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The people at LucasArts and Telltale probably think I’m a retard. On my way to the Star Wars: The Old Republic demonstration at E3 2009, I stumbled and then stood with my mouth agape in front of two kiosks in the corner of the conference room hallway. The presenters of those two kiosks were showing Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and Tales of Monkey Island.

E3 is a bubble — we only see and experience the news, but we don’t necessarily hear it. I didn’t know these games existed until that second. And it showed, I’m sure. I grew up with Monkey Island and have made it plain over the years that some sort of revival needs to happen. And there it was. Two games in the classic franchise set to hit this summer. It was magic.

I digress. In the gallery below is a new collection of screenshots and concept art for Telltale Games’ first episode of the Tales of Monkey Island series, “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.” You might remember seeing a trailer for it earlier this morning, so definitely check that out if Monkey Island is your jam.

“Launch of the Screaming Narwhal” will be available soon, like, July 7 soon. I’m out of my mind excited about it. How are you guys feeling?

[Update: Sorry that the images did not show up. You should be able to view the concept art now.]

source Destructoid

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Once upon a time, the Dragon Ball franchise was behind some of Atari’s highest grossing titles. Throw the words “dragon” “ball” and “budokai” on a box and Atari would be looking at money in the bank. Those days are behind us — Namco Bandai has announced that its secured exclusive North American rights to publish all future Dragon Ball titles across all major consoles and handhelds for the next five years.

The deal officially begins in January of 2010, but Namco Bandai are getting a head begin later this year. The publisher has secured the rights to publish three Dragon Ball titles in 2009: Dragon Ball: Raging Blast for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo for the Wii; and Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans for Nintendo DS.

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If you don’t know who Grandmaster Flash is, you need to take some kind of modern music history class. Or play Activision’s DJ Hero when it ships this fall… because he’s in it.

Grandmaster Flash contributed both his likeness and exclusive mixes to the game — “DJ Kool & DJ Demo ‘Here Comes My DJ’ vs Gary Numan ‘Cars’” and “Herbie Hancock ‘Rockit’ vs N.E.R.D. ‘Lapdance’.” Additionally, you’ll hear his voice during the game’s tutorial mode, and developer Freestyle Games created an exclusive mix for the game using two of “Grandmaster Flash’s original creations” (whatever that means), “Boom” and “Tap.”

Activision has also released two gameplay videos of the aforementioned mix tracks, with both of them being played on Expert. While I haven’t put my hands on the deck yet, both of the tracks look really… simple. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d expect players to be hitting the middle button — the sample trigger track — more often than I’m seeing.

Maybe it’s one of those deceptively difficult games. I hope to find out as soon as Activision lets me go hands-on with the peripheral. Honestly, I can’t wait.

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They say videogames pull families apart, but in the case of the ironically named Law family, a Wii certainly helped bring a mother and her children closer together. It’s been alleged that three kids aged between 13 and 18 stole a Wii from a neighbor, and then pawned the item with help from the mom of one of the thieves.

16-year-old Patrick Early told police that his mother, 41-year-old Maxine Law, knowingly pawned the stolen item for the boys at a local shop. At the time of writing, it’s not sure whether or not a formal charge has been made for the mom, but she was arrested and cops are now trying to ascertain whether she did it.

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