In a surprise move that shocked absolutely everybody and was expected by absolutely nobody, Activision confirmed that another Call of Duty game was not only in the works, but slated for this year’s holiday season. They also confirmed that new titles, map packs, and marketing for older titles were on the way, in an attempt to increase the series’s userbase.

“… this holiday, as we eluded earlier, we plan to release a new Call of Duty game. We expect that the global Call of Duty user base will continue to grow driven by expected high attach rates, and news sales of hardware, and new downloadable map packs which should continue to keep current players engaged while attracting new consumers to the brand.”

It’ll be hard to top Modern Warfare 2’s billion-dollar revenue, but if the rumors of Vietnam being the setting for the next game are true, then an entirely new crowd of gamers will be drawn to the series. The biggest complaint COD has had was its repetitive WWII setting, so it’d be interesting to see something new. (via destructoid)

Our review of Bottle Rocket Apps’s Doodle Bomb just went up, and long story short- it’s a great game! It’s puzzling, it’s simple, and best of all, it’s not too expensive at $2! But still, money is money, and I’d prefer to get something without having to pay for it than to have to even take my card out of my wallet.

If you’re the same way, then you’ve come to the right place, because we’re giving away two copies of Doodle Bomb, courtesy of Bottle Rocket Apps! And like most of our contests, you won’t really have to do much to enter! All you have to do is hit up Twitter, follow us at @ripten, and tweet the following message-

The folks at @ripten are giving away two copies of Doodle Bomb! (http://bit.ly/4ZskSO)

That’s it! We’ll choose a winner at random next Friday and announce the winner on this same page! It’s not pertinent to your entry, but you should also follow @btlrkt for news about their upcoming apps.

I consider my iPod touch to be another gaming handheld that happens to play music. It’s great for budget gaming on-the-go, I always have it with me, and the number of great games on the platform is ever expanding. In all honestly, it’s my favorite gaming device, and I’m always excited to find new games for the platform.

This is where Doodle Bomb comes in. The game’s developer, Bottle Rocket, has a pretty wide range of great iPod/iPhone offerings, including Doodle Bomb, a physics-based puzzler that uses bombs to trigger doors and devices to help you advance to higher levels. It’s Bottle Rocket’s latest offering, but is it any good?

Hit the jump to find out. Read more…

Let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the game- Bayonetta’s eponymous Bayonetta is meant to be sexy. Reading the developer blogs and looking at the concept art, it’s clear that Platinum Games knew exactly what they were doing by creating a femme fatale with long legs and nude attacks, and they use it to their advantage.

Now, whether or not you consider Bayonetta to be nothing more than a portrayal of an oversexualized female meant to excite the male gamer crowd, there’s still a game behind her- a game full of weapons, witches, and way too many chapters.

But is Bayonetta worth your money? With games like Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, and God of War 3 coming down the pipeline, is there any reason you should check out Bayonetta? Hit the jump for my spoiler-free review. Read more…

We here at Ripten are a rather silly bunch of folks. Sure, we save the world, defeat robot villains, and fight wars in the middle east- but that’s all in a day’s “work”. We can do those things multiple times a day- but for now, we need to get serious.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to stay consistently serious in an industry where we get to spend inordinate amounts of time around the world’s greatest hobby, so we’re gonna need a little help from you. Log in with your Ripten account and leave a comment with something serious (e.g. A heart attack, the satellite radio station, that guy from Harry Potter) and you’re in the running to win a copy of Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter!

We’ll choose one entry at random this Saturday (1/16/10) at 11.59PM CST and announce the winner the next day. Of course, the game is for the PC, so make sure you have a computer that can run the game. (Or at least know someone who does.) So hop to it! Or walk to it. Calmly. In a suit. With a briefcase. This is serious after all.

UPDATE: Congrats to Ub3rslug for winning! Enjoy it! Stay on the look out for new contests from Ripten!

Three years ago (exactly three years ago, even) Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 would support IPTV, effectively turning your Xbox into a set-top box. Up until now, everyone had forgotten this functionality was even mentioned, but Microsoft brought the idea back to life during their CES conference today, saying that AT&T U-Verse subscribers would soon be able to use their Xbox 360 as a set-top box.

As the only IPTV provider in the US that support Microsoft’s Mediaroom, one could’ve assumed that U-Verse would eventually merge with the Xbox 360, but this announcement was still way out of left field. There aren’t any definitive details as of yet, but I doubt we’ll have to wait another three years to see this functionality come to life.

I’ve always said that exclusive content for consoles suck. For a company to actually go out of its way and pay exorbitant amounts of cash just to ensure that certain gamers don’t receive certain content is more malicious than it is helpful. Microsoft, however, doesn’t see things the way that I do. During their CES 2010 press conference tonight, Microsoft announced a few things in passing- one of those things being that the first DLC for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would be a timed Xbox 360 exclusive.

The only other detail we have about the DLC is that it’s releasing this Spring, but there have been rumblings of COD4 maps making their way to Modern Warfare 2. I’d love to play multi-player rounds on COD4’s shipment with the weapons and equipment from MW2, but I’d also love to see some brand new Spec-Ops missions. No word on when the DLC will be available for PS3 owners either, but if Microsoft has its way, then it won’t be for quite some time.

In 2001, I was 9 years old. Bush had just become the President of the United States, America was feeling the pain from the WTC attacks, and the Xbox and Gamecube were hitting homes across the nation. Apparently, GameStop was also taking pre-orders for an obscure little game you’ve probably never heard of called Duke Nukem Forever.

While I’m sure that more than one person placed down at least $5 for the poster game for vaporware, over 8 years later now, “Slash000″ has come forth with a preorder slip for the PC version of the game. Looks like there’s $10 you will most likely never get back. I guess that’s a lesson for the future, though-

Never bet on Duke. Literally. (via OhGizmo!)

Yesterday, in a fantastic show of irony, a movie was put up in the PlayStation Store for free, in both HD and PSP formats. The movie, you ask? Armored- a movie that hasn’t even been in theatres for a month. Sure, it wasn’t that great of a film, but it was on the PlayStation Store for about 5 hours yesterday before being pulled, a leak that’s puzzling both Sony and the film’s distributor, Screen Gems.

Of course, that’s the question everyone is asking- it doesn’t even make sense for the film to be in a digital format so early. Unless they were originally planning to go direct-to-DVD with this film, then someone at Sony really messed up.

On a completely unrelated note, the film was directed by a man named Nimrod.

As the most popular platform for PC gaming, you’d think that Steam would inflate their prices all the time- just because they could. Of course, the exact opposite is true; Steam’s always been fair with their prices, and I’ve never seen a game exorbitantly priced on the service. That’s why their holiday sale is absolutely ridiculous.

In a good way. Read more…

Back when the MAG beta was first released, I was lucky enough to get in on it. At first, I downloaded the game, pleasantly surprised at how small the file size for the game was (around 300MB) but as soon as I turned on the game itself, I was treated to a 1.8GB update. So I promptly said “Screw that.” and never actually got a chance to play the game. But you don’t have to make my mistakes, folks!

The MAG beta has been met with pretty mixed impressions, but you won’t have to wait for a solid score to decide for yourself whether or not MAG will be worth your 60 bucks. Tomorrow, you’ll be able to get into the MAG beta without actually having an invitation, in a public beta courtesy of Sony. Hit the jump to find out how you can get in on the beta. Read more…

It seems like every week there’s a new gaming marathon that’s raising money for a new charity, but it’s not a bad trend. We here at Ripten love helping others, and as long as these gaming marathons continue, we’ll continue to support them. The latest is from Zeldathon, a team of students from Florida International University’s radio station who will host a marathon to raise money for the National Children’s Advocacy Center tonight at 6PM EST.

In the past, they’ve raised money for Child’s Play & the NCAC with success, and they’re going for another run, this time with 14 SNES games for 48 hours straight. If you can, tune in tonight to watch them play through Sunday, and donate whatever you can to help ‘em out.

The list of games they’re going to play through is after the jump, and while I’m sad to see my favorite SNES game, Sunset Riders, absent from the list, the games they are running through are pretty impressive. [Zeldathon] Read more…

Ah, eighties morning cartoons. Full of campy dialogue, loose plots, tie-in breakfast cereals, and minute doses of awesome that would only brighten up your day. Or at least, that’s the way I assume they were- I’m a 90s kid through and though, but I know for a fact that The Legend of Zelda morning cartoon was just as I described above, complete with its own infamous catchphrase delivered by Link after he saves Zelda. For those of you that don’t know of the series or just never watched it, the entire series is now on Hulu.

Of course, I’d have to be a fool not to plug the best television comedy ever produced here, as it shares Zelda’s famous “excuuuuuse me!” line, and the entire series is on Hulu as well. Man, it’s like they’re the exact same show! Below is the famous line from The Legend of Zelda. Read more…

Today is a great day for Mass Effect 2 news- first with the massive, packed collector’s being announced, and now, with 90 seconds of brand-new footage that signals the coming of a full trailer for the game. If the game looks anything like this footage, it’s sure to be a real contender for 2010 GOTY. Read more…

Get it? Because that’s one of the things that is said in the game when yo- ah, forget it.

Above is an image of Scorpion & Sub-Zero (you know, of Mortal Kombat fame.) on the back of the winner of Ripten’s Coolest Person Alive 2009*. One of them is performing a fatality on the other, and in such close range, whatever fatality performed is sure to kill them both. I will admit that the tattoo looks to be pretty well done, though- as if Goro himself penned this magnificent work of art. Did I mention that the image is a tattoo, and therefore permanent?

I didn’t? Well it is. (via Destructoid)

*not a real thing.

Unfortunately, “LittleBigPirates of the Carribean” isn’t the official name for the map pack, but there’s still time, Media Molecule. The things that are official, according to MediaMolecule, are the pricing, release date, and content included in the pack. Sorry, Pirates fans- as an E-rated game, there’s no rum here.

What there is included however, is much more exciting. New music, costumes, levels, stickers, and miscellaneous items will be downloadable for LittleBigPlanet in a week on December 22nd, all for the price of £4.79 / €5.99 / US $5.99 / AUS $ 9.95 / NZD $11.50/ 5 million space bucks. You trophy whores Those of you that enjoy working towards a goal will be glad to know that the level pack also includes 11 new trophies, which detail a few more things you’ll be able to do with the level pack. For the full list of items included, hit the jump. Read more…

I wasn’t at all impressed with the 2009 VGA trailer for Activision’s True Crime. I somewhat enjoyed the previous two games in the series, but the voices, character rigidity, and somehow-superhuman movement in the trailer just didn’t impress me. A press release for the game just hit my inbox, and while I can’t say it changes my opinion of the game, it’s a bit more information than the trailer gave us. Read more…

If you played the first Army of Two game, chances are that you have pretty mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the game’s multiplayer aspect is super-fun. But on the other hand, when you play solo, its flaws really shine through. When EA Montreal announced the sequel, set in Shanghai, I expected it to expand on the concepts introduced in the first game, and while I haven’t seen the game for myself yet, this Thursday, December 17th, I’ll be able to play through the first level. Read more…

With the (rather underwhelming) Halo: Reach trailer being shown off at the Video Game Awards last night, it’s not uncommon for people to scour the internet looking for more information about the game. We don’t know very much about Reach, but the narrative trailer showed us that it would indeed be an origins-type story, and that there would be a beta coming out in the Spring with invites attached to Halo 3: ODST. Thanks to a listing from a Child’s Play Charity Auction Dinner in Seattle last Thursday, we might also know that the beta is coming in the month of May. Read more…

Avatars are just like people. They have clothes, they receive awards, they have an interconnected system of veins and muscles that make up the human body shoes- but that’s not enough. No, our online representations need to be more realistic. They need sidekicks. They need pets. Or so Microsoft says. Read more…