It appears that we won’t be playing through Sin City anytime soon, as publisher Red Mile Entertainment has revealed that the comic-inspired game is now planned for release sometime between April 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012.

The publisher is also in trouble, as it has failed to secure enough funding. It stressed its need for “sufficient funds to continue operations”, noting that it currently has only $341,000 in cash, which it expects to last until March 31, 2009.

In order to stay open and publish Sin City and Heroes Over Europe, Red Mile estimates it will need an advance of $10 million. They are currently seeking a co-publishing deal for help with funding Sin City.

Gamers often complain about how long it takes to get details from a video game in development. Early screenshots and concept art come out, then nothing for quite some time. While this frustrates many it’s generally to keep people from getting too disappointed when the game comes out, because frankly everything a developer tries might not work well enough to make it into the final release. Lionhead has often had this problem, since Peter Molyneux likes to talk up all the fun features they’re working on for their games long before they’re completed.

Cecil Kim, a concept artist working on God Of War III is talking up some of the cool features in a very abstract way. Without giving out any specific details he says there are certain gameplay mechanics and ideas that were pitched for the original two titles, only to be dropped because they proved ‘too ambitious’. Whether that means the coders weren’t up to it or the PS2 wasn’t powerful enough is a bit of a moot point, because with skills honed over the years since the second title and the incredible power of the PS3 these dreams are now a reality.

In the days of eight and sixteen bit gaming humor was quite often employed in video games. Titles like Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Clayfighter took well constructed gameplay and added comic twists. While many modern titles add in the occasional joke or humorous easter egg, it’s rare nowadays that a game comes out with a deliberately comical bent.

One of these very games has just gone gold. Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is a tongue-in cheek shooter that has a fictional video game action star Matt Hazard returning to action to battle an enemy who seeks to go into his past and stop him before his illustrious career can begin. The hilarious title will be available for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC beginning March 3rd.

If you’re the kind that has to have every version of a console, whatever it may be, you better mark April 5th on your calenders.

Nintendo has recently announced via a press release that the latest version of the Nintendo DS handheld console, the DSi, will hit North American shelves on April 5th.

The Nintendo DSi will retail for $169.99 and come in both blue and black. Don’t know what the DSi is? It’s an updated version of the Nintendo DS handheld that includes a built in camera, updated mic, and SD slot, of course.

They might not have had the long-lived success of their mop-haired predecessors, but there’s no doubt that Nirvana was one of the most influential bands since the Beatles. Having launched a whole new era of rock music that still bears the earmarks of its past influences.

Seven tracks from the band have now been released from the Rock Band DLC back catalog for Wii owners of the game. All seven tracks are original master recordings from their 1991 album Nevermind. Each track costs $2, and you can choose from “Territorial Pissings”, “Breed”, “Lounge Act”, “On A Plain”, “Polly”, “Something in The Way” and “Stay Away”. The tracks were officially released yesterday, so get downloading.

The most horrifying, bone chilling new IP to come out of the survival horror franchise in some time is the sci-fi title Dead Space. While the Resident Evil series still offers excellent gameplay and a riveting storyline, it’s been a long time since they delivered any really unexpected horrors. Ordinary people mutating into bizarre creatures and hordes of slavering zombies aren’t exactly surprising anymore, but the necromorphs of Dead Space brought renewed terror to gaming.

EA has officially announced today Dead Space Extraction, a new chapter in the horror series that’s been designed and built from the ground up for the Nintendo Wii. Instead of simply retooling the story, gameplay and graphics of the Xbox 360 and PS3 title, this game is entirely new. It’s a prequel that tells the story that leads up to the events on the USG Ishimura. The plot centers around a group of colonists attempting to escape a horrible infection on the Aegis VII mining colony. It’ll feature a new, female protagonist, new weapons and gameplay along with co-op multiplayer. It’s being developed by EA Redwood Shores and is currently set to ship in Fall of 2009.

Newgrounds just recently released a new and quirky puzzle game–it’s called Block Drop, and its one of the most infuriating and yet calming gaming games I’ve ever played.  No, seriously–that’s not a contradiction in terms.

For those of you wondering how such a thing can be, it’s easy.  Block Drop puts you in charge of this tiny little what looks like a waterdrop that has to hop from one block to the next.  The blocks are on different levels, and spaced at different intervals.  You, meanwhile, can only hop in the four cardinal directions–up, down, left and right, no diagonals, and only for one or two spaces.

The calming comes from the background music, a smooth neo-classical piano solo, and the backgrounds, a sky at dusk steadily fading into a night so full of stars that even country dwellers, who can normally see a panoply of stars in the night sky, might well be amazed.

The infuriating comes from the fact that you can only jump two spaces when holding the shift key, so if you go to make a two-block jump without holding your shift key, you’ll fall off the blocks.  I did that several times and it was no less infuriating with each passing try, even though the worst that happened was that I fell in a pool of water.

So all things considered, Block Jump will make an excellent chill game when you’ve got a few minutes to spare, or when you’re having a really rough day.  You can even just let the music go as a calm background to your day and barely notice the difference.

I’m not normally a huge fan of sports games.  Most of the time it feels like the same thing I’ve played before, over and over.  I mean, do we really need a new Madden every year?  For a while there, that’s exactly what we were getting.  Whether we needed it–whether we WANTED it–or not, we were getting it.  Sure, they’d tack on enough new features to make it feel slightly different, but it was still the same basic concept over and over again.

One place where the difference almost feels necessary is racing games.  And today, after trying Pure, I can say that sometimes, the same old same old is exactly what we need.

In Pure, you play as one of a group of racers, out for glory on the Pure circuit for their own reasons.  There’s a brother and sister rivalry, there’s the son of a seventies rock star who wants to make a name for himself and get out of his father’s shadow, there’s a Japanese wildman who just has a gift, there’s a girl who worked three jobs to afford her own ATV, and so on and so forth right down the line.  But these stories are little more than window dressing for the main event–getting on your fully customizable ATV, going to some of the most beautiful places on earth, and blasting through them at somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred miles an hour on a motorized seat with wheels that doesn’t have so much as a roll bar.

When I say “fully customizable”, I mean it–you’ll build an ATV literally from scratch, starting with the frame, going through such necessary parts as brakes and engines and even working your way up to such superfluities as hand guards and Nerf bars.  You’ll even get to decide the COLOR of most components, and add on decals and stickers and everything but a Hello Kitty bobblehead on the handlebars.  Which would be kind of cool, but I digress.

And when I was talking about a roll bar, you’ll want one.  These beautiful places–a mountainous island in Italy, an old logging camp in Montana, a crater in New Zealand–have lots of steep drops and big angles that you will, not surprisingly, use as jumps.  I’m no mathematician, but if I’m getting the scale right some of these drops are a couple hundred feet up.  And being the sort that you are, of course, you’ll take these huge drops as an opportunity to flip or spin your ATV in mid-flight or jump off it temporarily or do all sorts of irresponsible and potentially fatal things in mid-flight.  These are called “tricks”, and you will have the opportunity to do plenty of them.  The interesting thing is, if you DON’T do these tricks, you will be refused access to your nitrous oxide boosters, which is likely to put you at a serious disadvantage in the race.

This of course makes no sense in the real world–normally nitrous boosters are on a switch, and the switch really doesn’t care if you “catch mad sick air” before you use it, but this is a game so allowances have to be made.  Also, nitrous tanks will not refill mid-race because they have such respect for your ability to perform tricks…but again, game, allowances, yadda yadda.

But the key thing to take away here is that Pure is an unsettlingly adrenaline-fuelled experience.  The next-gen graphics really do help underscore the beauty of your surroundings, while at the same time also giving you the feeling of being about to wet yourself after a couple hundred foot drop off the side of a cliff.  While you’re hanging off the back of the ATV doing something called a “Superman”.  The music is a fair accompanyment, but I’d like to hear a little more variety from some more recognizable names.  Come on, guys–was Blink 182 that busy?  A little Offspring, perhaps?

Still, Pure is a surprising experience that should get your heart pumping as you do horrifying and ridiculous things you’d never do in real life.  At the very least, a fun rental, and if you’re already into ATVs then just go whole hog and get the game.

Having already unveiled itself last week, Robot Entertainment today announced that the independent studio is currently working on additional content for Ensemble Studio’s final project – Halo Wars. The new company, founded by Ensemble co-founder Tony Goodman, will also provide multiplayer and community support for Age of Empires and Halo Wars.

Other than Halo Wars, they are currently working on an original property of which no details were provided.

The studio currently employs 45 staffers, all of whom jumped ship from Ensemble, with Goodman serving as CEO.

Continuing its annual event, Blizzard today announced that BlizzCon 2009 will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22.

As expected, the event will let attendees play upcoming games from the studio, including highly anticipated titles StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3. Attendees will also get to participate in discussion panels, tournaments and community contests.

Due to the popularity of BlizzCon, Blizzard has expanded the show from three to four convention halls.

“We’ve been amazed by the incredible response to each of our previous BlizzCon events,” said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. “We look forward to this new opportunity to meet Blizzard gamers from around the world.”

More information is expected as the event draws closer.