Namco Bandai will be using the Namco Sounds label to release exclusive re-mastered tracks from its extensive stable of classic games. To inaugurate the launch of the label, songs from Pac-Man, Xevious, and SoulCalibur Suite: The Resonance of Souls and Swords are now available for purchase, with the latter being a special exclusive release in honor of the launch of SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny on the PSP. Additional tracks under the new label will be showing up on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month.

It's always good to see more video game music showing up on iTunes, though I'd have to say that I've never sat back and thought to myself, "Gee, I wish I had Xevious music on my iPod." Should be interesting to see what other rarities the company makes available as the label progresses.

All times are U.S. Pacific Daylight, which means the broadcast has begun right now. Here's your lineup, per the Evo 2009 site:

9:00 - 10:30 Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike 2on2 - Finals (top 8)
10:30 - 12:00 Guilty Gear XX:Accent Core - Finals (top 8)
12:00 - 12:15 Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion Tournament Finals (top 2)
12:15- 1:30 Soul Calibur IV - Finals (top 8)
1:30 - 2:00 Combo Video Exhibition
2:00 - 3:30 Marvel vs. Capcom II - Finals (top 8)
3:30 - 4:00 The Dog Face Show: Live!
4:00 - 5:00 One Hour Dinner Break
5:00 - 5:15 Blazblue Exhibition Tournament Finals (top 2)
5:15 - 6:45 SSFIIT: HDR - Finals (top 8)
6:45 - 7:00 Special Words from Ono-san (Yoshi Ono, Street Fighter producer)
7:00 - 9:30 Street Fighter IV - Finals (top 8)

If for some reason the stream stops working, try Evo2k.com and follow the fighting there. That site also has a chat if you want to participate in that.

Evo 2009 is sponsored by Capcom, Namco Bandai, and Sony PlayStation.

Evo 2009 Live Broadcast [site, thanks Roderick H.!]

In honor of Father's Day, we celebrate dads in video games: from the good to the bad to the "Luke, I am your father kind," that don't fulfill any fatherly duties beyond lopping off a limb. Join us now in separating the Bill Cosbys from the Darth Vaders.

Fathers in… Role-Playing Games
Much like mothers, fathers in role-playing games often are killed early in order to inspire the hero to leave home and avenge dear daddy (and mommy) and the rest of their destroyed village. However, there are some dads who stick around. When they do, they're usually playable support characters their son or daughter's active fighting party, or they show up in flashbacks and hallucinations to offer pep talks and parental criticism. Here are a few of these fatherly figures:

Jecht, Final Fantasy X – Father of Tidus: He's an alcoholic all-star blitzball player who insults his son to toughen him up. Instead, he winds up alienating him. Only after son and father find out they're dead do they make up with a manly high-five.

Kaim, Lost Odyssey – Father of Liram: Kaim believes his daughter is dead, but when he rediscovers her as an old, sick woman, he gets around to some parental duties like making funeral arrangements and babysitting the grandkids.

Pankraz, Dragon Quest V – Father of The Hero: Pankraz travels the world with his son and eventually sacrifices himself to save The Hero from monsters. Alas, he can't save his son from being sold into slavery from beyond the grave.

Walter, Suikoden Tactics – Father of Kyril: Walter goes into exile to protect his lover and bastard son but decides to keep Mommy's identity a secret. He gets turned into a fish monster and attacks Kyril before another party member puts him out of his misery.

James, Fallout 3 – Father of You: Daddy dearest ditches you in Vault 101 and goes to find a cure for irradiated water. When you finally catch up with him, he sends you on a deadly quest and then bites it in the name of science. And, uh, saving you – that too.

Uriel Septim VII, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – Father of Martin: Had several legitimate sons to stock the throne with heirs, but wisely kept a child out of wedlock just in case a Daedra Lord killed all of his other kids. Instead of fostering the boy to a vassal or something noble, Septim stuck Martin in the church to keep him out of trouble.

Best Dad… Pankraz, because, while he couldn't keep his son from being sold into slavery, he didn't hesitate to take on a horde of monsters to save him.

Worst Dad… Uriel Septim VII, because, really, it was bad enough for Martin to be born a bastard – even worse to have Daedra Lords come after you because of some dude you've never even met. Thanks for nothing, Dad!

Fathers in… Fighting Games
Fighting games have a high volume of fathers. Apparently, popping out a few kids is the thing to do after winning world martial arts tournaments. But no father in any fighting game seems to have thought the decision to become a father and a world martial arts champion at the same time all the way through: Either you're abandoning the kid at a young age so they invariably follow in your footsteps just to find you. Or – worse – you actively train them in your fighting style so they can grow up, follow in your footsteps and then kick your ass.

Raphael Sorel, Soulcalibur series – Foster father of Amy: Raphael got kicked out of his own family for killing some crazy noble and found the orphaned Amy wandering the streets of some French town. He took her in, raised her, trained her and went completely crazy trying to create a perfect world for her.

Frederick Schtauffen, Soulcalibur series – Father of Siegfried: Frederick left his infant son to go fight in the Crusades. While he was gone, Siegfried fell in with a bad crowd and wound up beheading his own father in a misguided act of patriotism.

Seong Han-myeong, Soulcalibur series – Father of Mi-na and wannabe foster father to Hwang: Teaches both children how to kick some serious ass, but winds up favoring Hwang with family heirlooms. When Hwang refuses Han-myeong's offer to adopt him, he tries to marry Mi-na to Hwang. Mi-na runs away.

Cervantes de Leon, Soulcalibur series – Father of Ivy: Somehow fathered the hottest thing in the Soul series and then tried to devour her when she comes looking for his sword, Soul Edge.

Heihachi Mishima, Tekken series – Father of Kazuya: Throws his son off a cliff to toughed him up, throws him down a volcano out of spite and basically does nothing but try to destroy his son for the entire Tekken series.

Kazuya Mishima, Tekken series – Father of Jin: He may not have thrown his son off any cliffs, but Kazuya's revenge aspiration against his own father eventually turns his son against him. Also, it turns his son into a flying demon thing.

Marshall Law, Tekken series – Father of Forest: Law sees more of the insides of restaurants than he does of his own son, but he stops at nothing to pay the hospital bills when Forest wrecks his motorcycle.

Lau Chan, Virua Fighter – Father of Pai: Abandons his daughter to fight in the World Fighting Tournament and has the nerve to act surprised when she devotes her martial arts career to kicking his ass.

Bass Armstrong, Dead or Alive series – Father of Tina: Two words sum up his entire parenting technique– over and protective.

Fame Douglas, Dead or Alive series – Father of Helena: Fame knocks up a world-famous opera singer and then doesn't marry her; but he does leave his daughter his effed up company, DOATEC, after being assassinated. Thanks, Daddy!

Raidou, Dead or Alive series – Father of Ayane: Raped her mother. ‘Nuff said.

Dhalsim, Street Fighter – Father of Datta: Dhalsim serves as a father to his entire village by entering the World Warrior tournament to raise money for them.

Best Dad… Bass, because he loves his daughter too much to let her dress like a slut – unlike Cervantes.

Worst Dad… Heihachi, because he throws his son off a cliff and into a volcano; and he imprisons his grandson. Somebody call Child Protective Services!

Fathers in… Action Adventure and Survival Horror Games
It's hard to feel warm and fuzzy about fathers in these types of games because they're almost always an antagonist. Even the well-meaning Dads who just want to protect their offspring usually wind up doing the opposite by turning evil, letting work consume them or by losing the family farm to a rival rancher. But, even if they're real jerks, they're still fathers and they deserve their due on this day.

Joe Hayabusa, Ninja Gaiden – Father of Ryu: Leads an entire ninja clan and raises a badass ninja son.

William Birkin, Resident Evil 2 – Father of Sherry: The guy's got no time for parenting – he's so married to his work he becomes the last boss.

Mr. Burnside, Resident Evil: Code Veronica – Father of Steve: Not only did he raise his son to be a whiny loser, but Mr. Burnside also thought it'd be a great idea to steal from the Umbrella Corporation, thus getting his wife shot full of holes and landing him and his son on a zombie-infested prison camp island. Great going, old man.

Harry Mason, Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories – Adoptive father of Cheryl and possibly Alessa, depending on which ending you get: Harry probably shouldn't have picked up a strange child on the side of the road, but damned if he doesn't do his best to hang onto her – even when the monsters start showing up to kill him.

King Zora XVI, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Father of Princess Ruto: He loves his daughter, but is too fat and lazy to go save her when she goes missing inside a giant fish monster.

Talon, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Father of Malon: Talon is a narcoleptic rancher who makes a good living for himself and his daughter on Lon Lon Ranch; but unfortunately, he has poor taste in employees. Pro tip: don't hire somebody with the hots for your daughter.

Deku King, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask – Father of Deku Princess: Overprotective doesn't quite sum it up – this is a guy who tortures small animals when his child goes missing instead of looking for her himself.

Bowser, Super Mario Bros. series – Father of Bowser Jr. and seven other Koopalings: He lets his kids run wild with pirate ships and magic zappy wands. Not exactly parent of the year material.

Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong series – Father of Donkey Kong Jr.: He'd rather hang out with his nephew, Diddy Kong, than his own son. What does that say about his fatherly reputation?

Kratos, God of War series – Father of Calliope: He's away from home a lot, fighting wars and when he does come back, he kills his kid in a God-induced rage. She goes to heaven and he tries to visit, but that would kind of break the world, so he leaves her be.

Kento Marek, The Force Unleashed – Father of Galen, aka Starkiller, aka Vader's Secret Apprentice: He escapes the Jedi purges with his wife and young son and hides out on Kashyyyk. Vader shows up, kills him and takes his son to train/raise.

Dr. Light, Mega Man series – Father of Mega Man: Okay, so he didn't provide Mega Man chromosomes; but Dr. Light built him and raised him. So he's like both father and mother to Mega Man.

Nate Harlow, Red Dead Revolver – Father of Red: If nothing else, the old man sure taught his son to shoot.

King of All Cosmos, Katamari Damacy – Father of The Prince: His binge drinking wiped out the world, and he sent his son to clean up the mess. What a role model.

The Mourning King, Prince of Persia – Father of Elika: He makes a deal with the dark god Ahriman to resurrect his daughter, sends his men to capture her and then unleashes pure evil by destroying the Tree of Life.

Best Dad… Harry Mason, because he could have adopted some other orphan, but no – he went through Silent Hill for his Cheryl. That's a dad who cares.

Worst Dad… Steve Burnside's dad, because, while Kratos might've killed his kid, too, at least his daughter went to heaven instead of a zombie-infested prison camp island.

Fathers in… Shooters
Dads are the stars of shooters. Even if they're not the main character, they very often drive the plot even from beyond the grave. This is probably because a lot of cultures have a manly mythos of the son surpassing the father and it's bled right into the manliest of video games. Even with all that testosterone, there's room for really great dads. And some really awful ones, too.

Eli Vance, Half-Life series – Father of Alyx: Eli lived the simple life of a scientist at Black Mesa Research Facility with his wife and young daughter. Then things explode as they often do in the profession and his wife dies. He eventually falls in love with another woman, but to his dying day, he never stops loving his daughter.

James McCloud, Star Fox series – Father of Fox: Clearly James did something right in parenting Fox; he inspired such filial piety that his son hallucinates him during boss fights.

Andrew Ryan, BioShock – Father of Jack: Andrew had Jack out of wedlock with stripper/dancer Jasmine Jolene and didn't get to spend any time parenting him. Mommy Dearest sold the embryo off to Andrew's enemy. Ryan Sr. might make a big fuss about a man choosing; but, the truth is, you can't choose your children.

Big Daddies, BioShock series – Father of Little Sisters: Big Daddies have no blood relation to Little Sisters and probably no soul, either. But they do what all good daddies do: protect the bejesus out of their babies with power tools.

Roy Campbell, Metal Gear Solid series – Father of Meryl: He lies to his daughter and says he's her uncle for most of her life, but then relents and calls her his "pride and joy" at the most inopportune moment. Later, he gives her away at her wedding.

Jack Raiden, Metal Gear Solid series – Father of Rose's son: To his credit, Raiden probably would have been a great dad if his wife had lied and said she miscarried the baby. But, since she did lie and tell him that, he let himself be turned into a high-tech version of a Ken doll and now his son is really going to have daddy issues despite his parents getting back together.

Big Boss, Metal Gear Solid series – Father of Liquid and Solid Snake: Daddy must be so proud of his clone sons. One of them is a chain smoker with a terminal illness and the other one keeps trying to bring about a nuclear holocaust. He probably should have spent more time raising them instead of trying to kill one or both of them.

Adam Fenix, Gears of War series – Father of Marcus: Supposedly he's some kind of genius and like James McCloud he must've done something awesome to inspire filial piety that borders on insanity. His son winds up in prison for abandoning his post to save Fenix Sr. during an alien invasion.

Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell series – Father of Sarah: Sam is so devastated by his daughter's death he spends an entire game avenging her. Drunk drivers and assassins beware a bereaved father, especially one who's a secret agent.

Best Dad… Eli Vance, because he loves his baby girl without smothering her independent spirit.

Worst Dad… Big Boss, because one lousy man-hug does not make up for the sheer number of times he tried to kill his son.

(Dis)Honorable Mentions
Shinnok, Mortal Kombat – He's only Raiden and Shao Kahn's dad in that awful movie, Annihilation, so he doesn't count as a video game dad.
Homer Simpson, Don Corleone, Darth Vader – They've all got a presence in video games, sure, but their status as good or bad fathers comes from the shows and films they're from, not from the games they appear in.
Dr. Tenma, Astro Boy – Father of Astro Boy and Tobio: Like a lot of Dads, Tenma was married to his work until the day his nine-year-old son Tobio died in a car accident. Then, he turned his work into his son, created Astro Boy as the son that would never die. Unfortunately, he wouldn't age, either – so Tenma sold him to a robot salesman.
You, Fable II, The Sims games and Harvest Moon games - Just as with moms, even if you play as an upstanding paragon of parental vigilance as a dad, you're going to be guilty of neglect at least half of the time.

That does it for dads this year. Think we missed somebody important? Drop a line in the comments. And don't forget to call your dad on Father's Day!

Or you can go pink, add devil horns—the Soulcalibur team seems to really like horns—or give yourself an intimidating skull mask. Likewise, you can go in the opposite direction and put an afro on someone, dropping the intimidation factor of your fighter.

Or you can do what I always do: create the exact same sexy librarian goth tart with the shortest shorts offered, play around with her for a bit, and put the game back on the shelf. Your possibilities for custom Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny souls may be endless, but not mine. Anyway, some screens of the PSP take on custom characters is in our gallery.

In honor of Mother's Day, we celebrate moms in gaming – from the bit parts to the big players. Some are examples of the best parenting you could imagine; and some are so evil, they're unfit to be called "Mom." Join us now as we separate the June Cleavers from the Joan Crawfords of video game mothers.

Mothers in… Role-Playing Games
Role-playing games have the highest number of moms of any video game genre. This is because RPGs have huge, sprawling plots with huge, sprawling towns and a huge, sprawling casts of characters who you may or may not encounter depending on how you play the game. In most RPGs, you see moms as non-playable characters in towns, in flashbacks depicting the hero's reason for revenge. Some RPGs even have them as playable characters or main villains. Sadly, RPGs are also the number one "mom dies" offender, as nearly every RPG features a plucky youth out to avenge a destroyed village that usually has within it a dead mother – or at least one that's been turned into a monster.

There are way more mothers in RPGs than we could count – especially if you're going through side quests, all PC RPGs, all Japanese RPGs that were never released in the US, Final Fantasy X-2 and every single optional flashback for every possible playable character. So we've populated this list with moms who 1) had the most impact on the game's main plot or that 2) appear in the game beyond a single expository cut scene. This leaves us mostly with moms who appear in Japanese RPGs; but be sure to apologize to your dead mother in Fallout 3 for us.

Mada, Dragon Quest V – Mother of the main character: Mada gets kidnapped and becomes the subject of his quest.

Matriarch Benezia, Mass Effect – Mother of Liara T'Soni: Benezia is enslaved and later killed by Shepard in battle, but she makes up with Liara right before dying.

Polka's Mom, Eternal Sonata — Mother of Polka: this country lady is very well adjusted to time loops and apparently never taught her daughter not to talk to strange 19th Century composers she might meet while wandering around at night.

Yohn, Suikoden Tactics — Mother of Kyril: Yohn is a mute demon trapped in the wrong world who sticks around to care for her son, even though he doesn't know who she is for pretty much the whole game.

Gina , Chrono Trigger — Mother of Chrono: In one of the game's endings, Gina accidentally goes into the time portal, thus restarting the whole plot from the beginning.

Jenova, Final Fantasy VII — Mother of Sephiroth (sorta): Jenova is... an alien? We're not even sure she's a she, but "she" spends a lot of time in a jar and looks creepy.

Angeal's Mother, Crisis Core — Mother of Angeal: This small-town lady is very nice to all of her son's friends from the army, even the ones that turn evil and cause her matricide.

Queen Brahne, Final Fantasy IX — Mother of the real Princess Garnet and foster mother to her lookalike of the same name: Brahne gets fat, turns evil, tries to kill her adoptive daughter and later repents and dies in Garnet's arms.

Sarah Sisulart, Lost Odyssey – Mother of Liram: Sarah goes a little crazy and turns herself into an old woman when she thinks her daughter's been killed, but turns back into a hot nerdy chick when she finds out she has grandkids.

Seth Balmore, Lost Odyssey – Mother of Sed: Seth is immortal, but her son isn't, which is sort of weird for both of them. But they're both pirates, so there's some common ground at least.

Best Mom: Yohn… because she's selfless as only a mother can be.

Worst Mom: Jenova… because she's emotionally unavailable. And responsible for Sephiroth.

Mothers in… Fighting Games
Fighting games have a fair few mothers among their playable characters. The plot structure (or lack thereof) leaves room for all kinds of people to enter whatever world championship fighting tournament of the week is going on for various reasons that don't necessarily make any sense. So if you can have a panda, a geisha, a cyborg and whatever the hell Voldo is supposed to be enter a tournament for personal gain, a mother doesn't seem like such a weird contender. Here's a list of a few prominent mommies:

Sophitia, Soulcalibur series – Mother of Patroklos and Pyrrha: Sophitia is an Athenian who fights on behalf of the Greek God, Hephaestus, to regain Soul Edge. The sword entwines itself with her daughter's spirit, forcing Sophitia to spend eternity defending Soul Edge from anyone who tries to claim it. She's protecting her daughter.

Michelle Chang, Tekken series – Mother of Julia: Michelle fights in one of the Iron Fist tournaments to rescue her kidnapped mother and then adopts an abandoned baby named Julia. Then Julia goes on to fight in an Iron Fist tournament to save Michelle when Michelle gets kidnapped. Circle of life.

Dural, Virtua Fighter – Mother of Kage: Dural probably started out as a good mom when she was human, but then she got kidnapped and turned into an evil cyborg. That knocks her out of the Mom of the Year running.

Jun Kazama, Tekken series – Mother of Jin Kazama: Jun is the Chosen One, a wildlife activist, and a single mom. Over the course of four games, she somehow found time to save pandas, birth a son, thrash a bunch of her extended family and possibly fake her own death or perhaps dies for real when her house burned down.

Nina Williams, Tekken series – Mother of Steve Fox via in-vitro fertilization: Nina is a world class assassin who gives birth to a son while in cryogenic sleep. Though it appears she couldn't care less that she has offspring, she does neglect to assassinate him. That counts as maternal instinct, right?

Maria, Dead or Alive series – Mother of Helena: Maria is a world class opera singer who had an affair with the head of a sinister corporation. She later took a bullet for her bastard daughter onstage in the middle of an aria… what a way to go.

Crimson Viper, Street Fighter IV – Mother of Lauren: C. Viper is a working mother in the spy profession. Her life's goal is destroying the weapons produced by a sinister corporation, but somehow she made room in her busy schedule to have a daughter.

Justice, Guilty Gear – Mother of Dizzy: No one's really sure how it happened – least of all Dizzy, who was found abandoned at age 3.

Best Mom: Maria… because nothing says "Mommy loves you" like taking a sniper's bullet to the heart.

Worst Mom: Crimson Viper… because she's a workaholic. Did she even call her kid after fights? No!**

Mothers in… Action/Adventure and Survival Horror Games
Here's where the role of the mother in video games become complicated. Because these types of games usually have a more focused plot than fighting or role playing games, adding a mother usually means casting her in a narrow role that doesn't include speaking parts. Occasionally, these moms even wind up as antagonists by default. However small their part, though, these mothers sometimes make an appearance worth mentioning. Here are a few notable examples:

The Queen, Ico – Mother of Yorda: She basically had a daughter so she could sacrifice the kid and live a bit longer. I guess some species do eat their own young, but jeez…

Annette Birkin, Resident Evil 2 – Mother of Sherry Birkin: Depending on how you play the game, Annette either hid the G-Virus in her daughter's locket or cures her daughter of the T-Virus. Either way, she did abandon her kid during a zombie apocalypse. Poor form, Mom.

Amelia Croft, Tomb Raider series – Mother of Lara Croft: Like her daughter, Mrs. Croft has issues with touching ancient artifacts she probably shouldn't. Luckily, Lara learns from her mommy's mistakes and everybody's happy… until Lara has to shoot zombie Amelia when they meet up in Underworld.

Mrs. Sanderson, Chibi Robo – Mother of Jenny: Mrs. Sanderson has real marital problems that cause her to lock herself in a bathroom and threaten divorce, leaving all the housework to Jenny and her toy robot.

Ex-Mrs. Hopkins, Bully – Mother of Jimmy Hopkins: This woman lacks both fashion sense and parental priorities. She ditches her kid at a boarding school to run off on a honeymoon with a new husband and then sends Jimmy a fugly sweater at Christmas.

Maggie Monday, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse – Mother of Andrew Monday: Like Jimmy Hopkins' mom, Maggie could use some priority adjustment. She lets her son's city get sacked by zombies and then becomes a zombie herself so she can marry Stubbs. This basically leaves Andrew with a wrecked city and a zombie for a stepfather. Thanks, Mom!

Ma Cipriani, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories – Mother of Toni: Toni never called his Ma while he was in hiding. Given that she dates guys who are into paraphilic infantilism, I can see why. Ma puts a hit out on her son and then calls it off in a fit of maternal pride when Tony finally becomes a made man.

Best Mom: Amelia Croft… because not even good moms get it right all of the time and how was she supposed to know that sword would teleport her, her husband would die and her daughter would be left an orphan?

Worst Mom: The Queen… because what she did to Yorda is way worse than what Joan Crawford did to her daughter. You think being hit with wire hangers is bad? Try being turned to stone.

Mothers in… Shooters
Here's where you barely see any moms at all. The shooter genre is reserved for masculine things like guns and aliens and spies and other stuff that doesn't leave much room for maternal influences. You'll find a lot of dads in shooters, though – but Father's Day isn't for another month, so sit tight.

*SPOILER WARNING: BioShock, F.E.A.R. 2, Metal Gear Solid 4*

Jasmine Jolene, BioShock – Mother of Jack: Jasmine was Andrew Ryan's mistress and a "dancer" which is 60s code for "prostitute." Even if she didn't accept money for sexual favors, she was certainly in a hurry to accept money for her freshly-conceived embryo. That's worse than the fairy tales where parents trade firstborn sons for magical enchantments.

Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum, BioShock and BioShock 2 – Mother of all the Little Sisters and the Big Sister: Tenenbaum didn't give birth to any of the poor darlings, but her research created them. She eventually stepped in to foster them and shower them with toys and secondhand cigarette smoke to make up for the brainwashing.

Eva, Metal Gear Solid 4 – Mother of Liquid and Solid Snake (kinda): Eva would have gladly had Naked Snake's babies the ol' fashioned way, but the Patriots had other plans. She eventually serves as surrogate mother to the clone babies Liquid and Solid and starts calling herself Big Mamma to compensate for having nothing to do with mothering them.

The Boss, Metal Gear Solid 3 – Mother of Revolver Ocelot and the US Special Forces (which one do you think she's more proud of?): The Boss probably had no business leading the Battle of Normandy while nine months pregnant. But despite being a bad mom to Ocelot, The Boss wins major motherhood recognition as a Mother Goddess figure to at least half the cast of the Metal Gear Solid series.

Alma Wade, F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin – Mother of Paxton Fettel, Point Man and countless telepathic clone soldiers: Alma became a mother at the tender age of 15 against her will. It's hard to tell if she harbors any feeling for her offspring conceived in captivity – bloodlust sort of obscures any tender intent. However, in Project Origin, Alma's grown up a bit and appears to have invested in being mother to the protagonist's baby, which she deliberately conceives.

Best Mom: The Boss… because out of this sorry lot, she's easily the best role model.

Worst Mom: Jasmine… because she sold her only son to his father's enemy before the son was even born. That's like the opposite of mother-like behavior.

(Dis)Honorable Mentions
Sora's Mom, Kingdom Hearts — She has one line and the whole first part of the game is about her son trying to build a raft to run away from home. Clearly the parenting thing isn't working out.
Mother Brain, Metroid — "She," if that's what that thing in the jar can be called, is an alien with no maternal feelings whatsoever.
You, Fable II, The Sims games and Harvest Moon games — Even if you play as an upstanding paragon of parental vigilance, you're going to be guilty of neglect at least half of the time in these games.

At this point, you're probably wondering why Cooking Mama isn't anywhere on this list. Apart from the lack of a convenient genre into which to cram the game, there's no evidence that Cooking Mama is even a mother. Do you see her kids at any point in the game? For all the player knows, she's just calling herself "Mama" so she doesn't have to call herself a chef, the poor self-hating hash slinger.

That's all we've got for the best and worst mothers in video games. Think we missed somebody important? Drop a line in the comments. And don't forget to call your mom on Mother's Day!

**CORRECTION: C. Viper occasionally does call her daughter after fights. But the workaholic ruling still stands.

Siliconera is reporting that the costumes are free downloads for the second Tales title to grace the PSP. You can download them from the PlayStation Store; and they must mean the Japanese Store as the game hasn't been given a US release yet.

Radiant Mythology 2 debuted at the top of the Japanese sales charts last week. Here's hoping that popularity propels it to the West so I can dress Estelle as Taki.

Soulcalibur Mythology Part Of Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 [Siliconera]

The company as a whole (remember, Bandai Namco do arcade machines, toys and cartoons) ended the quarter with a net income of ¥9,019,000,000 (USD$100 million), so on the off chance you're a shareholder, your money's still good.

More interesting to us are some global sales figures found towards the end of the company's earnings release. They show the following games shifted the following number of units:

Soul Calibur IV - 2.26 million copies
Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit - 730,000
WE SKI - 590,000
Gundam Musou 2 - 590,000
Active Life Outdoor Challenge - 550,000
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 - 530,000
Super Robot Wars Z - 510,000
Taiko Drum Master for DS 2 - 500,000
Mobile Suit Gundam Gundam VS. Gundam - 440,000
Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 - 420,000

According to the individual who supplied these pages to game site UK:R, "I have deleted the recipient's name for privacy, but it's a genuine fax."

So, yeah, go on, read and remember: THIS IS SERIOUS.

INTERNAL SEGA COMMUNICATIONS - SOUL CALIBUR PANTS-COLOUR CHEAT CONFUSION MADE GOOD [UK:R]

Eschewing the "inverted pyramid" structure of newspaper journalism, right here at the top of this story I'm going to tell you that Bandai's Gundam could not be reached for comment.

Screenshots indicate that the "Tekken / Soul Calibur Lounge" will look eerily like a high class club pulsating with life inside your hopefully high-definition television, only they won't care if you're wearing sandals, or no shoes at all. The screenshots also indicate that there are plenty of chairs arranged around the club with obsessive-compulsive straightness. When the lounge opens, the ultra-sterile, cotton-swab-clean avatars of some fourteen dozen employees of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan will no doubt be working overtime to clog your television screen real estate with burbling chat bubbles indicating that you can open the menu and choose "sit" to sit down.

After sitting, you will be able to enjoy reading text bubbles in which Sony Computer Entertainment Japan employees inform other players that they can open their menu and choose "sit" to sit down. If you're super-special, the employee of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan who told you to sit down will say something "exciting", such as "it's so nice to be able to sit down". If he's had a bad day at work and/or maybe tied his tie too tight this morning, he might simply turn his back and see about ushering other players to seats.

If you decide to stand up and perform that jumping-jack-like dance in front of a piece of virtual Tekken or Soul Calibur art, chances are a Sony Computer Entertainment Japan employee pretending to be another PlayStation 3 owner "just like you" will walk up behind you and use literally 900 words to say "Hey there good sir; I find myself unable to fully appreciate this piece of art (COPYRIGHT BANDAI-NAMCO 1998); could you please move out of the way?"

Within the Bandai-Namco special lounge, players will also be able to line up at virtual arcade machines to play several Namco Museum classics that have also been available in the loading screens of original PlayStation games since around 1995.

Have you noticed? I'm being kind of mean! Full disclaimer: I find PlayStation Home terribly silly. Worse than that: I consider it about as hip as a virtual Scientologist convention. It would have been decent, I guess, if it'd been an unexpected extra on the PS3 at launch. As-is, I don't know, man. The moment they started giving me the quick-travel tutorial in my own "apartment", I started to get the chills. I always say, when my "Game Designer Sunglasses" are on, that if you feel compelled to put "fast travel" in your game, chances are your slow travel sucks.

"Home" isn't even a game, I know, though if you're going to incorporate one game-like element snatched from the pantheon of game design, why would you choose Oblivion's "fast travel" over, I don't know, Super Mario 64's jumping? Wouldn't Home be so much fun if you could jump? . . . Maybe?

Oh, also, they're apparently selling goods in the Japanese home now. Nippon Ichi has made several Disgaea-themed avatars available, and Namco is selling a Pac-Man T-shirt. The product description for the Pac-Man T-shirt is especially clever: "Pac-Man T-Shirt #1". There will be more! You will buy all of them, or you will not be a true fan! You will buy this shirt, you will put it on your avatar, and you will sit in the Namco lounge with your "Away from keyboard" message floating over your head twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week!

Did you know: Famitsu is more or less a mouthpiece for press releases. It is very seldom that the actual words written in their articles express anything less than turgid enthusiasm for the games on display. Usually, the articles are written by the game companies themselves. Even when the articles are written by Famitsu staff, said staff is usually "polite" enough to just say things like "Wow! We're excited!"

That said, it's looking at the caption beneath the photo of a downloadable Santa Claus suit, it's hard to imagine the author wasn't rolling his eyes at least internally:

"Sony Computer Entertainment will be making all kinds of Christmas-themed items available. Might PlayStation Home become jam-packed with Santa Clauses?"

Man, I hope so.

[via Famitsu Dot Com]

The toy, which is available now for pre-order with a release date of March 27th, 2009, features a whopping 25 points of articulation, full metal hips (ouch), and magnetized feet that are perfect for posing her atop your delicate computer equipment. Or you might just want to make due with the Triad Bullet-Time figure stand that comes with. She comes complete with detailed clothing and armor that may or may not be removable for the curious among us, as well as Rekki-Maru and Mekki-Maru daggers for fending off the curious among us.

An extremely pretty figure, though she's going to cost you. $94.99 isn't cheap, but then again neither is Taki. Hit the jump for a full gallery.

SOUL CALIBUR 4: TAKI - 12 INCH FIGURE [Triad Toys]

Gaming's Most Impractical Outfits [GamesRadar]

And, hey, it's a full color manual! Sadly, it looks like those who purchased the Special Edition of Soulcalibur IV will have to pay regular prices on their chicken and Vans. Thanks to macmanus for the money saving tip!

More pics of the sneaking souls in our gallery below. We await the flood of user creations when the game officially streets in North America this week.

Soul Calibur [sic] IV Gameplay [Youtube]

Soulcalibur’s Ivy may be the poster child for this annual augmentation – literally. It seems with each passing year, her endowment multiplies, ushering in each passing technological evolution with more ludicrous, top-heavy jiggle than the era before.

But it’d be unfair to pick on Miss Valentine. After all, unrealistic body types in games are nothing new, a conversation-starter as old as Lara Croft. The fact that “sex sells” and the proliferation of exploitive body types is a cultural pandemic, not simply a video game issue, is the easy way to explain it, but the “easy” way is seldom very enlightening, nor does it help us learn about why we play.

What does it all mean, in an interactive medium where realism, immersion and engagement are the primary goals? Are we seeking idealistic images as avatars for ourselves, to complete the fantasy of power that gaming can provide?

Is this a case where the gaming audience has been misjudged through the ages by marketing teams who assume each and every one of us is a vapidly salivating 15-17 year-old male – until their assumptions have unconsciously shaped our taste?

Is This What We Want?

Again, it’s an easy pastime to criticize our society for leaning too heavily on unrealistic stereotypes for male and female bodies. It can actually be an enlightening exercise, when you’re on a packed subway or on a crowded street, to simply take a look around you, and see what human beings really look like. Chances are the handsomest man you see will not be a broad-muscled he-man, nor will the loveliest lady be a leggy siren with burgeoning cleavage.

However, most of the heroes in popular entertainment are still uncommonly beautiful; ugly or even merely common looks are still considered a plot device or a character trait, and with a few exceptions, games generally seem to lag a bit behind film as far as discovering the appeal in the common. Even men with war-torn, unattractive faces, still have heroic bodies, usually.

But that’s because we don’t want games to be common, do we? Picture a fighting game where the characters were simply ordinary, dressed in suitable exercise gear, and not particularly special to look at. That would be true realism, and even with some glorious game mechanics, you’ve got to admit it’d be a bit boring.

It seems we don’t really mean it when we, as gamers, say we want “realism” – what we really want is an appealing fantasy so vivid we can really believe in it. A world where the women are titillating and the men are fierce, rendered with such eye-catching density that we can almost reach out and touch it.

The Flesh Is Weak

At the same time, we as an audience seem to reach a general consensus in rejecting games that seem to be manipulating us with too many crotch-shots. Using overblown flesh visuals and overt, eye-to-brain sexuality is a quick and dirty shortcut to emotional engagement, when we’d rather be drawn in by things like, oh, I don’t know – good characters, perhaps, a compelling backstory, and maybe, just maybe, really solid game mechanics?

We sense when the marketing campaign is trying to buy our attention with a huge neon sign emblazoned with “XXX,” and we resent that. Contrary to outsider belief, gamers comprise a spectrum of age ranges, motivations for play, tastes and preferences – if we’ve been caged into a single demographic in the past, it’s only because that makes it easier for the folks upstairs to sell us things. That’s just business, but games are personal to their audience.

We’re in a state, now, of continually considering what our young medium is and what we can expect to get from it, where we want it to go. We’ve richened in many ways, but are still using shortcuts – long cutscenes in lieu of narrative environments, high-powered explosions in lieu of crafted plot climaxes, and raw, primal flesh in lieu of subtler kinds of power.

We’d like to look at beautiful fantasies we can believe in, but that’s not all we want.

What We’re Fighting For

And there’s no backlash like that of the internet-based gamer audience when it doesn’t get what it wants. So if we’re not all salivating teenage boys, and we resist being bought with cheap sex alone, then why does the stereotype of unrealistic bodies in games persist? Why is Ivy’s exponential bustline such a hot issue to our community?

Maybe the genre has something to do with it. While most video games feature a hot woman at some juncture, fighting games seem to have the highest and most diverse population of them. Fighting games ask you to “choose your fighter,” and while those games generally are made or broken on game mechanics, part of the appeal is that the character images we control may be representations, unconsciously, of ourselves.

In a mechanics-driven genre, the star of the game is the player’s skill level. Yes, Taki might be beating Astaroth silly for mysterious reasons of ninja vengeance and sword-obsession, but it’s really about you, challenging the machine, or your friend, for control-pad dominance. Whose looks, and whose body movements, best represent you?

Though, is anyone reading this article five-foot-eight and 110 pounds with a 22-inch waist and a triple-E breast size? (And if you are, can I steal your figure?)

Assuming that body types in games represent ideals, and that game bodies are stand-ins for ourselves to some extent, we still haven’t figured out a good reason why we want to look quite this way.

Survival of the Fittest

The idealization of the human form in art is nothing new. When Botticelli painted Venus, or when Michelangelo chiseled David, we can assume they were not, at least on a conscious level, creating depictions of themselves, or even what they wanted to be. And if we think of games as art to the extent that we’re able to use them as vehicles for self-expression, the same holds true for our Soulcalibur lineup.

Venus was an archetype of female beauty, in the humanoid tradition of Greco-Roman gods; David was an archetype of male beauty, both representative of human evolution taken to its highest condition. And our fighting game characters are archetypes of what they represent – fearlessness, aggression, purposefulness, and primal fierceness. It’s even arguable that tapping into adrenaline-fueled aggression when we play video games is a biological replacement for how we as humans felt in an era when we had to fight more overtly for social dominance, physical superiority, the best mate, the food we had to kill to eat.

That’s Darwinism at work – survival of the fittest. And so in a game where you survive on your skills, you want to look like the fittest. Why not go over-the-top and be such an ideal that it wouldn’t be possible for you to exist in the current genetic landscape?

The Unanswered Questions

So even though we’ve generated a theory for why we like to be obscenely perfect women or aggressively idealized men when we play video games where aggression or combat is at the core of the gameplay (and that’s most games, really), there’s still one issue left – how does this affect us, and what does it mean for the future of games?

As a female, I’m not sure whether my perception of other women – or of myself – has been affected by the avatars I see in the games I play every day. I do know that, when I take that quick look around the crowded subway car to see how other women really look, I am always a little bit surprised – but there’s no clear way to blame games for that, when it’s such a pervasive complex in other entertainment media.

I do know that some of my female peers feel that the flesh displays in gaming are degrading to them – even if that primal, aggression-based exposure supports the core tenets of a particular title. And I’ve often wondered how my majority-male peers in the gaming audience feel about how men are portrayed in games, and whether being continually exposed to powerful, armed brawlers on the warpath makes them feel more or less powerful in their “real” lives.

Not to mention the fact that gaming is in steady pursuit of wider-spread cultural legitimacy. And while it’s good that many “casual gamers’” play habits are helping them understand ours better, and that Rock Band has made all kinds of folks quit believing that the console is a mysterious tool of evil for immature people, we’d really like it if people could appreciate our core titles the way that we do, consider the value in the things we find most valuable.

And if, when they take a closer look, all they can see from a distance is that we like tits, there’s going to be a problem.

While I’ve said before it’s not constructive to consider anything “just a game,” a game is still not in and of itself real, and that’s part of the appeal – we can explore fantasies, see and do things that aren’t possible in the real world. And we all, of course, can delineate the difference between fantasy and reality, right?

So, with a good reason or not, are idealized body types harmful or helpful to the identity and maturity of gaming? Next time, would you rather see the debut of a demure, complex Ivy – or one with bigger jugs than ever?

Her facial expression seen in the scan above — click through for the full-sized version if you're just visiting the front page — accurately sums up our thoughts on her design.

Also appearing on XBLA this week is 280 new questions for Wits & Wagers for 320 points, which is not nearly as exciting as Soulcalibur but certainly has its charm.

This week on Arcade: SOULCALIBUR and Wits & Wagers DLC [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

Soul Calibur IV Features 'Character Swapping' [1UP]

It's been almost nine years since I first played the Dreamcast port of Soul Calibur which, at the time, seemed like the pinnacle of fighting game visuals. Another instance of my gaming career where I genuinely thought "This is it. They've done it. It can't possibly get any better." This was, of course, before the engineers at Namco Bandai dedicated man hours and processing power to ass-jiggle physics; before we really knew how detailed a cod piece could be. Anyway, the compressed Soul Calibur for Xbox 360 seems like a fun diversion, but I've still got my Dreamcast hooked up to Input 3 on my television. And Soulcalibur IV is out, like, any day now. Kinda makes the whole thing seem moot.

Soul Calibur Gameplay HD [GameTrailers]

Sure, it's a rumor, but that "expect confirmation soon" and a hint about Xbox 360 owners getting their own platform-specific fighter — Joanna Dark? Marcus Fenix? Banjo?! — makes us wonder if this is less of a rumor than it is a tease.

Quartermann: God of War Meets Soul Calibur? [1UP]