It was kind of a bummer not to see any Tales games whatsoever – not even screens of Vesperia for the PS3. But last year, Tales games practically dominated the show floor alongside Soulcalibur IV, so it's only fair to give other games the spotlight. Especially when some of them just look so pretty.

Check out what we got to see:

Previews
Tekken 6 Preview: When Pigs Fly
The Munchables Preview: Eat It!
Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao Preview: An Eyes-On Experience
We Cheer 2 Preview: Now With 40% More Male
Klonoa Wii-make Challenge Preview: Yep, It's Challenging

Impressions
Katamari Forever Now In 1080p… Forever
Dead to Rights: Retribution "Embraces the M" Rating
Food Network Gets In On Nintendo Cooking Sim Craze

Screens/Announcements
Naruto Grows Up On The PSP
Namco Bandai Bringing Manga Carta II Stateside
Tekken 6 Is Also Coming To The PSP
Soulcalibur Is Also Coming To The PSP
Here Are Your Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny Screens

Swag Report (Pictured)
1 Naruto T-shirt that might actually fit me
1 pleather Dead to Rights notebook (plastic cop badge not included)
1 Tekken 6 Xbox 360 faceplate to celebrate the series' debut on Xbox 360
1 sassy Food Network tote my grandmother would kill for
1 flashy Tekken 6 print

Cooking Mama, What's Cooking with Jamie Oliver and Personal Trainer: Cooking all got a good head start on an official Food Network video game. But with each new game for the Wii or DS that features a virtual kitchen with virtual people making virtual food, it looks like we're getting closer to a true Joy of Cooking experience.

Here's how Cook or Be Cooked stacks up.

The hands-off demo featured only an entrée "level" where the player has to put together pan seared steak, mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus. The game starts out with only one dish for each meal time – a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner recipe – and you unlock more by completing each with a satisfactory rating.

The challenge here comes from having more freedom than you do in other cooking games to complete a recipe's steps. For example, most cooking games decide that you'll chop the vegetables, boil the water and then add the salt – but in Cook or Be Cooked, you've got a recipe, ingredients and a tiny version of the Food Network's Susie Fogelson recommending tips at seemingly random intervals. It's up to you to decide when to chop the potatoes, whether to boil the water first or add oil to the pan and warm it even before getting the steak out of the refrigerator.

Because the demo master had already made this dish half a hundred times that day, he barely hesitated as he moved around the virtual 3D kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards to locate ingredients and cookware. The size of the kitchen was impressive, but it looked hollow and unused like the stage kitchens on Martha Stewart – especially since when the demo master opened a drawer or the refrigerator, the only things inside were the exact things the player needed.

To open drawers or access the oven or the stove, it looks like you point to it with the Wii Remote to zoom the camera in on it. Then the reticule becomes a ghostly hand that you use to turn dials or grab pots and stuff. The motion controls come in with obvious tasks like chopping or mashing – and in Cook or Be Cooked, you're also using tongs to turn the meat (although there's probably no one-to-one match up with the squeezing motion).

When you complete a step, the recipe card appears onscreen with that step checked off. In some cases, a completed step also in a little inventory icon appearing on the right hand side of the screen that lets you access, says, potatoes you've already boiled or that pan of stake that needs to go in the oven. And sometimes the deformed gnome version of Susie Fogelson pops up and gives some physical reaction to what you've done – such as scowling when you burn the meat or clapping when you've mashed the potatoes perfectly.

When the meal is cooked completely with all steps checked off, a finished version appears on the counter and a rating screen pops up, awarding up to five chef hats for the various components of the final meal. It seems to be the cumulative chef hat score that determines whether or not Susie yells at you, though.

Overall, Cook or Be Cooked looks like a more elaborate form of the serious sides to other cooking sims. There's really not much in the way of "gaming" involved, even if little mechanics like the inventory system exist to remind you that this isn't real life. Stuff like a stove heat gauge and a dial to speed up time so you don't actually have to wait around for twenty minutes while the steak sits in the 400 degree oven seem to be more about minimizing the work you do in real life when trying to cook a full course meal instead of about having "fun."

There is, however, a two player mode where you're competing for the best chef hat score. You could probably make that into a drinking game and thusly up the fun factor.

For a serious cook, though, or someone who wants to do more with their Wii, Cook or Be Cooked might just turn out to be the hipper alternative to the Betty Crocker Cookbook. And if they throw in Paula Deen, I'm down. Look for it late in 2009.

Men can be cheerleaders, too, you know! George W. Bush, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Michael Douglas, Trent Lott, Aaron Spelling, Jimmy Stewart, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Steve Martin and Samuel L. Jackson – a truly manly man if ever there was one – were all cheerleaders at one point in time. So can't either of the only two cheerleading games on the Wii give the Y chromosomes some credit?

What Is It?
We Cheer 2 is a dance game where players use one or two Wii Remotes to perform a series of arm-waving moves to pop music. Unlike the first game, the sequel features more character customization options, a new song list and finally the chance to play as a male cheerleader.

What We Saw
I did the "Mickey" routine in Championship mode as a male cheerleader.

How Far Along Is It?
Not too far. There were only two playable songs (the other being Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend") and the ship date isn't until fall 2009.

What Needs Improvement?
Dual Wielding Wii Remotes: In singleplayer, you have to hold one Wii remote in each hand to pull off the routines. On the one hand (no pun intended), this makes sense because a lot of cheerleading moves require your arms to go in different directions and how else would the Wii detect that? But on the other, you're killing twice as many batteries as you would with only one Wiimote. Additionally, other dance games like Boogie Superstar don't require two Wii Remotes, so how can We Cheer be competitive like you'd expect a cheerleader to be?

A Little Too Easy To Trick The Sensor: Most moves involve moving your arm in a wide arc with exact timing. But if you're late, you can trick the sensor by giving the Wii Remote a little flick at the endpoint of the arc. This might make it easy to shuck full-blown movement and just settle for lazy Wiimote jiggling tactics.

Your Feet Don't Do Jack: The Wii Balance Board has been around for a while, now – it'd be nice to see it integrated in a game about a sport that requires you to move your feet as well as your arms.

What Should Stay The Same?
You Can Play As A Male: Hooray for equality!

Character Customization: You can change the skin, hair and eye color as well as smile shape and uniform color of your cheer squad. With this level of customization, you could craft a virtual version of your own high school's cheerleading squad, if you wanted to (minus the token fat kid – they don't have that option in the game, sadly).

Oh, Mickey: You're so fine. So fine I don't see how the first game could have gotten on without you. Hey, Mickey!

Infectious As Only A Cute Wii Dance Game Can Be: I may be biased because I'm both a girl and susceptible to Boogie Superstar's toe-tapping charm. But I honestly appreciate games aimed at tweens that focus on the fun parts of being young. We Cheer might be cashing in on a stereotype, but now that they're on the gender equality boat, it's all good and I can enjoy the game without guilt.

Final Thoughts
Bring It On was the best Kirsten Dunst movie since Interview With a Vampire.

So far there isn't much else to say about the game that hasn't already been said. But I'm going to go ahead and add "Thank God I can still use my PSP for something." It's been a while since Crisis Core.

For more details on the recently announced addition to the PlayStation Portable library, consult this post or check your local library.

The only new things in the game are bonus stages and challenge levels to extend gameplay for hardcore fans that have likely outgrown the difficulty level of the linear story mode. The good news is the modes really are challenging and will probably extend gameplay by a decent number of hours. The bad news is they really are challenging and you might break a few Wii Remotes in frustration.

What Is It?
The Klonoa challenge modes come in two main flavors: Mirrored Vision and challenge areas. Mirrored Vision involves replaying completed levels by starting from the end of the level instead of the beginning and different challenge areas within levels offer time attack and jumping puzzles the likes of which could make your blood boil.

What We Saw
I spent the better part of an hour in timed challenge areas. The ones I saw were mostly jumping puzzles, and in Klonoa that counts of a lot of what you'll be doing. The main one I focused on involved Klonoa progressing a third of the way through a level and then dropping down into a white whirlwind portal. The challenge on the other side of that portal involved Klonoa leaping out over a pit of lava, turning to face backward in mid-air, hovering to gain a bit of height and then grabbing a floating enemy. Once you've mastered this first part (and it's way harder than it sounds), you have to nail the exact timing necessary to fling the enemy as you jump, hover, turn to face forward and grab the next enemy and so on until you reach the top of the lava-filled cavern.

How Far Along Is It?
Final. The game is out May 8.

What Should Change?
Lose the Wii Remote: I started the jumping challenges with the default Wii Remote and Nunchuck combo. The game is waggle-free, but the exact button presses took some adjusting to, so I decided to lose the Nunchuck and flip the Wiimote on its side. It simplified the button presses a little, but made it damn painful to mash the correct sequence of buttons and D-pad directions with the right timing. After my twelfth attempt, I came away with a square dent in my left thumb. Thankfully, the game is supposed to be compatible with the classic controller or the GameCube controller; which makes me wonder why bother with the Wii Remote at all?

What Should Stay The Same?
Bragging Rights: Completing a challenge in Klonoa brings a sense of satisfaction you might otherwise get from winning the lottery or surviving a train wreck. Nearly every journalist I watched try the challenge modes began with a puffed up chest and quick thumbs – and almost every single one of them failed a challenge more than ten times. Even after two dozen goes at that challenge mentioned above, I still couldn't get higher than the first enemy (mostly because I had trouble with the part where you need to turn all the way around in midair using that viciously sharp D-pad). When the PR rep finally stepped up and managed to pull it off in one go for the first time in his many months on the title, he was cheered as a hero.

Final Thoughts
The original Klonoa was one of the best things that ever happened to my big brother because he got to lord his PlayStation over my Nintendo 64 as the superior adventure gaming platform (at least until Ocarina of Time came out). I find it cosmically hilarious that more than a decade later, I'll get to be playing his PlayStation trump card on my Nintendo Wii as a Wii game instead of a port. It may still be a kid's game, but the challenge modes sweeten the deal and give me something to say to my brother all those elitists who might sneer at me for never having played the original.

At the start of the game, Don Onion and his brigade of space pirates take over a planet on which live two of the cutest Pokemon rejects I've ever seen. Munchie and his (her?) pal Chomper set out to defeat the forces of evil vegetable by eating everything in sight. This is pretty much all the plot you need to understand where The Munchables is going – but read on for a full breakdown.

What Is It?
The Munchables is a single-player puzzle/platformer game where players take the role of either Munchie or Chomper. There are eight stages in the game and to progress, the player has to consume as many enemy food items as possible to gain levels and thereby open doors.

What We Saw
I played through the Dessert Factory stage as Chomper.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is due out May 26, but it looks a little buggy in terms of graphics and animations. For example, there was a one point, Chomper entered a chocolate-coating machine and activated a cut scene. For no explicable reason, Munchie come out of the machine, participated in the cut scene and then was replaced by Chomper when the game resumed.

What Should Change?
Full Blown Co-op Please: Currently, the control scheme only allows the second player to provide targeting support (think Mario Galaxy). With such cute (and customizable) characters as Munchie and Chomper, it'd be a cute-splosion if you could somehow have them both on screen and playable.

Is That a Bomb or a Pirate?: The screen is very busy in The Munchables, sometimes making it hard to tell if the things coming toward you rapidly are enemies to be nommed on or bombs that will shrink you temporarily. Part of the problem comes from the sheer amount of enemies that can be on screen at one time, but a bigger part of it may be the character's level displayed over its head in bright, flashing text – very distracting.

Grapes Aren't Vegetables: Unless there's a cut scene explaining that all fruit on the planet defected to Don Onion's side, I don't think it's fair to have to fight grapes as part of his sinister army. Even if you're going to tell me that all fruits are vegetables at heart in real life, I'd still like a cut scene explaining – especially if I'm a kid that's been indoctrinated with the food pyramid.

What Should Stay The Same?
Unbearably Cute: It's the Wii, it needs cute. It thrives on it.

Simple Controls: The analog stick on the Nunchuck does most of the moving moving, a simple flick of the Wiimote does the jumping, the A does the eating and you can attack enemies and break them into smaller bits by pressing B. These basic controls minimize the amount of flailing you have to do in the game and are kid-appropriate.

Replayability: The game features three different play modes (time attack, reverse and regular mode), plus a secret unlockable character you can earn by completing the game as Munchie or Chomper.

Final Thoughts
As kids games go, this looks like a pretty good one. I'm not sure if it will get them eating vegetables right away, but it will definitely keep their attention for a good long while.

The first glimpse I got of Dead to Rights: Retribution was of Jack Slate stuffing the business end of a shotgun in some downed bald guy's mouth and pulling the trigger even as the guy held up his hands in a pleading gesture. Blood splattered the ground beneath what was left of his head and made little splatters on the "camera lens" that is the player's 3rd person view. It caused the tiny cluster of games journalists to collectively murmur, "Oooohh…"

I ditched my plate of canapés before nausea could set in. It was going to be one of those demos…

The hands-off demo began with Chapter 1 – Temple Tower, an introductory mission where Jack Slate has yet to pair off with his K-9 companion, Shadow. There's a hostage situation in a massive high-tech sky-scraper built on top of an 18th century tower. Jack starts outside where the rain adds a gritty, dystopian feel to the streets of Grant City – an obvious film noir homage. Inside the pristine lobby of Temple Tower, Jack meets a security guard who catches him up on what's going on and calls an elevator for Jack to use to get to the hostage-takers.

Then the slaughter starts. Jack exits the elevator to two generic-looking terrorist types – one bald, one beefy – trying to rush him. Having no gun at this point, Jack settles for boxing the baddies with a mix of fast attacks and strong attacks; like three quick jabs and a rough uppercut that adds a small splash of blood to the screen. Other attack possibilities include brutal takedowns like where you stomp someone's knee and then throw him down a flight of stairs, disarms that don't automatically shoot the NPC from whom you gank the weapon and a new system called "clinching" where you can grab a guy and just start pummeling him.

While doing the lattermost move to the bald guy, the beefy guy rushed Jack and the demo master explained that developer Volatile Games never wanted you to feel safe during combat situations. Every takedown, every clinch move and every time you slow down a bit to center a headshot, you're taking a risk that nearby enemies won't completely mob you.

That's why I think you're going to want to mix up hand-to-hand with armed combat. In theory, the two types of fighting will be seamlessly integrated – but this is hard to judge without a proper hands-on. It certainly looked pretty smooth when Jack flung the bald guy over a railing and then disarmed the beefy guy and shot him in the gut with his own gun. To finish him off, Jack did what's apparently a "transitional" move: pistol-whipping.

Gun in hand, Jack went up another floor via the stairs to where several hostages were actively trying to flee while terrorists came from a room behind them to rush Jack. Pistol-whipping the first guy (who could have been the bald guy's twin), Jack spun him around to use as a human shield ran across the room. This is quite possibly the fastest human shield mechanic I've seen in a game – but nothing's a good substitute for good cover.

After entering the room beyond the first hostage-laden lobby (somewhere near the 15th floor, according to the demo master), Jack dispatched his human shield and ducked into cover behind one of those square corporate-looking planters. He shot one guy with a shotgun, but couldn't pick it up because Jack doesn't drop guns until they're empty. Targeting another bald bad guy taking cover behind more corporate furniture, Jack scored a headshot, ran out of bullets and tossed the gun and then was able to pick up the shotgun. Three more terrorist guys rushed him from a different room – Jack shot one, punched another and then did that gun-in-the-mouth move that first popped my Death to Rights cherry.

I noticed then whenever something particularly gruesome or bad-ass happened during combat, the game went into slow motion. Apparently, the game decides to do that for certain moves if you did them especially well and it's the only time during combat when bad guys can't interrupt your flow.

UPDATE: So both Alicia and I are right — the game does decide for itself when to slow down one of your badass action moves during a kill AND that meter fills up over time and can be activated by the player to slow down time so you can do more combos or take better aim with a gun.

ETA: PR Manager Alicia Kim emailed me the following clarification on how the awesome move/slowdown system really works — "The slowdown in action you mentioned isn't actually dictated by the game. It's a meter that fills up on the lower left screen as you battle enemies. In the game, you trigger it yourself and have limited use of the meter at a time, where it slow downs the action to help you get more time to perform complex moves or glory shots."

About halfway through the mission, the demo master decided to switch gears and show us a Shadow level. Shadow and Jack will be together for most of the game and levels will switch between which character you control depending on the chapter. When playing as Jack, Shadow is alleged to be pretty self-sufficient and even fetches guns for Jack to use (take that, Fable II Dog!), so you won't have to babysit him. However the lone Shadow mission we were shown is all about Shadow babysitting Jack.

At this point in the story – Chapter 7 – some serious shit has happened to Jack. His shoulder looks dislocated, he's bleeding from a head wound and he's dazedly ambling down a shady-looking waterfront toward a bar. As Shadow, players run ahead of Jack to clear the path of bad guys who would otherwise shank, shoot or detain him.

I'm not familiar with how Shadow played in the original Dead to Rights, but Shadow-vision in Retribution looks almost like what you'd expect a dog to see: a colorless view of the world from the perspective of about crotch-height. The only glaring inconsistency is that Shadow sees Jack as a sort of fuzzy blue and enemies to Jack as red. He can also see people through objects, which comes in handy when trying to stealth kill people.

Your combat options with Shadow look a little more limited than Jack's hand-to-gun-to-hand style. As Shadow progressed through the waterfront level, he would either pad around behind cover softly, creeping up behind unsuspecting bad guys and lunging for the jugular – or he would go barreling down narrow alleyways at high speed to tackle a bad guy with enough force to bash his head open when he hit the ground (but he'd still maul ‘em anyway, for good measure). The "stealth" part comes in whenever Shadow locks his jaws over the face of a takedown victim to stifle their screams while he gnaws them to death.

Shadow can also protect Jack from harm by drawing bad guys away from him with well-timed barks. The one instance we saw of this was Shadow circling behind a box, barking twice to draw a red-colored baddie away from the blue-colored Jack. When he came within range, Shadow did the mouth-covering stealth kill and then took off down another alleyway for what I call a "bowling kill" on two other terrorist guys.

The waterfront level was less finished than the Temple Tower mission – cover items were in awkward places and the camera would periodically wig out whenever Shadow was standing too close to a corner – so we spent less with Shadow than we did with Jack. Certainly not enough time for any Okami/Twilight Princess comparisons.

The demo concluded with the demo master answering a couple of questions. From these, we found out a few tidbits not touched on by the sight of the game itself:
1) No mention of multiplayer, but singleplayer should take an average player about 10 hours to complete with three difficulty levels and unlockable content for replay value. You can change difficulties during a level, just in case you get to a particularly nasty spot or want to speed along the Shadow levels to get to the Jack levels (and vice versa).
2) The developer spent 18 months on the story alone and there's only one ending.
3) Throughout the game, Jack and Shadow will encounter different gangs which require different combat strategies to defeat.
4) The game's engine was built from the ground up, which might explain why Jack runs kind of funny.

But even without those snippets of information, it's safe to say Dead to Rights: Retribution left quite an impression – the kind that comes in blood splatters all over a level in the game or puddles of vomit all over your carpet. Look for it in late 2009 and look for the screens below.

Invincible Tiger is going for a more immersive gaming experience by including various 3D formats as gameplay options along with the traditional 2D mode. The plot of the game and the basic combat action are a throwback to the kung-fu films of the 70s; but the fancy art style the local/online co-op modes are a definite nod to more modern gaming sensibilities.

What Is It?
Invincible Tiger is an Xbox Live Arcade/PlayStation Network 2D brawler that features optional 3D modes. Players take on the role of Han Tao, General of a Thousand Voices tasked with reclaiming the Star of Destiny some Evil Overlord who took it. The environments are layered 2D – you can go into the background or foreground of a level by interacting with things in the level that flash red, such as tree vines or doors.

What We Saw
Namco Bandai showed off the stereoscopic 3D mode in a 360 build of Invincible Tiger, featuring one of the game's early levels that's set outside a temple. This required the use of special glasses (not the cheap red-blue kind you get the Imax). The game will support a variety of 3D modes, so you apparently won't have to buy a fancy TV the likes of which Tiger was being demoed on. But exact pricing and whether or not 3D glasses will be somehow provided to gamers who download the title hasn't been hammered out yet.

How Far Along Is It?
Somewhere between Alpha and Beta, I think. It was hard to tell based on the look of the game since it looks different than any other game I've seen. A little over two months ago, it was "close to Beta," but the exact number of levels and total length of the game haven't been decided yet, which is an indicator that it's still early days in the development cycle. The "summer 2009" date has been changed to just "2009" as of last night's event.

What Needs Improvement?
Monotonous: Invincible Tiger's combat is based around combos Han Tao can pull off and increasingly difficult waves of enemies. It's classic, I suppose, but I started to get a little bored fighting hordes of blue-clad ninjas just so I could fight hordes of black-clad ninjas that were slightly better at ducking, and then fight a bunch of sumo wrestlers who could both duck and block. It's the kind of thing that'd be more fun with a partner.

Not a Spectator's Game (in 3D): I'm a social gamer and I like inviting my friends to sit around while we take turns passing a controller. That's not going to work with Invincible Tiger unless my friends all have their own special stereoscopic glasses. It might not even work with normal 3D modes because not everybody wants to wear headgear to enjoy a video game. Here's hoping 2D can hold its own in terms of entertainment.

No Trophies or Versus Modes Announced: Yet.

More Like Fragile Tiger: I don't see how I'm the Invincible Tiger if I keep getting my butt kicked. Maybe they're talking about somebody else…?

What Should Stay The Same?
Local and Online Co-op: I didn't get to experience it, but I'd argue this makes any arcade game better.

Pretty Art Style: The colors were rich, the cherry blossoms delicate and even the subtle film grain overlay looked smooth enough to lick. It lent the brawler a sense of artsy prestige – like a glass dildo that could double as a centerpiece.

Sense of Depth in Levels: It's not only the 3D that makes Invincible Tiger feel deeper than it is – the various sections of level connected via interactive red items create a feeling that there's more to do in a level than just hammering on the face buttons. Even when presented with a boss fight where you have to kill a specific blue- or black-clad ninja, you could spend a lot of the fight just bouncing around a level and breaking pots for the hell of it. It felt pretty good.

Controls: I agree with Jim – they felt pretty good.

Final Thoughts
Overall, I was happy with Invincible Tiger up until the point where I got a headache from taking the glasses on and off to ask the PR rep questions and give other players turns at the controls. That aside, I appreciate the sense of innovation that comes from making a 3D mode for a 2D game, but I do not want to buy a fancy plasma TV to enjoy it. Also, I'm not so sure the fact that the game can be played in 3D is going to mitigate or distract from bland gameplay – but that's also impacted by game length and visual repetition between levels, neither of which I got to see in this demo. Here's hoping it all levels out.

Check out these non-3D screens:

To reintroduce gamers to the wacky puzzle/action/adventure/weird thing Japan created to ensnare gamers in mindless fun, Namco Bandai has given the original game a graphics makeover, a new story, a "handful" of new levels and some remixed music from the original Katamari Damacy. Sadly, the title wasn't hands-on at the Editors Day event, but one look at Katamari Forever was enough to bring back giddy feelings akin to the first rising vibes of an acid flashback. Even better – it's in 1080p.

The plot – if that's what you can call the disjointed explanation offered by Namco Bandai – features a world where the King of All Cosmos is in a coma and Robo King steps into run the show. This results in some kind of badness where Robo King goes a bit nuts and the normal King loses his memories. Hence, we get a few new Robo King levels, plus all the old levels from the original PlayStation 2 game, which need to be replayed with new gameplay rules to "restore" the King's memories and potentially wake him up.

The new Robo King level on display featured the Prince rolling his katamari ball around a desert dotted with oases. Rolling the katamari into the water filled up a gauge in the upper left hand corner of the screen and gave the ball a blue outline. As the Prince rolled the katamari out of the pool and across the sands, dirt, grass and flowers began to spring up. The strategy to the level was finding the shortest distance between oases and opening up new oases by knocking down walls with jump moves. In the move to the PS3, Katamari has picked up a single Sixaxis motion control – flicking the controller upwards makes the katamari jump the same way it does if you press the shoulder buttons. I guess total Sixaxis control would be a bit much for Katamari, but the watering-the-desert level does make for some obvious Flower comparisons that make me want there to be more Sixaxis.

The one King's-lost-memories level I got to see put me in mind of Rainbow Brite; it was a colorless version of a classic level where the Prince rolls his katamari around to make everything shiny and weird again as it was meant to be. There were classic items I remember seeing from the first game – but according to Namco Bandai, there will be new special and hidden items in each level for the truly committed to seek out and activate. Additionally, there are now different visual filters you can apply to levels – like Wood or Comic – that lend replay potential to Katamari Forever for both newcomers and fans of the first game along with local co-op and multiplayer modes and Trophies.

The sad thing about the Katamari Forever demo was that it was too noisy in the venue to hear the music. I guess I'll just have to settle for watching the trailer over and over to get my fix ‘til the game comes out this fall.

Check out the screens:

The game features a new-ish storyline about an amnesiac boy and two warring countries and is built with the Unreal 3 engine. But the Lost Odyssey parallels don't stop there.

According to the press release, the combat in Magna Carta II "combines real-time action, timing-based attacks, over-drive combinations, and the strategic use of skills, magical power and critical attacks." Sounds kind of familiar for the 360; but hopefully it will be an improvement over the combat system reviewers weren't too fond of in Tears of Blood.

Korean artist Hyung-Tae Kim also returns to give the characters their 12-year-old girl unique style and provide a connection to between Tears of Blood, the Korean-only The Phantom of Avalanche and this new edition to the Magna Carta family. Look for it later this year.

Here, have some screens:

Tekken also strikes a balance among fighting games between rewarding button mashing and encouraging players to learn character-specific combos. In other words, I could play through all the Tekken games by myself and get to watch the elaborate endings which fostered a sense of accomplishment – but my brother could still kick my ass and thereby maintain self-esteem. Everybody wins!

What Is It?
Tekken 6 is a one-on-one fighting game that will make the jump from PlayStation exclusive to multiplatform release by including the Xbox 360 along with its PS3 and PSP releases. Series developer veteran Katsuhiro Harada said radical changes have been made to the graphics engine so that the game can better focus on portraying movement. Harada also added that each console release would have unique content. Dare we hope for Soulcalibur-style homage characters?

What We Saw
I played four versus matches against Joystiq's Randy Nelson as Law, Kuma, Kazuya and new character Zafina. Randy tried out Panda, Feng and new character Bob — the fat guy who plays like a skinny guy and potentially provides a glimpse into what Japanese people think of American people. Technically, we weren't supposed to play with Kuma, Panda or Law, but the game's time-sensitive character selection screen kept dumping us into matches before the PR rep could point out where the permissible characters were on the screen.

How Far Along Is It?
The game looked pretty final, but the PR rep explained that some characters and levels weren't finished yet. Tekken 6 ships this fall.

What Needs Improvement?
Fine Tune Grabbing: Unbalanced grabbing systems are the bane of strategy-minded fighting game fans (think Soulcalibur IV). So it's important for any any fighting game to balance out the strength of and character sensitivity to grab attacks. Four matches isn't much time to get a complete feel for how well Tekken 6 stacked up against other fighting games, but I did feel like it was easy to break grabs and easy to make them, but even if you pulled one off, it didn't do the kind of catastrophic damage that makes you want to break grabs as soon as possible.

Insert Smack Talking: One my favorite things about fighting games is the smack talking that goes on before and after versus matches – especially if by they don't sync up in context or hostility. I'm not sure anything will top Kasumi's whiny dialog matched against Ein's death threats in Dead or Alive 3 for me, but I remember Tekken had some pretty good lines before and after battles. Sadly, I neither saw nor heard any smack talking in any of the matches I played.

What Should Stay The Same?
Zafina: There are a total of 42 characters – seven of them new to the series. The only one I got to spend quality time with was Zafina, who reminds me of Voldo from Soulcalibur, only hot and not male. Her moves were fluid and spider-like, and a lot of them come out of a low combat stance that allows her to perform over-her-back attacks reminiscent of Voldo. According to the January 2009 issues of PlayStation: The Official Magazine, Zafina is from the Middle East and uses "ancient assassinations arts." Guess those ancient assassins were double jointed.

Flying Pigs: There are a total of 16 stages in the game, but so far my favorite is the pig farm level that may or may not be Bob's stage in the story mode. About half a dozen pigs are onscreen throughout the fight and if you happen to hit one, kick one or get thrown into one or more, they go flying and land a few feet away, unharmed. It's less tragic than the frog that goes to heaven in the Secret Garden level from Tekken 5, but no less hilarious.

Final Thoughts
I liked Tekken 5 and saw no reason why I wouldn't like Tekken 6. There were some "new" things I didn't get to experience in only four matches that may have an impact on my feelings. For example, I didn't see the new multi-floored levels where you can crash through a floor or a wall into another area; I didn't see the rage system that increases a character's strength when they're near death. More subtle matters I couldn't get a feel for were the Bound system that extends juggles and the tweaks to death animations and fighting combo mechanics. Also, Law has gone through a major character overhaul; but since I wasn't supposed to play as him, I only got in a single match. It looked cool, but I can't say if I like it or not based on only one go.

And now for some screens:

First up is Naruto: Ultimate Ninja. The game will be rendered in full 3D including all the backgrounds and the battles. It will be an exclusive to the PS3 platform as well as the first Naruto game to be presented in full 3D.

Next we heard about Namco's answer to Nintendogs, National Geographic Panda. Raise and train your own panda with its own distinct personality right on your DS.

While Naruto isn't exactly my thing, something about that Panda game has me a little intrigued. It would be awesome if you could train it to maul your enemies, but I suppose that isn't exactly National Geographic's MO. Too bad really.

You can check out the press release for both games after the jump.

NAMCO BANDAI GAMES ANNOUNCES NARUTO™: ULTIMATE NINJA® STORM FOR THE PLAYSTATION®3 SYSTEM

Naruto's PLAYSTATION 3 System Debut Revolutionizes Ninja Action with Full 3D Combat, Free-Roaming Exploration and Incredible Anime Graphics

Santa Clara, Calif., (April 16, 2008) - Leading video games publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced NARUTO™: Ultimate Ninja® STORM exclusively for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. Based on the popular NARUTO™ animated television series from VIZ Media, the game delivers ninja action on an unprecedented scale as players go head to head in full 3D combat, investigate every inch of the Hidden Leaf Village in open-world exploration and revel in high definition graphics that surpass traditional hand-drawn animation.

Evolving the head-to-head fighting action of the Ultimate Ninja series, NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM allows players to battle in full 3D across massive environments. Players will unleash powerful jutsu attacks, perform acrobatic evasive maneuvers and even run up walls and over water as they pursue their opponent for ninja supremacy. Players will be able to customize their character's fighting style and recruit up to two support characters to put their own stamp on the action. Each character in the game is capable of unleashing powerful Awakening abilities under certain gameplay conditions, offering new traits and talents to the game's impressive ninja roster of 25 popular characters from the animated series. NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM supports head-to-head multiplayer fighting for up to two players.

Allowing players to further immerse themselves in the world of NARUTO, NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM introduces all-new free-roaming exploration across the Hidden Leaf Village and the Forest of Death. Players can search every inch of these iconic environments to take on more than 100 unique missions, collect valuable scrolls and interact with additional characters from the NARUTO animated series. Injecting additional variety to the game's head-to head combat, these missions include races, special deliveries and large-scale battles against massive opponents.

Taking advantage of an original next-generation graphics engine, NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM utilizes fluid animation, incredible visual detail and an advanced facial expression system to create high-definition graphics on the PLAYSTATION 3 system that surpass traditional hand-drawn animation. Replicating the same environments, characters and effects as the hit animated series, this new technology allows gamers to become a part of the world of NARUTO like never before.

"Naruto's PLAYSTATION 3 system debut truly blurs the line between gaming and animation to deliver the most immersive and authentic interactive experience the franchise has ever seen," said Todd Thorson, Director of Marketing and Public Relations with NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Inc. "Players will marvel at the game's jaw-dropping graphics, fast-paced 3D fighting and new open-world exploration as they experience a classic NARUTO storyline with all of their favorite characters and environments."

Developed by CyberConnect2, NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM will launch exclusively for the PLAYSTATION 3 system this fall. For more information please visit: www.ultimateninjastorm.com and www.naruto.com.

NAMCO BANDAI ANNOUNCES NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PANDA FOR THE NINTENDO DS™

It's Panda-monium on Nintendo DS

Santa Clara, Calif., (April 16, 2008) - Leading video games publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. announced today that they have partnered with National Geographic to bring National Geographic Panda exclusively to the Nintendo DS™ this fall. Nurture and play with your own cuddly panda bear using intuitive touch screen controls in this virtual pet simulation game. Learn more information about pandas with the game's library of recent and past National Geographic articles, each accompanied by gorgeous visuals. Players are sure to fall in love with their panda's lighthearted nature and humorous reactions.

"We are excited to partner with National Geographic to take the virtual pet genre to a greater level of immersion," said Todd Thorson, Director of Marketing and Public Relations of NAMCO BANDAI Games America. "National Geographic Panda is a unique opportunity for two highly regarded companies to produce such an entertaining product. The amount of interaction and fun to be had with your panda beats everything else on the market."

"Our first partnership with Namco Bandai is right in the National Geographic wheel house," said Paul Levine, senior vice president, National Geographic Corporate Strategy, Development and Extended Platform. "We've covered pandas for much of our 120-year history in all our media, and we're thrilled to extend that into the world of gaming."

In National Geographic Panda, help nurture and play with a cuddly panda bear in the serene Panda Park. How you interact with them will determine their behaviors. Mistreatment will have pandas running away from you so nurturing fun is the best way to keep them happy. As you play, new pandas will join in on the fun and an assortment of playground toys will become available to keep them entertained including balls, slides and tire swings. Use a daily allowance to purchase food and new toys immediately for your virtual pet or order through mail via Panda Delivery.

Players can step inside the Panda House to learn about all aspects of panda life with daily National Geographic articles. New editorial content will become available to read each day with corresponding pictures from recent and past National Geographic magazines. National Geographic Panda will offer countless hours of fun for panda lovers everywhere when it is released this fall.

Watching the game being played reminded me a bit of Stardust HD, Geometry Wars and a little bit of flOw thrown in for good measure. The graphics were slick and organic at the same time, giving the whole thing a really cool look that I haven't really seen in other games of this ilk. It's set to release in the fall and I'll be anxiously awaiting its arrival.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is set two years after the original tales of Symphonia. A new game mechanic has been introduced that will allow players to capture over 200 monsters and raise them to help out in battle. The real time battle system is back allowing you to switch your attacking character on the fly, even in the middle of battle. The graphics have received an upgrade for the Wii as well with new character and background designs. While there are quite a few changes, onlookers observed that it is still very similar to the original.

Tales of Vesperia will debut on the 360 and marks the first time a Tales game will be presented in HD for in game play and the animated cut scenes. The graphics looked quite nice and gave me a little bit of that Eternal Sonata feeling just not quite as sharp. Vesperia also sports a real time battle system and the ability to customize your characters with various powers and abilities. If you are a Japanese RPG fan, this is one you won't want to miss as I was very impressed with the small portion that I saw.

Both games are set to release this year although there is no hard release date set. make the jump to check out some screens from both of these upcoming games.

I checked out a few of the 12 min-games that will be included in the final release including a Whac-a-Mole game that has you stamping on the pad to whack the moles, a roller skating game, a head to head log rolling game that has you jumping over...well, logs, and a co-op game where two players use balance to steer a runaway mine cart. All in all they games were somewhat interesting, but for me anyway the mini game thing is not quite my cup of tea. I also found the jumping recognition of the pad to be a little slow and you had to really anticipate the jumps. Hopefully this will be worked out before the game releases. Active Life Outdoor Challenge will come bundled with the pad for $49.99 this fall.

The game makes use of the remote and nunchuk control as well as the soon to be released Balance Board. However, the balance board is not necessary to have to be able to play the game. It is much more fun with it though, I can tell you that. As you can imagine, getting on the Balance Board will allow you to lean to the left and right, thus making your little skier curve to the left or the right on his little skiis. The remote and nunchuk are used to simulate the poles and the whole control scheme really gives one the feeling of actual skiing despite the cartoony surroundings.

As I mentioned before, there is more to it than just the simple skiing. Wii Ski is an open world game that takes place in a mountain top ski resort. There are a total of fourteen ski runs with thirteen of them open at the game's start. The fourteenth is hidden but is worth finding as it contains a yeti! And iIdo love a good yeti. The character customization is quite in depth and includes two hundred and twenty four body types and one hundred and eighty seven pieces of gear including a wedding dres, a tux, a penguin costume and multiple types of skiis. As you roam about the world you can also find over seventy freestyle events like ski runs, races, slolums and photoshoots just to name a few.

We Ski can be played by up to four players and will be launching on May 13 for the budget price of $30.

Once we were allowed to go check out the games hands on however, I swallowed my pride and stepped up to test my cheering skilz. The game can be played single or multi-player and is controlled with the Wii remote and nunchuk combo. Up to four players can play on a team or if you only have two players, one can control the left hand and the other controls the right. As far as gameplay is concerned it plays somewhat like Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents with the player using the Wii remote to trace out various shapes at different speeds. it was really quite a lot of fun after I got over my initial embarrassment. Everyone I spoke to afterwards really enjoyed it as well and we all agreed that this would be the best drunk/guilty pleasure game of 2008. it is obviously aimed at the ten girl market but I'm sure a fair share of units will be sold to "hardcore" gamers who will no doubt pull it out when no one is looking.

The graphics were pretty standard Wii fare with the little cheerleaders themselves looking a bit like Bratz dolls but not quite so slutty. The characters are all customizable and you can change their hair, outfits, pom pom colors, etc. My only real complaint about the game was the lack of male cheerleaders. There weren't any! This is a huge oversight in my opinion and one that they should seriously think about changing. Am I biased? Sure! I happen to know quite a few male cheerleaders who will no doubt be miffed to know that their gender was excluded from the game. I figured I might be the only one who cared about this, but it seems that I wasn't the only one who mentioned it.

So, We Cheer team if you are listening, you have a great game here, but the addition of a few well placed male characters would make the game seem a little more rounded and a little less targeted to one single audience.

In the build that I saw, the slicing and dicing was really the focus du jour. The game utilizes a dynamic cutting system that does away with the pre rendered cutting animations of past games. Wherever you cut your enemy, that's exactly where the body part gets lopped off. And there were plenty of body parts flying around believe you me.

The game itself was gorgeous to look at. The art style was an amazing homage to dark anime and manga. The textures were gorgeous and at times looked almost photographic with the exception of the tight, thin lines outlining every object and character. Close up looks at the characters showed a beautiful texturing that mimics the scratchy pen and ink line style of many mangas. The character's skin also had a texture applied that almost made them look like they were carved from a fine grain wood. Sometimes during certain scenes, the image would go split screen, showing approaching enemies and Afro Samurai at the same time in separate sections, adding to the overall anime/manga style of the graphics

Seeing as we just watched the fellow roam through a few of the levels laying waste to the many enemies, it was hard to get a real handle on the gameplay or running story. If the ending gameplay and story matches up to the beauty of the graphic treatment, Afro Samurai will be a game both fans and non-fans of the show will really enjoy when it hits sometime this fall.

SC IV was on display for everyone to check out, but much like McWhertor's experience at GDC, there were only a limited number of characters to play with. My choices were a bit different than McWertor's however as I got to pick between Taki, Cassandra, Seung Mina and Hilde. I took Cassandra in hand and roundly bested my opponent (who's name I will leave out to save them embarrassment, but You know who you are!) in three rounds. I was also able to check out a little of Hilde and her shiny armor before i had to give up the controller to the next journo in the long line. I really like her fighting style and plan on exploring them more extensively when the final release happens. Something tells me she will be in my regular roster along with Ivy.

The controls for the PS3 version were tight and familiar and I was glad that they hadn't tried changing them up. The graphics were stunning as always and the really showed off the power of the PS3. A particular favorite was a large round arena with walls of gears and little mechanical men and carousel horses giving one the feeling of fighting in a giant cuckoo clock. The HUD has also received a makeover looking much tighter and sharper than it's predecessors.

So, mark your calendars for July 29th and if you want that Collector's Edition, be sure to pre-order it. I have a feeling they will be going fast. Be sure to check after the jump for a ton of new screenshots featuring Darth Vader and Yoda.