GameStop has added an additional item for those that pre-orderGod of War IIIfrom them. On top of the awesome “Phantom of Chaos” character skin, you’ll also be getting an exclusiveGod of War IIIposter. The poster depicts Kratos in front of Mount Olympus and is signed by Andy Park,God of War III’sconcept artist. Now then, the only question is which pre-order poster is better?GameStop’sor7-Eleven’s? Be sure to check out our preview forGod of War IIIand check back tonight as GameTrailers is going to have some “super amazing OMG” newGod of War IIItrailer....

Want to get into theStarcraft 2closed beta? Of course you do. Everybody wants to get down on this. Blizzard has announced an opportunity for eagle-eyed fans to get in. The kind folks at Blizzard will be posting beta keys at random intervals forthe next three weeks on the official Starcraft II Facebook page: United States:http://www.facebook.com/StarCraft Latin America:http://www.facebook.com/StarCraft-ES If you happen to spot one and enter it before any of the millions of other drooling fanboys, you’re in....

I haven’t been excited for any of the recentRock BandDLC, but today’s announcement pretty much turns that around 180 degrees. August 11th, a Gorillaz three pack will come toRock Bandfeaturing “Clint Eastwood”, “Feel Good Inc” and “Re-Hash” (it also comes to PSN on August 13th). Also available that day will be Janis Joplin’s “Another Piece of my Heart”, Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”, The Who’s “Magic Bus (Live at Leeds )” and The Band’s “Chest Fever (live)”....

It took around fourteen seconds (or twenty minutes Standard Internet Time) to catch a glimpse of a shiny car in the trailer forGran Turismo 5at theE3 2009 Sony Press Conference. We joked about the delay for two reasons: (1) that’s a ridiculously long time for a racing game teaser not to have a car and (2) we’ve been talking aboutGT 5theoretically for far too long. The latter point may be thrown to the wayside shortly: according to series creator Kazunori Yamauchi, the release date ofGT 5will be revealed soon....

In an almost ironic twist, EA’sThe Simpsons Gamehas garnered a lot of press attention through recentcontroversyafter drawing the ire of a company that, well, gains press attention throughcontroversy. Rumors have been flying thick and fast that the result of the EA/Rockstar spat was the removal of the “Grand Theft Scratchy” level inThe Simpsons Game. This rumor has been proven false. In a statement made toThe Shampoo Circus, Electronic Arts has confirmed that nothing has been removed from the game due to Rockstar taking umbrage with theGTAspoof:...

With Cooper Lawrence havingretracted the statementsshe made onFox News‘ recklessMass Effectsex “scandal,” the channel has some egg to wipe from its metaphorical face, but so far has remained tight lipped and arrogantly unapologetic. EA’srequest for a retractionhas been ignored, and it is now the turn of Hal Halpin, Entertainment Consumer Association president, totry and coax a shred of integrityfrom the “unbiased” network. Writing toLive Deskproducer Teri Van Horn, Halpin has very much followed in EA’s footsteps, but uses the added ammunition of Lawrence’s retraction to show the flimsy foundations that Fox’s attack was built on:...

That would actually bemorethan a handful, if you know what I’m sayin’. Not a waste, though. You’d know exactly what I was talking about if you read our preview ofSuper Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier. And I’m talkin’ about boobs. Breasts. Melons. Sweater monkeys. There’s lots of ’em in this game. But it’s not just big chests. There’s big game play, too. This upcoming DS sci-fi RPG is quite a bit of fun with its crazy battle system and chained attacks and whatnot....

This last E3, my favorite new title was Harmonix’sDance Central, a game that really looks like a solid replication of dancing, and after my hands-on, was damn fun. In contrast to Ubisoft’sJust Dancefor the Wii,Dance Centralis a capable and fairly accurate dancing game. Unfortunately for PS3 and Wii users, the game is impossible to use on those respective platforms. Or is it? In a discussion with Kotaku, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos mentioned that the game could potentially be ported over to the PS3 with the Move controller....

I admit it. I hate the idea of pandering to so-called “casual gamers,” I abhor how games likeBig Beach SportsoutsellMetal Gear Solid 4and I absolutely detest artistic games suffering as publishers jump on the casual gravy train and abandon we who demand more from our gaming experiences. Do you know what I hate more than the above, however? It’s being made to feel like I’m notallowedto feel this way. It’s being shamed for disliking what the Wii and third-party publishers have done because I am “scared” and “jealous” and bitter that the games industry is moving away from the “hardcore” and into the realm of the “casual” and there’s nothing I can do about it....

In its continued push to market the PlayStation 3 as a device that “only does everything,” Sony announced today a deal with HBO that will bring eleven of the premium cable network’s television shows to the PlayStation Video Store. This completes the premium channel trifecta — the store has offered original programming from Showtime (Weeds) and Starz (Party Down) for some time now, but just as Phil Harrison famously proclaimed in 2005 that “the HD era really only starts when we [Sony] are on the market,” I’d bet that the folks at HBO would tell you that the PSN is irrelevant until it starts to sell HBO TV shows....

Insane videogame trivia that someone won’t discover until years after the fact and Nintendo sure do go hand in hand. The prime example (I’msosorry if this is new to you) is surely the “bushes inSuper Mario Bros. are simply green-colored clouds” thing. The attachedSMB 3pic is quite the revelation as well. Continuing in this utterly awesome trend of genuinely neat game facts getting spread to the masses — like all cool-but-ultimately-insignificant factoids — through the Internet one blog post at a time is this discovery by ABoredGameDevon the NinDB Forums....

There’s no better Christmas gift to get a gamer than some semi-obscure reference to a favorite 8-bit game of old. EnterDurkl.comand one of the best t-shirts ever. Who didn’t fight this drooling jungle clan escapee and hurl the controller at the television in complete frustration at least once? Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to have a friend who told you to punch him in the stomach. Great strategy in general — can’t figure out what a guy wants?...

The entire Destructoid staff more or less agrees thatI MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1!is easily some of the best fun you can have with a game on the Xbox 360. That costs a dollar, no less.Ska Studioshas recently teamed up with ultra gothy retailer Hot Topic to get some really cool merch from the game into your hands. Cool, or what? you may now snap up the awesome shirt above, which is an online exclusive, through theHot Topic webshopfor $19....