Nintendo loves to make games with their beloved mascot Mario, with about half of them being new adventures and the other half about recapturing the magic of their older games with modern graphics and systems. The New Super Mario Bros series falls squarely into that second category. With a version on both the DS and the Wii now, it won’t shock people to learn that there is another New Super Mario Bros coming out for the 3DS now. What will surprise people though is the blatant 2 in the name.

Very little details have been released so far, but Nintendo has said that it will follow New Super Mario Bros Wii and that it will be easy to pick up and play on the 3DS. Aside from that everything else is speculation at this point. Are Mario, Luigi, and two Toads going to traverse through the worlds of Super Mario Bros 2 or 3 this time around? Will Bowser or Peach make their way into the game as playable characters? Will Wario and Waluigi crash the party each riding a Birdo and playing maracas while they eat sandwiches just for the sake of why not? Only time will tell.

Ah, Pokemon. A series that has been standing strong since the mid 90′s. However one thing has yet to happen with the series: other than a few choice Pokemon making it into the Smash Bros series, Pokemon have yet to make it into any crossover games. Well apparently the Pokemon Company agreed that they needed a crossover, and decided to combine Pokemon with a popular strategy game series called Nobunaga’s Ambition. This crossover was released in Japan as Pokemon + Nobunaga’s Ambition, in what I deem the most creative crossover title ever.

Now admittedly the Nobunaga’s Ambition series is much more popular in Japan than it will probably ever be here in the west, but that hasn’t stopped this game from deciding to make the voyage to foreign shores. Under the new name Pokemon Conquest, the game should pop up on the shelves of your game stores on June 18th in the United States. Sadly, no European or Australian release dates have been announced yet, but it will more than likely end up in those areas at a later date.

Pokemon Conquest takes place in the Ransei region and will have players taking the role of various warlords using Pokemon to decide the outcomes of their conquests. Each team gets up to six Pokemon to position on the battlefield and will take turns moving and attacking with their Pokemon until one side meets whatever the victory condition of the map happens to be. Warlords will also form a Link with their Pokemon, which will increase as they clear levels and lead to their Pokemon becoming stronger and even evolving. Each warlord also has a specific species of Pokemon they bond with most, being the only species that can reach 100% Link with that warlord.

The game will be rated E for Everyone when it arrives to the US, will be on the Nintendo DS handheld, and has already received a 34/40 rating from Famitsu praising how easy it is for children and adults to get into the game and for it’s high replay value.

If you’re reading this review, then there’s a VERY good chance you’ve heard of Nintendo’s super famous Italian plumber Mario. Not only is he considered the most famous video game character in history, but many people point to him as the face of the industry. It’s not surprising then to see new Mario games sell extremely well and will often sell many copies of the hardware the game is on. What also isn’t surprising is how good each new Mario title is, with 3D Land being no exception in the slightest. (more…)

Today, Pokemon fans(like yours truly) got news that made them jump for joy. Junichi Masuda, one of the directors at Game Freak, made a rare appearance on the popular Japanese television show dedicated entirely to the Pokemon fandom Pokemon Smash! and announced the new project Game Freak has been working on. This new project is the continuation of the fifth generation of Pokemon games, similar to the likes of Yellow for the first generation to Platinum for the fourth generation, only instead of being a “new” version like those they are more taking the route of a “sequel” version with the titles of Pokemon Black 2 and White 2.

Along with the announcement of the new versions, the artwork by Ken Sugimori was revealed for the version mascots of the new games, which can be seen above. Confirmation hasn’t been official on the new mascots, but according to the fans over at Bulbagarden the mascots are new forms for Kyurem, the Dragon/Ice legendary that players can get after beating the main game in Black and White. Similar to Rotom, Giratina, and Shaymin all having placeholder data in Diamond and Pearl just to get a new form in Platinum, Kyurem has placeholder data in Black and White presumably for these new forms.

The new forms appear to be Kyurem either fusing or possessing Zekrom and Reshiram. To make matters more interesting the Zekrom-like form will be the Black mascot while the Reshiram-like mascot will be the White mascot, opposite of the mascots for Black and White.

The Japanese version has been given a release window of June and will be on the Nintendo DS. International release hasn’t been given a window, but since the information has been put up on the English language Pokemon site an international release is all but guaranteed at this point.

In case that you were wondering, the demo for Resident Evil: Revelations is available on the Nintendo eShop. This game is coming to Japan on January 26, 2012 and it will become available in North America on February 7, 2012. Download the demo and check it out if you have a Nintendo DS as the storyline is set between the timeline of Resident Evil 4 and 5.

Next year we’ll be getting two versions of The Amazing Spider-Man: One will be the Spider-Man movie reboot from Marc Webb, while the other will be the video game movie tie-in from Beenox (Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Spider-Man: Edge of Time).

According to a press release (via Joystiq), The Amazing Spider-Man game will be released alongside the movie, taking place after the events of the film. Being written by Hollywood writer Seamus Kevin Fahey (Battlestar Galactica), the game will once again have Spider-Man web-slinging all over an open-ended New York City, this time complete with a new “Web Rush” mechanic and improved navigation and combat.

We’ll be able to catch a new trailer for the game at Spike TV’s Video Game Awards airing this Saturday at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST. In the meantime, you can swing your way over to the game’s official website which says the game will out for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DS.