Don't miss the awesome new trailer for Sega's Samba De Amigo.  We've got it for you FOR FREE in HD quality--spread the word. :) Free HD Video From DigitalChumps.com! We'll have more on Samba De Amigo as soon as we get our maracas on it.

You always hate to see it: you’re sitting there, minding your own business, when suddenly your entire family just up and disappears. Yeah, it’s annoying all right, and Ethan Kairos has just about had enough of the spontaneous evaporation of his loved ones. Thus, he sets out to unravel the mystery of their disappearance, and in the process, he comes across a curious tool called a Hollow Pen. This pen has the unique ability to open portals to the past wherever its wielder draws them. With it in hand, Ethan must tread through an increasingly intricate set of circumstances, altering elements of the past when necessary to influence corresponding changes in the future. This is the premise of Time Hollow, a new (and somewhat low-profile) story-driven point-and-tap adventure game from Konami. I spent around twenty minutes with it on the show floor and, while it’s hard to judge such a time-intensive and complicated game within less than a half an hour’s time, it seems to be shaping up to be quite the competent storybook experience. Popular Japanese writers Junko Kawano and Takehiko Hata are responsible for much of the plot and character development. Professionally-designed animated FMV sequences are used to tell...

Chrono Trigger is a game that needs no introduction… but it’s so epic, I’m going to give it one anyway. For many, Chrono Trigger was the epitome of creativity for 90's gaming. It was developed by a so-called Dream Team which included such storied contributors as Akira Toriyama, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Nobuo Uematsu, and the newcomer composer (and now highly respected) Yasunori Mitsuda, who reports having come down with an ulcer after his relentless work on completing the game's soundtrack. It was also among the first games to feature many different dynamic endings, some of which were truly bizarre. This game is truly a defining point in the history of role-playing games and to see it brought to life once more on the ubiquitous Nintendo DS is something that puts a smile on all of our collective faces. Chrono Trigger DS for the Nintendo DS is much in the same vein as the Final Fantasy remakes we’ve seen for the Game Boy Advance over the past few years. It hasn’t been given a graphical overhaul or anything of that nature, and in fact, in CTDS’ case, not even the soundtrack has been touched (it sounds exactly the same as the original—I checked)....

Wario Land: Shake It It’s about time Nintendo gave Wario the true kind of treatment he deserves and Wario Land: Shake It looks to be the Wario Land game I’ve been anticipating for years. Wario happens to be my favorite of the classic Nintendo characters because of his crude sense of humor and his ability to be a complete jerk about everything. Also, he happens to be a very effective character in most Mario games because he’s one of the only mid-weight characters that has both weight and speed. However, what really makes Wario so awesome are the older Wario Land titles (1, 2, and 3) that defined many different types of gameplay elements. Wario Land 1 had the gameplay of the earlier Mario Land titles while Wario Land 2 & 3 took a different approach, with 2 providing a multi-pathed game and 3 a nonlinear masterpiece. The trick was making Wario invulnerable and focusing the gameplay on puzzle solving. This time around, the game looks to be a good combination of both types of gameplay. Though the game doesn’t look to have as many different paths as Wario Land 3, there are secret levels. Also, Wario has hits so it is...

One of Nintendo’s biggest announcements this E3 was that Wii Sports—the game that started it all—is getting a sequel. That may not come as too much of a surprise to anyone with a bit of business sense, but the inclusion of the Wii MotionPlus functionality makes for some interesting news indeed. In case you haven’t seen the news, Wii MotionPlus is a new accessory for the Nintendo Wii that snaps onto the bottom of your Wii remote. This small rectangular box vastly improves the console’s ability to perform 3-D motion tracking. Whereas previously movement translated to the screen after a noticeable (but generally tolerable) 100 ms or longer delay, with Wii MotionPlus, it’s practically instant. Plus, it’s considerably more precise, with the ability to detect even the tiniest of movements. So, what can be done with such a device? Nintendo’s out to show us with Wii Sports Resort, the sequel to the original smash-hit pack-in with the Nintendo Wii. Resort takes place, fittingly, on a tropical island, where a number of different activities are available (most of which will require Wii MotionPlus to play; one is packed in with each copy of the game, along with an extended Wii-mote Jacket to...

Samba de Amigo Wii It took me until around 2:30 on Thursday (around the time when the convention was winding down) to be able to play Samba de Amigo because the game was such a hit and thus crowded for much of the time. This cult classic from the Dreamcast has been completely reborn on the Wii and it’s as fun as ever this time around. You can play with either the WiiMote and nunchuk or for the first time ever, two WiiMotes (this was the case at E3 and I would imagine is probably the best way to play to avoid cords, unless you’re playing with a Nyko Kama or Cord-Free). Samba de Amigo is probably one of the better uses of the Wii-Mote by a third party company yet and though there are some hiccups with the registration of the WiiMote’s movement at times, the game is still tons of fun to play and is a great addition to the music titles currently available on the Wii. There were several songs already available on the E3 build and it looks like there should be a great list of fun songs to shake to. If you’re unfamiliar with the gameplay of Samba...

Three cheers for a game series that consumed three solid months of my college life. Then enter Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS, and I’m right back to playing constantly again… though I tired of it more quickly. Now we’re doing the same thing a third time with marginal changes once again, and I’m beginning to wonder how interested I’ll be in this new version. Regardless, there are some notable differences this time around that will make the game enticing either to newcomers or those who never tired of the older ones. First off, this time, you can actually leave your town and go to the city, via bus driven by—naturally—The Kapp’n. However, you can only do this in single-player mode, and only if no one is currently in your town (does this dispel the possibility of having your town visited while you are not playing? Not necessarily, say Nintendo). The city is filled with all sorts of stuff that previously was only to be found on special days in Animal Crossing; lots of different shops and other buildings here are run by characters that will be familiar to you if you’re a fan of the series. Some...

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Castlevania has most certainly become a staple series on the DS and it continues to thrive further with a new game on the horizon. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia takes an interesting turn in the timeline of Castlevania by placing the vampire killing in the hands of a non-Belmont. And, continuing with the theme of change, this game is also the first where you actually spend a good amount of time outside of Dracula’s castle. Travelling from monasteries to the ocean to the forest, there should be plenty of new environments to encounter on you quest to slay the lord of darkness. Also, the art design is back to a very serious look, with extremely detailed caricatures. The new glyph system is an interesting new battle system where you absorb glyphs found throughout your adventure or obtained by enemies and use them to your advantage. Glyphs include knife, sword, cutler, and many other weapons to be used at your disposal. Also, rather than using hearts, your character can rapidly use their glyphs at the cost of MP. The longer the string of attacks, the lower your MP sinks until you run out completely. However, MP refills very quickly after...

So we're big enough nerds to pay close attention to the music in our games, and while playing Mega Man 9 extensively, we were thrilled by the sound of the BGM.  As such, we managed to sneak a couple of clips of music from the show floor.  It's bad quality (terribly sorry for the clipping and flat quality), but it's listenable... and it'll give you an idea of what type of stuff to expect when the game releases. You've been warned about the quality--now enjoy the clips! :) Concrete Man's Theme (Bad Quality)Plug Man's Theme (Bad Quality) -Steve

Let’s be honest here. Sure, I’m excited about a lot of games at the show this year. But when you boil it all down, there’s hardly anything more enticing to us old-school gamers than freaking Mega Man 9. Although I knew it would be there and I knew pretty much exactly what to expect from it, that still didn’t prevent me from getting all giddy when I saw the kiosk sitting there on the show floor. A nearby Microsoft representative responded with a disgusted frown when, in my reckless excitement, I informed her that I recently forced my wife to watch me play all the way through Mega Man 3. Seriously, what an awesome idea it was for Capcom to pull this one back to its roots and deliver an all-new $10, gameplay-centric, chiptunes music’d, 8-bit installment of Mega Man 9. So how does it feel? Well, after spending a full 35 minutes with the title (because that’s how long it took me to beat one of the levels), I can honestly say that it rocks every bit as much as I had hoped. There were two levels on showcase at E3: Plug Man’s level and Concrete Man’s level. Neither of...

Dragon Quest IV Before I knew that the Dragon Quest 4-6 trilogy was coming to the internet, I was surfing the internet and literally thought it was a typo. I mean, I knew Dragon Quest IX was coming to the DS but I had no idea that IV was as well. It’s very hard to express my excitement when I finally realized that these titles were coming in the near future (5 & 6 have been Japan only up until now). I am a huge Dragon Quest fan, having played the incredible 1-3 trilogy, and I am completely stoked to be able to play the next 3 installments in the series. Dragon Quest IV is obviously remade with improved visuals and audio, just as many of the older Final Fantasy titles are currently experiencing. As is always the case with Dragon Quest (or any Square Enix game for that matter), the music is incredible. The graphics are also some of the best I’ve even seen on the DS to date, even maybe surpassing those seen in the Final Fantasy remakes. For instance, in towns you can rotate the camera a full 360 degrees quickly around the completely 3D towns. The battle animations...

Now here’s a title that I honestly never expected I’d be raving to you about. Ubisoft’s Shaun White Snowboarding for the Nintendo Wii is honestly one of the most fun titles we played all day today. Sure, the concept is rooted in the Wii Fit minigame original, but thankfully this title goes well beyond the functionality of that. Earlier today while meeting with Ubisoft, we were given the opportunity to test drive it for ourselves… so we kicked off our shoes and stepped onto the Wii balance board—and here’s what we came away with. Don’t get me wrong, Shaun White isn’t the most revolutionary game at the show or anything like that, but what it does, it does well. I couldn’t help but feel while playing that the game resembles less of an SSX-like experience and instead more closely parallels Nintendo’s top-rated but oft-forgotten 1080 Snowboarding for the Nintendo 64. And that’s a good thing, because Nintendo’s original title featured the sort of polish that is customary of a good Nintendo product. It was layered with complexity, but without the weight of an overbearing control scheme… and that made it lots of fun to pick up and play, but a challenge...