Crayon Physics designer Petri Purho just posted some art from an unnamed seven-day game he's working on (as in, created in seven days, according to Experimental Gameplay Project rules), a shoot 'em up using procedurally generated graphics and creatures. Click on the images for higher rez versions.

"It's probably going to be a SHMUP and hopefully it's going to be out soon," Purho emailed. "It might also end up being a part of something bigger that involves other people as well, but I can't talk about it right now, since that's hush hush. :)"

OK, so collaborating with other people is a flagrant contravention of Experimental Gameplay Project rules, and you probably won't see this one in GameStop any time soon (unless Purho adds another leg to his characters, and maybe the Mr. Men license), but hey, we like Petri Purho. We've marked June 4th on our calendar -- it better be done by then!

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Trying to keep up with all of the downloadable games and content that's out there these days is enough to make a fanboy cry. But cry no more, because Download Lowdown is here to help. Each week I'll sift through the good, the bad, and the weird to help you get the most from the download capabilities of your Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, DS, iPhone, PSP, and PC. You don't have to take my word for it though; I'll also be perusing and grabbing choice quotes from forums, Twitter, and reviews to give you an idea of what the Internet has to say.

This week I take a look at demos for inFamous and Tiger Woods 10, check out the new Resistance space in PlayStation Home, shoot down some bad guys in iFighter, try on Majora's Mask, and attempt to kill one of the titular "monsters" in the latest Monster Hunter.

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Holy crap -- the pre-E3 blitz is upon us. Click the jump to see all the videos.

• DJ Hero trailer lacks heroics, game. But has plenty of people dancing -- a big sell for gamers.

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If you're wondering where the video blips are, stay tuned for a potential eye-bleeding post later today. It's gonna be a doozy.

News Blips:

• Cryptic Games working on simple, easy-to-understand Atari games. The citizens behind the City of Heroes series are said to be working on rebooting classic (and existing) Atari franchises. Makes sense since Atari bought the studio a year ago. Here's hoping for an Adventure MMO where you can play as a duck-slaying square. [Kotaku]

• Sega spins wheel of cliché game ideas, lands on kart racer. Well, this would have been awesome in 1997: Sega announced they're making kart racer Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing for all consoles and DS. As you can probably tell by the title, the racer will feature characters from both Sonic and Sega games. Someone needs to update Sega about what the kiddos really like these days: guns, chainsaw guns, and near-naked muscle men. OK, maybe not that last one. [GameSpot]

• Transform back to 1986 via nostalgic Guitar Hero song. Stan Bush's classic butt rock ditty "You've Got The Touch" from the Transformers animated movie is now available for the low, low price of nada in Guitar Hero World Tour. Have fun touching, folks. [Joystiq]

• Microsoft shooting to add another "M" to MMO. Apparently the company is planning to create a massively multiplayer online game that can support a whopping 300,000 people in real-time. Wow, that's big. Finding 299,999 other friends to play with on a whim is going to be a bitch. [Develop via Kotaku]

Cultural Blip:

• Futurama videogame spoof turns into actual videogame. This is funny: Animated comedy Futurama spoofed the classic alien-shooting game Space Invaders in an episode way back when. Well, some creative developer decided to actually make that spoof into an actual game. Take a look [via GameSetWatch]:

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Dear Bitmob community,

Would you kindly drop whatever it is you're doing and fill out this survey, please.

It'll really help us out with this business. And even though we shouldn't have to bribe you to come to our aid, we will. After filling out the survey, come back here and leave a comment saying you've done so (honor rules!), and we'll pick one of you out at random to win a free game from our collection.

UPDATE: Survey's now closed. Who won our contest? Survey says: Joshua McCluskey. Thanks to everyone for helping us out!

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Rebel FM -- Episode 20

This week the regular crew of Tyler, Arthur, and myself are joined by Area5.tv's Matt Chandronait. We discuss what we've been playing, the importance of video in games coverage (and how it's changed over the years), and conclude with your letters.

We'll be doing special broadcasts -- i.e. short -- from E3 when we find the time, so pay attention to our twitter feeds and eat-sleep-game.com to get the latest updates.

We are also still finalizing when we're going to do our E3 meet-up, and I'll be sending out a group email soon to those who have written to me.

Cheers,
Anthony

Zune link

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Last week, we asked for posts about Bionic Commando, and we got 'em (not as many for Punch-Out!! though, curious).

For the most part, you all agreed: Bionic Commando is great when you're swinging, not so great when you're shooting, very not great when you're dying and having to replay through half a level again. Also: Death by radiation is quite possibly worse than running into invisible walls....

Bionic Commando, in a rare moment of not-drowning.

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Because whatever's on your desktop now is not as cool as this [via Super Punch]:

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The Konami Code never stops giving. Between dishing out extra lives, providing hidden treats on random sites, and its permanent display as a hilariously bad tattoo, the classic cheat is always inspiring something awesome. Like this bitchin' Nintendo Rap from DubNasty.

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Lots of great letters this week, including a few we didn't get to. Keep them coming. We can never have enough! Ask us anything! Letters@bitmob.com: You know what to do. This week we talk a little Pokémon, some gaming over/unders, one-console futures, and Citizen Kane.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Hello! I have a question regarding one of your more recent topics, Pokémon. I'm still waiting for an MMO. Doing a Google search results in Pokémon World Online (plus several articles about how the creators don't want it to become impersonal), as well as an April Fool's joke on the subject (Blizzard's making a Pokémon MMO!). How can someone make a Pokémon MMO, even if it's crappy freeware (I have yet to play it since it's only for PCs), while Nintendo could easily rack in the dough and win the hearts of many? Now that the Wii can utilize SD cards, all they need to do is get rid of Friend Codes and the world would be a better place. What you guys think?

-Tom M.

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I'm a damn lucky gamer dude. My girlfriend will save my ass in Resident Evil 5, she'll click skeletons with me in Diablo 2, and she'll watch me play Burnout Paradise while marking cars off a strategy-guide checklist as I unlock them. It's a dream setup for me.

But this past week, one "uh-oh" almost caused it all to come crashing down.

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There may be better games than Drop 7 in the iPhone's App Store, but I haven't found them. This ridiculously simple game is, hands down, the most addictive puzzle game I've played since Puzzle Fighter. The concept is simple: You drop discs with numbers on them, and when the number of adjoining discs matches the number on any or all discs within that grouping, those discs explode and drop down anything above them.

Why is it always so hard to describe exactly how a puzzle game works, even when it's the simplest thing in the world?

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And The Geekbox train keeps rolling. As you maybe saw last night, these geeks are one part of a partnership with us to help deliver you anything gaming and geek you could want in podcast form. Exciting, no? This crew -- led by former 1UP/Computer Gaming World editor and current GameSpy editor Ryan Scott -- fleshes out the rest of geek culture, including comics, TV, and movies in addition to games. OK, on with the show.

The Geekbox RAW EDITION — Episode 17 (2009-05-27)
Wherein we discuss the terrible Terminator Salvation, our building excitement for Burn Notice, next week’s E3 Expo, Plants vs. Zombies (and why Ryan can’t stop playing it), Oregon Trail on the iPhone, swine flu, and the latest Fitch Hitch update. Another raw edition, by popular demand! Starring Ryan Scott, Karen Chu, Andrew Fitch, Greg Ford, and Ryan Higgins.
Running Time: 1h 13m 54s

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The rumored fat-reduced PS3 is likely real, but when it's getting announced is still in question. If it doesn't happen at next week's E3 trade show, we at least hope it'll get unveiled on an inspirational weight-loss infomercial.

News Blips:

• Slimmer PS3 is apparently real, but too embarrassed to reveal itself at E3. A talking mole (wait, moles can talk?) is telling news site Ars Technica that the trimmed-down PS3 we've been talking about for a while now is indeed real, but will not be revealed until later this summer so all the porky PS3s still on the shelf can get sold to uninformed consumers of fat retail products. Microsoft, in response, plans to inject the 360 with steroids to make it look even more goddamn powerful. [Ars Technica]

• Castlevania movie stupidly decides to eat at an Italian restaurant, dies. Well, this is sad: The live-action Castlevania flick that was to be helmed by Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson has apparently been canceled. Which is non-pun talk for taking a stake to heart, getting a nail in its coffin, or accidentally mixing up holy water for the regular stuff at the gymbo. Hate when that happens. [Kotaku]

• UFC fighter submits UFC game via hair-strangulation. The wild locks of UFC fighter Clay 'The Carpenter' Guida have apparently kept him out of the recently released UFC 2009 Undisputed because his feisty follicles broke the game. And, well, considering putting big hair in a videogame obviously cannot be done, developer Yuke's simply opted to cut him out. Makes sense. Damn hippy should cut his hair anyway. [GameSetWatch]

• Immerse yourself in a BioShock book, tree-hater. Sci-fi book publiser Tor (responsible for the gripping Halo novels) announced it will be crafting a story based on the popular BioShock series. We can't wait until it comes out on the new Amazon Kindle. [Gamasutra]

Hit the jump for some video blips, including a not-real-gameplay trailer for The Agency, robots fighting (again), Christian Bale pimping Pac-Man cereal, and...more.

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Our old 1UP pals The Geekbox and Rebel FM are joining forces with our own Mobcast (via Hammersuit). It's like the Voltron of podcasting...if Voltron were robot-melded with Soundwave. Yes, it's that mind blowing.

You can find new episodes of all these shows (plus several more) on our Podcasts page. Press release below:

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Editor's Note: Had enough Muscle March yet? If yes, keep reading anyway -- Kris is using the bodybuilders-in-hot-pursuit game as a jumping-off point for something bigger. And if Kris's name seems familiar, you may have seen his work on 1UP and GreenPixels. -Demian

As the screaming maniac Marcus Wright from Terminator Salvation recently taught us, the difference between man and machine is the power of the human heart.

OK, there are a few other differences between man and machine, like man can't make photocopies and machines can't ride unicycles while juggling (yet?), but the heart is probably the most important. Because while a day may come when every baseball team has been replaced by soulless mechano overlords, we can find comfort in knowing machines will need to keep us alive for at least one reason: No artificial intelligence could ever be human enough to think of something as blisteringly deranged as Muscle March.

How does this game play? Is it even fun? I don't know, and I don't care. Watching YouTube videos of this lunacy is reason enough for it to exist. There's a lot about the human species that makes me less than a fan (see: callous destruction of the environment, insatiable greed, macaroni and cheese pizza), but when something like Muscle March comes around, it warms my heart. Show me the man whose mind was damaged enough to create a game where bodybuilders strike the correct poses to fit through holes busted in walls by other bodybuilders, and I will show you the cockeyed genius that makes humanity the great miracle of known creation.

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Bayonetta Director Hideki Kamiya is all about stylish action. Not only is he responsible for the fast and flashy Devil May Cry series, but he's also working on a game starring a gun-toting witch who sports pistols on shoes -- fierce! Yeah, it's obvious he can make ass-kickings look fabulous, but will he look pretty after we hit him up with our five random questions? Let's find out.

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While most game industry people were tweeting about getting ready for E3, being ready for E3, or general excitement regarding E3, a few took the time to talk about something else (click 'Read more' to see them all):

Fez designer Phil Fish says what we're all thinking about the name of the latest PixelJunk game.

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Dead Space Art Director Ian Milham acts like his cube isn't normally adorned with male blow-up dolls.

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EatSleepPlay's David Jaffe puts out a call for change to the emoticon world. Current emoticon technology does not meet his needs. Â :/

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Ubisoft's Clint Hocking kicks back, debugs game with his mind on Memorial Day.

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Microsoft's Major Nelson updates his 36,869 followers on late-breaking lunch plan developments.

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Ex-EGM editor and current Games Producer for Adult Swim Chris Johnston unleashes the beast on Prince of Persia.

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But now, with a newly refurbished laptop with some actual power, I decided to get back into PC gaming.

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We're still getting used to this transition from being at a big, established media outlet (EGM, 1UP) to working in new-kid-on-the-block, start-up territory. For example, we won't be in consideration for any cover-story-worthy exclusives anytime soon. Game Informer, GamePro, PC Gamer, and the official magazines from Future will be taking care of those just fine.

We still seem to be on most party lists, however. And even though we're not a part of this (and despite our livers' opposing votes), we're ready to make the call now for "Best E3 Party Invite" (winner: Access Communications, PR firm for Sega, Disney Interactive Studios, and 2K):

Details blacked out, of course, because not everyone with a web browser was invited, sorry.

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