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I’ve written enough list columns to know that they bring out the troll in everybody. There is something about a random person’s arbitrary ranking system that other human beings just cannot fathom. EA’s Peter Moore is no different, and the feline Sports game boss hasfallen preyto the selfsame hatred of Listmania. At least this guy has his reasons. The target of his bitchery isEurogamer, who did not rankFIFA 09among its top fifty games of 2008....

This week the PlayStation Store update is a bit more special than normal. What makes it so special? Even though it lacks any PSN titles, there is the potential for two different beta invites. The first invite can come from downloading the third episode of Qore ($2.99).As we reported earlier, doing this will automatically enter you into theResistance 2multiplayer beta.The other beta,Home, is a lottery of sorts. By downloading the special theme users will be entered into a pool to be picked up for second round of the closed beta at the end of the month....

Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highwayis finally coming out next week, and to celebrate,Gearboxsent over a digital package full of gore! In fact, the trailers are so gory, that we had to put them after the jump as to not upset underage crowd. So please don’t watch the trailers, children. Instead, goread my hands-on previewI did onHell’s Highwayback in April where I detail all of the gore and violence from the game....

In one of the latest Iwata Asks features that Nintendo hosts, Nintendo top dog Satoru Iwata himself reveals a little secret about photo-safari Nintendo 64 gamePokemon Snap: It originally didn’t have any Pokemon in it. It turns out that the game was originally just a photography title, but with no specific thing to photograph, it didn’t really have a point. Iwata: “Originally,Pokemon Snapfor the Nintendo 64 system wasn’t a Pokemon game, but rather a normal game in which you took photos, but the motivation for playing the game wasn’t clear....

Sorry. I made up the office chairs part. But PopCap did secure $22.5 million in funding from an investment firm, and I’m sure they’ll upgrade their offices in some form. This is the first time that the company has raised cash for operations, though. They’ve managed to stay profitable for ten years now on their own. So why take the cash now? PopCap CEO David Roberts says that the time is right to grow their business, especially seeing as how “many other video game firms are retrenching....

PS3 owners have been complaining about the PlayStation Store for practically the console’s entire lifespan so far, nearly seventeen months in North America. The interface was serviceable, but any acclaim ended there; navigating through the web-based store was slow and unintuitive. It’s been a long time coming, but Sony has finally remedied our concerns with today’s v2.30 update, which installs the updated PS Store as a native XMB application. According to a tipster, the update went live as early as 1:05 AM EDT, which is an hour earlier than the time thatSony originally gave us....

Hope you didn’t have any big Thursday nightTeam Fortressplans. Valve has announced that it will be performing software maintenance on “some Steam servers” this Thursday, February 4. It begins at 6:00pm Pacific with an end “window” of at 9:00pm Pacific. Here’s what’s affected: Steam Community; in-game matchmaking and lobbies; downloading games; and making purchases. So you’ve got a few options — step away from the computer for a bit, or play one of your Steam games offline....

Do you live in the San Francisco area? Do you care about videogames? Then I know what you should be doing tonight. In a few hours,a panel of expertswill be debating the constitutionality of banning violent and “pornographic” videogames.The debate should be interesting and enlightening, regardless of what side of the argument you’re on. Senator Leland Yeewas supposed to be there, but was swapped out at the last minute forJames Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media....

height=”3… WhenRetroForceGO!was in its infancy, I had a segment between act breaks called the “Rev Rant” where I’d basically just whine about something and attempt to make said whining sound halfway intelligent. That segment has since been replaced by the New Gamer Dictionary, but I still wanted to bring the Rev Rants back in some form because some of you — for whatever reason — seemed to enjoy them. The first episode of the new, video-based Rev Rants now sits after the jump....

Every week, “Reverend” Anthony Burch talks about aspects of game design and gamer culture in his weekly “Rev Rant” video series. I have to say, I’m flabbergasted as hell (and that’sreallyflabbergasted) thatmy last rantgot as popular as it did. It’s all downhill from here. This week’s rant is about the (to my mind) ludicrous assumption that games are essentially a medium based on “fun,” and that that is what theyshouldbe, no matter what....

Every week, sort of, features editor (Reverend) Anthony Burch discusses games and gamer culture in his “Rev Rant” video series. This video includesSPOILERS for theModern Warfare 2“No Russian” level. Not so much for the rest of the game.And I realize that the preview frame for the video may be sort of spoilery, but you’ll live. This week’s rant is, yes, about the controversialMW2airport massacre level, but hopefully not in a way you’ve heard it discussed yet — I tried to focus less on the arguments of propriety or controversy and more on how the scene does and does not work on basic interactive and narrative levels....

Over the past month or so, I’ve come to really enjoy the world ofScott Pilgrim. Thefilm was great; the comics weren’t quite as great; but overall, I feel that the time and energy I’veinvested intoScott Pilgrimhas been well spent. Weirdly enough, I have the most low profile entry in theScott Pilgrimtrinity to thank for that. I’d known about the comic for years, but I never gave it much of a chance....

Thanks, Santa. This is just what I always wanted. Now I can play Live Arcade games with my non-Xbox 360 owning friends. Better yet, I can playUnowith my mom! CVGthinks that we should expect to see the Live Arcade that we all know and love show up on Games For Windows – Live by this holiday season. 1UP mentioned that Microsoft was about to releasedev update for Games for Windows tools “in anticipation of Xbox Live Arcade games rolling out in holiday 07....