(Posted by: Harrison Milfeld)

Good news for Project Rainfall supporters, as Nintendo announced today that The Last Story will be coming to North America in 2012 from XSEED games to the Wii. The second of three games from the fan campaign  to be localized by Nintendo of America (Xenoblade Chronicles is confirmed for April 2012 and Pandora's Tower has yet to be announced for a U.S. release), this serves as yet another huge victory for group who at times thought the movement wasn't gaining the attention it needed. With this latest news, Nintendo of America certainly made the right decision to listen to the Project Rainfall movement. Hopefully this will only inspire more petition-based campaigns.

In addition to The Last Story announcement, Nintendo also announced via their Nintendo Direct service a May 20th launch date for Mario Tennis Open for the 3DS. More details were also revealed about Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS, along with some eShop updates. These updates include the release of Dillon's Rolling Western, a game where you play as an armadillo who has to defend various towns. With all these recent updates, the 3DS appears to have found its footing with the recent release of Sony's PlayStation Vita portable. 

Watch the video below to see NoA's own Reggie Fils-Aime go through all the goodies announced today via Nintendo Direct. 

(Posted by: Alex Deckard)

The latest App from Sky Parlor Studios, Fire and Dice, didn't hook me the second I started playing.  It's just not that direct.  But what it DID do is somehow manage to keep me playing long after the initial novelty had worn off.  I can't really explain it, but the game is just fun.

The premise is that you live in a particularly flammable city, and you run the fire department.  However, for whatever reason, you have to roll dice for your supplies.  Gas for movement, ladders to rescue people, water to put out fires and fire trucks to give you more fire trucks.  You roll five dice, lock down the dice you want to keep, and keep rolling until you lock down all five.  But you have to lock down at least one each roll.  Then you select your truck and use your supplies.  It doesn't sound like much, but it is one hell of a time killer.  Personally, I haven't been this hooked on an app since Game Dev Story.  Will it be the next Angry Birds?  Maybe not.  But we don't want to PLAY another Angry Birds.  We want new, original ideas from creative people.  Sky Parlor Studios are definitely out there making these things happen.  It's $1.99 on the iOS App Store and Android Marketplace, but there is a free trial version available.  DEFINITELY worth a look.  Plus, there's an online leaderboard where people have been getting some RIDICULOUS scores.  Can you beat them?  Maybe.  Will you have fun trying to?  I certainly think so.

Now, I wouldn't be a reviewer unless I pointed out some negatives.  Once you learn the game, that's really it.  There's not a lot of variety as far as gameplay.  Granted, this isn't the kind of game that really needs it, but with an attention span as short as mine, variety is pretty great.  I would have liked to see a greater variety of maps, but the rectangular shape of the town is undoubtedly due to the shape of the devices it is used on.  Frankly, all of my gripes can be explained away with "technical limitations".  But it would be interesting to see how this would play out on a larger scale.  The other issue is that there have been some reported problems with getting the app to run.  Usually, it seems those issues can be remedied with a simple restart, or trying over and over again to get it working.  However, it should be noted that it does NOT run on iPhone or iPod Touch 2G or earlier.  So if that's what you're working with, you're out of luck.  Sorry.  But if you can run it, I'd suggest giving it a try.  8.5/10

(Posted By: Alex Deckard)

In a recent interview, Tim Schafer, gaming luminary and founder of Double Fine Games, stated that he had been shopping around a pitch for a sequel to his fantastic game "Psychonauts".  No publishers had taken it, and he commented that "I'd love to do that game, but I'd have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars.  That's all."

After this interview came out, Notch sent Mr. Schafer a tweet.

"@TimOfLegend Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen."

This is HUGE news.  MONUMENTAL.  This game has been clamored for by fans of the first one, and now it looks like it may actually happen.  Notch has the money, Tim Schafer has the ability.  As you can see in the picture we've posted to the article, Notch is serious.  A couple hours ago, Mr. Schafer tweeted "It's always unsettling to wake up to five text messages saying 'You'd better check your Twitter.'"  What followed were several tweets back at fans tweeting him about random stuff, followed by what Notch has taken as Tim's response to him.

"Oh wait.  Hm.  This is interesting."