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EA has never been the most scrupulous of companies, but one of their latest moves makes me question why the all-seeing eye of Xenu has not yet seen fit to burn the whole place to the ground. The Chicago Bears’ KR, Devin Hester, wasn’t exactly thrilled with the way EA portrayed him in previous versions of theirMaddenfootball titles, so he took it upon himself to do what any overpaid, undereducated man who makes a living by hurting others and avoiding drug convictions would do; he whined like a seven year old girl with a skinned knee....

Times are tough. Down-trodden world economy. Blah.Whatever. Got that crap out of the way. Now that we’re done with that, we can get to the good stuff. Best Buy is going to do their buy two get one free sale again soon. Any title priced under $59.99 is valid, and you can actually mix platforms if you’d like. Any Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii game is valid for the deal. The promotion is set to begin this Sunday, October 25th....

There’s a noticeable portion of the gaming community that stresses gameplay over visuals, often noting that graphics are not important. To this cross-section, Bethesda’s Pete Hines has but one thing to say — you’re a liar, liar, pants on fire. “There’s a lot of people who say graphics don’t matter. To them I usually say ‘you’re lying’,” said the developer on the latestOXM Podcast. “[People] will look at a screenshot and make a snap decision: ‘that looks awesome’, or ‘I’m not interested’....

If everything goes according to plan, Microsoft’s Bing search engine will also be a games platform. It all kicks off with their first title,Happy Island, a game you might know from Facebook. Bing’s gaming executive producer, Parri Munsell, said, “We believe this launch brings several important innovations to the social gaming industry, starting with the ability to experience great gameplay before being required to sign in.” It sounds like there’s even more beyondHappy Island....

Although it seems unlikely we’ll ever get a true sequel to last generation’s FPSBlack, Codemasters’Bodycountcould certainly been as a spiritual successor. Project lead on both games, Stuart Black, has stated thatBodycountwill evoke the “feeling” ofBlack, a feeling that other FPS games just haven’t managed to emulate. “I ended up playingBlackagain on PSN [PS2?], and I was kind of enjoying it. I realised there was a feeling there, a style of shooting that I wasn’t getting anywhere else, and I was missing it,” explains Black....

Here’s a new developer diary from inXile Entertainment focused on the environmental and level design inHunted: The Demon’s Forge. The environmental stuff is pretty ho-hum, the typical pap about how realistic they wanted to make things, but it picks up in the latter third as it discusses the “Crucible” user-content creator. You can see some of the options players will have in creating maps and it looks neat. The Crucible stuff sounds cool....

This week, Capcom has launched a new push into the mobile marketplace withCapcom Arcade. The free app, which you candownloadfrom the App Store, makes available ports of Capcom’s arcade library and gives the option of paying for single-play “Tokens” (ten for $0.99) or purchasing the games ($2.99 each) for infinite play. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s pretty much the MicrosoftGame Roombut Capcom-exclusive and on an iPhone.Capcom Arcadeoffers two versions of each game, one which is a faithful port of the original and another which softens difficulty for easier play on a handheld....

According to Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi, the publisher’s got some surprises in store this year. Capcom’s gearing up to announce “two large scale, original titles” this year, Takeuchi tellsFamitsu. The games are expected to be announced this summer, likely at E3 in June, and will “surprise” and “wow” people. Until they’re officially revealed, all guesses are on the table. But if they’re truly as surprising as Takeuchi seems to be hinting, we may be talking about more than just a fewResident Evilfollow ups....

Between first confirming and then sort of denying 16 player multiplayer for Resident Evil 5, Capcom has announced that it’s signed a development deal with UK-based developer Monumental Games. Under the deal Monumental will be working on an yet-unannounced multi-platform title that will be published by Capcom later this year. Monumental’s “Monumental Technology Suite” is an MMO and virtual world technology that the developer claims is the “most powerful” tech of its kind in the world....

Anyone who has made it to the more difficult modes in bothRock Bandand the post-HarmonixGuitar Herogames knows that there’s a key difference between the titles, and it’s notjustthe shape of the notes. This Captain Obvious report comes to us by way ofGameDaily’s interviewwith Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos regarding note patterns. He says: “The guiding philosophy for us when authoring patterns is staying true to the music. What we found was if material inRock Bandwas actually easier compared toGuitar Hero, it’s because the actual guitar parts are easier, whereas the design mandate forGHseems to be more focused on a gamer mentality in ratcheting up the difficulty....

We already knowCatherine‘s coming to the US.Atlus announced as much. But for a game as big as this one, localizationwillbe a key factor in its potential success. Even a Japanophile like myself knows that having a great English dub will be essential. That’s why I’m happy thatCatherine‘s Catherine will be voiced by veteran voice actressLaura Bailey. You may know her from recent performances asFinal Fantasy XIII‘s Serah orSakura Wars: So Long My Love‘s Gemini Sunrise, or as Lust from theFullmetal Alchemistanime, or even asPersona 4′s Rise....

check Oh, good. We’re good. There’s a couple of reasons why you’d have to check your boxers in the morning when you wake up. A particularly good dream? Or a terrifying nightmare? It could go either way for Vincent, the main character in Atlus’Catherine. This new trailer for the upcoming game shows how your daily life affects your dreams/nightmares, and that there may be something to that urban legend that says that if you die in your sleep you also die in real life....

Owners ofRock Bandgames have repeatedly suggested that Harmonix sell music through the games — imagine being able to purchase MP3s of Rock Band songs, iTunes-style, from the Rock Band Music Store. At CES 2009 today, Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopoulos gave the keynote at Billboard’s “Digital Music Live” session, and he assured us that the company had given the idea some serious thought — though he doesn’t seem to be entirely sold on it yet....