Let's put a smile on that face by checking out Midway's latest batch of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe screenshots, rife with cross-dimensional brawling and enough continuity issues to drive fanboys round the bend. While you enjoy the sight of The Joker blasting Scorpion right out of the Batcave or the Green Lantern putting the squeeze on Shang Tsung, we'll frantically attempt to figure out how Ed Boon managed to steal all our closeted fan fictions.

If these guys don't pummel your fancy, Midway has also informed us that series stalwarts Raiden and Kano will join the game's kombatants, along with the DC universe's Wonder Woman and Deathstoke.

Well, consider us intrigued. From the creators of Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) comes Heavy Rain, an atmospheric new adventure exclusively for the PlayStation 3. This in-game footage, first unveiled at Leipzig's Games Convention, depicts our finely rendered female protagonist investigating a distinctly unsettling house. Be sure to keep watching until the stunning scene at the end, where she bursts out the door and screams to the heavens, "Gotcha, suckas!"

We're sure to learn much, much more as we draw closer to Heavy Rain's forecast 2009 release.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has announced that VidZone, "the online destination for music videos" that we've never heard of, will be offering a free, streaming music video service for the PlayStation 3. The "trial service" is expected to launch in early 2009 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Featuring a "full playlist of videos from hip-hop to punk and heavy metal to classics," VidZone will allow PS3 owners to build playlists and download songs, music videos (!!!) and ringtones "for a small charge."

The best part is that the service will support remote play via the PSP, ideal for those awkward situations when you're out in public and simply must subject yourself and those around you to Kylie Minogue.

No sooner had we ecstatically bid the old d-pad adieu than Microsoft advised that its tweaked Xbox 360 controller is not yet destined for mass distribution. While confirming an October 24 release date with Eurogamer, the publisher noted that the new controller, sporting an "optimized" and not-entirely-awful d-pad, will be released as a Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 tie-in product. As such, it will be "a limited edition promotional item that is only available in Europe, Asia and Latin America while supplies last."

It's also a revolting green.

We've contacted Microsoft in the hopes of ascertaining its US plans for the improved controller, if any.

With game installations, downloadable content and digitally distributed titles cluttering up our PlayStation 3's brain, it comes as little surprise to see Sony announcing yet another SKU with increased storage capacity. The word from its 2008 Games Convention press conference is that a 160 gigglebyte model -- which is otherwise identical to others units -- will be hitting Europe on October 31st, complete with €70 worth of downloadable game content. But is the €449 price tag a trick or a treat?

We're checking with Sony regarding any plans to release this model elsewhere.

Finally. After molesting countless thumbs and ruining everybody's Pac-Man CE scores, the Xbox 360 controller's dismal d-pad looks to be replaced by, well, a functional d-pad. IGN's Martin Robinson claims to have played with a redesigned controller at Leipzig's Games Convention, describing it as "aesthetically identical" to the original (it's actually a sickly green), with "the d-pad sitting in a larger rocker and proving more tactile." The new controller is expected to debut alongside Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 and is thought to have been prompted by the upcoming release of Street Fighter IV.

Good riddance, you worthless, clacking agent of spongy misdirection. Oh, and tell The Duke we said "Hi."

Update: Curses! The pad is a "limited edition, promotional item" for now.

[Thanks, Fenix]

The thing about camp, i.e. the utter failure of seriousness, is that it's often difficult to judge whether it's intentional or not. The live-action cutscenes populating EA's (and Westwood's before that) Command & Conquer games have always had an aura of sincere goofiness about them, the source of which can be traced to somewhat respected actors playing all-too-silly roles all too seriously. But is this done on purpose, or did the director read about "tongue-in-cheek storytelling" in a review somewhere and just decide to go with that?

Either way, we're more than happy to see EA unveil a "star studded" cast (complete list after the break) for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, which includes George Takei, Tim Curry and J.K. Simmons, who plays the "anti-communist U.S. President." Simmons, who doesn't give a wooden nickel about your legacy, thinks video games "are one of the new frontiers for actors" and thought of the role as a "great opportunity for a character actor like me to have some fun."

Also allowed to open her mouth in the press release: Jenny McCarthy, who plays Allied commando Tanya. "What I realized is Red Alert 3 is not just a video game, it's absolutely an interactive movie. This is where the people at home get to move the story forward, and where seeing the plot thicken is a reward for a job well done." In case you weren't aware, "that's really cool."

Red Alert 3 is out on Xbox 360 and PC this fall in both regular and Premier editions.

EA has announced that February 20, 2009, will mark the rather momentous occasion of stereotypical gamers finally venturing into the brightly lit outside world ... in the game. It's the day The Sims 3, the latest interactive simulation of an annoying, fickle, selfish and lazy race of creatures, will be distributed -- both physically and digitally -- to a bunch of annoying, fickle, selfish and lazy creatures.

If you'd like to append "supercilious" to that list of adjectives, you should consider purchasing The Sims 3 Collector's Edition, which will include an exclusive in-game "Italian-style" sports car for you to maneuver through your envious neighborhood (no wonder those floating diamonds are green). Also included in the package will be a Sims Plumbob USB drive, a tips and hints guide, The Sims 3 Plumbob stickers and, oh yes, the game.

British power metal squealers DragonForce will debut a new and inevitably over-the-top single in a Guitar Hero III track pack later this week. Taken from their new album, Ultra Beatdown, "Heroes of Our Time" will no doubt challenge serious shredders with a never-ending string of shifting notes and finger-knot solos when it arrives on Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store on August 21.

The DragonForce Track Pack will also provide two other overwrought songs, namely "Revolution Deathsquad" and "Operation Ground and Pound," from the album dubbed Inhuman Rampage. Expect this one to go for the usual 500 MS Points ($6.25).

[Via press release]

We are all interested in the future. Indeed, as the great Criswell so astutely observed, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." And it wouldn't be much of a life if it wasn't spent playing the latest video games, no doubt powered by trillions of tetraflops and a giggle-inducing number of gigabytes. Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has seen this future (it's where he bought his Crysis-capable computer), and has concluded that the next generation of consoles -- as in the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4 -- could arrive in 2011 or 2012.

Discussing "The Future of Gaming Graphics" at Leipzig's GC Developer Conference, Yerli estimated that Microsoft and Sony's next offerings would arrive "in three to four years' time, although there are good reasons why it should be 2010 already...but we'll see." Crytek, which most recently worked on Crysis Warhead, has also pinned 2012 as the debut year for its next in-house engine and follow-up to last year's impressive CryEngine2.

Regardless of timing, we're pleased to see that not everybody thinks the current cavalcade of consoles is our last.

When Jeff Gerstmann bemoaned Too Human's "monotonous combat and dated approach to cooperative play," he was unknowingly shunted from the group of haves to the considerably less illustrious group of have nots -- as in have not a clue to comprehend Too Human's unyielding explosion of uniqueness and innovation. "I think we took for granted how innovative the game was," remarks the game's humble director, Denis Dyack.

Speaking to OXM at the game's UK launch, Dyack explains that a lot of the negative reaction to the game's demo (and presumably, the final version) has its roots in the provocative fear of the unknown. "But what we're also seeing is for the people who don't like it, generally just don't get it. And it's because we've created something so innovative and different," he says. "It's ironic, it just shows that human nature of if you don't understand something, you immediately attack it. It's pretty interesting in that regard."

Consider this a plea to game designers everywhere: Please tone down all that rampant innovation, lest we become embroiled in confusion and hostility and ultimately give your game a six out of ten.

Well, that was easy. 2K Games has complied with our subliminal request that it release the PlayStation 3 version of sublime, submerged shooter BioShock in North America on October 21. There was some mental resistance to our suggestions of a worldwide release, however, so you international folks will just have to make do with October 24.

BioShock comes to the PlayStation 3 sporting the same aquatic utopia-turned-dystopia that made the game one of 2007's best, along with Trophies, a new "Survivor" difficulty level and challenge rooms, to be released as downloadable content "shortly after launch."

Cigar-chomping testosterone factory foiling alien invasion news now, with word that the Duke Nukem game you've all been waiting for -- again -- may be arriving imminently. Speaking to Shacknews, 3D Realms' George Broussard has confirmed that the Xbox Live Arcade version of Duke Nukem 3D has defeated the development galaxy's most dreaded scourge, the Microsoft certification process.

"We officially passed final cert on our first try Friday, August 15th," said Broussard, also revealing that the game is due for release "soon." Though we've yet to see convincing evidence that 3D Realms employees are familiar with that last word's meaning, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a game they've at least managed to complete once before.

No price has been announced yet, but Broussard noted that it would be "about what you'd expect." Meanwhile, be sure to check out the list of Duke Nukem 3D's Xbox 360 Achievements, which reward players for tipping strippers and stepping in poo.

Well, of course it does. Ubisoft didn't get where it is today by throwing popular franchises like Splinter Cell away after a single use (although our neck-snapping pal Sam seems to have been misplaced recently), and you can be sure that the upcoming disaster survival adventure ... thing, I Am Alive, will be no different. "We hope it can be another strong franchise for our portfolio, alongside Prince Of Persia or Rayman Rabbids," the publisher's executive director, Alain Corre, told MCV. "It's a new baby for us – and we have big hopes."

Provided it's raised properly and doesn't turn into a snot-nosed brat who sticks Legos up his nose and puts his Altair action figures in the microwave, this baby could be the best kind of disaster to befall any company. Of course, we should probably wait until we've played the first one before we sign off on "I Am Still Alive," and "Seriously, Stop Trying to Kill Me You Stupid Planet."

Our initial plan was to give you excellent readers brand new copies of Atlus' upcoming Persona 4, a desire which those purveyors of quirk deemed noble, but overly contingent on them finishing the game. Sensing our outraged impatience regarding the anticipated RPG's December 9th release, they instead granted us some Persona 3 art books (signed by character designer Shigenori Soejima!) and Persona 4 t-shirts (tagless!). The chance to wear Persona on your person, eh?

To enter this giveaway:

• Leave a comment telling us who your summoned Persona is! It could be anyone or anything from Cthulhu to something infinitely more evil, like TV's Patrick Duffy.
  
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec and sprawling, otherworldly dungeons).
  
• Limit 1 entry per person per calendar day (comment more than once and you'll be kept in detention).
  
• This entry period ends at 7:00pm ET on Friday, August 22nd. We'll randomly select three winners at that time, who will receive a signed art book and t-shirt, valued at $50 (can you really put a value on that signature?). Please check your e-mail!
  
• For a list of complete rules that you can peruse or shoot in the head, click here.

If you're really set on winning, sign up for the Atlus Faithful spam ... err, mailing list -- another three winners will be randomly selected from Faithful members.