Stephen Totilo over at the MTV Multiplayer blog decided to spend a portion of his Halloween holiday by treating himself to the “New Xbox Experience”.

Microsoft claims that the NXE will have your Xbox 360 games loading faster than ever before, so Stephen popped in a few titles, hit record, and published the split screen results. Read more…

You know that saying about shit rolling downhill? Yeah, well you better believe it does. A few nights ago, we reported that a long time EA Command & Conquer community staff member had made a forum post informing members that the company would be linking bans on the forum to their line up of games as well.

” … if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you’d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It’s all one in the same, so I strongly [recommend] people play nice and act mature.”

We then ran a follow up yesterday featuring an official canned response from EA regarding the matter, and today, the C&C community manager issued a response via the forum addressing his previous comment:

” … the previous statement I made recently (that’s being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad.”

Taking all comments into consideration, I still find it hard to believe that this was simply a “misunderstanding”. Regardless, the gaming community made a statement — this isn’t something we are willing to tolerate — and I’m sure EA got that message loud and clear.

Full statement from the C&C Community Manager after the jump. Read more…

Halloween is upon us, and we thought it would be a good time to share some “I just shit myself” scary video game moments. Turn the lights off and inch yourself closer to the warm inviting glow of our web page — Boo!

Alright, not so scary. Hit the jump to find out what games scared the crap out of our writers and share your own moment with us. Happy Halloween. Read more…

If you’re anything like me, you love to watch behind-the-scenes footage of pretty much anything. The making of a Snickers bar? Sign me up! Alright, that might be a bit much, but this Monday’s X-Play at 8pm EST promises an all access pass inside Epic Studios with insight into the making of Gears of War 2 plus tons of exclusives, interviews, and the first look at the game’s two minute cinematic intro. Mark and Cliff share an office — who knew?

Hit the jump for the G4TV video preview. Read more…

Remember the good old days of Popcap Games when they had online multiplayer? Psychobabble, a creative twist on magnetic poetry, was one of these games. Popcap decided a couple years back that the cost of maintaining these online games was simply not feasible anymore. People were pretty upset about Popcap’s actions, even going so far as to start an online petition (no longer active) in protest. To no avail; it was simply too expensive for the company to be monitoring the chats for inappropriate content. The game, along Lucky Penny and Atomic Poker, was taken down in August 2006.

However, it was far from game over for Psychobabble. Read more…

Left 4 Dead surprises me everyday with the amount of sheer awesome that’s being generated by the game’s hype machine. If you kill every zombie in the infected town of Willamete, you get an achievement. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? I mean, when the zombie apocalypse comes around that’s kind of the plan. You know, to kill everyone. Want to know more? Of course you do. Read more…

Hoverit Ltd, a UK-based design company, recently announced their new levitating lounge chair. Yeah, I know it’s a tongue twister, but say it slowly. Levitating. Lounge chair. Sexy. Read more…

The Watercooler, as always, is the best thing you will see on the Internet today, mainly because it is the best thing I saw yesterday, or since the last Watercooler at least. There is, however, the possibility that you will see tomorrow’s Watercooler today, in which case the best thing you saw today is not today’s Watercooler but a future Watercooler. You may think you read that yesterday, but that was actually your future self trying to warn your present-day self that you would be reading this… again.

Today’s special edition of The Watercooler features something a little different. Usually for Halloween, people like to dress up in all kinds of super-neat costumes. This is my suggestion for the hot costume of Halloween parties this year: German school teacher. You will be dressing up by dressing down.

Very slightly not safe for work, but that’s why The Watercooler goes up so early. Read more…

We previously reported that The Beatles would be coming to Rock Band 2 based on what the Wall Street Journal Online deemed information from “several people familiar with the matter”. Unfortunately, those individuals apparently weren’t familiar enough.

The reality of the situation is still pretty cool for gamers and hardcore fans of the group, as a deal for an undisclosed amount has been struck between MTV and Apple Corps. Ltd. to create a stand-alone Beatles game due to come out during next years holiday season. Read more…

You may never get to be President of the United States, but if Senator Obama wins this year’s election, you can play one in a video game. That’s right people, the rumor regarding Barack Obama and everyone’s favorite punching bag, Sarah Palin, coming to Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is most certainly true.

Hit the jump for an in-game video, Pandemic’s comments, and my closing thoughts. Read more…

Some of you may remember the Donkey Kong rap we featured approximately 91 days ago, most likely because the song has been stuck in your head ever since. If not, watch it now. Go ahead, it’ll make you more cultured.

Anyway, one of the dudes behind its creation was Todd Michael Rogers. He’s what you would call a ‘writer’. He may also be considered a genius since he is part of Team Genius, and I would assume you have to meet some kind of criteria to get accepted, right?

We got in touch with Todd (not physically) to see what he’s been up to since creating the best videogame-family-of-apes-and-the-inherent-difficulty-surrounding-thorny-vines song ever.  Interview follows (read it or P. Diddy will shoot you). Read more…

Economic hardships have officially hit the previously thought to be untouchable games industry, as Electronic Arts has announced that it will lay off 600 of its employees. This comes as an effort to conserve development resources and expand profit margins, as Mariam Sughayer explained to Kotaku.

“All parts of EA have reviewed their team sizes to adjust employee numbers. The goal is to ensure we’re resourced in a way that allows us to continue to grow our revenues while at the same time keeping our costs under control and improving profitability. These changes will be announced to affected staff starting October 30.”

Sughayer continues to cite the economic turmoil that the American, and much of the global economy, has been experiencing as of late. With more gamers keeping their wallets shut, studios have been forced to cut back on expenses to simply survive. Read more…

Back in 2002, I first played Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil when my neighbor found a copy in the bargain bin at GameStop. We spent hours on end trying to get to the end of the game before dinnertime, and never actually did. But without a doubt, I can say that parts of the Klonoa series rank amongst my favorite games I’ve ever played- which is why it pains me to report that Klonoa’s return on the Wii may see Klonoa’s redesign. Kotaku put it best, describing it as the “poochied” version of Klonoa. Ouch. Hit the jump to see Klonoa’s purported redesign. Read more…

The latest update on the Playstation.blog announced the first DLC coming to the Playstation Network for LittleBigPlanet, which includes the free (from 11/6 to 11/9) Halloween Mask & the Launch Space Suit. Unfortunately, they’re limited time only downloadables, so get them while you can. They also announced that in the coming weeks, there will be more DLC for certain prices. The full list of DLC is after the jump. Read more…

Well well well, what we have here is a failure to communicate — or so it seems. You decide. We reported late last night that an EA community staff member on the Command and Conquer forum advised posters of a policy change that would allow them to ban individuals banned from forum access from their line of games as well.

The comment has apparently been contradicted by an unnamed EA rep. I say “apparently” because the word “automatically” is used in the statement given, and in my opinion, it does not completely deny what the community staff member warned gamers. Read more…

Prince of Persia games have a history of being an all-around awesome gaming experience (unless you happen to be playing on PSP). So it’s not surprising that the music also excels in quality. A mix of traditional eastern instruments with a dash of the all-time American favorite electric guitar and some orchestral flair gives you a quality of music normally associated with blockbuster movies. So it’s no surprise that some familiar names are returning to the series to bring us a soundtrack for the new game that Ubisoft boasts will be “a compelling and epic original score.” You hear that? It’s gonna be freaking epic! Read more…

With a reported 10 million dollar advertising budget (half of which is said to be for television spots) Valve is doing everything they can to make sure you and your friends are ready to kick some zombie ass.

The game hits store shelves in the US on November 18th, but a boat load of money says you’ll be seeing severed digits everywhere you look long before then. In fact, Kotaku reports that the commercial above will begin airing on November 8th.

It’s Blizzard’s World, we just live in it. To kick-off their millions-strong graduation to the hard stuff (level 70 and up), Blizzard is holding midnight release parties Nov 13 in Austin, New York, Anaheim, and San Francisco, featuring developers who will sign your game, plus extra copies of the Lich King Collector’s Edition.

International events will also be held in Seoul, Mexico City, Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid, Taipei, Stockholm, and Amsterdam. Whew, sounds like a party! Read more…

Seriously, who thought four grown men wearing pink dress shirts and white boxers sock sliding across a hardwood floor was a good way to market Guitar Hero: World Tour?

What type of Rock Band Group are Tony Hawk, Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Phelps forming? A sissy band that caps off a long night of underwear performances in their living room with a pillow fight? Maybe they can call their band the “Old News Pretty Boy Ski Lodge Olympic Mike” Band. Why Mike? Who told you to do this commercial?

Activision, please hear my plea. Fire your ad agency. The quadruple piano intro is to testosterone as Kryptonite is to Superman.

Afterthought: Does anyone actually like these commercials? Does this make you want to buy Guitar Hero over Rock Band 2?

Prince of Persia Art at the Euogamer Expo

The London Games Festival 2008 is drawing to a close, and the last of the events will be happening soon. Undoubtedly the highlight of the Festival was the Eurogamer Expo, held on Tuesday the 28th and Wednesday the 29th in a large brewery building near central London. Ripten was of course present at the event; and it was certainly worth going. The UK has not exactly been renowned for its quality of gaming events, but Eurogamer put on a great show for us this year, with plenty of big-name games ready to play. Hit the jump for the full list of games, as well as Ripten’s account of the show.
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