On XBLA this week: Inferno Pool and Rainbow Islands

It’s a decidedly gloomy week for Xbox LIVE Arcade. Both games,Inferno PoolandRainbow Islands: Towering Adventure!, are re-releases from other downloadable services (PSN and WiiWare, respectively). Even at $10 a pop, I don’t know that either of them are worth downloading. Oh,Inferno Pool. I dislike pool, especially in virtual form, but your announcer is so entertaining. You couldn’t get theUnreal Tournamentguy, so you had to hire the next best person. And he’sgloriously awful....

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 128 words · Cameron Hunt

Our latest look at Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Ninja Theory’sEnslaved: Odyssey to the Westis looking like some fun times. You play as a dude who beats up robots with a stick. Give him the stick. DON’T GIVE HIM THE STICK! So yeah, giant sticks. Neat. Jimloved the game a lotwhen he played it at E3 so that’s good to know. The footage above is a collection of different scenes where the main character is breaking apart various robots. It got me thinking, why is the core component of a robot in the head?...

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 119 words · Erin Curtis

Overwhelming! Dynasty Warriors DualShock3 Ceramic White PS3 package

Woah! What a way to hit us with a lot of new, shiny, “do want-worthy” things all at once. I think that this might actually stopJim Sterling’s(our residentDynasty Warriorsfanatic) heart. Yesterday,Nick told us about a new white PS3coming to Japan, and nowFamitsugives us some details the bundle that this white PS3 will come with. TheDynasty Warriors 6(Shin Sangoku Musou 5) PS3 package comes with the remodeled (read: gimped) Ceramic White PS3, a page of stickers, some metallic plates with the generals’ faces on them, and a character and map book....

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 146 words · Elizabeth Acevedo

Ozzy Osbourne can’t say “Guitar Hero World Tour” but he’s in it

If you’ve ever had a fantasies about biting off a bat’s head or mumbling so unintelligibly so that everyone thinks you’ve been drunk for over twenty years straight, then this bit of news is going to be right up your alley. Activision announced today that Ozzy Osbourne will be a playable character inGuitar Hero World Tour. In addition, OZZfest will be an available venue in the game. Since they’re bringing Ozzy into the game, it only makes sense that they add a couple of his songs to the track list....

July 22, 2025 · 2 min · 328 words · Heather Smith

PAX 2008: Here’s what EA is showing at PAX 2008

Wow. That’s all I could think of when I first saw EA’s lineup for PAX 2008. There are so many big name titles here: I’m most interested in playingMirror’s Edgeout of all of these games. I keep hearing such high praise for the game. Check out .tiff and Reverend Anthony’simpressions of the game from E3in the above video. I would say I was really most looking forward toDead Space, but I actually had some very extensive hands-on with the game just last week and I’ll have the hands-on preview coming eventually (here’s a preview: f*cking buy it)....

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 190 words · Brandon Weaver

PC sales: The Oddboxx, Darksiders, and Global Agenda

It wouldn’t be a Friday evening without someone mentioning a quick PC game sale, so here we are. First up isDarksiders, which has been brought from $40 all the way down to $10 over on Steam. I found it to be a pretty good action-adventure title for the full console asking price back at launch. Totally worthy of an impulse buy at this price. The Oddboxx—Abe’s Oddysee,Abe’s Exoddus,Munch’s Oddysee, andStranger’s Wrath— is also on sale, for half price, at places likeDirect2DriveandGamersGate....

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 127 words · Ray Alvarez

PC version of Trine costs 2x the PSN version (update)

In aweird turn of events, platform puzzlerTrinewill costs twice as much on PC as it will on PSN, costing $40 instead of $20. Bizarrely, developer Frozenbyte had no clue about the price difference, yet is still defending the decision to price one version considerably more than the other. “Trineis far from a game created by a solo hero developer (we have over 20 employees andTrinehas contributionsfrom a double amount of people),” explains one dev on thecompany’s forums....

July 22, 2025 · 2 min · 264 words · Eric Chandler

Peach proves she’s still got it in new trailer for Mario & Sonic at the Olympics

There seems to be a lot of premature hate towards the upcomingMario & Sonic at the Olympic Gamesand I don’t really know why. Sure, the concept is a little ridiculous and there hasn’t been a good Sonic spin-off pretty much ever … and early reports indicate the game could be anotherwaggle-centric mini-game fest… and no videogame based on the Olympics has ever been good … wow, maybe therearea lot of reasons to hate on this game....

July 22, 2025 · 3 min · 433 words · Jason Armstrong

Pew! Pew! Preview!: Fallout 3 (Part II)

The celestial seasons seem to troll by for the diehardFalloutfranchise fan waiting impatiently for a sequel. While there wasNick’s previewofFallout 3back in July and a morerecent mentionof a potential 200 plus endings (now500-plus, according to Bethesda), there has been little since to carry the dire fans along until its release this fall. But look no further! This week I had a chance to sit in on a second preview ofFallout 3with VP of Bethesda’s PR and Marketing, Pete Hines....

July 22, 2025 · 9 min · 1869 words · Diane Steele

Podtoid 141: Dogsuit

What happens when half the Podtoid cast f*cks off and leaves Samit, Topher, myself and special guest Joseph Leray to our own devices? You get the most slanderous, scandalous, Samit-insultingous Podtoid ever recorded. There’s also some pretty decent discussion buried under all the filth and abuse, but you’re going to have to work for it. Surprisingly, a good episode. In fact, one of the most fun times I’ve spent in front of a microphone, barring anything involving my genitals....

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 100 words · Jacqueline Rojas

Podtoid 93: The Aaron Linde Show

Phallus Knife Fight‘s art is the gift that keeps on giving. This week, The Podtoid Crew Minus Jim Sterling recorded a podcast that, sadly, does not also double as a fan commentary for the 1994Street Fightermovie. It is, however, availablehere, and does, however, include discussions of the following things: – Jim Sterling’s accent – The cast’s boundless optimism for OnLive – Linde’s feelings toward cover-based shooters – “Huge slam on anteaters out ofnowhere!...

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 107 words · Tracy Adams

Preview: FUEL

5,000 square miles.That’s how big the world is inFUEL.FUEL, on top of being an extreme off-road racing game, will be a completely open racer where players can design their own races. This means that you’re able to design whatever course you’d like and spend HOURS on a single race as a result of your insane track within the 5,000 square miles of open land.At first glance, I sawFUELas a cross betweenBurnout ParadiseandPure....

July 22, 2025 · 5 min · 1036 words · Martin Taylor

Quite possibly the biggest game of Tetris ever

Do you love Tetris? Do you have an unreasonable amount of time and patience on your hands? If so, you might want to check outthis absolutely massiveTetrisgame. By my (admittedly poor) math skills, it measures roughly 300 blocks across and the one line I managed to clear while playing it took a whopping seventeen minutes to accomplish. As a game, it’s incredibly boring. Taken as an artistic venture, however, it winds up being really pretty cool....

July 22, 2025 · 1 min · 127 words · Willie Gillespie