New Battlefield: Bad Company Game Play Trailer

EA sends over a brand new trailer for the upcoming FPS game, Battlefield: Bad Company (PS3/X360).

Rock Band For The Wii Coming June 22

Harmonix has announced that the Wii version of their best selling music-based multi-instrument title Rock Band will be released on June 22. The Wii version will come with a total of 63 songs, including five bonus tracks. Rock Band for Wii will be released as a Special Edition bundle including the software, drums, microphone and a wireless guitar. The stand alone instruments and software will also be available at the time of release as well.

One More Crappy Video Game Movie - Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Capcom confirmed several cast members for the upcoming live-action film for the Street Fighter franchise.

Michael Clark Duncan (The Island, Sin City, Daredevil, The Green Mile) will be joining the cast as Balrog.
Chris Klein (Election, American Pie) will play Charlie Nash.
Black Eyed Peas’ Taboo will play the role of Vega.
Neal McDonough (The Hitcher, Flags of Our Fathers) will star as Bison.
Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk, will play Chun Li.

While Capcom did not confirm with a little digging and according to IMDB, Andrzej Bartkowiak (Doom, Romeo Must Die) will direct the film, and it is going to be called Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and is scheduled for a 2009 release.

Top 20 Best Selling PC Games For February 2008

The NPD Group has released the list of the top 20 best selling PC games for the month of February 2008:

1. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard2. Sins Of A Solar Empire - Ironclad Games/Stardock
3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
4. The Sims 2 FreeTime - Electronic Arts
5. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
6. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell/Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow - UbiSoft
7. 15000 Games - Viva Media
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
9. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
10. The Sims: Castaway Stories - Electronic Arts
11. Diner Dash - Playfirst Games
12. The Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
13. The Orange Box - Valve/EA
14. The Sims 2 Teen Style Stuff - Electronic Arts
15. Battlefield 2 - Electronic Arts
16. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
17. 30000 Games - Viva Media
18. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage - Electronic Arts
19. Sim City 5: Societies - Electronic Arts
20. Crysis - Crysis/EA

When are the Sims going to Die already - Sims 3 Details

Electronic Arts offers up more info on the recently revealed plans for The Sims 3, the next game in the (should go away and die) people sim series. The game will be released sometime in 2009.

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) announced today the first details on one of interactive entertainment’s most anticipated games, The Sims™ 3. Featuring a brand new engine that has been in development for nearly three years, The Sims 3 allows you to immerse your unique Sims in an open living neighborhood right outside their door. The initial feature-set unveiled includes the new seamless, open neighborhood, new Create A Sim, new realistic personalities and new unlimited customization. The Sims 3 will launch globally in 2009.

The Sims franchise has long been recognized for its appeal to a universal audience, both male and female, and at any age. Its broad appeal and loyal The Sims community has vaulted the franchise to an impressive 98 million games sold around the world and translated into 22 different languages. Celebrated for its creativity, humor, and community, The Sims franchise has become a global and cultural phenomenon since its inception in 2000.

Now, The Sims 3 is being designed to be the next-generation flagship game from The Sims Label.

“In The Sims 3, Sims can go beyond the boundaries of their home lot, and immerse themselves in an open, living neighborhood, interacting with other Sims using our new deeper personality system,” said Rod Humble, Head of The Sims Studio. “It is this type of open-ended gameplay that inspires endless creative possibilities. In addition the new goals and rewards systems will give players of all kinds from core gamers to storytellers the ability to enjoy long-term gameplay.”

New Seamless, Open Neighborhood—Explore the Neighborhood Freely.

See the sights with your Sims! The new seamless neighborhood architecture allows your Sims to roam freely around the neighborhood and visit their loved one and friends—or foes. Discovering other Sims homes and families, traveling around to new locations like City Hall or the local park will create a whole new way of life for your Sims. Storytelling options will multiply as your Sims stroll downtown to meet new acquaintances, head across town for lunch, spy on their neighbors and bump into the boss when they least expect it.

New Create A Sim—Create Any Sim You Can Imagine.

In addition to the open, living neighborhood, the all-new Create-a-Sim interface will feature easy-to-use design tools that allow you to make truly detailed Sims that are more realistic than ever. Create-a-Sim gives you the incredible freedom to customize just about any Sim you can imagine. From thin to full-figured to muscular—everything in between and even the extreme! In addition to determining your Sims body shape and size, you will also be able to fine-tune every feature on their faces, customize their hair style and select their skin tone, all from a vast selection of options. With so many choices to choose from, it is fun to create more realistic characters that look like you, someone you want to look like, or even a famous personality.

New Realistic Personalities—Every Sim Is A Unique Person, With A Distinct Personality

With the innovative and proprietary Realistic Personality System in The Sims 3, you can attribute each character with five distinct personality traits, helping shape your Sims behavior and how they interact with others and their surroundings. This new system will empower you to create extremely complex and diverse in-game personalities. Will you create the nosy, inappropriate, kleptomaniac grandmother who loves to meddle in other people’s business? Or the commitment-phobic, hot-headed punk rocker whose rude nature and childish disposition keeps him from scoring a date? In The Sims 3, Sims will go beyond the basic set of day-to-day needs to be distinct individuals with multifaceted personalities, who can focus both on short-term opportunities and long-term goals. With a wide selection of personality traits to mix and match, more than 700 million combinations of Sims await. You never know who’ll meet in The Sims 3!

St. Patrick’s day and Games Shipping this Week

Happy St. Patrick’s day! Here are the games expected to ship this week to a store near you:
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2: Head back to Sin City with this tactical shooter sequel from UbiSoft for the Xbox 360 and PS3 (The PC game has been pushed back to April some time)

Sega Superstars Tennis: The characters in the Segaverse play some tennis in this sports game for the Xbox 360, PS3, PS3, Wii, and DS
Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds: Sony release this latest game in the arcade golf series for the PS3
Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends: Koei releases their latest hack-and-slash action game for the PS2.
Singstar 90’s: Sony releases this latest game in their PS2 karaoke game series
Worms: A Space Oddity: Team 17 and THQ release this latest game in the long running turn based strategy series for the Wii.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008: Konami’s soccer game ships for the Wii platform this week.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot: Delayed for a week, Monolith and Sega’s melee based action-horror game ships for the PS3 platform this week.
Metal Gear Solid: Essential Collection: Konami re-releases the last three Metal Gear Solid games in a new collection for the PS2.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl a rowdy good time

Like many of my peers, I enjoy slashing, shooting missiles at, ramming with a motorcycle, and blasting others. Virtually, of course, and what better game to do all of this in than Super Smash Bros. Brawl, arguably the most hotly anticipated game to come out so far this year.

Nintendo wisely decided not to mess with the multiplayer much, the only really significantly new feature being the Final Smash Ball, an item that allows players to use their characters crazy special move. The four player battles are still amazingly fun, and nothing is more satisfying than getting the Smash Ball over and over again.

The single player game is about as much as you could ask for in a fighting game, including an arcade mode and an adventure mode called Sub Space Emissary. While the Sub Space Emissary mode is enjoyable and there are some “oh snap!” moments in the story, it’s unlikely anyone will play it for anything more than unlocking all of the characters.

The new characters, including third-party favorites Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog, all fold into the brawls well. Some of the characters can be a tad over powered (I’m looking at you, Pit), but never so much that it completely unbalances the game. Obviously it’s a major disappointment that other third-party characters like Mega Man or Dante didn’t make it into the game, but it is Nintendo’s show. At least there’s always next time.

The graphics, while not on-par with some of the incredibly good looking games on the other next-gen systems, are very good for the Wii. I suppose there’s always that asterisk of a Wii game looking good for the Wii, but does anyone really notice after playing for five minutes?

Over the past week, and likely into the coming months, you’re going to hear a lot of different things about Brawl, but there’s one very important thing you must understand if you consider buying this game: don’t look to it for deep mechanics and ultra-combos. This isn’t a game you sit at home with and practice at until you’re ready to take on the Daigos of the world for ultimate tournament championship wins. What this game is great for is gathering a bunch of your friends and just having fun with ramming Peach butt first into Solid Snake, whether this is for hours late into the night or during your 15-minute break. This is true not only of the multiplayer, which the series is known for, but the singleplayer as well. If you come into this game with the mindset of just having fun it’ll be great game. I know I love it. But if you expect it to be anything like Tekken or Street Fighter, well, there’s other good news on the way for you, but this game isn’t it.

Xbox360 and Blu-Ray? Not any time soon!

The talk around the net over the last few weeks since the HD-DVD death was that the Xbox 360 was possibly going too support Blu-Ray in the future. That rumor has now been officially shot down by Microsoft. Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for the console, came right out and told Reuters:

“Xbox is not currently in talks with Sony or the Blu-ray Association to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience.” He followed it up by saying that they’re the only console “offering digital distribution of entertainment content.”

Since the discontinuation of the HD-DVD player add-on, it looks like Xbox Live Marketplace is now the only option for Xbox users looking for HD entertainment. Thats just want I want to do with my cash and time. So I run out and buy a bigger hard drive for my 360. Then pay for a movie download then spend 2 - 12 hours downloading it just to watch it ONLY on my Xbox 360. hmmmm NOT!

One more Gaming league Down the Tubes - The CPL has closed

Citing financial concerns the Cyberathlete Professional League has ceased operations and cancelled all future events, eleven years after being first launched:

Effective immediately, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) will cease operations. Therefore, all CPL events currently scheduled for 2008 are hereby canceled.The CPL was launched in June 1997 with the pioneering mission of promoting and sanctioning video game competitions as a professional sport. For ten years the CPL events experienced increased growth - commencing with a small LAN event in Dallas, Texas, and culminating in world-class competitions across five continents.

However, the current fragmentation of the sport, a crowded field of competing leagues, and the current economic climate have prompted the CPL to suspend its pro-tournament operations. The CPL regrets that this news will disappoint those that were planning on attending the summer and winter events this year.

Many thanks to all of the sponsors and partners that helped CPL establish the groundwork for professional video game competitions. Their vision and pioneering spirit should always be remembered.

The CPL was in the process of developing Severity with Tom Mustaine’s Escalation Studios, and had planned to release it on all major formats. Severity was designed from the ground-up as a pro-gaming title and was to be used for many of the CPL’s major tournaments - with the CPL out of business it is quite possible that Severity’ll be canned, though we are attempting to contact Escalation to confirm its fate.

Mario Kart Wii Hits US On April 27

Nintendo today announced that Mario Kart Wii will launch April 27, a few weeks after Europe’s April 11 release. The game ships with 16 new courses, 16 old ones and the ability to go online with eleven other players. Also included is the Wii Wheel shell, which holds the Wii Remote.

PRESSRELEASE: This year, the typical signs of spring will be accompanied by the sweet sound of revving engines and the sight of lightning-fast shells whizzing around every corner. Mario Kart(R) Wii is zooming toward its launch in the United States on April 27. The game comes with the intuitive Wii Wheel(TM), which makes it easy for novices to compete against veterans, so no one is left in the dust. And with a broadband hookup to Nintendo(R) Wi-Fi Connection, players can compete with up to 11 other drivers from around the world for racing dominance.

“Mario Kart Wii transforms one of our most popular franchises into a race that every member of the family can join,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Driving with the Wii Wheel could not be more natural, and this is one place where speeding is encouraged.”

Mario Kart Wii will include 16 new courses and 16 classic courses from previous Mario Kart games. For the first time ever, players have the option of racing with either karts or motorbikes. Players can also hit the road as their personalized Mii(TM) caricatures in addition to the handful of classic Nintendo characters found in the game. True to the series, the game features tons of racing, plenty of power-ups and oodles of objects for players to use to slow down other drivers. And 10 battle arenas will keep players busy between trips around the circuit.

The easy-to-use Wii Wheel will also be sold as a separate accessory, giving every driver in the household a chance to get behind his or her own wheel. And if veteran Mario Kart fans are afraid of getting smoked by rookie drivers using the Wii Wheel, they can rest assured that Nintendo has them covered. Mario Kart Wii supports four different control options: Wii Remote(TM) with or without the Wii Wheel, Wii Remote and Nunchuk(TM) controller combo, Classic Controller and even the Nintendo GameCube(TM) controller. So there’s bound to be a configuration that fits everyone’s style.

Mario Kart Wii launches with a new channel added to the Wii Menu to enhance game play: The Mario Kart Wii Channel. This new channel builds on the huge online community of Wii owners and lets players compete in tournaments, check worldwide rankings, see when their friends are playing and download ghost data.