Console Patrol

Earlier today Valve announced that Hothead Games' downloadable RPG Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is now available on its digital distribution platform Steam.

The developer added that the game's Steam release has been given the extra feature of achievements by Valve's Steamworks development tool suite.  Valve business director Jason Holtman commented:

"Many at Valve are huge fans of Penny Arcade—the comics, the site and now the game.  As such, we're delighted Hothead Games chose to use the Steamworks system of achievements and create a special PC version of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness for the millions of gamers on Steam."

The title was released last month on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade, and PCs through the digital distributor Greenhouse. Precipice of Darkness still runs at $19.99 on all platforms.

MTV may have leaked some if its own products early according to a poster at the Bemanistyle forums.  Stills from a commercial airing on the network promoting today's newly released MTV2 track pack have been posted and reveal 4 unreleased tracks for Rock Band.

If the screens are in fact real, here's what we can look forward to sooner or later:

• "Aesthetics of Hate" by Machine Head
• "Afterlife" by Avenged Sevenfold
• "Breed" by Nirvana
• "Burn" by Nine Inch Nails

Mobile games developer Gameloft has released an updated version of The Oregon Trail. The game costs $4 (possibly more, depending on your provider) and introduces several new gameplay elements to the childhood educational classic.

The game now includes five skill-based mini-games, side-missions and random events including bandits. If you're an old schooler don't worry, old favorites like hunting and random outbreaks of disease are still included. 

A demo is available on the official site for your own demoing pleasure.

Earlier today Capcom announced that the beta release of its upcoming classic fighter remake Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix will be made available on June 25.

Access to the Xbox 360-exclusive beta will be granted to those gamers who purchased the Xbox 360 version of Backbone Entertainment's Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, available today from the Xbox Live Marketplace.  The beta allows gamers to test out the game in online play as Ken or Ryu on a single stage.

The actual game will be available later this summer for both Xbox 360 and PS3.

Xbox Originals will add two titles from its back catalog next Monday, June 16th:

Guilty Gear XX #Reload (1200 Microsoft Points, WW except Europe): "Guilty Gear X2 #Reload makes its Xbox® debut, and, for the first-time ever, introduces online play with head-to-head Xbox Live™ support! Play over 20 different combatants and hidden characters, and devastate your opponents with an arsenal of eye-popping, jaw-dropping moves and combos-it's good to beat each other!"

The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (1200 Microsoft Points, WW except Germany, Japan, and Korea): "Explore the origins of the one and only powerful purple dragon in The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. Uncover Spyro's secret history as you embark on a dangerous quest to face off against the ultimate creation of the Dark Master, Cynder."

A pretty random if not questionable couple of adds, Xbox Originals doesn't seem to have much rhyme or reason for their selections.

Kotaku is reporting that Fatal Inertia EX, originally Fatal Inertia for the Xbox 360, should be hitting the PlayStation network next Thursday, June 19th.

The PlayStation 3 release of the game will feature a retooled flight model for improved handling and faster speeds, as well as an all new racing environment - the Fatal Inertia Proving Grounds - set in the arid desert.  Additionally the PS3 version includes the ability to steer with the SIXAXIS motion sensing controls.

Fatal Inertia EX will be available in demo form along with the full version for $29.99.

7 New Screens for the Xbox 360 revamped Unreal Tournament 3:

Joystiq is reporting that Wal-Mart is currently offering a $100 gift card this week with the purchase of any Blu-ray player. This applies to all PS3s, including the Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle available tomorrow.

They made sure that they explicitly asked if the PS3 and its bundles were included and a spokeswoman told them:

"Any Blu-ray player. Blu-ray. All of them."

What a nice way to bulk up your newly purchased console with a couple extra games, controllers or other accessories you can piece together with you extra Benjamin.

While most would agree a Mario baseball game doesn't jump off the page like certain Mario racing or brawling games might, it's hard to deny that most sport releases with Mario's face on it ain't too bad (i.e. Mario Golf, Mario Tennis).

So maybe I'm the only one excited when a little Mario Super Sluggers info comes to light, call me a sucker for altering the game of baseball with power-ups other than performance enhancers.  According to reports, each character will have their own special pitching and batting powers.  Mario's bat turns that 2-seamer into an inferno ball while Yoshi has the Jamie Moyeresque 'Rainbow Ball' that comes in slower than a Bugs Bunny Change-up...I'm guessing.

There's also several characters making their debut that have been seen around the likes of Delfino Island as well as Dixie Kong and for the first time the Goomba will be a playable character, throwing bat wielding logic into the wind.

If you're stateside, you can expect to play ball in early August.

From the Xbox 360 RPG Extravaganza today we get the first look at Star Ocean: The Last Hope in full form.  Overall the Square Enix games we've seen today just look graphically awesome, something we've come to expect with the Square name, we'll see if the gameplay of these visual masterpieces can match.

Another coin to add to the pile of Xbox 360 RPG coverage today, Namco Bandai announced that its Xbox 360-exclusive RPG Tales of Vesperia would arrive stateside in August.

The company added that a free demo of the game will be available through the Xbox Live Marketplace before the end of June, granting gamers a look at the action RPG prior to the games release.

Vesperia marks the latest installment of Namco Bandai's long-running Tales franchise, kicked off in 1995 with the Japan-only Tales of Phantasia on the Super Famicom. Tales of Vesperia is said to incorporate a variety of tweaks and updates to the series' traditional action-based combat system.

5 New Screens for the Xbox 360 Exclusive RPG Infinite Undiscovery:

We're only a couple of days away from the release of the Spore Creature Creator, and today EA has released the system requirements for the highly anticipated evolution simulator Spore.  Hope you've freed up some space:

FOR WINDOWS XP
• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
• 512 MB RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• At least 6 GB of hard drive space
FOR WINDOWS VISTA
• 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
• 768 MB RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• At least 6 GB of hard drive space

The full version of Spore is set to arrive on PC September 7, with a Nintendo DS release, titled Spore Creatures, arriving on the same day.  Here is the rest of the details on Spore's requirements, including video cards, Windows Vista warnings, Mac system compatibility, etc.

5 New Screens for the very polished looking Star Ocean: The Last Hope:

Square Enix has released that the fourth installment of Star Ocean's role-playing franchise will hit Xbox 360 in 2009. The game was originally announced last May, though no platforms or release estimates were included at the time.

Lead by series creator and Infinite Undiscovery developer tri-Ace, the action-RPG has been officially titled Star Ocean: The Last Hope.  A different press release from Square Enix only lists Star Ocean: The Last Hope as an Xbox 360 release. However, it is not designated as an "exclusive" like Infinite Undiscovery, further implying a PlayStation 3 release.

Some new screenshots accompanied the announcement and are on the way.