You’ve got your Videogames Live, where they run through a few popular favorites from different games, different companies, different genres, and even different decades. You call that being a hardcore game fan? I might have agreed with you before, but now I can tell you: it’s junior league. If you want to talk hardcore fandom, you should have been at Shinjuku’s Bunka Hall on April 20th, 2008. If you were, you would have seen a concert. A videogame concert. But this concert wasn’t some mish-mash of music from a hundred random franchises. It was music from one just one. One *awesome* franchise: Ace Attorney. How could Ace Attorney—which is not a next-gen, 1080p juggernaut, was only released for portables, and has only a handful of games—manage a sold-out concert of its own music, performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra? Simple: by being THAT awesome. Hit the jump for the full story, plus pictures and a fan-subbed trailer: Yes, Japan <3s Ace Attorney. Tickets to the concert were 50$ each. Not only did they sell out, I’m told they sold out FAST, and judging by the 1,500 people lined up around the block to get in the doors, I believe it. Inside it was a packed house of excited fans, with long lines to check out the special art gallery. The concert started right on time, but before they got down to the actual music, the crowd was treated to almost an hour of original skits, featuring the Judge talking directly to the audience while Phoenix and Miles fought it out. In addition to the skits, they also used the occasion for a special announcement from Eshiro-san: a new Ace Attorney game! Known only as Gyakuten Kenji, the new game centers on prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, and tells the story from his uniquely arrogant perspective. Kenji also one takes some radical steps for an Ace Attorney title, like actually allowing you to *move a character around on the screen*. In true Ace Attorney fashion, they made fun of themselves by ending the announcement by showing Edgeworth out of breath from all his running around. In between the skits were special messages from the producer of the Ace Attorney series, Minae Matsukawa. She was joined on stage by the R&D staff of Gyakuten Kenji, including director Yamazaki-san, character designer Iwamoto-san, and producer Eshiro-san. Glamour Idol Akina Minami also made a special appearance to explain why she’s such a big fan of Ace Attorney. No Japanese fan event would be complete with just the event, however. You need memorabilia. *Limited edition* memorabilia! Accordingly, the concert featured a TON of great Ace Attorney swag, including some concert-only exclusives like a special box full Akane Houzuki’s (aka “Ema’s”) favorite snack, Karinto. I dunno what Karinto is called in English, but my mouth would tell you it’s a lot like a miniature, less-greasy Mexican churro. It came in it’s own special Ace Attorney packaging that was so nice I almost felt bad eating it. As a compromise, I photographed everything before tearing it apart. Known simply as Gyakuten Meets Orchestra (Gyakuten Saiban = Ace Attorney in Japanese), the concert had a cool program with a bunch of original artwork for the occasion. And oh yeah—the music! Ace Attorney composer Noriyuki Iwadare was in attendance, and the music itself was as epic as you might imagine, with a full, world-class orchestra plus an amazing pipe organ. The orchestra was led by conductor Hirofumi Kurita, with solos by singer Harkua Simotsuki. Thanks to Matsukawa-san for the special invitation and my behind-the-scenes access to a truly unique experience. It was an amazing outpouring of love for all things Ace Attorney and an exciting look at the future of the series. Click here to see our flickr pool with all the photos from the show, and below you'll find the official traile, complete with fansubs from the dedicated crew over at www.court-records.net:

 

Some nice work from master illusionist and Capcom Unity member CptMunta. Click here to break the illusion's spell, and here to see more on his Pavement Art website.

In addition to the Wii-tastic golf action, one of the really fun things about We Love Golf is the alternate Capcom costumes for the characters. When we heard the team was adding two new characters for the upcoming Western release of the game, we asked “Why not let our fans pick the alternate costumes for the new guys?” As it turns out, everybody at Capcom had lots of extremely good reasons why this was a terrible idea. But then we did it anyway! For the female character, your choices for the alternate costumes were Cammy (Street Fighter), Morrigan (Darkstalkers), Rouge (Power Stone), Roll Caskett (Mega Man Legends), and Ashley Graham (Resident Evil). For the men, the options were Frank West (Dead Rising), Balrog (Street Fighter boxer), Guy (Final Fight), Ken (Street Fighter), Dhalsim (Street Fighter), and Captain Commando (from, um, Captain Commando). Today we’re proud to announce the fans’ choices: Darkstalkers’ own Morrigan, and Street Fighter’s Ken! Morrigan’s outfit is available as Stephanie’s alternate costume, and you’ll find Ken’s red gi on Mark, giving us our first African-American incarnation of Ken Masters!

Thanks to everyone who voted for making this a ton of fun and adding some great surprises to the game.

Sagat, Vega, Balrog, and M. Bison, gloriously dirty. Click here for the flickr pool, where they live in terrifyingly high-res. Can you believe they look this awesome in the game? Because they do!

Deeko is running a nice interview with Capcom's own red-headed stepchild, Ben Judd! Ben talks Bionic Commando Rearmed music, multiplayer, and the future of downloadable games with the help of some surprisingly thoughtful questions from the interviewer. Check it out here, (or just read this, the part where they talk about how awesome Capcom community efforts are):

Not being content delivering the AAA titles we've come to know and love, Capcom is also embracing the gaming community and actually listening to gamers; and listening it has.

Okay that's not an A+ sentence construction, but Capcom Unity ftw!, and remember to check out the latest Bionic Commando podcast HERE!