Video gaming minds from the East and the West have recently joined forces to deliver to us some interesting action titles in the near future. Electronic Arts signed a partnership with Grasshopper Manufacture and Epic Games during its Bay Area showcase event, revealing a few new projects in the works for the new studio, EA Partners. Find out more in our full article.

The infamous Surfer Girl just unleashed more rumors to keep you on your toes as we enter 2008. According to the latest post on Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars, big titles will grace the Xbox Originals service and giant publishers such as EA and Eidos are cooking something up for next year. Details at the full article.

1UP's Yoshi Sato reports that in the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu, Goichi Suda, more famously known as Suda 51, president of Grasshopper Manufacture, revealed that the mysterious Project S that he and Hideo Kojima are working on will be a series of projects based on Hideo Kojima's classic adventure game Snatcher.

Ah, so that's why it's "S."

The first project will be a radio drama written by Suda 51. Interestingly, Suda 51 will also be one of the drama's voice actors. He comments that he can't talk about the details surrounding the project at the moment (as expected) but he does say that he thinks he will call it Snatchers. Ah, plural means sequel, yes?

Still no info on what other formats that projects in Project S will take, but given the names attached to the project we all hope that a videogame is included among them.

Fans were enthralled in a one-day gaming extravaganza called Snake vs Zombie Vol. 2 put up by Grasshopper Manufacture in Japan. Talk shows and presentations were run all day, but everything came down to a face-off between two of the industry's true heavyweights: Director Hideo Kojima of the Metal Gear Solid series and director Shinji Mikami of Resident Evil.

The two met in an hour-long talk show where provocative questions were asked. Both men showed a healthy respect for each other's work by revealing their experiences playing each other's games. Kojima first ran into Mikami's craft when he played the first Resident Evil and finished it. Mikami, on the other hand, says he's played through Metal Gear Solid and liked it a lot.

Kojima even had an amusing suggestion for the Resident Evil online game. "The player is a zombie hunter and enters a town infested with zombies. When you die, you turn into a zombie and you start to walk aimlessly, unable to control your character -- just the camera. But, you will still pay for your monthly subscription!"says Kojima, as the crowd burst into laughs.

For his part, Mikami said that he could never direct an MGS game because of his impatient nature. He says whenever he goes out to play war games, he's usually the first to get shot because he just can't stay put in one place. Kojima chimed in that he has a similar problem whenever the MGS development team goes to the mountains for their combat training sessions.

Both Kojima and Mikami revealed that they have problems regarding their staff and jokes. Mikami says that his staff takes a lot of his jokes too seriously at times and some of it eventually reflects in the game. Kojima, on the other hand, has a problem getting his staff to take him more seriously.

The two, however, said that they would still want to direct a game if they ever end up in a collaboration. The host jokingly asked "So how do you decide, with rock, paper, scissors?"

This year's GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo and Conference, a three-day affair that showcases the latest in games, hobbies, and electronic entertainment, will be kicking off tomorrow in Perth (that's in Australia, by the way). The expo part will last the whole three days, while the conference will be held on March 30 and 31.

The featured speaker for the GO3 conference is Hideo Kojima, the man behind the Metal Gear series. Kojima's session is scheduled for March 31 at 2:30 in the afternoon and will focus on the correlations between the evolution of technology and changes in game design.

Other speakers include Suda 51 of Grasshopper Manufacture and Q Entertainment's Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Epic Games' Rod Ferguson will also be on hand to talk about Gears of War and how Epic handles launching a new videogame franchise. You can check out a full list of speakers as well as the schedule by clicking on the "read" link below.

Goichi "Suda 51" Suda, the main man behind independent videogame studio Grasshopper Manufacture, is worried. "I'm 39 years old now," he confides during an interview with GameVideos. "Now, in Japan, there are no young, twenty-something year-old stars in our industry. That worries me. So you've only got older game creators. If we don't do something to bring the young guns into the fold, our industry will fail."

While Suda 51 concedes that big-budget titles like Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man ("the Hollywood blockbusters of the industry," says Suda 51) are an important part of the market, he also believes that indie games with small budgets are just as vital.

"The industry needs independent games with small budgets," said Suda 51. "The industry needs to foster an environment where indie developers can make games that cost less without threatening the developer's very existence."

During the interview, Suda 51 also revealed his hopes that Sony would release the graphics engine that powers the PlayStation Home as middleware. "If Sony allows outside developers to make games based on that, I think it would be really beneficial to the industry. Developers like us could make more PS3 titles using that engine and at a smaller budget. If Sony chooses to do that I'd be very excited."

Of course, the indie developer also talked a bit about Grasshopper Manufacture's upcoming title for Nintendo's next gen Wii videogame console. Talking about the gameplay system in No More Heroes, Suda 51 revealed a few basic moves that players should learn.

"The basic slash is on the A button on the Wii remote, and you can do a finishing move by doing a slash motion with the Wii remote." And then, in Suda's own words, "there goes the enemy's head."

You can check out the full video interview below.