From the totally-awesome-mods department comes word that a guy has installed a touch-screen on a Guitar Hero controller as well as a magnetic switch that allows him to play the game with a magnetic pick. Apparently, it plays “much better than before,” though it makes no sense to me.

The touch-screen included in the controller mirrors the action on TV and also allows the player to control the whammy bar by sweeping their fingers across the screen. It took 3 days to make and was actually quite cheap. Videos and more pictures can be found on Gizmodo.

On a post up on the official PlayStation blog, David Jaffe, creator of the series, announced Twisted Metal: Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition, introducing the PS2 port of the well-received PSP title. This will be the first title by Eat Sleep Play, his own development company, and he states that this won’t be “just another port”.

According to his post, the game will be “stuffed [to the] brim” with bonus features, new levels, updated graphics and more.

“I thought I was burnt out on the whole franchise but the second I sat down to design, it was like coming home,” he writes. “It’s been so much fun! So there she is. Our first game from EAT SLEEP PLAY! Our love letter to Twisted Metal fans old and new.”

The post carries further screenshots as well as a video showcasing some action from the game which is scheduled for release during Spring 2008.

While the PS3 celebrated its first birthday just a few weeks ago, the console’s first year in the market saw lots of failures resulting in price cuts and other competitive moves by Sony. As it stands, SCEA CEO Jack Tretton admitted the company’s mistakes, noting that the console’s first year was a “year of issues.”

He also believes that the launch was “the biggest disappointment for the last year,” but he diverts attention to the company’s old line: a 10-year lifecycle for the PS3. The console is now doing far better than it started out, outselling the Wii and competing strongly against the Xbox 360 in the past few months.

Already available for developers on other major platforms, Kynagon today announced that Kynapse, its AI middleware tools, is now supported on the Wii, allowing developers to use the tools to empower their NPCs with advanced behavior.

Kynapse offers a complete 3D pathfinding solution handling dynamic terrains and hierarchical computations. It also includes advanced spatial reasoning functionalities to dynamically identify 3D hiding positions, threatening zones, access ways, etc. On the tool side, Kynapse automates 3D pathfinding and perception data generation. Finally, Kynapse is highly optimised and can bring to life several thousands of Non Player Characters. Although only recently available, Kynapse for Wii is already being used by 2 game developers.

The AI engine has been used in other major titles, as well as AAA games, including Crackdown, Lord of the Rings Online, as well as upcoming titles like Fable 2 and Alone in the Dark 5.

Having first made the world addicted to the game on the PSP and then the PS2 and Xbox 360, Q Entertainment and WildGames today announced that they have joined forces to bring Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s masterpiece music-based puzzle game Lumines to the PC. For free, too.

The game is being offered on WildGames’ site, offering five modes of play and an online leaderboard in a 120MB sized file. As mentioned above, it is free to download, though it will play a short ad before it launches. Ad-haters can purchase the full game for $20.

The PlayStation Store on the PC leaves a lot to be desired, but added functionality is in the works, according to PSP store director Eric Lempel. In an interview with MTV Games, he stated that he and his team are working on an iTunes-like functionality that will automatically sync the handheld with downloaded content on the PC.

“It currently doesn’t support any functionality like that but that is a feature we’re looking into,” he said. “We want to do some testing, get consumers used to it, see how they would like things to work. We understand that a lot of the free content on there, people are interested in a good amount of it and they’ll want to just sync up, not browse.”

He also talks about direct downloads on the PSP, saying that it is a possibility. “It’s just a matter of priorities and some technology that we need to make it all work right and make sure the content is delivered securely, just to protect some of our [intellectual properties].”

Lempel also stressed the importance of exclusive content, such as the now-available Syphon Filter: Combat Ops. “You’ll be seeing a lot more content coming on there in the near future that is made exclusively for the PSP and isn?t available anywhere else,” he stated.

A demo for Culdcept Saga, OmiyaSoft’s card game/board game hybrid, is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace today. Board game junkies can sample the game by downloading the 620MB file.

This Xbox 360-exclusive title is set for release on January 15, 2008, and combines the die-powered movement of Monopoly with the strategic card play of games like Magic: The Gathering.

The third batch of downloadable content for Rock Band has gone live on Xbox 360, offering tracks from legendary metal band Black Sabbath. The tracks are “N.I.B.”, “Sweet Leaf” and “War Pigs”, all of which can be purchased individually for 160 Microsoft points each, or as a three-song bundle at 440 Microsoft points.

The tracks aren’t out on the PS3 yet, but are expected online in this week’s Thursday update to the PlayStation Store. Songs slated to arrive in the coming weeks include tracks from Ramones, Radiohead, Weezer and more.

Despite their generally positive report from last year on the state of the gaming industry with regards to keeping inappropriate content out of the hands of children, the National Institute on Media and Family has given the gaming industry a bad report card. They do laud the efforts of Microsoft, GameStop and Target who all took steps towards controlling the availability of violent games to children. In many other respects they say that the industry is in an ‘ominous backslide’ and insist steps need to be taken to improve the process. There are some legitimate concerns that they raise, such as libraries and churches holding tournaments with games like Halo 2 and other mature rated titles that are designed to bring in younger crowds. Many of their arguments however are illogical and poorly thought out. One of their arguments is that ‘significant changes are needed in the rating system’. They claim that making buried content such as the mini-game that sparked the GTA San Andreas controversy known is not enough. They complain that the ESRB does nothing to discourage hackers from accessing this content. This of course raises the question of what they propose the ESRB do to ensure that hundreds of skilled, intelligent individuals with clearly plenty of time on their hands to spend examining code of video games and creating mods to access it? The only likely solution would be to simply refuse to release any game with ‘unaccessible’ content. If it’s not part of the game, take it out. Short of that, there’s likely nothing that will keep some determined individual from getting around whatever safeguards they build into the software.

They also attack the ratings system, complaining that few retailers educate their patrons on the rating system. Their report says: “It is hard to completely blame parents for not understanding the rating system when retailers come up short on their commitment to educate the public”. To the best of my knowledge, the retailers only commitment is to making money. It’s up to the consumer to educate themselves on the product, its pros and cons, not the retailer. It’s not as if the ratings system is particularly complex either. Anyone could grasp the system in about five minutes of reading.

One of the most ridiculous issues the NIMF raises is the fact that parents and children are arguing about video games. First of all this is a bit ridiculous of a problem as parents and children have argued about things for years. Curfews, allowances, car usage, phone bills, dating and privileges have always been a source of friction for families everywhere. Children and teenagers are generally hedonistic and parents have to teach them the balance between responsibility and fun. Their statement is also deliberately misleading. In their report they say that 38% of parents and children argue ‘often or sometimes’ about video games. Only 8% of that is in the ‘often’ category. A problem with polls such as this is that there are only four option: ‘often’, ‘sometimes’, ‘rarely’ and ‘never’. How many times does an argument have to occur for the parents to place it into the ‘often’ category? Or the ‘sometimes’ category? With no comparable figures it’s hard to say what the actual effects are.

The controversy over Eidos’ and IO Interactive’s horrible shooter Kane & Lynch won’t end anytime soon, especially after publisher Eidos was caught lying on the official game site about reviews.Banners appearing online quote GameSpy saying in their review “It’s the best emulation of being in the midst of a Michael Mann movie we’ve ever seen”, but GameSpy never said that in the review, only a preview back at E3.

The ads also say that both GameSpy and GameInformer gave Kane & Lynch 5 starts, but that’s a flat out lie; GameSpy gave it 3/5 stars, while GameInformer doesn’t give out starts at all, instead the game got a 7/10 rating.

Kane & Lynch was a highly anticipated game, but completely failed in almost every aspect – a truth made so much worse by Eidos and the GameSpot controversy, and now this…