Mega Man Versus The Yellow Devil, The Face Painting

It's amazing how anything can become anyone's canvas -- for example, the human face. YouTube user Hkisame shows off this feat with a pretty darn awesome (and somewhat freaky) recreation of Mega Man's battle with the one-eyed menace, the Yellow Devil.

If there's one things Mega Man fans excel in, it's our devotion to celebrate the franchise with art. Creativity truly knows no bounds. Excellent work, Hkisame!

You can check out more equally awesome facial artwork at Hkisame's YouTube channel.

Keiji Inafune: The Book?

The decision on whether or not to cover the recent happenings of Keiji Inafune has been an on/off battle. One one hand, it'd be nice to keep tabs on the fellow who heavily influenced the Mega Man franchise, making it what it is today. On the other, since he's no longer associated with Capcom (and subsequently Mega Man), there's really not too much of a point. However, this news bite in particular may yet have to do with a certain Blue Bomber... maybe.

According to a listing at BK1, the former Capcom executive is writing a book, tentatively titled "Keiji Inafune Concept." Other than a suggested April release date, no other details are known at this time, however, the book's subtitle, "concept", bears a passing resemblance to the name of Inafune's new business, "Comcept."

Back in December, Inafune reportedly distributed a Comcept business card to an industry analyst -- the event taking place just a short while after the Comcept title first reared its head on Infanune's Inafking blog. It would seem this book, whatever it may be, relates to that of his new company.

So, what does this have to do with Mega Man? If it's an autobiography about Inafune's life in the gaming biz, chances are the book is bound to cover much of his escapades with the franchise. After all, he's pretty much had his hands all over it for some twenty-three years, making up a large portion of his career as a game designer.

If not a biography but more of an informal guide to game design -- a book housing his design philosophies, then perhaps he'll sneak in some Mega Man allusions in there. All speculations, of course.

Hopefully, we can expect an official comment in the near future. Depending on how things play out, I might continue to follow this. If not, I'd advise you to look elsewhere for future updates.

Credit: People's Republic of Rockman DASH

Rockman 8 Beta Version 2 Released

Hot on the heels of the public release of an early Rockman 8 beta build, comes the much demanded second beta. Downloadable below, v2 is a slightly later build (near final), whose big selling point is the absence of subtle graphical touches.

Rockman 8 Beta v2 download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OZ66XUI1

(Mediafire Mirror)

v2 is made up of six stages: intro, Grenade Man, Clown Man, Tengu Man, Frost Man and an incomplete Sword Man. All stages lack little graphical details, mostly within the background (and sometimes foreground). This is clearly evident in the screencaps above, such as the missing circuitry and blinking lights in Grenade Man's stage, and the overall blandness of Tengu Man's flying fortress.  Meanwhile, Sword Man's stage, or what's left of it, is presented in broad daylight as opposed to the orange, sunset motif of the final.

Frost Man's stage has been finalized at this point. Interestingly, part two of his stage actually features some additional highways and roads leading into the background, most of which are clearly hand drawn. For one reason or another, these were ditched in the final.

v2 contains no music, save for the Capcom jingle that plays upon boot-up. The music files are there within the .iso, but nothing plays during gameplay. This could be an error on my end, however, so you'll have to try it out and see for yourself.

Sound effects are a lot closer to the final but when it comes to animation, Rockman still runs like a chicken with its head cut off.

Feel free to give it a download from the above link. I haven't invested too much time in exploring some of the behind-the-scenes stuff so I look forward to anything you might find. As always, let us know via comments!

Thanks again Junkershvn and Henger83 for the release!

Mega Man X Tops MvC3 DLC Vote

The results for the fan-fueled Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 DLC polls are in and sure enough, Mega Man X came out on top.

The Maverick Hunter claimed victory of the Capcom side tonight with a total of 3,110 votes -- beating likes of other popular characters such as Phoenix Wright (2nd) and Strider (3rd), and two other Mega Man incarnations: classic (9th) and Mega Man.EXE (19th). The Battle Network incarnation of Bass and Sigma were other popular choices among fans, but ultimately placed 10th and 13th respectively.

If you intend to celebrate, do so with caution: X's victory does not necessarily guarantee the character a spot as future downloadable content. As stated on numerous occasions, this was a poll set up by the fans, not Capcom themselves. However, Capcom USA's Sven has stated they are well aware of the poll, and feedback may potentially influence future DLC.

With the poll at an end and victors declared on both sides, now's probably the time Capcom will begin to look at things a lot more closely. All we can do now is continue to support the top characters, and keep the hype alive and well.

I'll keep you informed if anything of interest develops.

Source: Capcom Unity

Hidden Stages Unearthed In Rockman 8 Beta

Immediately following the public release of the much sought after Rockman 8 beta, fans quickly began poking and prodding around its innards with hopes of discovering something, anything, that may be hiding among the iso. Sure enough, their efforts have not gone to waste: two more stages have been discovered.

With a little elbow grease, skeleton stages for Clown Man and Tengu Man have been forced out of hiding, revealing more unseen (and unheard) goodness. Both stages, though incomplete, tout drastically different layouts and feature a single piece of unused music:

You can download the beta (and the unused music) within the video's description.

On a related note: I've been hearing a lot of requests for the release of beta v2. I'm currently working on that, but I thought I'd give you all fair warning: it's not as significant as v1.

v2 is near final. The build consists of five and a half stages: introductory, Clown Man, Grenade Man, finalized Frost Man, and an incomplete Sword Man stage. Each stage is nearly identical to the final counterparts, but all lack certain graphical background details. All stages lack boss battles and all end with a dead end. The only way to return to the stage select is to reset the game.

So, yes, beta v2 doesn't contain anything hugely awesome like the unused swamp introductory stage. Still, it's worthy of a release just for the sake of completion. I'll be keeping you posted on that front.

Mega Man Tribute Contest Result Update

February 4th has come and gone, and all entries for Udon Entertainment's Mega Man Tribute project are accounted for. As particpants eagerly anticipate the good word, we have ourselves our first real update on the selection process.

According to a DeviantArt post made by Udon's Managing Editor Matt Moylan, "All the entries have been judged and the UDON crew’s top picks chosen. We are now awaiting artwork approval of the winners from Capcom before we announce the final line-up."

The fate of your piece is now at the hands of Capcom, who, I'm certain, should be sorting those out very soon. In the meantime, Matt has gone and revealed four wonderfully crafted Mega Man Tribute pieces by Udon's own in-house artists. The pieces, viewable below, will be featured in the book:

Stay tuned for future Mega Man Tribute updates! Participants, keep those fingers crossed and good luck!

Credit: The Mega Man Network

Real Maverick Virus Discovered

Not Mega Man news, per se, but fans of the X series should get a kick out of this little tidbit.  A year back, scientists uncovered the likes of a gnarly virus by the name of CroV. Now, that same team has returned to give it another glance, but this time, they discovered something a bit more versatile:

"While studying CroV, the researchers discovered a much smaller virus that frequently accompanied it. The new virus, which they term Mavirus (for "Maverick virus") is still a healthy size, as far as most viruses are concerned, weighing in at just over 19,000 DNA bases, and encoding 20 genes. But Mavirus never appeared on its own; instead, it was only active in cells when the larger CroV was around, even though it could enter cells on its own. The authors conclude that it probably steals CroV's copying machinery for making more Maviruses; this is consistent with the fact that CroV infections slow down when Mavirus is around."

"Tansposable elements, or transposons, are stretches of DNA that can move around the genome, hopping from place to place. They're so effective at this that about a third of the human genome is composed of various forms of transposons, which don't appear to do anything very helpful, but require energy to copy."

"Once in the genome, however, the viral DNA would be free to evolve into something closer to a parasite."

Dun dun dun!

Though likely not named after th X series virus, the real Maverick virus does seem to share some (albeit minor) similarities with the fictional computer virus. Fortunately, this puppy won't be causing organisms to go on a murderous rampage any time soon.

Full article available at Ars Technica. Thanks, Hypercoyote!

Mega Man Legends 3 Playable This Month In Japan

Want actual proof Mega Man Legends 3 is really in development? Later this month, if you're a resident of Japan, you can play it!

Capcom today announced plans for a special Nintendo 3DS event titled "3DS x Capcom Premium Demo Event." Taking place at the Belle Salle event space in Akihabara on the 29th, attendees will have the opportunity to actually play Mega Man Legends 3. The game will be presented in a prototype form, also slated to be demonstrated at a series of stage events.

The public demo will take place between 15:00 and 20:00. Admission is entirely free, so if you're in the area, do hop on over there and give it a spin!

Don't live in Japan? Cross your fingers for some gameplay footage to trickle out. I doubt Capcom will allow camera work, but you know how these things usually leak our way.

We'll keep you posted! Credit: Andriasang

Rockman 8 Beta Publicly Released

Rather than hogging this little gem all to oneself, Henger83 and Junker have chosen to share the Rockman 8 beta build with the Mega Man community. Available to download in the link below, you're now free to play the game to your heart's content or rip it open for the sake of research. Check it out:

Rockman 8 Beta V1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6ZGISZMK

(also included in the file, separate mp3s of each unused track!)

The beta spans across two stages: the introductory stage and a vastly different Frost Man stage. Each contains their own set of unused music, different graphics, and other oddities not present in the final retail build.

A set of debug features are readily available for your consumption, too, apparently. By holding down certain buttons, players can move Rockman aimlessly around the screen, slow down animations, and, with a second controller plugged in, control Rockman's stamina. You can learn how to pull that off and more right here!

As for any behind-the-scenes stuff such as unused sprites and the like... nothing's turned up yet.

I've taken a quick peak, but the only hidden elements I could find were some scratch pad notes left by the developers -- handwritten numbers and kanji indicating what goes where. Nothing earth shattering, but still kind of cool.

If you've got the capabilities to dig through the game yourself, please let us know if you unearth anything significant!

Enjoy~

Mega Man 3 Headed To North American PlayStation Network

The PlayStation Network is seeing the release of yet another Mega Man classic: Mega Man 3, err, I mean, Rockman 3!

Next week, March 8th, PlayStation 3 owners can download the Complete Works version of Rockman 3 for $5.99 or $3.00 if you're a PlayStation Plus member. As with past PSN Complete Works games, Rockman 3 will support cross platform play with both PS3 and PSP systems.

Do bear in mind, you're purchasing an untranslated version of Rockman 3 -- an enhanced port, to be exact, originally released way back in the late nineties in Japan. Being an import PSone classic, menus and other extras will retain their original Japanese text. Nevertheless, little no know Japanese is required to enjoy the main game itself.

And hey, with Mega Man 3 coming our way, it's only a matter of time before Rockman 4 jumps the pond! Hopefully we'll get that one sooner rather than later... preferably, the following week.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Early Mega Man Legends 3 Development Screenshots Surface (Update)

Over at the Japanese Devroom, Mega Man Legends 3 Director Masakazu Eguchi has shared several photos of a work-in-progress build of Mega Man Legends 3. These pictures hail from a demo version the staff whipped up to show off to the Capcom head honchos last week:

Because the Legends character models weren't quite finished, classic series characters acted as placeholders for the demo:

A little rough around the edges, but things will certainly shape up as development continues.

The images, viewable in full at Andriasang, are split up among three development periods; some come from a June 2010 build, others from an August/September 2010 build, and the remaining are from the most current build.

UPDATE: North American Devroom has published this story in English.

Now this is the stuff I think we've been waiting for. Hopefully, Eguchi will be sharing similar goodies in the coming days!

For more images, check out Andriasang's full report here

Rockman 8 Beta Version Playthrough (UPDATED)

Thanks to the efforts of Junkershvn and Henger83, we have ourselves some exceptional footage of a very early build of Rockman 8. Despite being only two stages in length, the build contains a wide array of differences from the final retail version including unused music, graphics and gameplay mechanics.

I'm currently attempting to see if we can release this build publicly. If it's a-go, I'll provide a direct download link to the .iso in this post (hopefully, for both builds). Once made public, perhaps we can begin ripping the unused music, sprites and any other hidden assets that might be buried within the code.

In the meantime, keep checking back on Henger83's YouTube Channel where more footage is expected surface.

UPDATE: Rockman 8 Beta V1 download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6ZGISZMK

Inside this file, the .iso, ripped unused tracks and more. If you find anything of interest, e-mail me!

More updates as they come!