Have you ever wanted to find out, with 100% certainty who was better at trivia, men or women?  Well Nintendo is finally going to settle that score for us with their latest challenge, Ladies vs. Gents.  It’s a puzzle contest using the brain bending puzzles in Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. 

Beginning today in San Francisco’s Union Square shopping Center, from 11am to 6pm, men and women will play through a fun and challenging selection of the new game’s puzzles at this free event. Men’s and women’s scores will be tallied and compared throughout the day to determine which gender has the top puzzle-solving chops.

Events will be held throughout this week in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia to determine which gender has the ability to best solve the puzzles found in the game, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, which launches on Sept. 12th for the Nintendo DS.

In addition to the game itself there will be costumed actors there in authentic period clothing interacting with people and contestants will enter red phonebooths that would be found throughout London to solve the many puzzles they’ll be faced with. 

For more information about the event, including a teaser video, check out http://www.professorlaytonds.com/ladiesvsgents/. 

Source: Nintendo Press Release

“Ben 10 gaming accessories is a huge opportunity for U.S. retailers,” said Charmaine Klohe, President of TrendSource. “We are thrilled to make this line available here in partnership with AFA, and just in time for the peak of the holiday shopping season.”
According to NPD, Ben 10 Ultimate Alien was a Top 5 Boys Action Brand in 2009. More than five million Ben 10 video games have been sold while multi-platform versions of Ben 10 games have sold over seven million copies worldwide. The franchise has made more than $800 million in global toy sales alone.
AFA Interactive, the license holder for Ben 10 Gaming Accessories, has partnered with TrendSource, which will serve as the U.S. sales/distribution channel for the line. TrendSource has partnerships with retailers across the U.S. and Canada, and distributes product lines in the DVD, videogame, and electronic accessory markets. The company specializes in creating customized distribution services for retailers.
Following successful launches in the U.K., Europe, Australia and Africa, the Ben 10 gaming accessory line will be available to U.S. retailers in time for the simultaneous release of the fourth video game in the Ben 10 series and Cartoon Network’s season premiere of Ben 10 Ultimate Alien on October 10th. Namco, Bandai, Cartoon Network and Warner Brothers will hold joint promotions of the new game and TV series.

The products will be available in time for the launch of the next season of the Popular Cartoon network show and include:

• Wired PS2 Controllers
• Wireless PS3 Controllers
• PSP 7 in 1 Kit
• DS Projector Stylus
• DS 9 in 1 Kit
• DS Crystal Cast
• Wii Acryllic Shields
• Wii 5 in 1 Pack
• PS3 Controller Shell
• Xbox 360 Controller Shell
• Ben 10 Themed Wii Remotes and Nunchuks

I’ve seen my fair share of Ben 10 episodes and it’s one of my son’s favorite shows.  If you’ve got kids out there that are into the show these might be great stocking stuffers for them in time for the holidays. 

Source:  TrendSource Distribution Press Release

The Pile of Shame.  Everyone’s got one.  These are those games you bought and started playing with every intention to finish one day.  Most of the time they’ve gotten pushed aside because a game came along that caught your interest more, or you were just playing them to fill some time until the next game release you were excited about.  Whatever the reason is, everyone has a pile of shame.  It can be as small as a couple of games or as big as a couple dozen games depending on how long you’ve been playing video games.  I know I’ve got them as well and I’m going to let you know the top 5 games on my pile of shame right now.

The first game, and the one I want to get back to most, is Torchlight.  This PC dungeon crawler is brought to you by Runic Games and was released in October of 2009.  The game’s development was headed by Travis Baldree, designer of Fate, and Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II.  I downloaded the game, which was only $20 at the time.  It plays very much like those Diablo titles.  You’re exploring a dungeon clicking on every monster you see.  There are three playable classes that play a little differently than each other.  The biggest drawback of the game was that there was no co-op of any sort meaning it was a bit of a lonely experience.  Despite that the game’s writing is solid and the gameplay scratches that itch for a Diablo game perfectly.  There’s also news that the game will see a release on the Xbox and Torchlight II will be released early next year.

The next game on my list is Muramasa: the Demon Blade.  This Wii title was released by VanillaWare for Wii in September of 2009.  It’s a side scrolling action platformer where you play one of two different campaigns.  One stars an amnesiac ninja who has forgotten everything about himself, including a crime he has supposedly committed.  The other is a demon possessed girl.  The two campaigns start at opposite ends of a map where they meet in the middle.  The story is based around ancient Japanese mythology.  Gameplay is very fast paced using only a small number of buttons.  Depth is added through the combos you can string together and the RPG elements of the game.  One of the biggest of those is the ability to forge new weapons by collecting souls found throughout the game’s many levels as well as cooking and eating new food.  I finished the game for review back in October of last year, but started playing it again to really enjoy everything the game has to offer.  The reason I quit playing it then was because the game ends up being very long, around 16-20 hours in length.  My last save file showed I played the game in November of 2009 so I’ve restarted this game one more time and am soaking in everything about the game.  It’s simply gorgeous to look at, if nothing else.

The next game on my pile has become of a bit of a running joke between Scott and I on the site and in email conversation and that’s Rage of the Gladiator on WiiWare.  I got stuck on my second fight against Ixthid, which is a multi-limbed alien who shoots lasers out of his single eye.  The game is a Punch-Out!! style game that is more of a puzzle fighting game than a straight puzzle game.  Like Punch-Out!! you have to learn the patterns of opposing fighters and properly counter attack to win.  What’s different about this game is the ability to customize your fighter through an ability tree where you can lean more towards offensive abilities, defensive abilities, or a more rounded character.  I got stuck, put the game down, wrote the review and never got back to the game.  Despite the fact that I still continue to say that I’m going to.

Dragon Age: Origins is a game I just recently picked up, well actually it was a couple of months ago.  I played through the training levels and just exited into the Overworld and stopped.  I got so wrapped up in other games coming out on Wii that I needed to do for review this one just took a backburner and has been sitting there.  I want to finish it, but it’s really low on my list, in reality and I don’t know that I’ll ever get back to it.

Borderlands is the last game on the list I’m going to talk about today.  I borrowed this game from my brother-in-law and started playing it.  I only had the game for a couple of days before giving it back to him because he was still playing through the campaign.  I managed to level my character up to 14 and said I would go out and pick up the game to finish it.  It’s based on the exact same control scheme as Call of Duty, which is my favorite shooter on the 360, courtesy of the generous auto-aim.  (Yea, I’m not ashamed to admit it.)  Shelby’s played through the game seemingly 100 times since I first played it and said I was interested in it.  There’s now a ton of DLC to add to the experience, with even more coming out soon.  There’s no reason not to get back into the game and finish it.  I just need to pull the trigger, so to speak.

There are more games I could mention, but I think these are the five that come to mind first, more than anything.  Are there any games out there that make up your pile of shame?  Share your thoughts and your lists with us.  Maybe there are some games we could finish together.  It might make it a bit easier to take them off of those piles.

It’s really sad to have to post stories about people being killed, but in this case the man that died, Relic Lead Designer Brian Wood, died saving his family.  He was killed on Friday during a crash on the way to a family home in Washington state.  A Chevy Blazer was on a course to hit his family’s Subaru head on, but at the last second he swerved to take the force of the impact on his side of the vehicle so that his wife, who was pregant would not be hit. 

The force of the impact killed him and two people who were riding in the rear seat of the Blazer.  The driver of that vehicle was taken into custody and will be charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and a count of vehicular assault.  The reason they lost control of the vehicle?  The driver was trying to take of a sweater she was wearing and the front seat passenger took the wheel so she could do that. 

It’s fitting that one of the game’s his company is most known for is Company of Heroes.  That’s exactly what he was.

Nintendo’s said that the next home console is still a ways off.  Recently Mr. Iwata said it could be three years or eight years from now.  Whenever it comes you can rest assured that you’ll have your mind blown.  During recent discussions Mr. Iwata said it would have to be more than just an HD console and that you need to be surprised.  Metroid Co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto has even more to say on the topic:

“At Nintendo we always have the obligation to surprise users with a new game console,” Sakamoto told website 3D Juegos in a recent interview. “We have never done what others have. We prefer to create something new that catches attention, and I think this will continue this time as well. Surely the new Nintendo machine will leave you all with your mouth open.”

So, we know that Nintendo doesn’t do things halfway.  The next system will leave you as surprised as you were when you finally got your hands on the Wii and chances are it will do something to innovate, yet again.  We don’t know when that next system will come.  We know it will come and according to the higher ups at Nintendo, we’ll like it when it does.

I know that the Doctor Who games have not been announced as coming here to the United States, but that doesn’t make me want this Wii Remote any less.  The BBC has teamed up with a peripheral maker to create this beauty that will hit alongside the Wii release of Doctor Who: Return to Earth for Wii.  The DS will also be getting a stylus shaped like the iconic Sonic Screwdriver from the television series as well.

It does look terribly uncomfortable to hold NES style, but as a regular Wii Remote it could be pretty fun to say you’ve got your own Sonic Screwdriver to play the next Legend of Zelda game with.

Source: Kotaku

This week sees the longest show we’ve ever done.  It’s all about the news this week.  Then Shelby and Tony take 45 minutes to talk about Metroid Other M.  Don’t worry though.  It’s after the show so if you’re avoiding spoilers you can turn it off when the end credit songs plays. 

Episode 36
Hosts: Tony, Shelby, Will, Peter

If you want to enter the trivia contest, send us questions or feedback you can do all of that at podcast@nintendo-okie.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Nintendo_Okie. You can also head on over to the forums at http://nintendo-okie.justforum.net. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our Youtube page, or join our Facebook group.

Update:  Hey, everybody.  Shelby here.  It seem the podcast didn’t upload to the site properly.  It will propably be late tonight or even tomorrow before we can fix it.  We do have the peskey things called jobs that keep us busy during the day.  However, if you can’t wait things seem to be working fine on iTunes… but don’t quote me on that.  We’ll update this post again when we get things ironed out.

Update 2: Yeah… iTunes isn’t working after all.  Wishful thinking on my part I guess.  We’re still working to fix the problem though.

If so, you now have a reason to look at where you purchase the game.

Activision revealed in a press release that if you purchase the game at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or GameStop; each store will have a separate pre-order bonus.

They included two videos and a picture with the press release, showing off the bonuses.

Here’s Best Buy’s pre-order bonus:

Here’s GameStop’s pre-order bonus:

Here’s Wal-Mart’s pre-order bonus:

I think the multi-player mode bonuses are pretty cool, but if they are code specific, they will probably be leaked online shortly after the game is released.

My problem with the Oddjob t-shirt bonus is that most t-shirt pre-order bonuses seem to be in only one size, X-Large.

So, are you interested in any of the pre-order bonuses?

Source: GoNintendo

Watch it and let us know what you think: