Jet Set Radio Dated For September, PS Plus Members Get to Vandalize Early

Kudos to Sega for not only pooling together 100% of the original Jet Set’s soundtrack, but also offering the full game download for an agreeable $9.99 (800 points in 360 currency).  I’ve received a lot less than a top notch blast from the past for that price point and we won’t go into the crashing disappointments I’ve hunkered down with for way more than ten bucks.

You can expect this Dreamcast dinosaur to arrive on PSN Sept. 18th with XBLA and Steam receiving it the next day on the 19th.  But if you’re impatient — and I hope you are so that I don’t feel like I’m alone in the universe — and also happen to be a PlayStation Plus subscriber, you can treat yourself to Jet Set Radio as early as Sept. 11th.

PS Vita owners, unfortunately, will have to be a little more zen with the upsetting wait between now and the game’s availability for the handheld on October 16th.  Assuming that your ownership of a portable system means you’re outside and on the go, might I suggest taking up real life rollerbladed graffiti tagging?  It’s a valid, wheeled art form.  An art form technically considered vandalism and could get you into legal trouble, but on rollerblades, the amount of exercise your body’s getting will make up for all the, uh, rollerblading away from cops you’ll be doing…Okay, fine, wait for October.

My favorite moments from The Expendables 2: The Videogame trailer in order from least to greatest.  The game looks like absolute balls, but if downloading it means Terry Crews appearing to tie me down to a chair and knock my teeth out…Probably still worth avoiding.

Classic Crossover Smackdowns Return in Marvel vs. Capcom Origins

Coming to PSN and Xbox Live this September, two arcade Versus classics are being smashed into one downloadable package.  Both the seminal Marvel Super Heroes in its gem-happy entirety and its eventual successor Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes will be combined to form the Origins set.

Origins is returning with more than just arcade perfect versions of these aged fighters, though.  Modern day fighting infects the titles with an HD uplift, GCPO supported online play, savable replays, online spectating, and new Third Strike HD-like challenges to accomplish mid-bout.  No specific date in September was given, but Marvel vs Capcom Origins can be yours at $14.99 (which is a steal considering what both games are going for on eBay nowadays).

If you can’t wait until then, dust off your fightstick and head to 2012’s EVO where Capcom is debuting the remastered fighter.  Not a fan of MvC3’s shift in style?  Looks like you’re going to have a fantastic outlet for that frustration soon enough.

[Watch the official trailer hereabouts.]

Okami HD (PSN - Fall)

This game can’t go without mention of its virtual artistry and for good reason.  But focusing on the style alone will shroud one important fact about Okami: it was actually really fun.  No, I’m not liable to go at it with a Move controller in hand, so that’s why I’m thankful full Dualshock support found its way over from the original.

If there’s one thing I miss about Okami’s generation of consoles, it was their disinterest in making me stand up and wave at my TV.

Datura (PSN - May 8th)

PSN’s next unconventional download comes in the form of a stylistically unique puzzle game that challenges players to forgo cunning problem solving and logical analysis and instead flex your intuition, trust your emotions, and follow sporadic impulses.  Puzzles don’t always make sense or unfold neatly, nor does the story whisk you along in a linear fashion.  Built from the ground up with the Move controller (and 3D functionality) in mind, the game relays your motions into an on-screen virtual hand that interacts and manipulates Datura’s rife world of choice and consequence.

I’ve got some more weird for you; developer Plastic Group claims meaning can be derived from the name Datura itself, which is borrowed from the toxic plant that has historically been utilized as a debilitating poison and, to a lesser extent, a highly volatile hallucinogen.  On a recreational basis, no other psychoactive substance tops the amount of negative firsthand experience reports datura has received; short term side effects commonly include hyperthermia, delirium, disassociation with reality, violent behavior, and — what is sure to be the mind trying to erase itself after ingestion — cases of amnesia.  Long term side effects include photophobia, mydriasis, and, oh, death.

Despite all the hell datura has wrought on our world, the plant still manages to spurn beauty, producing gorgeous, white flowers often referred to as “moonflowers.”  That natural juxtaposition may be the idea Plastic Group wants us to compare their game to, but now I’m too afraid of datura to think about Datura.  But as I understand it, you can only forget datura by taking datura.

Watch an official trailer hereabouts.

‘Pls Be Patient’ For PSOne Classics on the Vita Asks Sony

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios, has updated Vita owners on the PSOne shaped holes located in the system’s marketplace.  The ability to download PSOne classics has eluded the handheld since its release in Japan last year with the constant assurance something, somewhere was being done about it.

Yoshida recently promised engineers the company over were hard at work to right this 32-bit wrong.  Credibility was earned when a downloadable version of the seminal Buzz Lightyear of Star Command appeared on the Vita’s European Store.  Trying to actually play it, however, would result in an error code shut out.

In summation: we’re still waiting.  Listen, Sony, if I can’t take Dino Crisis 2 with me on the go, I’m not even sure what the hell else I’m supposed to do with a Vita.

Buying Darkstalkers 3 is Your Best Shot at Guaranteeing Darkstalkers 4

Capcom’s offbeat fighting series knows not the taste of mainstream success, happily flying under the radar since its inception.  The games are a few parts Street Fighter and a lot of parts fucking weird, but their cult following has been vocal enough to keep Darkstalkers’ characters visible throughout the years, meriting the hope for fans that a new title was waiting in the wings.

With rumors of a fourth game timidly swirling the news circuit, Darkstalkers 3’s fresh re-release on PSN today as a PSOne classic signifies to me that Capcom has tossed a baited line in the water in order to see what bites.  Available for $5.99, downloading this fighting classic is the greatest way for you to tell Capcom you want a next-gen Darkstalkers in one form or another.

The company may be hard of hearing (so far ignoring our very vocal pleas to resuscitate Mega Man Legends 3 from cancellation a.k.a. The Worst Thing to Happen in 2011 That Didn’t Involve the Sony Blackout), but money happens to be the loudest language.  Even if you could give a shit about tossing green Capcom’s way, Darkstalkers 3 comes at high recommendation for 2D fighting enthusiasts (or people that love half-nude vampire chicks a.k.a. everyone).

Darkstalkers 3 Porting to PSN in the Near-ish Future

While this series is not as recognizable in Capcom’s pantheon of fighting games, you’ve likely seen or tangled with several characters like Morrigan and Felicia in one or a dozen of the publisher’s mash-up titles.  Catch up on the genre’s history once Darkstalkers 3 makes PS One Classic status on PSN.

I’m shamefully ignorant when it comes to these games having no hand-on’s with any of them, but I’d be interested to see how this 1997 addition informs later 2D fighting entries in Capcom’s line-up.  For you Darkstalkers fans hiding in the limelight, know that a recent filing in the franchise’s name could spell out a modern day resurgence.  Guess it’s a good time to revisit (or, in my case, discover altogether) this visually distinctive piece of the genre — grimacing through my piss-poor level of comprehension for fighting games, that is.

You may call button-mashing cheap, I call it my only defense.