System3 CEO Mark Cale recently sat down with PALGN to talk a little about their upcoming DS, Wii and PSP titles Leaderboard, California Games and Ferrari Challenge. Essentially remakes of retro Commodore 64 titles, System3 is enhancing the visuals and game play of these classic titles and bringing them to everyones favorite handheld, the Nintendo DS (and not everyones favorite, the Sony PSP). Some of the enhancements to California Games, one of my most favorite games EVAR, is the addition of online multiplayer! A long-desired feature of the arcade elite of yesterday. The DS version will have four player multiplayer, with up to 8 players being able to shred head to head on the PSP

PALGN: You touched on California Games, which was such a massive hit back in the day, can you tell us a little bit about how the modern day remake is going to be handled?

Mark Cale: We’re re-skinning the game, bringing it up to date having the original available to play, which is the total 64 version, not emulated but totally redone from scratch, but using the exact 64 animations and positions as well as generally re-skinning, bringing it totally up to date with the look, the feel and the sound and then to merge we’ve got the original character in the new re-skinned background, that withstands the test of time. California Games however withstands the test of time in terms of being a sports title and a great, fun title to play against your friends. Unfortunately, the one disadvantage it has is that it that it only ever had six events. So, how do we get over that? Well, the simple answer for us is that, what you do is you have your six events, which if you recall were the surfing, the BMX, the Frisbee, the Keepy Uppy, half pipe and rollerblading. Once you compete in these events, if you get a gold medal in one of the events, it unlocks Summer Games 1 and 2, and you are then chosen the represent your country, and then you represent your country playing Summer Games 1 and 2, so what it does is that it actually unlocks a whole sort of a game series, instead of giving you just six events, you’ve now got twenty two events.

Read more: Mark Cale talks California Games

A bit late, but still worth it. Call of Duty still goes on, with the trailer for Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare burning up the internets a few weeks ago. In it, we saw lots of explosions, some tanks tearing things apart and heard a little Russian language speech talking about one less nation. World War 3 FTW!

Sweet baby Jesus I hope this is true. As the Star Wars license wallowed away under the steaming pile that was the prequels and the horrible mess that Star Wars Galaxies became, Knight of the Old Republic was a bright shining star of the Force. Even the sequel, “Sith Lords”, though rushed and extremely buggy, was of higher quality than Galaxies. I remember thinking, self, this needs to be an MMO. Well, it seems that dream will come true. Rumors are flying around the gaming press about a recent news report from CVG stating that BioWare has recently begun forming an online team to work on a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic MMO. Though no true details have emerged, just the fact that it appears BioWare is behind the development can only mean it will be perfection.

Read more: Knight of the Old Republic MMO in the works?

The world of mods and games hacking knows no bounds and I for one am a huge supporter of fan-made conversions. Beyond the Red Line is such a mod, developed by a talented group of game artists, developers and fans of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series. Based entirely on Freespace 2 by Volition, Beyond the Red Line is a total conversion package which will be free to download and play upon release. Supporting online multiplayer, Beyond the Read line promises to allow players to perform some of the interesting space maneuvers which appear in the series during various gameplay modes, such as deathmatch, team deathmatch and possibly even coop missions. Demo versions of the upcoming game are available in PC, MAC and Linux flavors for those of us who wish our last name was Adama.

Read more: Beyond the Red Line

9dragons, the martial arts MMO from (the new) Acclaim is currently running their open beta phase and have finally added a European server for us on the motherland. 9dragons is a massive-multiplayer martial arts title, re-creating the ancient myths of early Asian, allowing you to explore, learn and battle rival fighters along with your friends, mentors and fellow disciples.

Chop more: 9Dragons

Having played around with developing on the Torque Engine in the past, I still like to pop in and see what’s going on with the enhancement of the engine and related tools from time to time. That’s how I came upon Dreamlords and whoa was I surprised. The power of Torque is starting to really shine and Dreamlords looks to be an extremely interesting title. Combining an MMORPG with traditional RTS battled and long-term tactical strategy, Dreamlords looks to be a must for any indie games and MMO fan.

Hit the jump to watch an introduction to Dreamlords gameplay..

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Old but what the hell, I just found out that indie games darling Gish is heading to the PSP, bringing it’s dark and ultra-stylish art direction to a slowly dying platform. I’ve heard rumors all around that Sony is approaching high quality indie developers to bring their games to the PSP, which may be a smart move on their part, considering the few who still are interested in the PSP are homebrewers and indie developers. Gish is a unique 2D side-scrolling title, completely physics-based and featuring a Tim Burton-esque meets Japanese animation style ball of tar, rolling around and causing havoc. Congrats to the folks behind Gish!

Read more: Gish | Gish for PSP @ DVDboxoffice

A few days old, but hey, even old news is post-worthy when it points out how badly the PS3 is doing in the market. Over in Japan, the sales figures for January have rolled in and boy was it a surprise. Nintendo sold through around 405,000 units of their Wii console in comparison to the Sony PS3′s paltry 148,000 units. These are sold, in the homes, not ‘shipped’ which Sony (and to a degree Microsoft) are so often touting as their sales figures. The key for Nintendo’s success is to stretch their current lead throughout the rest of the year, with solid first and third party new releases and some real expansions in their online service, which is a bit weak to say the least. Online Wii Sports anyone? Yes please!

For the PS3? Sony can probably just hope their marketing team and execs don’t completely alienate the Europeans, who are their last hope of reclaiming market dominance. Though it’s starting to seem quite clear that mainstream games and consumers are replacing their PS2s as this generation’s console of choice with the Nintendo Wii, leaving the PS3 battling it out with the Xbox 360 for the fickle hardcore gamers market.

Read more: Wii outselling PS3 by 3 to 1 in Japan

Never has 3rd party accessories been so fashionable as now with the Nintendo Wii. These little beauties are genius, even if they are ‘prototypes’, basically an over-the-counter set of wrist weights with Wii stamped on them. Wiilympics? Wiirobics? When will the brilliantly delicious madness end!

Sweat more: Wii wrist weights prototype

Gaming and financial analyst Roger Eherenberg’s epic post tracking EA’s stock price and strategy is a great great read which he’s just revisited and revised. I’m actually still ingesting it all after the third read, but I can’t help but agree on just about every point raised. Focusing on EA’s mistake with focusing too much on the PS3, the article also takes Sony to task for their continued mis-steps in getting the PS3 into the homes of gamers and Nintendo’s brilliantly handled Wii which Eherenberg predicts is replacing the PS2 as the console of choice for mainstream gamers.

Read more: EA Revisited: Playing Catch Up on the Wii, Waking up to the Failure that is PS3