In addition to the producer interview contained in the Zack and Wiki reviewer's guide, the Wired blog also has a fiery little interview with the Zack and Wiki producer Hironobu Takeshita. In addition to correctly putting the blame for getting owned by the game's devilish puzzles squarely on the shoulders of *you*, the scrubby player, Takeshita also gives Spelunker (one of the most hated games of my misspent youth) a shout-out. Good stuff.

Indomitable Lost Planet specialist Chaser74 brings us a podcast with the good people behind r3match.com. The guys talk competitive Lost Planet, the many problems they've encountered on other competitive ladder sites, and what's different about r3match.com--the competitive gaming site for the rest of us.

It's that time again! Of course, I'm refering to the fact that it's time for another Capcom focus test, where we ask regular gamers of the street their opinions just so we can then turn around and do the exact opposite! This time, we’re looking for a few good men (and/or women!) to give us some feedback on an upcoming arcade style platform action game. If you’re interested, live in the San Francisco Bay Area, are available to come into the Capcom offices in San Mateo on next Tuesday, November 13th, from approximately 2pm to 5pm, are willing to sign away your life and give us all your most sensitive and intimate personal info, then by all means, sign up! While this time we’re not partnering with Intel for awesome quad-core goodness, those who are chosen to come in will still be very handsomely rewarded with prizes! Here’s what we need to know from you: —Name —Age (you must be over 18 with valid ID to participate) —Which titles have you played in the last 6 months? —Approximately how many hours per week do you spend playing? —Phone number at which you may be reached during business hours —Email address Send your application to: contest@capcom.com Please do not apply if you can not come at the time specified lest you want to face public ridiculing like the guy who missed our last focus test (Sucka!). Openings are very limited, and participant selection is at the sole discretion of Capcom Entertainment Inc. Hope to see you soon.

Some wise-acre gave all of the early art work for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix the lolcats treatment, and even we have to admit they're pretty funny. I first ran across these on the Neogaf forums though they also have their own page. You can check them out (uncropped) in our flickr pool. Stupid internet.

Comingsoon.net apparently has acquired the synopsis to the soon-to-start-filming Onimusha movie, and, by the looks of it, it doesn't look half-bad at all.

In feudal Japan, 1582, the warlord Nobunaga is ambushed by ninjas, led by the brave samurai Samanosuke. Trapped, Nobunaga commits seppuku, but two sinister sorcerers reanimate Nobunaga's corpse with a half-human insect larvae. The resurrected Nobunaga orders the capture of two very special women to fulfill his evil plans. When Britta, the daughter of a Dutch merchant, is abducted on board a ship by seemingly invincible warriors, her tutor and confidant Jacob pursues her captors, vowing to rescue her at all costs. Meanwhile, the beautiful Princess Yuki is also kidnapped, this time by ninjas that reveal themselves, incredibly, to be part spider. In search of Yuki, Samanosuke joins forces with Jacob to vanquish their common foe. In the Cave of Elders, he receives a magical sword that will slay all within its reach - friend or foe - and learns of a sinister ceremony at Inabayama Castle intended to blot out the sun. Performing a dangerous, stealthy invasion of the castle, Samanosuke and Jacob find the women they love dressed as Moon Princess and Daughter of the Sun, ready to be wed to and ravished by Nobunaga. Aided by their allies, the two warriors attack the insectoid hordes, but Samanosuke falls in battle, seemingly dead. In a mystical encounter, he is given the option to survive and fight - but it comes at a terrible cost...

I can't wait for this movie to come out! From comingsoon.net

Recently we sent out a call for Bay Area gamers to come to our offices and participate in Intel's Lost Planet Focus Test, for which Intel sent us PCs, equipped with their latest quad-core processors. Then we installed Lost Planet on them. Last Friday, 5 lucky gamers were chosen out of the dozens of entries to come and play Lost Planet on the Intel machines for a few hours, in both single player and multiplayer game modes. In general, everything went off without a hitch, except for one of participants, who, even after numerous confirmations, still failed to show. That's okay, the loss is completely his, as all the participants who did show up received a gift in the form of the Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor QX6700, which streets for about $950. Not bad at all, considering all they had to do was play Lost Planet for 3 hours and answer a few questions. Bet that guy will swim across oceans to show up the next time we have a focus test. Click on the image above for more pictures!

My buddy Tim (aka Rice Burner) sent this to me. It's sad that we share the same sense of humor. Although the video is a year old, I still laugh every time I watch it, especially now that I work at Capcom.

[youtube D3Lr70lwaVg nolink]

Don't worry: What you don't see is that the baby immediately stands right back up.

From Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix producer Rey Jimenez:

Hey Street Fighter fans, I hope the deluge of Street Fighter related news hasn't been too much for you to handle. It looks like Kotaku got the jump on us regarding some new art, so we've opted to show you some older work-in-progress assets now, and over the next few months. Enclosed in the zip file below, is a ton of work-in-progress art files. These files are almost 2 months old, but they are a good selection of files that illustrate some key issues and highlight and some of the steps that we are taking to ensure the final product will live up to the name of Street Fighter.

Capcom has started sending out some really cool paper guides alongside games we send to the press for review. They aren't quite Prima-style guides, but they're about 100x more fun than most instruction manuals, and offer more detailed (and more fun) pointers on how to use the Wii-mote in game, walk-throughs for a few puzzles (there's your spoiler warning), and an interview with the producer Takeshita-san. Anyway it's filled with good info and great art, so we thought we'd share. Whee!

Click here to check it out.

This is the first part in an extended series of articles from David Sirlin, detailing the changes we've made to the rebalanced mode of the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix project. This first article explains some of the motivation behind the project, reviews its design goals, and eliminates some of the misinformation we've seen floating around about the game. We'll dig into the meaty details of some changes in the articles to follow! Here's a brief bio on our guest blogger:

David Sirlin has competed in Street Fighter tournaments for 16 years, and for 11 years he has helped organize and run the tournament series that started as B3 and has now become the international Evolution Championships. He represented the United States in SSF2T in Japan’s Super Battle Opera tournament, wrote the competitive gaming book Playing to Win, and provided narration for Bang the Machine, a documentary film about the Street Fighter community. He’s now overseeing the design and gameplay on Super Street Fighter 2: HD Remix.

And now, on with the article!