Evil publisher Activision has admitted that itsGuitar Herofranchise may have lost some of the mainstream appeal that has raked in millions over the years. I don’t suppose that could have had anything to do with thetendifferentHerogames that were released last year, could it? “It’s no secret that not justGuitar Hero, but alsoRock Band, and the music category in general, do not have the same mass appeal today that they did a few years ago,” says publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg....

TheBack to the Futuregames from Telltale were rather decent, though I will admit to being less than thrilled by some of the writing decisions made. It’s still one of the best episodic adventure series from the team and now you may get it dirt cheap for your iPad. The “Complete Your Collection” sale promotion has made certain of that, dropping individual episodes down to $3 each on the App Store....

With the latest update to the backwards compatibility listfinally here, there are now over 300 orginal Xbox games that’ll play nice with your Xbox 360. But unlike thelast update, there is a considerably smaller portion of good games. Honestly, the only game that stood out to me wasFreedom Fightersand it’s not even exclusive to the Xbox platform. How many more bad games are going to become backwards compatible before we start seeing some decent ones as well?...

The father of paranoia is here, and his name isMike Tomich. Author of a book calledOur Silent Epidemic, Tomich claims that allowing children under the age of eight to play videogames can permanently damage their fingers, along with crayon use under the age of five. Tomich explains: Children develop the injuries because their bones are too soft (not calcified hard) and readily yield to the strong repeating forces. The permanent and accumulative damage from these forces is silently inflicted without pain because of the numbing effects they deliver to the soft bones....

Cooking Mamashowed us that Mama could beat the kitchen into shape, and nowGardening Mamais on the way, withCrafting Mamanot too far behind.GoNintendoreports that the trademark has recently been filed forBabysitting Mama, which means that soon enough young ladies will be able to practice for domestic bliss in just about every way possible on the Nintendo DS! I think these games are a lot of fun, but I have to admit I’d like to see Majesco do something totally different with the series in the future....

Before I’m drawn and quartered for the extreme tardiness of this week’s BBL, let me assure you that it was not my wish to delay. Rather, the Great and Terrible Gods of Consumer Electronics deemed me unfit to carry on with my agéd computer setup; decrepit though it may had been, my Athlon XP 1700+ had chugged along for a recordsix yearswith virtually no issues whatsoever until finally choking on its own blood and vomit on January 3rd, 2006....

Bayonetta(the game I want to be inside), will be delivering a demo to the eager masses (and the eager mass in my pants) on October 8 (sexual intercourse). So far, the demo date has been announced on Japanese blogAndria Sang, but we’re pretty sure it’ll hit the US and Europe around same date, if not a few days after. We’re double checking, just to be definite. Either way, it’s nothing a quick Japanese account won’t fix....

A newStar TrekDLC pack was recently released forYoostar 2,a game that puts players into the roles of actors from their favorite shows and movies. This new pack, on sale for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, contains five clips that allow you to act out scenes as Captain Picard for 560 points and $6.99 respectively. Three of the clips are taken fromThe Next Generationand two have been lifted fromGenerations. There are some other packs out now as well, including clips fromSawand the originalWar of the Worlds, but the important thing to take away from this is that you can be part ofStar Trek, at least in your living room....

If you are the type that prefers the collector’s editions in lieu of normal game packaging, then you are going to love what the guys (and gals) behindFallout 3have in store for you. to satisfy those of you who want the most out of the game as possible, Bethesda Softworks has teamed up with Amazon.com to bring you the exclusiveFallout 3 Survival Edition. If you are willing to part with just under $130 for the Xbox 360/PS3 version, or $119....

You know what’s great? Mods are great. If we didn’t have mods, we wouldn’t be able to follow the adventures of Mr. Mochi as he makesOblivionabout a thousand percent more entertaining. In fact, virtually none of the things Mr. Mochi can do in this three-minute video would be possible without a user-created mod. Well, maybewalking. I can’t wait to add Mr. Mochi to my futureSkyrimandDiablo IIIplay experiences. Oh, wait, scratch that latter one....

If the new WiiLegend of Zeldadoesn’t come out this year, Nintendo’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing Cammie Dunaway is going to oweWired‘s Chris Kohler a steak dinner. Inan interviewconducted earlier in the week, Dunaway hints strongly that we’ll see the newZeldathis calendar year. She was so confident, she bet a steak dinner on it. Release dates forSuper Mario Galaxy 2andMetroid: Other Mwere confirmed at Nintendo’s media summit earlier this week, but Dunaway went out of her way to tell attending press that Nintendo was only showing titles for the first half of 2010....

Capcom always comes to San Diego Comic-Con ready to party. They always have a big booth, big panels, exclusive merchandise and plenty of fan events. They are keeping with tradition this year. We’ve told you about the panels earlier this week. Expect big news. I have word that a brand new game will be announced and shown off at one of them! After the jump you can find the details on their four panels at SDCC this year....

I can’t seem to find any evidence now of GameStop saying that theChrono Triggerbonus music CD and poster were an exclusive pre-order perk, but I do remember seeing that. Don’t you? Well, it turns out that this offer wasn’t so exclusive. Stephen at Aeropauseflipped back and forth, stomach turning under the stress, losing sleep at night. Should he change his Amazon pre-order back to GameStop because of the goodies? He couldn’t decide....