The twelfth Contra game is coming out in the United States in only two days, so we’re all getting excited for some side-scrolling action. Contra ReBirth is much like Contra 4; old school 16-bit action. Remixes of songs from previous titles in the series are also featured in the game.

European and Japanese residents can already grab the title if you’re wondering. ReBirth was developed by M2 exclusively as a WiiWare title.

The Japanese version is set to debut on October 1st, so it could be possible that it’ll be released not too far after. Unfortunately, no word on a European or Australian release yet.

[Thanks, Leland!]

This has happened to an employee of Konami in Japan. She is suing the company after she allegedly had her wage lowered and was demoted upon returning from her maternity leave. Yoko Sekiguchi is seeking $343,000 in damages, stating that she was moved to a domestic position and had her salary cut by $2,080 a month after she returned.

Apparently, Konami changed her position to create a better child-rearing environment for her. Sekiguchi, as one can expect, was not pleased: “Being forced to lessen your career to raise a child is sexual discrimination.”

Sekiguchi’s job had her travelling all over the world to acquire licensing deals. The Winning Eleven series comes to mind.

To finish off a week of Metal Gear announcements Konami has announced an officially sponsored Metal Gear Online tournament. While no prizes have been announced yet Konami says that you should hurry up and register as space is limited. Below are the directions to register for said tournament:

1) Log into MGO with the character you wish to enter into the Tournament (starting June 23rd) – but hurry, only a limited number of players can participate
2) Go to Lobby Select and choose Tournament Registration
3) On the Lobby Screen select one of the 4 tournament lobbies to register (i.e. US TOURNEY 1, US TOURNEY 2, etc.)
4) Select either Join Team (pick a team off the list to join), Create Team and Submit Entry (set up the team name and password), or Solo Entry (assigned to a random team)

Entry will apparantly begin on the 23rd while the actual tournament will begin on the 26th. We’ll keep you posted as more information is released.

Read (GamingShogun)

Six Days in Fulljah was dropped by its publisher, Konami, back in April but that didn’t discourage the guys over at Atomic Games who have continued with development just as planned.

Apparantly, Atomic Games president Peter Tamte along with the game’s consultant Captain Read Omohundro appeared on Fox News to talk a bit about the game. Other than saying how they are currently looking for a publisher for the game, he also told us that the game is about 2/3 of the way done.

Well, Mr. Tamte it doesn’t matter how far done with Six Days in Fulljah you are unless you find a publisher so get on that!

Read (Big Download)

Yesterday we found out what the Metal Gear Arcade’s hardware would look like and now we know what the its gameplay will look like.

If you didn’t know Metal Gear Arcade is basically just Metal Gear Solid 4’s online component. The different with the arcade version, however, is that you will be using a new kind of controller specifically designed for this application along with the fact that its completely in 3D. So yes, you will be wearing some kind of 3D glasses goggles while playing this game.

Still no word on if Metal Gear Arcade will ever hit American arcades but it is set to his Japanese arcades sometime later this year.

First announced at EA, Kojima and Konami have kept their Metal Gear Arcade under wraps pretty well. Well, those wraps are still tightly bound but at least we have a few details and the above picture to hold us over thanks to the latest issue of Famitsu.

According ot the magazine, players will control the arcade while sitting down, wearing 3D glasses using a controller that allows for seperate movement and viewpoint control. Better yeah, in addition to being able to play solo players will get the chance to participate in up to 16-player co-op. Sounds awesome.

Unfortunately, there is no word on if Metal Gear Arcade will ever make it stateside but for those in Japan, it is set to hit arcades over there later this year.

Read (Joystiq)

This E3 has been busy for Konami, where the publisher has announced several Metal Gear games, inclduing Metal Gear Solid Rising, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and Metal Gear Solid Arcade.

See, this game may have one of the most insane plots EVER.  A vaguely earthlike society–I say this because there are some sheer impossibilities going on here–has advanced to about twentieth-century technology because they discovered electricity a long time ago.  Nothing odd there, except their electricity doesn’t come from wind or solar or coal.  This society gets its electricity thanks to a race of tiny little creatures called Elebits, which fell to the planet’s surface on a giant lightning bolt.  The people of the planet promptly enslaved the Elebits by jamming them into their appliances and using their electrical power to run their blenders and heaters and computers and whatnot.  Oh, sure, the game SAYS that the people and Elebits were FRIENDS, but I don’t buy a word of it.  After all, who’s coming out ahead in that little arrangement?  It sure isn’t the Elebits.

But anyway–you’ll be playing an eight year old kid of such spectacular shortsightedness that he wishes the Elebits didn’t exist, throwing the planet into a pitch black barbarism just so his Elebit-researcher parents would spend more time with him.  It’s about the time he actually articulates that wish that the entire town goes dark.  The Elebits are asleep on the job, and its up to you, armed with your dad’s capture gun, to tear the house apart in search of the Elebits so you can get them back to work and watch your favorite TV show.

See what I mean?  This game couldn’t be more deranged if you were required to wear the Wiimote like a hat.

You’ll be blundering around your house, using your “capture gun“, which is basically a portable tractor beam that apparently doesn’t require Elebit power to work at the lowest levels, to lift things and shake things and throw things around so you can find those lazy little bastards and return them to their electrical enslavement.

This is actually fairly entertaining, at least for a while, until you start getting into narrow rooms and get hampered by a “breakage limit” in which you’re suddenly no longer allowed to smash things open in search of Elebits.  I call that a cheat, myself–I was gleefully throwing potted plants around the room without consequence and now, all of a sudden, I break open that vase to look for Elebits and it’s game over?  Screw that, says I, with all the emphasis it deserves.

But still, Elebits is absolutely a departure from literally everything that came before it.  I can’t think of anything even vaguely resembling a parallel on this one and it shows.  This is a fun game that does start getting in its own way after a while, but there’s still fun enough in this one to make it a solid rental, if nothing else.

It looks like Sony has finally taken a hint and contracted one of their most loyal developers, Konami, to give the PSP’s game library a little wake up call — Recently announced during E3 is Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a PSP exclusive that isn’t a port in any way shape or form.

Peace Walker apparantly takes place 10 years after the happenings of Metal Gear Solid 3 and stars none other than Solid Snake. The best part, however, is that Hideo Kojima will be diverting his attention away from the Xbox 360 Metal Gear to focus completely on Peace Walker which means it’s sure to be a hit.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will be released for the PSP sometime in 2010.

If you just can’t get enough zombie mayhem you’re going to want to check this one out — Konami and Nihilstic have recently announced on the Official Playstation Blog that a new game entitled Zombie Apocalypse is set to hit the Playstation Network sometime next month.

As you can see from the above screenshot Zombie Apocalypse is exactly what it sounds like, a run around and kill as many zombies as you can game. It may seem cliche but this is exactly what the developers were getting at; they wanted a fun to play party game full of gore and fun. 

Multiplayer of course will be included in the form of 4 player co op with 55 increasingly difficult levels to survive. Konami and Nihilistic really focused on creating a game that will appeal to arcade, casual, and hardcore gamers a like and it looks to me like they succeeded with Zombie Apocalypse.

Now, there has been no official word from Konami regarding the release of a Contra: ReBirth, but if a Japanese product listing on their official website is to be believed, this game may actually be on its way.

The listing has the game priced at 1000 Wii Points and from the looks of the above screenshots will be a more modern take on the hugely popular 1987 title Contra.

If you can decipher Japanese, which I can’t, head over to the product listing and see what information you can come up with.

If you share my distate in shelling out any amount of cash for iPhone apps but want to give Metal Gear Solid Touch a go, you’re in luck — Konami evidentally wanted more people to get a taste of the game as they have recently released a trial version onto the App Store.

Entitled Metal Gear Solid Touch Lite, the trial will run 84.4 MB and feature 3 full levels of tap-shooting action.

After fiddling with the game for a bit I’ve discovered it to be quite fun but found my finger getting in the way causing me to miss my target. I probably won’t be buying the game but perhaps after trying the Lite version, you will.

Imagine waking up one morning only to find out that your hopes and dreams were smashed; a bit dramatic, but Atomic Games was quoted to have felt similiar when Konami told them they weren’t going to publish Six Days in Fallujah:

We were informed on Thursday night that Konami had decided to pull out of Six Days in Fallujah. This caught us by surprise. Development of the game had been progressing very well and on schedule. We would very much like the opportunity to complete the game.

Followers of the controversial title will be happy to hear that when contacted by Kotaku about whether or not they would find a new publisher, Atomic Games responded with “stay tuned”.

There were some soldiers who when asked said they had no problem with a historically accurate and realistic game; many even included that there are possible benefits to the game including greater understanding of the stresses of war and training new recruits in the rules of engagement. Unfortunately however these soldiers aren’t out stumping for the game, so the publicity circling is still vastly negative.

Faced with endless complaints, petitions and accusations of poor taste Konami has decided to save face and pull out of the project. Despite the fact that developer Atomic Games collaborated with soldiers via diaries and satellite images to get the game as close to the actual events of the battle as possible none of its detractors seemed to think there could be any validity to the game.

It seems that the original release of Metal Gear Solid Touch for the iPod Touch and iPhone wasn’t complete, ending almost randomly leaving players in the dust.

Well, Konami has announced that the game has official been finished and an update has been sent to the App Store for all to download for free

Joystiq reports that the update adds 8 new stages along with new unlockable wallpapers and a bunch of bug fixes.

After looking at the arguments coming from the ‘con’ side G4 contacted some members of the military who are also gamers themselves to get their thoughts on the issue. Sgt. Casey J. McGeorge, a veteran of the Iraq war who served for thirty six months over three tours of duty says that he has no problems with the game, speaking as a combat veteran as well as a gamer, stipulating that it should be made as realistically as possible.

Marine Corps. Gunnery Sergeant John Mundy points out the substantial differences between video games and real-life combat situations, citing that the Rules of Engagement dictate what weapons you can use and when. In most video games you have no such restrictions, so putting in these rules and consequences for violating them could be useful in training new Marines but points out that these restrictions would probably frustrate the average civilian used to playing games where you can “… lob a frag down the street or launch a RPG at a couple of guys if you have to reload”. He goes on to point out that the unfortunate ‘human factor’ of multiplayer could go a long ways towards dampening the usefulness of the experience though.

Both men pointed out that if made in a realistic enough fashion the game could be helpful in helping civilians understand the stresses of war. Many veterans return shaken and nervous, used to a life where getting too close to a seemingly innocuous car or stepping into an alley to relieve yourself could be fatal. More public understanding and support could make reintegration easier for veterans and lower their alarmingly high suicide rates.

The game is being billed as a realistic take on the United States’ attack on the Iraqi city, told over a period of six days.

"We mean six days literally," said Atomic Games president Peter Tamte to the Wall Street Journal. "We track several units through the process and you get to know what it was like from day to day."

Apparently, a lot of research was conducted for the game, alongside consulting more than three dozen US soldiers who fought in the war. It is being tailored around the experiences of the soldiers, though the developers aren’t aiming for “social commentary,” according to Konami marketing VP Anthony Crouts.

"We’re not pro-war. We’re not trying to make people feel uncomfortable. We just want to bring a compelling entertainment experience. At the end of the day, it’s just a game."

You’ll be spending six days in Fallujah sometime in 2010.

Developed by Zombie Studios, the game is now set for release alongside the theatrical release of Saw VI. Gameplay will revolve around players finding themselves in an asylum filled with devious traps by series antagonist Jigsaw. It is up to the players to solve puzzles and save folks, or leave them to the tortuous devices.

The fate of the game had become murky last year after former publisher Brash imploded. But now the game is safe and sound at Konami. It will be released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.