I realize that most people go “ga ga” for Madden NFL every year, but to be honest I’ve always found college football far more exciting. Each year I look forward to EA’s incremental updates to their NCAA Football series just like the slavering Madden junkies do. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio and working at Ohio State has left me a bit numb to my hometown college team – The Ohio State Buckeyes because here college football is the second biggest thing next to God, but regardless there is something about playing college ball, racing for the Heisman that I just find more interesting. Maybe its the lack of professional polish, maybe its just the presentation and the crowd elements of the game that don’t exist in the NFL. This year EA is adding a number of needed defensive improvements as well as a TeamBuilder feature so players can completely create their own virtual college to compete against the best.

Its interesting to see how Madden and NCAA change and this years tweaks are bit different. You can find all the new features after the jump.

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EA is releasing DLC from the 2009 Warped Tour for Rock Band and Rock Band 2. There are five master tracks from featured bands A Day to Remember, Bad Religion, Chiodos, Escape the Fate and Underoath. This year’s Warped Tour includes BMX and pro-skating exhibitions and these thrashing tracks are just thing to accompany extreme sports. You’ll be able to pick up these hard rocking tracks as a pack for $8.49 (680 Microsoft Points) or individually for $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) June 23 on the Xbox 360 and June 24 for the PS3. Here’s sampling of these tracks for your listening pleasure.

For those of you who like it on the lighter side, a trio of Maroon 5 tracks will also be available. “Little of Your Time,” “Makes Me Wonder” and “Wake Up Call” come as a pack for $5.49 (440 Microsoft Points) or at the usual individual price.

For the full list of masters and music videos for A Day to Remember “The Downfall of Us All” and Maroon 5 “Wake up Call” follow the jump
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If you haven’t heard yet, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has threatened, in a roundabout way, to drop his company’s support for PS3 if Sony doesn’t consider a price cut.

According to MCV, Kotick said in an interview,

“I’m getting concerned about Sony – the PS3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform. It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation.

They have to cut the price, because if they don’t, the attach rates are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony. When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console — and the PSP too.”

That’s a big shot fired across Sony’s bow. So, will Sony take him seriously, and how will they respond?

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As if two new Metal Gear titles at E3 weren’t enough, Sony’s now bringing the undisputed champ of the Metal Gear Series to PlayStation Network. Starting today, you can grab the PS1 classic, Metal Gear Solid, for $9.99. You can even get it for your PSP!

As usual, there’s a lot of other stuff in the update. Some of it is interesting, like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter for the PSP. Some of it is mindless, like Qore (Seriously, does anyone actually watch that?).

You can also choose the demo for EA Sports’ NCAA Football 10, as well as the usual weekly song downloads for Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Rock Band gets Spinal Tap this week, something guaranteed to make people my age smile with nostalgia.

If you want to see a full list of what’s available this week, it’s available after the break.

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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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Put on your Octo-cam suit and revisit Shadow Moses as Old Snake on Metal Gear Online. The new map Icebound Inferno is adapted directly from the original Metal Gear Solid Shadow Moses map. The new content for the free PS3 exclusive multiplayer game that came with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is available with the SCENE expansion pack at the MGO in-game store and Konami’s online store. Get more details on the new content from Konami’s press release following the break.
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Guitar Hero Smash Hits brings out Guitar Hero’s Greatest Hits for your band. This one’s for the many GH: Would Tour fans of the series that have looked back at Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and thought man if only those tracks were out for the whole band! I’m really looking forward to my favorites from Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla”, Queen’s “Killer Queen”, Heart’s “Barracuda” and Danzig’s “Mother”. Check out the full list of tracks to pick out your favorites after the jump. You can also visit the GH Smash Hits site to vote for Best Guitar Shred, Best Vocal, Best Bass Lick, Best Drum Fill and more.

While you’re out in stores grabbing GH Smash Hits make sure to pick up the new Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits for your DS. There are 28 new tracks to be shared bringing the total to 75 for the GH On Tour series. Guitar Hero: never leave home without it.

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dragon age origins

Bioware, long the favorites of PC RPG fans are firing up the information train to release new trailer and new screens for its upcoming magnum opus – Dragon Age: Origins. While the movies all make folks drool and the screens look exciting one key question every PC gamer asks is: “Will I have to upgrade to play this beast?”

Well as of today we have the final system requirments for the game, and its likely that anyone who owns a moderately powerful modern PC will be able to play it in at least Neverwinter Nights 1, 1995 style graphic mode. As expected the requirements for Vista are a bit higher than their XP counterpart but both have a sizable hard drive footprint – 20GB! Wow! The game will also be released on the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 console this October.

Here are the Specs:

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Not every hardcore Rock Band junkie is a metal and alt rock junkie it seems, so Harmonix is releasing more country oriented tracks for fans of the steel guitar and southern drawl. The new Rock Band Country Pack adds to the existing songs from the genre, 21 new songs in fact. The retail disk is compatible with both Rock Band titles and the new tracks will be exclusive to the disk for a short time before making their way onto the Rock Band stores on the Wii, 360 and PS3.

Here is the complete Track list: