Animal Crossing is a one-hit-wonder. You might like it and play it forever, hate it and avoid it completely, or think it was catchy and then just get tired of the tune. Animal Crossing: City Folk does little to change our perception. This is Animal Crossing, again; go fishing, pull weeds, repeat. Some love it, some hate it, and some just want something new.

From what we saw at the Nintendo Media Summit, the city is just another place to go. Instead of Tom Nook's shop in your own town, you can buy from an upscale store. Instead of waiting for the fortune teller to visit, you can see her in the city. A few minor additions include a city-based auction house and theater where you see shows.

The rest of the updates seem equally subtle. You can play with your Mii face. Up to four players can meet in one of their towns or the city. Gamer can talk over the WiiSpeak microphone (sold separately). You can type messages by plugging in any USB HID keyboard. Otherwise, it's Animal Crossing again.

When we raved about the Othello-based, Neopets Puzzle Adventure, we couldn't scrub away the sadness of endorsing something built on a Tomagotchi-knock-off. We name-dropped how it's being developed by Infinite Interactive, creators of Puzzle Quest, but that wasn't enough. We shivered for weeks.

Capcom let us know that the PC and DS versions are due by the end of October, while a Wii edition is coming later. So you'll soon be able to share our love of the puzzler (and self-loathing). Check out our original impressions again for the full details.

E for All remains the ghostly and distant third cousin of the previous mammoth version of E3 that's open to the public, and it takes place inside the carcass of that fearsome beast, the Los Angeles Convention Center. While we misjudged the time and arrived two hours early, that gives us plenty of time to peruse the schedule and pick our poison.

So far the highlights include:

• A treadmill race across Azeroth
• Meet and greet with Billy Mitchell
• Samples of Gamer Grub, snacks developed for gamers
• Hands-on with Ubisoft's Far Cry 2, Tom Clancy's End War, Shaun White Snowboarding, and Activision's Guitar Hero World Tour
• Putting our butt in a Boom Chair
  
• And the... Los Angeles Unified School District? "Participating students will obtain a deeper understanding of video games and how they can be incorporated into their future careers from speakers – including Fatal1ty – who will describe their experience with video games and ways to break into the industry." Run kids, run.

Though we still feel the less traditional application of a pedometer is the more prudent one -- you never know how many pedophiles could be in the area -- Nintendo has decided to stick with one that merely counts steps. Judging by one of the videos shown during its recent presentation in Japan, the trademarked device will be tied (at least initially) to a Nintendo DS fitness title.

The promotional material seems to indicate that it will be out in November. The presence of the pedometer indicates that it will require physical activity on our behalf. Therefore, we think it unlikely that the number of steps taken to procure it will exceed zero.

Maybe if the FedEx guy sticks it in the refrigerator.

[Via DS Fanboy]

For PS3 owners somehow unacquainted with Puzzle Quest, we suggest stocking up on antibiotics and extra time. D3Publisher has revealed plans to bring not only the original Puzzle Quest but also its recent fan-named expansion, Revenge of the Plague Lord, to the PlayStation Store this winter, a move that according to our calculations will make it scientifically impossible not to have lost sleep playing the puzzle-RPG hybrid.

Both titles will be released as a single purchase and download, though the publisher has not announced how much the time sink combo will cost. We're currently waiting to hear back from our man on the street, who's diligently checking the alleys to see how much a twofer of digital crack goes for these days, anyway.

[Via PS3F]

PopCap games has announced Bejeweled Twist, a "new spin on the match-3 genre" due out next month. The game will be officially unveiled October 27 at an event at Seattle's Experience Music Project Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame. It will launch as a $20 download on PopCap's website.

As to what the new "twist" on the genre will be, PopCap isn't saying. The game has reportedly been in development for three years, so we're curious what the team has done with that time aside from swimming in a pool of casual gamer money. Our best guess is that Popcap has taken the Bejeweled board and rotated it 45 degrees. What a twist!

What do you know, people actually did pay for Spore. EA recently announced that its DRM-riffic title Spore has sold one million copies worldwide across PC, Mac and DS platforms. The publisher also stated that 25 million creatures, vehicles and buildings have evolved in the Sporepedia.

Not that there was any doubt that Spore would ever reach the million sold mark, but whether its "mile wide, inch deep" gameplay brings it The Sims level of success remains to be revealed.

The second quarter has come and gone, and while our XBLA download queues have be left decidedly Peggle-free, PopCap's Greg Canessa remains adamant that the addictive puzzler is still on its way. In a recent interview, the PopCap exec blamed the game's tardiness on the addition of further polish and improvements, including 4-player local and online multiplayer over Xbox Live. Goodbye, free time!

Canessa also let slip Peggle's XBLA pricing of 800 Microsoft Points ($10), and while a firm release date for the title still remains up in the air, puzzle addicts can rest a little easier knowing that their addiction-of-choice is still expected to drop like so many colored pegs sometime before the year is out.

[Via X3F]

Ready, ok! Hey, you waggle fans! Stand right up and clap your hands! Namco Bandai has sent along, the complete list of We Cheer songs!

There, that can get us motivated to talk about anything. According to Namco, the over-cute cheer squad you see above will jump and shout to the tune of 30 "high-energy master tracks," including artists such as Boys Like Girls and Paramore, as you wave one or both Wii remotes through the air like "virtual pom-poms." Feel free to check out the game's entire 30 song catalog after the break as you wait for We Cheer to energize retail shelves with pep on September 30. And if this set list doesn't work for you, just remember to be aggressive. Be be aggressive.

There are many ways to deal with the boredom that can sometimes strike during lengthy World of Warcraft sessions -- other than walking away from the computer to partake in a more enjoyable activity (that's just unthinkable). Some people level up new characters. Some people head to the Barrens area to spew their hate-speech towards like-minded scoundrels. However, the virtual denizens of Azeroth will soon be wasting their time using a popular, real-life time wasting engine -- PopCap's uber-successful casual puzzler, Bejeweled.

The in-game add-on began as a homebrew Bejeweled clone from Michael Fromwiller, cleverly titled Besharded. Fromwiller developed the add-on as a method of killing time during long raids and farming sessions, but it wasn't too long before PopCap caught wind of the MMO mini-game. Instead of issuing a timely cease and desist, the casual gaming colossus hired Fromwiller to create a more polished version of the application. The add-on will launch this coming Thursday -- it would probably be wise to put in as much quality time with your WoW-playing acquaintances before then, as you won't be seeing them again for quite some time.

Now, it's official: LittleBigPlanet will launch in North America on October 21. During launch week, those who purchase the game will be able to download a free "limited edition Spacesuit costume" from the PSN store (picture after the break).

Sony also confirmed other regional dates: Europe, Australia & New Zealand Oct. 22; UK & Ireland Oct. 24 and Japan Oct. 30. Meanwhile, the 80GB LBP PS3 bundle will release Oct. 29 in Europe and Oct. 31 in the UK and Ireland. And those are LittleBigPlanet's OfficialReleasePlans.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Life With PlayStation is available worldwide now. Hopefully the app won't be pulled again considering Sony sent out an official press release about the global launch this time. To update, PS3 owners need to go to the Folding@Home icon and then they'll be prompted to upgrade to Life with Playstation. The initial content is the news-and-weather "Live Channel." Our initial impressions: It's a very high-def and slick version of the Wii's news and weather channels.

Which is terrible news, by the way. We've been trying to write this post since the weekend, but have been unable to escape Peggle Nights' "just one more go" vortex. Its predecessor, Peggle, was the game that massacred productivity on a global scale last year, even managing to controversially trounce Mass Effect in our Game of the Year awards.

The $20 sequel, which is now available at PopCap's site (it'll hit other game portals next month), boasts "60 all-new Adventure Mode levels and 60 new Challenge Mode hurdles, along with a new "Peggle Master" power-up, new kinds of style shots, achievements, and other special bonuses." And yes, we just copied and pasted that from the press release so we could go back to playing it.

It appears that someone at Sony proper forgot to drink their morning coffee and accidentally threw the wrong switch, resulting in a handful of lucky insomniacs getting an early glimpse at the PS3's oft-delayed news-and-weather-service, Life with PlayStation. Sony's answer to the Wii's weather and news channels, which utilizes Google data to display real-time data, was originally expected to drop in July before being delayed on a pair of occasions, most recently earlier this month.

According to Sony, the application was posted for public download during testing "temporarily, by mistake," allowing pictures like the one above to be captured and posted online. As for when the app will get a proper release, Sony is only saying that an announcement will be made "shortly." For now, it seems that we'll have to go about getting our news and weather info the old fashioned way: by rolling our chairs over to the computer.

Though the next installment of Sony's trivia-tastic Buzz franchise, Buzz! Quiz TV is still a few weeks from release, the company recently launched a web component for the game for would-be American quiz crafters. Titled MyBuzz, the site allows users to create quizzes which can either be taken online, or in-game when Quiz TV hits U.S. store shelves Sept. 23. Users can also rate quizzes submitted by other community members -- Sony is offering a PSP-3000 and a copy of Buzz! Master Quiz for the user with the "Top Quiz", and a PS3/Quiz TV bundle for the "All Time Top Author". One caveat -- hiring a local bridge troll to write your noggin-scratchers for you will result in immediate disqualification.