A big week for Xbox Live Arcade this week - Darwinia+ is finally out this Wednesday for 1200MSP - Includes the original Darwinia and the Multiwinia expansion. Check out the video above for the Giant Bomb quick look.

Also this week is a doozy of a deal - 3 games have gone down in price for Xbox Live Gold members. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is available for 800MSP (was 1200), TMNT Reshelled is 400 (was 800), and Invincible Tiger is 800 (was 1200).

[Every week we round up the top news and interviews of the last week from console digital download site GamerBytes, featuring new information about Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, DSiWare and PSN Minis.]

What a week, eh? A new Sonic The Hedgehog is coming to all platforms, and it looks like it could be good! I was a huge fan of Sonic as a kid. Not so much now, but I really do hope they can pull through with this one.

A whole lot of games came out this week too - Chime, Fret Nice and Telltale's latest Monkey Island for everybody, while Final Fantasy VIII and ExciteBike: World Challenge finally came out in Europe.

We also had our final Developer Reflections article with PlayStation Network developer Creat Studio - they've got a lot more on the cooker this year, so keep a look out for them. Here's the highlights from the last week:

Store Updates

XBLA Update - Chime, Cheap Splosion Man, And 0 Day, Buku Sudoku, And 0D Beat Drop DLC
NA PSN Store Update - Fret Nice
EU PSN Store Update - Final Fantasy VIII, Minis Month
NA Nintendo Update - Legends Of Exidia, Golf Express, Monkey Island Chapter 5, Alex Kidd In Shinobi World And More
EU Nintendo Update - Excitebike: World Challenge, Snakenoid And More

GamerBytes Originals

Developer Reflections 2009: Creat Studios (Part 2)

Developer Reflections 2009: Creat Studios (Part 3)

Game Room Ratings Follow-Up - Regarding ESRB Ratings

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Black Rock Studio, Blizzard and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Black Rock Studio: Lead Vehicle Artist
"When a company the size of Disney steps into European development, it's pretty big news. Disney employs over 100,000 staff. It’s one of the biggest Entertainment companies in the world and it's getting serious about original games. We're a strong studio of just over a hundred people, based at the heart of beautiful and cosmopolitan Brighton, UK. Just a quick train ride away from London in an office where pretty much everyone gets a sea view. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly but focussed and our role is to create original racing game franchises."

CCP China: Senior Programmer
"CCP, makers of the largest game universe in existence, is looking for a Senior Engineer to be a part of the creative team that brought the world the groundbreaking MMO title, EVE Online. Successful applicants will join a seasoned team based in Shanghai, China where they will work on original games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3."

So Project Needlemouse has been unveilved - Sonic The Hedgehog 4, for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network And WiiWare, Coming Summer 2010. Trailer above.

The game is set to be episodic, but each episode will be the equivalent of one of the standard Sonic games - think Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. From the short bit of footage from the trailer the game looks great, and as a huge Sonic fan from back in the day, I've got some high hopes for this one. Let's hope the Sonic Cycle doesn't continue this time.

Source: Gamespot - Sonic 4 Q&A.

Organizers of GDC 2010 are reminding that today is the last day to register for up to 35% off pass prices for the March 9th-13th event, with the free Android phone offer also expiring today.

The Moscone Center, San Francisco-based event has just announced a raft of new lectures, including highlighted talks from Pixar notables, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, Double Fine's Tim Schafer, and Final Fantasy XIII's director Motomu Toriyama, and a surprise lecture from Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto.

However, Thursday, February 4th is the final day that GDC is accepting registrations at the early rate, which includes up to 35% discount from final pass prices. The early reg rate will be open until 11.50pm ET this evening.

In addition, today is the final day to register for free Nexus One and Verizon Droid by Motorola phones with GDC 2010 attendance, as part of a promotion between Google and Game Developers Conference. Select All-Access Pass and Summits & Tutorials Pass attendees will receive the phone, and more information is available on a GDC website page.

As well as the nine major Summits, from iPhone to indie and social games -- and notable tutorials on the first two days of the show, there are six main Tracks - programming, art, production, business, audio, and design - for GDC 2010. These include lectures from the creators of Assassin's Creed II, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Uncharted 2, Braid, God Of War III, Dante's Inferno, APB, and a host of other acclaimed games.

Game Developers Conference 2010 -- part of Think Services, as is this website -- will also play host to the GDC Expo Floor, including a host of notable tool companies, the recruitment-specific GDC Career Pavilion, the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival plus Awards and the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, open to all pass holders.

More information on many of the highlighted areas of GDC 2010 is available on the official Game Developers Conference weblog, and the GDC 2010 website has a full list of lectures, passes, and opportunities at this year's event, as well as specific on registration pricing and options.

Attendees are also reminded that they can email GDC 2010's registration staff -- or call them at 866-535-8997 or +1 (415) 947-6926 from 9am to 4pm PT each weekday -- if they have any issues registering. (All GDC 2010 registrations commenced before the 11.50pm ET deadline will be honored, even if any technical issues occur.)

With our recent story regarding Microsoft's Game Room only allowing games that would fall under E10+, we felt that people might be a little confused on how this actually works. So we spoke to the ESRB directly, and with it some more knowledge.

In regards to downloadable content for games already rated, if the DLC contains content that is in line with the original product's rating, it will extend to it. If it does not, like in the case of GTA: The Lost And The Damned, the content is required to be submitted to the ESRB for rating.

So as the Game Room is itself been rated E10+, all games that will be released for it will have to fall under the E10+ rating in order to get a free pass onto the Game Room.

E10+ does fit a lot of games, even those that most people would not expect - Streets Of Rage, Final Fight and other brawlers fit under the E10+ banner, probably due to the lack of blood.

There are very few games that fall within the Teen or Mature rating. On the Genesis there are a total of 18 games that were ever rated Teen or Mature including the Mortal Kombats and Golden Axe games.

However we may have been mistaken regarding one thing - games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat could make it to the Game Room, it's just that they would have to be rated outside of the Game Room for it to work. As we mentioned before - any DLC that fits outside the original guideline can still be a part of the game, but they'd have to be rated separately. A good example of this would be Lumines Live for the Xbox Live Arcade - the standard game is rated a standard E, but the Tokyo Club Mix Pack DLC had to be rated separately thanks to "Mild Suggestive Themes", and got an E10+.

BUt while it technically could happen, Microsoft are not interested in it at this moment. "We currently have no plans to feature titles of those [higher Teen and Mature] ratings", as per the previous article. But if we're going up the gaming evolutionary ladder with Game Room, we've got a long time before they even start thinking of emulating the Arcade boards those games titles work on, so don't worry about it.

As an added bonus, we also got the skinny on how music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero work with their DLC. The way it officially works is that music DLC isn't rated either, but is requires to display the song's RIAA warning should it have one. Fascinating!

Hope that clears everything up.

Halfbrick Studios have collaborated with news blog Destructoid to bring their happy little robot mascot into their upcoming Raskulls title.

Mr. Destructoid will be made available by unlocking him through the single-player campaign. This is not the first time the green robot has made it into a game - he was also available in Bomberman Ultra for the PlayStation Network as well as a few Xbox Indies titles.

We should hopefully see more of Raskulls soon, it's looking great so far.

Source: Destructoid

The charity puzzler Chime is now available on Xbox Live Arcade for 400MSP. It's a crazy 800+ meg file though, which is pretty damn crazy for such a simple looking game. Are they using uncompressed WAV files for music or something? Geez.

Also this week is a ton of downloadable content. 0 Day Attack On Earth gets a "Night Pack" for 560MSP, remixing previous levels with new enemy types in a night setting, Buku Sudoku got its twelfth Sudoku expansion for 160MSP, and 0D Beat Drop gets a musical expansion for 150MSP that's based on the fighter BlazBlue

And don't forget, 'Splosion Man is 400MSP for just this week on XBLA.

Getting a bit of attention means getting through peer review super fast. Your Doodles Are Bugged! is now live for 80MSP ($1).

I've played a good chunk of it now, and I quite like it. Gets pretty damn hard by the 8th level though - but give it a go anyhow.

Living in Australia, I'm usually not privy to cool little trinkets game writers get, but the nice fellows over at Introversion Software sent me an awesome package of swag I thought I'd mention.

The Darwinia+ package included a "digital dream-scape" book detailing the evolution of Darwinia from being a pit of DOOM Pinkies to what we know the game as today, a reviewer's book with details on the new title, a music soundtrack, and my very own little Darwinian to hug and kiss and call George. Props to the Introversion guys for sending it all out.

Flipping through the reviewers guide, it also reveals the game will include two Avatar Awards - A shirt for completing a mission of the single player mode, and a shirt for completing one multiplayer battle.

Darwinia+ will be hitting next week for 1200MSP. Be on the lookout for it.

With Paramount Entertainment's prior mining of their movie catalog with Star Trek D.A.C and The Warriors on the Xbox Live Arcade, it's no surprise they're doing it again - this time taking on 1990's Tom Cruise Vehicle Days Of Thunder.

The game is "inspired" by the original movie, featuring 4 tracks of Nascar variety where you can race against the characters from the film in single player modes, or hop online and race against 12 other players online.

The game is being developed by Piranha Games - the same fellows behind the upcoming Mechwarrior reboot, but also the guys behind Need For Speed Undercover for PSP and helped a bit with Need For Speed Shift. They do have some racing games under their belt, but the footage shown above looks very unfinished. Either they had a lot of trouble dealing with the video codecs, or that framerate is chugging like nothing else.

I'm a little worried about the project - like The Warriors it has a decent enough premise, but whether it has the budget to make it a top tier title is another question altogether.

A week or so ago we showed off some leaked footage of NeoGeo Battle Coliseum in action. Now SNK themselves have revealed more direct feed footage - and at 720p.

Still looks like a nice update with the graphics given a bit of smoothing over. Lets hope their other titles get similar treatments.