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This Fall, Microsoft is releasing a new and improved Xbox 360 wireless controller. This controller has a transforming D-Pad and different colored buttons.

Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, director of programming for Xbox Live says Microsoft’s engineers have upgraded the controller’s D-pad to go “from a plus to a disc with the twist of the wrist.” He also explains the advantages for owners of the new item.

“The d-pad provides ultimate accuracy and control for both directional as well as sweeping movements,” he said.

The new controller is matte silver and has concave analog sticks as previous controllers. It has gray A,B,X,Y buttons for “added style.” It will only be available with the Play and Charge kit and will only be available in the United States on November 9. European release is planned for February 2011.

Hryb says there are ‘no plans at this time’ to release the controller separately from the Play and Charge kit, however, the new button color will not be moving forward as it is only for this controller model.

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“This is an exciting project with a great character at the center of it,” a source told IGN entertainment. “The idea is to make this in the style of an epic Western movie but with a few modern touches. Brad is perfect for the role and he is being given first refusal.”

When IGN entertainment asked Rockstar games for some information, Rockstar refused and said, “we do not comment on rumor or speculation.”

The movie should be no surprise as a great story can be made from RDR and there is already a built-in crowd with it. The game also shipped five million copies only one month after release, and will most likely be one of 2010′s best selling games.

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First it was the inability to build ladders, now this.

ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) is one of the most successful rating systems in the video game industry. Here, they explain a couple of reasons why Fallout: New Vegas will get a “Mature 17+” rating. Instead of having sex with a human being, payers will now have the option to have sex with robots. It is apparent that the Mature 17+ rating applies to the different sex options available (humans, robots).  Below is ESRB’s New Vegas rating description:

During the course of the game, players will encounter male and female prostitutes: the screen fades to black as suggestive dialogue is heard in the background (e.g., “Nice charlies, too! Give them a shake for the Ben-man, will ya?”).

There is also an extended sequence suggesting (no depiction) sexual activity with a robot (e.g., “Fisto reporting for duty . . . Please assume the position,” “I suppose I should test you out . . . Servos active!” and “Something wrong with someone if they got to fuck a machine.”)
The rating also lists expected factors from the upcoming Fallout game, such as drug use, slow-motion killing and “cracked out junkies and degenerate, drug-addicted killers.”

Post your thoughts and opinions of New Vegas’s idea of robot sex in the comments section below.

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Below are just a couple of quick questions about a new site, FantaZ, that is being launched September 1st.

Q: What is FantaZ? How does it work?

A: “FantaZ has been in development for the last four years with the thought that a proprietary, legal gaming site combined with an MLM component would change the face of online gaming forever. FantaZ will have hundreds of games and will also feature FantaZ Sports, enabling ZBO’s (Z business owners) the ability to create fantasy sports leagues, etc. Visitors have the option to become players free of charge or become FantaZ business owners and essentially own their own gaming site with their own individual URL’s under the FantaZ canopy. Expert ZBO’s will not only be compensated from people that enroll as a result of visiting their URL, but also from ANY bet placed on their site AND from any bet placed on another ZBO’s site that has enrolled in their downline. Another feature for our ZBO’s is the ability to set the parameters of any game (wager amount, game type, number of players, etc.) and send it out as a url anywhere. Any prospective client that clicks on a URL held by a FantaZ member will be ”married” to that sponsor so if they come back to the site 5 months later, the original ZBO will receive the credit for that enrollment.”

Q: When is this site launching?

A: “FantaZ is in pre-launch phase and will launch to the public on September 1st. Word has already begun to spread and, as a result, we have already enrolled in excess of 3000 members, many of which are celebrities and athletes that we have set up special accounts for.”

It is highly recommended to pre-enroll. To do so, visit http://www.fantaz.com/champion or click on the banner ad below.

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The popular first-person shooter game Medal of Honor is getting bombarded with criticism from Western politicians, high-level military leaders, soldiers and citizens, including the mother of a dead U.S. soldier.

Many of those critics would like to see the game banned because they say it “trivializes war.” In Medal of Honor you can choose to be in the shoes of a Taliban soldier and can kill Americans, among other things.

Being able to fight for the opposition and kill Americans is nothing new in gaming. Other video games allow players to become Nazis, Vietcong and even Russian terrorists.

However, the difference in the case of Medal of Honor is that Americans and other NATO forces are still engaged in a fierce war with the Taliban, and some of them are getting killed.

The issue was recently discussed in an chat forum on theglobeandmail.com, a national newspaper based in Canada. Ivory Tossell, a writer and editor for the Globe and Mail, said he has mixed feelings about Medal of Honor, especially since Canada has soldiers fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

However, he doesn’t think the game should be banned.

“If this were a game in which the objective was simply to kill as many digital Taliban as possible, while a blast of ‘O Canada’ came over the speakers every time, you can bet you wouldn’t hear a peep from sundry defense ministers over this,” he said.

“While we are at, let’s ban movies like The Hurt Locker or Blackhawk Down,” said a chat participant named Kris Amyotte. “But we won’t as it tells the story from the Americans’ view so it’s okay. But when you start portraying the other side, that’s when things get touchy, why?”

EA games, the developer of Medal of Honor, argues that there are many games on the market that have similar premises that take place in the same time period. These include Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Advanced Warfighter 2, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, The Outfit and more.

Yet, of all those games, it seems Medal of Honor had struck a nerve.

Please leave your thoughts and opinions on this issue in the comment section below.

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As when most games release, there are pirates looking to download it illegally. This is the case with Halo: Reach, one of the highest anticipated games of 2010. Microsoft is keen on catching and banning these pirates from Xbox Live.

Microsoft is constantly telling players that downloading leaked versions will result in a ban from Xbox Live and a void of the console’s warranty, however, it continues to be done.

“We are aggressively pursuing the violators,” a company spokesperson said in a statement given to IGN. “Microsoft’s commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the 25 million members of the Xbox Live community remains a top priority.

“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live.”

Halo: Reach is set for release on September 14.

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The James Bond seen years ago was the type who would watch the sunset after completing a swift snipe to the head of an enemy. That James Bond was more about the finer things in life.

The James Bond in the forthcoming video game Blood Stone appears to be more of a raw, skull-smashing mutant. In a recently released demo, developers Bizarre Creations and Activision have worked together to create a scene in Istanbul where Bond is crushing the necks of workers on a construction site, looking for information.

In the demo, Bonds main goal is to stop a super-villain who is sloppy with his work, and leaves several computers containing valuable information around the construction site. He also leaves the dead body of a bio-chemist, who has been missing for three weeks, in a wheelbarrow. Bond now also has a new gadget; a smartphone that scans its surrounding environment for any information in its range.

There is a new blend of combat in Blood Stone; in one mission Bond is taking more of a stealthy approach by sneaking from pillar to pillar executing silent take downs. In another mission he is more direct with his combat, leaving construction workers either dead or broken boned and barely able to breathe.

Bizarre Creations has come a long way with Blood Stone in just one month. In July, the game looked like nothing special; this month they have taken it up a notch. Bond 007: Blood Stone currently looks like an exceptionally action-packed, well-developed game.

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On Friday, thousands waited anxiously online for the release of a video related to Call of Duty Black Ops. Those who watched the video, which was steamed from Gamecon, were disappointed when no gameplay footage was shown.

Instead, the video featured an interview with Josh Olin and Hank Keirsley, two key spokespeople from Treyarch, the company behind Black Ops.

The two did say a ton of new info on Black Ops, especially on the multiplayer, will be announced September 1. Information about a possible Zombie mode, such as Nazi Zombies from World at War, was not discussed; Olin said that was to be revealed September 1 as well.

Treyarch’s main goal from the start was to make Black Ops different from the other Call of Duty games. They wanted to keep the series fresh, and therefore came up with many new ideas for the game. Treyarch has been listening to fans throughout the entire Black Ops process, and designed a perfect balance between realism and gameplay. Read the rest of this entry →

The thrill of the open road is something that was core to the original Need for Speed video game, which released 16 years ago. Staying true to that thrill has made NFS into one of the most recognized racing franchises in gaming history.

There have been very interesting Need for Speed games over the past 16 years including the “Hollywood excess of Undercover or the white-knuckled brilliance of Shift, but the first game was essentially about nothing more complex than the joys of one man and his machine pitted against miles of winding road,” says Martin Robinson of IGN.

What starts off as trading paint with some black and whites -- which, in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit’s world, are all supercars such as a GTR Spec V – soon rises to sparks flying and cars busting as the pursuit drags on.

There are tire-popping spikes which can be dodged and road blocks that can be plowed through while a helicopter swoops overhead with it’s blue and red lights flashing above the road.

Then the big guns come out. In this instance the police decide to roll-out a Pagani Zonda in stealth black paint with some flashing lights of its own. That’s when it gets really hectic, and as the sun goes down, the scrapes and sparks of the duel between you and the cops light up the dark.

Getting to the finish line without being spun out or spiked is not always an easy task, but when you manage to pull it off, you realize it was worth the effort for how fun it was.

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There was a lot of excitement at QuakeCon on Tuesday about the demo for a new game called Rage by id Software. Developers showed the demo on three different platforms – PS3, Xbox 360 and the PC – side by side each running 60 frames per second on separate giant screens.

The main purpose of the presentation was to show that id Software will put a lot of time and effort into Rage, which is scheduled to be released next summer. The opening moments of the demo were new and unique according to the IGN team that had the chance to play it.

“This part of the game showed how the open world of Rage is funneled into more familiar shooting combat,” said IGN’s Erik Brudvig. “The path quickly narrowed, allowing the combat to shift into something akin to a corridor shooter. The world was still open and massive, but the actual action took place along a pretty tight path.”

Brudvig then talked about the vehicles in the demo and how they worked, including an armored truck which is covered in rusty blades on the front surrounding a horned skull. It has several mounted guns and a lot of plate armor all over for serious protection.

Rage is not due until June or July 2011, and there is still a lot of work to be done. The demo is just a small grain of sand compared to what the game will be when it’s finished.