As soon as I heard that Fire Hose Games was letting fans decide the names for two of the characters inSlam Bolt Scrappers, a bunch of foul or otherwise amusing words starting entering my head. Y’know, the kind of words random people on the Internet would come up with for the sake of trolling. Well, Fire Hose is one step ahead — the character names are already selected. Y’all get to vote on which two the studio should go for....

Gears of War 3wasofficially announcedlast night, and the Internet is now full of commentary and confirmations. Lead designer Clifford Bleszkinski is only content to add more fuel to the hype fire, having just confirmed thatGOW3‘s co-op will allow up to four players to team up. In previous games, only two players could join forces throughout the story mode, despite the squad nearly always being a group of four.Gears of War 3will quadruple the fun, giving players much more of a boost when they take on the so-called Lambent....

Jack Thompsonis a familiar name to regular FOXTOID readers. He’s our school shootings expert, as well as our men’s grooming columnist and yogurt correspondent. A few weeks ago, I caught up with the silver haired lothario to talk about a few of his favorite things. What he said to me has never before been considered good enough to publish, but this is FOXTOID, where quality comes second! Hit the jump for the official FOXTOID interview with Jack Thompson (based on an actual email exchange actually had in actual February....

Quite a few readers were especially keen to point out that this game is free, and if the readers like it, it has to be good!Daredevil Dave: Motorcyle Stuntman!has been free for a while, and it’s worth picking up, so make sure you add it to your download queue if you haven’t already. Like all good games on iTunes,Daredevil Daveis pretty simple but difficult to stop playing. The first part of the game is to set a ramp over a dangerous jump, and the second part is to driving over the jump, making sure to hit your ramp at the right speed....

Everyone knows that free-to-play MMOs are slightly better when you pay up. If you’re getting down with SOE’sFree Realms, you can go premium with a lifetime membership. Paying for a membership won’t hurt your pocketbook much with this one-time payment of $30. If either you or the little one are interested in having access to everything in the game, this is a killer deal. You’ll get exclusive content, access to every job, multiple characters and an unseen swagger that other in-game players will justfeel....

Decap Attackhad its own comic? Huh. I guess you’re bound to learn something new every day if roughly eighty percent of your typical day entails constant Internet surfing. Anyway, last week — as many of you know — was Destructoid’sGears of War 2community night. I’m not sure how experienced some of you are in the ways of hosting online events, but the second the word “prizes” is uttered, things get beyond hectic....

Interesting thing about Vogster Entertainment’s comic book-themed brawlerUnbound Saga, which hit PlayStation Portable well over a year ago — it was originally designed with high definition in mind. “To be completely honest,” the game’s lead producer Mike Kennedy tells me, “the original tech demo was in HD on a PC!” When the choice was made to put it on Sony’s handheld, the development team had to make some concessions, going back and lowering the resolution for the handheld’s limitations....

From IGN’sarticle on the future of game physics: ” To be clear,euphoriais not an AI program, it’s an animation technology that allows for physically accurate behaviors. The AI is programmed by the developer, in this case LucasArts, into theeuphoriamodels to control them. What we saw at LucasArts was the marriage ofeuphoriaphysics and LucasArts A.I. scripts.”

iTunes has started to kick back into life after the holidays, and the return to life kicks off with a real treat — the critically acclaimedGame Dev Storyis a mere 99¢! Originally a 1996 PC game,Game Dev Storyhas become a huge hit since coming to the App Store and Android. It’s a cute sim game in which you take charge of a software studio and attempt to make successful videogames, making sure to hire talented staff, invest in advertising, and balance quality against time....

Anime Expo is one of those events so big that it manages to break out of its original mold. It has since grown past anime and manga fandom to now include gaming and just about everything else geeky. At last year’s event, we met up with andinterviewed Solid Snake himself, David Hayter. We also broke the news onPersona 4‘s launch date, met Japanese pop stars, and saw lots ofhalf-naked girls. Not a bad run for an event that some still write off asjust an anime convention....

Dark Void didn’t need the polish, but it was wise move to push it out of the then-crowded holiday release window. Fresh IP doesn’t fare well when pitted against monolithic sequels likeCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. When the delay was announced, Capcom didn’t provide a tight release window. On the second day of gamescom, the publisher did.Dark Voidships January 12th, 2010. In addition to announcing shipping details, the publisher released more than a few still images of the topsy-turvy shooter....

Whoa. On July 28, Epic Games is dropping ten s–tloads worth ofGears of War 2downloadable content into one cute retail package. “The Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection” will have all the previous DLC for the game — “Snowblind,” “Combustible,” and “Flashback” — as well as seven new multiplayer maps, a “deleted” campaign chapter called Road to Ruin, a premium theme, an introductory video, a poster, AND a strategy guide....

Good news, everyone! Atlus and teamPersona‘s sexy new gameCatherinewill be on shelves by February 17th, 2011 in Japan. While that’s a bit beyond the originally-promised “Winter 2010” release, keep in mind that Japan’sfiscal year2011 only starts in April. So, technically,Catherineis coming out in fiscal 2011, in winter. Clever! If you’re the type to understand the game’s native scribblings and gibberish, I suggest you get your sweaty paws on it then. Otherwise, you can continue to hope and pray that the game gets announced for an eventual western release....