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Pokelife

Are you a small child or a furry? Perhaps you merely have a whimsical sense of humor. Or you might simply desperately want free crap. Whatever - you might be interested in acontestNintendo is currently running with the help ofsmugmug, a poorly-named site we'd describe as aflickrripoff, except that it has lots of quotes on its front page talking about how awesome it is.

Anyway... the contest centers around the plot of the not-so-spectacularPokemon Mystery Dungeon, in which the main character wakes up to find out he's been transformed into a Pokemon. The contest, then, is to submit a picture (or photo!) about your life as a Pokemon. We're not expecting a wide variety of creativity, but we'd like to be pleasantly surprised. Either way, you might win a DS Lite or two, which is nice. Get scribbling.

Kiss and tell

Now that the hue and cry about Bully is starting to look more than a little silly, a new controversy has been uncovered. Young Jimmy Hopkins, star of the adventure, can be persuaded to kiss boys if you wish - and only if you wish, mind you.GayGamer.nethas the video evidence. Following in the footsteps of Fable, Bully puts the power in your hands to live your virtual life as you want... but of course, this isn't going to go down easily (some people are suggesting that it pushes the game past the T rating territory.) Hey, if Roseanne could do it during prime time in the '90s, why can't we have it in a game in the '00s?

Too much Evil

Our British sister siteCVGhas postedan amusing look backat the Resident Evil series that takes in the entire shebang - even making snarky comments about the GameCube-only entries and taking in such losers as the Game Boy Color's Resident Evil Gaiden. Albeit very, very briefly. Slightly meandering but very amusing, the article is well worth reading if you want a brief recap of a series that, having just come off of its best title yet - last year'sResident Evil 4- has a very exciting future in the next generation.

Hello, Halo?

On Friday,we reportedon the near-death experience of the Halo movie, which is currently, well... we don't know what's up with it right now, since the studios have pulled out. ButNext Generation reportstoday that Bungie and Microsoft remain committed to the film, as does hobbit-wrangler Peter Jackson. So the future may still be bright for Master Chief in movie theaters. We hope to find out more, because - as tiresome as it is to have to keep waiting for this - it seemed to stand the best chance of being an actual good video game to movie adaptation.

If you only play one turn-of-the-18th century city-builder this fall...

With all of the next gen consoles just emerging from the ether or finally hitting their stride, an 18th century explorer/builder might be way underneath your radar. But that'd be a shame, because the spare-no-superlatives beauty of 1701 A.D. is simply not to be missed. Today, publisher Aspyr announced a generous multilevel demo of 1701, available fromthe official website. While you're waiting for this gem to download, check out ourhands-on preview... and get ready.

New screens

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Need for Speed Carbon (Wii)
Wing Island (Wii)
Armored Core 4 (PS3,360)
Guild Wars Nightfall (PC)
Rush (PSP)
Go! Sudoku 2 (PS3)
Clubhouse Games (DS)

New videos

Stranglehold (PC,PS3,360)
Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2 (360)
Blast Factor (PS3)
Spectrobes (DS)
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

October 23, 2006