As E3 continues its week-long gaming announcements and innovation, today was expected to be a pretty big day as Nintendo took the stage to announce some of their big new products.

One of the huge announcements coming from Nintendo today was the announcement of WiiU. What is WiiU? Well it’s a controller and a tablet and a gaming window all rolled into one. The WiiU refers to an iPad-sized tablet with buttons and a viewers so that you can do a number of things from catch a virtual baseball to use the viewer as a scope when playing in a shooter, and even play table-top games without the use of an actual console.

We’re excited to see what the WiiU can bring to the NextGen table, but is this the new console that Nintendo has been teasing about for this event? We don’t think so, because many of the guests in the video package mentioned that their new releases such as Batman Arkham City, Tekken, and a brand new Zelda game yet to be released will be the perfect fit for “the new console”.

So this new WiiU may allow you to continue a game even after someone has changed the channel on the TV, or teach you how to draw, but is it the answer to our NextGen console needs? We don’t think so. We’re hoping to get more details as they arrive this week.

Take a bunch of women in their late forties to mid-fifties and show them graphic images of violence and mutilation from the upcoming Dead Space 2 (which comes out tomorrow, January 25th) and record their reactions ranging from utter terror to complete revulsion. Then make sure to tell people just how violent your game is over some not so violent in game videos. Slap a “M for Mature” tag on it and there you have your ad campaign with the tag line, “Your Mom Hates This.”

Give me a break. There are so many problems with this campaign that is insulting to the gaming community as well as general consumers. Let’s break this down in a logical manner, even though obviously the advertising agency didn’t.

Dead Space 2 is a rated M game, meaning it should only be targeting players over the age of 18. But, the message of “Your mom hates this” is something that marketers would gear towards a younger self righteous and rebellious person in their early teens. By the age of 18, most people have evolved in to at least somewhat freethinking individuals who make decisions based more on personal preference than just trying to do something to tick their mom off.

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*** Note – The following Rock Band 3 review does not formally review the Keyboard, the Pro Guitar peripherals or Pro Mode since they were not available to us at the time of the review. This has been reflected in the review score.***

Harmonix began taking the music genre by storm with their work on the initial Guitar Hero. After parting ways from Activision, they took the game to the next level by making drums and vocals the new standard.

They also came up with the idea of the Rock Band franchise as a platform rather than an annualized release like Guitar Hero has taken (Guitar Hero being on their sixth consecutive yearly release with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock) After two years since Rock Band 2, Harmonix looked to step up their game by adding an additional instrument in the keyboard to the band mix as well as a Pro mode to help players learn how to play guitar, drums and keyboard using music in the game.

They also took concepts from other spinoff titles such as Rock Band: Green Day like vocal harmonies and brought them to the fold as well.

Gameplay:

Not much has changed for Rock Band 3 for the standard band format. Two guitars and a drum set each have a cascading highway of notes down the screen as the vocals scroll across the top.

There is now of course the substitution of a new instrument in the keyboard which can even be used to play the guitar parts of older Rock Band music that hasn’t gotten the keyboard face lift.

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Just in time for Halloween, Rovio has released a special edition of its popular Angry Birds game in the iTunes store.  The new game is available for 99 cents for the iPhone and iPod touch, and $1.99 for the iPad.

According to the Rovio website, the new release will include 45 levels of pumpkins, ghosts and monsters. It will also have Halloween music and graphics.

Angry Birds has become wildly popular, and since it was released for Android phones last week it has already been downloaded over three million times. The publisher of Angry Birds (Chillingo) was acquired by EA (Entertainment Arts) on Wednesday for $20 Million.  They also publish the new hit Cut the Rope game.

The Angry Birds developers have announced that they will not use Chillingo  from now on. The Angry Birds game remains the property of Rovio, and was not part of the acquisition.  You can watch a short demo Angry Birds Halloween after the jump

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Back at Comic-Con, we got the chance to play some hands on with the 2010 reboot of Medal of Honor multiplayer Beta which went live for those who had signed up for it on July 20th. The Beta is exclusive to the PC and PlayStation 3. The multiplayer for Medal of Honor is being developed by EA Digital Illusions CE while the single player campaign is coming to us from Danger Close. The single player campaign will follow a group of Tier One Operators (the top .01% most elite in the US Armed Forces) in the early parts of the war with Afghanistan.

The first thing that stood out to us during the demo was the use of the AMD technology Ifinity which allows players to use a three monitor setup to play the game in super wide screen. The game looks so great that this is definitely the way the game was meant to be experienced. To its credit because this will be the game it is most likely compared to, Medal of Honor is a more visually impressive experience than the latest iteration of the Call of Duty franchise. The levels look more realistic with an insane level of detail in them. The lighting also makes everything pop out to you just a little more as well.

The control of Medal of Honor is top notch. In the first person genre, control is everything and Medal of Honor hits it perfectly. As expected from a veteran franchise that has had time to refine its control and move with the trends without being forced to put out a yearly iteration, Medal of Honor feels like a fresh game when playing it even though most of what is seen in the multiplayer has been done before. After our hands on time with it, it is a game we know we want to spend some more time with in the near future.

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It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a game like EA’s Mass Effect will be coming to the big screen. After all, the game is hugely successful and has spawned a sequel that has taken the gaming world by storm.

And now, according to reports, Legendary Pictures has picked up rights to Mass Effect and will develop it into a potential franchise. I Am Legend and Thor writer Mark Protosevich is currently in negotiations to handle adapting the game for the big screen.

Just in case you don’t play video games or haven’t, for some reason, heard of Mass Effect, the game debuted in 2008 and is a sci-fi action game set in the year 2183, focusing on a human soldier and his starship, the SSV Normandy. It features alien races, combat and technology which spans the galaxy offering a great deal of diverse situations and role play. In short, its a pretty darn fun game and would probably make a great movie.

Seeing as how this film is in the early stages and these kinds of movies tend to take a long time to make it to the screen, especially if you want to do it right, expect to see us bringing you more info on Mass Effect the movie over the next year at least. Until then, go back and play the game again and imagine what could be.

To help you, take a look at the Mass Effect 2 trailer after the jump.

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Dead Space came out in late 2008 to both critical adulation and strong sales. There was no doubt a sequel would be in the works for this third person horror shooter. But how do you keep a story going where the player is the sole survivor of his infested ship?

Nintendo Wii took the path of a on-rail shooter prequel Dead Space: Extraction. Though a critical darling, sales were dismal. Now, Dead Space 2 readies itself for store shelves with the next chapter of Issac Clark’s survival. As with most sequels, Issac is expected to encounter a host of new baddies.

EA has taken an interesting path in revealing these new “necromorphs.” For more than a week, a zoomed in image has slowly been revealed over the game’s Facebook page. Now, finally fully revealed, we have been given a glimpse at a delightful fellow named “the puker”.

Possibly a lovechild of an original Dead Space necromorph and the Boomer from Left 4 Dead, the Puker already looks like a villain we are not looking forward to running into in the cramped hallways of a barge floating through space. But as long as he doesn’t send the Horde after us, we think we will be able to manage. T

ake a look after the break and let us know what you think. Dead Space 2 is expected to ship in the first quarter of 2011.

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Geeks don’t watch football. It’s a fact of life. But this may change for at least one night in the near future as fans of the upcoming title Dante’s Inferno will be tuning in Sunday for the big game when EA puts out its most expensive television ad ever.

Expected to be viewed by roughly 100 million fans, the Super Bowl has developed a reputation for some of the best, and worst, commercial debuts of the year. With the ever climbing price tag for commercial time during the Super Bowl, it is estimated that EA will be paying close to three million dollars for Dante’s Inferno to be shown amongst the center of the marketing universe for a mere thirty seconds.

Dante’s Inferno’s Super Bowl commercial, entitled “Hell Awaits…” will appear during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIV as a final push in the game’s already extensive marketing campaign. In preparation for the game’s February 9th release date, just two days after the Super Bowl, “Hell Awaits…” concludes a campaign that included Facebook apps, action figures, comic books and an animated DVD feature.

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EA has teamed up with 20th Century Fox to turn their popular creature creator game, Spore, into a motion picture, Variety reports. Writing the Spore script will be Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, the team behind Disney’s upcoming “The Princess and the Frog” and directing will be Chris Wedge, director of Ice Age and Robots.

“I’m always looking for unique worlds to go to in animation,” Wedge said. “From every perspective — visually, thematically and comedically — the world of ‘Spore’ provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen.”

Released in 2008, Spore allows players to create and evolve a species from its earliest stages to its development as an intelligent and social creature by mixing role playing, action, and strategy. EA Entertainment’s Patrick O’Brien will produce “Spore” with Lucy Bradshaw, VP of Maxis Studio, the studio that developed the game with Will Wright, creator of “Sim City” and “The Sims” franchises for EA.

“With more than 100 million unique creatures uploaded to our website, it’s clear that people are passionate about the game, and it will be exciting to offer a powerful medium like film in order to expand their experience with ‘Spore,’ ” said Bradshaw.

Video game-to-film adaptations are pretty commonplace these days, especially if a game has a unique plot or premise. Which is why EA’s Spore looks to be an interesting but curious movie. What’s unique about Spore isn’t its plot or premise. It’s the gameplay. Gamers are able to customize their creatures in hundreds of ways, who interact with other gamer’s unique creations. How this will translate from the computer screen to the big screen remains to be seen.

EA also has plans for film adaptations of other popular franchises like The Sims, Army of Two, Dante’s Inferno, Dead Space, and Mass Effect.

It wouldn’t be America without lawsuits so here’s another one to bring you today. According to The Hollywood Reporter, video game giant Activision is suing to stop the release of the Jack Black video game Brutal Legend.

THR got the news from The AP, which says: “Activision Entertainment Holdings sued game developer Double Fine Productions in Santa Monica, Calif., on Wednesday. The lawsuit claims that Double Fine transferred rights owned by Activision to Electronic Arts, which plans to release the game later this year. Activision claims it still has a valid contract to release the game and has invested roughly $15 million in it.”

Brutal Legend features Black as a heavy-metal roadie transported to a mythical world to fight evil. The game looks pretty cool and seeing footage of it at E3 made me want to check it out more when it finally gets released. Although, with this lawsuit, that may never happen now so perhaps I should have played it a bit more when I had the chance. Can’t we all just get along? I guess not when there’s $15 Million involved.

To see more about the game, watch the trailer from E3 after the jump. Enjoy it because if this lawsuit goes very far, It may be all you ever get to see.

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The past few years the Electronic Entertainment Expo has gone through a few strange iterations. After the week long gaming binge trade show became the nerdcore equivalent of Las Vegas, the video game industry decided it needed a change. Two years ago, it was spread throughout LA with conferences occurring all around the city at different hotels, which made it a nightmare for attendees and the press covering the event. Last year, E3 invaded a large hangar in Santa Monica but got virtually no coverage by the mainstream press.

This year, E3 returns to the LA Convention Center to its full, overindulgent style with huge press conferences, over the top million dollar booth displays and, of course, what every attending GameStop employee dreams of: booth babes. What reporter attending the event doesn’t love trying to get information about a huge upcoming title from an extremely hot yet air headed and underpaid Los Angeles model/actress who barely knows the name of what she’s promoting, let alone any useful information about it? Sign me up!

So, with the show returning to its former lavish size and style, what are E3′s biggest announcements going to be this year? Unfortunately, I’m not a mind reader so I don’t know what they are yet, but I will tell you that there are five possible times when this big news might come down. Starting tomorrow and streaming live on the shows’ official site E3 Insider, Microsoft will be giving their press conference at 10:30 am PT. This year, Microsoft has been very quiet as to what could be announced at E3. Most likely are Xbox 360 exclusives Alan Wake, Halo 3: ODST and Mass Effect 2 but it wouldn’t be E3 without a big surprise announcement such as the Grand Theft Auto 4 and Gears of War 2 announcements from previous years.

While Alan Wake has garnered intrigue based on the lack of information being given out about it, Halo 3: ODST has not gotten the attention like previous Halo franchise titles. Most likely because players will not be able to be Master Chief for the first time in this new game. Along with Microsoft’s expected announcements, there has been a rumored big announcement from Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios, the man behind hits such as Fable, Fable 2 and Black and White. What he will be announcing, if anything, remains a mystery at this point.

The rest of day one’s big press announcements will come from publishers EA at 2 pm PT and then Ubisoft at 5 pm PT. After all of Activision’s Guitar Hero announcements over the previous week, EA will probably give a big splash for their upcoming Beatles: Rock Band game along with footage of other EA staple franchises such as the next Madden. Ubisoft will likely follow up on last year’s hit, Assassin’s Creed with this year’s sequel and the upcoming Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a new FPS set in the Old West.

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