The news of the sequel to Steven Spielberg’s Boom Blox came as EA closed down their Blueprint division. The division’s closing is a bit of a head-scratcher as EA didn’t really acknowledge them. It was a small studio where the driving concept was to lower game development costs by spreading the development to various studios that were all connected through EA rather than having the developers all working at a central location full-time.

Boom Blox 2 happened to be one of the titles that was being worked on the the ex-division. Now, the title is being handed over to the Sims label to finish out the rest of its development. There is no other information on the game other than the fact that it is being developed.

It’s good to see this game get a sequel. Moderate sales would lead many to believe that a sequel would have been out of the question, but it looks like EA is actually caring about the fans, expecially ever since Activision kicked them off their third-party throne.

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The first video has a guy riding around town on a bike following the note chart to Guitar Hero: World Tour’s “Prisoner of Society” by The Living End. What’s even cooler is the lights on the handlebar that blink in time with the notes and the clever way of displaying the increasing note streaks. Sure, there is the possibility that this cold be fake, but even then, it’s still pretty awesome to watch.

The second video has egyokeo(not quite Egg Yolkeo) playing Guitar Hero 3’s infamous button-flailer, “Through the Fire and Flames,” on a MIDI drum pad. egyokeo explains(in a very interesting read) on his site that he injured his finger playing Guitar Hero 2. Not wanting to be deprived of his fake musical instrument simulators and because of the power of ROCK!, he crafted a way to play the game with his drum pad leading to the seven and a half minute stream of epicness you see above.

If you checked your Wii this morning, you may have noticed that Nintendo sent out a new update for the console. Update 3.4 revises the system’s parental controls, adds USB keyboard support for the Mii channel(…Why?), edits the user agreement, and minor system tweaks. However, the most important part of the update(and probably the only real reason they released it) is the fact that it will also remove “unauthorized modifications to save files” which means that homebrewers will have to find yet another way to run homebrew on the Wii. That shouldn’t take long.

You can find the changes to the User Agreement after the jump.

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The head of Grasshopper Manufacture(Contact, No More Heroes), Goichi Suda(pictured on the right), has announced that he will not be the director of No More Heroes‘ sequel Desperate Struggle. Instead, he will serve as the executive director, simply watching over the project, while actual directorial duties will be given to the assistant director of the first No More Heroes and Killer 7, Toshihiro Fujikawa.

It doesn’t look like there should be much of a shift in styles with the director change. Suda seems to be confident in Fujikawa’s abilities. Besides, even if Fujikawa tries to do something drastic, Suda will probably be there to cuss up a storm, flip over some tables, and kick some faces to set things straight even though I have never met Suda and have absolutely no basis to make this (awesome) assumption.

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A 32-year-old woman has collected over 8,000 different Pikachu related merchandise, ranging from simple plushes to the Pikachu-themed VW Beetle, and has been entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for the “World’s Largest Pokémon Collection.” The “Pika-holic,” as she calls herself, is actually a fairly active creepy obsessive lady. From her Guiness World Records Member page:

I attend many anime conventions, car shows and do lots of events for children..Official Pokemon Events,Birthday parties, School events and so on mostly as the Pokemon Character Ash cause I can do his voice dead on..I am also a cartoonist and paint many murals around my town and teach children art classes at a local craft store.

As active as she may be, it still doesn’t wash away the sheer disturbing…ness of seeing her dressed up like a Pikachu in that room filled with the little, yellow, electric rats.

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I have to say that this Blood of Bahamut trailer doesn’t make want to get this game. Aside from the badass mountain-shouldered behemoth wandering around in the back, the game doesn’t look all that interesting. While I do prefer action RPG-styled battle systems, BoB’s just looks slow and unengaging. Graphics-wise, it’s not bad but it’s not very impressive, either. At the very least, it’s better than seeing yet another Final Fantasy remake.

Also, @ :26: it seems that the giant took a page from the Killer Croc Book of Beating Your Enemies.

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