Something Wicked This Way Comes, A New Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince Trailer

I am sure I will get a lot of flak for this, but I like the Harry Potter movies. It's my guilty pleasure. Hell, I even have a playlist in my iTunes called "guilty pleasures" filled with 80's hits and the Harry Potter soundtrack. With the film recently delayed to 2009, we don't know when the game will come out. However, in the meantime we have this trailer to keep you guys busy.

I made a name for myself in video games by savaging Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DS. It was the most awful, most painful, most broken game I’ve ever endured and it’s my tendency to sneer at most movie-based video games anyway.

So what did I expect from Half-Blood Prince on the Wii? Certainly not all the fun I had.

Still No Plans For A Siren Blu-Ray Rlease In The US

Hope this story from last week didn't get your hopes up. Turns out that information - about a Blu-Ray release for Siren: Blood Curse in the Fall - was for European eyes only. You Americans, you're still in limbo, left only with the option of downloading the game and these helpful words from SCEA:

At this time, there is no Blu-ray Disc version planned for the North American market. Please note, however, that you are able to delete and then re-download episodes since the purchase is linked to your PSN account. The developers kept this functionality in mind knowing that the episodes were fairly beefy.

Hah. "No plans". Already, our favourite catchphrase of 2008! Of course, being a PS3 game it's not too hard to import it, so long as you don't mind the characters telling you to stick to the footpath, mind the grey-skinned chaps and use only aluminium weapons. Side note to publishers: more press statements need the word "beefy".

Still No U.S. Plans For Disc-Based ‘Siren: Blood Curse’ [MTV]

A 60 GB PlayStation 3 seems like a massive beast, until you download the entire Siren: Blood Curse saga, which devours a good 66% of your hard drive, and what about those poor 20 GB PS3 owners? For those of you not wanting to turn your console into a dedicated Siren machine, Sony has plans to release all 12 episodes on a single Blu-ray disc this fall, with extra bells and whistles to make the full release attractive even to those who've already played through the survival horror title. Nothing on pricing as of yet, but I could certainly see it following PSN pricing for the full game at $39.99.

Siren: Blood Curse to get Blu-ray release [Eurogamer]

The PlayStation store has updated today, bringing with it the survival horror creepiness of Siren: Blood Curse, as well as bargains as far as the eye can see! The big news is of course Siren, a Blu-ray-sized game cut up into bite-sized chunks for easy consumption. There are twelve chapters of the game in all, sold in sets of four for $14.99, or in one big, money-saving $39.00 package. Siren is joined by Capcom's 1942: Joint Strike, priced at a more modest $9.99.

In addition to the new games, some older titles are going on sale. For one week only, purchase PAIN, PixelJunk Monsters, High Velocity Bowling, High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition, or Rocketmen: Axis of Evil for only $4.99.

Topping it all off is a PixelJunk Eden demo, Guitar Hero and Rock Band DLC, and a fine assortment of themes, videos, and wallpapers, including entries in each category for Capcom's Street Fighter IV. Definitely a good week to own a PS3!

PlayStation Store Update [Official PlayStation Blog]

As you're already aware, the story/excuse behind putting 50 Cent in the desert with a bunch of guns is great. Amazing, even. Know what's greater and even more amazing? This trailer.

Okay, so I like Harry Potter. I checked out the Wii version of EA's upcoming Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, slated to drop alongside the film, mainly because I was interested in seeing what kind of magic wand a Wii remote made.

I had it demoed for me by executive producer Jonathan Bunney and producer Justin Manning, and it came down to a fight.

How To Get Siren: Blood Curse On Blu-Ray

The third game in the Siren series - Blood Curse - will be coming in two flavours. In Japan, you'll be able to get it on Blu-Ray. But in the US? It's being released as episodic, downloadable content, presumably in order to test the waters, see if there's really a market for the game in the US. Fine for Sony, but what if you're less a single-issue buyer, more a trade paperback kinda guy? Here's what you do: import the Asian edition of the game, which also comes on a Blu-Ray disc. Like most Asian edition's, it contains an English-language option, so you'll have it all on one disc and be able to understand the thing. Win win!

A way to experience Siren: Blood Curse on Blu-ray [Siliconera]

Blood Bowl Makes Medieval Football Appealing

This is how you skirt the NFL license, folks. Ogres, orcs, dwarves and humans settling their differences on the gridiron, an emphasis on violence, and cheerleaders that look Ren Faire appropriate. Blood Bowl may represent most of what I forcibly reject in my games — medieval fantasy, a turn-based dice game foundation, football — but if this teaser trailer is anything to go by, I may be picking up my first football game since NFL 2K1.

Scared yet? No, probably not. They're just screenshots! But seeing as Siren is one of the few series able to genuinely get me feeling a little icky, they're scary by proxy, because now I can imagine those events in-game, with the siren, the shuffling, etc, and that gets me a little jittery.

50 Cent remains hopeful that his new game, Blood on the Sand, will be a true gaming hit and not something that rides on the coattails of his music like he did with Bulletproof.

The game's producer, Aaron Blean, told MTV that he sat through a demo of the game three times several weeks ago and was "really excited."

The producer also talked up a mysterious love interest in the game that, brace yourself, 50 Cent came up with. Oh, this is going to be a grrrrreat game.

50 Cent 'Really Excited' By 'Blood On The Sand'; Video Game's Music, Love-Interest Details Revealed [MTV]

Siren: Blood Curse Even Scarier Moving

Sure, they showed a whole lot of this at the European PlayStation Day last week, but they didn't show these babies. These are U.S. exclusive shots of Siren: Blood Curse, the episodic horror game that Sony will begin delivering via the PlayStation Network this summer. If you are not from the U.S., please refrain from looking through this gallery. We appreciate it. Just trying to follow instructions.

Feel free to hit the jump for the fact sheet, however, as it doesn't seem to be exclusive at all. Just not the screens. If you look we shall be very cross.

While former Clover devs showed off three games at last night's Platinum/Sega announcement, it was Madworld that hands-down stole the show. The stark, black, white and blood title has gamers playing through a third-person maze of carnage, trying to rack up points for an off-screen audience through over-the-top dismemberment.

Director Shigenori Nishikawa took up the white Wii remote and nunchuk at last night's event to play through a short portion of the game for the audience.

Black, White and Blood To Bring Hardcore Back to Nintendo

Black, white and blood: It's a formula that Sega of America head honcho Simon Jeffery hopes will help the company have its best year ever, continuing it's four year drive from struggling to stay in the top twenty of publishers to pushing into the number five spot.

Madworld, a blood bath of a highly-stylized action title for the Wii that's so over the top it's almost comical, is just one of four games that newly minted dev studio Platinum Games will be publishing through Sega.

PlatinumGames was formed by by the key members of Capcom's Clover Studio, which made such titles as Viewtiful Joe, Okami and God Hand.

The lead developers and studio head took to the stage last night at Sega's San Francisco gathering to talk briefly about three of the games they will be publishing through Sega as part of a new partnership.

A game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is being developed by EA's Bright Light Studio, the company announced today.

In the game, which is aiming for a release to coincide with the movie hitting later this year, Harry returns to Hogwarts for a sixth year. The game will include wizard duels, potion brewing and Quidditch play.

The game hits the DS, Mac, mobile devices, PC, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, Wii and Xbox 360. What no iPhone? Come on!

Rooster Teeth has a trailer out for the sequel to Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. Check it:

Now, clearly, these are production values in the upper 1 percentile, and we'd expect no less of Rooster Teeth, and I'm not gonna hate on it. But can I ask a question? How come any elected-office character in a military-genre movie has to have a condescending Southern accent?

It's like a British friend of mine once said about the stereotype of his accent: "If I am in a Star Wars movie, then I command the Death Star."

That said, I can't wait to see (and hear) where this is headed.

RVB: Reconstruction {Rooster Teeth, embedded video courtesy of Slackerchan at Gametrailers]

We were very much given control of the core experience, what we wanted to create with a 50 Cent game. He took a look at it and he was like, 'You know, it looks really cool, I'd like something a little bit more.' The guy's a gamer, which in and of itself is actually an advantage because he came in with a very honest, very open opinion - 'As a gamer, I want more than just a core experience'.