UK Resistance has photos (but sadly not scans) of the book Where's Sonic?, a Where's Waldo for the hedgehog set.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Ed Boon talks about Mortal Kombat vs. DC -- apparently there will be finishing moves of a sort, they're just not fatal

• SCi has rejected a takeover offer from a mystery suitor.
• EA is working on a game based on Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition for the 360, Wii, PS2, mobile phones and Pogo.com. Here & Now is an updated version of the board game with modern properties and tokens.
• On top of the news that the original game is coming to Virtual Console, Interplay is also planning a new Earthworm Jim game, cartoon, and film. I'm a little confused as to how an EJ cartoon today is supposed to succeed when the old EJ cartoon released when the series was still relevant couldn't last more than 23 episodes.
• Gamasutra has an article on China's forgotten gamers. "In China, we track game players by subscriber or registration numbers, or by the amount of money they spend giving companies revenue. If they don’t register or pay money, they are somewhat invisible to the industry or, from the business viewpoint, irrelevant."
• Next Generation looks at the current world of QA testing, where staff are "generally treated like the red-headed stepchildren of the development process."
• Volition senior designer Alvan Monje has an opinion piece in which he argues that the vast majority of games owe something to Dungeons and Dragons.
• Pirated copies of GTA4 have hit the Internet.
• 1up has an interview with Sam Houser about GTA4.
• The New Gamer writes about the problems with Lost: Via Domus.
• Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon hopes Street Fighter IV has enough new stuff in it. "I think that's why fighting series don't hold peoples interest that long. Because people realise that they've played, for example, Heihachi from Tekken in four or five different versions, and don't want to carry on doing that."
• The Bowery Boys blog looks at the history of New York City in video games.
• Burnout Paradise will be getting motorcycles later this year, along with a nighttime environment.
• Joystiq has a list of Best Buy locations doing midnight launches for GTA4.
• Namco Bandai has explained that the "tournament kit" contained in the Soul Calibur IV premium edition is a tournament bracket card.
• MTV talks to the director of Soul Calibur IV about online play and Yoda.
• A Take Two executive convicted of stock options backdating is starting a new game publishing company. The publisher's CEO isn't concerned. "He will not--and he's not allowed to-- be on the board. He's not an officer of the company. We'll deal with any particular issues that come up from an SEC perspective as we go forward, but we're fairly confident that they will be non-issues given the role that he'll play in the company."
• Disney Interactive has announced that two unique Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian film scenes were shot specifically for the video game.
• The Parents Television Council has done its obligatory squawking about the upcoming GTA4 release. Among other things, they say "retailers must be reassured, in writing, that the rating given the game is accurate and that there is no hidden or modifiable content in the game."
• A Singapore gay and lesbian rights group is protesting the country's new game ratings because the system lumps homosexuality in with crime in the Adult Theme category.
• The South Carolina House of Representatives is voting on legislation that exempts video games that give prize tickets from a law intended to ban video poker. Otherwise, games at Chuck E. Cheese would technically be illegal.
• Japanmanship writes about the Japanese approach to emotional game design. "And whether it is because of this or due to some cultural bent, visual design is approached rather differently here. In meetings and design sessions the focus is not on beauty and realism, in the technical sense of the word, but much more about the feelings it should evoke in the player."
• Jack Thompson's latest stunt is to write a letter to the mother of Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick. "Happy Mother's Day, Mrs. Zelnick, which this year is May 11, two weeks after your son unleashes porn and violence upon other mothers' boys. I'm sure you're very proud."

PC and mobile news

New content: Worldshift demo, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 5.2 unofficial patch, Frontlines: Fuel of War 1.02 server hotfix

• Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI is coming to the PC.
• The pricing for Age of Conan has been announced: $59.99 for the game, then $14.99 a month.
• Rainbow Six Vegas 2 can apparently create logfiles in excess of 800 megs in size if and when the game crashes.
• Adventure Classic Gaming looks at the history of remaking King's Quest.
• Three classic Digital Eel games are now available for free: Plasmaworm, Big Box of Blox, and Dr. Blob's Organism.
• Nokia has released a teaser image for Project White Rock, their upcoming first-party mobile game. It's not really clear what kind of game this will be, but 1up believes the teaser depicts parody versions of classic game characters like Mario and Lara Croft.
• Devil May Cry 4 on the PC will include new features like a high-speed Turbo mode and a Legendary Dark Knight mode that will load the screen with enemies (if your rig can handle it).
• CNet Australia talks about the less than ideal situation for digital distribution for people outside the US.
• Casual games publisher PlayFirst is celebrating its fourth anniversary. What's interesting, as GameSetWatch pointed out, is that they mention they made $10 million in revenue in 2007, and yet they are "not yet profitable."

Nintendo news

• Activision has announced Little League World Series 2008 for the Wii and DS.
• There's a rumor based on a job posting that Stray Bullet could be working on a Wii MMO. It's hard to imagine.
• The Wall Street Journal got a preview of one of the print ads that will be running for Wii Fit.
• Reggie Fils-Aime says that the WiiWare release schedule in America will be more staggered than the one in Japan. He also mentioned that the average Wii sits on the shelf for only an hour before being purchased.
• Order Up!, another in what has somehow become a genre of food games, is coming for the Wii July 22.
• Jason Priestly will be appearing at the Nintendo World Store on Saturday to promote Mario Kart Wii. He's apparently become a race guy since leaving 90210.
• This week's Zero Punctuation review is for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• A trailer has been released for fangame Metroid SR388 which will be a completely original game.
• Siliconera has screenshots from the pirate Harry Potter sidescrolling shooter for the Famicom.
• Amazon has High School Musical: Sing It for $18.99.

Sony news

New media: Metal Gear Online gameplay footage

• Sony has confirmed that a GTA4 PS3 bundle is coming to Europe.
• Gamespot has a Q&A regarding the new Playstation Store interface.
• Next Generation has an interview with the creative director of Haze about the game.
• Speaking of which, Korn's newest single Haze, inspired by the game (or rather by bags of money given to them by the people who make the game), is now available for purchase on online music sites. Or you can just watch the music video. Or you could avoid it altogether.
• A LittleBigPlanet keynote has been announced for the Paris GDC.
• PSP and PS3 Echochrome demos will be available tomorrow on the Playstation Store.
• The BBFC's ratings page for MGS4 briefly contained a reference to "implied child rape". Kojima Productions' Ryan Payton says there's no mention of rape in the game, and the BBFC may have been confused by mention of "child trauma."

Microsoft news

New Live Arcade game: Lost Cities

• Microsoft has partnered with the Companions in Courage Foundation to put hundreds of 360 kiosks in the playrooms of children's hospitals.
• The Bogart update for Burnout Paradise is reportedly causing framerate issues.
• Microsoft has started hiring for its Peter Jackson Halo project.
• Sam Houser has expressed concern about the limitations of 360 storage media. "One of the problems with the 360, and it affects games like Grand Theft Auto if you think about how much content we put in the actual machine, is the fact that they don't have a significantly larger storage medium than the previous systems. It's a slightly bigger DVD disc."
• Xbox Live is having trouble. Again.