Bleep, Bleep. Bloop, Bloop. Video Games. 08-23/29-09

For the week of August 23-29: Price cuts, Blizzcon, Batman and the Diabolical Box. Also the arcade dreams are made of!

NEWS

Last week Sony unveiled the new Playstation 3 Slim along with a much needed price cut to a competitive $300. Microsoft, never one to be shown up, followed suit this week with a price cut of their own and announced that they will be phasing out the Xbox 360 Pro model and cutting $100 off of the Elite to bring it down to $300. The remaining Pro models will be cut to $250 while supplies last, the only difference being color and the 60 gig hard drive. 1up.com has the full story.

Man, I remember buying a brand new console for $200 and it came with two controllers and an amazing game…

Blizzcon was this week. Honestly I don’t play World of Warcraft and don’t intend to. Those of you who do, have already gobbled up all the info you could and don’t need me telling you what you already know. To those who haven’t heard the news, Blizzard announced a new expansion called Cataclysm. Some are calling it some what of a WOW 2 considering they are redoing all the graphics through out and changing the game from the bottom up, so early parts of the original game may now take place later and be for only stronger characters and a few differences throughout the game world.

Also they announced a new Monk class in Diablo 3 and talked about Starcraft 2. For more information, head on over to the official Blizzcon site.

NEW RELEASES

All you brainiacs better get your think on because a new Professor Layton game for the DS is coming your way; Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box!!! My match stick puzzle skills are still sharp from the last time around and I am ready to bring this shit on!

For those not in the know, Professor Layton is a game developed by the fine people at Level 5 and published by Nintendo and entails a Professor and his boy accomplice as they solve whodunnit type mysteries and are challenged with a barrage of brain twister puzzles all set in a wonderfully animated world reminiscent of Les triplettes de Belleville.

Peep the trailer if I’ve caught your interest. I adored the first game and can’t wait to dig into this. Japan has already seen the third in the series come and go, so only localization stands in the way of our getting the third as well.

Also out this week is a game I’m sure a few of you have been waiting for and that’s Batman: Arkham Asylum. If you’re reading this on friday, you may still find it available for $39.00 CAD in select stores. I’ve been hearing a lot of positive feedback about the game which is promising. There is a demo available to give you a taste and at $40, it’s sure to be a good time. One thing to note is that the developers made the smart move and got the cast of the Batman animated series to do the voice work for the game, so Mark Hamill as the Joker as it should be.

Justin Calvert over at Gamespot gave the game a 9.0 out of a possible 10 which may sound high, but is right in line with the current score of 91 at Metacritic.com. To see if you agree with his views of the game, check out his video review.

And finally, to close out this week, we’ve got G.I. Joe’s playing scaled down coin-op machines, which I might add, are fantastically detailed. Thank you to saturdaymorningcentral.com for bringing it to my attention and you can see the full line up of machines over at the creators Flickr stream. Hats off to Big J.W. for putting his crafty skills to such a fine cause. Each machine is $20 bucks, custom build and worth every penny.

I’m going on a much needed vacation for the next 2 weeks so I won’t be able to fulfill my weekly post, but keep your eye on Giant Killer Squid as always for all the news that matters. Aloha!

Dale can also be found over at www.8bitcyclops.com, looking at design, photography and old video game magazines or follow him on twitter @fatwreck.