Capcom is holding a Top Secret Dark Void event in San Francisco on Monday. So top secret that they won't tell anyone where it is, or what they are doing. For all we know they could be testing out vertical combat and you'll be the live guinea pig. All they will tell you is where to be picked up to be ferried to the event, and even then you need to apply.

In order to be eligible to enter you have to be 21 or older with a valid form of ID, and must be able to make it to the assembly point by 2PM, with the event lasting until 7:30PM. To submit yourself for consideration, click on the link below and follow the instructions there. Then get picked, attend, and let us know how that works out for you.

Join Us for a Top Secret Dark Void Event [Capcom Unity]

It wouldn't be Distant Worlds without the music of Final Fantasy and it wouldn't the music of Final Fantasy without Spehiroth's theme from Final Fantasy VII, One Winged Angel. There have been many performances of this number over the years – nearly all of which you can catch on YouTube – but it never hurts to have one more, so here it is for your viewing pleasure. You might say it's over done, but really, if Uematsu digs it, why shouldn't you?

Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY is a world concert tour commemorating Final Fantasy's 20th anniversary. The tour kicked off in Sweden December 4, 2007. I'm not sure where the concert is heading after leaving Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, but here's hoping it wasn't the last we heard of Uematsu and Roth.

Enjoy!

The July 18th San Francisco performance of Distant Worlds: the music of FINAL FANTASY sold out within weeks of the tickets becoming available on the San Francisco Symphony ticket services site. But don't be completely crushed: it looks like you can still buy tickets to the after party at Crimson Lounge for $110. Uematsu will be there, so consider it a cheaper alternative to moving to Japan.

The Distant Worlds concert series features different selections from Uematsu's Final Fantasy scores and is conducted by Grammy-winner Arnie Roth. It kicked off a world tour in Stockholm, Sweden on December 4, 2007. Find out more about it here.

And in case you plan on hitting eBay or want to shop for scalpers outside the theater, the San Francisco Distant Worlds performance will be at Davies Symphony Hall on July 18 at 8PM.

The Street Fighter Club is an invitation only event that allows fans of Street Fighter IV get a taste of what's to come when the release date hits.

You find the dark alley, you head through the unmarked door, but instead of getting mugged, you'll find a very private room full of Street Fighter awesomeness. We've got all of the SFIV console characters, the SFIV arcade machines, and of course some very special surprises.

Very special surprises? I bet it's ice cream. Man I love ice cream.

Hit up the link below, email the specified guy, and you could be well on your way to possibly not getting mugged this Friday!

San Francisco Street Fighter Club [Capcom Unity]

Capcom is holding a round of focus testing on Friday, and unless they've suddenly decided to go into the soft drink market, that means there's a chance some lucky readers could get their hands on an early build of...something.

Alright everyone, it's time again to spend a few hours behind Capcom's doors playing one of our yet unreleased or unannounced titles. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area on this Friday, the 9th, we want you here. We'll looking for a few guys and gals to come in to our San Mateo offices, if your available in the1-6pm time frame.

Considering their upcoming line up of unreleased titles, either one of those possibilities sounds downright intriguing. Hit up the link below to find out how to sign up for a chance at an afternoon filled with Capcom-flavored excitement, and to see why I chose a cat playing video games picture for this post.

Community Focus Test Friday [Capcom Unity]

The move comes in anticipation of the North American release of Frogster's Runes of Magic, which aims to take the best of all MMO worlds and mash them up into one complete package. The new offices will house the servers for the game, which they hope to launch by year's end. The subsidiary will be run by industry veteran Sean Kauppinen, who will take on the role of interim CEO to oversee the game's launch. Kauppinen has previous worked with both Sony Online Entertainment and Ubisoft.

Welcome to the U.S., Frogster! May you find San Francisco every bit as warm and welcoming as your native Germany.

Frogster America Inc. Founded in San Francisco

Games Industry Veteran Sean Kauppinen to Fulfill Interim President and CEO Role

SAN FRANCISCO - (Dec. 10, 2008) Frogster Interactive Pictures AG today announced the founding of its North American subsidiary, Frogster America Inc., yesterday in San Francisco. Sean Kauppinen, a very well-connected US games industry veteran has joined to take an interim president and CEO role and lead the company through its early stage. Sean Kauppinen has been active in the US games industry for over 14 years and successfully arranged the market introductions of various blockbuster computer games in various positions with Sony Online Entertainment, Ubisoft, and other top gaming companies. Dirk Meyer zu Drewer, a German senior finance professional working in the US since 1998, takes the Secretary and interim CFO role. Andreas Weidenhaupt, CEO of Frogster Online Gaming GmbH, is joining the board as a (non-executive) VP. Christoph Gerlinger, CEO of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG, serves as (non-executive) chairman of the board.

The game servers of Frogster America Inc., designed for hosting, accounting and billing transactions of the highly anticipated massively multiplayer online game ‘Runes of Magic’ in the USA, were also set up yesterday. Frogster America is looking to launch the commercial service of ‘Runes of Magic’ before year-end.

"Frogster is making a strategic move into the US market with Runes of Magic, a title that sets the AAA standard for premium free-to-play, micro-transaction based games," said Sean Kauppinen, president and CEO of Frogster America Inc. "With a strong launch team in place, Frogster America is well positioned to grow the operation aggressively in the coming months."

Frogster Interactive Pictures AG considers its MMO game ‘Runes of Magic’ a keystone opportunity to move into the attractive North American market and quickly establish its own customer base. The Berlin based Frogster Group sees thousands of new players’ registrations from North America each week, even without Frogster focusing efforts there until now. ‘Runes of Magic’ was named the ‘Best Free-to-play-Game’ of the Games Convention 2008 by Ten Ton Hammer, an industry leading MMO media outlet, and is regularly listed among the Top 5 in the unofficial US MMO game charts of upcoming MMO games at MMORPG.com.

About Frogster Interactive Pictures AG
Frogster Interactive Pictures AG is a Berlin-based publisher of online computer games. Frogster focuses on the operation and the exploitation of virtual worlds, so-called Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. This is one of the strongest growing sectors in the entertainment industry. The Berlin-based Frogster Online Gaming GmbH which has arisen from the merger of OnlineWelten, the German MMO games and gaming network with the widest range, and Yusho, operator and service provider for virtual worlds on own hardware infrastructure, own billing systems for subscriptions and virtual items operates and exploits mmo games in Europe (Frogster share 71%). Frogster Co. Ltd. based in Seoul, Korea, develops mmo games and is planning the launch of the operation and the exploitation of virtual worlds in Asia for 2009 (stake 60%). Frogster America Inc. based in San Francisco, USA, will be taking up the operation and exploitation of mmo games in North America in 2009 (stake 90%). Amongst other titles the Frogster group owns several very promising mmo game licences with ‘The Chronicles of Spellborn’ and ‘Runes of Magic’. Currently the group employs more than 80 staff members. In 2008, Frogster was awarded as “Landmark in the Land of Ideas”, a competition under the patronage of the German President Dr. Horst Köhler. Internet: www.frogster-interactive.de

Starting on October 11 and running all the way through October 29, the Game Over art show will be on display at Giant Robot in San Francisco – featuring such artists as Brian Ralph, Ben King, Ako Castuera and Aiyana Udesen.

If you don't know who any of those people are, don't feel bad. Just trust me when I say they're artists and that they love video games. Don't believe me? Check out some of the pieces after the jump. (Scans courtesy of Luke Martinez, Giant Robot Manager and champion of Game Over’s success.)

You can see (and buy) more pieces from the show here.

This particular store sold all of its MGS PS3 bundles at 10pm to people who were waiting in line although the GameStop employee I spoke with refused to divulge how many systems they received. I asked him if they had received lots of pre-orders and he informed me once again that he was not allowed to talk about it. Given that the line was quite long and everyone there had to have a pre-order, I would guess that their list was rather extensive. A nearby Best Buy that was also doing a midnight launch sold out of their twenty five PS3 bundles within a a few minutes after announcing them around 11:30pm. Apparently their employees have no such non-disclosure rule when it comes to numbers.

There were three local outlets doing midnight launches, but one store was conspicuously dark. The Sony store in the Metreon Center didn't hold a midnight launch. This is due to the fact that it's in a mall and the cost of keeping it open past hours would make it not quite worth the while. So if you live in the SF area and are keen to get your hands on a bundle, all your hopes lie on the Sony Store's door. A door that will open at 10am PST Thursday morning. Good Luck!

And it's quite possible that this is viral marketing for the upcoming title (out in June), if not the movie (this week). They roll this sucker in San Francisco, and LucasArts is around the block in the Presidio. Five million Legos is not something you buy or assemble that quick — if it is a solid 5 mil Legos. I don't really see them flaking off as it tumbles, so it may be a bunch of big pieces- parts made by Lego and assembled by this team. Also, it's S.F. in the middle of the day, no moving cars in the shot, very few parked, so they probably got a filming permit. And the big flatbed truck too ... good bet this is marketing.

But it's clever, and I admire any creative impulse that gets you to roll a Lego boulder down a big hill into a parked van. Plus it has a guy dressed as Sallah, and fezzes are awesome. But if this was Boston, they'd all be arrested for terrorism.

LEGO Boulder [YouTube, thanks cashius22]

Also, as I reported last week, tonight is the launch party for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII at the Sony Metreon Center in San Francisco. The event goes from 6pm - 9pm and space is limited to 200 people.

And if that's not enough for you, our own Crecente will be attending and telling you all about his adventures at the Tecmo event in New York. Launch events, ho!

Jonathan Newth, Corporate Development Officer of Kuju Entertainment, commented "The US, and San Francisco in particular, is a natural choice for our first non-UK studio. It's a hotbed of development talent, home to many leading publishers and some of the leading US games press.

Kuju America [Official Website]

It was an amazing trip across the country and between the stops at Graceland, catching sight of a 72oz steak, a 4lb hamburger and the Liberace Museum, I even managed to see some video game related things . Arcades in truck stops, game stations in fast food joints and the Spike VGAs, not to mention the myriad video poker machines in Vegas. Sure, you could argue that those aren't video games, but Xbox LIVE has Texas Hold 'Em which is basically the same thing. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Reporting to you live from my favorite cafe in San Francisco, I will be bringing you some of the stories from the road mixed in with the regular enormous dearth of news there always is on the weekends and especially around the holidays. Hopefully there will be something in there that will interest you.

I never really thought I'd miss writing twenty four articles a weekend, but damn it's good to be back

If you're a Final Fantasy fan and reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, your dreams of going to a party celebrating the 20th anniversary of the long running franchise have just come true.

On June 26, Square Enix will be throwing a shindig at the Sony Playstation Store at the Metreon Center at 101 4th Street in downtown San Francisco to commemorate the occasion of twenty years of magic, mayhem and androgynous male characters. Party goers will get the chance to purchase the Final Fantasy I revamped for the PSP as well as getting a glimpse of the new FF II remake (also on the PSP). As an added bonus, the first hundred people through the door will receive exclusive FF merchandise. If you're one of those lucky hundred, be sure to snap pictures of this exclusive merchandise so we can post it here and make you the envy of every FF fan in the world (minus ninety-nine). Flynn De Marco

You have, by now, been flooded with images, video, Q&As, interviews, stories about Halo 3, heck, I wouldn't be surprised if not a few of you have even been playing the beta for the 360 shooter. But I still wanted to take a second to jot down my early thoughts after playing with the multiplayer beta of the game for more then a few hours last night.

Initially, I was blown away by the game. I liked the way it looked and felt, I LOVED the new touches, the new weapon tweaks, the new equipment. But that luster started to erode quickly as the night slipped by.

The first to go was my appreciate for the game's look. There is no, absolutely no anti-aliasing in the game currently and when viewed on a large high-definition television that equates to fields of jagggy hills, jaggy palm fronds blowing in the wind, even jaggie weapons and snow. Initially, it didn't bother me that much, but my irritation grew as I played it and it become less and less possible for me to ignore the harsh graphic lines.

The weird thing is that overall the game looks pretty good, it's just those jaggies, especially when played in a split-screen mode, that got to me.

Then, after playing the game for hours on end, I started to realize (I'm a slow learner) that the game was essentially a blending of the best of Halo and Halo 2 with a bit added on to tweak gameplay and make it feel different. I suppose I shouldn't have been expecting them to re-invent the wheel, but it would have been nice to see some sort of shift in gameplay, something that Halo 3 most certainly doesn't do.

I can understand why they didn't want to mess too much with a winning formula, and might not be as noticeable once the game hits retail. I do like that they've added this ability to record playback of your favorite matches and play them or upload them for later viewing. I suspect that's a much bigger deal than people realize.

The problem is that while their are new weapons and substantial changes to old weapons, the game is essentially the same at its heart. It would have been nice if there were more additions like the force walls that you can walk through but no shoot through. That changes the way you play those areas of the game. As does the bubble shield and the power drainer.

Of course the big deal, I think, to a lot of Halo fans will actually be the single player experience. Odd for a shooter, but it's the plot of this last in the trilogy that will make or break Halo 3. Brian Crecente

Being developed in conjunction with the movie for six different platforms, The Golden Compass certainly has a lot of obstacles to overcome straight out of the gate.

Sega's announcement at their event in San Francisco yesterday seemed more about the movie than the impending game. Sure, they talked about the platforms it's coming (all of them) and the fact that they have full access to the movie's props and lots of images of the actors, but the game just wasn't grabbing my atetntion.

In it you play through 11 levels, two of which are unique to the book and the game, as the movie's leading girl, a shapeshifting manimal and a gi-normous polar bear.

All but the DS version is being developed by Shiny Entertainment, with the DS version being made by Artificial Mind and Movement.

Despite the fact the fact that the people showing the game to the press used the phrase "very excited" at least three times during the very short presentation, I couldn't help but be most decidedly not very excited about its prospects. Brian Crecente

I'm heading off to Electronic Arts' Summer Preview in a bit here in San Francisco.

The event promises to show off, among other things, Boogie, the new Harry Potter title, NASCAR 08, NCAA Football 08, SimCity DS, The Sims 2 Pets Wii, The Sims Pet Stories, Tumble Bees and, wait for it, Wing Commander Arena. None of it is under embargo, so expect some impressions as soon as I can get them up.

There's also supposed to be a "special announcement" around 4:30 p.m. pacific, I'll try to get that up asap as well. Brian Crecente

ETech (short for "Emerging Technology") was going on for the last couple of days in San Diego (my brother just came back and commented on how "expensive" everyone looked). Microsoft sent their man, Dr. John Curlander, to present the technologies that made Virtual Earth, an application used to show 3D models of real cities.

Most of the discussions at the conference, however, revolved around what they haven't done and are only starting to think about doing, like lending their own application to the developers at Xbox 360 so they can make games with real world backgrounds.

This application launched in November of last year. If it's so great, why is Microsoft only starting to think about making it available to its own people? Kim Phu

Microsoft lays out plans for Virtual Earth [C Net]

Yah, I agree. We do need a San Francisco based-writer to beef up our US coverage. Got any one in mind or are we opening this up to the flood gates?

Speaking of flood gates, today's ban count: Two.

Just got back from the video store where I snagged a copy of the first two episodes of Lost: Season 2. They just hit DVD here and seem to be popular with the locals. Season one was a knock-out, though I hear the current season playing over there is in the States dips greatly in quality. Bummer!

What you missed while you were sleeping:

• Xbox 360 begins its great Japan crap-out.
• GameStop piles on the creepy.
• Here's info on how the 360 is doing in India.
• Retro gaming are a-lacking.

Odd thing. Remember that DS cookbook my wife was using? Thanks to its super healthy recipes, I'm actually dropping weight. Freaky, huh? Now, off to watch Lost, drink beer and put that weight back on!