It seems that developers are starting to get serious about making sure that the online experience they deliver is fun, and remains fun. We know EA Sports has some anti-rage-quit measures in mind for FIFA 2011, and now Bungie's Brian Jarrard has come out and let their intentions be known on the topic: "people who do this habitually will actually be penalised."
...

Codemasters haven't been shy about hyping DiRT 3; they assure us it's going to blow your freaking minds. And if the benchmarks that the first two set are anything to go by, I believe them. The third in the series has just been teased for the very first time on ESPN's X Games coverage a few hours ago, so here it is for you to check out. ...

Halo Reach is merely months away, with "Noble Team's epic, planetary battle" beginning on September 14th, in fact. Bungie has just let-loose the final trailer for the highly anticipated Xbox 360 shooter, which serves as a campaign trailer for you all to whet your appetite with. ...

As if Marvel vs. Capcom 3 wasn't exciting enough for fighting fans, a huge bombshell has been dropped at Comic Con, in the form of Street Fighter X Tekken's reveal trailer! I won't bore you with anymore of my dribble, click play! Thanks to mepm on the forums for the heads-up! ...

Apparently, and not exactly surprisingly, Microsoft had plans to create a standard for cross-platform play between Games for Windows LIVE titles and the Xbox 360. But according to Rahul Sood, CTO of gaming at HP, the idea was binned after play-tests left the Xbox gamers emotionally bruised and battered.
...

I've been ranting about this extremely intriguing indie platformer on the forums for a little while now, and today it sees its Xbox 360 Arcade release, at 1200 MS points. At this point no plans to release it on other platforms have been announced, although you can't help but feel that not releasing it for Android and the iPhone would be a crying shame.
...

Someone over at Joystiq has a keen eye, spotting a couple of achievements for the Xbox LIVE Arcade release of PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies which indicate some new game modes. Specifically, it looks as though we can expect a versus mode, as well as some form co-operative play. ...

So an octopus named Paul predicted a bunch of World Cup matches correctly, pfft, so what - he'll be dead in two years anyway. That's if the Germans don't eat him before that. What's really interesting is that EA Sports used their 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa title to simulate the World Cup, a first for the developer, and it also picked Spain as the winner. Now that's hardly impressive by itself, until you consider that EA Sports have been using their Madden franchise to simulate the NFL Super Bowl for 7 years, and it has only picked the winner wrong once.
...

The next Metal Gear Solid is on the way, titled Rising, and a trailer has been outed at Microsoft's E3 press conference. Fans of sneaking, prepare to be quietly excited...

Before you ask; Kinect is the official name for Microsoft's Natal, which was merely a codename for the project. Kinect lands this November, and is priced at $150 USD. Surprisingly, it's smaller than what you might have expecetd, but still requires it's own power adapter...