…and sets out to offer more beyond the community forums for 2010.

It’s great to see longtime destinations like Shoryuken.com still around. Long before the days of Youtube; Twitter and blogs — casual and hardcore gamers alike use to pass along their knowledge on the humble newsgroups of Usenet. As time moved on, one visionary from the West Coast set out to create a more accessible online platform. Over the past decade, Shoryuken.com has evolved into one of the most popular websites in which players of all skill levels could develop their competitive edge. It also gave birth the classic “Domination 101″ articles, composed by Seth Killian, in addition to numerous comprehensive guides created by some of the most talented and respected players in the fighting game community.

It’s because of the unconditional support and passion of its community that has helped Shoryuken.com to thrive, so it’s only fitting to see the site relaunch with a renewed focus that aspires to go beyond the message boards and tap deeper into the very knowledge that’s helped some of the most elite players reach their level.

I don’t want to spoil the details — you’ll have to drop over there for yourself to get the details. Check out the full introduction from Mr. Cannon here and congrats to the SRK team on your 10th anniversary.

(As for us… we’ll be popping back shortly with some upcoming news once I can locate Nick — he’s probably tied up with Borderlands).

With bonus Space Giraffe offer, too!
It’s been a long time in development but Gridrunner Revolution has finally been made available for download.  The high-speed, pleasantly mad shooter has a legacy spanning 27 years and counting, and time has treated its evolution very well.  The graphics are much nicer, and the gameplay better developed, but the classic arcade action is as intense as it’s ever been.

The basic premise is pretty simple- move with the mouse, the ship auto-fires, and when sheep power-ups are collected the ship adds more guns.  There are gravity wells around the single-screen playfield, and creating loops of bullets around them increases the score for everything.  The Revolution of the title comes from being able to rotate the ship a full 360 degrees, meaning not only can the entire screen be covered in firepower but you can more precisely position yourself for prettier bullet arcs, which directly increase the scoring potential.  Playing for the sake of blasting everything in sight is fun, and making complex bullet patterns is pretty.  It’s eye-candy mayhem at its finest.

Sweetening the deal is an early-bird buyer promotion.  Gridrunner Revolution is $20 by itself, or $25 with the excellent Space Giraffe.  Either way it’s an excellent application of the gaming budget.

Hat Of Sheer Awesomeness!

By now it should be a given you’ll be buying Scribblenauts when it comes out mid-September.  If Scribblenauts doesn’t nab a Game of the Year award or two then something has gone horribly wrong somewhere, and its sheer charm and creativity make it a must-have.  Still, Warner Bros. and 5th Cell seem worried that Maxwell, the main character, is too intimidatingly awesome, and have taken steps to make sure that the player is properly prepared to control him.  Simply put, if you reserve the game you get a rooster hat.

This giant red hat comes exactly as you see in the game, with three red blobs sticking out the front and white ear coverings that, sadly, aren’t actual headphones.  Despite its technological limitations there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do with headwear like this, making it one of the most useful pieces of swag ever.  It’s only available at GameStop and EB Games in the US and Canada, but seeing as there’s one on every street corner that shouldn’t be too much of an impediment.

Croteam’s been busy lately.

It’s almost time for the 10-year anniversary of one of the most pure shooting action series ever, and there’s no better way to celebrate than to retool the originals to modern graphic standards.  Majesco and CDV Software announced today that they’ve got a remake of Serious Sam: The First Encounter coming to XBLA this summer, with the nearly meaningless title of Serious Sam HD.

Serious Sam HD will relaunch the Serious Sam series using Croteam’s new Serious Engine 3, making it look, in technical terms, awful purty.  Other than that this is looking to be a straight port, although that could be subject to change due to the scarcity of information outside of “this game exists” that’s been released so far.  The only solid detail is the four-player co-op multiplayer.

Serious Sam HD hits at an unspecified point this summer for XBLA and later this fall for PC.  It seems that Serious Sam: The Second Encounter will be getting an upgrade as well relatively soon-ish after that, although details on its release are still sketchy.

One thing worth clarifying, though, is the development path.  CDV is co-publishing the PC version and Majesco the XBLA one, both in conjunction with Devolver Digital, and Croteam is developing the game in-house.  So if you don’t love Serious Sam HD you’re disappointing a whole lot of people who only care about the well-deserved revival of the most monster-filled and adrenaline-pumping arcade FPS ever made.

So long good friend.

It’s official. We’ve just lost one of the best arcades in the US. Tokyo Game Action is to remain closed and will be liquidating all their assets in May due to flooding that hit them on December. Why does this have to happen to such an awesome establishment with such great people? I’m literally speechless right now… (more…)