn’t that like giving me a super-weapon to fight in a war that’s already been won? At that phase of the game, I’ll likely just have a few lingering sidequests to clean up. I agree that this structure would, as Watamaniuk states, make it easier to handle post-release downloadable quests. On the other hand, that assumes that we’ll actually be getting a significant amount of DLC. If, like the first Mass Effect, we only get one (and the promise of one more) post-release quest, then the sacrifice doesn’t make much sense. If given the choice between New Game Plus and easier access to one or two downloaded missions, I’d go with New Game Plus all the way.

During a recent chat with The Seattle Times, Bungie recently hinted at some big news for their upcoming Halo: Reach. Harold Ryan, Bungie's Studio Head, is very excited about Project Natal, Microsoft's full body motion control technology.

When asked whether or not he things Halo: Reach could take advantage of the device, he said, "I absolutely think 'Reach' could be enabled with it."

Though we can't exactly consider this a confirmation of a Natal-enabled Halo experience, we might want to start imagining what controlling Master Chief would be like without a controller.

You ever wonder what the bottom of a Spartan's shoe looks like?

Scott Guthrie will now be in charge of directing MTV Game’s “publishing
strategy and execution including marketing, sales and distribution,” as well as being in charge of “setting the business direction for all marketing, sales, bundling, sourcing, purchasing, planning and supply-chain management and manufacturing of MTV Games’ video game products,” which includes the unstoppable Rock Band franchise, as well as partnership deals with Jerry Bruckheimer Games. If that sounds like too much for any one man to bear – cue the late movie-preview announcer Don LaFontaine – you haven’t met Scott Guthrie.

The move creates the first satellite office for the Virginia-based software company. Epic Games' Unreal Engine has dominated the middleware market in the current generation of video games, seeing use in everything from MMORPGs to story-driven first-person shooters. This popularity extends to Korea, with major players like NCsoft licensing the engine for multiple projects. Given the increasing relevance of the international gaming market for American companies, upgrading its Korean presence is a natural strategy for Epic.