What the hell, Activision? According to IGN, you’ve gone and dropped several really promising Vivendi titles. Not cool, you guys.

Amongst those on the guillotine were Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Brütal Legend, WET, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and World in Conflict: Soviet Assault. While it’s still entirely possible that another publisher will swoop in and pick these games up, we’re looking at an uncertain future for all of these. Dammit, I was really looking forward to Brütal Legend, too.

[UPDATE: Fortunately, it looks like both Brütal Legend and Ghostbusters: The Video Game are going to be fine. Hopefully the others are similarly lucky, because some of them actually looked pretty sweet. -zizzy]

Get excited! Tomorrow sees the release of Mass Effect: Ascension by Drew Karpyshyn, lead writer of Mass Effect for the 360 and PC. Sure, you’ll probably be tied up with Soul Calibur IV, and rightly so, but hear me out on this one.
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Castle Crashers, the newest XBLA game from The Behemoth finally has a release date for their eagerly-awaited co-op action game. August 27 is the day you can pay a few spacebucks for this adorable little adventure. Woohoo!

Microsoft has also given release dates for titles such as Bionic Commando: ReArmed and Geometry Wars: RE 2, which you can find after the jump.
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Dear Japan,

I just don’t understand your lack of interest in the Xbox 360. No, really, I don’t see how you can deny a console that offers exactly the kinds of games that have classically piqued the interest of Japanese gamers. Just off the top of my head I can think of Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon, and Lost Odyssey, not to mention Tales of Vesperia, which is coming to the 360 in a few months, too. That’s four solid JRPG titles that are currently exclusive to Microsoft’s system. Of course, Square Enix is releasing Final Fantasy XIII everywhere except the glorious nation of Nippon, but that’s only because you guys hate is so much.
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Looking for some games to waste your Wii Points on that you might play for an hour and then never click on again? Well, this week just might be for you! Hit the jump to find out what was added to Nintendo’s online catalog.
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Crisis averted.

Until now, the war between music game franchises has left frugal gamers with no option but to pick a side and hope for the best. Following Guitar Hero publisher Activision’s press conference, however, Chris Kohler over at Game|Life brings us good news:

At Activision’s E3 press conference Tuesday, Guitar Hero director Brian Bright told the crowd that if they already owned guitar controllers and drum controllers from “previous games” on the Xbox 360, they’d work with Guitar Hero World Tour.

As a person who owns Rock Band and all its peripherals on the 360, this makes it a lot easier to be on both sides of the music game fence. My Rock Band 2 purchase is all but sealed up, but knowing that I can get the full Guitar Hero World Tour experience without crowding my basement with even more peripherals makes it all the more enticing.

Specifics on now the RB drums will work with GH remain to be revealed, but it should be interesting, as the Guitar Hero World Tour drums require one more input than the Rock Band drums currently have. In addition, Bright did not adress PS3 or Wii compatibility. We’ll have to wait and see.

[Image and info via Wired]

My cautious optimism continues to grow. Gameplay looks like a nice mix between old-school and new-school, and the werehog gameplay doesn’t look completely awful.

Thrilling acrobatics and tandem beatdowns are the name of the game in this latest Prince of Persia trailer. Oh, there are also sweeping vistas to remind you that, yeah, this game looks great. The holiday season is already getting expensive.

The console wars, where the scarring battlefield of two or more different factions of gaming zealots identify themselves under a unified corporate banner in the hopes that their choice of gaming machinery will somehow be the one saving grace of their identity. I am a veteran of many of the original console wars, the worst one in my memory was the one that occurred between Sega and Nintendo back in the early 1990s when it was Super NES vs. Genesis for the “king of 16-bit” crown. It is only through the wisdom that I have gained in my 25 years of gaming that I know now how wrong these idiotic battles are.
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Sony just wrapped up their show and I have to say, it was pretty impressive. Hit the jump for a declicious, bite-sized recap of what went down!
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