When it comes to purchasing Xbox Live Arcade games, I am always quite frugal. Personally, I won’t pick up an XBLA game that is anything short of stellar. (I like to save my money for the big retail games … and booze, too, I guess.) Unsurprisingly, Rocketmen: Axis of Evil is one of those games that I would not buy … never in a hundred years.

Why is Rocketmen so utterly horrendous? Hit the jump for the rest of my review!

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Peter Moore may not work for Microsoft anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t talk smack complain about Sony’s Playstation Home from his position as the President of EA Sports.

Here’s what Moore had to say about Home:

“I just wish it would ship. I [previously] questioned it a little bit, whether I’d want to wander around there. Phil Harrison showed me a demo - it’s very cool, but let’s go already. And so I’m disappointed that it’s been pushed back a little bit again.

“But I really hope it gets going and becomes that portal to the PlayStation Network and we can utilise it. But boy, I just wish we’d get going.”

While Moore may or may not still have a bias against Sony, I don’t think this quote suggests any bias. He does compliment Home, and you can’t blame him for being anxious - when something’s been delayed as much as Home, of course people just want it to finally be ready and are disappointed when it’s not.

He’s just expressing the same feeling plenty of gamers have, but his prominent position makes his opinion actually matter.

SEGA announced today that a demo of their newest Marvel-based game, Iron Man, will be releasing tomorrow on the Xbox Live Marketplace. SEGA has also said that a demo for the PS3 will be coming “soon” to the PlayStation Store. Alongside the announcement, SEGA also released a new trailer for the game (extremely bad music included).

I’m pretty excited to see the release of Iron Man, being a big fan of the comic books and the superhero himself. Of course, the video game will be based on the highly anticipated movie starring Robert Downey Jr., who is also providing the voice of Iron Man in the game.

The game will be releasing on every console that’s currently accepted in today’s society, including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo DS, PC, and mobile, on May 2nd.

After weeks of back and forth between the two software giants, it seems that a deal has finally been reached under which Take-Two will be absorbed into EA. Many were certain that this wouldn’t happen, due to Take-Two’s continual rejections of Electronic Arts’ offers.

It turns out, according to a source within Take-Two (who has asked to remain anonymous), that EA made an offer that, simply put, couldn’t be refused. Things are still being finalized, but information on what will be happening to Take-Two’s biggest franchises can be yours after the jump.
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It looks like the team behind the once-homebrew, 3D version of Chrono’s earliest adventure has finally settled things with Square-Enix. If you’ll recall, the game was put to an end by Squenix after some copyright infringement accusations came up way back in 2004. Well, according to the team’s official website, it looks like they might have made amends with the RPG giant and are now working together to get Chrono Trigger: Resurrection to WiiWare and PSN within the next year. Hit the jump for the full release if you’re into reading that kind of thing.

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Another Thursday, another Playstation Store update … and another disappointment. Honestly, there’s nothing worth mentioning coming out this week, nothing. Yes, there are new Nine Inch Nails songs for Rock Band and new No Doubt (?) downloadable content for Guitar Hero III, but other than that it’s slim pickin’s.

Check the full list of downloadable content, trailers and videos after the jump.

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Bionic Commando was, without a doubt, one of the biggest cult hits of the 8-bit gaming era, so it was no surprise when a remake was announced for XBLA, PSN, and PC. Capcom is now giving Bionic Commando loyalists the chance of a lifetime: a chance to design a level for the new version. To be more specific, Capcom wants your ideas for a “challenge level”, which are basically timed obstacle courses. Your design can be as simplistic or as detailed as you want it to be. All mediums are accepted, as long as you can get an image of your idea into email form.

What’s the prize for the lucky gamer who gets their level picked? Not only will they have their level featured in the game, but they will also get their name in the credits, which you can brag about for the rest of your life. Start thinking up your creation now though, as the contest only runs until at 11:59 PST of March 12th. Full details can be found at Capcom’s blog.

I think we should all mark February 26th down as the official Sony day. In addition to the two previous announcements made today, Sony has announced that they will be releasing a limited edition God of War PSP entertainment bundle in June of this year. The bundle will include a limited edition “Deep Red” PSP (ooh, shiny!) with the hero of God of War, Kratos, etched into the back, along with a copy of the game God of War: Chains of Olympus, the smash-hit comedy Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download a copy of the Playstation One game, Syphon Filter: Combat Ops, from the Playstation Store.

All of this for a mere $199.99. Get your checkbooks out, ladies and gentlemen. This is a deal not worth skipping.

[Edit: Another pic courtesy of our friends at Kotaku after the jump.]

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According to a thread on ScoreHero, the latest Rock Band DLC pack, (Arguably) Punk Pack 2, contains a list of every song in the game, along with quite a few songs we haven’t heard about.

I’m just going to say that if these are really showing up soon, Rock Band is going to continue to f*cking rock us and have the best downloadable content of any game I’ve seen.

Hit the jump for the full list. (Thanks Joystiq for saving me the time it would take to pair up all of the songs with their respective artists.)

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That’s a pretty sensationalist headline up there, so let me take a step back and say, no there won’t be any Nintendo games on your PS3. There is good news though for those of you who thought your PS2 gaming days were over on your new PS3, after Sony announced that they were pretty much abandoning backwards compatability in hopes of lowering the PS3’s price point a bit more. In an interview with EGM, PlayStation Network director Eric Lempell hints that there are ways that PS2 games may still be playable on the PS3.

When asked if the PS3 was going to offer PS2 games through the Playstation Store, Lempel responded, “We haven’t talked about that yet, but there are possibilities through technology and software emulation to make that possibles.” The problem, from what I can gather, is that you can’t just plug in and play the game on the PS3. Special things would need to be done to make PS2 games work (special things that can’t be done with original Playstation games at all) on the PS3. In the end, we’d be getting charged for a library of games we probably already own and could play for free on any PS3 with backward compatability. I guess something is better than nothing, but at this point this is another place where the massive technological leaps the PS3 took is hindering more than helping.

Every week, MEGATONik will being providing our loyal readers the weekly Thursday update of the Playstation Store on the Playstation Network. Unfortunately for all of you Playstation 3 owners out there, we’re not starting on a good week. We’re not even starting on a marginal week. This week’s store update is so poor that I think I’d rather watch every season of The OC on repeat until my eyes and ears bled. Ah well, I guess that’s it for me. Hit the jump for this week’s *cough*tastic update.

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According to the PlayStation Blog, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will be available for Blu-Ray and PSN download on April 17. The price for the game will be $39.99. The Blu-Ray version of the game will include “an exclusive behind-the-scenes High Definition (HD) video feature called ‘Beyond the Apex.’” The video will take a look inside of the Gran Turismo series, showing gamers how the developers are able to capture the realistic aspects of racing.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will allow players to race up to 16 cars at once, online and off. The game will also feature more improved AI and 50 cars and 5 tracks.

I’m not exaggerating when I say 2008 has a good Q1 lineup, and I mean a pretty damn good lineup. So in order to catch my eye, an upcoming game had better be looking like a quality investment. That said, I am really looking forward to Devil May Cry 4. I was a big fan of the originals, and DMC4 is definitely on my most anticipated games for ‘08. I’ve been waiting for the demo that is supposed to hit XBL and PSN for some time now, and that wait just got shorter. According to the Capcom website, the demo has been moved up from Jan. 31 to Jan. 24. Yup, in a land of delays, something is actually coming out sooner than expected. So, this Thursday, download the Devil May Cry 4 demo on your 360/PS3 respectively, check it out, and see if you are nabbing the full game when it is released Feb 5.

Honestly, I want to know what genius at Neversoft said “Hey, let’s release tracks for obscure European bands! Everyone will love it!” The above video showcases the song “Ernten Was Wir Säen” by Die Fantastischen Vier. I’m pretty sure I heard the singer say stuff about showers and Final Solutions a few times (Oh, I went there). Another song, “Antisocial”, by totally world-famous French band Trust is available after the jump, as well as a few other ‘goodies’.
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Apparently Harmonix has had a patch that makes the Guitar Hero controllers compatible with Rock Band on PS3 ready for a while, but Activision won’t let them release it. Now Activision says they’re more than willing to let it be released, they just want to make even more money out of it. Here’s what Maryanne Lataif, a spokeswoman for Activision, told The Boston Globe:

Unfortunately for Rock Band users, Harmonix has been unwilling to discuss an agreement that will allow us to provide that option in a manner that maintains the high standards people have come to expect from Activision

By “unwilling to discuss” she must mean unwilling to pay up and by “high standards” she must mean money mongering, as she makes Activision’s motives perfectly clear with the following statement:

We believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology

I thought people actually purchasing Guitar Hero III in the first place was compensation enough, and once they owned it they should be able to use it however they please - but Activision wants more in addition to the $100 they already got for each game sold. While it seems clear that Activision is only preventing the patch’s release for money, and they even admitted it, they’re still in denial and another spokeswoman, Spencer Saltonstall, says they’re doing it for the consumer:

We are really and truly not looking at this from the financial standpoint, we are looking at this from the consumer standpoint

I’m not sure how delaying a compatibility patch until Harmonix bribes them to allow its release benefits the consumer (or anyone besides Activision themselves) at all, but I guess they just refuse to admit how bad they’re handling this.

[Via Evil Avatar]