You play as a driller robot who can break blocks apart, pick them up, and reuse them. If you complete a line of blocks, the line gets destroyed a la Tetris.

Our intention is exactly the same than the one we had when we created Tuper Tario Tros. We want to create a unique game experience mixing games elements and mechanics.

The mash-up concept is a popular genre and that’s something we really like because it allows players to see how games that seem different at first can share the same DNA.

- Guillaume Martin and William David, founders of Swing Swing Submarine.

Blocks That Matter will be coming to Xbox LIVE Indie Games in April, followed by a PC/Mac/Linux release shortly thereafter. Expect pricing to be less than $5.

This is why I played Metroid Prime Corruption for all of 15 minutes.

Hype frenzy begins…. NOW.

L.A. Noire consistently impresses with the quality of facial animations, but in this trailer from Rockstart Games and Team Bondi we see how this unprecedented level of realism will be used to help give Cole Phelps insight into the suspects and witnesses with whom he comes into contact.

When From Software released limited information on Project Dark late last year, it was fairly evident we’d eventually be blessed with a Demon’s Souls sequel. We got the official announcement from Namco-Bandai earlier in the week, along with an official name: Dark Souls. More info continues to trickle in on a game that, perhaps most surprisingly, has a solid chance of winning many game of the year awards…. THIS YEAR.

As you can see from the gallery below, the game looks very much like its predecessor. The characters and environments look the part to be right at home in Demon’s Souls, though some of the apparent boss characters look even more impressive than what we’ve seen before. This team has nailed dark fantasy once, and there’s little doubt they’ll manage a second success.

But what has me most excited for this game is the abandonment of the hub world: the Nexus. The Nexus never felt right in Demon’s Souls; it was too safe, too sterile. In Dark Souls, we’ll instead have a massive connected world open to explore at our leisure. The motto seems to be “if you can see it, you can eventually get to it.” The levels of Demon’s Souls were intricately crafted, and if the same amount of care is put into this world we might be in store for something truly amazing.

When Portal 2 drops on April 21st, gamers will have plenty of options for platform of choice. For those trying to decide between the 360, PS3, PC or Mac versions of the game, Valve just made a pretty respectable case for the PS3.

According to Portal 2 project lead Josh Weir, PS3 gamers get cross-platform play and chat with PC and Mac users, a Steam-play version of the game to play on their PC or Mac, and cloud storage of game saves so they can load up their save regardless of whichever platform they’re on (assuming they link up their steam account and their PS3.)

When Sony brought Valve head Gabe Newell out during their keynote E3 presentation last year, it appeared PS3 gamers could finally look forward to experiencing the same game as their 360 counterparts. Now it seems the balance has tipped heavily in the other direction, making the PS3 the no-brainer console of choice for Portal 2.

While watching the gameplay trailers for Capcom’s upcoming iPhone game MaXplosion, it looks like it should be a fun little game. There’s this neat exploding mechanic, you see, which your character can do 3 times in a row before needing a recharge. You use this mechanic to traverse standard platforming levels, blowing apart enemies foolish enough to stand in your way.

Of course there’s just this one niggling little problem. This game, a game wrapped entirely around one mechanic, was released in the summer of ’09.

To say this game resembles Twisted Pixel’s wildly popular and frenetically paced ‘Splosion Man is an understatement… there is no way the planning meeting for this game did not include the phrase “Just go make ‘Splosion Man.”

It gets worse too, as Twisted Pixel CEO Michael Wilford responded on his twitter page:

Best part is, we originally pitched @Splosion_Man to Capcom and they said no.

It’s rare to see anything truly original in modern gaming. Games borrow from one another all the time, and when something works it’s bound to get copied in some capacity. But it is rare to see a major developer unapologetically ripping off a well-known indie game in this way. Hopefully it sells well, and Twisted Pixel nets all the profits when the inevitable lawsuit is resolved.

UPDATE: Guess that lawsuit may not be so inevitable after all. Michael Wilford spoke with Joystiq this evening and shrugged off the idea of filing suit against Capcom:

“While I think the similarities are pretty nauseating, we’re too small to take on a company like Capcom,” said Wilford.

That, and we owe them one for inventing Mega Man, so we’ll let them slide. I just hope they’re not counting on the fact that indies can’t fight back. In general, anything that would take our focus off of making games would be a bad decision, I think. We just need to keep our heads down making the next thing so that Capcom has something to steal next year.”

Our pals over at FrozenByte have been hard at work on the next iteration of Trine if this teaser trailer is anything to go by. And they usually are, which is pretty much the reason we bother watching them and the developers bother releasing them. That’s more or less the whole intent of teaser trailers actually, so I don’t know why I brought it up in the first place.

Anyway Trine 2 is due out sometime next year and is sure to set my console aflame with 3 player online coop.

I call wizard.

Alongside major announcements of Resistance 3 and Mass Effect 2 coming to PS3, Sony also unveiled the newest iteration of the Ratchet and Clank series at GamesCon in Cologne, Germany today. The upcoming platform adventure game from Insomniac Games will feature 4 player online co-op play, with a choice of Ratchet, Clank, Quark, or Dr. Nefarious as playable characters.

We’re just over a week away from the launch of Monday Night Combat, the third person arena shooter that’s not trying to hide its inspiration drawn from Team Fortress 2. In this 14 minute walkthrough from Uber Entertainment, we see a match of MNC’s “Crossfire” mode. Crossfire is described as follows:

Crossfire
Crossfire is Monday Night Combat’s six versus six competitive mode over Xbox LIVE. Both teams try to protect their Moneyball while trying to destroy the opposing team’s Moneyball. Both teams have streams of robots that march mindlessly towards the enemy Moneyball and will jump on it and bring it down for players to destroy once they are escorted there. There are four Crossfire arenas.

There are two categories of robots and eight total robots. Breach Bots follow a set path from their spawner to the enemy Moneyball. When they get there, they jump on the Moneyball and breaching the shields, making it vulnerable. Eliminator Bots pick an enemy Pro and go after that Pro until they die and then move on. If there are no Pros, they attack enemy turrets and then the Moneyball. Robots can be spawned by players at their own spawners for a cost. The type of robots spawned depends on what class spawns them.

Of particular note in the video is how money is earned and upgrades purchased during active gameplay. Immediately after respawn, the developer takes a moment to upgrade various weapons and talents of his character. Unlike TF2, where class changes are common as a change of pace, it appears changing class late in a game of MNC might put you at a disadvantage.

Monday Night Combat launches August 11th on XBLA for 1200 MS Points.