I admit to having no interest in the genre, but I often find myself pitying RTS fans due to the long lag time between releases of titles worth playing. With some PC games if you purchased a top of the line system when the original came out you might still be able to play the sequel. If you still had your PC from when Starcraft was released it’d probably struggle to load the trailer for Starcraft 2.

Luckily for RTS fans a survey suggests development has begun on Command and Conquer 4, the final chapter in the Tiberium saga begun nearly fifteen years ago in the original title. The RTS classic comes back with some new changes and improvements. They’re boasting the Crawler, the first ever mobile base in an RTS game (yes, there have been games where the base could move, but presumably this one can move and still retain all its other functions while doing so) as well as some RPG flavors to the game.

As players battle in any mode, whether single player, multiplayer or skirmish they’ll gain experience points which allow you to unlock new units, abilities, equipment and upgrades to take the fight harder to your opponents in your next battle. Cooperative campaigns are making a comeback so players can get a friend in on the action as well in addition to huge five on five multiplayer matches with new objective modes as well as the standard gameplay.

None of these features are exactly confirmed though since they’re all simply mentioned in the survey, but since the Crawler is mentioned in the headline I’m guessing that’s a big favorite.

I’m generally not given to hyperbole, especially in the headlines of pieces I write, but there’s just no other way to put this.  Mario Kart Wii, for the Wii, may well be the best racing game I’ve played yet.

There really isn’t much of a plot here to speak of, but basically, you play as one of the various characters from the Nintendo universe, from King Boo to Wario to Diddy Kong and all the way back around to the standards.  You’ll then mount a go kart, or a motorcycle, at three varying levels of engine power and proceed to run amok on a series of wild tracks.

That may be it for the plot–and yes, by any standard this game has virtually no functioning narrative to speak of–but that’s not it for the game itself.  The game itself, you see, is a riot of fun things to do as you drive your go kart or motorcycle on a panoply of tracks with all sorts of different designs.

There’s a whole lot of fun involved in driving through a shopping mall (the Coconut Center) at breakneck speeds, whether you’re doing it on a go kart, or the admittedly much more fun motorcycle.  Seriously–who here hasn’t pictured the sheer amount of mindless fun involved in riding a dirt bike through a mall?  Bouncing up stairs and escalators, jumping fountains, tearing around columns in a beautiful slalom?  It’s fun on a bun, that’s what it is, plain and simple.  Though I have to admit, my time spent driving on the Rainbow Road left a lot to be desired.  Just try driving on a track several hundred miles above the Earth’s surface with no rails or anything else to keep you on the track and a whole bunch of lunatic drivers looking to get ahead of you?  I still get chills.

The controls are what make this really special.  If you don’t want to shell out for the Wii wheel, which is pretty ridiculous when you look at it, then you can simply hold your Wiimote like a steering wheel at nine and three and steer that way.  The controls are almost shockingly smooth and responsive, if a little twitchy at the higher engine levels, and do a pretty solid job of approximating actual steering.

Even better, there are tons of characters and karts and bikes and tracks and everything else that you can think of available to unlock, so there’s lots of value in charging around all the various tracks in single player mode.  For the completionists in the audience this will be an absolute nirvana.  There are those who’ll be turned off by the fact that the unlockables are only available in single player mode as opposed to any of them being found in the multiplayer modes, but this is a fairly small issue when compared to the sheer amount of stuff to do here.

It’s great to find a Wii game that has plenty to it and doesn’t result in a sore arm or a general feeling of disappointment, and Mario Kart Wii is just that game.  Single player or multiplayer, you’re sure to have a good time with this one if you even vaguely enjoy a good racing game.

While piracy, the illegal copying and distribution of media is a threat to the music, fim and gaming industries theft is a big issue. When retailers calculate their anticipated revenue and profits they factor in a certain amount of what is known as ‘shrink’, retail jargon for theft. There have been many attempts to prevent this and various techniques and technologies have been used, but none are perfect.

The Entertainment Merchants Association has just released a study showing that a new ‘point of sale activation’ technology could increase media sales by as much as six billion and reduce costs by up to $800 million. If this technology is put into play, anyone who nabs a disc and sneaks out of a store will get home to find that their game, movie or cd isn’t anything other than a fancy coaster. In order to get a working product you’ll have to have the disc activated by the staff behind the counter. The EMA is now looking into the cost of deploying this technology which, if cost-effective could be in retailers by late 2010.

While many point out that for many retailers it’s more often the staff that are stealing games than anyone else, this technology would also discourage theft by shipping companies that transport the merchandise to the retailer. It’s unknown how this would work for online retailers like Amazon, but with most retailers using established shipping companies like UPS and FedEx one has to assume that with the level of information they record regarding their shipments it’ll be simpler to avoid thefts.

While their prospective owners must love them for raking in endless streams of revenue, many musicians have expressed their distaste for music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Joining those ranks are Jack White of the White Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Speaking at a press conference for the upcoming documentary ‘It Might Get Loud’ both artists voiced disdain at the popularity of these games.

“It’s depressing to have a label come and tell you that [Guitar Hero] is how kids are learning about music and experiencing music,” said Jack White, continuing that while he doesn’t care what format people listen to their music in it’s “a little sad” if video games are the only way to get your music into their hands/ears. Page agreed, stating that people don’t learn anything from playing them.

Are these games really where kids are learning about their music? If so, they’re probably getting more exposure to older songs than anything else. From everything I’ve seen playing these games the playlists have mostly three kinds of songs: classic rock songs that didn’t cost much to get the rights to; popular, canned generic rock music and finally songs by somewhat popular yet relatively unknown bands who’ll sign off their songs for a pittance in the hope of getting a greater fanbase. These days most musicians can propagagate themselves enough through viral marketing and free publicity via websites like Youtube and Myspace. As far as learning anything? Playing Guitar Hero teaches you exactly the same thing that listening to music on its own does: that music is fun.

If you missed out on a chance to get your hands on one of the Street Fight IV FightSticks, and are planning on picking up Tekken 6 you should check out the recently unveiled wireless fight sticks (pictured above). These are the same fight sticks we mentioned in a previous post earlier today, so dont’ be confused.

Shown above is the official Tekken 6 Wireless Fight Stick bundle which includes the game, the controller and an art book. For those who care, the stick was made by HORI, not MadCatz.

Finally, the bundle will be made available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and cost $150 for both. The different between the two, however, is that the Xbox 360 version is white and the PS3 version is black.

Read (Joystiq)

The traditional unveiling of a game’s box art always happens when the community has stopped buzzing about a game. It does make sense, publishers want more hype etc. But anyways — Activision is proud to show off the box art for their upcoming Guitar Hero 5.

So yeah, check out the box art above and prepare for its September 1st release date on the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and Wii.

Any bets on how long Activision will continue the Guitar Hero franchise until the community grows tired? I have my money on at least Guitar Hero 15.

Analysts expect game market to hit $92 billion by 2015
3D Realms spent $20 million on DNF
Tekken 6 coming October 27
Mortal Kombat 9 Returning To Bloody Roots
Colored Wii, Wii Remotes pictured
Tony Hawk Ride controller to work with other games
Microsoft releases list of Avatar rules
The Conduit gets its first television spot
Shia LaBeuof isn’t into Wii, says it’s for amateurs
Microsoft CEO apologizes for misleading Natal statement
Capcom won’t stop supporting Playstation
Amazon cuts prices on PS3 games, today only
Take-Two law suit reveals Duke Begins
Mass Effect DLC announcement this week?
Rockstar will port GTA: Chinatown Wars to PSP
Let’s Tap Game Review–Let’s Not And Say We Did
Moore Challenges Obama To Try EA Sports Active

It’s common knowledge that the game industry is huge, much larger than the movie and the music industry. Combined.

Analysts from Global Industry Analysts Inc. predict that the market will hit a staggering $91.96 billion in the year 2015.

The current game market is at about half of that, which means a massive growth is ahead of us, despite the financial crisis.

In an escalating court battle with Take Two over Duken Nukem Forever, developer 3D Realms has revealed that they spent $20 million of their own money on Duken Nukem Forever development, on top of the millions received from Take Two for the project. 3DR also revealed that development was supposed to be complete in 2010, but was suspended when the developer went bankrupt in April 2009.

Voodoo Extreme has more details here, including official court documents filed by 3D Realms.