A mere month and a bit on from Rock Band being released in Europe and Harmonix have now confirmed in an interview with IGN that Rock Band 2 will be released this September for the XBox 360 and later in the year for the Wii, PS2 and PS3. In the interview Dan Teasdale (lead designer for RB2) teased us with some details on the game, the most important one being that all past, current and future DLC tracks will work in both versions of the game.  Also, the band world tour mode will be given a total overhaul to make it more ‘party friendly’, and an option to restrict which songs can be chosen for random playlist, so no more Green Grass & High Tides every time!

As expected, all of the original RB instruments will work in RB2, and the new guitar is pictured above.  Harmonix are also actively encouraging 3rd party companies to make instruments for the game, saying that it give players the choice to buy the instruments that suit them best just like a real musician would.  The overall aim is to improve the experience of the game, to make it more realistic.  Apparently also included are modes to help aid the transition from Rock Band expert to real musician, as Harmonix (being heavily made up of musicians) feel that is the next natural step in the process, and a great way to introduce kids and get them in their own REAL rock band.

More details will be released at E3 in a few weeks, but the developers are claiming that they have the best line-up of songs ever, but will not say who just yet.

Read the full interview here.

The Namco classic, Soul Calibur, is this weeks XBLA release and will hit the marketplace on Wednesday for 800 points. This 3D fighter was originally released on the Sega Dreamcast back in 1999 and was the squeal to Soul Edge on the PS1.  Back in it’s day, SC was one of the slickest looking and smoothest games around, and having been given a full HD facelift I expect we will be looking at something that will resemble the Xbox version Soul Calibur 2 running on a 360 (as it was one of the few Xbox games that ran in 720p!).

Clever timing here though, with Soul Calibur 4 due to release in just over a month seems that Namco want to refresh everyones memory as to why the Soul series of games is so good.

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Not content with being misled by the sarcastic and sadistic GlaDOS all the way through Valve’s FPP (first-person puzzler) Portal, a very clever chap called Ryan van Middlesworth has now come up with a patch that will allow you to use GlaDOS’s soothing tones as the voice for you sat-nav, with a bit of software called GLaGPS.

Before you all rush to download the software from here, it’s worth noting that this will only work with the Garmin Nuvi for now, so all you TomTom owners will need to wait or buy a new sat-nav.

I’m just waiting for the first report of it telling somebody to turn right and them ending up in a giant pit of fire…

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Today at its Worldwide Invitational event, Blizzard ended weeks of speculation and announced that Diablo 3 is coming.  No dates or specs were given, just that it’s on the horizon…  For the unintiated, the Diablo series is a point and click, hack and slash roleplay game, that sees your hero having to defeat the evil demon lord Diablo and his evil brothers Baal and Mephisto and prevent them from bring a reign of terror to the world.

Some minor details have been released however, they are:-

• The game will focus on cooperative play, with multiplayer available over battlenet.

• The game will have full zoom capability and a hotbar to access skills.

• No more potions! Floating red orbs can be picked up for immediate health recovery.

• Armor will be specific to class and provide unique appearances.

• A new class, the Witch Doctor, who uses ancient tribal magic. The abilities include Mass Confusion, Soul Harvest, Firebomb, Horrify (scare enemies away) and Locust Swarm (locusts devour enemies). The Witch Doctor can also summon pets like mongrels. When a mongrel is near its death, the player can put it down but destroy nearby enemies in the process.

• All classes will be available in male or female form.

• The game features destructible environments. For example, a wall can be smashed down to crush enemies or the player can smash through walls and doors.

• Some enemies appear larger in scale than the previous games, as was the case with a massive beast called the Siegebreaker Assault Beast.

• Deckard Cain will return.

For screenshots, wallpapers, videos and more information, visit the official site (at the newly acquired) Diablo3.com.

And I’m spent…

Well, it’s been a whole two years since that announcement, and the end of June 2008 is finally upon us. That means that Bill Gates is standing down from his position as CEO of the company he founded all those years ago, to work on his charity, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Apparently some balding gibbon creature is going to be taking over his position.

Seriously though, while I’ll be the first to admit that I use a Mac and Linux at home, I can’t help but admire old Billy boy and the huge contribution he’s made to the world of computing. From MS-DOS (which they didn’t write, but we’ll forgive them for that) to the heady heights of, er, Windows Vista, the world would be a very different place without those boys from Redmond, Washington.

There’s a great tribute to Bill Gates today over at Ars Technica to mark the occasion, and it’s much better than anything I could have written, so read that and pretend you’re still here on Team Teabag.

I wonder what direction Microsoft will take now? Will they carry on with the same old same-old, invent the next big thing, or even collapse into obscurity? I guess that only time will tell.

If you really, really love Guitar Hero (as we do), then you may or may not love these new action figures from McFarlane toys. Not that any of the characters from the GH games were particularly memorable, but I guess your very own God of Rock (pictured above) would be pretty cool, even if he’s holding the wrong guitar.

I know, I know, I’m such a pedant.

After that last post, I think we all need something healthy and worryingly homoerotic to bring us back to our senses…

So here’s a video from the 80s on how to make bread.

Those fascinating folks over at CNET UK’s Crave blog have gone and done it again, with a video-riffic guide on how to cheat at latest and greatest videogame health sensation Wii Fit. That’s right, some fat English guy imparts on us his 5 awesome tips on how to cheat the system and not have to do any exercise at all!

• First, we have… Lying about your height so it lowers your BMI!
• Second, there’s… Telling the game you’re actually wearing heavy clothing!
• Third up… Jogging without actually jogging - by waving your arm about!
• Fourthly, there’s skiing sitting down, by gently tapping the balance board!
• Finally, and this one’s a doozy, heading footballs while sitting completely still holding the balance board!

Of course, these tips won’t save you from being greasy, unattractive, and dying early from a cholesterol-induced heart attack, and they’ll probably make you feel a bit empty inside for wasting so much money on a fitness game and not actually getting fit - but I’m sure someone can use them.

I’m talking to you, fat-fatty-fat-fat.

If you’ve ever had fantasies about owning a flying (kind of), talking, super-duper fast car, and perhaps using it to terrorise the local criminal fraternity, then you (like me) probably watched just a bit too much Knight Rider back in the ’80s.

Well, now it seems that part of that dream can come true with this Knight Rider sat-nav from Taiwanese manufacturer Mio. Much like the original KITT, it can even talk - when turned on, it greets the user with a familiar “Michael, where do you want to go today?”. It also features some very swish scanning red LEDs which will be instantly familiar to any Knight Rider fan.

The Mio Knight Rider sat nav will be available soon for $270 (about £140) and is worth every penny.

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It may have been almost 40 years since they last released an album, but it seems The Beatles are still in hot demand.  The Financial Times are reporting that representitives for the legendary foursome have held disscussions with both Activision (Guitar Hero) and MTV (Rock Band) with regards to licensing their music for use in the games.  If the deal goes to Activion, I would suggest that ‘Guitar Hero: The Beatles‘ would be looming on the horizon, along with Aerosmith and Metallica, whereas if MTV land the deal the we are looking at bucketloads of DLC for Rock Band.

Personally, I’d love to see MTV get this, while ‘Guitar Hero: The Beatles‘ would be excellent, being able to just download the 30 40 50 or so songs I’d want to play, and only have the songs I want…  As I have a feeling there would be a bit to much Love Me Do era material in GH:TB for my liking.

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