In keeping with the retro-y spirit of Mega Man 9, Capcom decided to commission I Am 8-bit artist Gerald de Jesus to create the most awful faux box art possible for the game. Capcom then put it on T-shirts for its staff to wear at E3. The idea was to mimic the atrocious cover of the original Mega Man for NES (widely considered to be the worst box art of all time) and it worked. Really well.

Capcom's head PR honcho, Chris Kramer, has updated the company's blog with word that the exceedingly kitsch shirts will actually be re-printed for sale to the masses, although exactly when and where we can expect to snap one up is still being ironed on out.

Short version: Mega Man 9 is, well, Mega Man. That's the whole point, isn't it?

Not quite as short and possibly more elaborate than the game deserves version:

As the haze begins to lift from last week's media circus, we hope you're in the mood to play games from your favorite genre. As long as that includes obscure 16-bit shooters, as this week's Virtual Console additions include a pair of Genesis-era side-scrolling shmups designed to keep you flying horizontally and mashing the fire button all night long.

• Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis, 1 player, 900 Wii Points): The lesser-known follow up to Sega's Master System original, this shooter will have you scrolling sideways as you shoot down bad guys and collect cold coins in ultra-colorful fashion.
• Gley Lancer (Genesis, 1 player, 900 Wii Points): It's the year 2025, the Earth is at odds with an alien race, and the hope for humanity rests on the shoulders of a 16-year old girl named Lucia. Just be home before midnight, young lady.

If you've been able to make it out to any of the i am 8-bit exhibitions in the past, then you've seen some incredibly cool artwork from the 8-bit movement. If you haven't, then just check out the scads of pictures from their past two shows, or pick up their book featuring high-quality photos of the pieces.

If you're in the Los Angeles area from August 14th through September 7th, then stop by the World of Wonder storefront gallery at 6650 Hollywood Blvd. They're having an opening night party, and we'll be on hand to get plenty of pictures of the new art to pass along like we did last time. Hopefully, we'll have more Evil Mario this year.

Some would say Geometry Wars Retro Evolved was Xbox 360's best launch game -- it beat early hyped games like Perfect Dark Zero, Call of Duty 2, and Kameo to win the heart of 360 early adopters, despite the fact that it was 2D and a cheap XBLA version of a game that had previously been included with Project Gotham Racing 2. It held the record for a long time as the system's most-downloaded game, and that title was well-deserved, considering that a lot of $60 games haven't held a candle to the kind of frantic fun you can find pushing that little red ship around the board.

Now Bizarre Creations is attempting to follow up with Geometry Wars 2, and after our playthrough at E3, we're sold. Not only has the developer filled out the game with multiplayer and co-op modes, but Bizarre has figured out a way to make the super simple, yet extremely fun gameplay go deeper than ever before.

Scott Austin, Microsoft Director of Digitally Distributed Games, tells us that there are talks in progress with "a potential partner who has lots of board game IP." He says that XBLA's boardgames are considered evergreen content by Microsoft -- games like Catan and Carcassone sell well all the time -- and that Microsoft is definitely looking to include more traditional board games in the Arcade. They expect the same kind of evergreen popularity for their Xbox Live Primetime service, which will combine online gaming on XBL with a television-style format.

We asked Austin if the potential partner in question was a maker of more complex board games -- a D&D-esque board game like BattleLore or Runebound would likely work very well on Xbox Live -- but he was not forthcoming. For all we know a deal is being struck with a more traditional board game maker like Parker Brothers. Either way, fans of board games on Xbox Live will definitely have more to look forward to.

Update: The relationship between potential board game content and the Xbox Live Primetime service was clarified.

At their E3 press conference today, Sony announced a new hardware bundle for their still-running-strong PS2 system. The package will come with a copy of Lego Batman and a DVD of the Justice League animated movie, all for $149. Not a bad deal, especially considering the system alone costs $129 these days. Sony also stressed the strength of the still-growing PS2 library at the conference, mentioned 130 games coming to the system in 2008, including Yakuza 2, Force Unleashed, NCAA Football, Tiger Woods, Warriors Orochi 2, Singstar Pop vol. 2, Madden, and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

Things may (or may not) include beehives, shurikens, mysterious yellow substances and utterly uncomfortable stares. This week's Virtual Console additions, while being pleasant diversions, seem largely intent on teaching you how to disperse dangerous items and substances, often to the detriment of the people in your way.

• Donkey Kong 3 (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Shoot Miyamoto's remarkably famous monkey and woman-stealing pseudo ass, Donkey Kong, in the crotch. Does that punishment seem appropriate for the crime?
  
• Ninja Commando (NeoGeo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points): You've just traveled to lovely and moderately sunny feudal Japan, and your first response is to annihilate everything. Obviously.

So between following things like massive survey leaks and price drop rumors and generally preparing for next week's big trade show, we've been a little preoccupied here at Joystiq's massive, 50-story headquarters. So preoccupied, in fact, that we haven't really been keeping up with the recently-announced sequel to one of our favorite crazy Japanese imports, Rhythm Tengoku.

Luckily, our friends over in the DS Fanboy shack have been keeping up with Rhythm Tengoku Gold, which hits Japan in just a few short weeks on July 31. Like the Game Boy Advance original, Gold takes WarioWare style minimalist graphics and simple mini-game-fueled play and adds a much needed sense of rhythm to the proceedings. 1UP has some more details on the new title's 50 toe-tapping tasks, which include "keep[ing] a ping-pong rally going, taking pictures as a cameraman, running a choir by opening and closing your mouth at the right time, dancing with birds, attracting a lizard mate by using your maracas-like tail to shake to the beat," and more. Really, how can you not love a game that includes lizard mating?

The chances for a domestic release for this quirky title are probably somewhere between slim and none, so if you're looking for some more rhythm-infused craziness, hit up your favorite importer. You do that while we go back to our reguarly-scheduled pre-E3 madness.

As if we didn't already have enough ways to purchase Joust, Midway has launched the "Midway Arcade," which offers just as much quarter-pumping excitement as the name implies. The online store -- really, it's just a store -- features 14 ancients for purchase and download in preset bundles, along with, oddly enough, $5 PC versions of select games from Midway's TouchMaster compilation for DS. Midway's also selling some of its contemporary efforts -- in another location -- for direct download to PC, highlighted by titles like Unreal Tournament 3 and ... what's this? Midway Arcade Treasures! That's right, today alone, we've got two new ways to own Joust. You know, just in case.

The full list of releases is posted after the break.

Old hardware doesn't die ... it just gets hacked. As documented in the above video, Jeff Ledger has pieced together a clever little collection of chips and wires to bring vaguely Wii remote style interaction to the Commodore 64.

Perhaps it should be called Wii-ffle Ball, since he's taken a wiffle bat, attached an accelerometer to it, and created an interface that lets the C64 read the sensor's output as a button press. When the bat is swung fast enough, it triggers the switch and, in this case, tells Street Sports Baseball to "swing away."

[Via Hack a Day]

While we still don't think the iPhone App Store makes the do-everything cell phone a threat to the DS, we are impressed with the growing list of big-name franchises being ported to the system. We can now amend that list to include the Bomberman series, with Hudson's with the recent announcement of Bomberman Touch: Legend of the Mystic Bomb.

A video trailer (embedded below the jump) shows what looks like a transparent, touch-screen d-pad placed over the on-screen action to control Bomberman, sort of like the interface for the earlier iPhone PlayStation emulator . According to Hudson, the game will include "classic Bomberman powerups and original special items" and take advantage of "the unique iPhone / iPod touch interface of flicking, tapping, and tilting with a built-in accelerometer." No word on a multiplayer mode, but with the iPhone's Wi-Fi capabilities, a local wireless option would hopefully be a no-brainer.

Bomberman touch joins water-based puzzle game Aqua Forest and the always lucrative Sudoku in Hudson's announced line-up for the iPhone.

[Via Apple iPhone School. Thanks, Kamarul]

Our first thought upon seeing this very cool hack was "that's awesome." Our second thought was "do you have to blow on it to make it work?"

BenHeck.com forum member "darkeru" created this inventive new take on a home made NES portable, which manages to squeeze all of the 8-bit dynamo's guts into a 4.1" by 5.5" space ... with a backlit LCD display. We just had a third thought: what happens when you connect it to this portable NES?

[Via Hack a Day]

Beyond some crappy scans and lots of speculation, real info on the WiiWare return of Mega Man has been scant. Well, GamesRadar just opened the flood gates with its exclusive, proper reveal of Mega Man 9, featuring a hands-on by Nintendo editor Brett Elston and an interview with series creator (and MM9 producer) Keiji Inafune.

Elston reports that Mega Man 9 is ... well, it's essentially an NES game – just as difficult as the original 8-bit installments of the famed series. "Mega Man 9 is easily on par or above the hardest games in the series," Elston says, adding: "Hell, we played for two hours and only made it to three bosses, and even then only beat two." Read on after the break for more new info.

You can't put a price on nostalgia. But you can put a date on it -- at least if you happen to live in Japan. Our friends at Nintendo Wii Fanboy send word that according to Famitsu, Mega Man 9 will bound onto the Japanese WiiWare service sometime in September.

This gives us hope that the company's irresistibly retro take on the Blue Bomber will soon be released in other regions as well. However, Capcom remains mum regarding its agenda, leaving us to wait until E3 to find out more about its plans for the pixilated hero's WiiWare-only digital launch outside of Japan. Now where did we put those rose-colored glasses?

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]