You probably remember Steve’s post where he talked about the L4D2 ‘boycott.’ Now everyone’s favorite irate TV host, Adam Sessler, is weighing in on the controversy.

I haven’t really weighed in on this one yet, but it’s about time.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? Quite simply, you’re nothing more than a bunch of over-entitled babies.

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InFamous is an action packed trip into a familiar genre with an interesting twist. You start out as Cole McGrath, a poor schmuck who has a mysterious delivery package blow up in his face, leaving him with burgeoning electrical based powers and everyone else in a six block radius with a slight case of death. You emerge from your baptism by fire, crawl out of the blast zone and run for your life guided by your buddy Zeke as the police force hunts you down.

Once you reach the relative safety of your roof top penthouse, the game truly begins throwing you into a grand conspiracy masterminded by a clandestine mystical organization. As you unravel the mystery, you can either fight your reputation as the bringer of the apocalypse or revel in the new coolness that is you and start building your own evil empire.

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It’s that time of year again: The time when Electronic Arts begins releasing its yearly stable of sports games. Yeah, I know. Who cares, right? Every year I see at least one person write something about how EA will eventually tire of this schedule, or else how the gamers will eventually reject it. After at least a decade of this, it doesn’t seem likely that either of those outcomes are imminent.

However, many of us are making progress. It’s been two years since I bought a Madden game, ditto for NCAA Football. I don’t remember the last basketball title I purchased, and I’ve managed to avoid succumbing to the urge to pick up FIFA, NHL, or Fight Night titles as well.

Unfortunately, I still have one crippling weakness: Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Yes, I realize that golf isn’t the ‘hardcore’ gamer’s choice, but for some reason I just can’t stop myself. Case in point: I headed into GameStop yesterday to pick up my copy of Ghostbusters. While I was standing in line at the counter, I was overcome with the urge to grab Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. I fought valiantly, but lo and behold, once I arrived at the front of the line, the first words out of my mouth were those.

What is driving me to do this?

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What if you could play as a walking war-machine construct? A golem of destruction with a pure heart and good soul? This concept might fit naturally into a modern sci-fi setting or even some good old space opera, but a number of years ago – in an attempt to spice things up and introduce some new ideas – Wizards of the Coast sponsored a contest to find its next D&D campaign setting.

Greyhawk, The Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Ravenloft and the various other settings apparently just weren’t as marketable. The company wanted some fresh, new ideas. This opportunity became a chance to let the amateur and professional developers compete to see whose concept would become the next official D&D setting.

The result of that contest was Eberron – a fantasy world in keeping with the core of Dungeons & Dragons, but one that turned things on its ear just a bit with concepts like – Halfling plainsmen riding dinosaurs, living constructs, shapeshifters as player races and adding a very Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider pulp feel to its core adventures placing players in a world that operates on magic, outside the fantasy constraints of pseudo-medieval Europe or even an Asian fantasy amalgam.

Eberron was built around a different mythology and cosmic organization. There exists magic powered public transportation, airships and great dungeons of fallen civilizations alongside an invading alien force and mysterious magical elf ancestors who refuse to go off into antiquities and instead guide the path of the entire elvish race.
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The Sims series has taken the next big leap forward with the latest full game, The Sims 3. Fans of the sims will find a lot to love about the game as long as they can keep in mind that Sims 3 is a new base game. Gamers who own every expansion and stuff pack for Sims 2 should find the new game mechanics fixes much of what wasn’t fun about the previous titles, but they’ll have to be patient as many of the luxuries they’ve come to take for granted will have to wait for expansion. Read on for the scoop on the Sims 3.

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Turbine is gearing up for the debut of Book 8: Scourge of Khazád-dum for Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria. I recently had the pleasure of accompanying Adam Mersky and Aaron “Rowan” Campbell on an expedition into the heights and depths of Moria. They revealed the horrors and wonders that await players in this latest edition to the LotRO epic storyline.
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Like many other people, I was very interested in seeing the ‘official’ unveiling of the PSP Go during Sony’s E3 press conference. Of course, we’d all seen it before the conference started, but I still wanted to see the official reveal.

My first thought was that other than the size of the unit, the PSP Go really wasn’t all that different from the PSP I already own. Over the weekend, I read an interesting article on Ars Technica, where they reached a similar conclusion. I thought I’d share it, as it tracks closely with my early impressions of the system.

The bigger news, according to Ars Technica, is the news that Sony is moving all their PSP distribution to digital, as well as on UMD. However, there’s no reason to buy the new handheld to take advantage of this move to digital. After all, with the right Memory Stick, I can download all these nifty new games onto my existing PSP. So, how will the PSP Go do at retail?

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So, you may remember that I mentioned the tumble that game sales took in May. Well, it should be no surprise that Microsoft is looking at the massive drop in Wii sales and seeing an opportunity there.

What would be surprising would be for them to attempt to capitalize on that opportunity by launching a new console. Well, according to Sam Kennedy at 1UP, that’s exactly Microsoft’s plan.

In their Listen Up podcast, Kennedy was chatting with David Ellis of Microsoft, where they were discussing the new motion-sensing Natal technology, Ellis apparently let it slip that there will be a new XBox console next fall. Yeah, you heard that right. They’re planning another console launch in 2010.

Gamers will also be able to purchase Natal as an add-on for existing 360’s, which begs the question: Why launch another console now?

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One of this weeks’ Xbox Live release hint at a coming “nerdpocalypse”.

I say this in the nicest terms of course as a fan of said instrument of destruction. The long rumored Xbox version of Wizards of the Coast’s popular trading card game is available on Micrsoft’s Online service Wednesday June 17, 2009.

Magic the Gathering: Duals of the Planeswalkers recreates the game using virtual cards for a mere 800 Microsoft Points. Purchasers also get a code to claim a free foil card – Garruk Wildspeaker. Luckily the title features eight included dueling decks and a multitude of game modes including single-player, co-op custom and campaign modes.

Duels of the Planeswalkers also allows you to play against others via the service, customize your decks and I’d imagine get on the virtual paper crack train as updates to the game are released in future DLC sealed packs. (Though technically I don’t see an official mention of DLC for the game anywhere I’d bet if it sells well Wizards will be quick to capitalize on its popularity.. and face it they have 20 years of cards they could convert and sell to old timers like me – and the Xbox site mentions Content Downloads)

Duels of the Planeswalkers might just reintroduce the addiction to lapsed or recovering Magic players worldwide. I know it would rank right up there next to Rock Band 2 DLC for me in splitting my disposable income.  Especially since it appears to handle more than 2 players in a competition.. my preferred form of Magic.

I plan to download the title soon so look for a review in an upcoming edition of The Analog Gamer.

So E3 2009 saw the return of many things. Excitement! Spectacle! Actual interesting announcements! But none was more requested by the male video gamer masses than the return of the E3 Booth Babe. A staple of trade shows worldwide, the booth babe lost its place among the marketing tool inventory the last few years as E3 tried to establish itself as a mature, grown-up event.

Well, after producing two lackluster years with no hype or excitement to drive consumer sales the wise minds behind the industry even readmitted the actors/models/waitresses to the show floor with this year.

In honor of their return, and because I figure there are at least a few folks out there who might have missed the various image roundups, I present G4TV’s Booth Babe roundup video for your viewing pleasure.

And don’t forget – when judging eye candy quality, often the most scantily dressed, revealing outfits go to support the worst designed, pointless products.