Face the challenge!!! Today until 1PM PST Capcom will be hosting and joining matches of Puzzle Fighter on Xbox Live, as advertised on Capcom Unity earlier this week. I will be playing, and so will a host of other Puzzle Fighter pros in the office.

Look for the gamertag “BadBoodah77” in X’ mode and enter the fray!

—Brian

I had a great time at the X07 event in Toronto. I was there to work, of course, but I also got some great hands-on time with Halo 3 MP, Call of Duty 4, and a bunch of other great titles.

Anyway, I’m back in the office today. Puzzle Fighter came out on LIVE Arcade yesterday, and just hit the PlayStation Network store earlier today (be sure to pick up the PF wallpaper images from the PSN store!).

I’m pleased to announce that, thanks to my main web tech guru here at Capcom, Tom J, we now have leaderboards for Puzzle Fighter on the game’s website. The leaderboards are for the Xbox 360 version only. You can view the top 50 players in both X and X’ modes, for the week and for lifetime. How many other games have online leaderboards the day after a game launches?

We’ll also be adding a search function very soon so you can look up your gamertag, or your friend’s, and see how you stack up.

To check out the leaderboards, go to our Digital portal, head to the Puzzle Fighter page, and click on the Leaderboard graphic on the bottom left.

—Brian

Since Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix just came out on LIVE Arcade yesterday and PlayStation Network today, I thought I’d post an introduction to the mechanics of the gameplay.

I found this video, taken from I believe a previous arcade version of the game. It explains the basic rules of X mode (and the re-balanced X’ mode). It’s great, and shows how the rules work, how to set up combos, and more. It also gives you an idea of how the gems and breaking effects looked like in the original.

Once you have a handle on the basics, you should check out the advanced techniques guide written by one of our resident Puzzle Fighter (and Street Fighter) gurus at Capcom, s-kill (Seth). He posted it over on our forums, so go check it out.

—Brian

I just got word that both MS and Sony have approved Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and we are set to release it later this month!

If you want the Xbox 360 version, you’ll be able to get it on Xbox LIVE Arcade on Wednesday, August 29th for 800 MS points. If you’d rather play the PS3 version, you can get it from the PlayStation Network store on Thursday, August 30 for $10.

To tide you over until then, check out the short-but-sweet interview I did with the producer, Robert Hamiter, a while back.

And if you have an Xbox 360, don’t forget to check out the gamer pic pack and three Dashboard themes I created that went live just recently. I haven’t forgot you PS3 doods out there, either, so don’t worry. I’m working on a downloadable wallpaper for the PS3 and will send it off to Sony as soon as I can.

—Brian

You may have seen some of our Comic-Con and EVO coverage over on Capcom-Unity already. But here are a few pictures of the Toyota Yaris at the EVO West finals at Comic-Con a few weeks ago. Toyota is a sponsor of the EVO 2007 Championship Series, and we lent our Puzzle Fighter characters to be put on one of the cars itself. The Yaris features Dan on the front, Akuma on the back, Ryu and Chun-Li on one side, and Ken and Sakura on the other side. These photos were taken by James “Chensor” Chen (thanks!). He took a lot of pictures of the car and the EVO championships. Below are just a few shots of the car from his gallery.

Click to enlarge

Click through to see the rest of the pictures, including a shot of 100 Milla Jovovichs crammed into a boxing ring.

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With Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix so close on the horizon, I wanted to ask the producer, Robert Hamiter, a few questions about the game to help gear up for its release. He’s so busy, I literally took a mini cassette recorder back there, interviewed him, and then transcribed the tape, so he could get back to all his producing stuff.

Also, if you have an Xbox 360, be sure to check out the gamer pic pack and the three Dashboard themes that just went live yesterday.

BD) So how’s the game coming along?
RH) Great. We’re trying to wrap things up now, so we’re basically on the home stretch.

BD) What kind of online multiplayer support will the game feature?
RH) Both the PS3 and 360 versions will support 2 to 4 players. Two-player ranked matches, up to 4-player unranked matches, which will be very similar to Street Fighter Hyper Fighting on the 360 where two players play while two others can spectate.

Click through to keep reading.

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A few weeks ago I gave you a sneak peek of the 3 Xbox 360 Dashboard Themes, along with the gamer pic pack, I created for Puzzle Fighter.

Click through to keep reading.

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We were lucky enough to have David Sirlin involved with the development of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix over at Backbone. He’s worked on a lot of things, including Capcom’s recent “Capcom Classics Collection” titles. And on top of being a professional game developer, he’s also one of the top SFII players anywhere.

Yesterday Mr. Sirlin posted an in-depth article on his website detailing how he went about re-balancing the X mode in Puzzle Fighter to create the new X’ (X Prime) mode for the soon-to-be-released game (yes, very soon – hope to get a date confirmed soon). This re-balancing was done to better even the playing field for competitive and ranked matches. As a huge Puzzle Fighter fan, David used to play it competitively, so who better to be in charge of the re-balancing than him?

Click through to keep reading.

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The product page for Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is now up HERE. Check out game features, screenshots, gameplay trailers, and download desktop wallpapers.

—Brian

I have another set of desktop wallpapers for you again, this time featuring Chun-Li and Sakura in front of Ken’s new background from Puzzle Fighter. Like last time, I did a 16:10 hi-res version at 1920×1200, and a squarer version at 1280×1024. Let me know what you think.

Click through to see the wallpapers.

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