It was recently announced that EA’s upcoming Wii titled, Dead Space: Extraction will in fact use the new MotionPlus technology.

But what will it be used for? Considering the game is an FPS and the Wiimote has pretty much no problem interpreting basic aiming, is the MotionPlus really necessary?

Well, maybe there will be other weapons in the game like a crowbar or something of the sort that would take advantage of the MotionPlus technology. I guess we’ll have to wait and find out when it ships at the end of this year. 

Read (Joystiq)

What you see above, you will probably never see in real life. However, for some, it could be a sought after product.

It’s only a concept but basically what it is, is a Playstation 3 controller that has the ability to twist. Twist? Yeah, I can’t really think of any examples what it would be used for but yeah, twist!

Coming soon, Guitar Hero: Twist.

Read (Coroflot)

I’m really very fond of RPGs–I love how deep a storyline can get with those, and how easily you can be pulled along.  I love that role playing games often require a company to put out its very best in graphics technology, and also its best in sound design.  Indeed, a role playing game must often be the most polished title a company can release, packing innovation and clever game modes and variety like no tomorrow into one handy package on the Xbox 360.

This is why I enjoyed Blue Dragon, a game that took the best parts of Japanese animation and coupled them to a role playing game that made for hours of fun.

It’s a massive story, requiring several DVDs, and involves a boy named Shu and several of his friends given the power to control their shadows as weapons.  They can alter their shadows according to several different kinds of “Shadow Change”, to focus on attack, stealth or defense, among others.  From there, Shu and company must set out to save the land conquered by evil aliens.  And when I say evil, I mean evil, as in that kind of gleeful evil that’s downright sociopathic.  Think Kefka with godlike powers and you’ll get the basic idea behind the evil that’s infesting Shu’s world, and why it so desperately needs to be stomped out.
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Another round of joy comes to us from the good folks at Armor Games, and this time it’s called Crop Circles.

At first glance, Crop Circles is another fifty-wave tower defense game.  And the first glance will prove surprisingly correct on this run.  The key difference to this one, not always found in a tower defense game, is that you’ll get to establish the path the aliens that are invading your farm have to take.  From there, it’s a fairly simple matter to lay down ordnance in suppressing, interlocking fields of fire sufficient to wipe out the alien horde and keep it out of your barn, because who KNOWS what those filthy alien scum will do to your livestock.

Casual gaming in the extreme, if you’re a fan of tower defense games then you’ll definitely like this newest edition.  But if you’re not into tower defense, even vaguely, then Crop Circles will prove worse than an M. Night Shyamalan movie about them.

If interesting puzzles that play quickly are to your taste, then you’ll love the new game from Addicting Games, Bubble Quod.

In Bubble Quod. due to outside dangers that are poorly defined, you’ve sealed yourself in a bubble that provides you with invulnerability to all dangers.  But, the downside to this is that soon, your bubble comes to feel like a prison, and thus you’ll have to free yourself by popping the bubble on various nails and hooks sticking out of the walls around you.

So apparently you’re invulnerable to all harm except pointy things.  But we’re not here for the story, we’re here for the bubble.  You’ll have to roll your bubble around and use springboards and fans and oil slicks and everything in between to burst your bubble for thirty full stages.  The result is actually fairly entertaining, and plays rapidly with a solid fun factor.  Decent music and fair quality graphics keep the experience from souring.

You could definitely play a whole lot worse than Bubble Quod–I know I have–especially for the whopping price of free.

One of the best games, bar none, that I’ve played for the Xbox 360 yet is Mass Effect.  Chances are you’ve had a chance to see this one by now, so I’m not going to be hugely worried about spoilers.

And if you haven’t already taken a run at this magnificent sci-fi epic, then I really, deeply feel for you.  This sucker is unbelievable.

Basically, you play as Commander Shepard, a man on a mission to save a galaxy in turmoil by whatever means available.  You’ll fight smugglers and terrorists and indigenous space monsters and all manner of robot in your pursuit of justice and peace for the galaxy.

This is one of those rare games where your decisions count, and not just on some arbitrary bar that tells you if you’re lawful good or chaotic evil, either.  Helping people out may net you new and interesting items, while selling them out could get you a load of raw cash.  What will you do?

There is a LOT to love about this–the varied sets and characters, the different modes of play (sometimes you’ll be driving a dune buggy around, sometimes you’ll be neck-deep in a firefight, and other times you’ll have to try and talk your way out of trouble or possibly into it depending on what you want to do.  You’ll proceed around in groups of three, so you actually have some potential to make complimenting squads that work together.  Even better, all the characters have backstories that you can find out more about as you progress through the game.  Or, conversely, if you couldn’t care less about how the blue-skinned alien kangaroo babe managed to land on your ship and with your team, well, you don’t even need to find out. You can just play the game and play like crazy until you come out the other side.  Your call.  You can even go so far as to have sex with your teammates—that’s where you heard all that stuff about the lesbian sex scenes in this game.  There are technically a couple of them, but you have to go through quite a bit of conversation to get that far.  It’s not like they just hop in bed with you for no clear reason—it’s actually part of the narrative.

There are down sides here.  If you notice similarities between this and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, it’s because both were made by BioWare, the same company.  They clearly used a lot of the same techniques in the development of Mass Effect.  The engines are the biggest similarity—but then, why would that be a problem?  It’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic we’re talking about here. That game was all sorts of good.

So if you’re craving an RPG with lots of sci-fi elements, a huge plot and some humor, and you don’t mind more than a few similarities to an older, but high quality, game, then you’re in for all the treat you can handle with Mass Effect.

It sounds like something from a cheesey sitcom. Bond trader UBS AG put in a buy order for some of their stock. In the sitcom a bumbling investment banker places what he thinks is an order for 31 million yen worth of stock (around $315,000 US Dollars). An associate/friend/whomever takes a look over his shoulder and notices that the man accidentally put in an order for 3 trillion yen, or a whopping 31 billion US dollars.

The rest of the episode would be devoted to the bumbling banker’s schemes and plans to infiltrate an office building and alter the records to correct his mistake. Hijinks would follow, leading to an inevitable triumph of the plan, only for someone to inform the bumbling banker that with a few phone calls and a little paperwork you could cancel the bungled order. In the end that’s all they had to do, and Capcom had to cancel the order for the gold plated Street Fighter cabinets, diamond computer mice and silk mouse pads.

Ubisoft sent out word that the upcoming “Epilogue” downloadable expansion for Prince of Persia has been delayed beyond its expected Thursday release. It is now set to hit PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on March 5; PC gamers won’t get the expansion.

The DLC will expand the game beyond its original ending, offering a new mission that investigates the newly corrupted Underground Palace. There will also be one new enemy and player attack, and the pack is said to develop the awkward relationship between the Prince and Elika.

The Wii has quite a few peripherals, and Nintendo plans on adding more to it, as the company today updated its Wii website with information on a new, upcoming Wii controller.

Dubbed “classic controller PRO”, the controller will add extra shoulder buttons and hand grips to the original classic controller concept. The PRO, as with the classic controller, will apparently still need to be wired to a Wii Remote.

Japan will be getting it first this summer. No pricing details were given.

After being delayed to this month, the first micro-expansion for space strategy title Sins of a Solar Empire has finally launched.

Selling for $10 on Stardock’s Impulse service, the expansion adds new starbases, mine fields and other upgrades to the spaceship fleets. Dubbed “Entrenchment”, it marks the first of three planned micro-expansions to the game, all set to be released over the next year.

Stardock has already announced the next expansion, which will focus primarily on enhancing the diplomacy features of the game.