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Namco Bandai's flagship franchise of RPGs, the Tales Of series, just got a bit more crowded. Earlier today we learned of a new entry to the series on the DS, a highly-anticipated sequel on the Wii, a director's cut of a recent remake, and a port to the PSP.

First off is Tales of Innocence for the DS. The game will ship in Japan before 2007 ends, and is being made by the same team that makes the Radiant Mythology games. Also, the DS has been declared officially as the "lead platform" for the Tales Of series, so we can assume to see a great many more DS Tales games in the future; hopefully they won't be made in the tradition of 2006's universally panned Tales of the Tempest.

In addition to Tales of Innocence, there was an announcement for a director's cut of the PS2 remake of Tales of Destiny, which began life as the second game in the Tales series and the first on the Playstation. We don't know what new features will be present in this re-release of a remake, and it's hard to say when we will; the game has an unspecified 2008 release date in Japan.

Thirdly, there was an announcement for a PSP port of Tales of Rebirth, a 2004 PS2 game that never had a Western localization. ToR is notable for being the first Tales game to use fewer bright colors and more realistic character anatomy than most of its predecessors; design-wise, it essentially bridges the gap between the art styles of Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss. There is no announcement yet for a Western release of this PSP port, but it is also scheduled for an unspecified 2008 release date in Japan.

Lastly, Namco Bandai announced a sequel that is sure to excite many Tales fans: Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk for the Nintendo Wii. It is set to take place two years after the events of Tales of Symphonia with in the same world, but starring two new main characters. It is unknown what roles the original cast of Tales of Symphonia will play, but it is safe to assume that they won't be completely absent from the game.

So that's four new games announced from this well-milked franchise, including a new stand-alone title and a sequel to one of the series' most popular entries. 2008 looks to be a very busy year for Tales Of.

Source: RPGamer

The final round is now underway, again, sorry for the delay. This round will start immediately, and will run until 11:59pm GMT on 24 July, just to make sure that everyone has plenty of time. The final winners will be announced soon after, since I will probably be traveling for work on the 24th and 25th.

This is the round that will determine the winners, folks, so give it your all. We're taking ten of our best performers from the second round to have a shot at the big prize; your finalists, alphabetically, are:

alphasmart
archetype
Death Penalty
Dragon_Fire
FallingHeart
Nytecrawla
Sherick
Shotgunnova
Silver_Zombie
The_Pink_Nu1

And then we added two bonus participants, footbigmike and MogMaster, due to the fact that they won the two other groups in the second round. So, there you have it, the top twelve folks going for the big prizes, totaling $60 in AmaCoN gift cards!

If you're not in this list, though, make sure you participate in the final week anyway; anyone who participates this week can still be eligible for the $5 consolation prize. And, to help everyone out a little bit, we've updated the hint page to link to our last.fm pages.

Once we finish up this last round, everyone will have a chance to take all the quizzes they weren't able to take as part of the actual contest, and we'll have score leaderboards too. And after that, who knows? We'll try to set something up for you!

Revealed in yesterday's E3 conference, Sony's handheld is now undergoing a redesign. The new one is significantly slimmer and lighter, and now has a video output that lets you play PSP games on a television screen. The new PSPs also feature faster loading times and improved battery life.

These new models will be released in 2007. There is also a new package deal and price point - the "piano black" and "ice silver" color schemes will cost $199 US and come bundled with a 1-gig memory stick, the game "Daxter", and a UMD of "The Family Guy Freakin' Sweet Collection," while a "Star Wars Battlefront Special Edition" PSP (vanilla white with a black image of Darth Vader on the back) will come with the memory stick as well as a copy of Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron. The original PSP will retain its recently reduced cost of $169 US.

Source: Engadget

In the latest tidbit regarding Final Fantasy IV DS, Square Enix has opened auditions to find a vocalist for the game's title song, Theme of Love.

Auditions are open to anyone 18 and older, regardless of gender and experience. Applicants are required to send in a basic profile, self introduction, photo, and demo tape. And, in the spirit of the auditions, Theme of Love composer Nobuo Uematsu as well as Final Fantasy IV Director Takashi Tokita have recorded their thoughts and discussions regarding the topic of love. Radio streams of this discussion are available on Square Enix's website.


Sources:
GA Graphic
Dengeki Online

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I'm tempted to record a demo tape and send it in. Too bad (or, good thing) I'm very aware of how awful my singing voice is. :P

Nonetheless, this seems a magnanimous choice for Square Enix to make. I'd imagine any FFIV fan, diehard or not, would be thrilled to have their own voice gracing the title sequence of the game. And therefore Square is sure to amass quite a few entires to work through after their July 31 deadline.

On another note, and as a followup to one of our previous FFIV DS newsposts, a few more Shonen Jump scans of the FFIV DS teaser pages are available at French gaming site JeuxFrance.

Sony officially reduced the MSRP of the 60-gig model of the Playstation 3 from $599 to $499, but you can still pay the full six hundred bucks if you want to, as they also announced plans to release a new 80-gigabyte PS3 that will sell from the $599 price point.

Five hundred bucks is still pretty expensive, but hey, five hundred is less than six hundred, right?

Source: Joystiq

If you signed up for our contest, well, it's on now. You will have until midnight GMT (7pm EST) next Saturday, 7 July, to get your answers in. You've been broken into four groups, and each group gets a different quiz. The top scorers from each of the four groups will move on to the next round next week.

I'll send out a PM to everyone participating - good luck to every one of the fifty-two of you who signed up!