Fracture Shows Off Pacifican Rhino, Assault Vehicle

The community Fracture site updated today with details on a new weapon and a new vehicle.

The Pacifican Rhino gun is a rifle that shoots living boulder's at people. These boulders can track lifeforms and chase them around, until the boulder either flattens them or explodes. Sounds like a barrel of fun.

Next up, the terrain deforming TDV-1 Assault Vehicle.

British Prisoners Lose Their Gaming Privileges

A new ban on video games in UK prisons limits gaming to those who have earned "top privileges" and completely bans violent games and shooters with an 18 or older rating.

The rule change comes after new prison directives hit that prevent taxpayers' money from being used to buy games or consoles.

The change in rules come after the Government revealed that they spent more than £10,000 on 80 PlayStations and 15 XBoxes for youth offender institutions.

Street Fighter IV in Arcades? You Suck!

To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Breaktime Means Line Up For SFIV

Oh man, Street Fighter IV at an arcade? I am so bitter. I wish we had an arcade here in the U.S. with the forethought or buying power to get the machine imported. As it stands the only places you're going to be able to play the game outside of a console are at specialty stores that just pay cash to import the thing themselves. Worse still, they aren't yet selling the board on its own, so it's going to be a bundle to do that.

I hope you popped a few coins down on the machine and had a go.

What you missed:
Mortal Kombat 9 Planned As A Mature Return To Form
Game Club: Beyond Good & Evil The Final Assignment
Porn Starlet Tera Patrick Joins Saint's Row 2
Sega Can't Find The Source Code For Your Favorite Old School Arcade Games
First 4 Figures Does Ryu Hayabusa Right
Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows Impressions
NECA Pimps Gaming Toy Line Up At Comic-Con
Green Lantern, Joker Join MK Vs. DC Universe Line Up
Michael Ironside's Splinter Cell Role, Game's Script Still Up In the Air
Prince Of Persia Creator "Delighted" By Film Casting

Mortal Kombat: Kollection Coming to PS2

Midway is packaging their last three Mortal Kombat games into a exclusive Playstation 2 collector's edition box set. The set will come with Mortal Kombat: Deception, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

Midway says Mortal Kombat: Kollection is due out this September for $30.

"Mortal Kombat has been a pinnacle fighting franchise for well over a decade now and this is an ideal package for fans and collectors in terms of content and price point," said Mona Hamilton, vice president of marketing, Midway Home Entertainment. "With the PlayStation 2 still holding the highest market share of any home console, we saw this as the perfect opportunity to offer an incredible value to our consumers as we ramp up for the highly anticipated launch of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe."

Don't know your Mortal Kombat: Deception from your Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks? You will in a second.

Michael Ironside's Splinter Cell Role, Game's Script Still Up In the Air

Splinter Cell aficionados The Fisherists recently emailed Michael Ironside's manager, David Ginsberg, to try and get to the bottom of the rumors about whether the actor will be returning to voice Sam Fischer.

Word from Ginsberg is that no decision has yet been made and that Ubisoft is actually still working on the script for the increasingly delayed Splinter Cell: Conviction. Wait, what? Still working on the script? Wow, no wonder it just got bumped back.

Ginsberg goes on to sing the praises of Ironside's professionalism and non-egotism.

Game Club: Beyond Good & Evil The Final Assignment

Here it is, the final assignment for Game Club: Beyond Good & Evil. Please count on having this done by Thursday, July 31 for our next meeting. We'll be meeting at 7:30 p.m. Mountain Time.

In this final assignment for Beyond Good & Evil you'll need to complete the game. After finishing up the game, try to think up some interesting questions and discussion topics. I will have a list of my own, but I'm hoping we can all ask each other interesting things to discuss.

The game is available for the Xbox (not backwards compatible) PS2, Gamecube and the PC via Steam and Gametap.

Remember we'll be meeting on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Mountain. Just come to the site and look for the Game Club Beyond Good & Evil Discussion post. Again sorry for the delay in putting this out to you all.

Hit the jump for the Game Club rules.

Raving Rabbids Controllers Coming

Mad Catz just landed the rights to start pumping out branded accessories based on Ubisoft's casual-game-centric Rayman Raving Rabbids franchise. The multi-year agreement gives Mad Catz the right to create a "range of accessories" for the DS Game Boy Advanced, PC, Playstation 2, Wii and Xbox 360.

“Rayman is one of the videogame world’s iconic heroes, and we look forward to bringing the mischievous fun of the game series to a new line of branded videogame accessories,” said Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz. “The addition of the Rayman Raving Rabbids license further strengthens and diversifies what we believe to be the video game accessory industry’s most extensive portfolio of brand licenses that already includes all of the major North American professional sports leagues and many of the most popular recent and upcoming software titles.”

No word on what bits of cute crap they'll be trying to shove down our throats, but I hope it will involve at least one Rabbid plushie with built-in motion detecting.

PotatoPotatoPotato

To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Talking To A Tummy (It Moves!)

Trish and I were walking the dogs this morning when we saw our son riding his bike down the path toward us. As he zipped by us I heard the unmistakable flapping of a baseball card striking the spokes of a back tire. How funny, I thought, I remember doing that when I was a kid. Then I got a closer look: It was a Pokemon card. Don't worry, it was just an Energy card!

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Splinter Cell: Conviction Delayed
EA, DC Bring Mirror's Edge To Comic Books
Hasbro Sues Over Scrabulous Facebook Game
Is This Guitar Hero: World Tour's Setlist?
Spore E-Card Creator Goes Live, Makes You An E-Card God
Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 Hits This Month
Liveblogging Will Wright Discussing His Inner Otaku At Comic-Con
Insomniac: There Are Many Ways to Get Into Resistance 2 Beta
What happened to Fatal Frame 4 At E3?
Metal Gear Online Tournament Hits Comic-Con, Kojima Signs Stuff

Upload Your Eden Gameplay Directly to YouTube

Eden is pretty freaking cool on lots of neat little levels. Gameplay and aesthetic aside, one of the coolest features the game will be supporting is the ability to upload in-game videos directly from your Playstation 3 to YouTube.

Dylan Cuthbert, president and executive producer, of Q-Games, says this new ability will revolutionize how people talk about games.

The YouTube upload feature is going to revolutionize how people share tips. Up until now it has been limited to people with video capture equipment, but from now on, anyone can record their game and upload it directly to YouTube from within the game! It is as simple as pushing one button to start and one button to stop and upload, and there is no affect on the gameplay thanks to the power of the PS3 and its abundance of SPU processors.

The YouTube people are pretty excited too, pointing out that this is likely just the first Playstation 3 game to do this.

Manga Coming to Japanese Wii

The New York Times is reporting that four of Japan's biggest manga publishers have formed a joint venture with an unnamed software company to bring digital versions of their comics to the Wii.

Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan formed Librica earlier this month and plan to drop their comics on the Wii Ware channel. The newly formed company also plans to bring their comics to the DS. Hopefully, they'll allow you to transfer purchased comics from one to the other.

No timing or price were mentioned in the short Times piece. It also doesn't address whether the service will be coming to the U.S. as well.

Digital Comics Coming to the Wii in Japan [New York Times]

Metal Gear Online Tournament Hits Comic-Con, Kojima Signs Stuff

Konami and Major League Gaming have teamed up to host a Metal Gear Online Tournament at this year's Comic-Con in San Diego. Prizes for the tournament include a PS3 bundle and game bundles as well as some shirts, gift cards and such.

You can register for the tourney all day today and a chunk of tomorrow, but they only have a set number slots to fill, so if you're interested get to it. The tournament itself will kick off Friday at 12:30 p.m. and wrap up Saturday night.

More importantly Hideo Kojima will be around Friday at the booth from 10 a.m. to noon to autograph things. Hit up the jump for the full schedule, game setting and break-down of prizes.

What happened to Fatal Frame 4 At E3?

Tecmo, sensing a disturbance in the fanboy force, sent out a preemptive email today explaining to anyone and everyone why Fatal Frame 4 was not at E3 this year.

Actually, to be fair it's more like they passed the buck... preemptively:

Several of you asked about Tecmo’s other titles that have been announced in Japan which were not on display at the show. Fatal Frame 4 (Wii) will be published by Nintendo, so please contact your Nintendo PR contact for further information. Rygar: The Battle of Argus (Wii) is in development and we are planning to provide more information this fall.

I contacted Nintendo for comment and take their stony silence as complete confusion. We'll update you as soon as they update us.

Insomniac: There Are Many Ways to Get Into Resistance 2 Beta

Turns out that "exclusive to Qore" means not so exclusive to Qore.

The Insomniac guys contacted us today to try and clear up the Qore announcement confusion. The team promises to do everything they can to make sure the beta problem runs as smoothly as possible and that it is available in many countries and through many different outlets.

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 Hits This Month

Just ten days ago Acitvision let us know that Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 would be hitting the Xbox Live Arcade on Aug. 6. Now they've gone and surprised us by letting us know today that the game has been pushed up to July 30. That's one more week that will be lost to SHUMP fever.

The 800 point game will include five additional game modes: Waves, which they say has been supercharged and tweaked; Pacifism, which has been promoted from achievement to full game mode, and new modes King, Deadline, and Sequence. All of the modes can be played solo or with up to four players on a single console. The multiplay allows for both co-op and competitive modes. You can also play co-pilots where one person drives and the other shoots.

Sounds like you're getting a lot for your Microsoft scrip.

Everyone who visited Capcom's booth at E3 last week were treated to a peek at a glorious retro Mega Man t-shirt. The shirt reflects the decision Capcom made to turn Mega Man 9 into an "impossible hard" 8-bit revival of the franchise.

The marketing group decided that since the game was going to look like it came from 1987 they whole marketing campaign should too. So they called up I Am 8-bit artist Gerald de Jesus and had him whip up a truly fantastic bit of fantasy Mega Man art for the fabled shirt.

Only four of the shirts were created for Inafune and Takeshita to wear during last week's show. The good news? Capcom promises to start selling the shirts on their site soon.

E3 09 Opening Its Doors to the Public?

The only thing there was more of at E3 than games were complaints about E3's new, tidy, business-like format. Everyone from company execs to game developers to the working press seemed to have something unhappy to say about the show.

Coasting right there along with the complaints was a building buzz that next year's E3 was going to have to undergo some mammoth changes. Just how mammoth? According to a number of well connected sources I spoke with during the show, there's considerable thought going into opening the doors, this time officially, to the public at next year's big event.

Reached for comment earlier today, the Entertainment Software Association had this to say:

Penny Arcade Releases Fallout Comics

Bethesda just announced that the Penny Arcade guys have created a series of comics based on their upcoming RPG (Bethesda's not Penny Arcade's funny guy) Fallout 3.

Over the coming months the strip will tell the story of Vault 77: One man and a crate of puppets.

Fallout Comic

Afro Samurai Gets Comic-Con Appearance

Afro Samurai will be demoed to the public for the first time at this week's Comic-Con International in San Diego, Namco Bandai announced today.

The playable demo will give gamers a chance to check out what looks to be a pretty stylistic fighter based on the Samuel L. Jackson executive produced anime series. There will also be an Afro Samurai panel on Thursday featuring the creators behind the show. Panelist members will include Samuel "Snakes on a Plane" Jackson, THe RZA, Takashi Okazaki and Leo Chu. The group plan to talk about the development process, dish on some behind-the-scenes anecdotes and explain the inspiration behind the characters, music and story.