Last week's game releases introduced a lot of fun games, such as Dr. Mario DX and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. This week, however, is the week for game ports, with Mac getting its own conversion of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC, PS3, Xbox 360), the Nintendo DS getting the arcade classic Super Dodgeball Brawlers, and many others.

* Article originally posted May 26, 2008 at 12:37AM

We're letting you guys know that the fourth trailer of Gamecock's Mushroom Men title for the DS and Wii is now available for viewing. The clip will be featuring more of the game's sentient fungus, along with some new abilities you may not have seen before.

We've got a new Mushroom Men: The Spore War (DS and Wii) update for you in the form of a new trailer. In this trailer, we see some snippets of gameplay from the upcoming video game from Red Fly Studio and Gamecock Media Group. Check out the said trailer after the jump!

Independent works will always have a hard time finding its niche in an already established market, and video games are no exception. Usually the bottomline in creating a game is creativity versus profitability.

Steve Escalante, Business Development VP of the Gamecock Media Group, talked about this subject during the Texas' Independent Game Conference. Read more in the full article.

Want to know more about Gamecock Media Group and Red Fly Studio's Mushroom Men (for the Wii and DS)? Developer Ryan Mattson reveals a few more details to their fungi-infested title: about how the art style evolved to the way it is now, how the controls work out, and about level exploration, one of the main features of the game.

Mattson revealed that Red Fly Studios didn't intend the art style used in the game to turn out a tad nitty-gritty like the way it is now. Thanks to the personal touch of their concept artist, Frank Teran, the sceneries now look a bit darker. Judging by the screens, however, it looks like the changes all turn out to be good.

As for the controls, Red Fly Studios wanted to take out the emphasis of Wiimote waggling from the control interface, with an attack scheme that gives higher incentive to less Wiimote Waggling. How is this done? Mattson explains how:

So while you can waggle, and the character reacts to the waggle, there is much more incentive not to with a system we’re working on which allows attacks to be primed (for increased damage, and combos) before they’re executed. The attacks become deliberate. Combat, at a higher level, involves more strategy. And we’re having a lot of fun with this right now.

The developer also said that they're putting more focus towards exploration in the game, with the use of the Scav system. The Scav system, as we have reported in an earlier article, lets players create new kinds of weapons from the items they collect along the way. Of course, one has to explore to find stuff. "It's a win-win," Mattson said.

It looks like we're in for a different ride with Mushroom Men. Stay tuned for more updates!

Check out the Read link for the full interview!

Seeing the world through a three-inch high mushroom's "eyes" is definitely a unique way of viewing it in Gamecock Media Group's upcoming action-adventure platformer, Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars. Ryan Mattson, a designer for the game, talks about the early development stages for Mushroom Men.

A little bit of the story is finally revealed as he tells how two groups of sentient mushrooms, the edible and poisonous mushrooms, are at war with one another. The world of Mushroom Men builds itself from a unique view of how the creatures create strange and new weapons and equipment from various human artifacts through the use of the "scav system." I'm sure nobody can imagine a small mushroom trying to bludgeon a pill bug to death with a stick, a bit of string, with a metal nut attached on the end.

The game will be released for both the Nintendo Wii and the DS. The DS version will be a prequel of sorts compared to the Wii, however both are complete games in themselves and will still be an enjoyable experience either way. The game is slated to be released in the fall of 2008.

In the meantime, enjoy the video of this fungi infested action-adventure game.

E3 came and went, and Gamecock Media Group saw it fitting to celebrate the end of the eventful affair with a bang. Well, sort of. A not-so-sombre funeral procession for the "death" of this year's E3 was held on the eve of the event's final day, spearheaded by the masters of anti-mainstream Gamecock.

A motley crew comprising of a Chinese dragon, masked stilt walkers accompanied the funeral march, with the dirge performed by drummers and a horn section with flourish.

Gamecock's Mike Wilson turned up in the procession donning a hospital gown - he was rushed to the ER the night before. The reason? "I think I got some E3 on me and I've gotten very sick for the last couple of days," Wilson said. "I had to be rushed to the hospital in the night after shaking in my bed for hours for the second day in a row."

Terrible? Quite so. But according to Wilson, he would have gone to the parade without wearing any pants if it weren't for the hospital gown that was given to him. Things would have gone worse otherwise.

Could the funeral procession, which marched from Santa Monica pier to Venice Beach, mean more than the end of E3 festivities? Or could it be meant for the rhetorical "death" of the festive, traditional E3 that gamers have known and loved?

Wilson sympathizes with the people who were badly affected by the sudden change of E3, which went from being free-for-all to attendance only. "'I've been meaning to go over to Barker Hanger' is what everybody's been saying, but nobody can go," Wilson said, referring to independent and aspiring game developers.

Even as the Entertainment Software Association's (ESA) E3 Media & Business Summit draws closer this week, the invite-only event may have scared off many publishers and developers, aside from consumers, due to extraneous costs and a smaller retail presence. Reports are coming in that companies have declined their invites, while others have wanted to go but never received an invite.

Tecmo (Ninja Gaiden Sigma) was one company that had turned down the invite to the E3 Media & Business Summit, following a history of impolite treatment from the organizers, lower retail presence and a pessimistic outlook on the part of Tecmo. "New show management didn't seem to know what they were doing," said John Inada, vice president.

A representative from GameStop had claimed that the company had "limited folks" who were going to attend the show, but it appeared to major publishers that no retail presence was going to show up at all. Retailers such as Best Buy have been reported to opt out entirely, prompting other publishers to high-tail it out of the event.

"Why should we bother dealing with the ESA's confusion when we can meet with our retail partners separately and then stage our own gamers' day event later on in the year where we set the rules? It just doesn't make any sense," said a source, coming from a publisher not going to E3.

In contrast, XSEED Games (Brave Story: New Traveler) didn't have a choice laid out for them. Even while the publisher decided to go to the event, they didn't receive an invite. "Assuming we had a chance to participate, the costs of securing a meeting area in one of the hotels, from what I've heard indirectly through third parties, would have been cost-prohibitive for us," added XSEED's Ken Berry, head of sales and marketing.

Money was another issue, forcing even some of the big name publishers to re-think their showcasing strategies and host their own events, rather than attend E3. GameCock Media Group (Sector 8) created their own little E3 in response to the new invite-only arrangement.

Publishers believe that E3 needs more tweaking if they're to attend the succeeding events - a possibility that's fast fading after many other companies anticipate 2007 as E3's final year. In an end-note, GameCock's co-founder Mike Wilson said:

We're going to have some fun on the beach and say good-bye to the magical beast of yore that was E3. I'd say there's a fair chance there won't be a show called E3 anything next year, which is why we're saying farewell to it on the beach. But I can't wait to see what emerges.

For those of us keeping tabs on one of Gamecock Media Group's upcoming creations, Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars for the Nintendo Wii and Dual Screen, here's a new trailer to whet your appetites for the game that promises to make weaponry out of everyday objects.

For a trailer, it doesn't show much - there's no gameplay bits to speak of, or any new info that could give us a clue on how the game would actually play. However, we do see quite a lot of what appears to be the designs for new units, namely bipedal red mushrooms sporting tattered red cloaks. Details are still scant, of course, but it's probably safe to say that these dudes in scarlet represents one of the playable factions waging war in our own backyard.

Enough spoilers! Enjoy the video!

A few more details were released today, as the Gamecock media group begins the long and hard preparations they're expecting to face come the Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) event.

The first important detail guys will want to know will be the event schedules - a press release we've picked up indicates that the EIEIO event will be from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on July 11, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 12, and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on July 13.

On the event proper - the second detail - visitors can enjoy quite a number of treats, including playable games, accessible developers, Gamecock suckers - we assume this means the Gamecock dev team - and food and drinks. As for Gamecock CEO Mike Wilson's take on EIEIO, and its comparison to the upcoming E3 event:

EIEIO is going to be a celebration of the amazing lineup of independent developers that Gamecock has been lucky enough to sign on, and I'm thrilled to say that every one of them will be in attendance to give personal demos of their works in progress. And, of course, there will be a truckload of that very special Texas hospitality that our friends have come to expect. While this year's E3 'business summit' might seem a bit strange and uptight, those who still harbor a true love for original games and the talented folks that create them should know that there’s plenty of room at the Hotel California. Such a lovely place...

The EIEIO event is expected to take place in Hotel California, at 1670 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica, CA.