Battlefield 1943 is coming exclusively in digital format to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace July 8th and the PlayStation Network July 9th. PC gamers will just have to wait until September to get in on the action.

Battlefield 1943 features Frostbite’s next generation destruction technology which packs full Vehicle Warfare FPS multiplayer for up to 24 people into a 560MB download. I can never argue with getting more for less. Read more about the Frostbite engine and the worldwide community challenge to unlock the Coral Sea map after the break.

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Tracks from Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown release will be coming to the Rock Band and Rock Band 2 Wii catalog. These three new tracks are a stark contrast with 8 choice original masters from artists participating in the RockStar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, Marilyn Manson and Slayer are all on the list.

Tracks:

Behemoth                         “Conquer All”

(All tracks are original master recordings)

Tracks from festival artists Killswitch Engine and Bullet For My Valentine are already part of the extensive Rock Band DLC catlog. All these selections will be up for the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii the week of July 6th.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is one of those life altering experiences for me.. a game where you can freely roam the landscape of a sandbox with all intent and encouragement to maim and destroy property and people. Sure, it sounds a bit aggressive but after playing Red Faction it makes you wonder why more games don’t treat their world so destructively.. I mean, sure there is a bold story of a man revenging himself upon the oppressive government that liberated the people from their original evil corporate overlords, but this is a game that is all about the booms.. like a Michael Bay video game that doesn’t suck (Yes I’m looking at you Transformers!)

Well, if you’re like me and you need even more to do on the martian sandbox then THQ has some good news.. well actually it wants more money but come on.. it’ll make you feel better! Today the publisher revealed that it has three new doses of Red Faction goodness on the way via download.

The press release only really talks about the first pack, which is called Demons of the Badlands and will sell for 800 Microsoft points/ $9.99 via PlayStation Store. The new content will include a new single-player mission arc that expands the game into a new Martian environment. The download is planned for release August 13th, 2009 so that gives us all time to sharpen up our best “Ahnold” impersonation and re-watch Total Recall a few times for good measure.

Oh and since the Total Recall game was utter drek.. you can just act like Red Faction is really a continuation and go looking for Kuato yourself.

One of the driving factors behind my early adoption of the PS3 was the fact that I could play all my PS2 games on it thanks to the Emotion Engine Chip that it had under the hood. In subsequent SKU’s, that hardware was removed, and Sony even said that they were focused on moving forward without it.

Well, that may be changing in the near future. According to Siliconera, Sony has secured a U.S. Patent for the technology that will apparently allow the Cell Processor in the PS3 to emulate the Emotion Engine of the PS2.

Couple this with the rumors of a price cut and the release of the PS3 Slim this fall, and you start to think that Sony may have a fundamental strategy shift under way.

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Get a chance to see Ryu and Wolverine get it on in the first Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes trailer. The game is the fourth and final Marvel vs. Capcom match up. It seems to runs much smoother than previous versions an has a simplified the engine to make it more user friendly for the casual gamer. You and your friends can get into 3 on 3 tag in New Age of Heroes.

Here’s the Marvel vs Capcom 2 Wolverine vs Ryu Trailer. Since it’s labeled Episode 1, hopefully we can look forward to more of these match ups. I’d like to see Magneto vs. Bison. You can play through that fight yourself July 2nd on Xbox 360 and PS3.

Final Fantasy XI players have a launch date for “A Moogle Kupo d’Etat – Evil in Small Doses” to look forward to. Square Enix has announced this second add-on scenario for FFXI will be available for pre-purchase for $9.99 via the PlayOnline Viewer July 5th. This new content is for any characters that have reached level 10 on their main job.

“It all started with an innocent drop of rainwater and a rickety, ramshackle Mog House desperately in need of repair.

Little did anyone suspect that this would be the beginning of a harrowing nightmare unheard of in the annals of moogle-kind”

The first of Masato Kato’s trio of add-ons, “A Crystalline Prophecy – Ode of Life Bestowing,” is already available. “A Shantotto Ascension – The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born” will round out the series. “A Moogle Kupo d’Etat – Evil in Small Doses” requires the first FFXI expansion, RISE OF THE ZILART.

Have you ever really felt bad about the way you feel after playing a game you were looking forward to?

Of course you have, I think it might be one of the few constants of the gamer experience - disappointment when a game fails to live up to its potential and promise. Well, Prototype is one of those experiences for me.

It has all the ingredients of a smashing good time - a super powered hero, a sandbox city, even a conspiracy relating to the military industrial complex manipulating people for their own nefarious ends only to have it go wrong somehow.

Well, despite the mix of interesting pieces, the sum of Prototype just ends up coming out as a fairly bland experience. Maybe my expectation was improperly set by the history of the developer. These same talented folks turned out one of the best super hero games ever developed - Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction. That title featured a super powered hero running around in a sandbox New York city setting solving missions and running side missions just like Prototype but somehow the fun factor seemed to be higher in that title.

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This week 2K Games is giving baseball fans the chance to play THE BIGS 2 before the release date. These two big community events run June 30th, 6:00 PM PST at the Wilshire Grand in LA and July 1st, 6:00 PM EST at the Hilton New York in New York City.

For those of you who want a play by play but can’t attend, keep tabs on the events on the THE BIGS 2 forums. The full details on how to get signed up for these THE BIGS 2 party events follow the jump.
Gamers can pre-order THE BIGS 2 for Xbox 360, Wii Ps2, PS3 and PSP. The game launches July 7th. Read the full article »

Last week we saw the id/Bethesda merger under parent company ZeniMax Media and there was much rejoicing, but what if Electronic Arts merged its two online game developers into one giant super developer wouldn’t that raise some eyebrows and be general cause for mass excitement?

Well that actually happened as the publishing giant reorganized a bit putting RPG mavens Bioware and long time MMO developers Mythic in the same division. While the two studios will remain mostly autonomous for the time being, they now both have a single reporting line up the chain to the big bosses and money men. That single leader? Bioware’s Dr. Ray Muzyka.

Dr. Muzyka’s ascencion to the head of the organization basically also points to the exit of Mythic’s longtime leader Mark Jacobs. According to Jacob’s blog the MMO pioneer is taking a sabatical for awhile and he leaves with a classy ‘I’m not going to dish on anything, I’m just going to thank folks and peacefully step aside’ sort of announcement - a classy response that we don’t get to see so often these days.

Regarding the future path of the now combined studio’s efforts, Dr. Muzyka indicated in an official response over on IGN that:

Anything’s possible. We can’t say it wouldn’t happen. There’s no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they’re really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still holding strong in the WoW dominated MMO market while Bioware’s first effort - the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a ways off. Mythic has a lot of experience that could help the minds at Bioware pull off their vision of Star Wars and maybe even put a dent in the Warcraft numbers but only time will tell if this pairing will be all it seems.

There’s a playable demo up for the PC version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game. This free Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Playable Demo will give you a taste of potion making, dueling and playing as the Captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team.

Gamers and Harry Potter fans should watch the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Quidditch Preview for four minutes of gameplay footage. The new motion capture setup for quidditch is really great. It’s more believable than ever before.

Check out the star studded Making of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer as well.