This morningwe ran some rudderless speculationconcerning Gearbox’sBorderlandswhich seemed to completely reignite (or justignite) a lot of interest in the highly customizableDune-esque shooter. According to the gossip,Borderlandshad a complete artistic makeover that was suggested to be some form of cel-shading. Gearbox has finally responded to the talk with an official statement. “Heh! No,Borderlandsis not cel-shaded — it’s a gritty and serious world after all,” said a spokesperson. “But since the game was first unveiled we have made big advancements with the art direction and the technology to support the art and have produced some pretty impressive, even shocking results....

The concern for someCivilization Vplayers was that Firaxis Games was more interested in putting out paid downloadable content than addressing issues. I can’t speak to that, but this month’s patch is now live, it’s a sizable one, and it was timely for the newSpain and Inca DLC. you may read up on those fixeshere on the 2K Games forums. Having not playedCiv Vyet, much of the notes appear to be composed of some thick language I’m not familiar with....

Good news, everyone who showed interest in theHasbro Family Game Nighttitles until they saw their individual prices! This week, Xbox LIVE Gold members can scoreConnect 4,Connect 4X4,Jenga,Pictureka,Sorry!,Sorry! Sliders,Boggle,Battleship,Scrabble, andYahtzeefor $5 a pop. This is a good deal for anyone who wanted a few from the selection but not enough to warrant getting the full-blown Game Night compilation disc. You hear that,Yahtzee? I’m coming for you. The discounts are good until next Monday, so jump on it....

Besides adding a fantastic new location toBurnout Paradise, the “Big Surf Island” add-on brought nine new vehicles, all of which are pretty rad for plenty of various reasons. But there’s one car that I bet 99% of players will never get to test drive, and that’s the P12 Diamond. Before Paradise City met Big Surf, there were only 490 online freeburn challenges (hah, “only”), but the latest downloadable content upped that number to a solid 500....

It seems like whenever we talk PC gaming, piracy always enters into the conversation. There’s good reason for that according to id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead in an interview withgamesindustry.biz. According to Hollenshead, hardware manufacturers are perfectly fine with piracy because of the consumer’s ability to download whatever game they want and utilize it with new hardware that they buy. I think that there’s been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content – even if you’re supposed to pay for it on PCs – is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games....

IGN, video game wasteland, says Wii Bowling takes true skill only a bowling master can comprehend. However, they have been proven wrong. Not by pros, no, but regular Joes stoned out of their mind with babies and cats crawling all over the place. Now, once and for all, we see the true potential of this legendary game.

A group of four senators have called for the Nintendo Wii to bedealt with more harshly by the ESRB, because the Wii remote allows for more interactivity and, apparently, teaches children how to kill people. Yes, they seriously suggest that the Wiimote is a valuable tool for an education in murder. “That system permits children to act out each of the many graphic torture scenes and murders inManhunt 2rather than simply manipulating a game pad,” claimed the senators as they called for a re-re-rate of Rockstar’s latest mess....

Recently Sega invited me over to its San Francisco offices to take a peek at the latest game in theTotal Warseries:Shogun 2. As a return to the originalTotal WargameShogun: Total War,Shogun 2is the latest in the real time/turn-based fusion strategy game. Sega and developer The Creative Assembly were kind enough to show me the real time battle elements of the game, with the turn-based overworld stuff saved for something I have planned next week....

If you read the latest issue of EGM, you probably came across the little box stating that 60% of gamers are fans of the roleplaying genre. While that adds credence to my idea that I’m the only one of us having regular sex, it also made me think that you guys who came to the party late might like a refresher course on where this genre came from. Before you had yourFinal Fantasys(notice me not making the joke that pluralizingFinal Fantasyis like pluralizingLone Ranger) and yourWorlds of Warcraft, you had games likeUltima,RogueandWizardry....

In the big-assed v1.3 update coming to PlayStation Home, you’ll finally be able to launch games directly from Home. And that’s any PlayStation 3 game. With this upcoming update, you’ll be able to pop in a disc while in Home and launch the game at any time. Instead of having to exit Home to get started, you’ll be magically whisked away to the game’s start menu. No silly logging off anymore....

[Editor’s Note: Hey, everyone! I would like to introduce David Moore. He has run the sitegamebunny.comfor the past ten years and co-runstorwars.com, a site focused on all thingsStar Wars: The Old Republic. Basically, he is an MMO MASTER! He will be contributing a new weekly series, That’s So MMO!, rounding up the week in MMO news. If you are a fan of MMOs, you are in for a treat! Let’s give David a warm, wet Destructoid welcome!...

The combination of zombies and satellite imagery is pure genius, if you ask me. Sony mashed them together to make the PlayStation Network gameThe Last Guy. This title will go on sale in Japan on August 28th and will cost 2,000 yen. The zombies atSiliconerapoint out that this will have many more cities than the teaser version released in Japan last month, including: Damn, still no US release date. I’m sure we won’t be theLast Guysgetting this, though....

Killzone 3wasall but confirmedbefore the weekend, but nothing’s set in stone without a press release in your hand. Sony has provided such a press release this morning, officially announcingKillzone 3for the PlayStation 3. Hooray! As we already heard,Killzone 3will be getting 3D gimmickry, jet packs, and a new arctic setting. The game picks up whereKillzone 2left off, with Rico and Sev attempting to take on the Helghast almost single-handhedly following Rico’s murder of Helghan emperor Scolar Visari....