When the Tablet of Chaos & Order is shattered across alternate dimensions, only the Spider-Men of four different Earths can prevent the universe-shattering cataclysm to come! That’s not just Stan Lee style hyperbole, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions lets you play as four different Spider-Men — separated by time and space and each swinging through a distinct comic book universe. Developer Beenox is creating a focused, level-based adventure that sees our hero battling big-name villains from his rogues gallery.

Publisher Activision shows off two of the four universes in the game: the Amazing Universe, which is set in the present-day and is straight out of the traditional Spider-Man books; and the Noir Universe, a dark, shadowy world set in the 1930s. The worlds will have their own settings, but each one will be firmly set in an established Marvel Comics universe. The characters themselves have an illustrated feel, too — think of something similar to Crackdown or Borderlands, and you won’t be too far off from picturing Shattered’s art style.

Google has dabbled with games in the past, and Forbes even suggested that they could be looking to publish games at some point. They’re not going quite that far (at least not yet), but we will soon be seeing Google’s name show up in a new Nintendo game called And Kensaku. The quiz-style Nintendo Wii game is being developed by Shift, according to Siliconera, and has you competing with other players to determine which search term has the most results. The game will come loaded with 10,000 terms on the disc alone and more will be available through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

The game is actually not too far away from release; Nintendo will release it for 4,800 yen (about £51.37 USD) on April 29 in Japan. There’s currently no word on any sort of international release, but we’ll keep you posted if Nintendo decides that the game might appeal to those outside of Japan.

Before being honoured with an Academy Fellowship award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts last month, beloved Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto sat down for a lengthy chat with Eurogamer. The topics of discussion ranged from Super Mario Galaxy 2’s difficulty to Miyamoto’s early days at Nintendo, but a single theme seemed to resonate throughout the interview: a desire to make simple, fun games that anyone can enjoy.

When it comes to Miyamoto’s approach to game design, the Mario creator recalled a formative conversation with the late Gunpei Yokoi, designer of the Game Boy and producer on the first Metroid. “You have thought about that too much, you have worried about that too much. Why don’t you stop — you cannot make any further steps as you are right now,” Yokoi warned Miyamoto, explaining how over-thinking things can interfere with the game design process.

Among the many lessons Miyamoto picked up from Yokoi: “People can do something very simple, but simple things piled up: That’s where new play can be born.”

It’s the end of March and that means GameStop has issued its annual 10-K report, providing us with a plethora of information about the company’s operations over the past year. It covers GameStop’s fiscal year 2009, which ran from January 30, 2009 through January 29, 2010. Among the the countless figures and charts it contains is the one above that shows a decline in new hardware sales and a fairly large increase in used game sales from fiscal year 2008 to 2009. New game purchases also saw a bump, with GameStop attributing the increase of used and new videogames to the opening of new stores, the acquisition of French game retailer Micromania in late 2008, and the “acceptance of used video game products internationally.”

We frequently hear about how GameStop makes far more money from selling used games than new ones. And even though the chart above shows that new game sales bring in more money (nearly 15% more of the company’s total sales), the chart below shows us just how much of a greater profit GameStop generates from the sale of used games — an additional 25% of the company’s total gross profits come from used games compared with new games.

I doubt that the developers at Nintendo have been brainstorming ways to tie Zelda and Mario together (outside of Super Smash Brothers Brawl, anyway), but at a recent demo of Super Mario Galaxy 2 at Nintendo’s office, I couldn’t stop drawing parallels between the mustachioed plumber’s new adventure and past games in Link’s long-running franchise. While they’re still very different games, both in tone and controls, here are a few of the bigger similarities I noticed:

Goron Mario

With any new Mario game come enhanced abilities, from full-on animal suits to special caps and capes. But the latest power on-hand for this demo was Rock Mario, or as I like to call it, “Goron Mario.” From the name alone, you might think this new ability bears something in common with Metal Mario from Mario 64; instead, this craggy transformation lets Mario morph into a rolling boulder of destruction. Like a lazy Goron (and a lot like the Goron Mask in Majora’s Mask), you can use your power to quickly zip across the stage. You don’t have much control once you get going, but the power’s more about mowing down enemies and smashing anything that gets between you and finding the star hidden at the end of each level.

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Ok MGS:online is coming out soon and I need it up and running.

I have the PS3 with the ethernet cable connected to the back of the PC and PC tells me Local area connection is working, yet PS3 will not connect to the net.

Can anyone help me?

This guy rocks the Wii.

Microsoft revealed today that PrimeSense 3D-sensing technology is behind the upcoming Xbox Project Natal device. “PrimeSense’s technology enables a paradigm shift in the way people interact with consumer electronic devices,” said PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha in the press release. “The engagement with Xbox 360 establishes PrimeSense’s position as a leading supplier of 3D-sensing technology. We are especially honoured to have a partner like Microsoft who share our vision for bringing innovative and engaging natural experiences to consumers.”

We previously thought that 3DV was the tech behind Natal, given a similar showing at CES 2008 to Microsoft’s Natal demonstration. Today’s announcement could be an effort to clear up misconceptions, but it seems odd that Microsoft would have waited so long to mention their corporate partner. We’re contacting 3DV for comment, and we’ll let you know if they give any insight.

The demo for the original Dead Space didn’t hit XboxLive or the PlayStationshopuntil about a month after the game’s release, but that won’t happen again if the developers at Visceral Games have their way. Speaking with G4’s Patrick Klepek at PAX East, executive producer Steve Papoutsis promised a much more timely and relevant demo for Dead Space 2.

“Last time, I just heard a lot of comments like ‘The demo was way too hard,’ or ‘It kind of came out after the fact,’” Papoutsis told G4. “We’re really putting an emphasis on making sure that we have something there so that new people can check it out. There’s a lot of people that seem interested and we just want to give them an opportunity to check it out and get into it.”

The Visceral Games producer went on to discuss some of the challenges behind crafting a solid demo. “It’s a tricky line, right? There’s some games you play a demo [of] and you never wind up buying it because ‘I got my fill!’” Papoutsis explained, continuing, “It’s our goal to deliver a game that not only after every single chapter you want to keep going, but we want the demo to be the kind of event where you play it and you go ‘Holy shit, I’m going out right now, I’ve got to get this!’ That’s one of the goals that we’re driving towards and I think we’re going to nail that.”