Good rumors from the Destination Playstation conference. Per some sources at the retailer show, alongside the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue launch on April 15th will be a redesign of the Playstation Store.

The new Playstation Store is rumored to look a lot like the SingStore (that’s it in the picture) and have an improved navigation system. I’m still not sure it will measure up to XBox Live where I’m spending at least 10x more than I am in the Playstation Store. Then again, at least the rumored launch date isn’t April 1st.

[via Kotaku]

On sort-of-sale are the the 40GB PS3, which comes with a $40 Target gift card, and a stack of popular PS3 and XBox 360 shooters, which each come with a $10 Target gift card. Hop on over to CheapAssGamer for the full list and copies of Target’s Sunday flyer.

All three songs are included in the hidden list found by laconic this week that everyone thinks is Harmonix’s future-song-list. The full list, minus released songs, is posted after the jump.

• Garbage “Why Do You Love Me?“
• Stone Temple Pilots “Sex Type Thing“
• Weezer “El Scorcho“

Click for 30-sec song previews.

Full, hidden song list:

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Alabama Getaway
Beetlebum
Behind Blue Eyes
Blinded By Fear
Breed
Brown Sugar
Casey Jones
China Cat Sunflower
Come as You Are
D.O.A.
Drain You
El Scorcho
Franklin’s Tower
Fuel
Hysteria
I Need A Miracle
Lithium
Lounge Act
March Of The Pigs
Message In A Bottle
On a Plain
Pinball Wizard
Polly
Received Your Letter
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
Sex Type Thing
Shadow World
Shooting Star
Simple Man
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Something in the Way
Stay Away
Still Alive
Sugar Magnolia
Supernaut
Territorial Pissings
The Collector
The Perfect Drug
Thrasher
Through the Monsoon
Truckin’
Why Do You Love Me?
Wrathchild
Zero

The limited edition version of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 gives you … hold on this is *so exciting* … pro tip videos, frag dolls, and a keychain (WTF?). If you can’t contain yourself either the box will be on store shelves March 18th for an extra $10. As if $60 wasn’t enough already, now we’re going to get some videos that will be on YouTube before lunchtime on the 18th and a freaking keychain for $69.99.

Someone send us a pic of their keychain. I’d love to know if the thing is even made from a semi-real’ish poker chip.

• The Clash’s “Complete Control“
• The Police’s “Truth Hits Everybody“
• The Ramones’ “Teenage Lobotomy“

If you’re a punk fan there’s also a 3-pack of all three songs available – for a big 50¢ savings.

Game publishers need to wake up and realize it’s a lot easier to buy a console than a new PC. Both Crysis and Bioshock were huge titles available, on the PC, and made headlines. Neither made the PC top 10 list though. The numbers are over at Shacknews (2007 PC sales and 2007 console sales) and are worth some attention. WoW is actually the number one and two PC game for sales. It doesn’t change that fact that Mario Party 8 beat out the whole rest of the PC game field, but it stands out to me that none of the six Warcraft or The Sims games on the top 10 list require much PC hardware to run.

What does that mean to gamers? … you’re better off paying eBay release-day prices for a Wii, PS3, and XBox 360 than you are to drop $4,000 on a new gaming PC.

The different-from-normal weapons are a big draw too. A bit more challenging to fight with than typical Halo 3 cannons. The bow is a sweet weapon as long as you’re holding it and avoiding the knife is a really good idea. The most fun weapon is the shotgun’s secondary mode and the havoc it causes. It’s a heck of a lot of fun to lob a flare into a crowded room or a sniper post. Dinosaurs like the heat, they’ll move in on the flare and tear up the place.

There are some problems reported with MP server lag. They mostly seem to be resolved tonight. Things are good enough that my wireless network is probably dropping more often than the servers.

The real problem … if you want to play with the cool kids stay off the busy Turok servers and drop a comment on Kotaku.

The guys over at College Humor TV aren’t very good at Guitar Hero (it’s OK guys, neither am I). To make up for their poor playing they’re going to be mopping up the mess and leftovers from the Guitar Hero rockstars. Check out the Roadie Hero trailer above.

Devil May Cry 4 looks like one of the best games (other than Super Smash Bros Brawl) there is to wait around for. These trailer (above) and gameplay (that’s HD, low-def here) videos are leaving me drooling to grab it on Tuesday (Feb 5th).

Gameplay is far more important to me than graphics or storyline (Gah! Did I just say that?). Seriously though, there are some pretty sweet pictures on Flickr but you can’t play them and I don’t care if I’m shooting, slashing, or smashing as long as it’s fun and going somewhere. Based on the reviews (and #2) there’s going to be a lot of gameplay too. Enemies regenerate and Capcom is known for making hard games – it’s a good thing that the action is fast and combat is so sweet. There are two characters to play in this over-the-top action too, first Dante and then Nero from earlier in the series. Rumors of all sorts of secret extras that the game press can’t talk about should keep things exciting too. Play up.

The site reviews video games for all systems (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, & older consoles) and gives each a rating. None of these ratings are on a 9-out-of-10 scale either. What They Play uses ESRB ratings to pronounce games “safe” for various ages. I’ll lay odds that the site is affiliated with Jack Thompson given that the game ratings are fairly harsh and put almost every popular game on the market in the “Teen” (13 or older) category and anything remotely like a shooter in the “Mature” (17 and older) category.

Some examples:

• Halo 3 is rated “Mature” – as in only for ages 17 and over
• It takes a lightweight like Lego Star Wars to pull in an “Everyone 10+” (like they need two levels of Everyone ratings…)
• Major games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero II & III, and Super Smash Bros Brawl are rated “Teen” – only for ages 13 and over

If you still live at home and rely on your parents’ green (or at least a credit card or ride to the store) to buy games you’d better add whattheyplay.com to the Hosts file on all household PCs.

Rockstar Games gave a sneak peak to the elite of the new Grand Theft Auto yesterday and the internet is all abuzz with it’s fancy new bells and whistles. According to this article the new game features faster load times, a souped up physics system, and the ability to get totally freaking drunky pants. How drunk? Drunk enough to make the game shake and wobble like a fat guy singing Prince at a karaoke bar. Now that kids, is some good clean fun.

GTA IV has an expected release date of late April this year.

Quick, shoot! It’s a zebra … and a field … ?

Far Cry 2 is months off but Ubisoft is already bragging about their new graphics engine. It really is the most phenomenal-looking, uh, grass I’ve ever seen in a game. The 45-seconds of scenery contains no gameplay though. Keep watching for more trailers as they finally add more huts, a lion or two, and maybe some playable characters for the October 31, 2008 release.

What makes the 2.0 spec so hard to meet? Unless you’re reading this on an iPhone your PC already meets the requirements: two secondary decoders, 1GB of local storage, and an internet connection. The Playstation 3 meets all those requirements, with its hard drive and Ethernet port covering the last two items and the extra graphics horsepower covering the decoders. On the other hand, I figure most PC and laptop Blu-ray R/RW’s probably meet the standards too. If you dropped the cash on one of those hold your breath and hope your manufacturer is around long enough to dish out the firmware upgrades.

[via Ars Technica]

Hi Kyle, sorry to shoot the messenger but we’re tired of hearing about delays.

Sony apologizes, via some poor guy named Kyle, for more LittleBigPlanet delays. First it was late 2007, then spring 2008. Sony still hasn’t spilled the beans on an official target date, but rumors now say September’ish 2008. Take some small joy in the gameplay in the video above and a lot of joy from Kyle’s promise of a public beta “far enough ahead to implement change and fix things” . When do you guys think that is coming?

Three individual Rock Band song downloads Tuesday for Xbox 360 and Thursday for PS3. All three of these are about $2 each. All three are a bit more upbeat than last week’s update:

• Blink 182′s “All the Small Things“
• The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” (cover)
• Sweet’s “Action” (cover)

really sweet artwork by: RatherNotSay, Creative Commons licensed

According to PC World, similar plans are also underway in the UK. North America is the only major game territory still selling more than one model (here we have a 40GB version at $399 and an 80GB at $499). So its likely the U.S. market will similarly narrow to one overpriced system instead of two.

Since the game is playable from start to end, entering beta testing, and on the fastest gaming system ever sold to consumers … where can we see it? Would someone in beta testing let us know how good this one is?

Soul Calibur fans are about to get one new character to play. It’s either Darth Vader or Yoda, and only one because 1UP reports that Darth Vader is only available on the PS3 version of the game while Yoda is only available on the Xbox 360 version. That’s unfortunate, but probably meant to build even more controversy and argument.

Gameplay reports from CES08 are that Soul Calibur IV plays exactly like it should. Kudos to the developers for not messing up a good thing. The biggest change seems to be in the eye-candy department. The characters and rendering are beautiful, despite the incomplete state of the game displayed as CES. Check the 1UP screens to see for yourself.

First video trailer of gameplay is after the jump.

The Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker reduces the monster hit game�s axe controller to a gawdy belt buckle. Players can frantically flick and fiddle with it, all the while looking vaguely like they�re � well � you know.

Rock Band players without a drumming background may not know there are three “right ways” to hold drumsticks.

Now that you know … learn them. They all have tradeoffs and one may work better than others, but all give better control and use less energy than gripping the sticks like hammers and pounding away. Use these and your drumming will get better faster.

Learn How to Hold Drumsticks [via gamingtoday]