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Free Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge DLC calls in Kasumi
A third female ninja has been promised for Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. During today's Nintendo Direct livestream, Team Ninja boss Yosuke Hayashi confirmed the Mugen Tenshin ninja clan outcast Kasumi would be added to the game as a playable character.Kasumi will be a free addition to Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, though no word on when Kasumi would be available. The other two free additional characters include Momiji – who will be available for download sometime this month – and Ayane, who is included on the disc.
Happy Valentine's Day from the game industry!
This past week may have been filled with investor calls and press events, but that doesn't mean that some members of the game industry weren't thinking about this weekend's day of love. Over the course of the past seven days, we were either sent these cards (by email) or found them on the various official sites of said developers/publishers -- and now we've compiled them into a love-filled gallery just for you. We might suggest you print out one (on high quality paper, of course) and give it to your dearest, but hey, let's be honest -- you should probably buy an actual card. And a copy of Flower. Hitomi demands digital gifts! %Gallery-85457%
DOA Paradise special edition is predictably naughty
Let's be honest: You're not thinking about getting Dead or Alive Paradise for the intuitive volleyball mechanics or the scenic, beach-front battles -- this game lacks both. You're buying this game because you want to ogle fake women with comically large and bouncy breasts. Or, according to Tecmo, you're buying this because you're a woman who has never purchased a Tecmo title before and this is something relevant to your interests. Either way, the company's hoping you'll want to pay extra for a special edition bundle of the "game." Game Watch points out the extra busty package set to release in Japan -- complete with inappropriate Kasumi statue add-on and several other items, including a "Secret Picture Collection" and soundtrack CD. It's like a one-man pity party start-up kit. Are you guys getting it yet? Wanting this makes you a pervert. There's no word on whether this'll make its way over to the States when the game releases in March, but we'll be sure to let you know.
3G GSM encryption cracked in less than two hours
Looks like all that GSM code-cracking is progressing faster than we thought. Soon after the discovery of the 64-bit A5/1 GSM encryption flaw last month, the geniuses at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science went ahead and cracked the KASUMI system -- a 128-bit A5/3 algorithm implemented across 3G networks -- in less than two hours. If you must know, the method applied is dubbed 'related-key sandwich attack' where multiple values of known differentials are processed through the first seven rounds of KASUMI, then using resulting quartets that are identified sharing key differences, subkey materials can be obtained in round eight to build up the 128-bit key. Sure, it's hardly snooping-on-the-go at this speed, but worryingly this was only an 'unoptimized implementation... on a single PC.' At the same time, the paper condemns the presumably red-faced GSM Association for moving from MISTY -- a more computationally-expensive but much stronger predecessor algorithm -- to KASUMI. Guess we'll just have to stick with Skype.
Itagaki confesses to drinking on the job
He's been called an eccentric, a rock star, a hypocrite and once, even a game designer. Tecmo's Tomonobu Itagaki has been called a lot of things and, following on from an interview conducted by Kinkyzoo Kakalukeia Kikizo, we suspect that "drunkard" may be the next label appended to the already impressive list. When queried about how he gets his ideas, Itagaki calmly claims that he often sees them at the bottom of a bottle of whisky. "Of course, there are ups and downs, waves, of how I drink in terms of the amount, but it's a long period of time. In the last ten years - not that you asked this question - I think I had better ideas when I was drinking whisky. When I am drinking shochu, that's a conservative drink, so the ideas are not that great. Beer is just like water to me, so it just helps me and everyone else loosen up a little bit, it doesn't really contribute to coming up with ideas." The interview mostly stays on the topic of Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (a game which Itagaki says he's developing as a hobby), but does reveal that Ninja Gaiden 2 is currently in its planning stages. If alcohol is a vital ingredient in games like Ninja Gaiden, we say let Itagaki and his team have a drink and loosen up. Heck, we encourage him to drink himself into a stupor -- we're sure a couple of vomit-encrusted keyboards are worth receiving another refreshingly difficult ninja kill-em-up. The man's outspoken for certain (don't forget his 5 most hated games, Tekkens 1 through 5), but he usually does a good job of sticking to his promises. That's one trait that many game designers could do well to adopt. Well, that and raging alcoholism. [tHaNKsh enbob89! Hic.]
Naughty Faceplates
Xboxic got some interesting faceplates today from an unidentified source. These Dead or Alive faceplates are almost definitely unofficial but they certainly are, um, eye catching. There are also Scarface and Blue Dragon faceplates in there for some reason. As far as I know, these aren't available at retail. Of course, there's nothing to stop you from making them yourself. Anybody have any other special faceplate designs they'd like to share with the rest of the class? Hit the read link to see more (technically safe for work, but still pretty risqué).
Pangya Golf commercial: 7 million can't be wrong
There's just so much enthusiasm coming from this commercial for Super Swing Golf Pangya, it's hard to ignore it. Or to breathe. If you make it through to the end, you may even glimpse Kasumi, fresh from getting her head kicked in by a despicable clone in Dead or Alive 4.[Thanks Nushio and AssemblyLineHuman!]
