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A few days after its mysterious appearance on the ESRB database, the Sony Online Entertainment–published Revenge of the Wounded Dragons has been fully revealed -- and it's coming out this week. Tomorrow, in fact! Developed by A2M-owned Wanako Games, Wounded Dragons wears its inspirations on its sleeve, with a rescue-your-girlfriend story straight out of Double Dragon and single-file waves of enemies à la Kung Fu.

Wounded Dragons appears to feature a more involved combo system than its forebears, though, along with modern niceties like Trophies, custom soundtracks and leaderboards. Like NES fighters, however, the game is limited to local play -- yes, despite, ironically, being published by SOE. Revenge of the Wounded Dragons will be released on the PlayStation Store tomorrow, November 24, for $9.99. Hit the break to watch the trailer.

Update: An SOE rep has confirmed to Joystiq that more details on the game will be released next Monday. Hold tight!

If it weren't strange enough that Sony Online Entertainment is listed as the publisher for recently ESRB rated PlayStation 3 side-scrolling brawler Revenge of the Wounded Dragons, we find it all the stranger that a trademark filing from last September puts Wet developer A2M in the developer's seat. The game's description, aside from pinning it as a PS3 exclusive, tells us that it's a "2D fighting game" where players will "frequently punch, kick, and throw enemies as they 'side-scroll' forward through the platform city environments."

We put our top men on deciphering this rating-wary, encrypted message, and they have surmised that the title will likely be some form of a Double Dragon clone. Reading further into the description, we see that the game follows "two brothers attempting to avenge their grandfather's death and rescue their sister from the local mafia boss." A 2D, sidescrolling brawler that follows the tale of two brothers out for revenge? You don't say! We contacted both A2M and Sony Online Entertainment for comment, but have yet to hear back.

Source 1 - ESRB
Source 2 - USPTO

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Relations between Sony Online Entertainment's John Smedley and the guys from Penny Arcade have clearly improved since the Donut Debacle of 2006. Smedley recently took a moment to talk to Jerry "Tycho" Holkins about Magic: The Gathering Tactics, revealing a few savory tidbits about the title -- the most delightful of which being the fact that the PS3 and PC versions of the game will be interconnected, allowing a player to use his account (and all his meticulously crafted decks) on both platforms.

Basically, if you've got a laptop, a PS3 and an unslakable hunger for thin, rectangular artifacts imbued with immeasurable power, then your social life and work ethic are about to be assaulted on all sides. Good luck with that!

Sony Online Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast have announced a new collaboration: Magic: The Gathering - Tactics, a new turn-based strategy game for PC and PS3 set in the universe of the card game. Tactics puts players in control of "dramatic 3D figures" in single-player or online battles, with spell cards taken from the Magic series.

Of course, it's not Magic without frequent, additional purchases, and SOE promises "regular content expansions," which will no doubt become a de facto requirement for highly competitive tournament play. The game is being developed by SOE's Denver studio, and will be out on PC in early 2010, with the PS3 release to follow.

Sony Online Entertainment could go all the way crazy and officially announce that it's working on the sequel to the popular MMOFPS PlanetSide, but why bother? No, SOE would much rather release a survey mentioning the sequel, only to be called "PlanetSide Next" by company prez John Smedley a few weeks later on his LiveJournal (has it really come to this, folks?).

Though few details are given, Smedley takes the time to thoroughly declare his love for the series, and in doing so speaks of SOE's intentions with PlanetSide Next. "To me, PlanetSide Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in PlanetSide and make it a lot better ... massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch ... none of this 64-player stuff ... REALLY MASSIVE." We're just hoping our measly laptops will be able to handle the game's sheer massiveness.

[Thanks, Hamma!]

Sony Online Entertainment's PlanetSide was one of the more ambitious MMO titles of its time -- largely due to its focus on twitchy shooting action (instead of infinitely repetitive Dire Rabbit slaying). It seems Sony wants to re-energize the waning franchise with a new installment in the series -- a number of PlanetSide subscribers recently received an SOE email survey asking for inspiration as the developer begins to "plan to expand the PlanetSide universe with another game."

The language in the survey (posted after the jump) doesn't make it sound like SOE is working on a half-baked expansion or a genre-defying spinoff, as it tells participants, "the information you provide will play a critical role into helping guide the development and direction of the next hit Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter." The only thing we remember from our time with PlanetSide was getting killed a whole whole lot. We're not sure what Sony can do about that, besides entirely removing death from the sequel.

[Thanks, Alex!]

We cornered Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley after his Austin GDC keynote (literally -- he was backed into a corner and could not escape us. Sorry, John!) to get some kind of status update on the PS3/PC MMO action game, The Agency. While we didn't get the firm release date we hoped for, Smedley reassured us that the game's in no danger of not coming out.

"Next year" was as closely as Smedley could approximate the release date. "Can't get -- because I've been wrong like three times with that game. And we're not going to release it until it's right. But there's this rumor going around that we're going to cancel it -- that's ridiculous."

It's worth noting that a cancellation rumor was debunked by SOE in November, but it's been ten months since then! Seems like a good time to assert once again that the game is still in development.

"No," Smedley continued, "we're going full-bore towards it. We're simply keeping it under wraps more because we want to make it the best possible game we can. I'm an FPS player first and foremost, so we're going to get that game right, period." Smedley firmly denied that the departure of staff would affect the game's development.