Stocks and shares: they’re usually a boring thing responsible for causing financial meltdowns across the world and occasionally bringing in a small fortune following a timely gamble. Very, very occasionally I’m pretty interested in watching them, the investor predictions and seeing how they affect stuff. Generally, they’re a good marker of how exactly a company is doing, if they’re floated publicly (i.e. stocks and shares can be traded).

So, uh, with Nintendo’s Tokyo Game Show presentation over, let’s have a look at the history of Nintendo’s shares over the past decade or so. It might be interesting, and will contain some speculation of my own.

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Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a third-person portable horror shooter and a candidate for the “Worst Game Title of the Year,” is stirring up the shit (as the saying goes, right?) due to Capcom’s purposeful decision to disable the wiping of game data from the cartridge. This means you can’t erase it, ever. It’s Capcom’s handheld approach to EA, THQ, etc.’s “Project Ten Dollar”, i.e. online passes and suchlike, to discourage the trading in of games and the selling of them by retailers with zero profit going to the original publisher.

What the eff, man. What these publishers – and Capcom in particular – don’t realize is that by trying to bully gamers into picking up new copies of their games, they’re ultimately losing out.

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Somebody is trying to get your attention...

First attempts never look as good or as polished as their possible sequels, and new ideas don’t always pan out (Dark Void), but sometimes a low key new IP can come out of “nowhere” and blow people away. Vanquish being a great recent example.

So here are 20 new IPs to keep an eye on. Some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t. Some could change the industry and a few may just be good for a few laughs, but they’ve all got a lil somethin-somethin. Ba-dunk-a-dunk. (more…)

Oh Christ, that was awkward. If you joined Esmeralda, Darkwonders and me for Konami’s E3 press conference, you would have noticed that our liveblog consisted of five minutes of general excitement then an hour of painful exasperation at the fact that the conference we were watching wasn’t even live. We groaned, we moaned, we ultimately took the piss a bit, and at the end of the day we skipped through the conference to bring you a general summary of Konami’s plans for the next year.

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Traveller’s Tales has made of lot of licensed LEGO games.  They’ve done Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Batman, Star Wars, Star Wars and Harry Potter.  Now they’ve visited the Caribbean, too.  Really, at this point, does a LEGO video game review need to be longer than a couple paragraphs?  Sure, TT Games refines and revises its formula with every new release, but each game plays almost exactly like its predecessors.

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I picked up the original DS at launch. I had incredibly high hopes for a console that had such a unique selling point. This was a game system that you could interact with by touching. The DS seemed to have some revolutionary properties with amazing potential. Sure, the launch games were either a re-hash of an existing product or a poorly executed, but we’re used to that. Developers needed time to get their act together, to implement the control scheme into the gameplay.

This never happened.

This isn’t a hippy-cosmic “material possessions don’t make you truly happy” kind of statement. I literally mean you don’t need a 3DS; plus, I’m happy to tell you exactly why.

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Think the launch lineup of 3DS games looks a little flimsy?  You’re not alone.  Follow me past the jump to learn about the imminent arrival of the first must-have game for the fresh new handheld.

A 3DS title that lets you give yourself an ultrasound? Read on.

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On Saturday I got the chance to get an advanced hands on with the 3DS. See what I thought of the games, the system and my view of the three-dees when you take the leap into the other dimension of gaming we here at Sarcastic Gamer like to call the next page…

A small disclaimer for my benefit as much as Nintendo; The time I had to play through the demos on show was severely limited. While I got a brief chance to play most of the titles being shown, the only titles I got a decent amount of time was Super Street Fighter IV 3D & Kid Icarus:Uprising. That said I will make comments on anything I got to see or play but these thoughts should in no way be considered a review or a full preview.

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Despite becoming a new father in late 2009, I have strived to make time for my biggest passion which is gaming and 2010 has been an amazing year of gaming for me. I am happy to admit that I feel satisfied with most of the games I have taken the time to play this last year. However, there were a few that just stood out to me as being forever etched into my memory as great experiences that will soon drift into the realm of nostalgia in the years to come.

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The Nintendo 3DS won’t come cheap. If you game on a tight budget, well, you might be s@#$ out of luck. You will have to either buy less console games or come up with a good explanation as to why you won’t be able to buy groceries for two straight weeks.

In Japan, the device will cost 25,000 yen ($299); other territories will likely see a similarly steep price.

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Advertising is a big part of the gaming industry, and no one knows that better than Nintendo. That’s why they went all out this time when they hired a local gorilla in a California zoo to showcase the true functionality and durability of the DSi XL.

Accidentally.

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