Green Day: Rock Band will feature tracks spanning (most of) the band's 20+ year career

In a preview by Entertainment Weekly, a few new details, including the full set-list were released for Green Day: Rock Band – the latest in Harmonix and EA’s popular rhythm game series.

The game will feature 47 playable songs on the disc, just more than The Beatles: Rock Band, across three venues. The American Idiot, and Dookie albums will be included in their entireties, with all except the 6 tracks that are available as DLC from 21st Century Breakdown also playable.

Players will be taken to MK Bowl – the venue for their Bullet in a Bible live album – for a large portion of the songs in the game, including the American Idiot album. The other two included venues are The Fox Theatre in Oakland California (the band’s hometown) and the fictional, ‘hole in the wall’ venue called “The Warehouse”, designed to represent the smaller venues the band played in their earlier years.

Popular tracks such as Hitchin a Ride, Minority, and Brain Stew from Green Day’s back catalogue are also included in the game. However, there is notably no sign at all of the band’s first two albums, which is sure to disappoint many fans (myself included). Despite this little niggle though, the game is looking quite promising – especially if you are a Green Day fan.

Green Day: Rock Band will be released on June 8th on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

TikGames, have announced its action-packed, critter racing game Hamsterball for the PlayStation 3 Network will be available for download this Thursday (25th March) for $9.99 in North America. We have not heard any information about it being released outside of NA, but watch this space for more information!

In Hamsterball, players take control of a hamster-in-a-ball as they run the most frenzied race of their lives! The clock is ticking and EVERYTHING is out to stop them – with crazy obstacles around every turn, unexpected twists and dramatic drops, each level will immerse and challenge players in new and inventive ways! Gamers can race solo, play split-screen against a friend, or battle up to six buddies in Sumo Mode to determine whose hamster is “King of the Hill.” With over 50 levels and three different game modes, Hamsterball is sure to provide hours of non-stop, critter-racing action.

War In the North will probably be quite focused on co-operative play

Developers Snowblind Studios, along with Warner Bros. today announced the latest addition to the growing list of Lord of the Rings games.

The new game, titled “War in the North” is being developed by the same folk as Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and will be an action-RPG featuring co-op support. It will feature locations and narratives familiar to fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels and their big screen-counterparts, as well as original storylines.

Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Bros. Interactive had this to say:

“With The Lord of the Rings: War in the North we are taking a mature approach to the widely celebrated property with authentic portrayals of battles and all new storylines.

Utilising the award-winning and passionate development team at Snowblind Studios, we are looking to evolve the RPG experience and deliver The Lord of the Rings game fans have been waiting for.”

The game is slated for a release in 2011 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Check the official website for more information.

If you’re into retailers creating their own ‘virtual spaces’ then you may be interested to know that GAME, the British retailer, is coming to Playstation Home. I know that might not be many of you, and I also know that many of you will probably have only touched Home for five minutes, but let’s talk about it anyway.

The new space, launching on 18th March, is apparently a way of finding out about upcoming releases and activities across the Playstation brand. Of course, there’s always been GAME’s website and, erm, the rest of the Internet but you don’t get to visit a TOTALLY AWESOME Moonbase if you do that, do you? No, I didn’t think so!

So, there you are on a virtual recreation of Earth’s Moon walking around in a branded Moonbase, what the hell is there to do? There’s poster sites, video screens, a dance floor, billboards, meeting places and four internet browser terminals. Did I mention this is also on the MOON? THE FREAKING MOON! Screw Obama cancelling plans to go back to the Moon, GAME has got us covered!

In case that’s not enough (you want more? We can’t please you people can we?) there’s also a ‘Lunar Leap’ game where players boost themselves in zero gravity across a giant crater. If you successfully land your avatar on a designated pad you can win an exclusive GAME astronaut outfit (see above). Isn’t this just the best thing EVER?

(this post may not entirely be devoid of sarcasm)

Ensemble Studios, creators of the Age of Empires PC strategy games and Halo Wars on the Xbox 360, was closed due to problems with the corporate culture. Speaking at GDC, Paul Bettner, a 12-year veteran at Ensemble, refused to blame Microsoft for the closure of the developer.

“Microsoft is a public company, they answer to their shareholders, and we were simply too expensive.”

In his impassioned talk during the “rants” session, Bettner, now working at iPhone developer NewToy, blamed himself for the cost, inefficiency and poor quality of life caused by Ensemble’s dependence on long, “crunch” working hours.

Ensemble had a company culture where “everyone was a workaholic”, developers worked late and slept at the office, and were addicted to the rush of success of the Age of Empires series.

“I watched this happen and I did almost nothing to stop it. As an employee, and later as a manager, I didn’t take a stand. I just kept hoping for that next high,” Bettner said.

There’s a nice little surprise watching in the package for the retail version of upcoming Dragonage: Origins expansion, Awakening. It contains a leaflet with a date of 02.01.2011 printed on it, which seems to hint at the release date for Dragonage 2. Well when we say ’seems’ we really mean ‘what the hell else can it be?’.

EA has already announced that they’re going to be releasing a new Dragonage next year, so when you put the two things together it’s pretty obvious. Given the early next year release date it’s also looking likely that we’ll find out more about the sequel at E3.

Awakening is available as a download and retail release for PC and 360. The PS3 release is download only, so no little leaflet for owners of that version. You can get it from March 16.

(picture from 1UP)

If you’re looking for some hardcore RTS fun on that PC of your’s then you might be interested to know that Steam has now made available the R.U.S.E public beta for pre-load.

All you have to do to join in on the fun (well, in 19 hours anyway) is go to this link and download the public beta. You will then be ready to play the beta straight away from tomorrow, meaning you don’t have to sit and wait for the download to complete.

R.U.S.E is a World War II based RTS coming to the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime next year.

Some new Fallout: New Vegas screenshots were released by Bethesda today, and we’ve got the full gallery below.

The game uses the same engine as Fallout 3, hence the similar look, although apparently the game will have more varied plant life.

In an announcement that will be little surprise to anyone Sony has said that they have officially purchased Little Big Planet creator Media Molecule.

The announcement came via the official Playstation Blog, with Michael Denny, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Studios Europe, releasing a statement on the acquisition.

“The decision was an easy one after meeting five young, talented people with a massive ambition to redefine video games as we know them and create and grow a fantastically talented team at Media Molecule. This was followed by a fantastic exclusive relationship that culminated in the launch of one of the most innovative PlayStation games of recent years. Of course, LittleBigPlanet needs no introduction here, as it was thanks to you that it became a best selling PS3 title when it released in late 2008.

The acquisition will enhance the talent pool within SCE, protect past and current investment and ensure a solid base for future investment. Media Molecule have exciting projects in the pipeline and we’re looking forward to sharing these with you in the not too distant future.

The most important thing is that nothing will change from your perspective; Media Molecule will simply continue to make great games. Welcoming Media Molecule into the PlayStation family will allow us to better support their future titles and ambitions.”

Obviously this means that all future Media Molecule titles will be exclusive to PS3 and PSP, so sorry to those people hoping to see Little Big Planet on other platforms.

The wand like motion control device that Sony revealed at E3 last June is yet to be given a proper name (other than “Sony Motion Controller” anyway), but a trademark filing and previous reports have put us one step closer to finding out just what Sony intends to call its new controller.

Siliconera noticed that Sony has previously filed a trademark for the name “Playstation Arc” in Japan. While companies seem to file trademarks for random names all the time this one is particularly intriguing because VG247 said earlier this year that an anonymous source had told them “Arc” would indeed be the final name.  The domain PlaystationArc.com has also been registered by Sony, whilst THQ’s CEO has referred to the device as “Arc” a number of times.

If we put everything together then it may seem fairly obvious that the device will be called “Arc” when it is released later this year. Of course, we could all be wrong and Sony may just be registering the name for another idea they have in the pipeline. In the end I guess the only thing we can say is to place your bets now and hope that all the evidence is correct.

GDC is coming up next week, so hopefully we’ll find out more details then.