The Harvest Moon farm/life sim franchise is coming up on ten years old! Natsume will toast the anniversary with not one, but two new games "later this quarter," and promises tons of commemorative goodies, too.

There's Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness for DS, and Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility for Wii. And yes, there will be pre-order bonus stuffed toys.

Please hold the girl jokes, but as a fan, I think this news is amazing. Especially because the screenshots, handily provided for you after the jump, show that in the Wii version, you can ride on an ostrich. Horses are so ten years ago. And screenshots for the DS version (one of which seriously shows a girl saying "Wow, it's bigger than I thought"), reveal not only that the possible girlfriends are as decision-wrenchingly cute as always, but that the top screen map will actually show you where townsfolk are so that you can visit them.

Full announcement along with the screens after the jump.

Happy Tree Friends, Ticket To Ride Hit XBLA Wednesday

This week's additions to the Xbox Live Arcade library are built on already established properties, ones you may or may not be familiar with. First up is Sega's Happy Tree Friends False Alarm!, emphasis theirs. The M-rated XBLA title, developed by Stainless Games, is equal parts cuddly and gory, as you can see from the disastrous and bloody screen shot above.

Also hitting Live Arcade this Wednesday is Ticket To Ride which is based on the award-winning board game of the same name. The Playful Entertainment-developed, multiplayer-friendly game is rated E. Both titles will set you back 800 Microsoft Points. Media alert is after the jump!

Happy Tree Friends Live Next Week

Fans of lovable little cartoon animals dying in entertaining ways will have reason to rejoice next week as Sega officially confirms a June 25th release for Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm for the Xbox Live Arcade. The game features 10 levels of Lemmings-inspired action, in which you interact with the environment using hilariously deadly tools in order to save the Happy Tree Friends from dying horrible deaths, which I am sure we'll all get around to doing once we've done killing them.
While no official price has been set, I'd assume the game won't stray far from the established 800 point average.

Happy Tree Friends has always ticked me off a bit, as these folks make money doing exactly the sort of thing that got me kicked out of high school art class and sent to the counselor's office. Lucky bastards.

Happy Tree Friends for XBLA next week [Eurogamer]

Fable 2 Will Feature One Acorn And One Tree

Peter Molyneux, the visionary behind Lionhead Studios and the Fable series, once promised us that in Fable, the player would be able to plant an acorn and watch it grow into a tree. Things didn't quite work out. But that isn't stopping Molyneux from attempting a little something we like to call a do-over with Fable 2.

I can tell you definitively that there is absolutely an acorn and it does absolutely grow into a tree. And it is actually part of the story now. We decided we got into so much trouble over acorns and trees that we are going to make it part of the main thread of the story in "Fable 2".

Gallery: Chibi Robo Park Patrol

Mario Strikers Gets Father and Son Promotion

Happy Tree Friends Coming To XBLA

Shadowrun Goes Gold, Green

Harvest Moon Wii Dated For Japan

Happy Holidays From The Angry Nintendo Nerd