Sorry it’s been a couple of weeks, folks, but once again, I’m bringing Nintendo’s weekly DLC into the spotlight.  This week, the big N drops two titles into the DSi Shop, one into Wii Ware and one into the Virtual Console.  Everyone has good weeks and bad weeks and Nintendo is different with this week’s lineup. The “Telephone” clone is impressive in that the title can support up to 21 people online, but 500 points seems a bit pricey for a slightly improved version of Picto-chat.  The Master of Illusion Express: Shuffle Games title is a great idea, for a demo. Read More...

Attention please! It's time to learn the Secrets of Ulduar in the snowy regions of Storm Peaks! A few new things been released for this patch and the most notable Dual Spec. How this lovely ability works is when you are at level 40 you will be able to purchase Dual Spec for 1000g and it will allow you to switch between 2 different specs, glyphs and action bars. Now I could go on and list more changes like UI Improvement, The Argent Tournament. But I figured you would want to read the official patch notes instead. Read More...

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits Let me ask you a question, am I the only one that isn't a fan of greatest hits albums from bands? Compilations of songs that I already own but the band thinks that they are the best of their collection and need to make another CD of just these songs. Making the need to shell out more cash to pick up songs a new disk that I already paid good hard cash for. How does this make sense in a world? Really? Read More...

Alright you animal loving people out there especially those who play the lovely game of World of Warcraft. This Saturday the lovely group of peta has set up an event on the WhisperWind realm at the Howling Fjord area to help stop the killing of….seals??  “Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur.  Activists from across the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are banding together to put a stop to the atrocious seal slaughter.” Just recently the Canadian government has started their killing on seals, which means sealers are free to kill up to 338,200 of these harmless creatures. Read More...

This week Nintendo released the DSi and its accompanying application download service, the DSi Shop.  Akin to the Wii Shop Channel, consumers will be able to purchase and download software directly to their DSi systems with the price of the software ranging from free to 800+ DSi Points (800 points is roughly $8).  The first round of “DSi Ware” includes an opera-powered web browser (free) and 5 games with WarioWare: Stacked! (500 DSi Points) as the noticeable standout of the bunch. Read More...

Rock Band Unplugged Does anyone else remember a little game Harmonix made oh so long ago called Amplitude? Where you flew a space craft around on different tracks and shot down "notes" to keep the beat, vocals, etc. going on a song playing in the background. You could upgrade and change your avatars and ships based on your scores. Also had some kick ass music that has yet to be fully seen on any of Harmonix's current projects. Ring a bell? Read More...

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 For some reason Marvel would rather slowly tease us all with a slow release of playable characters for the next ultimate alliance game. Very slowly it would seem. Almost one a month from the count that I have seen. At least outside of the original outburst of characters that were assumed to carry over from the first game. But with around 24 playable characters, going at one a month won't be anywhere on time for their Autumn release schedule. Unless they plan to hammer us at E3 with a bunch of the others. Read More...

According to a post on the official PlayStation Blog this past Wednesday, Sony has announced a new firmware update for the PlayStation 3. According to Eric Lempel Director of PlayStation Network Operations, v. 2.70’s new features will include a new Text Chat feature that will allow you to chat online with up to 15 friends as well as be able to chat in up to 3 rooms with friends. According to the blog, the new feature will be compatible with the PlayStation Wireless Keypad, on-screen keyboard, and other keyboard peripherals compatible with the console. Along with the chat feature, the XMB Friends List will be updated to allow you to sort your friends via their online status. Read More...

More Screen Shots Of Final Fantasy XIII While there is no confirmation on when the US will get their version of the FFXIII demo, the Japanese got one with the re-release of Advent Children, and only rumors of such a thing, what are we outside of Japan to do? Outside of try to find videos of the demo on youtube, or fuzzy screen shots of said demo, or poor translations from blogs about said demo, or well I could go on and on but I won't. But hopefully you get the point there. Well we are kind of in luck if the "Special Look" at FFXIII on the BluRay US version of the game turns out to be just another trailer for the game. Read More...

Videos Leaked From GDC 2009 While the Game Developers Conference that just took place in San Francisco just last week isn't the largest place for crazy game announcements and substantial news, at least it wasn't my impression, there are always a few little things that get shown off or spoken about while there. A lot of it is also "off the record" type stuff that gets shown and brought up. Or even simpler, a please do not record and show off anything you see in this conference or booth. Read More...

If you're a fan of Activision's Call of Duty series, you probably know that Infinity Ward is currently making Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to 2007's Call of Duty 4. A release date, however, was unconfirmed until now. In a teaser trailer released at both GDC09 and it's official website: www.modernwarfare2.com, a release date was confirmed as November 10th, 2009. Read More...

Xbox Live users who are fans of both Guitar Hero and Metallica can go on the Xbox Live marketplace and download the newly uploaded demo for the upcoming Guitar Hero Metallica.The demo features four playable songs, two of which are Metallicas, the other two are by Alice and Chains and Queen. The track list goes as:No Excuses - Alice in ChainsSad But True - MetallicaSeek and Destroy - MetallicaStone Cold Crazy - QueenThe demo also features the ability to create your own rockstar character like in Guitar Hero World Tour, but seeing as it's the demo it's kind of pointless to have.If you're thinking about buying this game and are wondering what kind of songs to expect, below is the full track list of every song in the game. There's quite a lot of personal favorites of mine on there such as Master of Puppets. Read More...

For American Xbox 360 owners, and European PS3 owners, June 30th is going to bring a gem to the arcade scene of Live and PSN. It's OutRun Online, an online speed-fest based on OutRun 2006, with 15 courses, and support of online head-to-head play for six players. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou1fJ6CoRcIOutRun has long since been a favorite of mine and I would say it, arguably, influenced many other games in the genre with its approach to racing. If you aren't familiar with the series, it will be a great time to get aquainted. It's looking pretty good for an arcade title. Read More...

Taking the path down to Retro-land has many twists and turns...some more expensive than others.  Another Commodore 64 game was released this week on the Virtual Console and it is a good one: Summer Games II.  I very fondly remember going over to my friend Jason's house and booting up the C-64.  Not as fun to me as Winter Games, Summer Games II gave you the thrill of sport on an international level we had hardly seen before.  I have some great nostalgia for this game, but I'm not paying 500 Wii Points for it. Read More...

Epic Games has recently announced two big changes for Gears of War 2. One of them is a title update for the people who have been complaining about the rank system and the other is a new map pack containing four brand new maps.Players will now be earning points by playing online in public matches and ranking up levels, max is 100. Basically the more points you get, the more experience points you will get to level up. Players who reach a certain level will then unlock more achievements:Rookie Gear (level 5)Seasoned Gear (level 15)Battle-Tested Gear (level 25)Battle-Hardened Gear (level 50)Veteran Gear (level 100)The last two achievements are said to have the new Snowblind Map Pack in order to unlock. Read More...