Left 4 Dead Maps Resurrected in Left 4 Dead 2 Over Forty New Final Fantasy XIII Screens Just In Time For The Weekend PlayStation Network Plans To Implement Premium Content Subscription-Based Model Microsoft Game Studios Hiring Epic Liason/Producer For Gears of War & Shadow Complex Madden NFL Arcade Game Changers Video Toys“R”Us Goes Game Stop, Geoffrey the Giraffe Now Accepting Used Console Trade-Ins

While I’m sure many of you will just take this news to mean that Rock Band 3 exists in some form, there’s a lot more news here than you’d think. While I assumed Rock Band 3 would just be an expansion of the previous games with a couple of new features, Dhani Harrison tells the Chicago Tribune that that’s not the case. Read more…

Speaking about the Wii Remote recently, Miyamoto called it a “continuous evolution” and mentioned technological advancements and videogaming. Read more…

Violence and video games is a topic almost as old as time itself, and we’re all getting tired of hearing people discuss whether or not violent video games are a stimulant for violence & aggression. While the entire gaming community will probably answer that query with a resounding, unanimous “NO”, many analysts and therapists alike disagree. The comedic, critical duo of Penn & Teller recently tackled this topic in the latest episode of Showtime’s Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, and the outcomes of the so-called “investigation” might surprise you.

The first part of the episode is embedded above, courtesy of Kotaku, and the second & third parts are embedded after the jump. Everyone’s favorite Floridian makes an appearance in the episode, but unfortunately, they made him out to some sort of game-hating misanthrope, rather than the forthright, but misguided man he seemed to be when I heard him speak at SGC last week. While I enjoyed the episode, and thought they made a lot of good points, I could’ve done without the crying kid at the end. Luckily, no one at his age probably watches or even gets Showtime, or the kid would be teased for life.
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Some PS3 Final Fantasy players (like myself) were shocked the day that the latest title was announced for the 360, in fact I almost ran up to the stage and started screaming at the conference, but once the shock faded, concerns started to come into play.

The biggest concern most PS3 owners had surrounded the potential “middle ground” that may have to be reached in order to have the game port successfully onto the 360 console. Namingly, the lack of disc space when comparing a Blu-ray discs to the traditional format.

Well, in one statement, FFXIII Producer, Yoshinori Kitase, put that fear to bed.  Read more…

Deadliest Warrior is one of Spike’s top new shows, with ratings averaging 1.7 million viewers per episode, and one of the most downloaded TV shows on Xbox Live. And how could it not be? Each show answers the questions that burn deep within the heart of every man, such as, “who would win in a fight, a ninja or a Spartan?”

Max Geiger is part of the team that determines who wins the title of deadliest warrior for each show by collecting data from tests done on the warriors weapons and inserting it into a program which simulates the fight between the two combatants and determines a winner. Max took some time to tell us about some of his most exhilarating and horrifying moments while filming the show and gave us some clues on how the program chooses its winner. Read more…

Whaaaaaaat?! You haven’t played Gamma Bros yet? The awesomely retro and most pixelacious entry in the Independent Games Festival of 2007? You haven’t doom surfed in Dino Run? And what about helping the cutest pixel rodent you ever saw locate every last crumb of cheese in Rat Maze? TWICE? Pixeljam, cats — learn well this dev because not only have they done great things in the past, their pipeline seems bursting with future win.

Jonathan Zungre and I caught up with Rich Grillotti and Miles Tilmann during GDC to talk of many things, and no, not all of them were as ridiculous as the headline indicates (just nearly). These guys are a great case study for any aspiring developers (as they managed to make the jump from hobby to full-time), and also…hilarious! Savor every unintended pun and crazy tangent… Read more…

Behold the power of Twitter!! In the span of about five hours Geoff Keighley, of GTTV fame, unleashed two noteworthy updates in the form of tweets on his Twitter page.

The first reveals that new information regarding the Mass Effect sequel will be presented on GameTrailers TV this Friday, March 27th, and even included an image of the in-game interface plastered on a flatscreen TV. The second post added that there would be a total of six world of exclusives premiering on the show as well. His posts can be seen below.

“Make sure to watch Spike next Friday night, we’ll be telling you a lot more about ME2″

“Working with our team on next week’s GTTV. Going to be an epic show with around 6 world exclusives…and a few big surprises!”

You snooze you loose — don’t say we didn’t warn you. I’m going to get back to eating my dinner now.

Fanboys, they approach leisure activities with religious zeal and defend their console of choice with dogmatic ferocity.  Fanboys have had “gentlemanly discussions” with some of the writers here at Ripten, more or less, but no one fought it out with them like X-play’s Adam Sessler. I caught up with Adam to discuss Killzone 2, gaming journalism, and the fanboy plague that corrupts message boards and comment sections like The Flood.  Oops, Halo reference, here they come… Read more…

Great news, Sony fans. According to Kaz Hirai, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America*, Sony is officially leading the console market with the PS3, disregarding silly things like sales numbers and market share. Read more…

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with a few dudes from Fall Line Studio, developers of the just-released Ultimate Band for the Wii and DS. Tim Huntsman (senior producer), Mark McArthur (development director), and Mike Thompson (art director) fielded questions posed by us media types in a James Lipton-style interview presented by Access Communications.

The good questions, obviously, were submitted by me, but I want to apologize for the woman at the end who was rude and unprofessionally douche-like. Yes, it is possible to be professionally douche-like, so shut up.

There is also an occasional beepy-boop noise that I’m assuming is people joining the call, but that was totally not my computer making the noise so whatev. And after re-reading all of the stuff that I just wrote, I realize that deep down inside I am apparently a valley-girl. Read more…

What the eff is a Moondo? Developer Funtactix describes it as “the Web’s first high-definition cross-gaming universe for the PC”. Essentially, it is a free-to-play online version of a party game like Fuzion Frenzy, except Moondo features persistent characters across all games — you level up, get faster and more powerful, and you get to customize your avatar instead of using some pre-selected douche like in those other games.

I actually had the opportunity to sit down with the head of Funtactix, Sam Glassenberg, and he discussed the games with me a bit more and took me on a tour of Moondo. Join us, won’t you? 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…

In a new interview, Xbox LIVE boss, John Schappert, tells us that Xbox LIVE offers a way to get games out in front of consumers that would have a difficult time doing so via the traditional retail channels. Read more…

After reading about the suspiciously low Metacritic user score of 6.3 for Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet, I decided to dig into the story a little deeper. For those unfamiliar with the situation, allow me to fill you in. Read more…

The trailer for the Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe collector’s edition comic, to be packaged with the release of the collector’s edition version of the game itself on November 16th, may offer a glimpse at four yet to be announced characters.

During the clip, John Tobias, illustrator and Mortal Kombat co-creator, talks about Midway’s request to get every character in the game into the 16 page comic.

“For this particular comic, the MK guys were interested in seeing all of the characters represented in some way in the book, and so it took a lot of back and forth to try to squeeze everybody in there.”

Taking his statement into consideration, it would lead one to believe that the characters shown in comic panel above (from left to right: Johnny Cage, Goro, Aquaman, The Boy Wonder) were “squeezed” into the book for a reason.

What do you think? Are you ready to summon flipper to finish off your opponent? I sure am. Check out the trailer for yourself after the jump. Read more…

In a recent interview, Cliff Bleszinski talked a bit about his opinion on Resistance 2, and how it might affect the sales of GoW2. Since the two games will be shipping in the same week there might be a bit of competition in sales, despite the sci-fi shooters being released exclusively on different consoles.

Bleszinski shoots down the speculations that this might be cause for bad blood between himself and the CEO of Insomniac Games, Ted Price, stating: Read more…

It appears that Venom fans will get their fill in the latest installment of Spider-Man branded videogame action. I have been impressed by what I’ve seen from this game, and it just keeps getting better.

The latest clip reveals a little more information about the symbiote New York city takeover (think EA merging with Take-Two only with lots of black ink) and explains Venom’s role in it all.

Check out the clip after the jump. Read more…

You may remember a month ago when social news site Reddit first began their quest to stop the imminent headcrab infestation emanating from the Large Hadron Collider. Good news, the crowbar wrecking bar has now been shipped, along with a practice headcrab plushy and a Half-Life strategy guide.
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Which beard has what it takes to win the cup?

I had the privilege of participating in a conference call yesterday where the producers of NHL 2K9 fielded questions submitted by the gaming media. The whole thing has been recorded for your listening pleasure, with the exception of about 20 seconds in the middle where the call dropped out, most likely due to all this hurricane action we’ve been getting. Read more…

You may remember the Playboy Cyber Girl of the Year Jo Garcia from her attempt to dethrone the Wii Fit girl as “Sexiest Ass to Fake Hoola Hoop” (which I think Wii Fit girl won). Anyway, it would seem that the Cyber Girl lives up to her title as the geek version of the Playmate of the Year, and was not just playing the Wii as a publicity stunt. Turns out she’s a big-time gamer, with a love and knowledge of Final Fantasy that runs so deep that I, of all people, would actually make fun of her dorkiness. Video follows. Read more…