EA Sports's Madden NFL 10. The Best Madden Ever In years past (especially between 02 and 08) the annual Madden has been seen as somewhat of a roster update, however, Madden NFL 10 is something I've not experienced before: an ultra good looking, ultra realistic football game. Madden NFL 09 was a step in the right direction, with better graphics and new animations, however Madden 10 is a giant leap in the right direction, such a big leap it may have just landed where it needed to be. In years past, Madden has been hampered by a lack-luster graphics system that was essentially a beefed up PS2 engine. Textures were hi-res and the detail was there, however player models and the overall stadium experience was still fairly sixth generation. 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...

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...

Continuing to add to the exclusivity of its new DJ Hero franchise, Activision today announced that The Scratch Perverts and DJ Yoda created exclusive mixes for the upcoming release. I think this new release of information shows us two things: Activision wants the fans to know that they are really putting it all into this title and they are also shrewdly telling any competition that may spring up, "Yeah, don't bother, we got this." Not exactly a bold move on the large corporation's part and it's hardly a new concept. Create barriers to entry for your competition even before it exists by firmly planting in the consumers' minds that you are "the one and best. 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...

Three Incredible Capcom® Hits For The XBox 360® In The Affordable Platinum Hits Triple Pack Looking for a great deal on some great games that you may have just rented or borrowed from a friend in the past? Like a really great deal. We're talking three AAA XBox titles for less than the cost of a Wii title. $39.99 for three XBox games. Read More...

The PS3 Slim is a reality, and it's getting closer and closer to happening, at least according to the latest rumors. Gamescom is taking place later this month, and Sony will hold its conference on August 18th, which is when the PS3 Slim is rumored to be debuted. The rumored release date is September 2nd, but the more important thing, is that the price is allegedly going to be €299.99, which depending on what country you get it in, is €50-€100 less than the current 80gb model. Whether the North American or Japanese release date/price would be announced as well is remain to be seen, however making an announcement for only the European region seems odd. Read More...

From the articles I have written or hearing me on the Aggrocast, you probably know I'm excited for a little title called Darkest of Days. Well today independent game developer, 8monkey Labs, and Phantom EFX, a leading developer and publisher of entertainment software, has announced today that on August 11th 2009 a demo of Darkest of Days will be available on the PC. Aaron Schurman, Chief Executive Officer at Phantom EFX had this to say: "Custer's infamous last stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn, and the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history… these are just a few of humanity’s darkest days, and you can dive into both of these in the Darkest of Days demo. This hour-long demo lets players experience unrivaled carnage and to experience what it’s like to use futuristic weapons in period settings and see what happens when you alter history while fighting against hundreds of enemies during some of man's greatest struggles in History! 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...

Rock Band: Country Pack Rock Band is well known for the DLC updates they do every week. Very well known, for it. But one thing that the franchise is not well known for is having a good selection of music that falls in line with the controls and set up. In this case I am talking Country. A genre that isn't normally popular amongst the more hardcore gamers and fans of rhythm games. Well that was up until just recently with the expansion to Rock Band with the Country Pack. I use the word expansion here because this is really what the whole pack is. 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...

The original Way of the Samurai title was released on the Playstation 2 back in 2002. It was set in 19th Century Japan, where you would take on the role of a ronin who wanders into a remote village and becomes involved in a conflict between rival clans. One of the best features about this game was the branching storylines that offered some very solid replay value while at the same time offering enough in the way of varying weapons and side content to really constitute different gameplay experiences. Although the story in the first game follows one overall framing narrative, the actual events that the you would engage in really depend on the decisions you make. Some decisions, while seeming small, could affect who lived and died at the end of the story. Read More...

Touchable Holography We've all seen "3D" films and the basic version of holograms before, unless you are Milla Jovovich of course. We have seen the wonders of depth given to us through stereoscopic glasses and other forms of that technology. Which in turn has us think forward to get something like the Holodecks out of Star Trek. Something that would be a gamers dream to play in. Something that looked to be many many decades away. Read More...