The Ten Commandments, basis of moral law for both the Jewish and Christian faiths alike have often come under fire by comedians. I can recall one bit in particular where George Carlin whittles down/condenses the list into a mere two or three general guidelines. Even some Christians will acknowledge that while certain commandments still make a lot of sense (murder, theft, etc.) others might be a little out of date.

It seems that despite the country’s long history of Christianity the British aren’t very well informed regarding the ten commandments. In celebration of the the release of god simulator The Sims 3 EA did some polling and found that more than a quarter of British youths 11-16 can’t recall even a single one of the commandments and only six percent of British children and adults can recall all ten.

The revised and updated list of commandments has been assembled and will be carved into two limestone tablets (the same type of stones Moses had been given) and presented to the Houses of Parliament this week as a benchmark of where public opinion stands regarding common moral standards in modern Britain.

Here’s what the 1,000 British citizens polled came to an agreement on regarding the commandments:

Modernised Traditional Commandments (ranked in order of importance to the British public)
1. Do not kill
2. Do not steal
3. Do not cheat on your partner with another person
4. Do not envy others
5. Respect your parents
6. Do not accuse a person of something they did not do

New Commandments
7. Respect all people regardless of race, religion or sexuality
8. Do not commit acts of terrorism
9. Respect and protect the planet
10. Do not be motivated by greed

New Dead Space: Extraction trailer at E3
Pop’n Music for Wii announced, doesn’t stay true to arcade version
Final Fantasy XIV might come to Xbox 360
THQ’s UFC 2009 ships 2 million copies
ADM showcases DirectX 11 GPU
Elebits Game Review–Deranged Plot, Weirder Play
Xbox Live Originals Nearing End
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker coming to the PSP
Bethesda dates new Fallout 3 DLC, releases trailer
Point Lookout First Impressions
South Park Xbox Live Arcade title out this year
New Super Mario Bros. Wii debut trailer
Super Mario Galaxy 2 E3 debut trailer
Guantanamo Game Halted In Light Of Controversy
New Super Mario Bros. Coming To Wii
Kratos In PSP Soul Calibur
Miyamoto confirms new Zelda Wii game in 2010

Dead Space: Extraction is sure to be one of the hottest games this year released for Nintendo’s Wii. Luckily, Visceral Games and EA took the stage at E3 to show off the above trailer showcasing said game.

Unfortunately, it’s under a minute long but it does show off the beautiful visuals of Dead Space: Extraction that are sure to push the Wii’s graphical capabilities.

However, it does show some gameplay which, from the brief looks of it, looks to be pretty damn fun. Dead Space: Extraction will be out for the Nintendo Wii on September 29th of this year.

If you’ve ever played the arcade game Pop’n Music you’ll know that more than half the fun is smacking the different colored buttons in conjunction with the on screen happenings.

Well, Konami has just announced a Wii version Pop’n Music and unfortunately, it’s nothing like its arcade counterpart. Instead of smacking multi colored buttons you will be moving the Nunchuk and Wii Mote “up, down, left and right”.

Yup, the game’s been childified. If you still want to get your hands on this sure-to-be dissapointing version of Pop’n Music you can do so this fall.

Read (Joystiq)

Square Enix held a press conference where they answered questions from the lurking E3 press. One of the questions were regarding Final Fantasy XIV, and whether it would come to the Xbox 360. Square Enix representatives said that the company is looking at “all options” when it comes to platforms for the game. This is despite what Sony said at their E3 conference, where they claimed exclusivity on the title. The game is currently only officially only coming to the PS3 and PC.

THQ has revealed that UFC 2009, the fighting game based on the UFC license, has shipped (not necessarily sold) 2 million retail copies on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 since its launch on May 19. THQ, which is in the midst of financial restructuring, reported that expected revenues because of the success of UFC 2009 were increased to “$180 million range”. THQ also recently released Red Faction: Guerilla, although it’s far too early to announce

E3 is not the only trade show that’s going on these days. In Taiwan, the Computex 09 show is also well under way, and one of the big events was AMD showcasing world’s first DirectX 11 graphics chip. Windows 7 will bring along DX11 when released later this year, and AMD will have a graphics card ready. One of the key benefits of DX11 is GPGPU and better support for multicore processors. Arch rival Nvidia is also expected to have a DX11 card ready for Windows 7 launch.

I have to hand it to the Wii, I really do, because this is the system that seems bound and determined to, at all costs, take CHANCES.  They will do the strangest things for little or no more reason than THEY CAN.  And the perfect evidence of that concept is found in a little game from Konami called Elebits, out now for the Nintendo Wii.

See, this game may have one of the most insane plots EVER.  A vaguely earthlike society–I say this because there are some sheer impossibilities going on here–has advanced to about twentieth-century technology because they discovered electricity a long time ago.  Nothing odd there, except their electricity doesn’t come from wind or solar or coal.  This society gets its electricity thanks to a race of tiny little creatures called Elebits, which fell to the planet’s surface on a giant lightning bolt.  The people of the planet promptly enslaved the Elebits by jamming them into their appliances and using their electrical power to run their blenders and heaters and computers and whatnot.  Oh, sure, the game SAYS that the people and Elebits were FRIENDS, but I don’t buy a word of it.  After all, who’s coming out ahead in that little arrangement?  It sure isn’t the Elebits.

But anyway–you’ll be playing an eight year old kid of such spectacular shortsightedness that he wishes the Elebits didn’t exist, throwing the planet into a pitch black barbarism just so his Elebit-researcher parents would spend more time with him.  It’s about the time he actually articulates that wish that the entire town goes dark.  The Elebits are asleep on the job, and its up to you, armed with your dad’s capture gun, to tear the house apart in search of the Elebits so you can get them back to work and watch your favorite TV show.

See what I mean?  This game couldn’t be more deranged if you were required to wear the Wiimote like a hat.

You’ll be blundering around your house, using your “capture gun“, which is basically a portable tractor beam that apparently doesn’t require Elebit power to work at the lowest levels, to lift things and shake things and throw things around so you can find those lazy little bastards and return them to their electrical enslavement.

This is actually fairly entertaining, at least for a while, until you start getting into narrow rooms and get hampered by a “breakage limit” in which you’re suddenly no longer allowed to smash things open in search of Elebits.  I call that a cheat, myself–I was gleefully throwing potted plants around the room without consequence and now, all of a sudden, I break open that vase to look for Elebits and it’s game over?  Screw that, says I, with all the emphasis it deserves.

But still, Elebits is absolutely a departure from literally everything that came before it.  I can’t think of anything even vaguely resembling a parallel on this one and it shows.  This is a fun game that does start getting in its own way after a while, but there’s still fun enough in this one to make it a solid rental, if nothing else.

Microsoft’s “Xbox Live Originals” service allowed gamers who were afflicted with a twinge of nostalgia or an unfortunate low cash flow to download some classic titles like Halo and Fable. It was a good idea, except for the fact that they’re all available for an even lower price online in the original disc format. As you might imagine Microsoft hasn’t been seeing quite the high sales from this offering they had initially hoped for.

They’ve announced that there’s only one game left for the Xbox Originals service. After that gets posted Microsoft will leave the games available for purchase of course but will be focusing their efforts in other directions. They haven’t announced exactly what the game is, but smart money of course points at Halo 2. With Microsoft having abandoned backwards compatibility updates some time ago this means that to play any neglected favorites you’ll have to go out and find a used Xbox. Hey, at least those don’t have any RRoD issues.

It looks like Sony has finally taken a hint and contracted one of their most loyal developers, Konami, to give the PSP’s game library a little wake up call — Recently announced during E3 is Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a PSP exclusive that isn’t a port in any way shape or form.

Peace Walker apparantly takes place 10 years after the happenings of Metal Gear Solid 3 and stars none other than Solid Snake. The best part, however, is that Hideo Kojima will be diverting his attention away from the Xbox 360 Metal Gear to focus completely on Peace Walker which means it’s sure to be a hit.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will be released for the PSP sometime in 2010.