A great deal has changed for the rhythm genre over the past decade. After experiencing a period of outrageous boom, things have been moving rather decidedly in the opposite direction for the past few years. A precipitous drop-off occurred in 2009, when the market reached the point of saturation, things have plodded along since but few releases have managed to capture community’s imagination, much less steal Guitar Hero‘s crown.

From that seemingly exhausted soil, however, emerges a PlayStation Network exclusive that is certain to provide a breath of fresh air for a genre that has become a tad stagnant. So, dust off those plastic guitars and read on to find out more Retro/Grade, a game that blurs the lines between music games and shmups to provide one of the standout PSN releases of the summer.

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The Smithsonian opened registration Wednesday to attend a special lecture held by famed game designer Hideo Kojima. This conversation with Kojima will take place on the second day of the Smithsonian’s Game Fest, a three day festival kicking off the museum’s new The Art of Video Games exhibit. Game Fest begins Friday, March 16 in Washington DC.

If there ever was hesitation around attending this event, the Smithsonian seeks to dispel not only with the confirmation of Kojima but also with the price of attendance — free.

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As a game reviewer, I occasionally comes across an indie game that just strikes a chord with me. Either the art style captures something from the past, the story resonates with me on some level, or the gameplay is a refreshing take on an old genre. I have to say that I was extremely lucky to find a game that has all three of these, in this case the game is Gemini Rue.

Gemini Rue is a little indie game made by Wadjet Eye Games that combines the retro art style of games like Flashback and Out of this World with the great gameplay from classic Lucas Arts adventure games. To make it even better, the story comes across like a Phillip K. Dick novel with it’s neo-noir elements and mind bending discussion of identity. Long story short, if you’re a fan of science fiction or adventure games, you need to check out Gemini Rue. Read more… »

Today it was discovered that the ESRB has rated the classic SNES JRPG Chrono Trigger for both the PlayStation 3 and the PSP.

Original released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo, Chrono Trigger is widely considered to be one of the best videogames, let alone RPGs, ever made. Telling the story of the young boy Chrono and his band of buddies who travel through time trying to save the world from the evil monster Lavos, Chrono Trigger features an amazing story line combined with the classic Square Enix combat system seen in game like Final Fantasy VII. Read more… »

The Bit.Trip series began nearly two years ago on Nintendo’s WiiWare service with a little title called Bit.Trip BEAT – a colourful and trippy take on Atari’s hit classic Pong. Little did I know it, but that title that I so hesitantly purchased would soon introduce me to one of my favourite series of all time.

In the twilight hours of my time with the series it became apparent to me that this epic finale has been a long time in the planning.

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I just finished Final Fantasy VI yesterday (or is it III? Either way the one with Terra and Kefka). While I can see why the SNES version is sitting comfortably with a 93% on GameRankings.com, I found some flaws with the game. Namely with the characters.

Don’t worry, Kefka the insane clown was one of my favorites, probably because of my nearly crippling fear of clowns. It’s some of the heroes I have problems with. Read on to find out why I think the characters are Final Fantasy VI‘s greatest strength and its biggest weakness. Read more… »

The Bit.Trip series may be on its way out, but that isn’t slowing Gaijin Games down in the slightest. In just a few short years, the studio has gone from developer, to publisher, and now parent company. Gaijin has now announced their “extremely hostile takeover” of Jason Cirillo’s Robotube Games.

Robotube is best known for their series of educational videos - Bit Museam, they are also the studio behind web-based puzzle games such as Bloktonik and Zyrx. During Blip Festival 2009, the two developers teamed to create a game in less than 24 hours. Let’s hope they make many more wonderful games together.

[Via Gaijin Games]

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Say you love MMORPG’s and retro games? Up until now those two categories have been mostly mutually exclusive. No longer. Today Silk Games launched NEStalgia, an online multiplayer RPG that features a retro 8-bit visual style and aesthetics. Hit the jump for more information and a trailer. Read more… »

Gaijin Games’ awesome Wii-Ware title, Bit.Trip Beat, recently made its way to the iPhone. The pong-inspired retro-rhythm title also made moves this morning. As of 9AM PST this morning, Bit.Trip Beat has also been available for PC and Mac via Steam.

Hit the jump for more information including Beat’s sale and the Steam version’s added features.

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After years and years of wishing, my dream is finally coming true. Yesterday at a Marvel presentation at Comic-Con, Konami announced that its classic arcade beat ‘em up X-Men is coming to Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Store.

Originally released in 1992, X-Men allowed gamers to take control of their favorite mutants (Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Dazzler) as they beat their way through a seemingly endless supply of sententials. Read more… »

[This month is officially Driver Month here on Gamer Limit. Join us as we embark on an exhaustive road trip in a series of retrospectives for the Driver franchise in the run-up to Driver: San Francisco.]

As the dust settled after the carnage that ensued from the colossal car crash that was Driv3r, the announcement of a new Driver game was met with tepid trepidation in contrast to the days where it would have been tremendously exciting news. I was naturally predicting that the next game would be called DrIVer however, so the news that it would carry the Parallel Lines subtitle instead created a lot of intrigue about the possible direction the series was heading in.

Things became even more interesting upon the knowledge that everyone’s favourite wheelman Tanner, the long-standing protagonist who was previously left for dead during the climax of Driv3r, had been replaced with an anonymous hippy youth donning a pair of slick sun glasses. It was all a sign that the franchise was about to undergo a significant overhaul: drastic repairs were needed if it was to be ever taken seriously again.

Founder Martin Edmonson subsequently left Reflections following the relentless backlash that Driv3r suffered, leading to the company being reformed in a deal with Ubisoft thus creating Ubisoft Reflections under the new leadership of Martin’s brother, Gareth Edmondson. But was the damage already done?

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[This month is officially Driver Month here on Gamer Limit. Join us as we embark on an exhaustive road trip in a series of retrospectives for the Driver franchise in the run-up to Driver: San Francisco.]

It would take four long years before another Driver game would burst onto the scene in an intoxicating cloud of smoke, ready to serve its pining fans after Driver 2. To help quench this thirst, Reflections introduced Stuntman in 2002, a game that that played on Driver’s affinity with cinematic car chases by starring you as a charmless Hollywood stunt driver on fictional film sets. In Stuntman, you were required to perform death-defying car stunts in a series of stringently timed scenes for some upcoming action movies.

While the obvious film parodies were fun to watch, the game ultimately pushed the limits of trial and error by constantly demanding precision driving and was, above all else, infuriatingly difficult. As Reflections’ debut for the next generation of consoles however, it served as an effective appetiser that showed great promise for what was to come in the Wheelman’s next outing.

With the avalanche success of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, it’s fair to say that the next generation of Driver had an awful lot of catching up to do. Expectations were running high, especially with the impending release of San Andreas the same year just to add to the pressure. As a result, many were hoping that the third instalment would be everything that Driver 2 should have been, given the advantage of the extra graphical muscle thanks to next generation hardware. Instead, what we were given is widely regarded as one of the most disappointing game sequels in the whole of video game history.

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