New screenshots for Soul Calibur IV show off Amy, Zasalamel, Cervantes and Cervantes' eye hat.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Guitar Hero Aerosmith trailer, Alone in the Dark trailer, Prototype screenshots

• GameIndustry.biz and Next Generation both have interviews with Dr. Tanya Byron, author of the UK government's Byron Report about the effect of video games on children.
• On a related note, Ireland says they plan to continue using PEGI ratings despite the reports suggestion of a hybrid system.
• EA has extended the deadline on their offer to Take-Two. You guys sure you don't want this? It's prettttty gooooddd...
• Along with the reveal of a new trailer, it's been announced that GTA4 will have an in-game music purchasing feature. Not to buy more music for the game, but rather to allow you to buy mp3s of music you hear on the radio.
• Rainbow Six Vegas 2 tops the newest Australian sales chart.
• Despite recent court cases between THQ, WWE and Jakks, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 is still a go.
• Rock Band and Lego Star Wars keynotes have been announced for the Nordic Game conference in May.
• EA has announced that NFL Head Coach 09 will only be available bundled with the Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition.
• The first Aerosmith songs announced for their upcoming Guitar Hero game include Draw the Line, No Surprize, and Sweet Emotion.
• Studio officials confirm that Paramount is expanding its game division and will directly oversee and finance future games based on their movies, both new and old.
• The former head of Xbox Europe thinks consoles and handhelds will die out in the next five to ten years.
• The Daily Mail has called upon mother and former breakfast TV host Anne Diamond to review some violent games for them. I can only hope they did this for laughs. "I stopped playing when I was set on fire and something splattered blood all over my visor."
• CNet lists the 30 dumbest game titles ever. Many of these are the usual "Ninja Golf oh how wacky" but far and away the best title is Extreme Sports with the Berenstain Bears.
• Gamespot's PressSpotting column covers the top ten game journalism cliches. Number 10 is "top ten lists." Fun fact: PressSpotting is written by the Ouroboros.
• Multiplayer has been dropped from upcoming open world game Prototype.
• Joe Kucan, who plays Kane in the Command & Conquer series, says games aren't culturally influential yet. "We're half-way there. The only thing that's culturally influential now is the genre itself. There's nothing specific about any of the games that are worming their way into the psyche of the world."
• In Australia, the topic of violent video games can even get porn and Christian lobbyists to agree with each other.
• Kung Fu Cinema has an updated cast list for the Tekken movie.
• GamesRadar lists the best unofficial fan games based on existing game series.
• The April issue of the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction contains a series of articles on the topic of video game addiction.
• 50 Cent talks to MTV about the inspiration for his new game and his own gaming habits. Or lack thereof.
• Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin got a mention in Star Magazine, and all it took was being seen dating Australian singer Sophie Monk.

PC and mobile news

New content: Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis demo, Evochron Renegades 1.508 patch, AVENCAST: Rise of the Mage 1.03 patch, CSI 4: Hard Evidence 1.1 patch

• NeoGAF has details on Dawn of War 2 from a PCGameplay magazine preview.
• Internal Microsoft e-mails released as part of an ongoing lawsuit show that there was a real problem with buggy Nvidia drivers for Vista in 2007.
• System requirements and pricing have been revealed for Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode One.
• No sooner were blogs praising Target for selling those Experimental Gameplay t-shirts than they stopped selling them. The distributors are going to move on to places like Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters to see if they do better there.

Nintendo news

New PAL Virtual Console titles: Cruis'n USA, Uridium, International Karate -- the latter two being the first Commodore 64 titles on the service

• Atlus has announced a Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard for the DS coming this June.
• EA has announced a DS-exclusive rhythm-action game called Zubo.
• Nintendo has announced the Japanese Virtual Console line-up for April, including the original PC Engine version of Dracula X.
• Seemingly dead game Project HAMMER has shown up in Gamestop's database again. But why?
• Hudson plans to release a new Alien Crush for WiiWare.
• GameSetWatch has a column about the recently released for the DS Shiren the Wanderer, both introducing the game to new players (while defending it from some of the negative reviews it's received) and providing tips. "Meanwhile, Shiren the Wanderer is a game in a more fundamental sense, the sense that you can actually lose at it, and probably will many times before you earn your first win. While it is not real-time, it is still much like a classic arcade game, where games nearly always end by losing."

Sony news

New demos: R-Type Command demo
New content: Turok maps, High Stakes: Poker Edition camera add-on, Unreal Tournament 3 maps, Rock Band tracks, Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore tracks

• Sony's Playstation blog has a trailer and more details on Operation: Broken Mirror, the Warhawk expansion.
• PS3 owners seem to be having audio problems with Condemned 2.
• Team Xecuter has announced a handy device that fits in the UMD slot of the PSP and holds four memory sticks.
• The online manual for the PSP contains a brief, tenuous reference to A 3000 model of PSP, suggesting that another revision could be possible down the line.
• After a short delay, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is now available on the European Playstation Store.
• PSP Fanboy lists the 20 Final Fantasy supporting characters they want to see in Dissidia.
• Sony says they had plans for Facebook and YouTube-like sites centered around the PS1 and PS2 respectively, but the projects never came to fruition.
• Amazon's deal of the day is MLB 07 The Show, in three flavors: $14.99 on the PS2, $14.99 on the PSP, or $25.99 on the PS3. Collect and trade with your friends.

Microsoft news

New content: Turok maps, Chessmaster chess sets

• Xbox Japan's site lists an April 2 release for Mr. Driller Online. The date has been officially announced for America yet, so it's not exactly confirmed.
• They also list an April 9 release for Ikaruga.
• For people with replacement 360s whose content no longer works outside of their own Gamertag (a common problem), it looks like it is fixable.
• Pricing for Penny Arcade Adventues: Episode One has been set at $20, which will make it the most expensive game on Live Arcade so far.
• Cave reveals that the reason DoDonPachi: Dai-ou-jou and Ketsui X are coming to the 360 on disc is because Microsoft rejected them for Live Arcade. "We secured these licenses, and finally talked with Microsoft. There they rejected all of our proposals saying, 'We are going to cut down faithful arcade ports.'"
• At Xbox 360 Fanboy you can watch video of Castle Crashers maps being painted.
• An Army of Two demo is coming April 1.