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Nearly ten months ago,Blockbuster announcedthat they were going to drop HD DVD from their retail stores across the nation. Now thatthe format war has been officially overfor almost two months,Blu-ray.comis reporting that the movie/videogame rental giant is going to go big with Blu-ray this week. Until now, you could only find Blu-ray Discs at about 1,700 of Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar locations, but now every single Blockbuster in the US and Canada — almost 5,000 total — will rent and sell Blu-ray Disc movies....

The whole ‘games as art’ debate is getting very tired now, with people on both sides of the fence doing little more than scoring points for their own preferred medium of entertainment, butthisis one of the funnier examples of the argument, if only for the fact that it typifies those who refuse to accept videogames as art perfectly — they absolutely suck at games and can’t understand them. The Washington Post‘s 58-year-old book critic, Michael Dirda,spent a weekwith the widely praisedBioShockwithout any help from mommy and daddy, and managed to get all the way to Neptune’s Bounty, even though he hasn’t worked out how to use First Aid kits in the game....

We were growing tired of seeing thesame old screenshots over and overfor the upcoming Wii and DS gameFinal Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. You couldn’t really tell what was going on in any of them, let alone see how the game is played.While it isn’t much, we finally have a game play video, this one a boss battle. Watch as four players cooperate to beat down a helpless boss. I mean, despite the menacing pre-battle fanfare, this boss only gets a couple of hits in....

We don’t know designer Eddie Booze, but we’re guessing he has a thing for Brutal Legend. And who doesn’t at this point?Brutal Legendappears to be a solid action title with a bunch of style and a sprinkle or two of cleverness. It’s the latter of the descriptors that interests some of us the most, and perhaps Booze as well. Pictured above is a custom Eddie Riggs action figure,created by Booze. The character, the deliverer of many humorous lines and possessor of numerous over-the-top features, almost begs for a toy inspired by it....

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Capcom’sStreet Fighter IV— the first newStreet Fightergame in some eight years — is kind of a big deal. The game (along with the film,Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) will be unleashed on the public this week, and to celebrate,Capcomthrew a major launch party at the Geffen Contemporary at Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles this past Thursday. Open to the public, the museum was converted into a hugeStreet Fightershrine, a love letter to the series and a paradise for fans....

Capcom Japan has apparentlyjoined the rudderless moronswho are all crying and whimpering over a disease that has claimed less lives than regular, bottom-feeding flu germs, having allegedly canceled its international E3 travel plans. A spokesman for theNordic Game expo in Sweden has stated that Capcom pulled out of the event, “due to restrictions on foreign travel amid fears of an influenza outbreak.” The ludicrous panic over Swine Flu could also have an affect on Capcom Japan’s E3 plans, with the company “undecided” on whether or not it will come to LA next month....

You may not have heard ofCarneyVale: Showtime. I actually reviewed it back in 2008 when it launched on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel and my thoughts were nothing but positive. It’s a fantastic puzzle game in which ragdoll physics and force of momentum are used to reach a goal. If you missed it, don’t worry, for it is coming to PC. Singapore Games today announced that it had finalized a deal with Games for Windows Live to distribute the game on PC, with modified controls to fit the new format....

With any other videogame, scoring an 8/10 would be considered glowing praise. According to Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski, however, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, according to him, anybody who dares giveGears of War 3a score of eight clearlyhatesit. “Doing great, apart from a couple of haters,” Cliffy toldVG247,while talking about review scores. When asked to elaborate on the haters in question, he pointed toEurogamer’s 8/10 review....

Codemasters announces thatF1 Online: The Gameis a thing. It’s coming to a browser near you, and it’s a free-to-play affair, set to launch in the first quarter of 2012. This game will let you be both the driver and the race boss, mixing racing gameplay and team management in one online title. The header image above shows the race view. Yep, this one is a top-down raer. All the official drivers, teams and circuits from the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship are in this game....

Sumo Lounge makes some of the best bean bag chairs around. Seriously, you just want to let these things suck you up and stay in them forever like I do on a regular basis with theGigantor we have. It’s starting to smell and I should probably wash it at some point … Now is your chance to own one of these fine bean bags that make game experiences all the more enjoyable....

You already know how I feel about survival horror games if you’ve read Destructoid or listened to RetroforceGo! for any period of time, so I won’t gush all over again about how much I love to turn the lights out and get scared by a game, but I can tell you thatCursed Mountainis high on my list of releases that I’m excited for this year. Deep Silver announced today that theofficial websitefor the game is open, and from the looks of it I have even more to be excited for than I previously imagined....

Wait a minute — Visceral’s action-adventure gameDante’s Infernoisn’t going to be released on PC? Huh? I had always just assumed such a version was in the works, seeing as how the game is miraculously coming to the PSP, but apparently that is not the case. Whennudged by Big Downloadfor clarification, EA responded with the following statement: “WhenDante’s Infernowas originally announced in December, we attached no platforms to the project. When we came out with a first look for press in February we announced 360/PS3 and then in April we announced PSP....

Look, no offense to Namco Bandai and the team behindDead to Rights: Retributionhere. We’re just up to our necks with action games such as this and I’m pretty much tired with the genre by this point. Now, ifRetributionwas all about the dog, then I would be all over the game. Can you imagine? Just play as the dog with a shotgun strapped to its back or something. It’s time to spice up the action shooting genre, developers!...