Madden is comparable to Halo in terms of popularity, sales, and reception of American gamers to the titles. It’s not rocket science to figure out how every new football game (be it Madden, All-Pro, or NCCA) drives console sales. PlayStation experienced much success with the genre, but 1UP believes that things aren’t too hot for Sony anymore.

“Xbox 360 versions of Madden NFL 08, All-Pro Football 2K8, and NCAA Football 08 will run at 60 frames per second, whereas the PS3 editions are locked at just 30fps,” reports 1UP. Looks like a major disadvantage? Sony doesn’t seem bothered.

“We have already proven that sports titles can run on the PlayStation 3 at true HD with 1080p output with NBA 07. If you have questions about specific third-party games, you should speak to those publishers,” said Sony CEA’s senior director of corporate communications Dave Karakker.

EA replied, supporting both platforms. “We want to make sure that we give the best experience we can on each platform. In designing a game, there are all sorts of tradeoffs that include frame rate, visuals, features, AI, etc,” said EA’s vice president of marketing sports Todd Sitrin.

He added, “As you can see, every company making a football game this year made a decision that the best experience for the Xbox 360 included 60fps whereas the best experience for the PS3 was 30fps.”

That said, it doesn’t really seem like Sony is losing because of the framerate. Some say that running at that speed might actually pull out PS3’s potential in other areas and dish out unprecedented features aside from graphics alone. 1UP sees it as a disadvantage, pointing at hardware issues and relations between Sony and third-party developers. We’ll have to see the end result before accounting anything to that, right?

IO Interactive taking a 360 turn from the Hitman series is an understatement; Kane & Lynch:Dead Men is in an entirely new world of blood money and dead men. Enigmatic guys with guns are still there, but the traditional hide and seek is nowhere in sight.

In the exclusive gameplay video taken by Jeuxvideo.tv, we see that these bad guys would pull their arsenal out without second thought. Doesn’t matter if the place is populated with civilians and covered by police - if they shoot, shoot them back and nail ‘em to the ground.

Like what we heard before, the player will be backed up by a bunch of guys under your commands. “Go there, do that, kill them for me” is the motto, made easy thanks to the intuitive system.

Talking about gunplay, the duo doesn’t do anything groundbreaking. Clear out a route to exit the building, go crazy down the roads filled with cops - it’s what some might think as your basic action shooter fare on next-gen platforms. Then again, the game won’t be out until later this year for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. We’ll have to get our hands on it ourselves before our final say.

Universe At War: Earth Assault by SEGA for the Xbox 360 and PC has been announced as the first third-party game on the two platforms to support Games for Windows - Live and Xbox Live. This can only mean one thing: Cross-platform competition.

SEGA Europe and SEGA of America have revealed that they have been working very closely to make all of this possible. Right now, the developers are putting premium on balancing the game to make everything fair come the day that everyone’s ready to nuke it out.

The game’s PC version is slated for release in North America this winter while the Xbox 360 iteration will ship in the first quarter of 2008. The console version has a control scheme built from the ground up to make competition against its PC counterpart as level as can be.

As we’ve told you before, the game is set in 2012 when Earth is taken over by an alien menace that wants to strip the planet free of resources. A battered human race is reeling and fighting with pockets of resistance against Kemal Re’x and his vicious hordes. It’s up to the players now to decide our future. Watch out because this one looks real good.

Everyone who’s into music games knows PaRappa: The Rapper, one of the pioneers in the music game genre. It’s one of the quirkiest and funniest games to have come out for the PlayStation 1.

With the popularity of the music game genre on the rise, who better to ask about it than Masaya Matsuura, the creator of PaRappa: The Rapper. GamesIndustry.biz was recently lucky enough to talk with Matsuura who shared his thoughts on the industry.

Of course when we talk about music and games, you cannot help but mention popular games such as Singstar, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Matsuura spoke about these “newer” games that have captured western gamers rather smugly, “I’ve been waiting for things to happen in the West that we have had in Japan for the last 10 years.”

He was also asked about the controllers that both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have and he called it old news noting that he’s past that phase and he “had that interest in 1997 or so!” However he did say that “they are much more advanced and sophisticated than the ideas the Japanese developers had, so I appreciate that and respect their activities.”

This leads us to a question that we should consider, why are western developers so behind in development and what can they do to catch up? Matsuura gave a clear answer on this pointing out the differences in music culture.

I started my career as a musician in the early 90s. I was an exclusive signed artist for Sony. I worked to release my album in the UK, but unfortunately the Japanese music market is very specialised and I didn’t generate any foreign interest. I was frustrated to have to stick to the local market, so I started to think about worldwide activities. I wanted to move a little further afield, away from the conservative music business.

I think that a lot of musicians in Japan wanted to appeal to the wider market by using new ideas - games, for example. Music sales are shrinking, it’s a worldwide tendency, so maybe soon they will have to appeal to a wider market. This helps music games succeed.

So where are we headed in terms of music and gaming? Matsuura foresees that “Maybe in 20 years, 15 per cent of the music industry will earn their money from games.” Will we really be seeing the integration of music into gaming as software sales have been dying down? A very interesting notion that industry experts need to explore. If you want to read the full interview, check out the read link.

If you’re a fan of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas, then you’ll definitely want to check out what’s happening on Xbox Live. The Black Pack, which mysteriously appeared for a short while on XBLM, is making a comeback (uh… now, meaning today). This time, however, it’s completely free.

That’s right! A new update on Major Nelson’s blog confirms that the Black Pack was actually supposed to be free for people to grab and play. To remedy the situation, they’ll be issuing automatic reimbursements to people who purchased the pack within 8-10 weeks, so you should see an additional 800 MS points on your account eventually.

You’ll also be glad to know that the Red Pack will also be made free beginning July 6. Below is the full statement for details:

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas Black Pack Downloadable Content for Xbox 360 Live was originally intended to be free content for the fans of Rainbow Six Vegas. We apologize for the error. All players who purchased the Black Pack will be reimbursed automatically. The Black Pack will be posted Saturday June 30th and will be free of charge. Also, as a token of our appreciation for the Rainbow Six community, we are making the Red Pack free as of Friday July 6th as well. Thanks for playing and we hope you enjoy this free content.

No word on whether or not they’ll be reimbursing the Red Pack buyers as well, so we sympathize with the folks who might not be getting a refund for that one.

All these cases of the XBox 360 going kaput have Xbox modders scrambling to find ways to avoid getting victimized by the Ring of Death. Modders, like Team Xtender, are researching on how they can further improve the Xbox 360’s cooling system, which unfortunate Xbox 360 owners and modders blame as the main cause of most Xbox 360 malfunction.

If you’re always worried whether your Xbox is getting too hot (and eventually getting toasted), this case mod is for you: featuring the XCM 360 Hot Rock Case, which lets users know how hot the Xbox 360 is, without having to place a thermometer on the box.

The XCM Xbox 360 case will change color according to its temperature. The temperature and corresponding color are outlined below:

• Below 29℃ - Orange light
• 30-31℃ - Purple light
• 32-35℃ - Light blue light
• 36-39℃ - Green light
• 40-43℃ - Blue light
• 44-47℃ - Red light
• Over 48℃ - Red light flashing

Not only will it make your dimly4-lit room flash nifty bright colors, but its also quite useful in letting you know when your Xbox 360 is running at a dangerous 48℃ so that you can turn it off before the Ring of Death takes over your beloved machine.

You’ve met one director for one of the movies in Stuntman: Ignition. Now it’s time to see what else you can do in the upcoming PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game.

We all know how crazy things get in the movies. You’re a stuntman and of course, you’re tasked to do all the crazy and dangerous stuff. In this trailer for Paradigm Entertainment’s Stuntman: Ignition, we see a sort of gameplay montage of the other game modes in the game. Actually, it felt a bit like MotorStorm - maybe due to the booster and the dirt tracks. Anyway, we see a number of vehicles, a motorcycle included.

Anyway, we’ll leave you to watch the video and judge for yourself. Stay glued for more Stuntman: Ignition news and updates.

We’re sure you all know Bomberman, unless you’ve been collecting moss under a rock for a good number of years. And as reported previously, a new version of the classic video game is going to the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade as Bomberman Live.

Today, we’ve got two videos to make you realize just how much you’ve missed our intrepid white hero. One is a trailer for the upcoming title while the other one is a behind the scenes look at the makers of Bomberman Live, Hudson Entertainment. The trailer showcases the maps and the different customizations one can to the plain white Bomberman (we see a pirate, a Roman soldier dude, a viking, and a football jock to name a few).

The behind the scenes look, on the other hand, is hilarious. The team who came up with Bomberman Live were wacky and the scenes are downright funny. There’s this clip where French guy started arguing about Oui (Wii) and 360.

Anyway, we won’t spoil all of it. Better watch the Bomberman Live videos before they start ticking as well. Enjoy!

The ESRB may have taken down Dark Sector’s trailers, but they won’t have these new screenshots removed. Worth Playing has a handful of new screens for your viewing pleasure, rendered in sweet high definition goodness.

We see Hayden Tenno in cinematic-style action, brandishing his gun as well as his glaive in some of the screens - both weapons dealing considerable torture, pain and death in his opponents. The bladed disc that grows out of his infected hand, the glaive, is useful; it can be thrown around to inflict great damage, as well as absorb elements such as electricity and fire to serve as ammo on enemies. The disc also has its innate lighting, which will be very useful in dark environments.

Digital Extremes also had the usual on-screen displays (such as life bars, weapon checklists and ammo numbers) removed, replacing them with Hayden Tenno’s actual body as the HUD. Players will know when Tenno has received a lot of damage just by looking at how serious his wounds are. Also, all weapons he acquire will be holstered and strapped on his person (no mysterious weapons pulled out from a hole in time-space here), awaiting usage.

The game experience will certainly be simplified and enhanced by this minor tweak in the displays, and will be received warmly by players who always ask themselves why their character is still shown the same old suit when they have equipped something else. In addition to the simple HUD, the third person camera angle used for Dark Sector lets players see more of the action by not letting Tenno’s back obscure the view. Quite useful in letting players see more of the action.

The game promises a good storyline which focuses on Tenno’s character growth as a ruthless, cold-blooded assassin whose newly-acquired power is threatening to take over his body and mind. We’ll certainly see if Dark Sector delivers on its Q1 2008 release date.

Football fans, here’s another update for you. 2K Sports has just released the second trailer for their upcoming console (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) title, All-Pro Football 2K8.

The last time, you had to “spot the legend” as the trailer played. This time, you don’t have to as the players are introduced and their famous moves showcased. All of them playing in the prime of their careers. We see quarterback Joe “The Cruiser” Montana, wide receiver Jerry Rice, running back Walter Payton, center and linebacker Dick Butkus, and defensive lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry.

Recognize all of them? We’ll have to wait for All-Pro Football 2K8’s charge to the shelves. While we’re checking when exactly that is, check out the trailer.