Not much coming out this week, with the only real notables being a Tomb Raider: Legend port on the PSP, MotoGP 4 on the PS2, and NFL Head Coach on the Xbox, PS2 and PC, the finest "wear a headset and yell at people while pointing" simulator available on the market today. Actually, EA has said their biggest hurdle with Head Coach is just communicating what the game is (they call it a "3D sports strategy game"), so maybe you should read a preview or two to help you get it straight.

The rest of the release list can be found here and consists primarily of puzzle games and PC expansions. God, how many versions of Sudoku do we need?

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Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced Thursday that he will be stepping down from his role of chief software architect at Microsoft, and will be phasing out his chairman duties over the next two years.

Microsoft's chief technical officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect, Gates said. In addition, chief technical officer Craig Mundie will immediately take the new title of chief research and strategy officer and will assume Gates' responsibilities for the company's research and incubation efforts.

"Our business and technical leadership has never been stronger, and Microsoft is well-positioned for success in the years ahead," Gates said in a release. "I feel very fortunate to have such great technical leaders like Ray and Craig at the company," Gates said. "I remain fully committed and full-time at Microsoft through June 2008 and will be working side-by-side with Ray and Craig to ensure that a smooth transition occurs."

Gates is leaving his day-to-day responsibilities to focus on his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which works to improve public health, reduce poverty, and increase access to education and technology around the world.

Source: Gamespot

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An eighth-grade teacher in Minneapolis, Minnesota has taken to using video games in his class to teach kids about storytelling in a way they might actually pay attention to: The kids play games and pause to write down details about the plot, setting, and characters. Presumably they actually do something with this information afterwards, but whoever wrote the article didn't feel it necessary to go into details. The class still uses books and traditional teaching methods too, which leads to fun crossover potential!

"He was talking about Sonic the Hedgehog and he said, 'It's much like "The Odyssey" Mr. Dubbels. Sonic has to get home just like Odysseus.' I was like, 'Tony, this is great!'" Dubbels said.

No, no that's not great at all. How are those two things at all related? What game ever involved Sonic needing to get home? What are you talking about?

I'm not sour on the idea, as I'm sure there are games you could make legitimate literary comparisons to, but I don't think that's one of them.

Source: WCCO

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Here are the highlights of what's coming out today and tomorrow.

• Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War (PC) - Another history based RTS, featuring "the four mightiest empires in the world": Greek, Rome, Egypt and Persia. $49.99 at EB Games.
• MotoGP 06 (360) - It's MotoGP.. but on the 360. That means bike racing, just in case you didn't know. $59.99 at EB Games.
• Urban Chaos: Riot Response (PS2, Xbox) - Run into urban areas and stop gangs from being all gangy in this FPS. $39.99 at EB for PS2 and Xbox.
• Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel (PSP) - Metal Gear Solid comics, brought to the PSP and set to music. Japan's had this kinda crap for years, but usually they don't bring it over here. $19.99 at EB Games.
• Street Fighter Alpha Anthology (PS2) - The entire Alpha series, SFA 2 Gold, and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix are included in this collection. $29.99 at EB Games.
• Armored Core: Last Raven (PS2) - Tenth in the Armored Core series, this is the last AC title for the PS2. $29.99 at EB Games.

The rest of the list (including Lara Croft's Poker Party?) at Gamespot.

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Psychonauts developer Double Fine's blog both makes mention of a new game and posts a picture of the most adorable kitten ever.

• Super Paper Mario and Children of Mana set for October.
• Current generation sez "Dammit, I'm not dead yet." Next Generation provides a list of what's still to come for the current gen systems. A new Megaten coming, and I haven't even started Digital Devil Saga.
• Man, even the Japanese animated Mario series was goofy. And they couldn't get his hair color right either.
• Japan gets a new rating system.
• An LP from 1982 instructing you in how to beat games like Centipede and Defender is pretty much the worst idea one can have.
• Much delayed, much hyped STALKER may be losing features as it claws its way to the finish line.

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An update on Bungie's website has explained more about the upcoming Halo 2 PC version, which will be released after Windows Vista is released which will happen approximately three days before the sun burns out. First, although the game requires Vista to play, it will not require the new DirectX 10 drivers, meaning one can possibly hold onto one's old graphics card for a bit longer. As a bit of a disappointment to many, PC players will not be able to go up against Xbox players online. Bungie cited multiple reasons, including new maps that the Xbox version won't have, and controls that have been tuned specifically to each format, making matches "lopsided at best."

Elsewhere in the Bungie world, rumors have begun cropping up about their old shooter Marathon coming to Xbox Live Arcade. In response, Bungie answer man Frankie had this to say:

Of course it's possible, it's just not on any current agenda. If it's any consolation, many, many people think it's a good idea.

My guess is that it's pretty likely to come out at some point. The question is just when.

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Another week of slim pickings, with the exception of Hitman: Blood Money on the PC, PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360, and City Life on the PC, a kind of "Sim City with cultural-conflict management" game. Also worth noting, if you somehow didn't know it already, is that Half Life 2: Episode One has been preloading for the last month and launches Thursday, June 1. This post on the Steam forums lays out when is the absolute earliest time you'll be able to play, based on your time zone.

The rest of the week's releases can be found here.

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Hey look, actual games are coming out this week.

• Table Tennis (360) - Probably the only time anyone's actually been interested in a table tennis game, and only because this one's developed by Rockstar. Yes, that Rockstar. $39.99 at EB Games.
• Jaws Unleashed (Xbox, PS2) - I was just thinking to myself the other day, what I want is a game based on a 30 year old movie. Where's my Night Moves game? $29.99 at EB Games for the Xbox and PS2, so long as you search for the title "Jaws" and not "Jaws Unleashed," like it says on the damned box. I switched from Amazon because I thought these guys would have a better handle on what they're doing.
• Heroes of Might & Magic V (PC) - The famous turn-based strategy franchise returns, StarForce free. $49.99 at EB for the regular version, $59.99 for the super deluxe limited edition with candy inside.
• Lemmings (PSP) - The same old lemmings, continuing their quest to be ported to every system ever created, back in glorious 2D after some unfortunate 3D outings. $39.99 at EB Games.
• Steambot Chronicles (PS2) - New Atlus USA release comes out of nowhere. Why was I not informed? I must admit, Next Gen's write up has me intrigued. Renamed for America (for obvious reasons) from the original Japanese title of Bumpy Trot, which sounds like something you'd get after eating bad Thai food. $49.99 at EB Games.

Other bits and pieces I neglected to talk about, like Rogue Trooper, can be found at the full release list.

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Once again, little going on, which the important exception of New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. In case you haven't heard about it, it's a new Super Mario Bros. Just wanted to clear that up.

Other releases for this week include the Da Vinci Code for the PS2, based on a movie based on a book, and X-Men: The Official Game for every system imaginable, based on a movie based on a comic. Why it's not called "X-Men 3: The Official Game," I don't know. It does have Nightcrawler, and it wasn't directed by Brett Ratner, so maybe they're trying to distance themselves.

But hey, there's also Zoo Tycoon 2 and Ultimate Board Game Classics this week. Read about them at the full release list here.

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...is not here. For some reason, no one felt it necessary to actually show Microsoft's conference live. As such, you'll have to make do witih Eurogamer's auto-updating liveblog or Joystiq's liveblog with pictures. Gamespot won't have a free version of the conference to watch until 2:30 PDT (1:00 PDT for subscribers).

So far they've announced Lumines Live (in which you can download videos and play them in the background as you play), and Fable 2. Eh.

Update: The Halo 3 trailer is available on the Live Marketplace now. Better get going.

Update 2: They just announced GTA4 on the 360 in October of 2007. Sony just lost one more reason for you to blow $500 on their machine.

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Lucasarts announced today a cross-promotion campaign which will see Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and the original trilogy of Star Wars movies on DVD released on the same date, September 12.

The game will feature all of the characters and story that fans of the original trilogy remember. In addition, Lego Star Wars II will feature the ability for players to build and ride in their own Star Wars vehicles, then get on and off of them to explore the interactive galaxy created out of the popular toy building blocks. The game also will permit players to customize their characters, mixing and matching bits between characters of bizarre combinations such as “Yodarth” or “See-Chewpio”.

More miraculously, George Lucas has relented, and each film of the original trilogy will come with two discs: One containing the digitally-enhanced "special edition", and one being the original, untouched, Han-shoots-first films the way they were shown in theaters in 1977, 80, and 83. The release will only be available until December 31, though, so snap them up fast.

Source: Gamasutra

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Sierra has offered up a rather lengthy partial cast list for the upcoming "what if the movie ended completely differently thus nullifying its point" Scarface: The World Is Yours game. Returning to their roles from the movie are Robert Loggia, who played Frank Lopez, Steven Bauer, who played Manny Ribera, and Al Israel, who played Hector the Toad. According to IGN, while Al Pacino won't be recording any dialog for the game, several of his "key lines" from the movie will be included (and I'm sure they won't stand out at all against the impersonator), and Sierra says Pacino "hand picked" someone to play Tony Montana.

The rest of the cast is rounded out by a motley crew of good names who've been getting a lot of voice work lately (James Woods), questionable choices (Bam Magera, Jason Mewes, Tommy Lee), and things that make you "whuhh?" (Ricky Gervais, Dale Bloody Earnhardt, Jr.). Other notables include Jay Mohr, Michael Rapaport, Ice T and Cheech and Chong.

.....Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Source: IGN

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Details have emerged on Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, an action RPG which will feature over 140 characters from the Marvel universe. Of those, players will be able to control over 20 Marvel superheroes, including Spider-Man, Blade, Wolverine and Captain America. Players will also be able to build and design their own Marvel teams, as well as fight alongside friends in on- and offline co-op play. The game is expected to ship for next and current gen systems, as well as PC, in the fall.

Source: Wham

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A Game Pro report that says original Xboxes are disappearing from the most popular online retail stores. Walmart.com, Target.com and BestBuy.com have all removed entries for the Xbox system on their sites, though customers can still by Xbox games and accessories. Additionally, Gamestop.com and Amazon.com are only selling pre-owned and refurbished Xboxes, not new systems.

It kind of reminds one of Sega's old policy of "hey, this thing is great! ...Wait, that's not the new thing anymore, this is! Forget that other thing!" Granted, Microsoft's example isn't nearly as harsh as what Sega did with the Sega CD, 32X and Saturn; for one thing, the Xbox was actually able to enjoy moderate success for several years. But it still seems a poor attitude to have. The people would would buy an Xbox now and those who would buy a 360 now are simply not the same market, and it doesn't make sense to force the both of them into one thing.

Some might take this as evidence that the 360 may drop in price at E3, as has been rumored, in an attempt to better convince those more budget conscious gamers to take the plunge. But that we won't know until two weeks from now.

Source: Forever Geek

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Here are the highlights of what's coming out today and tomorrow. Also note that Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children comes out tomorrow.

• Black and White 2: Battle of the Gods (PC) - An expansion pack being touted as "darker" than vanilla Black and White 2. $19.99 at Amazon.
• Rampage: Total Destruction (PS2, GC) - A series that should've stayed a novelty of twenty years ago continues to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to new sequels. $19.99 at Amazon for the PS2 and Gamecube.
• 2006 FIFA World Cup (PSP, DS, 360, PS2, GBA, GC, Xbox) - This soccer game is apparently coming to every system except the Atari 5200. Anywhere from $29.99 to $59.99 at Amazon depending on what system you want it on.
• Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers (DS) - Battle across multiple levels on both DS screens, and maybe strike some dust, I dunno. Currently being wonky and unpriced at Amazon.
• Winback 2: Project Poseidon (PS2, Xbox) - The three fans of the original Winback now have something to prolong the period until their ritual suicide. $39.99 at Amazon for the PS2 and Xbox.
• Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny (PS2) - If you liked the first one, chances are you'll like this. Me, I've had the first one sitting on my "to play" stack for the past six months. That's no commentary on the game, just my inability to get anything done. $49.99 at Amazon.

There aren't any real high profile releases this week, but a fairly wide selection of second-tier stuff, so you may want to check out the rest of the releases at Gamespot and Next Generation.

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