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While Heavy Rain attempts to welcome both serious and more casual players, it's clear that many will find the unique controls and the story's slow burn a bit too jarring, unconventional, and even boring. Sony has already released so much (arguably too much) footage of Quantic Dream's adventure, and chances are that you've already passed judgment on the title. Perhaps more than any other game before it, Heavy Rain hopes that you want to like the experience. Why? It is -- at its core -- a role-playing game.

When people find out I've been playing Heavy Rain, the first question that generally pops up is, "Is it anything but a series of Quick-Time Events?" The problem with that question is that it inherently assumes that a QTE necessitates a lack of player control. While it's true that the majority of player input is done via on-screen indicators, to simply call them quick-time events is a bit derogatory, ignoring the innovations that developer Quantic Dream has made. Not all actions require players to press buttons as quickly as they see them. In fact, most of the commands involve a very deliberate pace: you may need to move the analog stick slowly, or hold down two buttons while transitioning to a third. Some inputs use the PS3's built-in motion controls, while others will use a combination of various inputs. There are many ways of interfacing with the controller, with each QTE trying to simulate its corresponding, real-world action.

However, variety is not Heavy Rain's greatest innovation. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the game to explain is its integration of inaction. You are often given the opportunity to do nothing -- and counter to your intuition, that can be the most satisfying option to pursue.

A lot of fans of the Max Payne series have been hesitant to get completely excited about Rockstar's third installment in the series, largely due to the unfamiliar setting of São Paulo, Brazil, and the obvious aesthetic changes undergone by the game's titular anti-hero. Perhaps their fears will be abated by a recent Game Informer preview of the title, which analyzes the big differences between the first two installments and the boldly redesigned threequel.

The preview mentions a few intriguing gameplay additions, including improved Bullet Time physics (thanks largely to the implementation of the Euphoria engine), and a cover system, which the game's devs promised would be optional. The article also explains the aforementioned aesthetic shifts. For instance, we learned that this older version of Max Payne isn't actually chubby. His beefier frame can be attributed to muscle, not obesity. That makes sense -- a diet consisting solely of whiskey and painkillers probably isn't loaded with saturated fats.

If you're waiting on pins, needles and mercenary machetes for the film adaptation of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Sony and Naughty Dog have come up with a pretty clever way of biding your time -- sneak previews of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves will be given on the massive screens of four theaters in Bellevue, WA, Rosemont, IL, Thousand Oaks, CA and San Francisco, CA on October 5 and 6.

SCEA reps and Naughty Dog developers will be around to answer your questions and give you a guided tour of the game. Tickets for the October 5 showings have already sold out -- so you'd better act quickly if you want to see what a two-story-tall half-tuck looks like. We imagine it's a life-changing experience.

If your pure, pure love of Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid has left you starving for more info regarding The Behemoth's next title -- a multiplayer platformer tentatively titled "Game 3" -- then you should check out G4's recent hands-on with the title, in video form after the break. Adam Sessler got a chance to check out the idiosyncratic game while Dan Paladin rides shotgun, explaining a couple of the game's modes, as well as the overarching story for the title. In a nutshell, said plot features a schizophrenic madman who's managed to kidnap your friends, whom you must rescue. Sounds appropriately bizarre.

The video shows four players slugging it out in "Whale mode," and also gives a brief demo of the co-op mode. We can't wait to check it out -- sadly, with a nondescript launch window of "2010," it seems we'll be doing a great deal of waiting before we can do checking.

If your unslakable hunger for video content from Naughty Dog's upcoming treasure hunting sim Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has led you to doff your aversion to spoilers, you should probably click past the jump. 1UP recently got their hands on an excerpt from the game's single-player campaign -- a segment titled "War Escape," which, as one might imagine, shows Nathan, Chloe, Elena and ... Jeff, escaping from a hostile warzone.

As we've said before, it's posted after the jump -- but there's a couple things in the video you might want to remain in the dark about until you actually get your hands on the game. If you really don't mind spoilers, 1UP also posted a version of the video in which two of their Uncharted experts deconstruct it, revealing story elements we don't even think Naughty Dog knows about yet. Caveat Emptor!

Update: According to the comments in this story, the Xbox 360 Dashboard Preview has begun to roll out now.

If you were quick enough on the draw to sign up, you may notice an email from Microsoft in your inbox today inviting you into the new Xbox 360 Dashboard Preview. The public preview -- which opened up for selected press and MVPs earlier last week -- is not fully live just yet, but Microsoft is notifying users if they were accepted into the program. Unaware of what to expect when the new dashboard hits this August? Joystiq has a lengthy guide with a plethora of videos to show you the ropes for the "New New Xbox Experience." Those guys are swell.

The preview of the upcoming update for the Xbox 360 Dashboard is now live, giving a few lucky Xbox owners -- for now, mostly press outlets -- a chance to place their eyes upon many of the new features, such as Games on Demand, improved Netflix functionality, unlockable Avatar items, purchasable Avatar items, a community-controlled games rating system, and other minor improvements.

We'll have a video preview and some additional image galleries of these new features up later today. Fear not, non-chosen ones -- you'll get your hands on the preview shortly, and everyone will be able to install the update when it goes public on August 11.

Update: We've edited this post to clarify that while the preview is technically live, its access is currently limited to press and a select few "MVPs." Those of you lowly commoners chosen for the preview should be granted access in the next several days.

At long last, the time has come for the floodgates of the L.A.Convention Center's main arena to be flung wide, drowning the humble bloggers of this blog in a deluge of gaming news. If you want to keep tabs on us while we try to stay afloat, check out our schedule for the day below. You'll see we've got the press conferences for the other two legs of The Big Three -- Nintendo and Sony, almost back to back. Don't lose track of the non-huge stuff, though! They're part of your healthy, balanced diet.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 (Presented in Eastern Standard Time)

• 12:00 pm -- Nintendo Press Conference
• 2:00 pm -- Sony Press Conference
• 3:00 pm -- Show floor opens
• 8:30 pm -- Shigeru Miyamoto presentation and Q&A
• All day -- Hands-ons, interviews and booth tours with EA, Capcom, Bethesda, Activision, Eidos, Valve, Epic, MTV Games, High Voltage, SCEE, SCEA and Square-Enix.

The initial gameplay trailers for Trine teased some incredible potential. Yet, in spite of our excitement for Trine, we couldn't have predicted how engrossing the title would be. Even in its early state, we were mesmerized by the game's impeccable presentation and accessible, innovative gameplay. Although it's a PlayStation Network game from an independent studio, the production values of Trine are rather surprising.

The game begins with a rather charming narrator telling the tale of a thief looking to steal a valuable, guarded treasure. Here, a simple tutorial teaches you the basics of using the thief's grappling hook, and bow and arrow. She's able to easily traverse the environment, swinging across large gaps quickly and smoothly. All the while, the narrator continues telling his tale; it's a perfect blend of story and gameplay that helps Trine capture a truly whimsical feel. Eventually, the thief lays her hands on the treasure ...

The screen fades to black and you then take control of a wizard. You'll learn to use his ability to telepathically pick up objects with the right analog stick -- and not only can he move objects around, but he can create blocks by drawing a square in the air. Once again, the narrator continues speaking as you make your way to the same room as the thief did.

Before reading on, we beg of you, our dearest readers, to heed this solemn warning. Do you remember that magical feeling that filled you the first time you crossed the aquatic threshold into Bioshock's labyrinthian metropolis, Rapture? That warm, gooey feeling of excitement and wonder? If you read Gamespot's recent all-inclusive, spoiler-filled preview of 2K Marin's highly anticipated follow-up, you'll probably be robbed of that feeling the first time you boot up Bioshock 2. Trust us. We made the sacrifice to pass this news onto you, and we're pretty sure we won't be able to get to sleep tonight.

If you absolutely must know what tantalizing details Gamespot dug up, you can check out their video featurette, which we've posted after the jump. Just don't come crying to us when you learn that the original Bioshock was actually just a dream sequence. (Oops! Sorry!)

Following a significant Wii menu update from Nintendo, Waninkoko has revealed footage of its new USB Loader software in action. Using any USB storage device in combination with the software allows gamers to play their "legal game backup collection."

While the software isn't currently available, a pre-release version has ironically been leaked but is said to be unusable for the time being. However, footage of the software in action (found after the break) shows the current release does work. Of course, as our sister site Engadget notes, we are inching up on April Fool's Day so the entire thing could really be too good to be true. But all signs from forum crawlers point to Waninkoko's software as the real deal.

[Via Engadget]

Did you hear? Flower's awesome. That's what we thought when we saw it at E3, at least. Recently we've have some hands-on time with a preview build which includes the first three levels and, yes, it's still awesome. So much so that we haven't really been able to stop playing it.

We blitzed through the three-level preview and there was a sincere feeling of disappointment when, upon trying to access the fourth level, we were greeted with a simple message; "To be continued." Flower is simply a joy to play, which is funny because there isn't even much of a game in there. Not in comparison to a Final Fantasy title or Killzone 2, at least. If you've played ThatGameCompany's first PS3 outing, flOw, you'll be familiar with this sort of ludological whimsy.

Before anyone gets worried, I'll make it clear that Flower definitely has more gameplay than flOw did. The premise is simple. You are a gust of wind inside a flower's dream and you must carry petals to other flowers in order to progress to the end of the level. There's no time limit, no hazards, no points system and, really, no way to fail.

BigDownload has been butting together an extensive preview of all the titles they hope will release in 2009. Granted, a fair chunk might get hit with the delay stick and be knocked out until 2010, but we're not about to get in the way of their PC gaming dreams (they hack stuff when they're angry).

The previews have been broken up into several sections below. This'll give you a great jump on your pirating holiday wish list for next year.

Source - Action-FPS Titles Part 1
Source - Action-FPS Titles Part 2
Source - Strategy-RTS Games
Source - RPG-MMO Games
Source - 2009 PC Game Preview: Other Games

Nathan Drake's disheveled mug has decided to grace yet another magazine cover, this time the latest issue of Edge. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the cover story, and to be honest, there isn't much here that we didn't already hear about from Game Informer or see from the leaked photos. Still, have at a few new pull quotes: According to Naughty Dog's Bruce Straley, the sneaking mechanic is "something more in the toolbox" that won't be required. "It's not Splinter Cell," he said. "It's choosing when and from where to enter combat."

Adding to the previously reported claim of "maxing out" the PlayStation 3's capabilities, the devs tease that the technology is strong enough to "allow an entire building to collapse while you're in it - and we can throw enemies in at the same time while that's happening." That better be in the final game a few times. This issue of Edge should be on newsstands now.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

We got our hands on Crash Commando at E3 and were quite impressed. Since then we've had the opportunity to play a preview build to our heart's content and it's looking great. Crash Commando is a 2D multiplayer shooter with 3D graphics. It plays very similarly to Soldat but has a pinch of Warhawk in there for good measure.

Gameplay consists of jetpacking around a battlefield shooting at people. The funny thing about these battlefields is that they're two-sided, so each level has a background and a foreground. You can switch between these by stepping through various doors littered throughout each level. You can see people fighting in the background in real time, helping you locate more people to shoot at.

The game will ship with eight levels, ranging from a cave, a jungle fort and a dilapidated ruins. When we spoke to the producer of the game at E3, however, he was keen to tell us that the dev team is planning on plenty of post-launch downloadable content.