Activision must have been under tremendous pressure to develop an empirical method of determining the greatest songs in the Guitar Hero series for Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits. It would be difficult to pick the determining factors: fan votes? Number of notes? Length? Sales as DLC? Sales of the original record? Some kind of measure of volunteers' brain activity while playing? It's a big question. And what if songs came out after the release of the collection that were even greater than the Greatest Hits? Then the title would be a lie!

Activision's solution: change the title to Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. That's safe from potential inaccuracy, because it doesn't really mean anything!

That "The best of Guitar Hero music" line at the bottom kind of ruins our theory about the name change. Ignore that part.

[Via GoNintendo]

That copy of Resistance 2 looking a little dated? Fancy it up with some new digs, and by that we mean insert art, courtesy of the PlayStation Blog. Three covers are available to download from the blog's official Flickr page to redress Nathan Hale's latest adventure: the original North American box art (not pictured), the Ying-and-yang art from Europe (pictured left) and an extreme close-up design that would make Wayne Campbell proud.

We're all for changing it up, but something tells us PlayStation fans are more eager to swap out their Resistance 2 discs for something a little more intense.

Stormrise is an upcoming console RTS from The Creative Assembly, developer of the Total War series. Among the standard promise of intuitive console controls, Creative Assembly is introducing "verticality" to console RTS players. Units can be deployed in the air, on rooftops, at ground level, or below the planet's surface. Okay. So far, so good ...

Uh-oh, wait a minute. Stormrise's box art looks like the class project of a paint-by-numbers after school program. Sure, it's the game inside that matters -- and we're excited for it -- but imagine if, instead of saying Stormrise on the cover, the box read RoboCop vs. Zombies. This art would still totally work, and probably be twice as rad.

Amazon has updated their listing for Rhythm Heaven with some new boxart, along with a terrible new release date and terrible new price: November 30 and $40, respectively. We are hoping against hope that these are both just placeholders, because while we will wait that long and pay that much, we really, really don't want to. The game is out in Japan! It was shown off at E3 2008! It's done!

All we know for sure is that Rhythm Heaven is not coming out in the first quarter of this year. Nintendo's press site still has it scheduled for "1st half 2009." However, the fact that Gamestop has no listing at all for it does suggest that it's fairly far off.


[Via GoNintendo]

The Tenchu 4 (or, rather, Tenchu: Shadow Assassins) boxart we spotted on Ubisoft's site didn't really meet with the Internet's approval. While the image on the official site has yet to change, retailer GameCrazy is displaying a different boxart, which is quite likely to be a newer revision of Tenchu's North American box image.

We happen to think it looks better, though there's an odd mixture of art styles on display here due to the combination of art from the other American box and Japanese character art -- Rikimaru is a lot more realistic-looking than Ayame.

After the break, have a look at the preorder bonus being given away at Gamestop. It's pretty nice, for a video game-related bandana.

The packages for the Japanese Play on Wii series feature the original boxarts for the GameCube games framed in a new white border, with a blue bar at the bottom explaining that the games have new Wii Remote-based controls. According to teensy preview images found on GameStop.com, the North American New Play Control! versions of Pikmin and Mario Power Tennis, officially announced just yesterday, will employ the same strategy. As in, exactly the same.

The only difference (aside from the language stuff and the fact that the North American boxart images are used) is that the Play on Wii boxes feature a curved top border in the blue area. If we're lucky, the covers will be reversible like the Japanese ones. We probably won't be that lucky!

We have yet to see the box designs for the European NEW PLAY CONTROL! series. We'll keep you updated, because we love pointing out that the European title for the series seems to officially be NEW PLAY CONTROL! in all caps.

Source: Pikmin
Source: Mario Power Tennis

Namco Bandai's Fragile isn't short on interesting characters. The latest is Shin, a brilliant (but socially weak) scientist and the latest addition to the game's ragtag cast. He'll be voiced by Toshio Furukawa (all of the game's dialog will be spoken), former voice star of Dragon Ball Z, Gundam, Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, and Jann Lee of Dead or Alive fame.

Though Fragile still can't match the oddball quotient of No More Heroes, it's encouraging to see Namco Bandai isn't falling back on stock RPG characters. We were going to mention how Shin might be the oddest-looking Fragile cast member yet, but then we remembered this guy. Join us past the break for a look at the game's eye-catching Japanese boxart, and catch 14 new screens in the gallery.

Well, not literally, but it would seem that THQ has thrown out its lawsuit against Activision over the boxart for Baja 1000: Score International. Activision has altered the boxart for their game (catch the image past the break), but, seeing as how the game has been available for a short while now, what of the copies that have already reached store shelves? THQ isn't too concerned about that, apparently.

[Via Joystiq]

Capcom has released new character art by Shinkiro for the newly-announced characters in Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes. Despite Shinkiro's history, Viewtiful Joe, Ippatsuman, and Saki bear little facial resemblance to George Clooney at all.

They also released the above image, which will be used as the boxart for the Wii release of the 2.5D fighter. It's totally classic Shinkiro, semi-realistic, detailed, and -- yes, vaguely reminiscent of the star of Ocean's Eleven. We like how it's cleverly laid out to fit the Wii box: Viewtiful Joe, standing atop the PTX-40A, fills the narrower part of the white "Wii" band that will go at the top of the box.

A Portuguese Nintendo fansite happened to notice the appearance on Amazon of the Animal Crossing: City Folk/WiiSpeak microphone bundle. Only just now after looking at it have we realized what Nintendo has done here: they've guaranteed City Folk's bestseller status by making it yet another first-party Wii game with a bundled peripheral. It now joins Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit. People really love big boxes!

Amazon's price for the bundle is a cause for concern. Either they never bothered to update to the $59.99 price or the price is back up to $69.99. We'd like to make an official announcement at this time: Wii Fanboy endorses the lower price this November. We think it's the right decision for this county.


[Via FNintendo]

One of this week's releases might have flown under the radar, if not for the fact that the publisher is being sued over the boxart. It may not even end up being one of this week's releases! THQ has filed suit against Activision, claiming that the boxart for Activision's PS3/360/Wii SCORE International Baja 1000 infringes upon THQ's copyright, in that it looks too similar to THQ's PS3/360 Baja Edge of Control.

According to THQ, both the front and the back of the boxart are "virtually identical," but we think THQ's seeing patterns where there are none. Sure, both games feature red trucks displayed in a distorted perspective with their right front tires coming into the camera kicking up rocks while the passenger holds on to a bar on the front with his right hand; and both feature blue and white trucks behind them and to their left, descending from a jump; and both feature cacti on the right side in roughly the same position; and they both just happen to have yellow-on-black distressed "Baja" logos tilted up ten degrees. But that's all.

Through this lawsuit, THQ hopes to delay the release of Activision's game until they can produce some different artwork.

[Via Gamasutra]

Even before the boxart for MadWorld was unveiled, we found ourselves to be in love with the game. When we got our eyes on it back at E3, we entertained thoughts of pushing our way to the front of the crowd of journalists there to see the game, ripping the controller out of Atsushi Inaba's hands, and playing it for as long as we could before security came down to the area Platinum Games demoed the title for us and forcefully ejected us from the premises. The game just looks that good.

What do you think of the boxart? Hate it? Love it? Indifferent?


[Via Go Nintendo]

This is a two-part column on digital distribution and its effect on the psychology of your average gamer. In part one we look at the change from the aesthetic of a well-stocked gaming shelf to a digital software library and what is lost or gained by it. Next week we will look at the they way smaller, quick-fix digital game downloads may change our gaming habits.

Sorry for the brief hiatus, Inconstant Readers, but I was too busy making repeated trips to the store to pick up more Dramamine and an extra Dual Shock 3 after the PSN update last week. Let's just say that what Wipeout HD lacks as an epileptic stimulant it makes up for with motion sickness at 60fps. Mega Man 9 should also carry a warning about possible "controller malfunction" - here's a tip kiddos: the original Sixaxis is slightly lighter than the Dual Shock 3 and thus has a smaller chance of cracking televisions and denting walls when thrown.

Still, I wouldn't have traded this weekend's gaming experiences for anything short of an LBP beta key. Generally after some frantic gaming and letting my house devolve itself into a special level of disarray I rather savor picking up the pieces - smoothing out the crumbled instruction manuals and reinserting them into their cases while finding the perfect organizational spot on the shelf for the box art (alphabetically? by genre? producer?). Imagine my lament when come Monday morning I realized I had nothing but broken controller pieces to pick up. The game's I'd spent my weekend with were all digital downloads!

It's been awhile since we had a chance to discuss Cooking Mama: World Kitchen. In fact, it's been months, as our time with the title back at E3 was the last we've heard. Well, thankfully, that changes today.

We've got some fresh screens for the game, as well as boxart. The boxart is, well, quite pleasing to us. We have Mama looking over the shoulder of our new wouldbe chef, smiling happily and ... wait, what is that? Mama, how could you? The first rule of the kitchen is to turn off all unused burners on the stove! Are you trying to get someone killed?!

Tsk tsk, Mama. We guess we can still love you. And play your game.

What's the best way to show off the fact that you've been spending the last few days of your life being punished severely by a video game? Other than the murderous look that comes from spending too much time in Dr. Wily's Castle, we think that the official Mega Man 9 t-shirt is the most effective method of sharing your pain.

Capcom's online store is now taking preorders for the black shirt featuring the American Mega Man 9 "boxart" for shipping on September 30. It costs $24.95 plus shipping, which is actually quite a bit more than the game costs -- but it's entirely worth it when you consider that the "proprietary MegaWeave™ technology provides improved gaming performance in Mega Man® 9 and all other Capcom titles." Sorry, Roll's Item Shop shoppers -- Capcom doesn't accept screws!

[Minor update: it appears that leaving an item in your cart and then backing out with your browser's 'back' button triggers a survey pop-up that, when completed, nets you 10% off your purchase!]