The biggest news: Microsoft Partners with Peter Jackson. Not only is PJ producing the forthcoming Halo movie, he’s also developing a brand new game with his new Wingnut Interactive development company. In addition to the brand new game, he’s scripting a new Halo game with Bungie. A Halo game that is not Halo 3, but a brand new entry in the series.
Further, theres the long rumoured, much anticipated HALO WARS. Its an Xbox 360 exclusive Real Time Strategy game set at the outset of the war with the Covenant, back when Master Chief was actually a Master Chief of a group of highly trained SPARTAN warriors and not just a clever name. Read more direct from Bungie here.

Also, DOOM available on XBLA. Right now. Seriously. Doom 1. Full game, multiplayer, everything. Download it, play tonight.

Guitar Hero 360 is coming next year. Downloads are promised, but that white Explorer guitar is only a prototype.

For reasons unknown, Microsoft is allowing Rare to make another Banjo game.

We’ve already shown you Marvel Universe Online, but may I say this game looks like it may just cure the blues for folk like me who are bummed only 24 playable characters are in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Let’s just hope Cryptic tries to grab hold of the X-Men Legends audience with great gameplay.

Thanks to SparkStalker for links!

Forgive me if this is old information, somehow I’ve yet to see this as a big announcement and thought I would inform others in case it slipped under anyone else’s radar.

Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Pencils and Cover by TOMMY LEE EDWARDS
World War II. America needs a super soldier. Only one man possesses the formula to create the perfect fighting machine from volunteer Steve Rogers. But when a deadly bullet kills Dr. Erskine along with his bodyguard, M.P. Ben Parker, Steve’s destiny—and that of the Marvel Universe—is changed forever.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Now available on YouTube, HERE is some footage from the Superman Returns video game.  There are scenes of battle with giant enemies, fights with multiple hand-to-hand opponents, racing around using super-speed, and the obligatory rescue missions – specifically one where he’s using his super-breath on a … tornado.  Weird.

What really caught my attention though is the segment, about two-thirds of the way through, clearly demonstrating the player in control of Bizarro, using his heat vision on the city.  Based on the appearance of things, it looks like we’ll finally have a Superman video game that isn’t absolute hell to play through, at the very least.  And a best case scenario might have game this topping the movie in terms of enjoyment.  Hate to say it, but it already easily does so in terms of action, in this footage alone.

Remember when Marvel sued NC Soft and Cryptic Studios, because they felt that the game “City of Heroes” included characters – and also allowed and encouraged players to create more, similar characters – that infringed on Marvel’s copyrights? Sure, the lawsuit was settled out of court long ago, but now Marvel’s making lemon meringue pie out of that lemon by teaming up with Cryptic (and Microsoft Game Studios) to make “Marvel Universe Online” – An MMO game for XBox 360 and PC using (surprise!) Marvel characters. While other articles go on and on with more discussion, analysis, and questions, that’s really all that they end up saying about it.

While this is an interesting newsbit, it raises more questions than it answers. For example:

• I can only assume we won’t be restricted to currently existing characters. While Marvel boasts a library of 5,000 characters, some of them – like, say, Turner D. Century – are simply God-awful. And yet, the issue is never addressed. Maybe we’ll just see a town full of dozens of Wolverines.
• On the technical side, they keep specifically saying it will be on “Windows Vista,” rather than simply saying “PC” in the articles and interviews. Does that mean it won’t work on XP? They won’t even hint at a release date, so maybe they don’t expect to be done until more people have Vista – or maybe not. With Microsoft, it’s really hard to give the benefit of the doubt.
• Aaaaand, let’s be honest – There’s really not a lot of information to go off of, other than it will exist in the future, they’re working on it, and they’re not allowed to say much about it. Lots of question marks, not a lot of actual info.

View the teaser trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace now, or right here.