Japanese publisher Spike, who release many western games in Japan, recently asked over 6,000 Japanese gamers if they’d rather play Western games with subtitles or dubbing.

The “winner” was subtitles with 49% of the vote, followed by 47% with dubbing. 4% just simply didn’t care. Or words to that effect. The breakdown for specific genres though is a little more mixed – 59% percent want dubbing in first person shooters but for RPGs only 45% percent want dubbing.

If you read Japanese and give two hoots, there’s a dedicated website of the findings.

UK Charts

It’s a good week for Sega – despite mixed reviews Alien Vs Predator has managed to shove Bioshock 2 off the top of the chart after just one week. Rebellion also claim that it’s the fastest selling game of the year so far, beating even Bioshock 2. Sega’s Vancouver 2010 tie-in is in at #11 this week too, which likewise, has been getting some negative reviews.

There can’t be many Van Halen fans in the UK – Guitar Hero: Van Halen has failed to enter the top 40. The best it can do is #17 in the Xbox 360 chart.

Dante’s Inferno has fallen like a sinner dropping into hell this week, going from #9 to #22. The very similar Darksiders is back on the rise though, up from #32 to #19. And after appearing at #14 last week due to “super bowl fever”, Madden NFL 10 has fallen from #14 to #39.

So few WH Smiths stores sell games that it’s unlikely that anybody will notice that, after much beard scratching, they’ve decided to stop stocking them all together.

Tough competition from HMV, Game and GameStation is the cause, although WH Smiths’ lack of advertising and high prices probably didn’t help – I spotted Red Alert 3 on Xbox 360 for an absurd £44 a few weeks ago. Their online site – run by TheHut Group – will continue though.

It’s a little bit sad to hear this news as WH Smiths were pioneers back in the 80s, being one of the first high street stores (along with Boots) to start selling videogames. Boots in Worthing was awesome back in the day – they had Mega Drive demo pods and everything.

This Week’s Games

Aliens vs Predator, then. Reviews have been incredibly mixed – everything from a 5.5/10 from Gamespot to a 9/10 from the Official Australian PlayStation Magazine. People have been reporting that the face hugger that comes with the deluxe edition has arrived broken too, although Sega have promptly set up a website where people can ask for a replacement.

If AvP doesn’t take your fancy this week then unfortunately there isn’t much else out – just Guitar Hero: Van Halen on the three major formats, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and Karaoke Revolution on Wii.

The handhelds have some interesting stuff though – Half Minute Hero on PSP is an RPG split into thirty second chunks of gameplay while Ace Attorney: Miles Edgeworth Investigates on DS is a spin-off from Phoenix Wright. Bizarrely, Ubisoft seems to think releasing a Hello Kitty game (Hello Kitty Puzzle Party) on PSP is a good idea to make some money. I beg to differ. Releasing a game like SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo 3 – which is also out today – is probably a safer bet.

Next week: Heavy Rain, Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing, Lips: Party Classics, SafarWii, Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, Undead Knights and White Knight Chronicles.

Looking around the Deal Extreme website is like looking around a dodgy backstreet version of Maplin, full of special screwdrivers to open up your consoles with, replacement console cases and other gizmos and gadgets. It’s the quirky looking handhelds that have made me want to put together this article, although you might end up in hell for playing them – many contain naughty illegal ROMs and the like.

The Conny Pocket Dream Console is one of the few handhelds on the site that contains unique built-in games; the screenshots certainly don’t look too bad. It has 100 games built in, can be connected to a TV and has a 2.5” TFT screen. Price? $65/£40 to you, sailor. A similar and cheaper product is the FC 6000 which comes with a cartridge full of NES games. The boxart features artwork from Smash Bros. Brawl. If Shigsy saw this he’d probably cry.

Cheaper still is the snappily named D-Cat 8 Game Console with 100 NES games built in. It’s a stupidly cheap $20 (about £12) but I’d imagine that the build quality isn’t great. A forum member has posted a few photos – one of the games included is Bomberman and there’s also a hack of Mario Bros. called Shrek Bros. Madness.

Now we’re getting into murky territory. The name of this console isn’t even mentioned – it just looks identical to a GameBoy Advance SP and has SP2 on the lid. There’s no cartridge slot but you can download NES, SNES, GBC, GBA and Neo Geo games on it. The GameBoy Advance SP seems to be a popular console to clone. The GB Station Light is cheaper ($28/£17) and has a cartridge slot but can only play NES games. The menu screen features a taunton from Star Wars, but that doesn’t mean you should buy it. Another nameless console is also on the site – it’s a clone of the original GBA, has a cartridge slot for GB and GBC games and has a load of GBA games built in. Unlike the original GBA though it has a rechargeable battery. $56/£34 is the asking price.

It’s not just Nintendo’s handhelds that have been cloned; here’s one that looks identical to the PSP. $59/£37 gets you a console that has a camera, plays videos, MP3s and retro games but not PSP games. People say that the screen is very good which isn’t something you’d expect.

Finally there’s the Dingoo A-320 while appears to be the granddaddy of all of the above, able to play just about any ROM you throw at it plus music and videos. Deal Extreme compares the design to a GameBoy Mirco, although I’d say it looks more like the bottom half of a DS Lite. People who have brought one seem to be very pleased so if you do fancy having something in your pocket that isn’t a PSP or DS this could be a good choice. After all, it’s not illegal to play ROMs, MP3s or movie files of stuff you actually own.

I think Amazon need to hire somebody to keep a closer eye on the world of videogames – this morning they sent me an e-mail asking if I wanted to pre-order Hei$t. You know, the game that Codemaster’s officially announced as canned last month. Also mentioned in the e-mail was This is Vegas, which I don’t think it ever going to come out either. Midway were going to be publishing it and then went bust ages ago.

It’s probably a good job that Amazon don’t take money from your credit card until your order ships, unlike some retailers.

UK Charts

If you’ll excuse the rubbish pun, it shouldn’t be a shock to discover that Bioshock 2 is top of the top 40 chart this week. What is slightly shocking though is that Bayonetta has gone all the way back up from #36 to #10 thanks to some heavy price cuts – both Zavvi and Shopto.net are selling it for £17.95 at the moment.

Madden NFL 10 is back at a rather high #14 too. Anybody know why? I’m assuming it as been heavily reduced somewhere. I can guess though why Up is back at #35 – its released on DVD and Blu Ray this week.

In the single formats Phantasy Star Zero goes in at #35 in the DS chart, Monkey Ball: Step and Roll at #19 in the Wii chart while Star Ocean: The Last Hope makes a splash at #11 in the PlayStation 3 chart.

It’s always important to make a good first impression, which is something that Capcom’s Dark Void failed to do. My copy came with a code to unlock a gold jetpack, so before playing the game for the first time I redeemed the code and downloaded the shiny golden bonus. In went the disk, the developer logos appeared followed by a black screen and then…nothing – it wouldn’t load any further. I checked the disk, tried a different game; reloaded Dark Void a few times – it still froze up after the developer logos. After scratching my head a bit I thought I’d try deleting the content I had just downloaded, meaning I wouldn’t be able to get the gold jetpack as the code can only be used once. It turned out this was stopping the game from loading. And then about half an hour into the game the screen froze and it crashed. I know being a games tester isn’t the most glamorous job in the gaming industry, but they could at least do their bloody job properly.

So, my Dark Void experience got off to a bad start. Fortunately it was worth sticking with – the jetpack gives the game a nice twist, the sci-fi plot is interesting and there’s a degree of fun to be had. The third person on foot stages play like Gears of War with a similar cover system while the enemies – slug like larva encased in metal robotic skeletons – are smart enough to flank, leap out of the way of grenades and will retreat if outnumbered. Like Halo there’s a two weapon limit; weapons can be swapped over during levels by finding weapon creates and can also be upgraded. Melee attack animations are pleasingly brutal too, particularly the one where protagonist Will grabs hold of an enemy’s head, twists their body round to give you a full view of the action, sticks gun to their chest and pulls the trigger. Classy.

This Week’s Games

The biggest game out this week has been available for a good three days now already – stunning sea-quel Bioshock 2 was released worldwide on Tuesday. Reviews have been glowing – a 10 from GamesRadar, an 8 from Eurogamer and a 9 from 360 Gamer magazine. If you didn’t like the first one though, then you won’t like this.

There’s defiantly a Japanese twist to this week’s releases – no less than five originate from the land of sushi. Super Monkey Ball: Step and Roll on Wii uses the balance board, so it’s probably worth getting if you want to loose a few pounds. Phantasy Star Zero on DS features a WiFi mode; if you’re a fan of the Dreamcast version then you’ve almost certainly pre-ordered this already. Also on DS: Animal Kororo and Bleach: The 3rd Phantom. Then there’s Square-Enix RPG Star Ocean: The Last Hope International on PlayStation 3, which should keep you busy until Final Fantasy XIII is released next month.

So, what can western publishers offer us to entice money out of our wallets? Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief, Sled Shred: Featuring the Jamaican Bobsled Team and Disney’s Jonas. Ah well, at least we have Bioshock 2.

Next week: Alien vs Predator, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo 3, Ace Attorney: Miles Edgeworth Investigates, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, Think: Train Your Brain, Dragonology, Half Minute Hero and the apparently rubbish Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

Microsoft’s X10 press event is underway. Halo: Reach, Lost Planet 2, Fable III, Crackdown 2, Alan Wake and more got an airing but the real big news is that most of them now have release dates.

The long awaited Alan Wake is set for a 21st May release in Europe; Americans get it a few days before on the 18th May (the same day as Lost Planet 2, incidentally). Those that pre-order will receive an avatar outfit, a making-of video and a dashboard theme. If you really fancy splashing the cash though, then there’s a limited collector’s edition with a bonus disk containing behinds-the-scenes footage, hints from the developers, a soundtrack, and a book called The Alan Wake Files. The gaming press aren’t allowed to post any impressions or previews of Alan Wake until 18th February, although there is a video already up on YouTube.

The Halo: Reach beta also starts in May. 3rd May, to be precise. Bungie are promising it to be the biggest console beta ever. If you want in, then you’ll have to go out and buy Halo 3: ODST to get access.

The press weren’t allowed to take photos of Fable III either. Earlier this week Molyneux said players would be “pissed” to hear about one of Fable III’s features. So what is it? There’s no health bar. Seriously – that was what all the fuss was about. This time round the game is set in Victorian industrial revolution England and you play as the son of the hero from the last Fable. Weapons will now morph depending on how you use them – If you kill innocents, it will drip blood; if you use it to protect people it will glow.

Much like Alan Wake, Capcom’s Dead Rising 2 – which is being put together by US studio Blue Castle – has been knocking around release schedules for ages too. 3rd September is now the official date, but you won’t have to wait until then to be able to bash up some zombies – August will see the release of Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, a downloadable prologue exclusive to Xbox 360. There’s a video of the game in motion over at Eurogamer.

March is looking busy for Xbox Live Arcade – Perfect Dark, Toy Soldiers, Scrap Metal (a new game from N+ developer Slick Entertainment) and the Games Room arcade (aka “The Microsoft Points Whorehouse”) will all be available during next month. Ubisoft are also working on an Xbox Live Arcade title called Bloody Good Time, which has something to do with a bunch of teens fighting it out for a part in a movie. The official website promises more details soon.

Did you know that Flickr began as an online game? Maybe it’s common knowledge, but I had no idea. The BBC has a piece today about the new project from the man behind it – Stewart Butterfield – and it’s a game. A game rewarding “animal kinship, gardening, alchemy and bureaucratic arts” according to the man himself. Brilliant. That sounds like my sort of game.

Oh, it’s called Glitch, it’s MMO, and it’s played in the browser. There’s a video and more information on the game’s website, so go and have a look you lazy arse. It looks quite fun.

It’ll be free, too. I mention that because elsewhere in the real news – BBC again – apparently we spent £280m on casual games online last year. Though most of us don’t pay at all. Funnily enough.

Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? on PSP has the most amusing name in a long, long time. Or rather, it had the most amusing name – publisher NIS America has been forced to change the name to What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!?

This is presumably because Batman license holders Warner Bros. thought it sounded to close to Batman/Robin’s catchphrase from the old (and incredibly camp) Batman TV show.

The original version has been pulled down from the PlayStation Network store and the name change has also put a delay on the sequel. It was once known as Holy Invasion Of Privacy, Badman! 2: Time to Tighten Up Security! But it will now be known as What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? 2. That’s still a better name than most games have.

Amazon still have the original for sale at £15.99. It might become something of a collector’s item one day…