The Xbox 36o slim was announced today at the Microsoft press conference on the first day of E3. The new version of the popular console sports a 250 gigabyte hard drive and a built in wifi adapter, as well as being "whisper quiet." The new console has now fully replaced the "outdated" one in all new sales of Xbox 360's. In addition, a special auxiliary port on the back of the console will let you connect (pun intended) Microsoft's Kinect motion add on, allowing simultaneous power and data transfer.

The slim goes on sale later this week at a price of $299.

You are looking at Sony's humongous banner draped on the outside of the West Hall at the Los Angeles Convention Center, host once again for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the biggest spectacle the video game industry has to offer. Our badges are in hand and holders, are appointments for tomorrow are confirmed, and all that remains is to wait for the shows big kick off tomorrow at noon when the doors to the convention halls will be opened to the journalistic masses. We'll see you there!

When Mega Microgame$!'s WarioWare series first debuted on the Gameboy Advanced it took a new direction with the minigames genre that hadn't yet been explored. There hadn't been to many games before it that featured minigame collections in which each game took less than five seconds to complete. This was the first of its kind; quick, short bursts of gameplay that required lightning fast reflexes to complete within a very short amount of time. With WarioWare D.I.Y., the job of creating these minigames is left to the player's hands. Does it work?

Warioware D.I.Y.'s hook is to leave the creation of the minigames to the player. The game features a large tutorial section that essentially teaches the player how to use the editor. The game allows the player to not only make small "tap here" games but a large amount of different game types. Not only does the game just offer a game creator but it also features over 70+ already created minigames that are very reminiscent of classic Warioware games.

D.I.Y. is set up to where the player is given a variety of tutorials under the grounds that they are building games commisioned by Wario. While these tutorials are very informative and teach the player how to create their own minigames, they are long and the text is unskippable. I feel like they could have been much more easily done with an informative tutorial video instead. These tutorials prepare the player nicely for creating their own minigames that they can play locally or upload online for others to play. The game has many partially completed games that the player can complete and play.

WarioWare D.I.Y.'s minigame editor is much like a programming language in the way that it works. The player designs objects using a sprite creator and assigns duties to those objects. The part where programming comes into play is in the AI design, the player assigns commands to the objects such as "if [object1] does [action] then [action2]". This adds a whole new level of depth to the editor that would be lacking otherwise.

WarioWare features an online component in which players can upload their minigames to the internet and allow other players to download them either for playing or for editing and learning. When uploading, players have the option to enter their creations into contests put on by Nintendo. While there were some cool creations, it sure wasn't easy to find them. The game doesn't feature a good way to browse or search for games and it makes the marketplace's offerings look lackluster.

Warioware D.I.Y. adds a whole new aspect to this classic minigame franchise that hasn't really been explored with this depth before. The game expands upon the classic gameplay with much needed improvements and executes them well.

Futuremark Games Studio has released the Firepower weapons pack for Shattered Horizon on Steam. Firepower, which is free for all players, adds eight new weapons and three new grenades. To celebrate the release, Futuremark is offering Shattered Horizon for just $14.99 until Wednesday May 12.

"We believe players should be rewarded for supporting a game and that’s why we have released all our DLC packs for free," said Jaakko Haapasalo, Head of Futuremark Games Studio. "In fact for $14.99, the same price as 'that other map pack' released this week, PC gamers can now get the complete Shattered Horizon game, including both the Moonrise map pack and the brand new Firepower weapons pack, from a developer that puts players first."

Sony announced a new God of War game for PSP today. Developed by Ready at Dawn Studios (the same team behind Chains of Olympus), God of War: Ghost of Sparta will feature our beloved Kratos, depicting his rise to power sometime after the events of the first God of War on PS2.

"Excitement for the God of War franchise is at an all-time high and we're thrilled to continue that momentum with God of War: Ghost of Sparta," said SCEA product marketing VP Scott Steinberg. "This new adventure will showcase Kratos on PSP like never before in an experience that fans and newcomers can enjoy on the go, anytime, anywhere."

Ghost of Sparta supposedly boasts 25% more gameplay content than Chains of Olympus, and it will kick the number of on-screen enemies up a notch. It's expected to ship later this year.

[via Joystiq]

StarCraft fans, rejoice! Blizzard announced yesterday that the hugely anticipated sequel, Wings of Liberty, will be available at retailers starting July 27 and directly from Blizzard itself shortly thereafter. The game has been in beta since February with a rather hefty update releasing just a few weeks ago, which included the custom map editor, achievements, and a number of other Battle.net additions.

"Thanks to our beta testers, we're making great progress on the final stages of development, and we'll be ready to welcome players all over the world to StarCraft II and the new Battle.net in just a few months," said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO and co-founder.

Wings of Liberty will continue the StarCraft story arc, following Terran rebel leader Jim Raynor. The game will allow players to pick and choose the missions they run, creating a very customizable single-player experience.

For Gametrailer's breakdown of the trailer, hit the jump

If you've already watched the trailer you'll know there's probably a total of twenty seconds of gameplay footage between all the split second shots put together. For a more detailed (and slower) look, take a gander at Gametrailers.com's pop block trailer.

Sick and tired of that boring old white Wii? Jealous that both Japan and Europe have already had their mits on an awesome looking black Wii for months? If you possess such ridiculous insecurities you'll be happy to learn that Nintendo will be offering the Black Wii state side May 9, with a few little bonuses over the plain old white color.

First off, the black model will come with two games. The standard Wii Sports title as well as the sequel, Wii Sports Resort. Guess what also comes with it? A Wii motion plus add on to go with the motion enhanced Wii Sports Resort. All this comes at the standard retail of $200, but one could argue that the Wii is technically $150 since Nintendo is throwing in another $50 game.

The Secret of Monkey Island:SE powered by InstantAction

Pressing Play Demo will give you 20 free minutes of Monkey Island goodness, along with the option to purchase the full game for $9.99. However, don't be surprised if you can't play instantly. I and a number of other users were prompted to download the latest version of Java before playing (some actually during gameplay), along with InsantAction's own plug-in. The demo comes in at 2.5 GB and automatically installs to your C: drive, though you'll be playing within a matter of seconds thanks to InstantAction's  'chunking' feature, which only downloads the files necessary to start playing.  The rest downloads as you play.

While it'd be great if they allowed us to choose which drive to install to, I'm sure most of you will have plenty of room since 2.5 GB isn't a whole lot these days.  Currently only Windows users can enjoy the game, though InstantAction is planning Mac support, along with an offline client so you won't need a constant internet connection to play.

After 2 months of downtime, it's nice to finally see some action from the company.  Though the initial launch was a bit shaky (the game didn't actually, you know, work on the main site for a while), it appears to be an overall success.   Their latest podcast summarizes things nicely, while teasing us about a new publisher that recently signed on with the company.  There's no word yet as to when the games that were previously on site will be back up.

The big reveal of Activision's next Call of Duty title was supposed to be saved for tonights Gametrailer's TV, but that hasn't stopped the game's website from launching and inadvertently leaking details for the game. Granted there's no real content currently on the site, but there is the image posted above that confirms a release date and an official title.

From rumors abound on the interwebs we're pretty sure Treyarch's iteration of the series focuses on the Vietnam era, but with a title like "Black Ops" it's obvious that there may be more to the game than smoking doobies in between bouts with the Vietcong. Kotaku has some thoughts that the game may involve additional espionage or cold war related activities, but their guess is as good as any now. Aside from a name, it's easy to see the game is slated for a November release, just as every other CoD game before it.

Titles and release dates aside the bulk of the game's reveal is still slated to happen on tonight's GTTV on Spike TV. Tune in to the station at 12:30 AM or wait for our update when more details come to light.