Revolution Portal: Because it won’t be televised.

Eidos, the dev behind such powerhouse titles as Tomb Raider, has announced a new title for Wii and DS that’s more on the weird side of things.

Monster Lab, a dark and creative looking RPG, revolves around creating monsters.  And choice is not a problem — Eidos promises over 100 million possible monster part variations on offer.  If that’s not enough for you…we don’t know what would be.

Naturally, once you create your creature you can embark on quests, battle other monsters, play mini-games, and all the other sorts of things that one would expect in this sort of an RPG.

“ML will offer a wealth of fresh ideas to both Wii and DS players,” said Fabien Rossini, Global Brand Controller, Eidos. “These include gesture based combat, a compelling on-line fighting and trading system and total customization of the player’s monster.”

The title will also take advantage of Wii’s online capabilities.  Gamers will be able to take on their friends in some M to M multiplayer combat.  The game will be released later in 2008.

Nintendo has a habit of releasing a plethora of colors for its various platforms over a staggered period of time. 

So it comes as no surprise at all that there’s apparently a brand new color in the DS Lite family.

The Cobalt Blue/Black DS was recently revealed by Circuit City as a pre-order, but they must have been quickly rebuked, since the page has already been taken down.

However, all evidence of the new color has not been wiped out — retailer CD Universe is also listing the Cobalt Blue/Black handheld pre-order with a release date of Sunday, February 10, 2008. 

Since nothing it different except for the glorious hue, the price is still a wallet-friendly $129.99.

Now where are those red Wiis that Nintendo has eternally teased us with?

The announcement that there’s a DS version of MapleStory in the works came as a bit of a surprise last September, and Nexon seemed quite excited at the time.

“Maple Story, the well-known online game around the world, and Nintendo DS, which everyone wants, are meeting together, which is going to make a synergy effect,” exclaimed president Jeun-Mo Gwon.

But we haven’t heard much about the title since.  Gamasutra got a hold of Stephen Lee, manager of international business development, to ask how development is going for the DS title.

“We’re planning to launch it by the middle of this year. We’re aggressively developing it, and we’re in very good shape,” he said.

Some people have the mistaken impression that it’s an MMO, but Lee countered that it is not.

“It’s not an MMORPG kind of game. It’s a typical kind of action role-playing game. It will have fairly different gameplay compared to the original version. It will be specifically adapted to the platform itself,” he explained.

Oddly enough, a version is also being developed for Xbox 360 as well.  But “that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re converting our business direction to the console gaming field,” Lee insisted. 

If hype and expectations meet reality, then Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii will be a must-have title for the console.

The North American release was recently delayed until March, but Japan is getting the Wii title just six days from now.

However, Canned Dogs has brought a report from Lepton to our attention that there’s going to be a massive shortage of SSBB when it’s released on January 31.

“Lepton has tried to buy the games at full price from other sources just so they can fill the preorders, but nobody as any stock,” reports the website. “They have then managed to secure an additional 100 copies of the game at 7350 yen each, which is at a price that is even higher than the selling price of the game which is 6800 yen (they’ll be losing money with each sale). They still do not have enough copies of the game to fill preorders.”

Other Japanese retailers are indicating that there’s not enough supply to meet demand as well.  Nintendo’s initial shipment is reportedly only 300,000-400,000 units, and Brawl is expected to sell much more than that…and quickly.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the head honcho of Q Entertainment, recently spoke about his upcoming Xbox Live Arcade title Rez HD, and talked about the possibility of developing for other platforms.

“Wii is a very unique platform. I have no projects yet, but I feel it’s very unique,” he explained to Game|Life, before quixotically adding that ”I’m a little bit anxious about Nintendo platforms, as Nintendo games are too strong. I’m a little bit worried about that.”

It’s the first time we’ve heard of a developer being so neurotic about the subject before.

When asked if Nintendo could do anything to help out third parties more, Mizuguchi could offer no advice, adding that “I have no experience working with Nintendo yet, so I don’t know.”  Given that fact, it was a bit of a silly question.

Alas, it ooks like he’s going to have to overcome that phobia before we see any Q Entertainment titles on a Nintendo platform.