It’s a beautiful looking game that made unique use of the Wii’s motion controls; “LostWinds” proved that the WiiWare service has a lot of potential. See for yourself by taking a look at the first 120 seconds of the game.

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Nintendo said it doesn’t exist.

And whatever it is, EA said that “The Sims” isn’t it.

So what is “casual gaming”?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of “casual” is something “occurring without regularity,” “occasional,” “employed for irregular periods, “met with on occasion and known only superficially” and “lacking a high degree of interest or devotion” or “done without serious intent or commitment.”

However, in gaming, the term “casual” is used to refer to a genre of games. But what really defines a “casual game”? Is it the core audience that plays it? Is it the kind of gameplay a title offers? Or a game’s wide-spread appeal?

When Nancy Smith, Global President of “The Sims” at EA, was asked about the label “casual,” she said, “I don’t think of [”The Sims”] as casual. We were one of the first games that started to attract a broad audience. We were one of the first games that bought in women.”

Meanwhile, Nintendo Europe’s senior marketing director Laurent Fischer told CVG he thinks the idea of the casual gamer is a myth entirely: “For me, you are a gamer or non-gamer… I think most of you know that you can spend ten or twenty hours on an internet flash game and have not realised. The guy who plays these games regularly - he’s a core gamer.”

As for the word “casual,” he said, “I don’t like this word casual so much. Because people consider that casual needs to be something easy. If you’re good at any game you can play at a high difficulty level. There is no casual gaming. There is just a different way to play.”

Clearly, casual games are booming. Why are publishers suddenly uncomfortable with the “c” word? What do you think defines a “casual gamer” or a “casual game”? Should the term “casual” be embraced or tossed out?

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The father of modern “Castlevania” came to Konami’s media event in San Francisco last night with a whip in hand to announce the latest Nintendo DS platformer, “Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.” The same whip was at the table where I interviewed him.

With the latest “Indiana Jones” adventure arriving in theaters next week, I asked Igarashi if he was a fan — he said very much so. Responding with a loud “Ooooooh!” and raised eyebrows, he followed that with a look of disappointment. He’s flying back to Japan later this week, so he’ll have to wait for the Japanese release.

Sorry, Iga! Look for more with Iga — including an update on whether he’s figured out a way to make “Castlevania” finally work on the Wii — next week.

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Konami revealed “Rock Revolution” last night at a media event in San Francisco. It was their first announcement of the night, and it was met with surprised (and confused) looks from the audience.

“Rock Band” is already out, “Guitar Hero” is the established name — is there room for another set of peripherals? I decided to step up to the game’s drums — which features six drum buttons — and find out if I’ll be cluttering up my living room even more this fall…

So far, I’m not sure.

On a dare from Total PlayStation’s Sam Bishop, I decided to drum along to Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8r Boi.” No, I wasn’t aware that song had drums, either. “Rock Revolution” actually features a full-fledged versus mode for the drums, but in the version I played, there wasn’t much “battling” going on. We just played together.

The drum kit itself features six face buttons and a kick pedal. Do more buttons equal more fun? It’s a little too early to tell. I only played one song — not nearly enough time to memorize the button layout. Consequently, I kept smacking the drum sticks against the drum kit in every place but the buttons. To my right, Bishop decided to freestyle a little bit, but all he succeeded in doing was making a lot of noise as he smashed the plastic.

“Rock Revolution” does do a couple of cool new things that “Rock Band” doesn’t. One, there’s no penalty for freestyling extra hits on the drums. I’m not a drummer, but even I feel a little constrained by “Rock Band” penalizing me for improvising during a song.

Two, Konami’s take lets you turn off the kick pedal. My girlfriend stopped trying to play “Rock Band’”s drums because the kick pedal was too much for her. “Rock Revolution” features five difficulty levels and doesn’t introduce the kick pedal until hopping into medium.

There’s also a guitar, but I didn’t have a chance to try it out. It doesn’t look much different from the stock guitar included in “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock,” and there’s nothing differentiating it from the guitar in “Rock Band” or “Guitar Hero,” except that it’s a different color (all black). There are five buttons, but they’ve been assigned brand-new colors.

The interface is about what you’d expect from a Konami Bemani game, except the traditional animated backgrounds have been replaced with a full-fledged rock show. It’s a little odd at first, actually; I’ve become so accustomed to the slanted nature of both “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” that following the notes in Rock Revolution was distracting.

Konami said “Rock Revolution” will ship with at least 40 songs on the disc, with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions getting downloadable content after launch.

There was no discussion of a release date or price at the event, but I’m told that information should be coming soon (read: E3). Those details are crucial to “Rock Revolution”’s success this fall, especially given that “Rock Revolution” is the only band-centric music game that won’t feature vocals as a gameplay element.

Readers, are you ready for more peripherals? Is a drum set with six buttons compelling to you?

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With 16 songs total, eight from the game and eight exclusive to the disc, “Liberty City Invasion” will be hitting the streets (read: all major digital retailers) May 20, and will feature tracks from artists like Busta Rhymes, Wyclef, Fat Joe and Fabolous. However, if you prefer more underground artists, you’ll get to pick from Uncle Murder, Johnny Polygon, and Qadir.

It makes you wonder if maybe the eight extra tracks will show up in a future expansion, but apparently one of the games soundtrack supervisors was a bit tight-lipped about that potential when Stephen Totilo interviewed him for MTV News a few weeks ago. Hit the jump for the full press release.

Rockstar Games announces the May 20th release of Liberty City Invasion: Music from and Inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV produced entirely by The Evil Genius Green Lantern

Today, Rockstar Games and Future Green Entertainment are proud to announce the release of an original production album from The Evil Genius DJ Green Lantern featuring music from and inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV.

Containing eight brand new tracks crafted exclusively for DJ Green Lantern’s “Liberty City Invasion” radio show on the in-game radio station “The Beat,” as well as eight new songs directly inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV, The Evil Genius DJ Green Lantern has created an epic urban soundtrack. This special album release features an incredible lineup of hip-hop, reggae and R&B superstars including heavyweights Busta Rhymes, Wyclef, Fat Joe, Styles P and Fabolous as well as up-and-coming artists Mavado, Uncle Murder and Future Green Entertainment’s own Johnny Polygon, Qadir and more.

Singles include “Where’s My Money” from Busta Rhymes and “Nickname” from the brand new artist Qadir. The perfect summer anthem “I’m So Fly,” featuring Fat Joe and Fabolous is inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV and while included on the album is not in the game.

“The Grand Theft Auto games have always featured stunning soundtracks and the amount of eclectic music in Grand Theft Auto IV goes above and beyond anything we have been able to do before” said Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games, “DJ Green Lantern’s contributions give the soundtrack a true New York flavor and we’re excited to be releasing his full album to fans.”

“From making mixtapes, to being on the radio, to touring with the biggest artists on the planet, and then for the biggest video game title to solicit me to create exclusive music is something most people could only dream about, it’s like a graduation,” said Green. “Rockstar Games understood what I bring to the table as far as not just presenting music, but creating music.”

Green Lantern originally came to prominence in the mixtape scene by consistently featuring exclusive self-produced music with hip-hop superstars like Eminem, Jay-Z, The Beastie Boys, Mike Shinoda’s
Fort

Minor, D-Block, Busta Rhymes, Mobb Deep and many more. This led to an acclaimed career as a proper music producer in his own right which has yielded such Billboard hits as “Number One Spot” by Ludacris and “In The Ghetto” by Busta Rhymes featuring Rick James as well as the street hits Akon “Ghetto” feat. Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac, Uncle Murda’s “Bullet, Bullet,” and many more. Green Lantern can be heard every week nationally on his Sirius Satellite Radio show. The Evil Genius Green Lantern makes his official production album debut with the release of Liberty City Invasion: Music from and Inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV. It will be available at all major digital retailers on May 20th with a physical release coming soon.

Grand Theft Auto IV is currently available for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system and the PLAYSTATION® 3 computer entertainment system.

The Evil Genius DJ Green Lantern
Liberty

City Invasion: Music From and Inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV Tracklisting:

1. Intro
2. Styles P “What’s the Problem”
3. Busta Rhymes “Where’s My Money”
4. Wyclef, Uncle Murda and Mavado “Informer”
5. Joell Ortiz and Dante Hawkins “Alone”
6. Jim Jones and Juelz Santana “Bustin Shots”
7. Maino “Get Away Driver”
8. Uncle Murda “Anybody Can Get It”
9. Fabolous & Fat Joe “I’m So Fly”
10. Qadir “Nickname”
11. 38 Special, Fever and Dwayne “Streets Raised Me”
12. Clipse feat. Re-Up Gang “9mm”
13. Heltah Skeltah feat. Buckshot “Can’t Trust Em”
14. Red Café “Stick’m”
15. Immortal Technique “Parole”
16. Tru Life “Wet Em Up”
17. Johnny Polygon “Price On Your Head”

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Some people procrastinate, and I’m one of them. I figured the Nintendo Store would be the safest place for me to still be able to pre-order “Wii Fit,” since it is already sold out at GameStop, Amazon, and Wal-Mart among other stores.

However, the Nintendo World Store seemed to be the last beacon of hope. Upon my request to place a pre-order, I was told that Tuesday was the last day they were taking pre-orders. In other words, the Nintendo World Store is sold out of “Wii Fit” almost a week prior to the game’s release.

Looks like I’m going to have to do some extra legwork on Monday if I want to go home with the game.

Based on what my co-workers said yesterday, I’m pretty sure this game is going to be huge.

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Yes, you can do that to enemies in the game.

“Madworld” is a Wii exclusive coming from Platinum Games and Sega in early 2009.

For more information, check out our coverage of the newly announced development partnership. And for an interview with the game’s creator check back Friday or early next week.

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Last night in San Francisco, a handful of top-shelf Japanese developers working under the label Platinum Games announced that they have teamed up with Sega to put Japanese game development back on top.

They hope to do it with:

• A bloody black-and-white early 2009 Wii game called “Madworld,” that comes from a lead creator on “Resident Evil 4“
• A 2009 DS sci-fi spaceship-managing role-playing game called “Infinite Line” from a philosophical designer who helped make “Steel Battalion“
• A guns-on-her-hands-and-feet, witches-vs.-angels Xbox 360/PS3 2009 game called “Bayonetta” from the creator of “Devil May Cry“
• And a mystery game from Capcom pioneer Shinji Mikami.

They’re calling it a comeback for Japanese gaming, and they’re not afraid to tell me what they think has gone very wrong with the development scene in their company.

“Up until maybe 10 year ago Japanese development companies were at the top of their game,” Platinum Games CEO Tatsuya Minami told me. “They were delivering their all. Back then at that time 10 years ago, it was often said in the industry that Western developers didn’t have the level of detail and dedication that Japanese developers did. But they’ve come a very very long way.”

Minami declined to name any Western developers who helped him draw these conclusions, but said he had grown suspicious that there was an alternate way and learned he was correct. “What I really think made a difference is the way the development teams are managed. Japanese game development hasn’t really changed much,” he said. “But Western developers look at ‘what is the best way to develop a game?’ and change their style of development to match that philosophy.”

Platinum Games head of research and development and another former Capcom heavyweight Atsushi Inaba backed that idea up. “This is my opinion: The interest in games in Japan has been dropping,” he said. “In Japan there are so many distractions, so many different things you can do if you want to have a good time. Games are one option of many. As people start losing focus on games, they start losing motivation to make them.”

Said Minami of this alleged decline in Japanese development: “We wanted to break that trend.”

The Platinum Games team formerly worked at Capcom in a team called Clover Studios. They were responsible for the critically acclaimed “Viewtiful Joe,” “Okami” and “God Hand” games. But none of the games were top-sellers. They would give some creators motivation to change. Not so the Platinum guys.

“We can’t just make the titles that only we want to make and nobody else wants,” Inaba said. “It’s something I think about constantly: how do we make interesting games that will sell well. But of course sales aren’t everything. It’s not like we want to make games that have no inspiration or are not fun.”

Minami concluded: “The reality is that employees have to eat… but we didn’t make this studio just for money.”

***

Check back by early next week for interviews with the developers of the three announced Platinum/Sega games.

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*Missed writing yesterday’s entry because I was shuttling back and forth from a Sega event to a Ubisoft event to another Sega event. I played the “Sonic Chonicles” DS game at Sega, watched some relatively secret other games get played in front of me (the existence of most of the games had leaked), and played six more games at Ubisoft. I can talk publicly about the Sega stuff tomorrow; the Ubisoft stuff is off-limits until the end of the month. 

Next: Another meager update, though maybe I’ll get some gaming in on my flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I hope! I miss my game time on the NYC subway. C-train, I never thought I’d get nostalgic for you (though I enjoyed your cameo as a crashed train in “Ninja Gaiden II.”)

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Kim is the head of Microsoft Game Studios and therefore a guy worth peppering with any gaming questions I could think of related to the Xbox 360’s Microsoft-published efforts.

Here’s some of what I asked him between bites of fish:

When will Microsoft make a game that requires and takes advantage of the Xbox 360’s hard-drive?

“You’re not likely to see a first party title that does that,” Kim said. I suggested that Microsoft had to have reached a point by now when the company could assume a large number of Xbox 360 owners have the drive. And surely the upcoming “Grand Theft Auto IV” downloadable content will require it. But still, Kim said he believed the games from MGS should be playable on all Xbox 360s and that it’s a software maker’s challenge to get the games to work without a hard drive.

Why was Microsoft just hiring new senior people for the Peter Jackson “Halo” project more than two years after it was announced?

Kim said there was nothing unusual going on here, though there was shared skepticism among me and the three other reporters at the dinner. “Clearly it’s not coming out this year,” Kim said, deflecting the idea that this was a last-minute change. He said that the job postings represented both a staffing-up and a switching of personnel.

What’s up with the Xbox 360 motion-controller code-named Newton that we broke news of recently?

Kim laughed. I asked about the article we ran. Kim claimed he doesn’t read any press.

How about the “Crackdown DLC”?

I mentioned this as a wisecrack while Kim was talking to Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and Joystiq’s Chris Grant. Kim kept on talking to them but lightly punched me in the arm. I’ll take that as a no comment!

Why don’t you guys make a version of the “Scene It” trivia series that focuses on video game trivia, so that the hardcore gamers buy it and virally spread that style of casual gameplay to the less hardcore members of their households?

He laughed and said that only I would buy it.

What’s going on with Games for Windows?

He said: “What we need to do is figure out, ‘What do we want for this platform?’ We’ve really got to figure out what Windows is good for, what customers want out of Windows for gaming.” He said a lot of energy had been spent on things that maybe weren’t the best focus. Such as? Trying to make the Windows interface “sport the look and feel like the Xbox 360; the idea of resurrecting genres on Windows.”

***

As you can probably tell, the dinner was pretty casual and chatty. It was not an official briefing, so things were kept loose. Kim didn’t want to show much of his hand, but, as always, seemed happy to represent Microsoft Game Studios as a small high-end publisher with no aspirations to become a massive game factory like Sony and Nintendo’s publishing divisions.

I don’t expect that we’ll hear much more from Kim until E3 in July.

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