Twisted Pixel, the developers behind The Maw and Splosion Man, are hard at work on their new XBLA title – Comic Jumper, and have shared some new assets with us. Plus, we also have a 10 minute video preview for those who want to get an inside glimpse at the upcoming comic based game.

Attending the upcoming PAX East and want to see more from Comic Jumper? Make sure to check out the Twisted Pixel booth (#601) at PAX East at 1p / 3p / 5p and see a live demo of the first 10 minutes of gameplay from Comic Jumper. Fresh screens of Captain Smiley are in the gallery below. BA-DOOOM!

Ever since hearing about EA Sports making a new MMA game, we have been hearing about all the signings for the game and such, but haven’t seen any actual gameplay. We finally got our first bit of footage from the upcoming EA SPORTS MMA title.

EA Sports sent us this new video which showcases the Strikeforce environment, as well as unique fighter entrances. Inside the cage, each fighter has a distinctive style that adds a new layer of depth and strategy to every matchup.

Beyond Strikeforce, EA SPORTS MMA will also feature fight venues from across the world, complete with rules sets and environments authentic to each location.

Enjoy the latest trailer, which showcases all these elements. EA SPORTS MMA is scheduled for a late 2010 release.

FPS. It stands for First Person Shooter, meaning the ability to witness and engage in combat through the eyes of a game’s protagonist, literally putting you in his or her combat boots. A genre that has exploded into one of (if not THE) most profitable types of gameplay experiences on the planet, FPS’s are the driving force behind a significant portion of the gaming market. Looking at juggernauts like Halo, Battlefield, or Modern Warfare and breakthrough achievements such as Half Life, Borderlands,or Bioshock it’s hard to reach for any new title without your hands at least brushing past the latest attempt at cashing in on visceral combat simulation.

Yet for all the billions that the FPS has earned over the years, many of these titles consistently fail to deliver on the cornerstone of their existence; first person perspective. One of my biggest pet peeves with these games are their tendency to somehow ignore an aspect of the perspective that ruins the immersion, marring the experience and pointing out the fact that yes, this is just a video game  tricking you into thinking you’re doing all these crazy awesome heroics. Redundant walking animations, devices and keyboards that magically enter codes without any physical interaction, lack of a discernable lower body and floating camera syndrome; its these flaws that get the nitpicker in me fired up and engage in some seriously elitist gaming judgement on games that nevertheless manage to keep me enthralled with their shooting bits.

Enter Metro 2033, a new FPS/RPG/ Survival Horror hybrid just released by 4A Games and published under the THQ banner. Based around the plot-line of a novel bearing the same name, Metro 2033 will drop players in a post-apocalyptic Russian wasteland and see how they fair against shadowy mutations, crazed bandits, killer elements, and creeping horrors. Okay, I’ll admit this sounds like your typical post-apocalyptic tom foolery at first, but its the developer’s attention to detail and commitment to compelling narrative that I believe will set this title apart in the days to come. Also, don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this darkly moody title seeing as how it has had little media presence to speak of and managed to pop on and off my radar over so many times I completely forgot it released yesterday. That being said, the minute I realized the game had gone gold, I was ecstatic at the prospect of diving into what has been building up to be an incredibly unique combat experience in a market littered with cheap cash-ins and mundane sequels.

Metro 2033 takes place in the near future, beneath the streets of a Moscow buried in the fallout of nuclear winter. Human survivors have managed to cling to life by holing up in the abandoned subway stations of the city’s elaborate metro network. Many of these communities are self sustaining and there is little contact between one another save for groups of hunters who traverse the railways hunting strange and deadly mutations which make travel near suicide. While most of your time will be spent exploring each of these unique and varied stations, you will also be forced to venture out onto the surface. Russian winters coupled with radioactive fallout have made habitation impossible, and your only way to breathe is by way of a gas mask whose filtration systems require constant replacement and maintenance.

Few concrete details have emerged concerning the way in which plot unfolds, not surprising considering the game is especially focused on a single player campaign due to lack of a multiplayer component. To be honest, i find this particularly refreshing considering how some franchises seem to suffer when money is milked developing a trendy multiplayer add-on at the expense of a compelling single-player campaign. What I do know is that the developers seem very keen on crafting a dynamically epic story with some awesome scifi, supernatural, wartime, and darkly comedic adventure elements. Expect to experience something a little bit new from this Ukranian based team, some of whom worked on the favorable S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise.

There is no HUD to be found in Metro2033, and everything you need to know will come from the ambient environment around you. When you are lost you’ll unfold a map that you keep in a pocket, while taking down enemies requires a steady hand coupled with a clear line of site. One of the coolest things about this HUD-less interface is your gas mask, the filters of which will degrade over time. In order to keep track of your air, you’ll have to set your watch before you go outside, then look down at it to figure out how much time you have left. You’ll also know that the air is going bad as the glass begins to fog and your breath runs ragged, while taking too much gunfire will splatter more and more blood across your face and even shatter your breathing apparatus, and event which will leave you scrambling around for a replacement amidst the rotting corpses topside.

Little things like the watch mechanic, the way your gas mask obstructs your field of vision, grasping at allies, doors and ladders and seeing your legs as you hurdle over an obstacle do wonders to really sell the experience. From what I’ve seen and read, the developers find many innovative ways to convey story without leaving the first person perspective, adding authenticity and leading to some truly visceral set pieces. Fighting enemies in pitch black tunnels by muzzle light, swinging from a rusting ladder, fighting off the eviscerating claws of a mutant going for your throat are all the more engaging thanks to the way the team committed to their first-person vision.

Trailers and screenshots reveal a pretty gorgeous looking game, filled to the brim with atmosphere and ambiance. From the ramshackle metro communes to the bombed out shopping malls, the landscape shows its character through its horrific scars. A sense of world events will be conveyed through the environments, surrounding chatter and NPC interaction, breathing life into a world beneath the city streets that is said to rival those found in more well known titles. Combat scenarios and firefights look to challenge you in different ways, encouraging equal parts stealth, strategy, diplomacy and defense.

Thrills and fear abound in this title, thanks in part to the way you handle your ammo. Bullets are scarce in a nuclear war zone, even more so when they are used for currency as they are in Metro 2033. Trade your ammunition for supplies, upgrades and newer weapons or hoard it all for the tougher firefights. You’ll have to make some hard decisions when it comes to taking out foes, as every shot will have to count in order to ensure you’re not throwing away your life and livelihood. This adds a sense of urgency and focus to the combat, rewarding precision and forethought as opposed to run-n-gun or dumb luck.

Metro 2033 released March 16th on Xbox 360 and PC, so you can check out the title for yourself right now.  Stop by and check out  the game’s newly released launch trailer at the official site right here.

On Sunday, Major Nelson released his newest podcast which detailed the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package DLC.  The DLC is a map pack that consists of 5 maps for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15).  However, 2 of the maps are simply being rehashed from the original Modern Warfare.  This immediately set the gaming community into a frenzy.  Many sites wrote posts suggesting that gamers boycott the map pack, and Twitter was ablaze with anti-Stimulus Package sentiment.

Now that some tempers have cooled off a bit and more rational thinking can take place, we simply want to know what your stance is on the issue.  Will you be buying it?  Is Activision only trying to rip you off?

Here’s a few talking points to start you off.

• The original Modern Warfare map pack was 4 maps for 800 Microsoft Points ($10).
• Many people think that the impulse purchase price point stops after $10; people will think for a while about spending $15 and ultimately decide that it’s not worth it.
• Activision is a business, and they know that they can charge whatever they want for DLC for a game as successful as Modern Warfare 2 and people will still buy it.
• Why is it called a “Stimulus Package” when many users feel as if it’s a blatant rip-off?  Isn’t that sort of a slap in the face

Those are just a few conversation starters, but there are plenty of other valid points that can be presented.  So go get to it; we want to hear from each of you that is even mildly interested in this.  Make your opinion known in the comments!

Nostalgia is a hell of an emotion.  When Perfect Dark for the Xbox Live Arcade was announced at E3 ‘09, I was absolutely giddy.  You see, back when Nintendo 64 ruled the roost, I was one of the few people that legitimately liked Perfect Dark more than GoldenEye.  In fact, it happened to be my favorite game on the N64.  So, one of my favorite childhood games adapted for the big, bad Xbox 360 must be a match made in heaven, right?

Well, the answer is “Sort of”.  As it seems is the case with almost everything, the things that you held so dearly as a child almost never quite live up to your sky-high memories and expectations.  It didn’t take long at all for Perfect Dark to remind me why I loved it so much, and at the same time, how far we’ve come in gaming.

When you load up the game, the first thing that you’ll probably notice is how outdated the menus look.  I realize that the developers wanted to capture the essence of the original and bring it to the next-gen consoles, but I honestly think that the menus could have been polished up a bit in order to resonate with newer gamers.  I realize that this sounds like I’m nit-picking, but it really is the things that we take for granted now that stick out so blatantly.

If there’s been one main selling point to this game, it’s definitely been the 1080p graphics and the 60 frames/second movement.  It took all of three seconds to realize why this was the case.  Joanna moves (or rather, glides) incredibly fluidly, and everything moves super-smoothly.  On top of this, the 1080p graphics add a new shine to the game while still allowing it to feel like a semi-retro title.  It all works very well, and 4JStudios was wise to make these changes a focal point of the port.

The solo and co-op campaigns were hands-down the most fun and interesting aspects of Perfect Dark, and that still holds true today.  Upon starting the campaign, the layout of the levels and the objectives suddenly rushed back to me, and I knew exactly what to do.  The only problem with this is that for those who have never played the game before, older games used to be pretty unforgiving.  Specifically, there’s little to no help explaining how to achieve your objectives or where they can be found.  A lot of time can be spent wandering around trying to figure out what exactly what to do.  Also, we’ve been spoiled as of late in regards to health systems (i.e. get away from the action long enough to recover).  In Perfect Dark, you have a health bar that never recovers (although you can find shields).  Furthermore, if you die, there are no checkpoints; you have to start the level over.  It’s systems like this that make you realize how ‘hardcore’ games of yesteryear used to be, and how fluffed up a lot of them are now.

Perfect Dark’s control scheme is, for lack of a better word, unusual.  The controls feel rather unintuitive and take some getting used to.  Also, it seems crazy now, but Perfect Dark had a setup where you had to toggle between the primary and secondary functions of your weapon.  Again, a far cry from modern shooters, and it takes some training to get used to.  To be fair, there are three different control setups that you can pick from – Classic (Perfect Dark), Spartan (Halo), and Duty Calls (Call of Duty), but I had to keep it real and stick with Classic.

There were a few other gameplay nuisances that I encountered; the biggest one being the aiming system.  Perfect Dark has an auto-aim system that can make the game entirely too easy.  I’m assuming this is because the N64 didn’t lend itself as well to shooters as the dual-stick consoles of today do.  However, if the auto-aim doesn’t lock onto your target immediately, you’re going to have to dodge some bullets to take down your opponent.  Additionally, the scoped aiming system is incredibly difficult.  While zooming in on your target, your character stays planted where she is standing.  This means that tracking your enemy isn’t much of an option, and renders sniping almost impossible.

For all of the slightly negative things that I have to say about Perfect Dark, make no mistake, I love the XBLA port.  In my opinion, besides the beefed up frame rate and graphics, 4J Studios made an absolutely perfect adaption of Perfect Dark.  Everything about the game feels exactly like it did on the Nintendo 64.  The game’s problems aren’t anyone’s fault per se.   It’s just that that’s how games were back in 2000; they were very different than they are in 2010.  However, at the bargain-bin price of $10, you can’t really go wrong with picking up Perfect Dark.  If nothing else, it’s well worth the trip down Nostalgia Lane.

We questioned aloud the status of Green Day: Rock Band on Tuesday, and it only took two days for our inquiries to be answered.  It turns out that, yes, the game will still be released.  In fact, it’s coming much sooner than we thought it would – June 8th.  On top of this, Harmonix released a whole slew of details pertaining to the game.

Green Day: Rock Band will include 47 tracks, five of which have already been announced – “Brain Stew/Jaded”, “Hitchin’ a Ride”, “American Idiot”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.  It’s a pretty good bet that all of the really popular ones will find their way onto the game, too.  Of course, the six DLC tracks off of 21st Century Breakdown will also be playable in the game.

Like The Beatles: Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band will utilize the three part harmonies vocal system.  Predictably, previous Rock Band and Guitar Hero instruments will be compatible.  Also, there’s the option to export all 47 tracks into any three of the Rock Band’s, but there’s the standard export licensing fee of $10.

There will be two different packages released.  Bargain hunters, listen closely!  The normal copy of the game will cost the standard $60.  However, there will be a special edition that includes special packaging, an export code (a value of $10) and the six Green Day songs that have been released as DLC (a value of $12) for a retail price of $70.  So, if you plan to export the songs anyway, your best option is buy the special edition because you essentially get six more songs for free.

Year after year, game developers bombard the game market with sports titles that many people view as nothing more than a “plus one” to last year’s iteration.  Of course, each passing title is always a little shinier, the interface is always a little smoother, and the player movements are always a little more fluid.  The question that the money-conscious gamer faces time after time is – “Why is this year’s game worth my $60 when I know next year’s will be better?”  The only way for developers to rope in this crowd is to add some new bells to significantly enhance their franchise.

This time around, MLB 2K10’s “new bells” came in the form of the My Player mode.  My Player is the game style where you create a player and guide him through his entire career.  You start as a pipsqueak drafted right out of the first round, and are immediately assigned to the organization of your choice’s AA affiliate.  Of course, your player is incredibly raw, with an entire career’s worth of development ahead of him.  It’s a daunting task, indeed.

As soon as you start, the game is incredibly difficult.  You have a goal for every time you are at the plate (assuming you’re a position player), and you shouldn’t expect to achieve them too often.  The reason for this is that because of your player’s low stats, he is easily overwhelmed, and often makes weak contact, if any at all.  Predictably, MLB 2K10 rewards you with stat increases for good performance.  Therefore, you can expect a lot of 0-4 and 1-5 games at AA before you see any noticeable improvement.

Interestingly, at it’s core,  My Player feels like an RPG.  As you eventually start earning points, you stat your player out based on how you want to play the game.  You could throw most of your points into speed and contact and have a quick outfielder like Jacoby Ellsbury that wreaks havoc on the base paths, or you could jack up your power numbers and crush everything that you see like Albert Pujols.  It’s entirely up to you.

One of the most positive aspects of My Player is that it provides for a streamlined game mode.  The reason for this is that you only control the moments of the game that you’re directly involved in; the rest is simulated.  Therefore, you play the at-bats and the defensive plays that come your direction.  I played as a center fielder, so the games flew by; I imagine that a catcher or first basemen would have considerably longer games.  This is a double-edged sword of sorts because you end up feeling incredibly detached from the team you play for.  The mode is literally completely about you, which meant I found myself not caring at all if my team won or lost, just how I performed.

The thing to take away from My Player is that it’s incredibly addicting.  At first, this is out of frustration.  You’ll probably underperform, and you’ll probably want to keep playing until you’re actually good.  However, when you finally turn the corner, you will do so in a big way.  Your batting average will slowly climb, your power numbers will go up, and you’ll start driving in more runs.  Balls that would have been lazy fly balls are now driven to the gaps, or over the wall.  You’ll want to keep playing because it seems as if all your previous struggling has finally paid off.  Because of this, it’s clearly apparent that My Player is certainly a valid addition to MLB 2K franchise.  It could have easily felt like a half-hearted tack-on, but instead it’s something that is easy to lose yourself in for hours.

I’ll give everyone a minute to catch their breath after that amazing title.  Ready?  Ok.

Harmonix made two big announcements today, one of them involving Rock Band 3.  Specifically, it was finally confirmed!  According to John T Drake the newest iteration of Rock Band is set to release during the 2010 holiday season.  No other details were released, but it’s nice to get this long-awaited news out of the way.

The same announcement comes via their Facebook page, in which they promise to “innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again”.  One can only wonder if this just their way of hyping up the game, or if they have something Natal-like up their sleeve.

Speaking of wondering, what is this going to do to the Green Day: Rock Band game?  Are they both still slated for 2010?  There’s been a surprising lack of information lately about it.  Is it even still in the works?  Does Rock Band 3 eclipse it to the point that no one cares anymore?

Moving on to some different Rock Band news – the reigning Princess of Pop, Lady Gaga, is making her Rock Band debut.  She’ll have a four-pack that features the songs “Bad Romance”, “Poker Face”, “Monster”, and “Just Dance”.  Rumor has it that you get bonus points if you have an arsenal of wigs to wear while singing the songs.

As if that weren’t enough, South Park’s Cartman is also making his Rock Band debut with his rendition of “Poker Face”.  It was fun enough to sing as Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld in the first game, we don’t know who won’t be picking this one up.  The pricing for the DLC is standard (560 MS Points for the pack, 160 MS Points individually)  However, no word on the price for the Cartman track; here’s to hoping it’s free!

Visceral Games today launched “Get Dismembered in Dead Space 2″, a new contest that will allow you to possibly get yourself into the the upcoming Dead Space 2. The contest lets fans think up the coolest way for Isaac to rip apart a necromorph, and rewards 10 people with a chance at getting into the game.

At the end of the entry period, the community will vote for a winner among ten finalists, who will then have his or her move developed in-game. Additionally, his or her face & body will be mapped to an NPC in game to be torn apart by a necromorph! Nine runners-up will get their names in the game.

If interested in entering, here are some key dates you may want to know:

• Contest Opens 3/8/2010
• Entry Period Closes: 3/26/2010
• Finalists Announced/Public Voting Begins: 4/5/2010
• Public Voting Closes: 4/19/2010
• Winner Announced 4/20/2010

After over 9 hours of racing, and nearly 200 online races, I’ve had quite the fair share of experiences in the BLUR Multiplayer Beta.  From barging racers out of the way to shielding shocks to blocking shunts, this game is an adrenaline rush at every turn.  While it can be infuriating when you go from first to last in a set of 2 short corners, it won’t be unexplained.  You’ll definitely get the “punching bag” (the award for being hit with the most power-ups) at the end of the race when that happens.

BLUR is a game that combines the realistic cars of Bizarre Creation’s previous racing brand Project Gotham Racing with the fun power-ups that seem to stem from the likes of Mario Kart, with the extremely bright colours that seemed to be taken straight from Bizarre’s other famous brand, Geometry Wars.

The multiplayer experience pretty much goes like this: you enter the race lobby, if you’re early enough you’ll get to vote on a track and class combination, and the winning combination is what you’ll race next. Then you’ve got about 40 seconds which are counted down to pick your car (of the ones you have unlocked) and your mod-setup (you’ll get to customize it once you crack Rank 3 in the beta.  Once you get into the race, racers are arranged in a fairly random order to start. Once all the power-ups are activated, then all hell breaks loose!

Once the race is over, you’ll get to see who the top 3 placers were, and then the list of how everyone placed and what their times were. Lastly, you’ll be shown 3 facts about the race like who was most/least accurate, who had the fastest lap, who had the top speed or a couple other ones.  Once you return back to the race lobby, the process repeats and you spend endless hours causing mayhem online.

Seemingly, the people of Barcelona, Tokyo, LA or the “Amboy” desert never seem to mind the fact that there are cars ripping through their streets and crashing into their buildings.

Also, the higher your rank is in the beta, the more cars you unlock. Pay careful attention to matching up certain cars with certain tracks: you’ll want off-road “trucks” for the off-road track, and you’ll want the more agile cars for the tight and twisty tracks.  You’ll also unlock some more game modes the further you go on, so there is incentive to hit the level cap of 10.

On a more personal note, there are several things lingering around in the Beta that suggest to me that the level cap will be raised to 15 or 20 before the Beta is over. Mostly the presence of two cars which are acquired at level 14 and 15, the Corvette ZR1 and the Koenigsegg CCXR.

Overall, the Blur Multiplayer Beta is a blast to play as I’m sure many folks will soon find out.  And last but not least? Why not give you a shot at getting into the beta? Below are a list of 20 codes, which you should grab, and take to our Redeem Your Blur Beta Code page where there are instructions on what to do with them.

M2QX-ACR6-33RL-E2NQ
LK7A-DVDJ-R7ZX-7NP2
3CYY-DZDV-E6ER-7ZLQ
MJZH-4Y7G-3EDU-JDE4
NWGU-2JXU-MUD3-VC2E
JL3A-RUYT-U7YL-NTD3
TUY3-YFZC-7N3T-P74P
99UU-G4D2-ETGU-RKRL
E7Z2-HPC3-CP7K-EF97
ZAMJ-HU4P-WJZH-TXEA
FEW3-HPMY-6G7Q-C7TP
MT9G-GW6U-CCWM-WHN7
LHEA-NCAR-9G2N-MJKQ
AL9E-PCZN-J7HU-JZQF
DVNW-NDHA-JEH7-LH2K
DA36-QFN6-7G32-J2X6
VNVM-4YJP-P6Q9-2F9G
G3F9-J27P-E9JX-6JDA
LJZF-2LXL-G4RT-AEYU
J2ER-4JE7-MPHW-H36A