"Over the years, gamers have seen dozens of high-profile titles make their world debut by being featured on the cover of Game Informer. In fact, if you’re a regular shopper at GameStop, you’re probably one of the magazine’s more than two million readers.

But does a game getting on Game Informer’s cover signal it’s going to be great?

Can you be confident that these debuts will, one or two years later, become games you want to buy and play? Perhaps the magazine has a “Madden” curse (though..."

"Those who want more dirt on the upcoming hot DS titles - Square Enix's Chrono Trigger and Mistwalker's Blue Dragon Plus - can now go ahead and eat their eyes out on these new scans provided by Gamekyo (formerly known as Jeux-France). Both games sport the well-loved character designs by famed manga artist Akira Toriyama, making the two games seem to be one and the same...but they're actually not, obviously.

The scans below are taken from Japanese V-Jump magazine, and are mostly of screensho..."

"Over the past two years, gamers who have doled out the cash for a shiny new Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 have enjoyed a wealth of great titles. Games such as Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune have reassured owners that their purchases were not vein, and that the potential for memorable videogame experiences would be ever-present in this generation."

"So what does 2008, and beyond, hold for RPGs on the Xbox 360? There are certainly some tantalising prospects ahead. Mistwalker was up first with its second Xbox 360 exclusive, Lost Odyssey. The tale of Kaim Argonar, a man who’s lived for 1,000 years, it takes place over several generations, you could end up finishing the adventure with the great grandson of your original companion, bringing to the fore the theme of the loneliness of the immortal. You know, a bit like the Highlander, movie, on..."

"New numbers have come from Famitsu, who has broken down Japanese sales figures on the top 50 Xbox 360 games since launch. None of the results are good. While Blue Dragon, an RPG by famous Final Fantasy developer Hironobu Sakaguchi was indeed Japan's most successful 360 title, it only sold 202,740 copies. (So it would seem Microsoft had the idea right, just not the scale). Dead or Alive 4 comes in at number 2 with 108,618 and Halo 3 is all the way back at spot 4 with 82,987.

So what's the ..."

"Mistwalker's previous Blue Dragon game for the Microsoft Xbox 360 had our three heroes Kluke, Shu, and Jiro teaming up and fighting against Nene, the ancient man behind the yearly attacks which have been going on for ten years on their hometowns."

"Cheesemeister

01./02. [NDS] Mario Party DS (Nintendo) - 180,042 / 826,000
02./01. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 124,238 / 535,000
03./00. [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Sony) - 115,748 / NEW
04./05. [NDS] Prof. Layton and Pandora's Box (Level 5) - 74,378 / 444,000
05./09. [WII] Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo) - 74,113 / 550,000
06./06. [NDS] Dragon Quest IV (Square-Enix) - 73,061 / 868,000
07./10. [WII] Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Nintendo) - 64,228 / 212,000
08./14. [WII] Wii ..."

"Blue Dragon has been out in Japan-o-land for a while, and frankly, it hasn't saved the 360 in that particular sales region type marketing thing. I'd hazard a guess as to why with two specific reasons: one, a single game save a console will not, and two, it's just not very good. Not 'I want to vomit on myself then die' bad by any means, just painfully old fashioned and not in keeping with the giant strides the wonderful FFXII has taken in the genre."

"The arrival of a certain underwater adventure from 2K Games seems to have finally provided the jump start 2007 needed in terms of banishing the woeful summer months and delivering a decent range of retail choice for the (incredibly patient and) discerning gamer.

The cream of this week's crop arrives in the form of a certain armour-clad heroine courtesy of Nintendo. Yep, sweet Samus makes her first appearance on the Nintendo Wii for the final game in the long-running Metroid series.

Visi..."

"Well, it’s probably wise to avoid spilling into a tirade of joyous expletives, but let’s just say that the long-awaited arrival of a certain watery FPS truly marks the end of the summer and the beginning of an extremely high-quality end of year run in…which starts this week with BioShock, of course, on Xbox 360 and PC.

However, when it comes to decent next-gen titles, this week isn’t merely a point of focus for Irrational and 2K Games’ underwater epic. No, not at all. Indeed, other notabl..."

The achievement list for the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive, Blue Dragon has surfaced. With this list you can see what you might be facing in the game. There are a total of 43 achievements in the game with varying points.

1. Back Attack
2. 100 Back Attacks
3. Multi-Monster Encounter
4. 10+ Monsters in an Encounter
5. 100 Monster Fights
6. Beat King Poo
7. Beat Golden Poo Snake
8. Beat Gold Mecha Robo
9. Mechat Shooting Stage 1: Perfect
10. Wagon Escort: Perfect
11. Dragon: Max One Class
12. Minotaur: Max One Class
13. Phoenix: Max One Class
14. Dragon: Ma...

"The two demo levels presented to you give you a good idea of what to expect from the game. Fortress provides you with the most boss battles and cinematics, and actually has quite a bit of spoilers which makes me wonder why they chose to use it in the demo. Ruins on the other hand, gives you no story at all and just gives you more to explore. The demo gives you a nice diverse bunch of enemies to fight. You’ll fight Zebra Poo Snakes, Blood-Sucking Beetles, Golden Scarabs, Glowering Imp Traps, A..."

"Name: Blue Dragon Demo
Price: Free
Availability: All Xbox Live regions
Dash Details: The Blue Dragon Demo is available! Play the grand adventure in two dungeons filled with Mecha Robos and Ancient Monsters!"

"A free download will be available as of 20th July. The download weighs in at 1.1Gb which is quite sizable but for that you'll get two hours of gameplay to sample before the game hits in August. The voiceovers will only be available in English (come on, what other languages did you want to try?) but the subtitles are available in both English and Japanese depending on the language preference of the console.

The download is only available until 3rd August so don't wait too long to download it."

"Bringing top Japanese developer talent to the Xbox 360, “Blue Dragon” is a culmination of the work of famed game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi of Mistwalker game studio and developer Artoon. This epic RPG features the character design of Akira Toriyama, who designed “Dragon Ball Z,” and music by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for “Final Fantasy.”

Gamers will find themselves exploring and discovering the vast world of “Blue Dragon” as they assume the role of Shu, a young boy who along with his ..."

"Chances are you’ve already seen Japanese footage of Blue Dragon but with its official NA and EU releases creeping ever closer (August/September), GamerSquad looks to grace you with some trailer clips you can, you know, actually understand."

For those of you who are excited about the upcoming RPG for XBOX 360 - Blue Dragon, you'll be happy to find out that there's an anime in development to accompany this game:

This is the Japanese opening scene.