As today is a nationally recognized day of matronly appreciation, I thought it appropriate to recognize some of the prevalent mama's in video gaming in this edition of the JHS. No, not the real-life mothers of game industry icons, though we certainly appreciate the progenial contributions that Mrs. Molyneux and Miyamoto-san have made to the planet -- we're talking about the digital mommies of our favorite video game characters.

So here's to you, Jenova. You may not have carried Sephiroth in your extraterrestrial womb (birthing that Masamune-wielding badass would have been truly uncomfortable), but here at Joystiq HQ, we count test-tube babies as actual human beings. Also, kudos to the minigun-toting Barret Wallace. Despite being of the male persuasion, Barret did have a daughter, and was, in fact, a baaaaaad mother (shut yo' mouth)! I'm only talking about Barret! (We can dig it.)

Then, of course, is the quintessential "Mom" from the Pokémon series. Provider of running shoes, setter of date and time, and in certain installments, banker -- Pokémom is certainly the most useful parent ever featured in any gaming franchise. However, there's something to be said of the biomechanical oversight provided by Metroid's Mother Brain. Many mothers have trouble managing one household -- this encapsulated vixen keeps tabs on an entire planet.

As you find yourself awash in the emerald glow of the following upward-pointers, why not take a moment to share your appreciation for your favorite digital maternal unit -- and then, of course, your own female progenitor. You know she worries.

- PSP: 100,870 8,459 (9.15%)
- Wii: 71,158 22,722 (46.57%)
- DS Lite: 52,542 10,107 (23.82%)
- PS3: 10,177 1,070 (11.75%)
- PS2: 8,802 1,694 (23.83%)
- Xbox 360: 1,725 442 (34.45%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: The matronly archives

Although the Facebreaker character trailers aren't half as amusing as the Team Fortress 2 portraits, we do have hope for the game itself. It would be nice if there was a now-gen "casual" boxing game that rekindled that fun we had while playing Punch-Out back in the '80s.

The latest Facebraker profile (above) is of Steve, your typical fat nerd cliché. We've also placed the video for Romeo after the break. With a September release as part of EA Sports' new Freestyle brand, we're looking forward to getting some hands-on time with Facebreaker at E3. Hopefully the gameplay will enhance the fun and diminish the creepiness we feel in these trailers.

Sure, there was Europe's PlayStation Day event, but our favorite Sony news of the week was PS3 Fanboy's hands-on time with the most exciting, most adorable, most user-generated, most sackboy-prevalent game coming to the PS3. Now that's a lot of mosts. Check out all of our hands-on impressions and reviews from the Joystiq Network this week:

PlayStation 3

• Haze (Demo hands-on)
• LittleBigPlanet (Hands-on)
• Super Stardust HD (Versus mode hands-on)

The Gears of War 2 gameplay footage is now out in the wild. Ready for some Locust-cutting action? We'll let the video speak for itself, embedded above. Update: Two more videos -- an 'Assault' gameplay and an analysis video -- can be found after the break.

Heard of Roogoo? Don't worry if you haven't. It's fallen a little under the radar, but our recent hands-on with this XBLA title has us hankering for more. Describing the game's premise does it little justice, simply because it seems like something that would barely entertain a three year old. However, under the game's cute exterior and almost-mindlessly simple gameplay lies a lot of depth and fun.

Roogoo follows one of the cardinal rules of the puzzle genre: inexplicably, things are falling from the sky. Blocks of various shapes will descend from above, and players must rotate platforms to allow these shapes to continue their journey downward. We're certain you've played with preschool toys that are similar to this: star goes in star, triangle goes in triangle, box goes in box, etc. The shoulder buttons rotate the platforms, and the A button lets you accelerate the falling piece.

As we warned, this description does little to make the game sound very entertaining. Trust me, I had the same reservations as you're probably thinking when approaching this title. However, things get surprisingly (almost embarassingly) difficult later on. Enemies will spawn in holes, and can only be knocked off by accelerating blocks on their heads. Blocks won't only come down faster, but they'll come down more than one at a time, forcing players to look at multiple levels of play at the same time. Jumping to one of the later levels had us reach miserable failure in a matter of seconds, as we collapsed under the overwhelming weight of colorful children's blocks.

Shawn Fanning has been doing more than simply riding high on the Napster phenomenon and appearing in Volkswagon commercials. In 2006, he created a new social networking site called Rupture, which shares game achievements from Halo 3, WoW, Madden 08 and other games with your friends. Now, EA is purchasing Rupture in a $30 million deal, making Fanning a happy, happy man (again).

Electronic Arts will be most likely utilizing the technology behind Rupture -- which never left its closed beta phase -- to improve its own online multiplayer experiences. As for Fanning, this is his first truly successful venture, following the bankruptcy of Napster, and the modest sub-5mil acquisition of SnoCap, the young entrepreneur's second company.

[Via Massively]

Mega-publisher Activision held its Fiscal Year 2008 earnings call yesterday. While you can listen to it yourself, most of the gaming news came from an 8-minute section in over an hour-long conference call. Here are the highlights from the call:

• Activision enjoyed $2.9 billion in sales last fiscal year
• No Tony Hawk in 2008
• Guitar Hero hits 15 million song downloads
• Nintendo DS, Guitar Hero on Tour bundles coming this June
• A 'significant leap' for Guitar Hero due this holiday for consoles and DS
• Call of Duty 5 in 'new military theater', returns series to PS2 and Wii
• Bizarre Creations's new racing IP due FY09
• New Bond game Quantum of Solace runs on COD4 engine, launching with movie

Check out Activision's Family Album to learn more about the company's internal studios.

Update: The video is up.

Man, running through a post-apocalyptic city and sticking a chainsaw into anything that moves is just the perfect thing for a Friday night. That being said, we've decided to stay in this evening and watch the first Gears of War 2 gameplay footage instead. If you want to catch a glimpse of all the testosterone-driven, monster-shooting madness promised in Epic Games' sequel, all you need is an Xbox 360 and enough dexterity to find the trailer on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. Well, we suppose you'll need an internet connection too. Also, electricity.

Those of us lucky enough to possess computers (and internet and electricity) can also find the video on 1UP at 10:30PM PST -- that's a full 30 minutes before it gets to Xbox Live. When the embeddable Gamevideos clip becomes available at around the same time, we'll be sure to stick it up on Joystiq. We're staying in tonight, remember?

Bring out the haters for this week's Rock Band Weekly update post. The songs are perfectly fine, but considering the amount of hate there is in any given week for really good tracks, we can only imagine what it'll be like for these songs. Come on, "Random Song Lover Defense Force," where are you?

Individual songs

• "Hanging on the Telephone" - Blondie (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Train in Vain" - The Clash (160 MS Points / $2)
• "Kool Thing" - Sonic Youth (160 MS Points / $2)

Videos for next week's tracks are after the break for people to make informed decisions on whether they actually hate the songs.The DLC will be available next Tuesday and Thursday for Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively.

The upcoming 007 game just got an ammo clip of good news.* Quantum of Solace, currently in development at Treyarch, is running on the Call of Duty 4 game engine and due out this Fall alongside the movie. "We look forward to launching Bond: Quantum of Solace in Q3 concurrent with movie. This game uses the Call of Duty 4 engine and technology to bring Bond games to a new level," said Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith in a conference call yesterday (36:20 mark).

Why does this excite us? Simply put: COD4 is one of the best multiplayer experiences currently available on consoles, and it gives us hope that this version will be able recapture the magic we felt when we first tried split-screen Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. It also gives us an idea as to what platforms we can expect to see the game on -- likely Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and perhaps PC. Quantum of Solace, the film, is releasing October 31 in the UK, November 7 in North America.

* Note: Fear not, the writer of this joke has indeed been eliminated.

Although we still don't know definitively who's developing Call of Duty 5 (rumors suggest Treyarch), Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said the next game will be changing settings again. In a conference call yesterday (35:00 mark), he said, "We'll bring the intensity of the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare title to a new military theater."

Also confirmed were plans to launch "on all four platforms we've participated on in fiscal 2008" -- that's Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows and DS -- as well as PS2 and Wii. We're hoping the "new military setting" isn't related to World War II as the recent Treyarch job listing suggested.

Activision is planning to innovate the Guitar Hero franchise. In a conference call yesterday, Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said, "For the holiday, we will provide a significant leap forward in innovation for Guitar Hero worldwide, on all platforms." That includes PlayStation 3, PS2, Xbox 360, Wii and DS. Griffith also said that more information will be provided "in the coming weeks."

We wonder if this has anything to do with those recent rumors about Guitar Hero IV going multi-instrumental. Guess we'll find out soon.

Just a reminder that while Rock Band is riding high, its older brother is still the dominant sibling. In a conference call yesterday (start at the 29-minute mark), Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith confirmed that the Guitar Hero franchise has passed the 15 million mark in individual song downloads. Last week, Harmonix owner Viacom revealed that Rock Band had surpassed the 10 million mark.

New cities? Pfft! How about an entire state?! While rummaging through the Rockstar Social Club, a GTAForums poster uncovered the plane ticket pictured above (full view). Looks like Niko is headed to the fine state of San Andreas, famous for its lowriders and piping hot coffee. Whether it's the stuff of fan fiction or a not-so-subtle hint of content to come, your guess is as good as ours, but the ticket does rekindle last month's rumor that the exclusive GTA IV DLC for Xbox 360 will feature "new downloadable cities." What's curious is that the flight isn't destined for one of San Andreas' specific airports, but rather the state itself. What could it mean? Well, for one, that you'd need a bigger hard drive.

Alternate theory: The "San Andreas" on this plane ticket could be a reference to the original San Andreas, a top-down city based on San Francisco, from the first Grand Theft Auto.

[Via X3F]

Ninja Gaiden II hasn't even been released yet and we're already bored of Ryu Hayabusa's costumes. Why? Our attention spans are just that sho-- oh crap, look, it's a ladybug! ... What were we saying? Oh, right, ninjas. As we're already deep in the clutches of boredom you can imagine our relief to hear that three new costume packs for the game would be released this July for 200 points (that's $2.50) a piece. You can see a full-sized version one of the offerings right here.

The strangest part? You actually have to jump through some hoops to be able to buy the first one, seen above. According to the Gamerscore Blog, the armor "will be exclusively available in selected countries to 39,000 gamers on launch day as part of pre-sale or launch promotions," whatever that means. We'd love to sit here and be incensed about the whole thing, but we've got a ladybug to track down. Seriously, it was right here.