Word game Quarrel hit XBLA on Wednesday, and since then, players have been finding that certain words you wouldn't expect have been included in its "naughty words" filter.

Gary Penn, of developer Denki, told Edge that obvious words such as 'arse', 'shit', 'wank' and 'fuck' are flagged as offensive and can't be played if Family Filter settings are on, in what might well be Penn's best quote of his career.

However, an extra, secret list of words have been included as no-goes: "Microsoft has an additional filter in place for all Xbox Live games, which we have to support, but while we have to use that filter, we don't know which words are permitted."

In the interests of research, and not a juvenile wasting of an afternoon seeing what they could/could not get away with in Quarrel, Edge found words that said filter catches include borderline cases such as 'train', 'help', 'start', 'skid', 'bung', 'hung', 'dice', 'god', and- yes- 'shaft'.

Edge haven't found an explanation as to why those words have been blocked to be forthcoming from Microsoft as yet. I'm sure they'll keep you posted, in between fits of giggling.

The second of this weeks XBox Live Arcade releases is physics experiment, Puddle.

What began as a student project that won a Student Showcase prize at Independent Gaming Festival at GDC 2010 is now a full-fledged downloadable game experience like nothing you’ve ever played before. Guide puddles of fluid through a variety of novel, themed environments (the human body, a garden, a foundry, and more). But to do so, you must tilt the environment, balancing each fluid’s unique properties with the environmental factors of gravity, friction, and each course’s obstacles.

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Puddle price is currently 800 Microsoft Points.

The first of this weeks XBox Live Arcade releases is the word-game Quarrel.

Players fight for dominance over island territories using eight-letter anagrams to build the highest scoring word possible. Quarrel for Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 includes the fun challenge of online multiplayer, supporting up to four players to prove who has the most lexical prowess. Players can also compete against nine unique AI in the classic Single Player mode, or take on the Challenge mode to take on extra mini-objectives within each battle.

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Quarrel will cost you 400 Microsoft Points.

Yup, for fans of SNK, this is brilliant news. I for one am highly intrigued by it, despite my only knowledge of SNK being the Pocket Color and a few SNK Playmore compilations.



Japanese website, Famicom Plaza, has taken a look and had the following to report:

Famicom Plaza has a look at at the new device, which carries official licensing from SNK Playmore. The device, currently going by the placeholder name of "Neo Geo Portable Device," has 4.3 inch screen, two gigabytes of internal storage, and ships with 20 Neo Geo classics built in:

1.WORLD HEROES
2.ULTIMETE 11
3.TOP PLAYER'S GOLF
4.SENGOKU
5.NAM-1975
6.MUTATION NATION
7.LAST RESORT
8.KING OF MONSTERS
9.FRENZY
10.CYBER LIP
11.FATAL FURY SPECIAL
12.ART OF FIGHTING
13.SUPER SIDEKICKS
14.LEAGUE BOWLING
15.METAL SLUG
16.MAGICAL LORD
17.BASEBALL STARS PROFESSIONAL
18.SAMURAI SHODOWN
19.KING OF FIGHTERS '94
20.FATAL FURY

The games are all the North American versions with English.

According to the Famicom Plaza report, the device is 170x72x15mm and is a bit larger than an iPhone-like smartphone. It has a 2200mAh battery.

Controls on the device include four face buttons, a d-pad, four shoulder buttons, a menu button, a start button, and buttons for volume and brightness. Ports include headphones, AV and an SD.

No details yet on pricing or release date.

Famicom Plaza's report does not list the maker.

We've included pics of the new device in our gallery.

GALLERY:
Full gallery (4)

Remember that "PlayStation Certified Device" thing, where PlayStation games would be playable on things like phones and tablets? Turns out Sony just have, too!

US games ratings board the ESRB have rated a handful of new games for the service, the first lot since those which launched alongside the Xperia Play phone early last year.

Those games are the PS1 title Rally Cross, the more recent PSP games Daxter and Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, cross-platform flOw, and eight tables for Pinball Heroes based on Uncharted, PAIN, Motorstorm, Hot Shots Golf, ModNation Racers, Fat Princess, WipEout HD and Hot Shots Bowling.

Most of those have come away with E For Everyone ratings, bar Daxter (E10+) and Syphon Filter (Teen). None of them seem to have come away with release dates yet- but when they do emerge, they'll be playable on the Xperia Play and Sony's newer Tablet S and Tablet P.

The s(w)ines!

GamesRadar caught it, however, and it displays- through the medium of Split-screen technology the difference between 'Normal' and 'Insane' difficulty modes- the most obvious of which seems to be that power-ups are green in 'Insane', and red in 'Normal'.

That crazy Suda51. Whatever will he think of next?

I knew absolutely nothing of this game until someone showed me a video of it the other day, and even though 2D fighters and I have never gotten along (and the chances of it making it outside Japan are probably real slim), this has me excited.



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The game above is Persona 4: The Mayonaka Arena, a 2D fighter set within the world of Persona 4 (a game I still have not started despite buying it on its EU release day), I'm not entirely sure of context or anything, but yeah, it looks good and has guest appearances from Mitsuru, Aigis and Akihiko from Persona 3, I imagine certain other characters (hoping for Junpei here) could turn up too.

Persona 4: The Mayonaka Arena is dated for "Spring 2012" in Japan on both PlayStation 3 and XBox360.

Mis-leading headline? Perhaps... Never stopped Rupert Murdochs coporation though. Anyway, Irrational Games have today announced that they will be including a mode that they have dubbed "1999 mode" in Bioshock Infinite, claiming that it is designed to "challenge players in a variety of ways – each requiring substantial commitment and skill development"



Ken Levine had this to say on the mode;

"We want to give our oldest and most committed fans an option to go back to our roots,In 1999 Mode, gamers face more of the permanent consequences of their gameplay decisions. In BioShock Infinite, gamers will have to sweat out the results of their actions. In addition, 1999 Mode will demand that players pick specializations, and focus on them. "I'm an old school gamer. We wanted to make sure we were taking into account the play styles of gamers like me. So we went straight to the horse's mouth by asking them, on our website, a series of questions about how they play our games. 94.6 percent of respondents indicated that upgrade choices enhanced their BioShock gameplay experience; however, 56.8 percent indicated that being required to make permanent decisions about their character would have made the game even better."

Apparently, 1999 Mode will also take the player to a Game Over screen if they lack the funds to be able to revive the games lead character.

For those of you who are a sucker for punishment, Ubisoft have released the original Prince of Persia on the online stores for both Nintendo's 3DS and Wii.



Prince of Persia costs £4.50 on the Nintendo 3DS eShop and 800 Points on the Wii Virtual Console.

Nintendo have uploaded a trailer for the Wii Mistwalker RPG The Last Story, which just happens to be one of the games that has become a part of the "Operation Rainfall" in the US due to its lack of announced date for release on the other side of the pond.

As for over here, you can pick it up on February 24th.



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