With all of the news flooding out of the Sony camp a lot of people have been curious to see if the Home service is going to receive any measure of attention. Well, they have heard your cries and have offered up a wealth of information courtesy of the official blog. The list of features are as follows: Universal Game Launching: "You can now launch into any PlayStation 3 game directly from Home. Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter 4 and Far Cry 2) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar's head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in. Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease. Read More...

Hades Boss Fight Round 2 So on Monday we were able to give you a nice view of what the Lord of the Dead would be looking like. We've seen him only in a few minor shots in the God of War FMVs before that. But now we get one further peek at how this epic boss/boss fight will look and feel. All of this through some more screen shots from the game and what is being shown at GamesCom. I know it is all Hades vs. Kratos in those shots there, but it still looks amazingly stunning. Read More...

At Gamescon in Cologne, Harmonix announced which full albums will be available as DLC for Beatles: Rock Band in 2009. They also revealed the pricing structure and some extras you'll receive. This on the heels of yesterday's reveal of 19 of the last 20 songs on the disc. I would normally say that the 1360 Microsoft points (roughly $17) for an entire album and the typical 160 Microsoft points ($2) per song may turn off the owners of this game, but I would be wrong. I know how wrong by the fact that upon reading the press release, I balked at the number then quickly followed up with, "yeah, I'll probably buy it anyway." Beatles fans have been waiting for something like this since plastic guitars began filling up living rooms. Read More...

PlayStation 3 Firmware (v3.00) Update So with the new PS3 Slim and price drop hitting the world, it would make sense that Sony would do something special for all of us who purchased the system a while ago. Some of us, at launch. I'll remain nameless for that one there. Irregardless, a new, pretty awesome update to the whole PS3 experience is what we current owners are getting. If you check out the list and video below, you can get a good look at what they are dishing out for us. A slimmer, sleeker What's New section. Read More...

Last week I discussed my feelings about downloadable content which is one of two things that have drastically risen in the last few years to become a common site in the video games industry. Today I want to take a look at the second which are Special Edition releases. Before I actually get to the different pieces that are actually packaged within, I’d like to share what I think should be the definition of various special editions because I’ve seen several different variations in my time. Obviously these are the Special Edition, Collector’s Edition, and Limited Edition. I know that for many people there really is no difference, but I disagree. 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...

As I correctly speculated in my last Beatles: Rock Band article, there was yet another teaser for the fans as today MTV Games and Harmonix announced 19 of the 20 songs yet be revealed. With only one song remaining to be divulged, it looks as if it will be either a widely popular tune or a special "not-previously-released" track that's been hidden in the vaults and purposely kept from public view so that it can be released live with the remastered recordings set to release on the same day as the game. Considering the track list so far, there are some big Beatles songs on there indicating they are not afraid to show their hand, so the latter does seem more likely. Looking at the breakdown by studio album* it appears that they've set up a few albums to be big DLC money makers. Read More...

Additional PS3 Greatest Hits Titles Available Now Just like in music, when something has been around for a while and you want to remind fans of the awesomeness of the old stuff, you hit it up with a greatest hits treatment. It happens all the time. It also happens in the gaming world, and this time it has happened in time for players to get a rerun of a game before the sequel flies onto shelves. This morning on the PlayStation Blog, it was announced that Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and SOCOM Confrontation are the two latest titles to get this treatment. This makes it so you can snag both titles brand new for $29. 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...

Render Of Hades By the Gods, the more that is pumped out in the God of War fankits, the more and more excited and giddy I get. First it was Kratos and Zeus and a slew of screen shots and background shots for the game. This was all before the good hands on the public got a Comic Con in San Diego. Something that was great to wet our whistles. But this isn't where they were going to end with these kits, and thus good renders of characters and high res images. Just let loose on the God of War III Official Website, is the second kit. 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...

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the launch of the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) here in North America. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of articles on the birth and rise of the Genesis, its bitter fight against Nintendo and the eventual downfall with the addition of the Sega CD and the 32X. Most of them are tongue-in-cheek, which is unfortunate. Here is a humble recollection of a console that I never owned until recently. After my parents bought me an Atari 2600 when I was born, the next console I got was the PlayStation 2 I bought myself just after college. Read More...

With World of Warcraft's 5 year anniversary coming up, Blizzard is releasing another content patch, numbered 3.2.2. What is the big change? Nothing major but to bring back the biggest bitch of the game, Onyxia. Why Onyxia you may ask? Well she was the most iconic beast in the game when the game was still fresh and new. One of the hardest Raid boss to take down, even when a group of 40 players would have a tough time taking her down. On August 12th Zarhym one of the Blues in the forums announced that for the 5 year Anniversary of the game that Onyxia will be converted to a 10 and 25 man raid. Read More...

Multiplayer: The Book Burning Generation The other night I was driving home at 1 am with the God of War soundtrack playing in the car. As the game music, with mixed in audio clips from the game, was playing through my car speakers, I began to think on how truly epic the story of this game was. Not epic as in awesome, even though it is, but more in lines of how it actually fell in line with the Epic writings of the Greeks. Think the Odyssey and Iliad for what I mean. It soon sparked in my head on how games like this are looking to be a bit more few and far between in the current state of things. Read More...

Second Skin is a documentary that follows the lives of seven people as they delve in to the world of MMORPGs. The film was directed by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza and produced by Victor Pineiro Escoriaza and Peter Brauer. The synopsis from the site reads: “Second Skin takes an intimate look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by online virtual worlds. An emerging genre of computer software called Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs, allows millions of users to interact simultaneously in virtual spaces. Of the 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted. Read More...