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...

James Cameron's Avatar - Screens and Video We've all been bored with the speculation. We've all been bored with the waiting for any information about this game. We've all been bored by listening to James Cameron babble on about what may or may not be included in the game for his next big block buster. Can you honestly say you were not bored and let down by everything that came up about Avatar before the huge trailer showing at Comic Con? I didn't think so. 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...

With all of the news flooding out of the Sony camp a lot of people have been curious to see if the Home service is going to receive any measure of attention. Well, they have heard your cries and have offered up a wealth of information courtesy of the official blog. The list of features are as follows: Universal Game Launching: "You can now launch into any PlayStation 3 game directly from Home. Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter 4 and Far Cry 2) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar's head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in. Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease. 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...

Announcing: LittleBigPlanet – Game of the Year edition If there is one thing I hate when I open up a new DVD or Blu-Ray case, it's when there is an ad for a Special Edition of the same film that I bought coming out in a few weeks/months. A new edition with all the crazy extra features and extras that I wanted in the one I just bought. The kicker is when they advertise this new version for the same price as the one I just bought. It always leaves me burned by the company. 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...

Second Skin is a documentary that follows the lives of seven people as they delve in to the world of MMORPGs. The film was directed by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza and produced by Victor Pineiro Escoriaza and Peter Brauer. The synopsis from the site reads: “Second Skin takes an intimate look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by online virtual worlds. An emerging genre of computer software called Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs, allows millions of users to interact simultaneously in virtual spaces. Of the 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted. Read More...