Maybe it's bad timing or just bad luck. But there's a growing list of cancelled 3DS games. That's not good.

On the list of canned 3DS games, there's My Garden, which was supposed to be a 3DS launch title. There's also Saints Row: Drive-By, also apparently canned.

Four Hudson games for the 3DS were canned, including Omega Five, Kororinpa: Marble Mania, Bonk, and Bomberman. However, these cancellations could be due to the current situation at Hudson.

BloodRayne: The Shroud wasn't canned outright, but it's development is currently on hold. Also, DJ Hero 3 hasn't been officially cancelled, but it seems like this game is going to fall by the wayside. Blame the flagging popularity of music games for that!

Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy was officially canned, and as of yesterday, Mega Man Legends 3 bit the dust.

To add insult to injury, it was revealed this week that 3DS game Crush 3D was delayed due to uncertainly over whether or not the 3DS is going to succeed.

The Nintendo 3DS was released in late February in Japan and in late March in the West. It's only been out a few months, and it's already being battered by bad luck and strong headwinds. There are big 3DS games on the horizon, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is currently out.

The issue that plagues Nintendo hardware isn't traditionally a lack of good Nintendo games, but a lack of good games from outside developers—not to say these canned games were amazing. However, if developer after developer jumps ship, what kind of message does it send studios thinking about making a 3DS title?

『ニンテンドー3DS』のゲームがどんどん開発中止になっていく・・・ [オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃]

Now that I've gotten past the shock of the initial reveal and the awe of the first trailer, I'm done referring to BloodRayne: Betrayal as a game that's trying to be Castlevania. With each new screenshot I find myself wishing there was a Castlevania that looked this good.

The screens don't do the game justice, but here they are nonetheless. Developer Way Forward are quickly establishing themselves as masters of 2D gaming, establishing a fluidity of motion in games like this and A Boy and His Blob like we've never seen before. Someone get these folks a Castlevania license.

I'd settle for some sexy Alucard on BloodRayne fan art. No no, that's the wrong Alucard. Screw it, I'll just wait until the game comes out in August and use my imagination.

Natassia Malthe starred in BloodRayne II: Deliverance, BloodRayne 3: the Third Reich, and In the Name of the King 2. That's three films from infamous filmmaker Uwe Boll! Does Malthe have any regrets? Yes, but not about working with Boll.

Malthe told Fangoria that Boll is "totally misunderstood". According to her, "People are jealous of him because he's outside the Hollywood system and because he's successful, but they just don't understand him."

Not to be a total contrarian, I kind of agree! If anything, Boll is a brilliant provocateur and self promoter.

About her regrets so far, Malthe said," I wish...I wish I hadn't done so much of the, well, sexy stuff. You know, before I was a Maxim model, before I became known for my body I used to get a lot more interesting and dynamic parts. I used to play crackheads and different kind of people and I wish people would take more chances on me to do stuff like that..."

Guess she wasn't asked about her role as Ayane in the Dead or Alive movie, which I actually sat through. Talk about regrets.

Interview: "BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH" star Natassia Malthe [Fangoria]

After the above clip, the scene goes on, with Rayne leading the poor abused woman to safety, but not offering her any clothing, so we can ogle her breasts for about two minutes. That way, we can feel good about how feminist we are, and stare at some boobies at the same time. Everybody wins!

The developers at Way Forward, veterans of recent 3D remakes and sequels to games like Contra and A Boy and His Blob are turning BloodRayne, a 3D action game series about a sexy lady vampire that launched nine years ago, into a 2D action brawler.

They're emphasizing blood over sex appeal. Lots of blood. And just a smidge of that sexiness. In fact, the developers told me, when they showed me the game at E3, that BloodRayne's idle animation is the main sexy thing they put in the game. I had to film it, of course, which I did, so that you can judge it. Just watch the video at the top of this story here.

BloodRayne Betrayal was surprisingly impressive. You move the heroine swiftly through striking stages that all look hand-drawn. There are nearly 4000 frames of animation for our leading lady, I was told. She doesn't have much defense—dashing is her primary means of escape—but she can slice enemies up well and also either suck their blood or blow them up. For those last two actions, she stuns the enemy and then can drain their blood to regain health or poison them, which makes them prone to explosions. Well-executed bites like that will cause one enemy to set off a chain of detonating enemies. WayForward calls that the "chain explosion" and says that's the signature new mechanic they've added.

The game plays fluidly and fast (watch its trailer for proof). If you like side-scrolling hack and slash games, keep this on your radar. It will be out this summer as a downloadable game in August on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

When BloodRayne: Betrayal was announced so close to April 1, we met the reveal with a healthy dose of scepticism. A 3D brawler turned into a 2D platformer? Seemed a little weird, since it normally works the other way around.

But here it is, in all its 2D, cel-shaded glory. A comment on the clip's YouTube page says "looks like castalvania now i hated blood ryane so this can only be an improvement", which must surely sum up most people's thoughts on the matter.

It'll be out on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade this summer.

At 2010's E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles, BloodRayne was revealed for the 3DS. When asked on Facebook about the status of BloodRayne: The Shroud, the game's maker replied that the title is "currently on hold", but added, "We'll be sure to share any news when it's available." [via GoNintendo]

He's one of the most hated men in movies. Critics pan his flicks. Audiences aren't having it. Gamers loathe him. Heck, a chewing gum maker even wanted him to retire. But is it possible that we've all been wrong?

This year, Prince of Persia was supposed to be the big Hollywood film that got gaming right. It didn't deliver, and 2010 was another year bereft of the elusive great gaming flick. As gaming movies continue to let us down, maybe it's time to consider that the worst offender in all this might not be the worst offender after all. It is time to re-assess the king of hated video game movies, Uwe Boll.

The German-born Boll made his splash in the early part of the last decade with House of the Dead, a cinematic take on the Sega arcade games. Low budget and corny, it was the film that would cement his reputation in the West as a maker of low-budget game-inspired schlock.

"I have almost no time to play video games," Boll tells Kotaku from the set of his current production In the Name of the King 2. According to Boll, The House of the Dead film version came via Mark Altman, the film scribe and producer behind DOA: Dead or Alive.

Boll thought he'd made the most accurate House of the Dead film send-up possible, and Sega supported the picture with then Sega of America exec Peter Moore given a zombie cameo. The movie's reviews were brutal, but the movie turned a profit. "Because it made money I went deeper into the gaming world and tried to acquire games I like — for example Alone In The Dark or BloodRayne," Boll says.

Alone in the Dark didn't fair much better with Alone in the Dark's scriptwriter dishing on the changes Boll made to the film and the game's developer deciding not to make this film a tie-in for the then-upcoming Alone in the Dark 5. The movie was not a success with critics or at the box office. BloodRayne, which had a budget of $25 million only made $3 million at theaters. Critics hated it. This is where the career of any normal filmmaker would draw to a close. Uwe Boll is not any normal filmmaker, because Boll produced sequels of both: BloodRayne 2 in 2007 and Alone in the Dark II in 2008.

This is Boll's genius — he is able to get his films made. Even when critics tear into his pictures, there he is with yet another film. He's used German tax loopholes to get his films financed as well as good old fashioned pre-sales, private investors and subsidies. Boll might not be the greatest film director, but he is a great movie producer. Since 2002, he's made over fifteen films. "I've never made more than three movies in a year, and I only did that twice," he says. "Normally I do two movies a year. Three is too much." Here's a guy who filmed three movies back to back, all using Nazi uniforms, props and settings and all completely different. His work ethic and corner-cutting harkens back to the bygone days when directors pumped out films year after year, rather then leaving them to languish in development hell. When asked whether he'll continue making films into old age, the 45-year-old director replies, "I don't think i will make movies after I'm 70."

Uwe Boll doesn't only get films made, he gets them made with name actors: Ben Kingsley, Christian Slater, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, John Rhys-Davies, Michael Madsen, Tara Reid, Kristanna Loken, Til Schweiger, Leelee Sobieski, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Billy Zane, Edward Furlong have all appeared in Boll's films. There some big stars in there who have worked with big directors in big movies.

And even after suing Billy Zane over a BloodRayne dispute, the director was somehow able to talk him into starring in this year's Attack on Darfur. Even Michael Madsen, who got ill and injured during BloodRayne, said he'd work with Uwe again "if he called me tomorrow".

But what's his secret? Compromising photos? Blackmail? Ha! No. "I send the script and make an offer," Boll explains. "Actors and Hollywood Managers and Agents know that I'm a real filmmaker and [don't] agree with the internet bashing. They watch my movies and don't hate them."

It's more than that. Uwe Boll turned himself into a brand-name filmmaker. Ask any internet inhabitant, and they'll know his name, just like they'll know Steven Spielberg or Michael Bay. Granted, they know Boll's name for different reasons, but they do know it. Name recognition breeds media exposure (like this!), which creates interest in what he is doing.

Boll didn't build a name through himself by a series of bad films. There are tons of directors that create b-movies. No, Boll — who has a PhD in literature — is smart. The man is a master of early 21st-century publicity stunts: beating up internet critics or calling Michael Bay a "fucking retard".

"Boll uses the internet as a true communications medium," says Vince Desi, CEO of game developer Running With Scissors (They made the Postal game). "He interacts directly with the fans and the press. He is very public about his personal opinions about actors and topics he makes movies on." He knows how to push buttons, how to elicit a response. For example, Postal, based on the Running With Scissors franchise, was one of the first films to attempt to parody the 9/11 tragedy, causing a firestorm of controversy. The movie featured a 9/11-style attack gag that caused two hundred theater goers in New Jersey to walk out on a free Postal screening. Distributors balked, and the pictured went from a planned 1,500 screens to a mere 21. "All my movies are about life and death, and they are all radical," Boll says. "I'm not the political correct guy."

Boll considers himself a serious filmmaker, as he should. He's made several serious films like Attack on Darfur and Rampage — with those films getting solid reviews. Next February, Boll's take on the Holocaust, a film titled Auschwitz, will debut in Berlin. The director describes it as a "day in the life" at Auschwitz, stripped of traditional Hollywood heroics. "There is a documentary element in the film with interviews with German school kids," Boll says, "and it is shocking to see that they don't know a lot about this chapter of German history."

Meanwhile, Boll continues work in Canada, directing action star Dolph Lundgren on the set of In the Name of the King 2, the sequel to the film he made based on the Dungeon Siege games, readying a new social welfare drama and appearing in video game Postal III. Uwe Boll is a hard-working filmmaker and brilliant producer. His grandest production so far is himself, Uwe Boll.

[Lead Pic by Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images, Pic, Pic, Pic, Pic]]

It's World War II, but with fangs, a large woman and controversial director Uwe Boll.

Following up on 2007's BloodRayne II: Deliverance, BloodRayne: The Third Reich, which was originally titled BloodRayne: Warhammer, pits Rayne (Natassia Malthe) against Nazis out to make Hitler immortal.

The trailer below might be NSFW.

The first BloodRayne film was released in 2005 and starred Kristanna Loken as Rayne, as well as Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley and Michael Madsen of Reservoir Dogs fame.

This isn't the only World War II film Boll is working on. He recently finished Auschwitz. According to Boll, "I made the movie because there is not one movie made what shows the Holocaust really was — a killing factory."

Besides BloodRayne and Auschwitz, Boll has yet another flick with Nazis, making a trilogy of sorts. It's called "Bluberella", a word play on blubber and Barbarella.

Uwe Boll, the German filmmaker best known for his film versions of video games, is helming two movies about World War II. Both films were shot back-to-back. One is based on a video game and features zombie Nazis. The other?

The other is based on history and features things far worse.

The first flick, BloodRayne: The Third Reich, sounds like typical Boll fare — a low budget cinematic adaptation of a video game. Boll has said from the beginning that he is planning to do the BloodRayne movies, based on the video games, as a trilogy and that the third one will end in the Second World War.

Previously, Boll has helmed movie versions of Alone in the Dark, Far Cry and Postal.

His second film is titled Auschwitz and is set against the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The recently released trailer shows Uwe Boll dressed as a Nazi as he leans against a gas chamber. Inside, men and women, young and old, perish.

The trailer is explicit and disturbing. It shows horrors like teeth being pulled from a dead body and a little boy being incinerated. In short, it festers in the nightmare that was the Holocaust. [Note: the trailer is not work safe.]

"I made the movie because there is not one movie made what shows the Holocaust really was — a killing factory," Boll says. "All the movies made showed us the special people...the heroes. But nobody has focused on the subject matter." Boll says he plans to include a documentary in the film as well.

The subject matter is most unpleasant. There have been numerous documentaries dealing with the Holocaust, but it seems Boll is referring to movies like Schindler's List. When Schindler's List was released in the early 1990s, there were critics, including Holocaust survivors, who derided Spielberg's portrayal of Oskar Schinder and its SS officer Amon Goth. According to Stanley Kubrick, the Holocaust is about 6 million Jews who died, and Schindler's List is about a couple of thousand who survived. Jean Luc-Godard said the movie was "Max Factor".

Criticism aside, Schindler's List was a critical and commercial success. Make no doubt, this is a landmark film. But we're not simply talking about film here, it's the Holocaust. And Uwe Boll — who doesn't quite have the technical wizardry, the sure hand or the heart of a Steven Spielberg — is making a movie about the Holocaust. There have been better directors who have approached the subject material, and, yes, there have even been far worse.

In an age in which some people continue to deny the Holocaust, he says, "I do not think that it is so bad to show that Auschwitz happened." Considering that the Jewish New Year has begun, the timing for reaching such an arresting trailer could have been better.

Uwe Boll is, if anything, a brilliant provocateur. He's made a name for himself. He gets his films made. Boll knows which buttons to push, and he pushes them well. In recent years, his films, however, have gotten increasingly political. He's taken on topics like 9-11 in Postal. That was dark comedy, though. Recent films like Darfur have shown that he has moved beyond parody. But have his films?

[Pic, Pic, Pic, Pic]]