If you love playing classic arcade games such as Arkanoid or Breakout, then you shouldn't miss out on their homebrew incarnations for the DS. Check out BlockBust, an Arkanoid clone for DS by homebrew developer Gungnir. More details in the full article.


Download: BlockBust

As avid retrogamers, we here at QJ.NET are rather wary of "re-imagined" classics. However, when Atari revealed that they were coming out with Warlords on the XBLA, we put these fears aside and decided to check it out. Is it worth the 400 Microsoft points it's being sold for? Well, check out the full article to find out.

Casual games are all the rage on Nintendo's latest downloadable game service. Gameloft's Block Breaker Deluxe introduces itself as the premiere WiiWare release for the month of May. It features the same gameplay as the classic Breakout and Arkanoid series placed in a much more colorful and dynamic background. For more details, you can check out the full article after the jump.

Here's a quirky new game from PSP homebrew developer kenny.bsp. The game is a little old school and plays like the classic Arkanoid. Instead of bouncing balls, though, you'll be bouncing beavers. Beavers? Well, we did say it was quirky. Check out a gameplay video of BeaverzPSP in the full article.

Download: BeaverzPSP v0.2

Australia based gamers will be glad to know that they're going to be getting some big name Square Enix titles such as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for the Sony PlayStation Portable and Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors for the Nintendo DS this year. To find out more, head on over to the full article.

Taito Corporation revealed that Space Invaders Extreme on the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable as well as Arkanoid DS will be arriving in North America soon. To find out the exact date as well as what these two games have to offer, head on over to the full article.

Think about it: games controlled by mere thought may be possible as early as 2008. NeuroSky has developed such technology, demonstrating it last April with a Darth Vader game where users control his light saber by just thinking it.

But as fate would have it (and dozens of movies have told us the same) that tech that deals directly with the mind has consequences. Recent studies have shown that the new tech may be dangerous for the brain and some (though not all) scientists expressed concerns about the prospect.

NeuroSky's brain-computer interface (BCI) uses sensors attached to the scalp to detect brain wave patterns. As long as the user concentrates on a certain object in the game, they can control it. In the Darth Vader game, users were able to light up the saber just by concentrating in their minds that it's lit up.

Scientists discovered that users are sometimes forced to slow down their brain waves to play, and they consequently have trouble focusing afterwards. Niels Birbaumer, an independent BCI researcher explains:

Imagine that somebody uses a game with slow brain-wave activity and then drives a car while still in that state. You could have an accident. I think it's a rare possibility, but it should be tested before people do this.

Nam Do, the CEO of Emotiv, another company whose technology runs on the same principles, explains that it's "normal to have these concerns" but that it does not apply. He says, "There is no two-way interaction, and the technology does not require the user to train their brain to get into a predetermined state in any way." Greg Hyver, VP Marketing of NeuroSky, supplements this by saying that the concerns arise only from the lack of familiarity with the tech.

The technology is still in its early stages and some scientists doubt we'll be able to play complex games with it this soon. More like old school ones like Tetris. Maybe Arkanoid? Still, it's pretty cool and the companies say they may be able to release the tech by 2008.

Majesco Entertainment's new arcade-style game Furu Furu Park on the Wii features old school games utilizing the dynamic game style of the Wiimote as only the Wiimote can give. Stylized for the Wii and designed to be enjoyable for all age levels, the game is guaranteed to be a hit for Wii fans, especially those who love to shake their groove thing with the Wiimote.

Last time we gave you the scoop on five of the 30 minigames in Furu Furu Park.  Here are four more games you can look forward to:

Arkanoid: Old school gamers will definitely remember this one.  Bounce a ball off your paddle to hit a wall of blocks.
Pinch Hitter: A baseball-type game. Strike a home run with this one.
Bubble Bobble: Burst some bubbles with the Wiimote.
Safe Cracker: Use your Wiimote like the gears of a safe, enter the code and get the prize.

The game will also feature three multiplayer modes. There's Free Battle, Panel Attack and (get this) a Love Mode where you and a friend have to fight to win a girl's affections. No screenshot of the girl yet though, sorry folks. Watch out for updates though, maybe you'll get lucky.

Furu Furu Park will be released this fall.

"In a time before the time, all the Dreads of the Underworld were into Pandora's Vase."

Okay, horrible grammar aside, that sentence seems like it's from some kind of epic action or RPG title, wouldn't you say? Actually, it's not. It's from an Arkanoid-like mobile game from JavArt called Pandora Bricks. Don't dismiss it as just any ordinary brick-breaker, though. It comes complete with an elaborate (a bit laughable, but elaborate) backstory (Gilgamesh must protect Pandora's Vase from the forces of Chaos) and best of all, you get to play using up to four platforms.

The gameplay is easy: knock down all the barriers, make it through all of the 30 levels, and kill the final-level monsters. You can also hit special blocks to grab hidden bonuses like multi-ball, caterpillar and a magnetic field. In single player mode, two of the four platforms are controlled by the CPU. In multiplayer Bluetooth mode, you and a buddy get to move two platforms each.

More screens and a vid await after the jump!

Ah, Virtua Tennis. This is the game that revived the whole tennis scene in videogames practically single-handedly. The series has been on almost every videogame platform - in arcades, the Dreamcast, the PS2 - and now SEGA is trying to re-capture the magic with Virtua Tennis 3. This latest title will soon hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP, featuring upgraded graphics, new gameplay modes, and tennis-ball throwing garbage cans.

Wait up. Say what? Tennis-ball throwing garbage cans.

These malignant mechanical monstrosities make an appearance in Virtua Tennis 3 care of the game's hilarious mini-games feature, more specifically in the Alien Attack mini-game. The title may have the word "alien" in it, but don't worry, things aren't going Roswell in Virtua Tennis-land just yet.

The mini-game features ball-hurling garbage cans that launch balls at you at high speeds. The objective here is to hit the balls right back at them, thus taking them out in the process. Kinda like the old Arkanoid game. There are also some "special" aliens that are colored red. These ones explode when you hit 'em, so when you hit then you can take out a few of their friends with them as well.

Explaining the whole thing just doesn't have the same feel as showing it to you guys, so here are a few screenshots of how the Alien Attack mini-game looks like. Check 'em out below.