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We’ve only got a couple games for you this week. But trust me — if you’ve been playing either of them, you’ll understand why there wasn’t time for anything else.

I Can't Believe It's Not Brains!

Nick: Oh man. Plants Vs. Zombies. Plants Vs. Zombies. Plants Vs. Zombies.

It’s common knowledge that I’m guaranteed to fall in love with any game that’s got the PopCap seal of quality on it. But their latest game managed to do the impossible: It took a genre I couldn’t stand — tower defense — and transmogrified it into the most wonderful, purest substance of joy I’ve experienced in a game since…well, Peggle. But Plants Vs. Zombies breaks with PopCap’s precedent by delivering a game that’s not only infinitely addictive and bursting with charm — it’s crammed full of things to do.

After sinking more than 12 hours into the game (including a final three-hour binge that ended with my victory over the Adventure mode at 3:00 a.m.) I’ve still got dozens of challenge and puzzle modes to complete, a Zen Garden to cultivate, and a new and foreboding mode called Survival.

I’m hoping to have a full review up before too long, but trust me when I say this is the best $10 you’ll spend on a game for a very long time. Despite the heavy hitters to come along this year, Plants Vs. Zombies is the best game I’ve encountered in a very, very long time.

Aaron: This week I played one game: Pokemon Pearl.

Seriously.

I took a breather from gaming and instead read some books, caught up on current events, watched Battlestar Galactica for the first time and spent time outside of the house. As far as games I’ll be playing next week? It’s anyone’s guess. But we have to get more reviews done, I suppose.

Guitar Hero 5 is coming and it has songs (surprise!), free-to-play MMO Free Realms has racked up quite the player base in its first few weeks of existence, Valve’s sneaky with its surprises as usual, and Mass Effect 2 footage is available for your viewing pleasure.

Not Guitar Hero 5--but close enough

Though the game has been known about for a while now, Activision today tossed out a few official scraps of details on the upcoming Guitar Hero 5. Players will be able to tackle the game’s tracks with any instrument combination they see fit. Want to sing through a song with three other friends all using microphones? Go ahead.

It’s an interesting mechanic to put into a rhythm game–certainly one that isn’t “authentic” as far real bands go (though, yes, these games aren’t meant to be taken literally). And while we’ve been somewhat biased in favor of Harmonix’s Rock Band titles (or, at least Nick and Doug have), I personally find the gameplay freedom Neversoft’s offering to be great. Add-in the beginnings of a solid-looking track list and the new instant difficulty/instrument swapping, and the next Guitar Hero game might turn out to be one actually worthy of the franchise’s name.

You'd certainly be happy too if you were SOE

Free Realms, Sony Online Entertainment’s recently released free-to-play MMO, has already achieved 1,000,000 registered player accounts in under three weeks’ time. The “free” concept might tarnish these numbers a bit considering the zero-cost entry level for gamers to go and be wizards, but it’s still an impressive amount of people willing to try out an American company’s take on the international concept of micro-transaction gameplay. Also, there’s a trading card game within the MMO. I almost feel compelled to try it now.

You are encouraged to fear Mann Co., but that fear comes with the gentle and stern guidance of a near-naked Australian

Though we already mentioned Valve’s impending Team Fortress 2 update, they’re not quite done yet: The next Team Fortress 2 serving of additional content will also be a…gasp…Spy-oriented extravaganza! You have to love the design team’s miniature poster announcements, with their clever wording and immersion into the strange world of TF2′s 1960s super villain culture. Plus, who doesn’t get a kick out of Mann Co.’s CEO (and Australian), Saxton Hale. The name and trouser-shorts simultaneously scream manliness.

And finally, a closing treat for you: BioWare today released a dual-purpose teaser and pre-E3 video for Mass Effect 2. What else can I say but “Wow.”

Enjoy, and have a great weekend. We’ll be posting some great stuff over this weekend and throughout next week, so keep coming back for more!

The criticisms largely echo mine in reviewing the first add-on, Knothole Island, and it’s an overall shame to again see Lionhead botch its DLC. Costumes and potions will only get your game so far, you know.

You got all excited for nothing, pup

It’s also unfortunate that my predictions of See the Future being more worthwhile turned out wrong–that’s what I get for speculation, I suppose.

News for Thursday: Sony loses cash, a lack of funding shutters another development studio and Telltale Games sells a lot of Strong Bad. It’s all very money-oriented today.

The House of PlayStation might have expectantly lost money, but they're selling many more of these than before

Sony posted a $1 billion loss for the end of the previous financial year ending March 31, 2009; however the company’s operating losses have been cut in half during the same fiscal period. This isn’t anything new considering the global economic issues still plaguing businesses everywhere, but Sony has in the past especially received flak for the high production costs associated with the PlayStation 3.

Now it seems the company has improved the methods of producing their next-gen console to subsequently reduce monetary expenditures and perform better at market in spite of a weakened Yen and slower PlayStation 2 sales.

However, Sony accomplished much more in terms of sales figures: over the last year the company saw a 10-percent increase in sales of PS3 units and a doubling of software sales for the console. Despite the retail successes Sony expects to lose another $1.25 billion over the course of the next fiscal year.

That price drop doesn’t sound too promising, does it?

If only Factor 5 could've used the Force, financially

In some very sad news (as reported by 1UP,) development studio Factor 5, best-known for their series of Rogue Squadron titles, has closed its San Rafael studio. It appears that after financial problems resulting from the bankruptcy of Brash Entertainment last year–with whom Factor 5 was crafting a Superman title–the long-running development studio could no longer afford to keep going.

On a personal note, the Rogue Squadron series for both the Nintendo 64 and GameCube meant a lot to this then-young Star Wars fan. They weren’t just geek indulgences, but truly amazing games for their respective generations and showed what great work Factor 5 was capable of. In the end the company likely felt pigeonholed into the role of “awesome Star Wars game people.” As such they tried to expand their horizons with Lair, which ended up to be a commercial and critical mess.  The complications with Brash seemed to only make matters worse.

Now, they’re gone. We sincerely wish those affected the best of luck in their future endeavors.

Max is certainly enthusiastic about Telltale's success

On the happy side of videogame development, Telltale Games announced that they reached 1,000,000 to-date sales of downloadable episodes for their Sam & Max and Strong Bad games. Congratulations to the independent studio, as it’s quite an impressive milestone to reach for a smaller and more-focused method of creating games.

That’s not meant to sound condescending; it’s a testament to Telltale’s ability to craft humorous titles people truly want to play. I’ll admit I’ve yet to check out any of their episodic games, but now seems like the right time to do so considering the company’s 5-year anniversary sale currently happening on Steam.

Plus, it’s been so long since I’ve watched anything Homestar Runner-related that I might as well get back into the swing of things.

A beautiful vista symbolizing great things on the horizon. But a chance to see the future? Well...not so much.

After our last journey to Albion’s Knothole Island left us feeling cold, dampened our spirits and hung us out to dry, Lionhead brings us another content pack with See the Future. It promises new dungeons, new items, plenty of new achievements and an enticing glimpse into Albion’s (and the franchise’s) future.

But just like any of Murgo’s wares, this new purchase will probably leave you feeling swindled.

Purveyor of curios, doodads, and mysterious music boxes that make people want to shoot you and your sister, Murgo the trader has returned to Bowerstone with a new batch of slightly cursed wares for your perusal. Purge them of their curses and a glimpse into the future is your reward.

That’s the premise, at least. But the two cursed items merely act as portals to a couple of minuscule, self-contained areas that can be cleared in about an hour in total. They’re not without their charms: one tasks you with returning color to a monochromatic land by defeating color-coded, faceless enemies, and the other (and far shorter) quest has your hero dressing up like a variety of Fable monsters to complete a short puzzle. However, they feel very linear, even by Fable standards, and they lack any semblance of permanent consequences for your actions.

Fable II did a wonderful job of shaping the world based on your actions, and even Knothole Island was altered considerably by how you controlled the seasons and where your loyalties lay. Unfortunately, See the Future suffers from an even greater disconnect. The quests feel like deleted scenes from the retail release with almost nothing anchoring them to the game’s canon (save for an appearance from everyone’s favorite sadistic piece of furniture, Chesty,) and the rewards for your persistence are a colossal disappointment and an utterly missed opportunity, respectively.

Even the content pack’s final challenge, the Colosseum, fails to deliver on expectations. While a five-minute battle royale between your hero and hundreds of Albion’s deadliest creatures sounds like it has the potential to offer a difficult challenge for the game’s most die-hard players, it ends up amounting to nothing more than a button-mashing exercise. On my first run through, I earned around 31,000 points, and the grand prize (and score achievement) only require 20,000. Granted, I had maxed out my hero’s abilities on my first run through Fable II, but I was still disappointed that Lionhead still hasn’t managed to make combat challenging enough to require players to be dexterous and mindful of their surroundings.

An innocent soul is trapped within these ruins. Your hero valiantly proves once again just how dense he/she is to fall for yet another ruse like this one.

The DLC’s raison d’être — that whole “seeing the future” bit — is an even greater letdown than the quests that preceded its revealing. Spoiling the specifics would be a disservice to readers, but suffice it to say that, with the exception of one new proper noun being introduced to the Fable lexicon, nothing really happens.

But if there’s any solace to be had in this expansion, it’s that it reaffirms Lionhead’s commitment to continuing the Fable experience. Here’s hoping the studio takes its time to make our next venture into Albion (or other worlds, perhaps?) live up to Fable II’s exemplary standards, instead of releasing more content that fails to improve upon the experience of the retail game.

Fable II’s See the Future add-on is available for 560 ($7.00) in the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Recommended for:

• Albion’s most avid heroes who will pay any price for a couple of costumes and some of the weakest quests in the game
• Fans of the game’s voicework and lush environments (which are blessedly still present) who are willing to overlook a dearth of content and a disappointing conclusion in exchange for another reason to return to Albion

Not Recommended for:

• Players expecting a tick upward in quality from Knothole Island; despite the intervening months, See the Future is just as sloppy and even less satisfying
• Anyone expecting anything even remotely revelatory from the game’s glimpse into the future

Read our policy on reviews here.

Also, the two-hour season finale of Lost didn’t help much.

Hurley certainly isn't happy with the lateness of this post

Thankfully, it seems, Wednesday was relatively calm as far as news goes: DICE learned from its console prejudices, Blizzard reaffirmed its next MMO is not World of Warcraft: Part Deux and Microsoft bolstered its Platinum Hits collection.

Expect these explosions to somehow be more "hardcore" in the next console Battlefield title

Veteran Battlefield franchise creative director Lars Gustavsson admits that with Battlefield: Bad Company the team treated console gamers “a bit more gently” in crafting content due to DICE‘s PC background. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Gustavsson talks about the company’s natural progression with its Battlefield games, moving from basic multiplayer functions in Battlefield 1942 to more advanced matchmaking in Bad Company. Still, Gustavsson emphasizes that although the team created a strong console Battlefield game in Bad Company, they now understand future console versions have to be as complex and tailored to hardcore online players as the PC versions have always been.

It’s certainly an appropriate admission for the studio, as Bad Company–though a superb single-player experience that foreshadowed the quality and attention DICE would put into Mirror’s Edge–just didn’t feel like Battlefield. The online portion was very similar in spirit to Battlefield 2 with class load-outs and various vehicles to utilize, but it was more of the same, albeit less grandiose than the PC games. Admittedly, it’s not that easy to shove 64 players into an Xbox Live multiplayer match.

The question now is if DICE will extend these retrospective revelations to their upcoming sequel to Bad Company–otherwise, it’s all talk.  Furthermore, what do Gustavsson’s comments mean for the anticipated (though only rumored) Battlefield 3? Would a hypothetical BF3 become a multi-platform release, a series first for a direct sequel, or will the next core title follow the past trend of PC release first and a stripped-down console counterpart later?

Sorry classic Blizzard franchises--no MMO for you. Besides, Warcraft, you already had your turn.

Though rumored in the past and even partially confirmed by the company itself, Blizzard Entertainment has officially expressed that their next massively multiplayer online title currently in-development will not be based on any of their established StarCraft, Diablo or Warcraft franchises.

World of Warcraft is popular. We all know that. And despite the wide variance in personal feelings about the game, it would be wise to give the Blizzard crew credit where credit’s due–they honed their franchises to be the blockbusters they are today through their own capability and craftsmanship. The company completely deserves its praise and sales.

Still, it’s not always a guaranteed good move to release a brand new MMO under a fresh intellectual property, even if you’re Blizzard. If this next game won’t be based on neither their space, mythical nor fantasy efforts, then what could it possibly be about? Maybe a modern-day MMO where players level up through working menial labor tasks at minimum wage.

We’ll call it: World of Wagecraft.

Army of Two: This much battle-buddy man-love can now be had for less!

Here’s quite the PSA for budget-conscious gamers: Microsoft has added eight new titles to their Platinum Hits line, including popular titles like Gears of War and Mass Effect. It’s good to see Microsoft is bolstering its $20 to $30 hits line (which, admittedly, is an extremely baffling price difference), but let’s be honest here: Gears of War is a nearly three-year-old title and Mass Effect has been selling at the $20 range for awhile now at Best Buy and other retailers.

However, the Mass Effect repackaging does come with the $5 Bring Down the Sky DLC as a bonus–quite the addition for gamers who’ve yet to add BioWare’s fantastic RPG to their collections.

The full list of the new Platinum Hits games, complete with Metacritic links for the curious,  are as follows:

• Gears of War
• Forza Motorsport 2
• Mass Effect
• Viva Piñata
• Army of Two
• Battlefield: Bad Company
• Burnout Paradise
• Fight Night Round 3

Note: Nick pointed out that GameStop stores are offering used copies of Forza Motorsport 2 in a bundle with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for under $20. That offer is a bit more cost-effective if you don’t mind pre-played games.

Sasquatch writer Doug Bonham conducted an in-depth interview with Teasdale and Wilson that sheds light on the creative process at Harmonix, from catering to fans to picking the perfect songs to release as weekly downloadable content. Although originally published on Doug’s blog, he’s graciously offered to repost it here. Despite taking place months ago, there’s still plenty of insight to be found from two of the people responsible for one of the top music game franchises on the market. Enjoy!

Let there be rock - RB2 fires up for the first time at Ground Kontrol. (Photo by Doug Bonham)

Rock Band 2 is almost upon us. The game’s developers, Harmonix, had a large presence on the show floor of the Penny Arcade Expo – the line to play the game was usually at least a half hour. While fans got their hands on the game for the first time at PAX, a lucky group of gamers in Portland, Ore., got a special treat when the sequel was demoed Tuesday, September 2. Ground Kontrol (511 NW Couch St., Portland, Ore.) played host during the regular Rock Band Tuesdays to Harmonix’s Dan Teasdale, lead designer of Rock Band 2, and Heather Wilson, audio producer for the company.

Teasdale and Wilson were kind enough to agree to an interview with myself, Nick Cummings, and one of the lead volunteers in running Rock Band Tuesday, John Leslie.

Harmonix audio producer Heather Wilson and Rock Band 2 lead designer Dan Teasdale up on stage receiving applause from the crowd before rocking out to Squeeze's "Cool for Cats." (Photo by Doug Bonham)

How many places have you found that do a Rock Band night on a regular basis?

DT – I think we’ve lost count at how many places have done it. Originally in the earlier days with some of the earlier games, River Gods down the street was the place that did it, and was the place we knew of, and in the three or four years since then it’s just exploded. No Fail is coming out of our experience of going to River Gods every week and seeing people fail out. Even though it doesn’t really fit with a campaign mode where you want people to fail out and progress better, in a live situation, nobody wants to fail out.

HW – It also came out of people at work bringing the game home to their families and their families totally failing out but still wanting to play.

With regards to announcements and information containment, how hard is it to prevent a leak or two?

DT – It’s tough, it’s not like we’re releasing one game a year. We’re releasing 52 content packs a year, plus a game, plus however many SKUs of it. It’s much harder than any other sort of game or company I’ve worked on. Considering how much stuff we’ve done it’s been pretty good.

HW – That leak (about the PAX Pack) came directly out of the fact that we had technical difficulties the week before. Just getting the information out to everyone who needed to have it, it just didn’t make it down the chain like it was supposed to, is hard. It was a leak but at the same time, people were doing what they were supposed to.

Compared to the earlier days at Harmonix, how is the song licensing process?

HW – It’s a lot easier to license stuff now. Because people have heard of us, they want to give us content, which is awesome. With bigger bands it’s the same as it always was, there’s convincing there, you want them to want to be in your game, and sometimes there’s a barrier of entry because they may not have heard of it, may not have played it, but it’s generally a lot easier.

Nick – Back after Rock Band 1, Dan, you said your most-wanted band was AC/DC. Was that your own personal push?

DT – I think it’s everybody at Harmonix’s personal push (laughs). Everyone is fans of AC/DC. One of our first prototype songs was a cover test of AC/DC, and I think they’re such an iconic rock band.

Are bands more willing to work with you when they have new material to promote?

DT – A lot of bands are more open to giving us their stuff when they’re releasing new content.

HW – A lot of people, like Weezer for example, want to give us new content but they also want to give us old stuff too. With some bands, we’ll say “hey, we’ll put out your new stuff, can we also have this old stuff too?” and it works out really well.

How was demo-ing RB2 to bands like AC/DC?

DT – We personally weren’t close to that, it was a much higher level, but from what we understood AC/DC really loved the game and that’s one of the reasons why they wanted to be in the game.

Nick – At the panel at PAX, you said Nine Inch Nails was one of the first major acts to contribute a song voluntarily. When was that in the process?

DT – It was earlier on, before we had any songs in Rock Band. He kind of knew what we were doing because he’s on the ball with this sort of stuff, and he wanted to contribute, which was amazing because it wasn’t even like us chasing him.

HW – And Izzy, one of our audio guys, loves Nine Inch Nails and was super excited to be able to work on those tracks.

John – Speaking of NIN, it shows the song choice present in the game – not just singles like “The Hand That Feeds” but deeper cuts get into the game…

HW – We really like to go after stuff that’s we think is going to be tactful. We want stuff that’s going to play well, but is also going to be meaningful.

Will we see longer albums, more instrumentals, or even double albums released as DLC?

HW – You know, it really depends. I wouldn’t rule that out as a possibility, and with the instrumental stuff, it’s going to make it easier to release certain albums. We probably won’t go too instrumental-heavy because it is a game for four players and we want to make sure that everybody can play everything, but at the same time it’s going to make it easier to put some stuff out.

But with the amount of content in the game already and due out this year and next, it’s different than if the first DLC album released was instrumental, right?

The mic ran out of batteries at this point – CRAP! – but Dan talked about the content and confirmed they would consider things like that. Dan then was asked about the accessories to the game, and while things like the wooden instruments, the Ion drum kit, Mad Katz’s stuff, and others are outside of Harmonix, they are coming and go through the company. Unfortunately they don’t control the release dates, etc. I do remember Heather saying she wished the 3rd-party microphone with the D-pad and buttons built in was at their office!

On the accessory note…what led to the stage kit?

DT – I remember when we first got pitched the stage kit, it was like “Okay, we’ve got this hardware (that they were also pitching), and also we’d like to maybe make a stage kit,” and it was like “Wow, that is awesome.” The kit is actually labeled a controller, so on the Rock Band 1 disc songs and all the DLC so far we’ve actually authored a fog track and a lights track. So all it does is send fog and lights out to the kit. It’s an Xbox controller essentially, because that’s the only way we can get the data out, so I’m sure you can hack it to get multiple machines.

Will there ever be add-on DLC costumes, instruments or venues for the game?

DT – I think if we do stages and new guitars and stuff it’s far in the future, right now we’re focusing on the content every week and it takes a lot of our time. Never say never when it comes to Rock Band stuff.

John – When playing through BWT, I thought about how cool it would be to work through, say, all of the venues in Seattle, playing Seattle band songs, until you get up to, say, Key Arena. Have you ever thought of doing, using real venues?

DT – (Not using real venues) gives us more range to craft that sort of story. It’s the same reason we don’t have real rock stars in our game, it’s because this whole thing is about you traveling on this journey. A lot of our venues are crafted to that as well.

HW – One thing we did when we were making up the venues was we tried to craft the location we were putting it in, in terms of art style and in naming and location. We tried to place them as realistically as possible while still giving you the fantasy.

DT – I don’t think (licensed venues) really fits the direction we’re going. We’re trying to go more authentic then a carbon copy.

Nick had a question about the writing in the game; Heather did most of it, including for the loading screens, rock shop, etc. Dan confirms that the text during loading screens will return for RB2…but adding more to the game along with DLC songs?

DT – That was something we talked about. There’s a couple of technical things we’d have to get around.

How is working with MTV versus working independently?

HW – We kind of have a lot more freedom artistically, now we’re working on our own IP and can do what we want with it, which is awesome. I was there before MTV purchased us, and there’s been a real effort to keep the company culturally the same. There’s stuff now where we have to fit into their corporate mold, but it’s still really low key and doesn’t affect a lot of people.

DT – I think the big thing that helps us is it gives us this huge power to be both publisher and developer at the same time. Heather, as our audio producer, she is in-house handling all our DLC submissions and all the stuff that would be handled by a third-party publisher. Like this week, we had a technical issue, but because all our stuff was in-house, we can get content out this week. If we had somebody over in LA we had to talk to, it would be impossible for us to get it out.

John – How do you feel about MTV using Rock Band as a promotional tool?

HW – There’s room. We’ve got all kinds of content, and it’s good, because it reaches the mass market and it reaches more people than we could reach, which is kind of awesome.

DT – At the same time, it’s not a one-way street, we have control over what songs go in the game. If we don’t like the song they’re proposing, we say “no,” and if we do, then we say “yeah.”

John – What did MTV think about Boston? I’d think they’d be pushing bands like the Jonas Brothers or something.

HW – They do want to put a lot of new stuff out but they also have the same vision of what we do, and have a clear idea of what Rock Band is as a brand. I work directly with a lot of people at MTV and they’re incredibly awesome to work with and they really want the same thing we want, which is great.

How would you submit music if you wanted to get your independent band into the game?

DT – If you go to Jobs (on the Harmonix website), it pops up with a little Google maps box, if you click on the pin it has our address.

HW – Just send it to my attention, to the attention of Heather.

John – Is there any chance that music previously rumored to be released can still come out? (A couple examples are named, including “Received Your Letter.”)

HW – Well, with “Received Your Letter,” there were licensing hurdles we couldn’t get over, and we really like that song and really wanted to put it in Rock Band. Occasionally we may want to revisit stuff, especially if it’s stuff we already have authored. It’s like, it’s there, why not.

As far as the PAX Pack goes, those were my personal choices, actually. I love MC Frontalot, I love Jonathan Coulton, and I love Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. So, the fact that all three of them were playing at once and we could put the pack together was awesome. The Penny Arcade guys made those suggestions, and it was a total match. The Darkest track, “Shhh…,” was unreleased and they recorded it at the same time they recorded the rest of the album, “The Shadow Out of Tim,” and they gave us that track, and I was super-excited about it.

There was an announcement about the Japanese version…any updated news?

DT – Not really, no, that’s just the announcement – that we’re working with Q (Entertainment) on Rock Band Japan, those guys are incredibly awesome, incredibly talented, a great match. They know music. I can’t wait to see what comes out of there.

The big question you must get all the time, Dan, about Australia: What problems have there been?

DT – Anything you can imagine, actually (laughs). We’ve been working really hard for a very long time to get it out in Australia, we’re going to have some announcements soon about dates, pricing. Again, it’s getting licenses for all their songs, making sure artists get paid, we want to make sure we do it properly. We’ll announce it soon – very soon.

Any word on the future for the platform, and how the support for it will evolve or continue?

DT – (No comment on specifics, but…) At the same time, RB is a platform, we’re going to be supporting it for the foreseeable future. As long as we can see, yeah.

HW – Our schedule, we’re scheduled out to mid-spring. We schedule really far in advance. It shifts, certain weeks might not stay what we have them on the schedule now, but at the same time we have content lined up.

John – Any plans to go into different genres of music with the DLC in the future?

DT – I think we definitely want to go broader and wider on the platform. More regional content, more deep content for specific artists, more regional inside the U.S. content as well. I know we’ve hinted at indie stuff a bit, and we’ll have more announcements soon. I’ve been pushing for an Aus music pack for a long time (laughs).

HW – I don’t think it’s straining too far, we want to make it a platform. There are a lot of country fans in-house. I tested CMT Presents Karaoke Revolution: Country, and honestly, it’s a super-fun game. Singing country songs is fun. I’d like to do some of that content.

Will that content stay region free?

DT – I can’t promise it, but we’re going to do our best to make sure that everyone can play the songs.

What is the feeling at Harmonix developing what you can now as opposed to pop music games like some of the Karaoke Revoution ones?

DT – I think bands of all walks, but a lot of us play rock in our bands.

HW – There are people at Harmonix who love all genres of music. We’ve got opera fans. It’s a really broad base.

So the long and short of it, Rock Band isn’t going away?

HW – Nope (laughs). DT – It’s here to stay.

Big thanks again to Dan and Heather for demoing Rock Band 2 at Ground Kontrol, agreeing to an interview, and special thanks to Anthony and the crew at GK for throwing such a good event week-in, week-out. For more details on Rock Band Tuesday and GK, see groundkontrol.com. For more on Rock Band 2, see rockband2.com and harmonixmusic.com.

"Awesome!" indeed

So, we want to extend a ginormous gracias to those of you who read Silicon Sasquatch daily and continue to direct your comrades to our corner of the web. We promise to keep bringing you things of a decidedly awesome and videogame-related nature.

Now, it’s time for the real news: Atari gets cold feet, the telenovela that is Midway’s financial woes gets juicier, we get to know Modern Warfare 2 a bit better and Valve’s Team Fortress 2 team takes a “bow.” (You’ll get the pun in a bit.)

Let's hope Atari backing out of E3 doesn't mean advertising for Ghostbusters: The Video Game or Champions Online will suffer

Despite having a very capable line-up of releases coming out this year, Atari has suddenly decided to skip E3 2009, citing a desire to explore “other selling and marketing initiatives.” Joystiq seems to believe the company’s change of heart is due to a lack of sufficient cash flow to pay the Entertainment Software Association‘s fees. That’s possible, but without up-to-date financial analysis available it’s hard to be certain.

Our cursory research implies that Atari has seen significant increases in business-related performance over the last year in comparison to its stock delisting ordeal last May. Things might not be so bad at the company, but without knowing for sure that’s quite the guess.

Maybe Atari is actually going to pursue alternative methods of marketing its Ghostbusters and Champions Online titles as their announcement said. But with E3 2009 supposedly returning to its old tricks of cacophony and neon light insanity–which always made the event a great place to get a game noticed and hyped–this could be the makings of a huge mistake for Atari.

These financial issues are totally getting in the way of a sequel to Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Gamasutra has a fantastic post on the developing story of creditors who are suing Midway Games‘ former big-wig board members for running the company into the ground to allegedly benefit themselves.

Sumner Redstone, quite the controversial name as far as Midway’s current situation goes, is singled-out along with daughter Shari Redstone and former investor Mark Thomas, among others.  Two of the suit’s many claims center on the Redstones intentionally investing $90 million into the struggling company to then recoup it under claims of “debt,” and also using Midway’s $700 million in tax losses to later obtain a beneficial refund.

It’s a great if depressing read, and goes to show once again that money is quite the motivator when it comes to personal gain. No one wants to see any development studio go under thanks to fraudulent actions of insensitive businesspeople. But, yes, I suppose it’s “just business.”

Digital war has never been so cover-worthy, until now

Infinity Ward‘s Modern Warfare 2 is getting a blowout piece in the next issue of Game Informer, and multiple websites have posted some of the initial details. What’s known so far sounds both promising and unfortunate at the same time. Taking place years after the last game, “Soap” MacTavish–the main character throughout the British SAS missions in Call of Duty 4–is now a captain who will serve as the new character’s mentor as did Captain Price the last time around. It’ll be interesting to see a former protagonist in a different context.

Unfortunately, Infinity Ward won’t be including a cooperative campaign option, although Treyarch managed to include the feature in Call of Duty: World at War in a very polished manner. Also, MW2 sounds like it might be shorter than CoD4′s already short campaign.

Knowing Infinity Ward’s track record, the title will likely turn out to be superb. It’s just a shame to see the team once again won’t add co-op, an ironically modern gameplay feature, into the so-called Modern Warfare 2.

While this picture isn't related to the Sniper update, I think we can appreciate an engineer in mid-burn

And because they’re just so sweet to their fans, Valve has teased its impending Team Fortress 2 Sniper update with details on one of the new unlockable weapons: The Huntsman–it’s a bow and arrow!

The extremely old school weapon will actually pin its victims to surfaces upon a killing shot; even if the target lives through a direct hit, they’ll still have an arrow protruding from their bodies. Groovy.

Valve has consistently supported Team Fortress 2 with new maps, unlockables and achievements since its 2007 release, all for free, and it’s a real testament to the company’s belief in PC gaming.

Now we eagerly await the inevitable Zelda mod using the new bow and arrow’s physics. Get to work!

But, I’ll be honest here and say I’m completely fine with not playing Fallout 3 in any capacity for a few months.

Please, Vault Boy...no more

Today’s batch of industry news has annoying legal teams crushing fan-made dreams, enough Japanese DS owners for Nintendo to start a conscription-based army, one announced title that no one really is surprised by and a perplexing possible addition to the English language that all gamers love to hate, but also use incessantly.

Unless it's a paid-for DS re-release, Square Enix doesn't approve of this gang having additional adventures

It’s a sad day for Chrono Trigger fans as  Square Enix’s legal team has terminated fan-made ROM project Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes. The collaboration, a five year long effort nearing its release date, was supposed to add to the original Chrono Trigger experience with 35 hours of brand new content written and created by devoted fans.

This is certainly not the first case of “Squeenix” cease-and-desisting fan projects for fear of copyright infringement. Chrono Resurrection is another perfect example of how much passion and effort can go into projects doomed for cancellation by intellectual property holders. These talented people simply have a lot of love for a particular title made by a profit-seeking company, but that doesn’t mean much to the suits. It’s not to say Square Enix is heartless, but the truth is these projects seek no monetary gains–really they’re no more than elaborate love letters from a cadre of fans who worship the original creators’ work.

If I were the company, I’d be enormously flattered. But I’m not, because if I were the human embodiment of an RPG development powerhouse I’d have deported Wakka from Spira and made another Vagrant Story by now.

20% of Japan having DS units pales in comparison to the 50% of college-aged American women wearing Ugg boots

According to internal Nintendo sales numbers posted by Kotaku, one-fifth of the entire population of Japan owns a Nintendo DS. And here we were thinking Nintendo was surely down in the dumps. Comparing the population sizes of Nintendo’s other key markets of the United States and Europe–who each have a much higher number of people living in their respective territories–truly makes the Japanese consumption numbers a staggering statistic.

And while the DS has remained extremely popular to gamers and non-gamers alike since release, the fact that the DS has sold nearly the same number of units in a country almost three times smaller in terms of population than the United States is quite impressive indeed.

So that's who Altaïr gets his fashion sense from

Eidos has finally confirmed the development of Thief 4, something known to–or at least expected by–most of the gaming community for quite awhile now. Although I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never actually played a Thief title, I’ve always heard great things about the series’ stealth-based gameplay. Plus, it’s wonderful to know Eidos is working on projects other than further Tomb Raider sequels.

Let’s see what the company’s new overlords (and fan project deniers) Square Enix can do for a series that hasn’t seen a release since Thief: Deadly Shadows in 2004.

Lastly, multiple websites have reported today that “noob” just might become the unofficial millionth word in our poor, dear English language. Don’t expect to see the online trash talk favorite appear in any notable dictionaries in the near future. Still, an Austin, Texas-based piece of analytics software known as the Global Language Monitor analyzes word trends by tracks the number of usages of a particular term throughout thousands of legitimate online sources like magazines and news feeds. If a linguistic newcomer is used enough, the Global Language Monitor declares it a word.

I don’t intend to sound snobbish about the word, because in truth language changes daily and is meant to change. Without adaptations, we wouldn’t have such wondrous gems as “blog” and “tweet.”

Oh god…what have we done?

Sure, you might’ve played a couple rounds here and there of Peggle, PopCap‘s fun little peg-shooting puzzler, but it’s easy to shrug it off and get back to being a productive member of society.

But sooner or later, it’s inevitable: You’ve got some free time! You glance around, shrug your shoulders, and decide to pay the Peggle Institute another visit. “What’s the harm in a few more levels?” you ask yourself.

What’s the harm, indeed.

The symptoms appear swiftly and without mercy. Whenever you close your eyes, you see balls launched with beautiful angles and perfect trajectory, knocking out those few remaining orange pegs and winning the round. You make up voices for the ridiculous menagerie that comprises the Peggle Institute, from Bjorn the unicorn to Jimmy Lightning, the obese, skateboarding beaver. And Beethoven’s Ode to Joy echoes in your head on loop, forever and ever, sunrise to sunset.

Sound terrible? Think again. Peggle addiction is one of the greatest joys that can be experienced in one’s life — or, at the very least, it’s the most fun you’ll probably ever have for under five bucks.

Colorful pegs come in all shapes and sizes. Green ones activate a Peggle Master's powers, while purple pegs act as score multipliers.

Like all great casual games, Peggle’s got a simple premise. Your mission is to clear each peg-filled screen of all its orange pegs. You’re given ten balls, a launcher, and a few tricks up your sleeve in the form of each Peggle Master’s magic powers. These range from the practical — more precise aiming, multiple balls — to the truly bizarre — pinball flippers and a “spooky ball” that comes back from the dead to drop down the screen a second time.

The game’s adventure mode introduces you to each of the ten Peggle Masters and lets you take their individual powers for a whirl. But the final five levels are a true challenge, requiring you to choose the master’s power you feel is best suited to the puzzle at hand. It’s a prelude to the game’s Challenge mode, which is unlocked after finishing the main adventure. Packed with all sorts of tricky levels and demanding requirements, it’ll test the prowess (and patience) of even the most seasoned Peggle player.

PopCap has an admirable reputation for making accessibility a top priority, and Peggle delivers with options to assist lefties and the colorblind.

Fortunately, the iPhone version features a few welcome tweaks to the original formula. You can aim anywhere on the screen by tapping, and fine-tuning is easy thanks to the new wheel located on the side of the screen. And although the iPhone’s 480×320 resolution is much smaller than that of the original PC version of Peggle, double-tapping anywhere on the screen zooms in to display a segment of the board in crisp detail — perfect for fine-tuning those particularly ludicrous shots.

This version of Peggle also features a pass-the-phone Duel mode and a trophy room that visualizes your accomplishments. There’s also the option to save a replay of any game, so you can immortalize your best and brightest moments (and brag to your friends.)

The only thing lacking is the original game’s in-level music, but frankly, you won’t miss it. It was highly repetitive (a common problem among PopCap games) and besides: You’re playing Peggle on an iPod! Surely you’ve got some music of your own that will better fit your needs until you hit that last peg and blast into a Beethoven-fueled Extreme Fever.

Give it a little while. You'll be lusting after those Extreme Fevers and humming Beethoven's Ninth in no time.

For $4.99, this is the least expensive version of Peggle available on any platform. Although it would have been nice for PopCap to include the Peggle Nights features, the next major iPhone firmware update will enable in-game downloadable content. Whether you’re a newcomer or a seasoned veteran of the Peggle Institute, this latest rendition of the modern classic is easy to recommend.

Peggle is currently available for iPhone and iPod Touch for $4.99 through the App Store. Windows, Mac OS X, Fifth-generation iPod (with video), mobile phone, Xbox Live Arcade, and Nintendo DS versions of the game are also available. Peggle is legion; resistance is futile.

Recommended for:

• Casual and hardcore puzzle gamers alike: It’s blissfully easy to pick up, but diabolical to master
• Peggle fans looking for a faithful, complete version of the original game while on the go

Not Recommended for:

• Puzzle fanatics with poor impulse control (for example: I played through Peggle and wrote this review just a few hours after it was released on the App Store)
• Peggle fans expecting a comprehensive Peggle package; for now, it’s just the original game, but new content is a distinct possibility down the road

Read our policy on reviews here.

Yep. Even the loading screen's progress bar is charming.