So, it’s time to start the investigation! It’s the perfect time for DS and 3DS owners to get into the series, if they haven’t already. Also, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Wii owners can get in on the fun since many of the games received iOS or WiiWare ports.

Objection! How did this get started?

Gyakuten Saiban has been a thing in Japan since 2001, when the first game was released on the Game Boy Advance. Apparently, Capcom didn’t have a lot of faith in gamers and their willingness to accept a comedic adventure game about a defense attorney. It’s probably for the best, as when the 2005 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney port was released, it contained the original four cases and an all new fifth case with special DS features. That’s when Capcom realized it had a hit series on its hands, and went on to port the original game to Windows PCs in Japan, and to the Wii and iOS in Japan and North America.

Its success also ensured the release of the next three games outside of Japan. We still missed out on GBA released, but DS and WiiWare versions of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All and Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations both appeared. Plus, the first DS exclusive game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was released worldwide without any hesitation.

All of the main games proceed in the same way. There are typically four or five cases. First, there’s an investigation phase where the defense attorney, Phoenix Wright in the first three games and Apollo Justice in the fourth, searches the crime scene, talks to witnesses and meets the client. Here’s when people collect evidence for trial and piece together how a murder happened with the help of an assistant, in Phoenix’s case Maya Fey and sometimes Pearl Fay help. Apollo has Trucy Wright by his side. The second part of each case is the trial phase, where players have to help their lawyer defend the client by picking holes in the testimony of the witnesses by showing their lies and presenting evidence so the true murderer can be revealed.

Now that you’re interested, there’s a little bit of a problem. You may have trouble finding some of the Ace Attorney DS games. The original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is fairly easy to find, and you shouldn’t have to look too hard for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. However, Ace Attorney: Justice for All and Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations may be a bit more difficult to find, and odds are you’ll have to pay more than usual for a new copy. If you own a Wii, you’ll have no problem as first three games covering Phoenix’s adventures are always just a click away on the Wii Shop Channel. The same goes for the iOS version of the original game.

As for the future, Phoenix Wright has a lot of things planned. A 3DS mashup game by the name of Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney is in development and Gyakuten Saiban 5 has just been announced. Gyakuten Saiban 123HD has just been released on iTunes in Japan too, and it is a HD remaster of the first three Ace Attorney games.

Hold it! So just how popular is Ace Attorney?

It’s incredibly popular worldwide, though its fame started in Japan. The result is a huge number of spin-offs and merchandise for fans to enjoy. Fortunately, people don’t necessarily have to import to enjoy all of it. Some of the Ace Attorney tie-ins were released worldwide, among them the forthcoming Gyakuten Saiban movie. The most prominent releases are of the various manga volumes. The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney manga is being localized, and so were the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Official Casebooks, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Edgeworth Files and the Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations manga is in the process of being translated and will be released in North America this year.

Speaking of Ace Attorney Investigations, the popularity of the main series and its primary antagonist, Miles Edgeworth, lead to the prosecutor getting his own series. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth received a worldwide release and involved more investigating and no courtroom drama. Instead, Edgeworth finds the suspect outside the courtroom at the crime scenes to assist with arrests. You may have to shop around to find a copy, as it’s gotten rather rare as of late. Sadly, despite the original being a fantastic game, Capcom decided not to take a chance on Gyakuten Kenji 2, making the sequel a Japan-exclusive. A fan translation is currently in progress to create an unofficial English patch.

However, some Ace Attorney extras can only be enjoyed if you’re in Japan or willing to import. In particular, the musical performances and concerts. Actually, even if you visit Japan now you probably won’t catch the musical. Gyakiten Saiban: Yomigaeru Shinjitsu and its sequel were only performed by the all-female Takarazuka Revue troupe in 2009. At least you can enjoy the music from the series. Aside from the official soundtracks for each game, Capcom has also released the Gyakuten Saiban Orchestra Album and Gyakuten Saiban Jazz Album, offering new arrangements of songs from the game. Supposedly they’ll be released outside Japan, but they haven’t appeared yet. You could also check online for Gyakuten Saiban Tokubetsu Houtei 2008, an official recording of a live concert of Ace Attorney music.

You may want to also try plugging Gyakuten Saiban into the search boxes at your favorite online import shops. You never know, you may find phone straps, bags, folders or other Ace Attorney merchandise.

COMING NEXT WEEK: Important Importables reviews Mother 3.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables talked about Marvelous Entertainment.

Follow Jenni on Twitter for more import game updates and general fangirl enthusiasm!

The campaign gained some notoriety for making $400, er, $500, well a bunch of money in less than a day. It’s barely even two days in and the Double Fine team has now passed $1 million with close to 30,000 backers (and likely many more by the time you read this).

The campaign is not without controversy as some people are complaining that Double Fine is not really “indie” and to make this much money from a typically indie crowd funding site is a bit uncouth.  (Read GamerAnx‘s post for a pointed rebuttal to the complaints).

Double Fine has had significant success including Psychonauts and console game Brutal legend. The Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter campaign offers the usual pledge levels but, if you kick in more than $15,000 (which they promote on their company web site, not on the Kickstarter site) and they start promising silliness like dinners with the president and devs. Pledge more than $50K and you get to be a character in the game.

What do you think: Is Double Fine’s insanely fast funding campaign good of bad for the game industry? How about for other indie developers and studios?

Pledge [Double Fine Adventure @ Kickstarter] Read [GamerAnx]

This year’s standouts for nominations include Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception with 9 nominations. Other games nominated in several categories include Battlefield 3, L.A. Noire, Portal 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Nominees listed below will be judged upon by the game audio industry and members of G.A.N.G.
The final nominees for this year’s 10th Annual G.A.N.G. Awards:
AUDIO OF THE YEAR
Battlefield 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Dead Space 2
Gears of War 3
Portal 2
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

MUSIC OF THE YEAR
Batman: Arkham City
InFamous 2
Kinect Disneyland Adventures
L.A. Noire
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

SOUND DESIGN OF THE YEAR
Battlefield 3
Forza Motorsport 4
Gears of War 3
NCAA Football 12
Portal 2
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST SOUNDTRACK ALBUM
Batman: Arkham City
Dead Space 2
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Star Wars: The Old Republic
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST INTERACTIVE SCORE
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Dead Space 2
Kinect Disneyland Adventures
Portal 2
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST HANDHELD AUDIO
Death Rally HD
Infinity Blade II
Monster Hunter 3G
Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
Super Mario 3D Land

BEST AUDIO IN A CASUAL/INDIE/SOCIAL GAME
Bastion
Conspiracy
Monday Night Combat
Orcs Must Die
Star Wars: Clone War Adventures
WindUp Knight

BEST CINEMATIC/CUT-SCENE AUDIO
Battlefield 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Crysis 2
Gears of War 3
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST DIALOGUE
Battlefield 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
L.A. Noire
Portal 2
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTAL
“Lacrimosa” – Dead Space 2
“Main Theme” – Deus Ex: Human Revolution
“GameWrapper” – Kinect Disneyland Adventures
“Pirate Dance” – Kinectimals Gold
“Glory, The Galactic Republic” – Star Wars: The Old Republic
“Small Beginnings” – Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST ORIGINAL VOCAL – CHORAL
“Main Theme” – Batman: Arkham City
“Storm Clouds Over Stalingrad” – Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
“Guardians Theme” – RIFT
“Clash of Destiny” – Star Wars: The Old Republic
“Main Theme” – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

BEST ORIGINAL VOCAL – POP
“Rogue Heart”  – Dragon Age II
“Torched Song” – L.A. Noire
“Victoria’s Lab” – LittleBigPlanet 2
“Wabby Wabbo” – Plants Vs. Zombies (PS3/XBOX360)
“Want You Gone” – Portal 2
“Kayfoundo Naweea (Hungry Eyes)” – Star Wars: The Old Republic

BEST AUDIO MIX
Batman: Arkham City
Battlefield 3
Crysis 2
L.A. Noire
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

BEST USE OF LICENSED MUSIC
Kinect Disneyland Adventures
LittleBigPlanet 2
MLB 11: The Show
Rocksmith
Shift 2: Unleashed – Need for Speed
Stacking

BEST GAME AUDIO ARTICLE, PUBLICATION OR BROADCAST
Designing the Boot Sound for the Original XBOX
Game Developer Magazine – “Three Erroneous Conceits”
Mixing as Part of the Music Composing Process
Sound Effects Transformation: From This to That
The Use of Voice in Portal 2

Other awards to be presented during the ceremony include Rookie of the Year, Lifetime Achievement, the G.A.N.G. Recognition Awards, Student/Apprentice competition winners and the G.A.N.G. Distinguished Service Awards.

The Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) is a non-profit organization established to educate the masses in regards to interactive audio by providing information, instruction, resources, guidance and enlightenment not only to its members, but to content providers and listeners throughout the world. G.A.N.G. empowers its members by establishing resources for education, business, technical issues, community, publicity and recognition. G.A.N.G. also supports career development for aspiring game audio professionals, publishers, developers and students.

Geek Fight is one of the spunkiest card games around, pitting various prototypical – and a few atypical – geeks against each other in tabletop card game fashion. Started back in 2008, Geek Fight literally puts the power of geeks in the hands of geeks. Hey, it’s geeks playing geeks against geeks. It’s mega meta.

Diving Dragon has launched a Kickstarter campaign, hoping to reach $10,000 by 2:31 p.m. (EST), March 7, 2012. Those who pledge can pick from a bunch of $8 incentives including the new sets of cards which, as the site describes, include “a currently nameless set based on anime culture, and a set based on a couple of awesome metal bands.” Pledge quite a bit higher now and you can get your likeness on card ($50) or even a custom promo card ($200). They also mention a dream goal of $12,500. If they hit that mark, every pledge will receive a special mini set and, if they get their dream goal of $20k, Diving Dragon owner Kalan Vazquez will get a Diving Dragon Games tattoo.

Some of the crazy cards in the previous sets include “Geek Rage,” “Angry Video Game Nerd” and the “Geek Fight Display Box.” Cheeky and playable, it’s not your typical collectible card game as they don’t force certain cards to be rare, making each set complete much like a standard deck of playing cards.

You can also go to the company’s site and get some Beta packs for $1 or the “The Final Battle: Angry Video Game Nerd vs. Nostalgic Critic” set for $7 but then you’d not be getting the cred that goes along with crowd funding. And that’s worth at last a buck.

Purchase [Geek Fight @ Kickstarter] Site [Diving Dragon Games]

In case you’re feeling a bit brain-wiped by all this pressure, I’m here to help. Here are six ways you could express yourself, and two of them are even free!

• Get your Mass Effect 3 on: The demo for Mass Effect 3 is going to be released on Valentine’s Day. You can stay in together and experience a few missions of the new adventure together. Or, if you’re in a long distance relationship, you can go through the multiplayer portion of the demo and help the one you love fight the Reapers.
• Celebrate the debut of otome in America: Aksys is releasing the very first English language translation of an otome (girl’s dating game) in North America on Valentine’s Day! Grab a copy of Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom (PSP) and help her choose her own romantic adventure. The standard version is $29.99 and the collector’s edition, which also includes a CD soundtrack and artbook, is $39.99.
• Take an arrow in the heart: ThinkGeek has just started selling Skyrim-inspired shirts for men and women that say, “I used to be a player, then I took an arrow in the heart.” Aww! This would make a great gift for a gamer you love. The men’s shirt costs between $16.99-$18.99, depending on size, while the women’s shirt is $19.99.
• Did somebody say cake?: The cake may have been an unobtainable tease in Portal, but it doesn’t have to be in your loved ones life. Get yourself a square cake pan, some cake mix, grey and pink frosting and bake a Companion Cube shaped cake for the one you love. It will be delicious and moist. Plus, you’ll probably get to have a piece of it too!
• Nibble on some candied zombie brains together: I know, there’s already one ThinkGeek item on the list, but the Chocolate Zombie Head Bon Bons with Cherry Brains were too good to pass up. For $9.99 you get a box of six dark-chocolate bon bons shaped like zombie heads. Inside are cherry brains. Some of the bon bons even have breaks in them so you can see the “brains” oozing out. Yum!
• Get married… virtually: Hop onto your favorite MMO with a marriage system in place and show the one you love that, at the very least, your avatars will be together forever. It’s a nice gesture, might help get your non-MMO playing significant other into the game so you have something else to enjoy together and means you’ll probably get some kind of stat bonuses for your character!

Image Source: Chocolate Zombie Head Bon Bon picture taken from ThinkGeek

The latest expansion, Dark Ascension, was released February 3, 2012 and adds more monsters and figures to the vampire and werewolf infested milieu of Innistrad. The set add another 158 cards to the mix, including the usual premium cards.

The primary new idea of this cycle is the double face. Double face cards are printed with game information on both sides, generally using the ‘back’ side when the front is destroyed. I particularly like double face creatures such as the one pictured. Creatures are extremely fragile in M:TG, and getting an extra use out of them really makes them more satisfying to use.

A player can only use double face cards if he plays with opaque sleeves, another big change from the early days of M:TG. I remember playing with moxes and a Black Lotus, cards worth many hundreds of dollars today and not using sleeves. Nowadays everybody uses sleeves, even though the printings are so large that so-called “rare” cards aren’t nearly as difficult to get.

Another big change from the pre-internet days is now WoTC releases full spoilers, complete with artwork, so check out the second link to see everything in the set–sure beats having to talk to everyone buying cards just to figure out what a set might have.

Read [wizards] Also Read [wizards]

Surprisingly enough, it happened. People actually got the money together by February 3, 2012. In response, kiff uploaded two builds of the Game Boy Color port for people to play. Both are now available in the original post at that thread for any curious party to download. I haven’t had a chance to test the game out yet, but judging by the screenshots posted it seems like Capcom made the right call years ago.

If you decide to go and download the Game Boy Color version Resident Evil, you need to make sure you also have the right programs on your computer. The RAR file actually contains two builds of the game, both at different stages of production and both are .GBC files and require a Game Boy Color emulator to play. The first build appears to be more complete and playable. The second cart is playable, but is an earlier build where only Chris is a playable character.

Also, as early builds of a canceled game people should know they won’t get very far before a bug or error stops them. The fans are trying though and people at the forum seem hopeful. Considering the skill of some hackers, it might even be possible for them to find a way to eliminate bugs and glitches, or perhaps craft some kind of workaround so the game could be beaten.

Image Source: The ASSEMblergames.com

Read [The ASSEMblergames.com] Via [Destructoid]

Wrestling champ (rather chump) Brain has just won his first ever title belt which shocks everyone, especially Brain, but before he can celebrate his sketchy win he goes and gets himself kidnapped leaving his dimwitted wrestling teammates to go find him. That is the premise for Wadgeteye’s newest adventure game Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass.

This new title is said to be a throwback point-and-click adventure game reminisant of games like The Secret of Monkey Island with a Saturday morning cartoon type pacing (in other words, fast and silly). The game is going to be full of humor and clever puzzles as well as a unique, crafty art style that adds to the silliness of the game.

The game was developed by Chris Burton who is an award-winning animator and filmmaker with four short films and two independent games under his belt. He’s always had a love for storytelling so he taught himself animation and game making to convey that. He has actually produced a follow-up short film, Da New Guys: For The Winnings.

The game is in production now and will release on February 29th 2012 with a set price of $9.99. There is also a special preorder deal which includes a limited-time option to get a CD version of the game which includes the short film based on the game, plus other extras for $19.99.

Demo’s and trailers and preorders for the game can be found here at Wadgeteye’s site. Also look for my review of this game at the end of the month!

Site [Wadgeteye] Also Read [Rock Paper Shotgun]

Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon is a simple game, for $0.99, but still maintains a fun factor. You control Sir Benfro’s Ballon, powered by fireflies, and try to get to the end of each level as you discover new and awesome creatures. The challenge is reaching the end of the level while collecting fireflies to keep your ballon powered and keeping a safe distance from the curious creatures you discover.

It’s been a while since a racing game has made the list, let alone a FREE racing game. Rogue Racing lets you create and customize a racing machine worthy of the speed barriers you are about to break. Choose from an abundance of parts and ground effects and take the race to the streets, time-attack trials, or the extreme elimination mode all while listening to your personal iTunes music.

Another simple game for $0.99, Fly With Me has you tapping to stay alive and in the air as you try to make it the other side of the level while feeding your bird gullet with bees. Doesn’t sound appetizing to me but then again I am not a bird. Shoot for a perfect score on each level, work to unlock Robot Bird, and take flight in the challenge modes.

Site: [GLU Games] Site: [Electronic Arts]

As much as I love the works of HP Lovecraft, I could never get into the tabletop game. Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is based on said tabletop game but perhaps is more accessible for people like me. It’s turn-based, yet strategic role playing that has you take on the ancient beings with a ragtag group of your choosing. Fight for both your sanity and humanity in this $4.99 adventure.

Shogun brings danmaku (bullet-hell), a sorely lacking genre on the iPad, to the iPad as a free download. Test out the first mission and if you like what you play, you can buy additional missions. If you’ve never played a SHMUP before, the idea is simple the execution is not – dodge bullets, shoot for the high score.

Terra Noctis: Free Dreaming does what it can to play on the retro platforming heart strings. With promises of goodies and baddies, puzzles and 4 worlds to explore, Terra Noctis takes it a step further and adds a dreamy art style and “atmospheric music” to enhance the experience. Collect fairies to upgrade your weapon and buy useful items or just collect hats… yes HATs, a fashionable accessory to throw those epic baddies for a loop. Did I mention all this is FREE?

Available now for $1.99, Soul Tamer KiKi HD pits you in the role of Kiki, an aspiring hero, on the search for her parents who disappeared fighting the Demon King. To help in your quest capture, train, and maintain relationships with the creatures of the world. Create your own weapons and armor, make your own items through cooking and experimenting with ingredients and so on. It’s pretty much a game you’ll want to sink a lot of time into which is great considering the price.

Site [Red Wasp Design] Site [int13] Site [Everplay Interactive]