Today it has been announced that Tomonobu Itagaki has handed in his resignation to Tecmo and made public his decision to sue the company for 148,000,000 yen (£715,000) for unpaid completion bonuses and disingenuous statements made towards him. For the uninitiated, Tomonobu Itagaki is the legendary game developer behind Team Ninja, and is responsible for bringing us the ‘Dead or Alive’ series (and it’s spinoffs) and the ‘Ninja Gaiden’ series, and is widely regarded as one of the few Japanese developers who truly understands the western gaming market.

Nothing has been confirmed as to the future of Team Ninja and the games they were working on, but if internet rumour is to be believed, then they will all be shelved, never to be heard of again…

Read the full statement from Tomonobu after the break.

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As I expected, the Aerosmith version of Guitar Hero turns out to be mostly a load of rubbish. In fact, it’s 90% rubbish, which pretty much sums up Aerosmith’s musical output, making it an accurate portrayal if nothing else.

This, however, should be a lot more interesting - Activision have inadvertantly revealed that sometime between now and next April, they’ll be bringing us a Metallica-themed version of Guitar Hero. With many, many excellent tracks to choose from spanning a career of over 25 years, hopefully they won’t have any issues at all picking some decent tunes.

As long as we get Hit The Lights, Battery, Nothing Else Matters, Master Of Puppets, The Memory Remains, Enter Sandman, and their excellent cover of Whisky In The Jar, I’ll be happy. Just make One a little easier this time around, mmkay?

This is possibly the craziest cover of The Specials ska classic ‘Monkey Man’ ever recorded, performed by Japanese noise core legends, Melt Banana, who are probably more famous their cover of ‘Surfin’ USA’…

Enjoy!

American gaming magazine, EGM, has refused to review Konami’s upcoming PS3 blockbuster, Metal Gear Solid 4.  The reason for this?  Konami requested that the games 90 minute cut scene and installation before each level were not mentioned in the review, and as EGM (quite rightly) see these as pretty major points to anybody who isn’t a MGS fanboy, and on that basis refuse to print a review until the game is released and these facts are common knowledge.

This brings the whole practice of video game reviewing under the spotlight, and makes you wonder what other information was withheld from the public in order not to tarnish a games reputation before it was released?  And it really makes you question the flurry of 10/10 games we’ve had this generation (GTA4, Mario Galaxy, Halo 3, Bioshock & Ratchet & Clank to name a few).  Are developers really that afraid that the game they have made has a few flaws, that they have to gag reviewers over the less desirable parts to their game?

(via)