The winter of 2011 will see more than a few big EA releases, including the sequel to horror-title Dead Space, another Need for Speed, as well as that Epic Studios shooter we've been hearing so much about. But here's a surprising tidbit: expect something "far-reaching" from the Mass Effect series (or team?).

Towards the middle of the riveting EA conference call, COO John Schappert busted out the news of something Mass Effect -- something "far-reaching" -- is set to hit in late 2011.

"Winter of 2011 marks the chilling return of Dead Space, a highly rated, fully-owned franchise," Shappert said. "Another big driving simulation from Need from Speed, a new shooter being developing by Epic Studios and co-published by EA, and finally something far-reaching from Mass Effect."

Could this be a traditional, full-featured expansion across both platforms? Or is this another game based in the universe? Surely, it's not Mass Effect 3.

If cheering wasn't your thing, you might want to consider All Star Karate by THQ. It's the publisher's new title in the "All Star" franchise, following the popular (no, really) All Star Cheer Squad.

The Wii title puts players in the role of a young martial artist in training who, in an attempt to save an old man from a group of ninjas, has to fight head-to-head against a karate master. What... the... ? Yeah, so in a Karate Kid inspired "twist," you're trained by the elderly karate master in an effort to earn a black belt. The game will feature full support fo the Wii MotionPlus (if you choose), and will let you use your choice of the Wii Remote/Nunchuck combo or two Wii Remotes.

All Star Karate is scheduled to ship this spring, so you might want to wait before starting sh*t with any neighborhood ninjas. Because, you know, this game is gonna make a man out of you. Or a tough pre-teen. Or something.

It's already been confirmed that Burnout developer Criterion has its hands in the Need for Speed franchise. But if Burnout's fast pace and twisted steel isn't your thing, don't worry -- Electronic Arts has confirmed that it has not one but two Need for Speed titles in the works. 

Holiday of 2010 will see the release of Criterion's Need for Speed title, referred to by EA Chief Operating Officer John Schappert on today's financial call as an action title. Early 2011 (January-March) will see the release of a second Need for Speed title, this one a simulation title, possibly a follow up to last year's Need for Speed: SHIFT.

You can can play both titles, no one's stopping you. But if you had to choose, what would you prefer? A Need for Speed simulation title or a Need for Speed action title?

Some may claim that the Aliens and Predator franchises are dead, but the apparent success of the Aliens vs. Predator demo seems to indicate that there are a lot of fans left in the world. According to Rebellion, AvP has been downloaded 14,000 times on Xbox Live alone, which is pretty decent, considering it's not had a lot of major coverage. 

I'm legitimately surprised by this, however. I've barely been able to find a match on the 360, and when I have, it's usually some bullsh*t like a one-on-one round. The PC has a lot of healthy, full matches going, but I figured nobody was playing the 360 version at all. Still, those that are playing it seem to like it. Rebellion proudly notes that the game has a Live approval rating of 4.5/5 right now, and I know all about 4.5s!

In any case, AvP is out this month, and the first review from Game Informer gave it a 5.75. I expect quite a few reviews will treat the game poorly, while a small handful will "get" what the game is really about and love it. From my demo experience, I appear be among the brave and the few. We'll get our review out there as soon as we get the game and can enjoy all the multiplayer modes.

Aliens vs Predator demo hits 14k downloads on Live [CVG]

If you're an avid Electronic Arts fan and just have to have everything they own, you might want to tighten your belt for the next year. There's a lot of games, and in the publisher's fiscal earnings details released today, release windows for some major games were revealed.

Of note, Visceral's Dead Space 2 is confirmed for an early 2011 release, along with a new Spore title, the Epic Games/People Can Fly shooter, a new Dragon Age game, and an unannounced action title. Yes, I meant to write a new Dragon Age.

Hit the jump for a full breakdown of EA's key titles for its fiscal year 2011 (via Shacknews).

[These posts on No More Heroes 2 are purely speculation. I have no idea what the team at Grasshopper Manufacture intended for the game to mean; I can only speak to what I've taken away from it, so if you don't enjoy potentially bullsh*t interpretations of the meaning of a videogame, then stay away from this post. --Jonathan]

Here it is, the second and final post from me about the bosses of No More Heroes 2. Honestly, I'm worried that it's sort of stupid to put these posts out so quickly after the game's release, as I feel that I'm far from really figuring it all out. I've already had a few new ideas about the first nine bosses that I wish I'd written in the other NMH2 boss analysis post, and since I'm about to dive into writing this next post, I'm still trying to figure out what the last nine bosses mean to me.

These next nine are especially hard to describe, because they rely on atmosphere and context a lot more than dialogue or physicality to get their messages across. I better not starting thinking about that now, though, or I'll run the risk of getting a sudden case of writer's block and never finishing this thing.

I'm just going to jump into it, figure it out as I go along, and hope it makes sense to somebody. That's probably what Suda51 would do, and it seems to be working for him. So hit the jump and see what I poop out. Oh, and watch out for spoilers and stuff.

You might have heard that the BioShock 2 ending is up on YouTube. No,  I'm not going to link to it. That's a dick thing to do, and is almost as bad as putting it up in the first place. I did, however, point it out to 2K. Of course, they already knew about it, and as you'd expect, were not impressed in the slightest.

"We know that we can only control that so much."

"It's been [up] a couple of times, said 2K Marin's Creative Director Jordan Thomas. We've already had our legal guys take it down a few times. It's inevitable. In a couple of days, it won't matter anymore anyway."

I said that I intended to "play the sh*t out of it" to prevent spoilage, and was told that this would be "a smart move."

"We just have to trust that people have individual disciplines," said Thomas. "If they're going to look at the ending of a game they haven't played yet, we can't do much to stop them."

Not to worry too much if you did accidentally see it, though:

"People have no context at all for what's going on, really, so it really won't make much sense."

I tend to be immune to just about everything. But some how I wasn't immune to H1N1. We have a very tight budget this 1st quarter and found that no one would be willing to work for Game Juice. So we had no choice but to Outsource PAD to a Indian Villager named Neranjan Venom from Sholingur. I think his name means Orange.

I really feel it's a wonderful opportunity! A real gift, and a chance to teach another culture about our greatest American Gift EA's Madden Bowl! So join Orange as he learns about our strange new ways in this bizarre new world with central A.C.

Learnings things about our culture and about our Madden.

It's a Dante's Inferno mega giveaway of extreme awesomeness this week! Thanks to AttentionUSA and Electronic Arts, we're giving away a bunch of Dante's Inferno-themed prizes this week -- 19 prizes, to be exact! Up for grabs are Dante's Inferno posters, action figures, comics and a shirt spoofing the three wolf moon shirt!

In order to win one of these prizes, we want you to show us your take on one of the nine deadly sins that the Divine Comedy talks about. Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treason are all things that will send you straight to Hell, and we want you to take a picture or video of yourself committing one of these sins! Whatever the picture or video is, please keep it safe for work and/or don't do anything that could be considered illegal. Also, please make sure you have something that's Dtoidy in the picture and no photo editing is allowed.

The grand prize winner will receive nine posters, a Dante's Inferno action figure and a signed copy of the first Dante's Inferno comic. Eight first-place runner-ups will get the the action figure and a signed comic. Ten second-place runner-ups will each get the signed comic.

In addition, all 19 of the winners will be getting the "3 Cerberus Moon" shirts created by Dino Ignacio, Dante's user interface designer. These shirts were made as exclusives to the team at Visceral Games, and this is the first opportunity for anyone outside the studio to get the shirts.

You have until February 9 at 11:59 PM CST to enter a photo in the comments below. Contest open to US residents only. Good luck!

[Update: Contest open to Canadian residents now too!]

When Quantic Dream CEO and co-founder David Cage watches movies or television, he dreams of the day when game designers can have the same liberties. Cage, whose mature interactive drama Heavy Rain hits stores later this month, says he feels that censorship in games is "probably the strictest in all the entertainment industry."

"One territory asked me to change one scene because it was too emotional," the 40-year-old Cage tells me. "I read the email ten times to make sure I got it right. What do you mean 'too emotional'? Can you change the end of Titanic, it's really too sad. Same thing for Gone With the Wind -- just add a couple of jokes near the end so we don't cry. Woody Allen, too funny. [Francis Ford Coppola] too real. [Martin] Scorsese too violent."

He makes a point to say that he doesn't compare himself to "these masters," as he puts it. But he does say their goals are the same -- to create emotions.

Axe Cop. Read it.

Another Podtoid records tonight, and we're as desperate for conversation fodder as ever. Since we can't talk about Axe Cop, that effectively halves my planned discussion contribution this week.

We need listener questions, so ask them below.

In the first of five exclusive videos, Gas Powered Game's CEO Chris Taylor gives us a look at the "Bomb Bouncer" unit from Supreme Commander 2, the upcoming real-time strategy title for PC and Xbox 360.

The "Bomb Bouncer" is one of the experimental units you'll be able to choose from when siding with the game's Cybran faction. The spider-like walker protects itself and surrounding friendly units with a massive umbrella-like shield, bouncing back incoming enemy fire.

Even sweeter, as incoming fire pounds the shield, it stores charge for something called the "Mega Blast," which is exactly what it sounds like -- a mega blast that does incredible damage. The "Mega Blast" can be charged by using stored reserves before going into battle as well.

As Taylor puts it, the "Bomb Bouncer" is only one of Supreme Commander 2's "over-the-top" experimental units. Watch the video above to see it in action, and check back tomorrow for a peek at another unit, The Kraken. 

Another TIGSource.com competition is complete, and now the rest of us have at least ten new indie games to waste a few hours with.

We've reported on the Assemblee Competition before (short version: artists created sprites without direction in the first phase, and programmers took those sprites and built games around them in the second), but now the votes are in and the winners have been announced.

As was the case with the Adult/Educational Compo, I much prefer the second place entry to the grand prize winner: Bitworld is a relatively fun roguelike, but Dungeon's of Fayte's overall structure just blew me away.

In Dungeons, you've got a limited amount of ingame time to prepare for the arrival of a Big Scary Boss.If you aren't strong enough to defeat him at the end of the game, sorry -- that's it. Game over. Everybody dies. Oddly fitting that I'd only just play it now, as it has some (very, very) vague structural similarities with the better parts of Mass Effect 2.

But I digress. The finalists can be found here, and the rest of the entries can downloaded here. The competition was surprisingly close, so don't hesitate to check out the lower-placing entries.

I'm not used to a first-person shooter's soundtrack rocking my world. Role-playing games, platformers and others? Sure. But FPS? You hardly ever see that. And when you do, people sit up to take notice.

When it comes to BioShock, I'm still in...shock at how effective the musical score was. The combination of Garry Schyman's eerily beautiful score and the selections from the old tunes from the musical theater era made for one of the most memorable soundtracks ever, FPS or not.

I'm pleased to say that gamers can expect to be moved/freaked out even more in BioShock 2. The developers and composer worked to dive even deeper into the abyss with a new score that is likely to make you pee in your pants a little bit.

Speaking with BioShock 2's Audio Lead, Michael Kamper, and 2K Marin's Creative Director, Jordan Thomas, I got so excited about the new score that they were laughing at me. When they weren't laughing at me, they dished up a gold mine on the score of BioShock 2, detailing just about everything you can expect from tomorrow's release, all without ruining any story elements. If you're anything like me, you'll come away extremely excited about the game after reading this interview.