DataBox Games: Nine guys in their mid-20s on an island off Sweden. They are all attending Gotland University and working on their final thesis for their Bachelor's and Master's Degrees. Why is this important? Because much like the current wave of independent titles that flood the Xbox Marketplace - they are just a bunch of people with a love for games trying to deliver a unique experience. They don't have a major machine behind them, but they have a passion for crafting something that we can all get into and as such are definitely worth promoting around these parts. The game that they are currently working on is Penalty of Heroes, which I believe is their 26th title; most of the previous 25 have been made in ten weeks or less and have more fun crammed into them then a great majority of bigger budget titles. Read More...

Bright Shadow Coming To The U.S. While Blizzcon has come and gone and only a few announcements for the worlds largest MMO were made, that doesn't mean that other companies weren't working on making a few big splashes. Some of the big splashes to get a rather interesting Anime-styled MMO to North America for the first time ever. Not to mention the second game that Gamepot is bringing to North America. This MMO I am talking about is Bright Shadow. Read More...

You could potentially get your hands on the new Firefight mode from one of the most anticipated titles of the year. Bungie, Microsoft, and Gamestop have joined into an unholy alliance and are presenting a Halo 3: ODST Transport vehicle that will be making stops at GameStops all across the US, giving lucky folks a go with the title. Major Nelson via his blog, dropped the dates for the tour, and hopefully one of them are going to be close to you - if you are interested, that is: Halo 3: ODST Transport Vehicle Stops City Location Date Seattle (Redmond, WA) Redmond Town Center 8/22 Portland (Hillsboro, OR) Tanasbourne Town Center 8/23 San Francisco (Union City, CA) Union Landing 8/25 San Jose (Antioch, CA) Center At Slatten Ranch 8/26 Los Angeles (Pasadena, CA) Hastings Village 8/28 San Diego, CA Carmel Mt. Read More...

With all the news flying out of Gamescon, you are no doubt thinking about PAX just 2 weeks away. For those of you lucky enough to attend, PAX will offer many unique experiences and plenty of time to go hands-on some fall releases. If you are going to be in attendance, I encourage you to visit the Torchlight booth (#872) and tryout one of the sleeper hits of E3 last June. Torchlight is a dungeon-crawling Action RPG from Runic Games, who just celebrated their first anniversary. A lot has happened for Torchlight in the last two months as they prepare for the fall release of the single player offering. Read More...

Sack it to Me – the "Big Announcements" Edition You ever hop into the level creator for LittleBigPlanet and feel like there was something missing. Something that stopped you from being able to faithfully recreate the entire game of Super Mario Bros. using their sandbox. Something you couldn't quite place your finger on. Something you had to muddle around with the jet packs a bit to get to work correctly as well as run a blue tint over the entire screen for immersion's sake. Ok, enough of that and on to the point. Read More...

After a viral marketing scheme by LionsHead Studios, we finally see what all the hub-bub was about. If you haven't been watching, the LionsHead website has been showing leaders of our time (Abraham Lincoln for example) and quotes underneath each one followed by a number. The numbers were counting down each day until today. Today also happens to be the opening day for GamesCom 2009. LionsHead Studios officially announced Fable 3 as well as posted the new trailer today. Read More...

Hades Boss Fight Round 2 So on Monday we were able to give you a nice view of what the Lord of the Dead would be looking like. We've seen him only in a few minor shots in the God of War FMVs before that. But now we get one further peek at how this epic boss/boss fight will look and feel. All of this through some more screen shots from the game and what is being shown at GamesCom. I know it is all Hades vs. Kratos in those shots there, but it still looks amazingly stunning. Read More...

Konami Unmasks the Belmont Clan in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Just in case you forgot about the Castlevania game that has Hideo Kojima attached to it, due to being hit in the head with a baseball bat, let's give you a reminder. Yes, the man of Metal Gear Solid fame has his hands in the game. Yes, there are a lot of big names doing some of the Voice Overs. Yes it is a very well done looking next gen version of the franchise. But that was all that people knew of when they first announced and gave a short tease at E3 this year. Read More...

Another contender, albeit an interesting one, in the area of game rental and availability - Redbox, more known for its kiosks which seem to be everywhere from Royal Farms to McDonald's, will now be offering games for the DS, Wii, Playstations 2&3, and Xbox 360 for a sum of $2 nightly. For most gamers, GameFly seems to be the go to source for gaming rentals along with the coveted Goozex for trading and trying out titles. This reminds me of several years ago when the war was between Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Well, considering I never played a game from Hollywood Video that wasn't scratched, maybe it wasn't much of a war after all. Read More...

Multiplayer: The Book Burning Generation The other night I was driving home at 1 am with the God of War soundtrack playing in the car. As the game music, with mixed in audio clips from the game, was playing through my car speakers, I began to think on how truly epic the story of this game was. Not epic as in awesome, even though it is, but more in lines of how it actually fell in line with the Epic writings of the Greeks. Think the Odyssey and Iliad for what I mean. It soon sparked in my head on how games like this are looking to be a bit more few and far between in the current state of things. Read More...

Lead Designer at Raven Software Offers To Pay For Wolfenstein In a stroke of what could be seen as marketing genius, or insane offerings by an over worked designer, the offer has been thrown out to get your copy of Wolfenstein paid for. All offered by the game's Lead Designer, Manveer Heir, over his Twitter account in the early hours of the morning on the 11th of August. There are a few catches that go along with this, but he swears he will pay for your copy if all the requirements are met. What would those requirements be? Read More...

Dante's Inferno: Gluttony Developer's Diary Continuing down the path of Hell from Lust, Visceral Games keeps with their fun and dark developer's diaries. This time they cover the third level, Gluttony. A level that should be as gruesome as the scene from Se7en and starts to look that way with some of the concepts they show in the video. One thing that kind of bothers me though is the fact that they talk a lot about defecation, feces, and poop in the video. A lot. Read More...

Announcing a BioShock 2 Pre-Order Bonus It was rumored all over the internet over the last week or so that everyone's "favorite" pre-order store, GameStop, was getting exclusive DLC for the multiplayer part of the game. Well at least that was one of the rumors abound the net. But it was one of the more solid ones. Especially since The Cult of Rapture, BioShock 2's official website, just announced that it is true. With pictures of the concepts to boot. Read More...

A very interesting tidbit came across my inbox this morning. At a Best Buy in Utah, there are some potentially devastating moves going on. Probably more of a test run than anything else. Best Buy is quoted on their in-store advertisement as saying, "Best Buy now price matches new video games at used prices from GameStop or Game Crazy." Thus far this has been the only store with such an ad reported, but the effects of this could be very far-reaching. Imagine just walking into a Best Buy with your GameStop weekly ad and utilizing the deal. Read More...

So here's why you should go to GameStop. So you want to play Madden NFL 10, who doesn't. Be the first to play it on Monday, as your local GameStop will be playing it in their PS3 demo unit. I have confirmed with several GameStop employees that they have received a PS3 version of the full game and will be putting it in their system after close on Sunday (I'm going to assume some are going to play it earlier). While playing it at E3 (keep in mind this was in no way a finished version of the game) I couldn't help but notice the fact that every single play seemed to include the gang tackles. While it was nice to show off the new feature of the game, EVERY SINGLE tackle was a gang tackle, something that is completely unrealistic, perhaps it was because they wanted to show off the new feature, but if it is in the final version of the game I will be very disappointed. Read More...