DataBox Games: Nine guys in their mid-20s on an island off Sweden. They are all attending Gotland University and working on their final thesis for their Bachelor's and Master's Degrees. Why is this important? Because much like the current wave of independent titles that flood the Xbox Marketplace - they are just a bunch of people with a love for games trying to deliver a unique experience. They don't have a major machine behind them, but they have a passion for crafting something that we can all get into and as such are definitely worth promoting around these parts. The game that they are currently working on is Penalty of Heroes, which I believe is their 26th title; most of the previous 25 have been made in ten weeks or less and have more fun crammed into them then a great majority of bigger budget titles. Read More...

Toys, pack-ins, gimmicks, add-ons and peripherals are all words that are not unknown or unheard of to Nintendo Wii owners’ ears.  Since the console’s launch in 2006, a great many guns zappers, dance pads, microphones, etc., have been bundled with Wii games filling living rooms to capacity -- especially with the onset of rhythm games.  Even Nintendo’s best-selling game, WiiPlay is merely a controller with a $10 tech demo, and there has always been a premium attached to the bundles that have exceeded the normal price point for a Wii game at $49.99. Read More...

For villains of the Marvel Universe, the phrase “It’s clobberin’ time!” is the signal that Aunt Petunia’s favourite blue-eyed nephew is ready to start laying a beating on someone. Growing up on Yancy St. in New York, Benjamin Grimm had a rough early life. His older brother died while Ben was just eight years old and he was sent to live with his Uncle Jake & Aunt Petunia. Ben earned a football scholarship to Empire State University where he met his future best friend and teammate Reed Richards. Following graduation, Ben went into the Air Force and trained to become a test pilot. Read More...

This Thursday a demo for Mini Ninjas will be released for download simultaneously on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. While the PS3 and 360 versions will be available via the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace respectively, PC gamers will have to download the demo directly from the games website http://www.minininjas.com/. Read More...

Jean Grey is a great many things. She is one of the original five X-men. She’s a mutant possessing Omega-level psychic abilities. She’s contains the power of the Phoenix Force within her. She’s smoking hot and she’s dead. Being one of the original X-men, Jean went along with the team to Krakoa, the Living Island. When they were captured, Professor Xavier put together a second team comprised of mutants from across the world to rescue his students. Following their return from Krakoa, Jean left the team for a time. Read More...

I guess when you’re a hot shot like Johnny Storm, pyrokinesis seems a little on the nose. But when you’re dealing with cosmic radiation, sometimes you just have to play with the cards you’re dealt with. At the age of 16, Johnny went along with his sister Susan as a member of the crew for Reed Richards’ experimental interstellar ship. Of course the ship was bombarded by cosmic radiation which altered the genetics of the four people inside. As a direct result, Johnny developed the ability to ignite himself and generate fire. Read More...

Lead Designer at Raven Software Offers To Pay For Wolfenstein In a stroke of what could be seen as marketing genius, or insane offerings by an over worked designer, the offer has been thrown out to get your copy of Wolfenstein paid for. All offered by the game's Lead Designer, Manveer Heir, over his Twitter account in the early hours of the morning on the 11th of August. There are a few catches that go along with this, but he swears he will pay for your copy if all the requirements are met. What would those requirements be? Read More...

Continuing to add to the exclusivity of its new DJ Hero franchise, Activision today announced that The Scratch Perverts and DJ Yoda created exclusive mixes for the upcoming release. I think this new release of information shows us two things: Activision wants the fans to know that they are really putting it all into this title and they are also shrewdly telling any competition that may spring up, "Yeah, don't bother, we got this." Not exactly a bold move on the large corporation's part and it's hardly a new concept. Create barriers to entry for your competition even before it exists by firmly planting in the consumers' minds that you are "the one and best. Read More...

I guess when you grow up living a hard life it’s easy for a good person to turn bad. Throw in hanging out with the wrong crowds and the decision pretty much makes itself. With her mother being imprisoned for a robbery attempt and her father a drunk, Melissa Gold ran away from home at an early age. Living on the streets, she developed a “harder” personality she named Mimi. As Mimi, she was taken in by a group of female wrestlers known as The Grapplers. Read More...

World of Warcraft: Oh how you can send a community into a frenzy just by leaking a tiny bit of information. WoW.com is reporting that, through multiple sources, they have discovered the name of the new World of Warcraft expansion as well as the new races that will be populating Azeroth. This new data leak comes two weeks before Blizzcon. Where I am sure they were going to announce something along these lines. The new expansion name will be called World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and the two new races will be Worgen for Alliance and Goblins for Horde. Read More...

With the release of Brütal Legend getting closer and closer everyday, I am sure someone is wondering what the soundtrack for the game will be like. Well we find it where they take metal to the extreme. Where is that you say? How about Denmark. That's right EA Denmark has the list of over 100 songs for Brütal Legend. After looking over the list, it sure made me feel like I am watching MTV (back when they actually played music videos) when I was younger. Bands like Dokken, Megadeath, Judas Priest and many many more. Read More...

I have to be honest, I haven’t heard a single positive thing about the tie-in game to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen save for the fact that it has multiplayer. Beyond that though, I can’t really say that I’m enticed to drop $60.00 to buy this game. However if you’re one of those die-hard fans that actually went out and bought the game, well at least you have a bunch of new goodies that are on the way. Activision and ROTF developers Luxoflux have been working hard to prepare a fairly sizeable amount of downloadable content. As I mentioned, multiplayer is probably the only thing that has me even remotely interested in ROTF so it’s nice to see that a lot of the downloadable content is targeted on bolstering that part of the game. Read More...

Finally some closure. After a very long and grueling process, Activision and Double Fine Studios have come to some even ground and we do not have to worry about Brütal Legend being delayed in all it's rocking glory. According to the Associated Press and the New York Times, the Lawyers for Activision told court officials that they had finally come to a settlement with Double Fine Studios on Wednesday. For a brief recap see my previous article Activision tells EA to Back off The Los Angeles Superior Court spokeswoman said that Activision settled with Double Fine and a hearing, that was supposed to occur this fine Thursday morning, was canceled. What was heard last week was that the Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan had told Activision's lawyers that the request was probably going to get denied and the game was going to get released on time anyways. Read More...

Just yesterday Activision announced a limited time collector’s edition for the upcoming Bakugan Battle Brawlers set for release on the Nintendo DS on October 20th, 2009. The collector’s edition will feature an exclusive Bakugan collector’s ball however the ball will only be produced in a limited quantity. Based on the anime of the same name, Bakugan Battle Brawlers is the story of 8 friends who come into possession of metallic cards that have fallen from the sky. Their adventures help them to learn more about the cards and the Bakugan battle creatures that stem from them. Read More...

Wii owners have often gotten the short stick when it comes to Mature rated shooters. The “kiddy” system has hosted just a handful of M rated games and most of them fail to find a broad audience (think MadWorld and Manhunt 2). However Wii owners yearning for more will finally get a shot in the arm on Nov 10th, when Call of Duty 4, aka Modern Warfare 1, aka the best selling shooter of all time, comes out for the Wii. Coincidentally it is the same day its sequel comes out for the 360, PS3, and PC. The port will be handled by Treyarch, who had previously developed World at War (for all systems, including the Wii). Read More...