Portugal probably doesn't spring to mind as a hotbed of video game development, but the strangely named GameInvest is based in beautiful Lisbon and its first title, Sarah's Emergency Room, "revives the time management genre with fun, challenging levels and a frenetic pace with simulation management skills."

The game is being developed for the Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and PC platforms and allows you to assume the role of a graduate nursing student named Sarah as she moves from California to manage a busy emergency room in Arkansas. There "she discovers that managing an emergency room is a bit harder than she expected." Nothing like gender stereotyping with a female nurse who thinks life is hard. What's next, Sarah's Lunch Rush Hour where she runs coffee and waffles?

Not too long from now, at a Media and Business Summit not all that far away, LucasArts may be announcing a new game in the Star Wars Battlefront series. Online shopping megalith Amazon.com has added listings for Star Wars Battlefront III ... for no less than six platforms. The game is available for pre-order and has what we can only imagine is a tentative March 15, 2009 release date.

A new game in the series is hardly surprising; after all, Battlefront is the best selling Star Wars video game franchise of all time. Reports of it being in development also popped up following LucasArts' recent layoffs, though the company would not comment on it or any other unannounced titles at the time.

Amazon has Battlefront III slated for availability on PS3, 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, and DS. If this holds true, it would certainly debunk an old rumor that the game might only hit Xbox 360. Now there's the matter of a developer. With Pandemic – the studio responsible for the first two games – now owned by EA, and internal development slowing down at LucasArts, a new hope must arise. Our best guess at the moment is the rebel forces at Rebellion, the UK-based studio responsible for the generally well received Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron on PSP.

[Via GoNintendo]

As big of a kick as we get out of mods and hacks that make our favorite games more fun or accessible, we have to admit that we have a special place in our hearts for mods like the ones we're talking about today, mods that stand on the precipice of madness, laugh into the face of the torrential downpour of skepticism and dare man or God to find some purpose for their very existence.

Why would you want to play Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! with the GameCube bongo drums? You wouldn't, that's why. So why even take the time to do it instead of putting your time to more fruitful pursuits? Because it was there, of course. Because it was there.

[Via Eegra]

The word defining folks over at Merriam-Webster Inc. have added "Fanboy," along with 100 other words, to the newest edition of its Collegiate Dictionary*. Fanboy is actually one of the "oldest" of the "new" words, with its origins dating back to 1919. The wordsmiths define fanboy as a "boy who is an enthusiastic devotee, such as of comics or movies." Fanboys should feel free to write with self-righteous fury to MW and let them know it can also apply to video games ... tell them you'll never read their dictionary again if they don't correct this grievous oversight (also make an online petition).

This isn't the first time in recent memory some bit of gaming culture seeped its way into the good word book at Merriam-Webster; "w00t" became the company's word of the year in 2007. So, w00t to all the fanboys out there, the dictionary acknowledges your existence.

*OSX users will find the Dictionary widget, which uses The Oxford American Dictionary, already defines "fanboy." Merriam-Webster is a different company.

JoWooD Productions has announced Yoga Wii (not to be confused with Wii Yoga), coming second quarter of 2009 for the Nintendo Wii. The game will support the Balance Board as, according to the press release, "it plays a central role for the exercising (gaming) experience." No other details or assets are currently available. We expect this to be the first of many no-brainer yoga titles coming to the Wii for the next decade or two.

[Via NWF]

Previously on The Young and the Sadness.

*A mysterious stranger, Nibris, enters the scene*
Nibris: Come away with me, and I'll make all your mature-themed, Wii horror gaming dreams come true.
Joystiq: Can it be? Is it true?
Nibris: It is true! Just listen to my story and you'll know in your heart that it is so.
Joystiq: I'm just not sure I can believe in you.
Nibris: Look, I bring you concept art to prove my fidelity.
Joystiq: Lies! I heard you're already planning to run out on me.
Nibris: Would I release these official screenshots if I was planning to halt development?
Joystiq: I just don't know what to think! *Sobs*

And now, today's episode:

Nibris: Look at my new Web site. I promise you, Sadness will be out by Fall of 2009. Meet me at the Leipzig Games Convention if you still have faith in me. In us.
Joystiq: Sorry, dear, I've moved on. Give me a ring when you're ready to show me a playable demo.

[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]

What to do with the balance board now that you're totally fit? Well, you could ... skate it. We'll confess that stepping onto the yoga mat-turned-skateboard for the first time was intimidating. The original Skate taught us that even fake skaters have to practice their cool (and sent posers packing in the process) -- and that was just thumbs! Putting our body in the spotlight at a recent "feet-on" event that featured EA's Wii spin-off, Skate It, was another reminder that what looks easy on TV is just a carefully orchestrated illusion. Thankfully, our play session didn't end in a faceplant.

We know that Mega Man 9 is all-new and stuff, but after seeing a quick video of its gameplay (found after the break), we're compelled to dig up our copy of Mega Man Anniversary Collection for a nostalgia fix this evening.

GoNintendo discovered the first footage, which definitely has the look and sound of a classic Mega Man game from the '80s (minus slowdown and flicker). Details on the Blue Bomber's return are slowly starting to emerge, but we're hoping to learn a lot more about this WiiWare title soon.

For good and bad -- or should I say light and dark -- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for Wii is clearly a Wii game. Side-by-side with the PS3 and 360 versions, the Wii graphics disappoint, and the complexity and frequency of enemies feels scaled back. But the Wii motion controls are regularly interesting, mapping many of the game's controls into gestures. The simplest ones feel great, like punching the Nunchuk forward to do the Force-push.

After recently playing late-development versions of all four game editions--360/PS3, Wii, DS, and PS2/PSP--I think the Wii game holds up as well as any of them. I had fun throwing enemies, shooting them with lightning, and hitting them with the lightsaber. And while the Wii holds its own, I'm mildly concerned that the final game could be repetitious, just cutting down waves of attackers. Hopefully the many different attacks, and Wii-specific two-player duel mode, will keep the game interesting.

Talk about your emotional roller coasters. We spoke just yesterday of our attempts to bring Pogs back into the public consciousness, so a brief glance at this week's WiiWare title, SPOGS Racing (1-2 players, 1,000 Wii Points), filled our hearts with glee. But just as we made bids on every eBay Pogs lot we could find we re-read the title and started praying that someone out there was willing to pay more than $23.50 for an Alf Slammer.

So, apparently, SPOGS have nothing to do with Pogs, except in the fact that they're both disc shaped and that you likely have a minimum of interest in them. So ... moving on.

Listen, we're excited by this week's biggest new release Civilization Revolution, but it looks to us like it's going to play pretty fast and loose with the truth. How can we tell? Well, let's take a look at the box art. It looks fine, right? Until you realize that Napoleon is towering over Genghis Khan!

Napoloean, as the less educated among you (and Firaxis) perhaps do not know, was 2-feet, 4-inches tall, so the thought of him being taller than anyone, let alone some of history's greatest leaders, is an affront to logic itself. The only thing we can imagine is that Lincoln is on his knees and Napoleon is standing on a apple crate of some sort, in which case we can only suggest that Honest Abe needs new representation.

Nintendo's love affair with the Neo Geo continues this week, giving players who have not yet shelled out for one of SNK's numerous other arcade collections yet another outlet to spend their hard-earned dollars, or rather, points.

• King of the Monsters (Neo Geo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): While already available on the Wii already as part of SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1, it's good to know that despite all of the problems in the world, there are still some disagreements between a giant lizard and an overgrown beetle than can be settled as part of a midtown battle royal. SNK's arcade original King of the Monsters allows players to choose from six different giant creatures and then grapple with the others in order to decide the fate of the city, as long as that fate ends in total devastation.

Pokémaniacs will soon have the opportunity to find out who among them is best at the cultivation and production of pocket monsters for battle, and dare we say, delicious cuisine. This summer both Pokémon USA and Japan's The Pokémon Company will host the Pokémon Video Game Showdown 2008, which promises to pit the regions' best poké-trainers against each other in a multi-round tournament to discover once and for all who has the best poké-chops.

On August 16, 32 Pokémon aficionados from the US will make the trek to Orlando, FL to throw down against 32 of Japan's best poké-players, using the series' latest flavors, Diamond and Pearl. The contest will be divided into two different age brackets, with those trainers born on or before 1995 making up the "senior" set. And there's more than just poké-pride at stake, as the top finisher in each group will walk away with a Nintendo Wii package and a shot at a grand prize that includes a 6-day vacation for four to either NY, Honolulu, or Tokyo. However, we should tell you that interested players must first survive a qualifier round, and that registration has already closed. Even so, organizers note that additional players may be randomly selected from those in attendance at the events, so if you fancy yourself a poké-maestro, check out the dates below before you book fare on Air Pokémon.

With the recent announcement and then following super double announcement of Square-Enix's plans to bring Chrono Trigger to this week's second place finisher, our minds began to to wander like a starry-eyed, formerly monastic governess, vacationing in the hills of Austria. If Squeenix can turn a 16-bit RPG from 1995 into a soon-to-be bestseller in 2008, what other 13-year-old franchises could we breathe new life into in order to turn a tidy profit?

We immediately thought of Pogs, which swept the nation like a plague of circular cardboard locusts in the middle of the last decade -- after all, the obsession with collection hasn't waned in the minds of our nation's youngsters. Unfortunately, Archibald von Pogstein passed away last year, taking the secrets of Pog synthesis with him. We then turned our minds to music, and naturally, TLC's "Waterfalls", the official HIV and gun violence-related slow jam of 1995, came to mind. The Joystiq crew gathered to perform a breathtaking cover of the R&B classic -- unfortunately, we lost the master recordings shortly before distribution.

We eventually settled on bringing back one of the top-grossing films of 1995, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Unfortunately, Mr. Carrey's reluctance to tarnish his new "serious" image by reprising his most beloved role brought the remake's production to a screeching halt. Instead, we're planning on making Ace Ventura quotes hilarious again by incessantly using them around friends and loved ones. We're sure we can find some way to parlay that into a get rich quick scheme -- aaalllllrighty then?

- PSP: 58,861 490 (0.83%)
- DS Lite: 48,884 12,285 (33.57%)
- Wii: 48,480 7,443 (18.14%)
- PS3: 17,973 2,363 (11.62%)
- PS2: 7,673 1,327 (20.91%)
- Xbox 360: 5,104 2,549 (99.77%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: Kinda hot these arrrchiiiives

We've been chomping at the bit for any details about the complete setlist for Harmonix's upcoming sequel to last year's well-received rockstar simulator, Rock Band. We've learned of a few new tracks from a slip-up on G4 and a tip from an anonymous playtester, but even these substantial leaks only make up a drop in Rock Band 2's 80-song bucket. Luckily, two sources who claim to know the near-complete list of tunes included in the title recently posted their findings -- though their own sources don't exactly inspire confidence in the accuracy of their supposed setlists.

Though their information evolved entirely from hearsay, there's quite a bit of overlap between the two lists, lending some amount of legitimacy to this rumor. Some of these overlapping tracks include Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer", The Presidents of the United States of America's "Lump", Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" (Qu'est-ce que c'est?), and a long overdue "Pump It Up" by Elvis Costello. We've got both lists after the jump -- with a couple of weeks between us and E3, we'll be discovering the correctitude of these tracks soon enough.