Tentacle Grape is a caffienated grape soda that Mnemosyne is targeting at gamers, cosplayers, and comic book fans. It is also perhaps the best name I've ever seen for a product you actually ingest. You can currently pre-order the soda (pre-ordering soda?) in six-packs for $15.99 plus shipping from the drink's website, with each order before January 5th eligible for free Tentacle Grape bumper stickers or condoms (soda pre-order bonuses?).

“Obviously I don’t take the brand very seriously… we can’t. The best I can do is develop products that I’d want to buy myself and frankly this is the right combination of ridiculous and delicious.” Says brand creator, Dekker Dreyer.

I don't know about delicious yet, but they've hit ridiculous squarely on the head.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MNEMOSYNE RELEASES NEW SODA, TENTACLE GRAPE

NEW YORK, NY - December 29, 2008 –Mnemosyne LLC has teamed up with the people who brought you the Anime After Dark Film Festival to bring you a new taste sensation!

This new beverage, inspired by the genre of adult Japanese animation called Hentai, is a perfect caffeine rush for gamers, cosplayers, and comic book fans.

“Obviously I don’t take the brand very seriously… we can’t. The best I can do is develop products that I’d want to buy myself and frankly this is the right combination of ridiculous and delicious.” Says brand creator, Dekker Dreyer.

Each 12oz glass bottle of Tentacle Grape comes with a collectors’ edition label limited to the first thousand cases. Six packs are currently available for pre-order at www.tentaclegrape.com for $15.99 plus shipping. Orders before January 5th 2009 will be eligible for complimentary Tentacle Grape branded condoms or bumper stickers.

Additional flavors and label designs are slated for the third quarter of 2009.

ABOUT MNEMOSYNE: Mnemosyne develops and manages products for fans of genre entertainment. Founded in 2004, Mnemosyne runs the massively-multiplayer game "Rubies of Eventide", and builds geek-chic brands including "Tentacle Grape" soda, and Lolcattz (collectible card game).

Eroge, hentai games, h-games - call them what you will. I've played them before, but by playing I generally mean skipping to the good parts and giggling in the company of friends. JAST USA's latest release, Princess Waltz, interrupts the good parts with a nifty little card battling game that has your character facing off against a variety of monsters. The plot involves an event known as The Princess Waltz, which involves women battling to determine the queen of a fantasy kingdom.

Can Princess Waltz balance my general disinterest in h-games with my insane love of card-based video games? I spent several hours trying to find out exactly that.

It's a Card Game
The card game portion of Princess Waltz is fairly straightforward. Each opponent starts off with five numbered cards. There are two phases to combat - initiative and battle - during which you wager a number of cards in order to get a higher total than your opponent. Whoever wins the initiative round is the attacker in the battle round, trying to get a higher total than the opponent's in order to deal damage.

As you play and gain experience you will gain special spell cards to use during battle in order to effect your card totals, while gaining stats that are added on to the totals, assisting you in your quest.

The main character, Arata, forms bonds with the various women in the game in order to increase statistics when joined with them in battle, which leads us directly to the second portion of the game... It's a Hentai Game
While Princess Waltz takes it's own sweet time getting to the sexual encounters, it doesn't hold back once it gets there. In the entire first chapter there are only two real encounters, both with the same person, both of which seem to draw on uncomfortably long. Things start off exciting enough, but soon you'll start pondering using the skip button for the exact opposite reason it exists.

In the second chapter of the game things really kick into high gear, with no less than five sex scenes, each one determined by choices you make at a certain point in the game. This is where things get a bit too graphic for even my tastes, with scenes featuring the graphic taking of virginity, incest, and a bit of watersports thrown in for good (I suppose) measure. I found myself on more than several occasions desperately hoping for the next card battle.

Needs More Card Battles
If you were to completely strip the sex out of Princess Waltz, you'd be left with a lengthy interactive book interrupted by the odd card battle. The story is entertaining and even a bit involving and the production values are incredibly high considering the genre, but there really isn't enough card battling to suit my tastes. Perhaps an additional mode where you could fight random opponents after the game ends would have added a bit of value to the title, but as it stands the whole card aspect just feels like it was tacked on.

Still, if you're in the market for this sort of thing and would rather have an H-game that at least pretends to be an actual interactive experience, you could do much worse than Princess Waltz. Hit the link at the bottom of the press release for the very NSFW official website.

Peach Princess Adult PC Dating-Sim Game "Princess Waltz" Now On Sale, Download Purchase Available

San Diego, California, Tuesday, December 9, 2008

JAST USA announces that Princess Waltz, its new PC dating-sim/card battle game for adults, has shipped and is available on PC DVD-ROM as well as Internet Download Edition. Princess Waltz is one of the most popular adult anime-style PC games to be released in recent years in Japan, and it features high quality graphics, a compelling fantasy storyline w/innovative card battle action, and a degree of erotic and emotional intensity that only Japan's love-simulation games can bring.

"In a Storm of Flashing Blades, One Princess Must Triumph"

As the game's hero Arata you'll find yourself surrounded by a cast of beautiful magical princesses who fight in an ancient rite of combat known as the Princess Waltz, which determines the future queen of the fantasy kingdom of Eldhiland. When a chance encounter with a mysterious transfer student makes you an active participant in the battle, you have no choice but to fight.

As the game story progresses, you uncover the secrets of these beautiful girls and forge bonds of love, coupling with your partners to improve your synchronized combat skills. Can you save the world of Eldhiland and win your princess's heart?

JAST USA president Peter Payne said: "Japan's culture of PC games with adult themes including love and sex is incredible, and we're happy to be able to bring one of the best games ever released to fans in English. This is one of the highest quality titles ever seen, and we can't wait for fans of PC dating-sim games to experience the world of Princess Waltz."

The game is available for purchase now at the JAST USA website as well as other fine anime retailers. The official game site with full character profiles, sample graphics and voices, plot summaries and more is available at http://princesswaltz.com

Play-Asia has announced that they've partnered with an American distributor to sell some sixty-odd Japanese popular "dating sims" with loads of adult content to eager (read: horny, shy and lonely) import gamers.

Make no mistake, this is pure porn gaming. It's less censored than its Japanese equivalent, so proceed at your own risk. But if you've ever wondered about the crazy, dirty world of Japanese hentai gaming, or needed more naked anime girls in sexy situations in your life, now's your chance. Michael McWhertor

Feeling lonely and bored? Play-Asia now features English translated Japanese Adult Dating Games [Play-Asia]

Titled Hizashi no Naka, this homemade flash-based game must be the a DS hentai first. Or at least, one of the first. That is, if it's real. Who knows? Not me! Brian Ashcraft

DS Hentai Game [Flame War Advance]

GameSetWatch points to a blog written by a Western working in the Japanese gaming industry. Called Japanmanship, this fascinating blog is penned by "JC Barnett," and provides insight on the industry in Japan and even offers advice on how to get industry jobs. The insights are what really glow. Take this tidbit:

I was once shown, by a lamenting boss, a new release of a hentai mahjongg game. Imagine it: a simple mahjongg structure would require one or two programmers at most... One such game, for PC, retails for as much as 8,000 Yen (approx. US$70, 55EU). Considering handheld games are about 3 to 4 thousand US$25-35, 20-25EU) and console games 5 to 6 thousand US$45-50, 35-40EU that is a pretty decent profit margin considering the vastly lower budgets and shorter schedules compared to "real" games.

And thus, the motivation behind all those cheapo mah-jong, pachi-slot games is explained. And that motivation is laziness. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [GSW]

A Louisiana news website has an unsettling report about the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff seizing video games from a 16-year-old murder suspect's home, based on a suggestion by anti-games zealot Jack Thompson:

Thompson said published reports that Neher told detectives he and Everette killed Gore because Gore would not let them borrow his car follows "the same scenario in (the video) 'Grand Theft Auto.' "

Sheriff J. Austin Daniel said an autopsy showed Gore was beaten to death but also shot in the face.

"Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer," Thompson said, adding that the apparent repeated "pummeling" of the victim is consistent with scenes in violent video games.

Man, I hate that one mission in GTA, you know the one where you're trying to borrow that guy's car and he won't let you, so you just totally stomp his ass and blow his face off and score mad points. I always have to tank cheat my way through that one.

As a hilarious aside, the shooter was home alone because his mother, the exquisitely-named Happy Morris, was booked last week on "simple battery of a juvenile and unauthorized entry into an inhabited dwelling". The specifics? She broke into a house and slapped a fourteen-year-old girl.

There's undoubtedly a video game at the root of that particularly heinous crime, too. Nobody slaps fourteen-year-old girls in the face unless you're a Hot Dog on a Stick employee or a dating sim enthusiast. Eliza gauger

Read complete article here. [2theadvocate.com]