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They said it couldn’t be done — and for good reason, considering how difficult it must be for a creature to stretch its own body to a length of 576,682,810 miles. However, thanks to a little help from Namco Bandai, Noby Noby Boy’s community-driven “Girl” has managed to extend her torso from Earth to Jupiter, unlocking a new playable planet for all of the game’s inhabitants.

Make sure you check out the video after the jump to get a sense of what eating your own butt whilst aimlessly traversing a gas giant feels like. We can’t believe we just had a reason to write that sentence. Thank you so, so much, Noby Noby Boy.

Continue reading Noby Noby Girl has stretched her way to Jupiter

Noby Noby Girl has stretched her way to Jupiter originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted on November 21st, 2009 at 9:00pm by Griffin McElroy
Filed Under: girl, jupiter, namco-bandai, noby-noby-boy, psn, stretch

Namco Bandai declined to publish The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces in North America, licensing the game out to XSEED instead. However, the company is handling the game itself for the European release, due in February. The game is a flight action game developed by Ace Combat dev Project Aces, and based on both the novel and the Mamoru Ishii-directed anime film of the same name.

In addition to the game, the movie is planned for a DVD and Blu-Ray release in PAL territories at an unspecified future date (”coming soon”). That seems like a good idea — licensed games probably work better when people know what the source material is.

Sky Crawlers landing in Europe this February originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted on November 19th, 2009 at 2:50pm by JC Fletcher
Filed Under: europe, namco-bandai, namco-bandai-europe, pal, project-aces, sky-crawlers, the-sky-crawlers-innocent-aces

Namco’s just unleashed its first two Dragon Ball games after wrestling the license back away from Atari and we’re looking to gift one of you Super Saiyan wannabes with the above prize pack. The gotta-have-it item is obviously the Instant Anime Character Costume, which features an orange t-shirt, blue wristbands, hair gel and completely ridiculous Namco employee pose cover art. Oh, if only our legal department would let us keep it!

• Leave a comment telling us who your favorite character from the Dragon Ball series is (full list here)
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec)
• Limit 1 entry per person per day
• This entry period ends at 11:59AM ET on Tuesday, November 24
  
• At that time, we’ll randomly select one winner to receive Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo for Wii ($50 ARV), Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans for DS ($30 ARV) and an Instant Anime Character Costume ($20 ARV)
• For a list of complete rules, click here

Joyswag: Super Saiyan prize pack originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 10:30am by David Hinkle
Filed Under: Namco, dragon-ball-z, dragon-ball-z-attack-of-the-saiyans, dragon-ball-z-revenge-of-king-piccolo, dragonball, dragonballz, joyswag, namco-bandai

You weren’t there, man! You don’t know what it was like. Pity is not an emotion one should ever feel for a man whose salary dwarfs the combined income of your entire staff, but there we were, dying inside for Kaz Hirai presenting Ridge Racer at E3 2006. The mere memory of that still causes those who were in the audience to sympathize for the executive, the way one would for a dog unable to use its hind legs and instead relying on a wheelie contraption.

With all that said, Siliconera has found a Namco Bandai trademark application for Ridge Racer Accelerated. We don’t know if enough time has gone by for us not to desperately exclaim “Riiiiidge Racer!” every time we hear the title, but perhaps enough time has gone by for the corporations to think we won’t.

‘Ridge Racer Accelerated’ trademark filed originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 7:45pm by Alexander Sliwinski
Filed Under: namco-bandai, ridge-racer, ridge-racer-accelerated, sony

Australia is said to have its own version of E3 in the form of eGames – an annual video game convention held in Melbourne, Victoria. I managed to get down there for this years event, and see whether it really was that big.

Held in the Royal Exhibition Building (in Carlton – a suburb of Melbourne) eGames was part of iDEF (International Digital Entertainment Festival) which also featured the Digital Lifestyle Show and Develop (a skills and careers expo) all of which ran from October 30^th to November 1st. I was there for the games, however I did find Jackie Chan in the DLS!

When I walked in on the first day I found the Namco Bandai booth which was promoting their Formula 1 game. They’d even gotten themselves a shiny racing car to appear at the booth as well.

Behind them were Microsoft who were showing off THEIR racing game “Forza 3” on the Xbox.I was itching to ask the PR about the recent controversy involving the game. I was so good though and left it alone.

Turning left into the heart of eGames I was greeted by the Planet Calypso MMO and 2K Australia on my left, and my friends from Madman Interactive on the right. 2K Australia were incredibly popular on both days I visited, but it’s no surprise considering they were showing off Borderlands! They also had NBA 2K10 on show which was getting a good amount of attention.

Madman had their usual Anime/Manga stall going on, but behind that they certainly showed they had some impressive titles available for us gamers. They’ve only recently started to venture into games, with Disney Interactive becoming a big notch in their belt. On display they had Disney Sing It Pop Hits, Toy Story Mania, Spectrobes: Origins, The Princess and the Frog, and Divinity II Ego Draconis – to name a few.

In the middle of the room there was a huge Ubisoft booth which was showing off a ton of games, as well as giving away some posters. At some point they decided to get people to sign up to their newsletter before they handed over the posters – which I found a little odd but it didn’t deter too many of the patrons. Anyway, the big games they had on display were Just Dance, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, Assassin’s Creed II, and James Cameron’s Avatar. They were showing Avatar in a little side room and you were handed a pair of 3D glasses to watch the game in action. All I can say is that I imagine Avatar will be on a lot of peoples wishlists – and ditto for Assassin’s Creed II judging by how popular it was.

Walking around the left side of Ubisoft, there were universities, training institutions and game-related shopping booths. As I passed the Ubisoft booth (and the crowd formed for ACII), I found the AFA Interactive booth which was showing off A Boy and his Blob and Fairytale Fights. I now see the reason why some of the GA staff have been excitedly drooling over the latter, and I now want it too!

A little further away from AFA was the main stage where many competitions, discussions, podcasts and webcasts were held. Unfortunately the venue didn’t really allow for decent attendance on some of the items that took place, with the sound being drowned out by the crowds or the nearby eSports event.

Speaking of eSports, their event was held on the other side of the room. They appeared to have 2 teams competing against each other on a PC FPS game. Sadly, it didn’t hold my interest for very long. Right next door to them were my new friends from AustralianGamer. They had a casual kindof environment happening with a TV and console set up so visitors could hang out with the AG staff and their friends for a bit.

Next to them were a bunch of competition booths and LAN tournaments taking place with a couple of gaming hardware booths mixed in.

Apart from the disappointing fact that there were a few significant game companies/devs/distributors missing from this years event, eGames 2009 was a lot of fun. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I said meeting the AG crew was the highlight. While this is true, my other favourite memories will include chilling with a Rabbid for 5 seconds and the amount of ladies I saw in attendance. Oh, and there was a gamers meet-up night hosted by AG as well which I suppose wasn’t too bad. (Just kidding!)

Thank you to all of the organisers and exhibitors that I came across – I had a great time! See you all next year!

More pictures? Yep, sure:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

//

Posted on November 8th, 2009 at 9:52pm by Naomi
Filed Under: 2k-australia, AFA Interactive, Angels on the Go, Games, Jackie Chan, Melbourne, Royal Exhibition Building, Toy Story, Video game, disney-interactive-studios, microsoft, namco-bandai, ubisoft