Speaking at the Paris Game Developers Conference, EA’s David McCarthy revealed that within the next year, EA Sports games will be bundled with peripherals. McCarthy said “I think you’ll see games using that Rock Band peripheral strategy from EA Sports, even within the next 12 months,” so long as the accessibility of a game isn’t compromised. McCarthy did not expand on whether or not the peripherals would reach all three major consoles, or even what specific games they are being developed for.

Regardless of the game, I think we can all agree that this console generation’s obsession with peripherals is getting a little out of hand. Whatever happened to picking up just a disc whenever we wanted a new game? Now I have to get an entirely new controller. The recently announced Guitar Hero 4 is supposed to have drums as well, and I sure as hell don’t need two drum sets.

This leads me into a greater argument about sports games as a whole. I feel that if you really want to play a sport, then go out and play it! There is some rationality to using a standard controller and playing online, but if someone is already swinging a virtual bat, that’s just one step away from actually playing baseball. Some may argue that music games such as Rock Band should follow the same guidelines, but learning the basics of an instrument is definitely more time-consuming than learning the basics of a sport. If you’ve ever had gym class, you should know how to play basketball.

Hey, EA, why not get to work on a new SSX instead?

[Via Gamesindustry.biz]

Gamersyde got some new video of the upcoming game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which I’ve embedded above. It shows a number of different things your character is capable of, like pushing stuff around, throwing people all over the place, blowing shit up, and the groundbreaking ability to cut down trees, by throwing your lightsaber. Many of the places shown look great as well, but the enemies’ reactions aren’t too smart - when you’re flying haphazardly through the air, is taking someone by the hand (or foot) and pulling them with you really the best idea? Not unless you’re trying to kill them or you know they’ve always dreamed of flying.

There’s also another video, showing less gameplay and focusing on a character called Raxus, found after the jump.

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Kevin Cortez already brought you some exciting new info on Fable 2, and now here are some new screenshots if you want to see for yourself how the game is looking.

There are six screenshot in total, showing some environments, people, creatures, and combat, and they are all looking great. While reading about the new features got me pretty hyped, seeing actual high definition screenshots is even better. Now that more information and media for Fable 2 is being released, it’s really starting to look great and like a huge step up from the original.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard about Gears of War 2, but there were also some pretty cool demonstrations of Unreal Engine 3 using Gears of War. Gamersyde got some video of Epic Game’s presentation off the screen, which I’ve embedded above.

They show plenty of new features for Unreal Engine 3, but the best part is about a minute in when they demonstrate high density crowds by showing over a hundred locusts on screen all at once.

They also show the improvements in lighting and water, the system used to build all of Gears’ cinematics, soft body physics, and destructible environments. It’s awesome to see these improvements to the engine that powers so many great games, and I for one can’t wait to see them implemented in Gears of War 2.

Today at GDC Microsoft announced that all XBOX 360 owners will be able to download demos of XNA games as a part of an initiative to get more people to embrace the tool set. To access these demos, you must first download the XNA Creator Game Launcher from Live Marketplace. Then go into the Game Library menu, scroll over to the XNA Creators Club tab and press the Y button. There you will be able to download the following demos:

Culture
JellyCar
Little Gamers
ProximityHD
Rocketball
The Dishwasher
TriLinea

The only “catch” to this opportunity is that you must download the titles you want before Feb 24, and they will become unplayable after Mar 9. So hurry up and get downloading to see what independent games 360 owners will be getting their hands on soon!

Peter Molyneux revealed several new bits about the upcoming sequel to Fable at the GDC today. Molyneux showed the Microsoft audience a live demo and explained an Xbox Live Arcade game that goes alongside with Fable 2 and spoke on new features for the game.

Molyneux first showed the crowd an XBLA game called Keystone. This “pub game,” was described by Peter as being “a little bit like craps.” After winning a ton of gold from the arcade game, he was able to transfer the reward to Fable 2. He commented:

“What you’re seeing there is actually an Xbox Live Arcade game outside of Fable, and what I am able to do is take the money I win from that XBLA game and move it into the Fable world.”

He then went on to demo the actual game in order to show off a few of its new features. Molyneux explained that his in-game character was a pregnant woman. He then brought out a colleague, Josh Atkins, to help showcase the new co-op mode (confirming that Fable 2 will be Xbox Live compatible). It was then revealed that all gold and experience that your co-op partner earns while playing with you will be transferrable to their own game. Players can also choose to tax their partners while playing to earn a certain percentage of experience their partners make.

Atkins and Molyneux continued their demo by engaging the game’s combat  system for all in attendance. After a few moments, the two begin to go down a hill towards Molyneux’s in-game family. Josh then proceeded to shoot and kill Peter’s in-game husband. “That moment is real - it’s not staged,” Peter said. “That husband’s not going to come back to life. That’s the drama I want.”

Should this game fail to live up to the expectations that I’m starting to have for it, it sounds like Peter is going to get a little more drama than a dead husband. I really really hope that this game lives up to its promise, but knowing Peter Molyneux it probably won’t. I’m going to buy it anyways, so either way they’ll be getting my money.

Hey all you lovely MEGATONik readers, great news if you own an Xbox 360! Before the Microsoft keynote speech was even delivered at this years GDC, the details of the hotly anticipated game was spilled by a crafty NeoGAF poster who found the following on Microsoft’s Italian PR website.

Gears of War 2 (Epic Games). Gears of War 2 is the sequel to the best seller, with 4.5 million copies sold, which redefined the tactical/third person/action game genre. Gears of War 2 follows the story of Marcus Fenix and Delta Team in an epic saga of survival, defeat, and punishment. Developed by Epic games as an Xbox 360 exclusive, Gears of War 2 will be available in November.

Thank you wonderful web translations! I’ve just been told that this news has been confirmed by Epic developer CliffyB during the GDC keynote speech. I’m guessing that nobody here thought that any console other than the 360 would be getting this game did they? Now, when is GameStop going to offer pre-orders?