Metroid Database.com

We've got a couple of big news announcements, one of which is Metroid-related, and the other which is pretty awesome and related to one of our admins! First off, the folks at The Speed Gamers are planning a 72 hour Metroid Marathon in early August where they hope to play through all the Metroid games (excepting Pinball) in 72 hours or less for charity! Read up on their official statement:

"The 72 Hour Metroid Marathon starts on Augusts 15th. We will be raising money for St. Jude Children's Research hospital [who does research into cures for cancer and other diseases in children. -CC]. The marathon will be streamed live via webcam on our website. The webcam feed will give you both a view of the games we will be playing and also a view of the action going on in the room. We will give out prizes following each game to viewers regardless of where they live. The Game list is :

Metroid, Metroid Zero mission, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Super Metroid, Metroid Prime1, Metroid Prime Hunters, Metroid Prime 2, Metroid Prime 3, Metroid Fusion"

We wish best of luck to the Metroid Marathon team, and if you're interested in donating or just watching, don't hesitate to check out their website! Who knows if they'll decide to do a Marathon Marathon next!

The second bit of information is that the massive fan remix project, Blood on the Asphalt, a Street Fighter II Remix Project done through Overclocked Remix, is now officially announced as part of Street Fighter II HD Remix for Xbox Live Arcade! This is pretty awesome news as this is the first time that fan music has been accepted for such a high-profile game (or pretty much any game for that matter!). The Metroid Database is proud to announce that our own Infinity's End (aka Ryan Barrett) did the album art! There are a bunch of interviews on this historic announcement, so please check the album out! Vurez's "New Mexican Thunderbird" is pretty awesome.

In other news, you probably noticed that there was nothing Metroid-related shown at E3 this year. While we're disappointed, it's not surprising (and the entire event was pretty disappointing, but that was also to be expected). Perhaps we'll see a bit more at TGS, though chances are it will be at least next year before we hear what Intelligent Systems and Retro Studios are working on next. By my estimates, the biggest announcement at E3 was that Final Fantasy XIII was coming to Xbox 360. While the game itself isn't the most important thing, it's the fact that Square-Enix is giving support from their top franchise that is really significant, as it means other companies will be willing to do the same to increase profits. With all kinds of awesome games coming to 360 like Bionic Commando and Fable 2 as well as the XBLA awesomeness called Castle Crashers, a 360 purchase for this Metroid fan seems looming in the near future!

Lastly, Inf would like to direct your attention to the Fan For Life feature where we've got another sweet tattoo by vissago. That's it for this week! We'll bring you more interesting Metroid updates in the future.

Until next time...
Captain Commando