So we all know that E3 is going to be small this year and very private. With that said, all the big names will be there presenting and showing off what they have in store for the upcoming year.

IGN has a list of who’s attending and what games are confirmed to be shown at this year’s E3. Not too much confirmed yet from anyone. A few notable games on the list so far:

• Devil May Cry 4 (Capcom)
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations (Capcom)
• Turok (Disney)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Lucasarts)
• Unreal Tournament 3 (Midway)
• Little Big Planet (Sony)

Keep checking back as more news comes in about what you can expect from this year’s E3 Expo.

We’ve all now seen the first videos of Guitar Hero III, and I think everyone has read the list of what songs are already confirmed to be in the game.

Joining the already impressive list will be Evenflow by Pearl Jam and Lay Down by Priestess, as reported by IGN.

Evenflow is a much more fun song to play than the previous Pearl Jam song we’ve seen, Life Wasted, which was one of the 10 new tracks included on the Xbox 360 iteration of Guitar Hero II. It’s also a master track, so you won’t have to wonder how it will turn out other than note placement.

Lay Down is also a master track and it’s one of those nice surprises that Guitar Hero games are known for. Priestess isn’t a member of the rock pantheon so you might not have heard about them yet, but this metal song is a ton of fun to play. It’s fairly fast and has a great riff to it. It isn’t the toughest song to play, but the fast nature of it make it a nice choice for a Guitar Hero III battle.

I’m a bit Pearl Jam fan, so having more of their songs in the game if fine by me.

Our very good pals over at GameTactics put in some work to get everyone the press conference schedule for this year’s E3, being held this July. I’m thinking we’re going to see a lot of announcements still, just no massive show floor with banging music and half naked women. Ahhhh the good old days.

From GameTactics:

Here’s the full breakdown schedule as of today, all times are PST:

Tuesday July 10th
8:30PM - Microsoft Press Event

Wednesday July 11th
9:30AM - Nintendo Press Conference
11:30AM - Sony Computer Entertainment Press Conference
2:00PM - EA Press Conference
3:15PM - Activision Press Conference
4:30PM - Midway Press Conference
5:45PM - Konami Press Conference

Thursday July 12th
8:30AM - Take Two Interactive Press Conference
9:00AM - THQ Press Conference
10:30AM - Ubisoft Press Conference
1:00PM - Namco Bandai Press Conference
3:30PM - Disney Interactive Press Conference

We got word today that an Assassin’s Creed Limited Edition will be coming to a store near you.

Scheduled for later this year, this is what you can expect from the LE:

• Specialized tin packaging
• A figurine of lead character Altair
• Penny Arcade comics
• A miniature strategy guide
• Assassin-themed short films and other various videos

Wow, this year has been a frenzy of remakes and rehashes but this one holds dear to my heart. At their recent conference Tecmo announced the release of a brand new Tecmo Bowl Game for 2008. They were a bit vague as to what it would be and for what console, but who cares it’s Tecmo Bowl people. Long live the 99 yard bomb or the 99 yard kick off return, I can only hope that it stays true to it’s ancestors, it brings back memories of playing on my NES on a 13” TV, those were the days.

Quote from the conference, read it and you’ll be thoroughly confused yet pleased:

“I can’t tell you what platform we’re making it for. But I can tell you that it’s probably not going to be on the platform that you’re expecting… if that makes any sense.” This 2008 game will not be a port. It’s a band new game for one of the new systems. But which one?!? “That’s one thing I can tell you for sure. This is going to be a brand new game for one of the new systems … We’re confident that the new Tecmo Bowl is going to be the talk of the town in 2008.”

Activision, Inc. announced they will be paying homage to classic rock of the 1980’s with Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s, available exclusively on the PlayStation2. It looks like it will drop this summer and have some nice features in it like: new visuals, characters and venues. There will be a total of 30 new songs to come with the new game including:

I Wanna Rock (by Twisted Sister)
I Ran (by Flock of Seagulls)
Round and Round (as made famous by Ratt)
I Want Candy (as made famous by Bow Wow Wow)
Metal Health (as made famous by Quiet Riot)
Holy Diver (as made famous by Dio)
Heat Of The Moment (as made famous by Asia)

More to come, lets all hope for a rendition of Sweet Child of Mine or Livin’ on a Prayer, you now you want to rock out ot those.

Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80’s is published by RedOctane and developed by Harmonix, kudos to the folks at RedOctane and their contnued success with this franchise, all we can ask for is for this to come to the Xbox 360 as well. For more information, please visit the dedicated community site.

Capcom held it’s annual Gamer’s Day in San Fransisco this week. Their biggest announcement: Lost Planet coming to PC. This has been a huge hit for the Xbox 360, so why not port it over. I’m sure the sequel will end up on PC and PS3 as well, but there’s been no announcements yet on that front.

For the Nintendo DS, there’s two new games coming, both in the sequel realm. The first is a new Phoenix Wright game for all you wanna-be attorneys out there. The second is a new Mega Man game. Check out our current Ultimate Showdown to see who’s the best Mega Man villian of all time. It might make the gameplay on this new game just a little bit better.

There’s going to be a lot of great downloadable titles coming for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC this year. The best of the list are Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. These classics are getting a new twist with 1080p graphics and online play on all platforms. As if we haven’t had enough Street Fighter games anyway…

I like to see that all of these games are coming simultaneously for all platforms. It gives everyone some choice and a chance to play these great games.

Today Ubisoft and Gearbox officially announced they’re bringing their Brothers in Arms series to the Wii and DS this year. The DS game, innovatively titled Brothers in Arms DS, will ship this summer, while the Wii game, titled Brothers in Arms Double Time, will be out this fall.

The Wii title will feature all 31 playable levels from the previous Brothers in Arms games. Of course, you’ll get to use the Wiimote to issue commands and such. So there’s not much new here if you’re already played the games on Xbox or PS2. The DS title will 16 missions and three different campaigns with some added multiplayer goodness. Should be a good DS title.

From the press release:

“Brothers In Arms on the Wii and DS systems is really exciting for us,” said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software. “I am a huge fan of both systems and thrilled about making games for the two platforms. In the entire space of first-person shooters on video game systems, Brothers In Arms really lends itself to both the Wii and DS interfaces. Imagine using the Wii Remote to give actual hand signals or aiming with the DS stylus from a covered position. That’s what you can look forward to with Brothers In Arms Double Time and Brothers In Arms DS.”

GameDaily Biz is reporting that the Xbox 360 Elite will be formally announced tomorrow by Microsoft. This isn’t that far out of left field, since we’ve seen the production leaks, magazine articles, and stories from Dean Takahashi.

They have an anonymous source in the industry, and they usually are pretty on target with their expectations. Everyone knows it’s been coming, it’s just a matter of time.

From the article:

The black colored console was revealed in the April issue of Game Informer, and while Microsoft has continued to deny its existence, it’s become one of the worst kept secrets in the industry of late. The new model 360 is rumored to come with a 120GB hard drive, an HDMI port and cable, but no HD DVD drive. It’s also not clear whether it will feature the same 90-nanometer chipset or the cheaper to produce, more effective 65-nanometer chip, which Microsoft will likely switch over to soon.

We’ll keep our eyes pealed tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this press release come across my desk early tomorrow.