I've been playing through Illusion of Gaia recently. I can't offer a defense for these actions, other than to say I wanted to play Terranigma and, having already played Soul Blazer, it only made sense to play the middle bit first.

It's a fairly bland and straightforward action RPG, which is why it's so odd that it occasionally tries so hard to be deep and somber. You're a kid running around a dungeon innocently whacking things with a flute one minute, then you get back to town and suddenly you're in a Russian Roulette game with a man who deliberately kills himself and leaves his pregnant wife behind. Whelp!

Later, when captured by starving tribesmen, your friend's pet pig comes to the rescue by throwing itself on a fire and cooking itself alive to give them something to eat. Then the ghost of your mother pops out.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Lego Batman trailer, The Force Unleashed story feature (with spoiler warning)

• A UK appeals court has overturned a previous ruling and found mod chipping to be legal.
• NPD has released the top American software sales numbers for the month of May.
• Capcom appears to have a couple of surprise projects to be unveiled at E3. A Destructoid source says Mega Man 9 is in the works, so that could be one of them -- Kombo notes that Mega Man 9 has recently been registered with Australia's ratings board.
• Coldplay will be debuting a new single in Guitar Hero III, alongside two of their older songs.
• A company called iOpener Media is working on a system in which gamers could race against real world race drivers by tracking their cars through GPS and telemetry and then importing that data into a game.
• Next week's Rock Band tracks are from The Offspring's new single along with songs from Avenged Sevenfold and Crooked X. After that will be the Pixies' album Doolittle.
• Capcom says it looks at Ebay auctions as one way to gauge interest in which old franchises to revive.
• Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono says that the game's aim is to bring older SF players back to the series. The game was even called R35 in development, representing their desire to appeal to gamers over the age of 35. "Even if we can interest just a fraction of the two or three million people who used to play Street Fighter II, I think the environment surrounding new games could change.”
• Funcom has announced that deathpunk band Turbonegro, appearing on the Age of Conan soundtrack, will also have a song in Rock Band 2.
• Jeremy Parish does his best to explain the whole EGM MGS4 review kerfuffle. "Our practice when presented with NDAs is to run them by the legal department first. But they didn't give us our NDAs on the first day. Or the second. Instead, they presented them to us at the literal last moment -- I was watching the game's closing credits scroll past -- and made it clear that we wouldn't be leaving until we signed them."
• In honor of Father's Day, 1up looks at how video games help kids and parents bond.

PC and mobile news

New media: American McGee's Grimm trailers
New content: French Street Racing demo

• To give a sense of what can be accomplished with the program, Brian Crecente tried making an organic Penny Arcade Fruit Fucker in Spore's creature creator.

Nintendo news

New PAL Virtual Console titles: Nebulus, Last Ninja 2, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Fatal Fury 2, Ninja Combat
New media: The Conduit screenshots, Final Fantasy IV DS video preview, Alone in the Dark Wii controls demonstration

• NHL 2K9 is coming to the Wii.
• Nintendo has sued third party peripheral company Nyko over their wireless nunchuck due to alleged patent infringement.
• After temporarily disappearing due to higher than expected demand, The World Ends With You stock is beginning to replenish.
• David Jaffe has called out Nintendo for comments from a marketing director at Nintendo of Europe claiming that only "geeks and otaku" care about memory space. I don't think we need David Jaffe to tell us it was a boneheaded thing to say, though admittedly only he would do it in a post titled "YOU SHIT ON MY HOUSE!!! YOU SHIT ON MY HOUSE!!!" The marketing guy has since apologized.
• The latest issue of Famitsu reveals who's on the roster in Mario Super Sluggers.
• The upcoming Fire Emblem DS game is a remake of the original Fire Emblem with added online play.

Sony news

New PS1 title: Syphon Filter 3
New PSP title: Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
New content: Army of Two map pack, Guitar Hero III tracks, Rock Band tracks, Enemy Territory demo

• GameIndustry.biz reports that Sony is working on a "break apart" PS3 controller that separates into two units, each with their own accelerometer. Kotaku's source says that's not exactly true, and claims that it "actually consists of a smaller-sized device that can attach to the body - and multiple devices are intended to be used in concert."
• GameTrailers has part six of their Metal Gear retrospective.
• Jecht and Tidus have been confirmed as appearing in Dissidia: Final Fantasy. I don't know about you, but when I think all-star cast taken from all past Final Fantasies, I think "oh man, I hope Tidus' dad is in it."
• Sony Europe is clearing out their Sixaxis inventory by bundling them with games, but Sony America has no plans to do the same thing here.
• Amazon's deal of the day is Rock Band Special Edition (PS2) for $99.99.

Microsoft news

New media: Fable 2 screenshots

• There's a rumor going around that Metal Gear Solid could come to Live Arcade. Ripten claims it was seen on PartnerNet, the developer-only test network for Live.
• Robbie Bach says the 360's numerous technical failures haven't damaged the brand.
• Denis Dyack says Too Human is "just days away" from being done.