In the midst of darkness, a bright light has shone down from the heavens to lift my spirits.  That light, Mutant Storm Empire, will arrive next week (spooky...on Halloween!).  It'll be 800MSP, by the way.

Maybe my begging helped this finally get out the door?

Beyond being excited, the only other comment I can muster is this: Took you long enough!

[via Eurogamer, thanks to all that sent this in, I am indeed thrilled!]

As part of a Press Release letting us all know just how much the software giant is going after the entire family market, Microsoft announced they we will be seeing two "kid-friendly" games hitting the XBLA service "soon".  SHREK-N-ROLL and SpongeBob SquarePants: Underpants Slam are the titles that feature two characters that I'm sure nobody needs an introduction to.

Anyone here excited by either of these announcements?  Perhaps for younger family members?

 Regardless of what the Gamerscore Blog says in this weeks XBLA Press Release, Zen will NOT be releasing the first DLC for PinballFX this week.  Word coming via GamingTalkHQ is stating that a new table, dubbed "Buccaneer" will instead be released next week (Oct. 31st).  The price for it seems to be 200 points which I'm sure more than one person will scoff at, but seems reasonable to me if they put the same amount of detail as they put into the existing tables.

So are those of you who loved the first three tables going to be picking this up, or has the love affair cooled?

 [UPDATE] it's 200 points not 400, sorry

Definitely file this one under "Late To The Party" news, but the Gamerscore Blog announced this morning this weeks releases.

As we reported last week, the TV show inspired Battlestar Galactica will be arriving this week, but what we didn't know, was that Tatio's Exit will be joining it. On top of that, Uno has been updated with a couple of near features including Big Button support (Not that you can pick up Scene it yet)

Battlestar Galactica:

Exit:

You can check out the full press release after the break:

Hop on over to Xbox360Fanboy because they're giving away a copy of E4 and Tetris Splash.  That's $20 worth of gaming goodness.  But the contest starts and ends in a couple hours. 

There's nothing else to know, just go get it!

[via Xbox360Fanboy]

First up, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix footage.

The footage is cell-cam so it's not great but it does at least give the impression that your beloved Street Fighter II Turbo has not been mutilated.  It's still the same thing, but with a nice new coat of paint.  I must say that the HD sprites and the lack of additional animation frames looks odd to me even though it looks very "pure".

Next, the Talisman Trailer.

I guess this is what Svensson was talking about when they said they were planning on saying more soon.  If you're more in the still image mood, try some concept art.  But no matter your mood, you'll still have to wait until 2008 to get your hands on this one.

Oh, and in case you missed my update, a video of Commando 3 is waiting for you.  And it doesn't look half bad.

We may not have an official announcement yet, but at least we've got some official confirmation.  Robbie Bach (President, Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division) spoke with the Financial Times about the new SKU and had this to say:

"Arcade becomes [for us] the ability to bring in a new set of audiences.  They're probably a little bit more casually focused, they're looking for a new family experience or they're more price focused."

After putting that quote throught the Anti-PR spin machine I came up with this: "We're desperately trying to avoid the hardcore image of the past but Nintendo is kicking our butts with those pesky 'non-gamer' types.  So now we're gonna push this new Arcade dealie in the hope that we can stop the bleeding." 

There is still some confusion about what is included in the Arcade package (hopefully this will be cleared up with the announcement) but it appears to come with 5 full arcade games (UNO, PAC-MAN C.E., Feeding Frenzy, Boom Boom Rocket, and Luxor 2) and also 5 demos.  Does anyone out there have better info than that?

As a side note, nice that you get PAC-MAN C.E. instead of classic PAC-MAN.  I love me some championship edition.

[via the Financial Times]