RAGE Comic Con 2009 Trailer
A teaser video for RAGE has been released, showcasing this shooter developed by id Software and built on id Software’s newest game engine, id Tech5.

Freaky Creatures Game Client
Freaky Creatures lets you create your own creature using billions of possibilities. Once you are done you can battle and raise your creature continually improving and customizing it.

BorderLands Comic Con 2009 Trailer
Straight from the San Diego Comic Con, this trailer gives a glimpse of Borderlands, the upcoming action title from Gearbox and Take Two.

Gran Turismo PSP TV Ad Trailer
This trailer shows off a TV advertisement for the upcoming PSP version of the simulation racer from Polyphony Digital.

Spore Hero Wii Trailer
Check out the Wii version of Spore in this trailer, and head back into the world of creating your own creatures in a massive 3D world.

Brutal Legend Brutal Thoughts with Jack Black Episode 5 Video
Jack Black returns in his fifth Brutal Thoughts video. This episode features Black trying to create a viral video sensation with a guitar playing cat.

Uncharted 2 Gold Rush Mode Trailer
Get a glimpse of Uncharted 2’s Gold Rush mode in this trailer for the upcoming adventure / action title.

There’s a new WW2 strategy game on the horizon dealing with the dreaded eastern front; Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945. This is the latest in the turn-based combat simulation that stretches from Berlin to Leningrad and into the Urals. Play the Soviet Union under the banner Mother Russia using slash and burn on your own land to deny German troops supplies. Or you can take the reigns of the German army under Hitler’s command and try to succeed where Napoleon failed. whatever your choice you”re sure to face your toughest opponent, the harsh Russian winters.

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is slated for a late 2009 release. Get the intricate details following the break.

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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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Got coding skills? Like the movie WarGames? Like the idea of your “binary baby” killing virtual billions? More importantly, do you like cash?

If you said “You bet.”, then heads up.

Introversion Software has teamed up with the organizers of CIG 2009 to establish a competition aimed to create “the world’s deadliest bot.” The contest, slated for September, is part of an ongoing yearly event that draws in programming talent from abroad in an attempt to create bots from videogames that are “realistic enough into fooling an expert panel of judges that they are actually human players.”

Not surprisingly, the game chosen as the playground for this year’s contest is none other than Introversion’s own nuclear holocaust simulator DEFCON (thumbs up here). And thanks to the concerted efforts of Computer Science geeks over at Imperial College, London, potential contestants now have a practical DEFCON API to prepare with.

Basically, the rules (here) are that programmers will pit their individual DEFCON A.I. against one another in a series (30 actually) of one-on-one matches among each of the possible starting territory configurations. The player with the highest cumulative score wins. Additionally, the grand prize winner’s human creator takes home $500, courtesy of IEEE. At this point, I’m still trying to figure out if you actually have to be physically present to participate.

Anyway, if you are interested in putting your coding skills to the test, you can start by reading here. An important thing to note is that the DEFCON API will also work with the DEFCON demo, which can be freely downloaded here. Again, deadlines and rules for the contest can be found via the IEEE’s CIG website. The press release found after the break contains all sorts of info, links, and contact information.

For those of you chortling “the only winning move is not to play,” I say what’s the worse that could happen? Well, I suppose Barry Corbin could break the bad news to you in person by knocking on your door then announcing his “conclusion that your new defense system sucks.”

Ok, I’ll stop…

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*looks into a mirror* – “Derek Smart! Derek Smart! Derek Smart!”

The infamous head honcho over at indie developer 3000AD has updated his developer’s blog with news that an All Aspect Warfare PC demo has been released into the wild. The playable demo – which includes the full docs, tutorials, etc from the full game – denotes the following features:

* Single Player

• No Story (a.k.a campaign) mode. No freeform sandbox mode.
• x03 (of six) playable careers (Mobile Infantry Marine, Elite Force Marine, Elite Force Pilot)
• x02 (of many) first person weapon profiles per career
• x02 aerial combat Instant Action scenario (Elite Force Pilot)
• x02 first person combat Instant Action scenario (Mobile Infantry Marine, Elite Force Marine)

* Multiplayer

• Includes the stand-alone dedicated console server
• x06 playable careers (x3 Terran, x3 Gammulan)
• x02 (of many) first person weapon profiles per career
• x02 (of five) gameplay modes (Deathmatch)
• x02 Deathmatch scenarios (16 players)

The AAW demo weighs in at just under 300 MB. While the demo itself contains DRM [insert moan here], the devs are not hiding this fact. They assure us that the DRM is there to ‘protect the innocent’ come full retail launch day. Online activation, however, is ever present. A login and password are bundled with the demo, and gamers are encouraged to simply “follow the instructions in the GUI to get it running”. If you are not getting logged into the game then, according to the devs, you are doing it wrong.

Direct link to the demo after the jump (courtesy of our host).

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Without question, one of the most anticipated games of 2009 is Starcraft 2. Blizzard’s popular RTS series caused quite a stir late last year when it was announced that the game would be released in three installments, one for each of the three player factions.

Whether you found that news annoying, exciting, or neither, you have to admit that you are stoked about the chance to play Starcraft 2. Well, now you may get a chance to earlier than you think.

Blizzard has opened up beta testing signups for Starcraft 2. If you’re interested in joining in, you’ll need to head over to Battle.net’s beta profile page and get your sign up on. You know you want to.

I would like to remind everyone of the point of a beta test. It’s to find bugs, report them to the developer, and help make the retail release a better product. It’s not simply a chance to demo the game early. So please, don’t look at this as a demo. Look at it as your chance to improve a game that millions of people will be playing.

Regardless, this isn’t an opportunity to pass up. Go sign up today!

If you need a little refresher, you can find a couple of trailers right after the break.

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Here is something for PS3 owners to get really excited about: Sony will be launching PlayStation Home tomorrow, December 11in all gaming territories. Will it be worth the wait? We will see, and while you are there you can check out Red Bull’s own little chunk of the virtual world by visiting their interactive island. Why does that sound a bit like Second Life to me?

Anyway, the press release (which you can view in full after the jump) states that the free download of Home will launch directly from the PlayStation Home icon on the PlayStation Network column of XMB (XrossMediaBar) on PS3. For those who have not been keeping up with the progress of Home or who do not own a PS3, Home will allow open interaction among users, business partners and Sony, and will evolve with additional features including dedicated game spaces, special events and exclusive themed items to (and I quote) “further enrich the entertainment experience on the PS3 platform.” Horay!

It sure has been a long time coming hasn’t it? If the press release posted after the jump is a bit confusing for you, I seriously suggest you head on over to Game Politics where you can get a better breakdown of what to expect, and read a Beta tester’s thoughts on it.

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Want proof that mediocre or no reviews at all do not always hurt videogame sales? Here is an example for you: Ben 10 is a kid’s show on Cartoon Network starring a young boy named Ben who finds an alien watch while on vacation with his cousin and grandfather. This watch allows him to turn into 10 different forms, thus the “Ben 10″ title. The game, a cell-shaded adventure which mimics the show’s visuals called Ben 10: Protector of the Earth, was released for the Nintendo DS, PS2, PSP, and Wii last year on October 30 and has subsequently sold over 2.5 million copies. This game was largely ignored by major gaming sites, and the few which did take time out to review it felt it was a bit middle of the road.

“We are thrilled to see the strong consumer response to Ben 10: Protector of Earth and the continual climb in sales demonstrates the dedication of fans around the globe to this tremendous franchise,” said Yoji Takenaka, the president and CEO of D3 Publisher, which was the developer and publisher of the game for both North America and Europe.

A second game, Ben 10: Alien Force was released this year on October 28 for the same consoles and handhelds, and Takenaka is hoping for even larger sales. So you see, not all games need a great review to sell well, just a big fan base–and if the sales of the previous game are any indication, this time next year we may just be reporting the same figures for Alien Force.

Gamers should not always write a game off because of lukewarm reviews, if you like the concept, the subject matter or the visuals–just go for it. Although, to be safe, you may wanna rent it first. Luckily, the Ben 10 games all sell for under $30.

Interesting news for fans of author Robert Jordan and his epic fantasy series “Wheel of Time” was broke this morning by Venture Beat. Seems that the movie studio Red Eagle Entertainment who owns the film rights to the series plans on making videogames based on the series, to coincide with the films as they are released.

This would not be the first time that Jordan’s books were translated into gaming–some of you may recall Legend Entertainment’s critically and gamer acclaimed PC title The Wheel of Time back in 1999 which had the misfortune of being released around the same time as Quake. The first-person shooter/role playing game was based on the Unreal Engine and could be played either in a linear single-player mode or through multiplayer deathmatches or capture the flag type gameplay. The Wheel of Time MUD, created by former MUME (Multi-Users in Middle-earth) is an online game based on the series and “The Wheel of Time” was also published by Wizards of the Coast as a tabletop RPG similar to Dungeons and Dragons.

Robert Jordan’s eleven books in the series sold over 44 million copies worldwide, and a twelfth is planned to be released posthumously by author Brandon Sanderson sometime in 2009. Red Eye Entertainment is currently at wok on a movie based on the first novel “The Eye of the World,” and according to Variety, it is rumored that Universal is behind it with a $150 million dollar budget.

Although laden with elements of Asian mythology combined with themes of Buddhism, Daoism and Hinduism the books have been compared as a cross between “Lord of the Rings” and “Road Warrior” which Red Eye Entertainment feels would transfer well into videogames. The company is even talking about the possibility of a “spin-off franchise” for a future massively multiplayer online game.

Red Eagle Entertainment was formed by former IBM executives Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon in 2003 and according to Rick Selvage, they have huge plans for The Wheel of Time series:

“We’ve got a huge running start with this property. We expect to have a game based on every movie, and we expect no less than three movies, though that depends on how well each does.”

Since the games are planned to be launched at the same time as the films, Selvage plans on hiring people soon to start work on the games and the company has budgeted hundreds of millions between the games and films. Since, according to him, the project has been met with enthusiasm, he hopes that the prospect of working on a Robert Jordan game will draw in the creme-de-la-creme of programmers because he “wants to hire the rock stars”. This will be exactly what the company needs if they are to succeed in translating the series onto PCs, consoles and handhelds like they plan.

If they can bring the “Wheel of Time” series to videogames and the silver screen without gutting what made the novels popular in the first place, this could be a great thing for fans of the series and gamers alike. However, with the bad translation of games turned into movies and vice versa, it is only natural to be concerned when a fantastic and much-lauded fantasy series is being exploited in such a medium. Hopefully, Red Eye Entertainment will not fail us on this, and despite being tied to a movie, the prospect of actually playing a new game based on the books is exciting indeed–especially an MMO teaming with Myrddraal and Trollocs to fight to the death.

Let’s just hope it will fare better than the Conan books did at the hands of Funcom.

By the way, I know this is off the subject a bit, but whatever happened to the possibility of R.A. Salvatore’s Dizzt books being turned into a videogame? After seeing the awesome Drow, and my personal hero, make an appearance in the console version of Baldur’s Gate, I have not seen hide or hair of him. Maybe it was just a rumor after all, but if anyone else has heard anything about this, please drop us a line.

In the history of video game consoles, the Virtual Boy from Nintendo still stands out as one of the worst. To this day, most people remember the device as a less-portable Gameboy that could bring on massive migraines in a matter of minutes. But that’s not stopping some collectors in the UAE from snatching up some brand new Virtual Boys that were recently discovered in Dubai last month. While cleaning out a warehouse, some video game retailers unearthed a lost shipment of 100 Virtual Boys, all in mint condition and in their original packaging. Since the console only sold under a million units and was released for barely a year, these systems are actually considered rare and worth well more than their original price. As such, avid collectors have been grabbing one or more of the newly discovered Virtual Boys off the shelves, hoping to resell them for a higher price.

And I thought millions of E.T. Atari cartridges buried in the desert was strange. I can only imagine what it must have been like for those game retailers to open up a mysterious box containing such horrors…

Via The National