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When you think of how the camera-based Natal technology could be applied to a racing game, the whole steering in the air bit probably pops to mind, Turn 10’sDan Greenawalt has beenthinking outside the car, if you will. He has some pretty nifty ideas on how the Natal tech could have players doing something other than air driving in hisForza Motorsportseries of racing games. “What gets me excited about Natal is getting people involved with cars – touching cars, opening doors, smashing cars, taking parts out, that visceral feeling of moving and playing inside a car,” he toldXbox World 360 magazine....

Coffee Stain Studios’ promised update for indie first-person shooter/tower-defense hybridSanctumis out now. You’ll get it automatically from Steam should you happen to own the game already. “The big critique so far against our game has been the lack of content,” says programmer Johannes Aspeby, who is absolutely correct. “This is something we are working hard on improving, and this is the first update of many to come with free content.”...

Hellbreed,which is being released today, is about a splintered world where you and a party of up to three friends need to gather together and assemble it using skills of magic, might, and mayhem. For anyone who has been looking for an experience that can at times resemble games in the spirit ofBaldur’s Gate, this will be your chance to hack and slash goblins, dragons, and werewolves all in the course of your lunch break....

A long time ago, Electronic Gaming Monthly had a giant cover story on a game calledHuxley. The main thing I took away from EGM’s preview was thatHuxleywas going to be the first MMOFPS and have 100 vs 100 battles. Shortly after that cover story,Huxleydropped off the radar more or less. I finally got to seeHuxleyin action yesterday and was happy with what I saw, although a little disappointed. At best, it’s going to be a 32 vs 32 game for the time being, far from the 100 vs 100 matches that was hyped in EGM....

This is Rod Humble. He should not exist. By day, he heads the EA Play Label, which includes some of the most profitable game franchises in history (The Sims, most notably). By night, he makes abstract, difficult artgames likeThe MarriageandStars Over Half Moon Bay. Also, when he’s mocked on a podcast by Jim Sterling who claims that his games are so pretentious they seem as if they’ve been made by someone “who wears scarves indoors” and says things like “oh, what a lovely bit ofmise en scene,” he will take a picture of himself doing exactly that and then send it to Destructoid....

Remember thatfree UMD demoofGod of War: Chains of Olympusyou signed up for about a month ago? Well, sit down, because you’re going to be waiting about three more months for it to arrive. Sony’s been sending word that the demo will be arriving on or (more likely) around September 7th. In the meantime, Sony and Ready at Dawn Studios are promising to slip out info regularly between now and September....

Yesterday, European Xbox Vice President of Strategy and Marketing David Gosen proudly declared that Microsoft was“investing to win” in Europe, as well stated thatphysical mediawas as good as dead. Apparently, Gosen also decided to trash on the Wii and its “toy shop” peripherals during his monumental keynote at Gamesfest. To back up his point, Gosen had some numbers to present. We’ve seen some research that says 60 percent of people who bought a Wii Fit play it once and don’t play it again… New user interfaces are there and will continue to come – and that is good, but only if they enhance the gameplay experience....

Guitar Hero World Tourhas taken a lot of stick lately for its rather shamelessRock Bandcopypasta, but it would seem that forgery is the last of the game’s problems, if the lateststreamofissuesis anything to go by. Quite a fuss is being made over the game’s drum peripherals, with sensitivity issues being a big cause of concern. Here is one such complaint from a PS3 user, cherry-picked byKotaku: “I went and started the drum trainer just to get a feel for the drums....

After almost 5,000 years of civilized culture (preceded by 25,000 years of hunter-gatherer triflings), the island of Nihon-koku — ‘Japan’ to you lazy round-eyes — may soon sink into the ocean or be horribly destroyed by some kind of hellish firestorm. Recent Japanese sales recordsare out and in accordance with ancientharbingers of doomprophecy,Halo 3has topped aPokémontitle for the highest selling game in all of Japan. To quote a completely fictional prophetic haiku: When Microsoft topsNintendo’s tiny creatures,Nippon shall perish....

Aspromised, here is my hands-on coverage of the single player campaign forRainbow Six: Vegas 2. Before I go into details, let me just tell you that I both love and hate the single player portion ofRS:V2. Now I realize that makes little to no sense, but due to the fact that I can’t really elaborate on it yet, you’re just going to have to bear with me until next week. I can at least say that the co-op inVegas 2is the selling point to me....

From the beginning of the meteoric rise in popularity of games likeRock BandandGuitar Heropeople have clamored for a way to create and upload their own content. Valiant attempts have been made to fill the user created content shaped void in our hearts, some coming closer to a solid and easy solution than others, yet sadly, all have fallen short in their noble goal. Freshman effortFreetar Herooffered a way to create custom content but kept you locked to a keyboard and monitor; aGuitar Hero 2hackbrought us closer (and likely the closest we’ll get) but was a fairly daunting task that, let’s face it, a lot of people weren’t up to facing....

With a dark, violent storyline, sexual content and all sorts of adult-themed scenarios, PS3 exclusiveHeavy Rainis gearing up for plenty of controversies. Game director David Cage, however, doesn’t much care about censorship or tabloid outrage, confidently explaining that the game’s not being made for the puritans. “When you write something or you develop a project likeHeavy Rain, you don’t write for tabloids,” explains Cage. “You don’t wonder what censorship will think of it, because otherwise you’d never do anything....

Yes,thatWalkman. The trusty sidekick that kept you sane on the way to school in the ’80s and ’90s. We watched it evolve — becoming smaller, slimmer, more functional. Eventually it grew into a CD player, and not long afterward came the MiniDisc version. But much like Frankenstein’s creation and countless other well-intended experiments gone awry, Sony’s little device has now outgrown its skin and transformed into something not quite as benevolent as its masters had hoped....