Fight Night Round 4 might not have knocked out the sales charts, but EA Sports has been actively supporting the game with DLC since its June release. Already we've seen two free patches, one of which reversed EA's much-maligned decision to focus only on stick controls by adding in the option for button controls. In late August, EA released a paid DLC pack adding boxers like Oscar De La Hoya and the Klitschko brothers to the game.

Using only his chin, Ricky Hatton decimates Manny Pacquiao's glove.

December will see even more DLC for the game, with a new pack that will add three new playable boxers--Bernard Hopkins, Sonny Liston, and Evander Holyfield--as well as two new game modes. From the EA Sports press release:

The first, Old School Rules brings a new take to the traditional boxing experience, while the second, Ring Rivalries, allows you to re-create some of the greatest match ups in boxing history.

It's not a lot of information to go on, but we hope to learn more details on the new modes in the coming weeks. This DLC pack will be available for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network this December and will run 800 MS points or $9.99, respectively.

While the additional DLC is relevant for veteran Fight Night 4 fans, there's also news for Fight Night 4 fence-sitters: EA has also announced that it has dropped the price of the 360 and PS3 versions of the game to $40. Good news all around.

[UPDATE] Over at EA Sports' official Fight Night Round 4 blog, producers for the game announced that, in addition to the paid-DLC described above, they will be releasing a free title update that will address gameplay issues, including the following:

Game Play Updates
- Adjusted the locomotion speed at close proximity so that your opponent can no longer trap you with glued feet
- Increased the stamina cost when continually punching
- Increased stamina loss when continually weaving
- Increased stamina loss for users that spam upper body movement
- Can no longer perform a perfect block when spamming the block
- Increased the stamina cost when continually running away from your opponent
- No illegal blows can be thrown by either user when one user is in a stun state
- Increased stamina cost of Haymakers
- Tuned punch accuracy when opponents are moving their head
- Reduced locomotion speed when throwing punch combos

Create Player Updates
- Allow users to duplicate and edit ratings of licensed boxers

Online World Championship Updates
- Improved cheat detection logic

General Updates
- Various Bug fixes

After months of being coy, EA Sports is finally opening up a bit about its upcoming EA SPORTS MMA. Our last look at the game spotlighted the inclusion of mixed martial arts legend Randy Couture on the roster. Now, EA has released the first in-game screenshot of its fighting game, which will be competing directly against THQ's highly acclaimed UFC 2009 Undisputed. The screen features superstar (and EA Sports MMA-exclusive fighter) Fedor Emelianenko giving the submission business to an unnamed opponent.

Check it out:

I must break you. Your arm, especially.

Mid-November should see the release of the first big details on the game, and GameSpot will have all of the latest. I'm personally hoping that the game's control scheme manages to be as fun as UFC 2009 without resorting to murdering my hand in the process. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, any guesses on who Fedor is working over in this screen?

EA Sports has released details on the changes available in the latest patch for NBA Live 10. In addition to activating the Dynamic Season mode in conjunction with the start of the real-life NBA season on Tuesday, the patch addresses a number of gameplay issues and bugs. The patch is now live on Xbox Live and will be available for PlayStation 3 owners on October 29. Here's the full list of gameplay changes and bug fixes according to the EA Sports press release:

• Auto-switch to PG on defense after a made basket
• Enabled rim stuffs. Now when you try to dunk in traffic, there's a chance you'll brick the dunk.
• Tune nets to make them a bit less stiff
• Added more variation to "get back" animations after made shots. Less "skipping" back.
• Disabled the canned scenario steal that happens when you rip the ball from a player who is sizing up. Instead, we allow actual collision with the ball if the defender performs a steal while a ball handler is making a dribble move. Makes for a much more read and react, twitch game on defense.
• Improved Freestyle pass animation selection to prevent guys from bursting into a sprint while passing on the move.
• Backdown button is back. Enabled right thumbstick click to toggle between face up and backdown postures.
• Disabled the turnaround jumpshot that would play if the shooter is facing away from the hoop when outside of 18 feet. So instead of a turnaround three, players will pivot and shoot a regular jumpshot.
• Minor tuning to shot and layup percentages.
• Improved responsiveness and AI's usage of off ball cuts.
• Stop the rebounder from running up court too early after securing a rebound
• Improvements to reception logic, specifically square up catches
• Improve player reaction to loose ball situations
• Left analog passing improvements: Update analog angle metric to consider the receiver's destination so you can lead the receiver with the pass
• Improved the logic of when to play a standing reception vs. a moving reception based on the receiver's momentum and position on the court
• Added the ability to "lockdown" perimeter ball handlers (by pressing into them) and force them into a protect dribble state.
• Ability to shoot "runners" on demand by driving toward the basket, neutralizing the left analog stick and hitting the Shot Button. Works inside of 18 feet.
• Improvements to user on ball defense. Made it easier to stay in front of the ball without "slipping off" when you move your left stick toward the ball handler.
• Anti-cheese code. Prevent users from being able to take off ball control of players and run them under the hoop for the cheap pass and dunk.
• Inbound flow improvements. Allow the inbounder to move to multiple (closer) locations along the baseline after picking up the ball.
• User control over shot contest vs. block. Tap of the Block button will always yield a contest animation. Regular press will always jump to block.
• Several improvements for end of game AI logic. When the AI is ahead, they'll do a better job at recognizing time and score and use more clock. If they're trailing, they'll accelerate the offense.
• Improve AI logic for pump fake biting. AI defenders will be smarter about defending pumpfakes according to difficulty level. Previously, the higher the level, the more often they'd bite. Also, if user is pump faking multiple times in succession, the AI will stay down.

BUG FIXES:

• Smooth out some of the gameplay by tuning blend times for passes as well as some various fixes for blend pops across the board.
• Exploit fix. Fixed bug in shot calculator that would make stepback jumpshots that crossed the 3pt line have unrealistically high FGs.
• Fixed sliding and warping during standing rebounds
• Addressed issue where defenders would sometimes watch the ball fall off the rim. Increase the allowable distance for a teammate to come help.
• Player Lock fixed. AI teammates will now make decisions on their own when user is player locked off ball.
• Put the ball handler into protect dribble if the on ball defender attempts to crowd him. Previously, the ball handler would not recognize the defender and just expose the ball.
• "Rocket dunks" fixed. Fixed a bug that was causing dunks to speed up by 30% and added code to have dunks retain the shooter's on-ground velocity, preserving his momentum after takeoff. Also applies to layups.
• Various post play fixes, including the case where two guys would stand next to each other while one of them was posting up.
• Addressed a potential exploit where it would be too easy to pass to cutters for dunks. As part of this fix, we now allow ball collisions on passes when passing into the paint.
• AI Stagnation fixes: Ball handler would sometimes not properly pass to receivers in a play. Also, we allow the ball handler to "improvise" if we detect he's been idling for too long.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes an off ball cut animation wouldn't properly settle into the correct spot.
• Restricted the post up and under move to within 12' of the basket. No more ridiculous up and under heaves from deep.
• Fixed an issue where off ball post players would sometimes quickly go in and out of post battles, significantly cutting down on jitter.
• Fix for big men waiting too long to outlet the ball after rebounding
• Fix for fidgety box outs. They should kick in more reliably now.
• Prevent user passes to teammates who will be out of bounds or to teammates in the backcourt after they've crossed the timeline.
• Improve goaltending calls
• Fixed ball physics for blocked layups/dunks. There was a mirroring issue that was causing the ball to shoot off in the complete opposite direction of its intended path.
• Fixes for animation oscillation on defense (i.e. jittery movement)
• Fixed a bug that would cause certain off ball movement animations to not mirror properly
• Series of small fixes to prevent balls from hitting the floor during rebounds.
• Fix for shooting fouls not properly getting called on collision layups. This will yield more realistic free throw attempts for both the user and CPU.
• Put in a fix to mitigate the excessive turnovers inside the paint, specifically after pulling down an offensive rebound. Gives users a little more time to pass out or attempt a shot when they get in congested areas in the paint.
• Smoother ball handler post up entries. Sometimes guys would "pop" into place.
• Fixed issue where players would sometimes "freeze" in an off ball post battle before receiving a pass.
• Fixed bug where the "check assignment indicator" would draw on one of your own teammates in LIVE RUN games.

From the looks of things, there have been two shakeups in the development of EA Sports' upcoming NCAA Basketball 2010: one dealing with the internal workings of the game and antoher revolving around aesthetics. Both look to have their own individual impact on how fans enjoy the game and both complete very necessary goals for the series, which finds itself following a reinvigorated NBA Live franchise after the recent release of NBA Live 10.

The first change is all about the presentation. If you've been following the game closely, you probably know by now about the integration of CBS broadcast graphics and announcers into the game. In addition to the ESPN package, complete with announcers Brad Nessler, Dick Vitale, and Erin Andrews, the CBS presentation style will feature booth announcers Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery (the latter late of 2K Sports' College Hoops series) calling the action. In terms of quantity of commentary, ESPN still has the lion's share of content--the CBS broadcast doesn't have an equivalent of Erin Andrews' sideline reports, for example. Still, from a quality standpoint, the CBS broadcast integration looks just like the games we all watch on Saturdays and Sundays in the winter. And there is no mistaking Johnson's classy play-calling style or Raftery's signature enthusiasm once the tip-off begins.

When playing quick games in NCAA 10, you'll be able to choose between the ESPN or CBS broadcast packages (or set it to random). In Dynasty mode, weekday games will use the ESPN style, while weekend games will use the CBS integration. In addition, certain conferences have exclusive licenses with one broadcaster or the other--for example, the Pac-10 conference championship tournament will use the ESPN license. Finally, once the NCAA Championship Tournament rolls around in your dynasty, you'll see a special tournament-only CBS-style broadcast package that will be used for those games. In all, the addition of CBS integration closes a presentation gap that the series had been lacking for years.

New graphics packages and announcing teams are fun, but of course they aren't the only things the team worked on with NCAA 10. Both NBA Live and NCAA Basketball share a central gameplay team that creates the core mechanics for both games. But, as line producer Connor Dougan told me, because NCAA is released a few months after Live's ship date, they use that extra time to polish things and to add gameplay features that are more in line with the way the college game is played.

The best example of that collegiate approach in NCAA 10 is the introduction of motion offenses to the game. Essentially a streamlined formation and play-calling system, the motion offense system effectively accomplishes a couple of things. First, it shows teams using a wide variety of formations on the floor, ones that run closely, if not identically, to what that team will run this season in real life. Secondly, and more importantly for casual fans, using the motion offense system is simple and effective.

There are eight basic motion offense formations in the game: Princeton, dribble drive, 4-out, 5-out, Flex, 3 out 2 in, triangle, and zone motion. Each features a different starting base for your players on the floor, and each has its specific strengths and weakness. For example, the 5-out features all of your players--even your big men--in the perimeter and is ideal for teams with good shooters at every position. The Princeton, on the other hand, features players starting in the high post and is often characterized by players trying to open up backdoor opportunities to the rim. You're not tied to any specific formation for your team, and if you're particular about things, you can even choose the types of plays available to you when running a specific formation.

Interestingly, the game doesn't even refer to you "running plays" in this system. Instead, by tapping the left bumper when your players are in position on the offensive side of the floor, you're calling for players to start moving around the floor and get open. Of course, underneath, the AI's gears are turning, as players look for spots to get open or streak to the basket. Unless you're calling a specific play (which you can do by pressing the right bumper and scrolling through a list), however, making something happen on the floor is just a matter of a simple tap of the button.

What play is called is dependent on several factors--the formation, the player holding the ball and his position on the floor, and what the defense is doing at that moment. Each time you look to create motion, you'll have a primary player to throw to (indicated by the Y icon over his head) and, in some cases, an option receiver (indicated by the B button). Of course, you're never required to actually run the play you just called--you can instead simply throw the ball to another player on the court using the A button and the right stick.

In fact, when playing against a friend, play-calling can become a bit of a cat-and-mouse game; the Y or B icons over players' heads are a sure sign that your opponent has called a motion play. Because of that, it's easy to key in on one of the possible pass recipients--cagey players will sometimes call motion plays they have no intention of running just to throw their opponent off guard, perhaps creating an unwitting double team on defense that the offense can then exploit.

Having played nearly a full game during my demo time with NCAA 10, it's clear to me that the motion offense stuff is a fun addition to the game. I played one half using the Michigan Wolverines, running the 5-out formation. With so many players near the perimeter, and thus spreading out the defense, it was awfully tempting to try to take advantage of some of those lanes and score inside. Still, when that wasn't working, it was easy to kick it out to someone beyond the arc and drain threes or long twos with the Michigan squad that seems to be full of good shooters. Indeed, calling motion plays in NCAA doesn't require you to get to any specific spot for a play to succeed--you can call it anywhere and things will happen on the floor. Running a play isn't a guarantee of success, but it can create opportunities that you probably wouldn't find playing Lone Wolf on the hardwood.

The new focus on offense works in addition to the tempo system that was found in previous versions of NCAA 10--Dougan told me that the tempo feature has been tweaked a bit and these changes will be most noticeable toward the end of the game, when many games slow down considerably. As Dougan put it, it wouldn't make sense for your team to be consistently looking to run an up-tempo pace when you're often looking to kill the clock. Another change to the game: Your coach will be giving more effective advice from the sidelines than simply telling you to block out when rebounding. Instead, he'll praise you for running plays effectively and encourage you to spread the ball around if you're taking too many shots with one player.

The NCAA 10 developers have been working hard to get lots of little visual details into the game--from the black socks the Wolverine players wear, to the addition of Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Indianapolis Colts and host of the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four). Borrowing the Lucas Oil Stadium model from the Madden NFL team at EA Tiburon, the developers of NCAA Basketball repurposed the venue for basketball use, relit it completely, and then focused on making sure the game ran at 60fps when playing there--a considerable challenge considering the sheer size of the crowd the building holds.

The updated presentation options and the new offensive system look like successful additions to NCAA Basketball 10. When I asked about other modes in NCAA Basketball 10, EA Sports folks were mum, which makes me think there are still some announcements to be made for the game. We'll be following those announcements and everything else on NCAA Basketball 10 in the coming weeks leading up to its release on November 17.

Check out these gameplay videos from NCAA Basketball 10:

Auburn vs. Kansas

Stanford vs. Georgetown

Michigan vs. Boston College

The upcoming F1 2009 for Nintendo Wii from Codemasters comes with a lot of good news, but before we get to that, let's talk about the obvious: on the Wii, F1 2009 is not a great-looking game. I don't really understand why Codies chose the Wii as the platform for its F1 debut--the game is also coming to PSP this year--because the platform just doesn't seem to have the horsepower to portray the sport in all its multicolor, hyperspeed glory. Despite a relatively solid frame rate (at least in the preview build I've played) and a great sense of speed, there's a segment of F1 fans out there that will likely be put off by the Wii version's pixilated cars and bland textures.

Too bad for them. Because F1 2009 drives like a dream.

I first played the game at TGS 2009--driving a few laps at Suzuka--and came away impressed with the default control scheme. Having driven several full-length races in F1's Career mode, I'm left with an even better impression, thanks in large part to a handling model that really conveys the power and agility of today's modern F1 machines. Using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, you accelerate by pressing the B button, brake with the Z button, and steer with the analog stick on the nunchuk. For cars equipped with the KERS boost system, you can enact eight seconds of boost per lap by holding down the C button on the nunchuk.

The driving model in F1 2009 defaults to a bunch of assists, such as brake and steering assist, which will help rookie F1 drivers around the course. If you turn those assists off, however, you've got a much more engrossing experience-- one that walks a line between challenging and thrilling. Without the assists, the game does a remarkable job of letting you feel what it's like to drive an F1 car, with its astonishing cornering, braking, and accelerating abilities. Where in most cars, you'd be jamming on the brakes before arriving at a corner, in an F1 2009 ride, you can often take those turns at full speed--or something very close to it. Once you trust your driving ability and your car, you'll chop seconds off your lap time in quick order.

Along with a great control scheme are the little things that Codemasters has modeled into the driving experience of the game. Tire choice matters in F1 2009--during a race weekend you're required to declare a pit strategy before the race begins. You'll have to choose when you come in for refueling and what type of tires you want to use in each leg of the race. These strategic decisions can have a major impact on your race success because there is such a performance gulf between "hard" and "soft" tires in the game.

Soft tires warm up quickly and offer incredible grip (transforming already nimble F1 cars into veritable cornering ninjas), but they don't last very long. Hard compound tires take a long time to warm up, but they can take you much deeper into the race. F1 rules require you to use one set of each kind of tires per race so when and where you choose to use them becomes nearly as important as how you drive on the course. Indeed, because so much care has been taken into how the tires affect your ride, you'll feel the difference between a set of hard and soft tires practically right away. On soft tires, you can take corners at breakneck speeds you wouldn't even attempt on harder compound tires. However, trying to negotiate a track on a set of worn-out tires (which happens all too quickly on the soft compound) can ruin a race completely.

You don't have to be a gearhead to get a good setup for your car; not only do cars come with preset setups for each track, but there are also two methods for alternating your car's attributes. The first option is for basic, no-frills adjustment--you move onscreen meters to adjust for such things as speed, balance, gears, and suspension. If you want to get into the nuts and bolts of tuning, you can progress to other menus where you can adjust specific aspects of the car, such as individual gear ratios, brake bias, ride height, and more.

The fun of driving in F1 2009 is tempered a bit by CPU drivers that aren't always up to F1 levels of talent. Even at the hardest difficulty setting, AI drivers seem to get confused during certain sections of tracks and become Sunday drivers when approaching slower, lapped traffic. That said, fuel and tire strategy plays such an important role that you might lose a race even if you are the fastest driver over a single lap. Call it the Jarno Trulli Effect.

In terms of game modes, F1 2009 has a lot to offer, including Quickplay, Race Weekend (including all practice sessions and three-round qualifying), Championship, Time Trial, and Career, which will put you in the driver's seat as you try to win the World Championship. My driver's career started with offers for test drives from Torro Rosso and Williams. After getting an offer from the Torro Rosso, you'll have expectations you'll need to meet in order to keep your spot on the team (in the case of TR, my modest goal was to score 20 championship points for the season). Presumably, you'll get new offers from bigger and better teams as you go, and your team's expectations of you will change as well. There are also unlockables, such as new helmets, you can earn by completing specific objectives.

The lack of online multiplayer is another strike against F1 2009 for the Wii--you can play two-player split-screen--so here's hoping that problem is fixed in a big way once Codemasters' F1 series makes its debut on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2010 (20-car fields online, please). Judging from what I've seen of the Wii game, my expectations have been raised.

Forza Motorsport 3 will be released in a scant few weeks and a handful of GameSpot editors have been playing the game practically non-stop since receiving FM3 final code last week. Follow along with our exploits here in GameSpot's Forza MotorSport 3 diary.

Justin

This probably won't come as a surprise to any of you who are familiar with our Forza Paintshop union, but a significant portion of my time with Forza 3 so far has been spent creating vinyls, designing cars, and trying to sell both on my in-game storefront. I started out about as small as I could, making bumper stickers, learner driver plates, and recreating Toyota's original logo for use on a 1968 2000GT race livery. Then, when I got more comfortable with the tools, I moved onto some more ambitious projects like the Red Bull logo and, subsequently, an Audi A4 touring car with a full Red Bull livery on it. Recreating real race liveries is still one of my favorite things to do, but I've also had a stab at creating a couple of my own.

There are still relatively few copies of Forza 3 out there right now, but Turn 10 has started sending advance copies of the game to "VIP" players who made names for themselves customizing cars in Forza 2. As a result, the storefront and auction house areas are more about quality than quantity right now. Not a day goes by that I don't log in and see something that impresses me, and it's always extremely gratifying to receive a message letting me know that one of my designs has been sold. I can't wait to join an online race someday and see a car that I painted alongside me on the starting grid.

Oh, and I race too! I'm currently level 30-something and in the fourth year of my career. The races are getting a lot longer now, and as a result I'm increasingly finding that the new rewind feature is a godsend. It shows up on the leaderboards when you use it, but that's a small price to pay for not having to play through a 20-plus minute race again from the start just because of one small error. I use the delete option plenty of times when I'm painting, and I welcome the opportunity to do something similar on the track.

Shaun

Take a look at the Forza 3 storefront as it stands right now and you'll see that I have the market utterly cornered on Cactuar-themed vinyl graphics. Granted, I've only sold one. But! That's also one more than anyone else in the entire world has sold. You have no idea how happy that makes me. I mean, I love simulation racing games, but it's not exactly a genre that's known for allowing people to find their own creative niche. (Unless you consider the ability to tune your gear ratios to be creative endeavor.) But what the team at Turn 10 Studios has done is give people the ability to do just that in a way that makes perfect sense within the context of a realistic racing game.

At the end of the day, you're making art to earn credits, and while you can use those credits to buy other people's art in an infinite loop of artists supporting artists, those credits are best spent on buying and upgrading cars. Sure I may not have earned enough money selling vinyls of Final Fantasy characters to buy an Audi R8, but I have earned enough to help my Audi TT Coupe S-Line breathe a little better with a new racing air filter. And that's a start. I'm really looking forward to see where it goes from here. I mean the storefront community, not airflow in my Audi TT.

Brian

The main thing I've been doing leading up to the release of Forza 3 is hording cash. Last night, for example, I spent something like 10 minutes in the game's car upgrade menu, waffling like Brett Favre over whether or not I wanted to drop a couple thousand credits on a new set of rims. Why the stinginess? Simple: The more credits I save now, the more credits I'll have to completely blow in the storefront once all of the amazing user-created content arrives after the game's release.

What amazes me most about my time in Forza 3 is that, at least for now, racing has become secondary to the storefront stuff. Every time I fire up the game, my first stop isn't my garage or a season race, instead I head straight to the storefront to see what people have come up with and if any of my own personal creations have sold. Compared to some of the incredible early vinyls and designs that have already been released--check out the sweet Jet Li vinyl someone made above--my work is the artistic equivalent of preschool fingerpainting. Still, I'm hoping to supplement my remedial skills in design with some smart marketing by cornering the market on designs with high commercial appeal--like the national flags I've made for countries like Scotland, Sweden, Japan etc. I also made the four knights from Castle Crashers--one design, four different colors--which I suspect will do pretty well.

When I'm not counting my credits, I'm making my way through Forza 3's career mode and, along the way, I've fallen in love with my white 2007 Ford Shelby GT 500 (above), which I've decked out in a paint/vinyl scheme meant to mimic the "away" uniform of my beloved Auburn Tigers. If you look closely you'll see a few added details--like Shaun's created "Fuel McCarthy Racing" logo and my orange knight Castle Crasher near the rear of the car.

The way Forza's season mode is organized, it's easy to fall in love and stay in love with a car--after a race event has completed, you'll be offered a choice of three events to take place in next, one with your current car, and two with different cars from your collection. As a result, you can choose to linger in a favorite class, stick around in a car you've taken a shine too (like my beautiful Shelby), or progress to increasingly powerful rides at a quick clip. Because Forza 3 gives you cars at fairly regular intervals as well (for completing certain race events and leveling up), you're always in the mix with a competitive car, which is perfect for misers like me who are pinching every virtual penny until October 27.

--

As Justin alludes to above, if you're a Forza fan who has a penchant for car design, then the Forza Paintshop Union is for you. We'll be running regular race weekends after Forza 3 is released, where you'll get a chance to show off your designs, share vinyl and design tips with other GameSpot users, and race your custom rides to your hearts' content with fellow budding designers. Check it out, join up, and we'll see you at the track!

For more on Forza 3, check out a bunch of screens and gameplay videos.

My created wrestler in WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2010 is named Rich "Bill" Barnhardt; he's a highflyer with a purple Mohawk and purple back hair to match. He also wears oven mittens--the left hand bears the Mexican flag; the right hand proudly displays the Canadian flag. In the middle of his torso, he has a tattoo that states simply, "Hi!!" Clearly, Rich Barnhardt is going places in the WWE. But, midway through his story in Road to WrestleMania mode--one of the many game features in the upcoming WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2010--Mr. McMahaon decides to completely change his gimmick. Instead of rocking the cool eMo-hawk, my boy Barnhardt is forced to don neon green tights, as well as affect a disgusting-looking moustache and mullet. Now, he basically looks like a cross between Eastbound & Down's Kenny Powers and Shawn Michaels from their day with The Rockers.

I guess you do what you have to do to make it to the biggest show of all: WrestleMania.

Road to WrestleMania mode isn't new to SVR 2010--but the mode has been expanded this year to be more full featured than ever before. There are more storylines that feature some of the biggest stars in the WWE, including a Diva storyline, a story for your created wrestler, and a two-person storyline that can either be played solo or with a friend in a mix of cooperative and competitive gameplay. Here's a quick look at the WWE superstars and their storylines:

Edge
When the SmackDown general manager position is opened up by Mr. McMahon, Edge manipulates things so that his girlfriend, WWE Diva Maria, is installed at the position. With the GM in his pocket, the ultimate opportunist begins wreaking havoc in the ring and backstage, much to the chagrin of Mr. Kennedy.

Randy Orton
The Legend Killer forms an early alliance with his familiar posse--Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes--and begins a feud with two of the biggest, baddest superstars around: The Undertaker and Kane. At one point, Orton battles it out with The Undertaker in a hell-in-a-cell match at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.

Mickie James
The first Road to WrestleMania Diva storyline features Mickie refusing to take part in a bikini contest (boo!). When Maryse steps into the ring and threatens her, Mickie gives her a slap (yay!), and it's on. With appearances by such WWE Divas as Kelly Kelly, Beth Phoenix, and Natalya, as well as a Diva Rumble during the Royal Rumble, this one is the best-looking storylines (at least in terms of competitors) of them all.

Triple H/John Cena
Mr. McMahon is looking to set up a cross-brand rivalry between Raw and SmackDown! by pitting its two champions against one another. You can play this storyline solo or try it with a friend. One person will play as The Game and the other as John Cena with the pair looking to take on the combined forces of Chris Jericho and MVP. The Miz and John Morrison also make an appearance in this storyline, offering their unique analysis on Cena and Triple H via The Dirt Sheet.

Shawn Michaels
The Heartbreak Kid forms an early alliance with CM Punk, while JBL and Randy Orton look to test the wrestler known as Mr. WrestleMania. If you think "Sweet Chin Music" will be played multiple times, you're absolutely right.

Created Wrestler
As with all the other Road to WrestleMania storylines, the story featuring your created wrestler is fully voice acted (you'll choose a voice for your wrestler when you create him). Early on in the CAW storyline, you'll face off against the one and only Santino, who calls you out as you're watching one of his matches in the audience. After teaching Santino a lesson in the ring, your goal becomes not just to keep the Intercontinental belt you won, but also to earn an actual legitimate contract in the WWE. But Mr. McMahon will have a thing or two to say about that...

Regardless of which storyline you play, you'll occasionally run into mandatory and optional goals in the matches you play. With a mandatory goal, you must complete that objective in order to move forward in a particular storyline; completing optional goals will earn you cool unlockables, such as new characters to play as or alternate costumes. These goals run the gamut from simply beating an opponent within an allotted period of time to slightly more elaborate objectives, such as making sure each of your opponents in a tag match receives your wrestler's finishing move twice.

Most of the goals and matches take place in the ring, naturally, but there are a couple of backstage encounters. During one scene in Vince's office, Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson look to teach you a lesson, and while you fight them off, the goal is to create as much damage as possible to Vince's office. You'll do this mainly by bouncing Vlad and Zeke off any of 10 hotspots in the room, including a Mr. McMahon-shaped bust, a couple of bookshelves, and a television set.

Every once in a while, you'll encounter a sequence in which you have a choice to make (such as whether to respond to one character or another) but, for the most part, the storylines in Road to WrestleMania mode are pretty linear and straightforward. That said, there are some great moments, including at least one jab at videogame fans that had me chuckling. Naturally, there's a backstage hub for the mode where you can do things like save your game, grab voicemails from other WWE Superstars and, in the case of your created wrestler, alter his outfit slightly.

When playing Road to WrestleMania with your created wrestler, you'll be earning attribute points as you go. The better you perform in a match, the more points you'll have to put toward such attributes as strength, speed, grappling, charisma, and more. In fact, whenever you play with your created wrestler in SVR 2010, you'll have an opportunity to earn these attribute points, which is a great way to quickly get him or her up to speed with the biggest and best in the business.

WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2010 is due for release on October 20.

One peek at GameSpot's live video reveal of the complete roster of the upcoming WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2010 and it's clear that THQ and developer Yuke's are cramming a bunch of content into the game. In addition to a roster packed with WWE SuperStars and Divas as well a focus on creation tools (including the brand new story designer, which sounds like a load of fun), the game will also have a ton of match types to compete in. Today, we've got a look at two of the match types in the game, Championship Scramble and Royal Rumble.

Championship Scramble

Mix a timer together with a fatal four-way match, and toss in a championship belt up, and you'll have an idea of how the Championship Scramble works. In this brand new match type, two wrestlers start off the match and a new competitor enters at specific intervals during the timed match. Eventually, five wrestlers are in the ring at once and if any one of them scores a pinfall, he is declared the title holder. The last man holding the title once the timer runs out leaves as the champion.

You have three match-length options in the Championship Scramble matches: five, ten, or twenty minutes and you can choose when your wrestler enters the ring or set it to random. The longer the match, the larger the interval you have until new wrestlers enter the ring so, if your wrestler is in early, the most successful strategy seems to be to work over your opponent as quickly as possible and get a quick pinfall. From there you can do your best to stay away from the opponents until the end of the match. Once the ring fills up with more wrestlers, successful pins are hard to come by, as the AI wrestlers will inevitably break up each pin attempt. Anything goes in this match, including the use of foreign objects like chairs, sledgehammers and two-by-fours, so you'll need to be on your toes at all times.

Royal Rumble

A fan favorite in the real WWE, the Royal Rumble features a constant stream of WWE SuperStars entering the ring, each of them looking to survive and win this prestigious match. In the game, you'll be able to play three variations on the Royal Rumble: 10-man, 20-man, and 30-man, the last of which turns out to be a Herculean task of survival, especially if you're called into the match in the early goings.

As with the Championship Scramble matches, you'll be able to select which SuperStars take part in the Rumble, as well as which wrestler you control. You can set your wrestler's entry round or set it to random and take your chances. Once the match begins, it's a matter of waiting until your number is called and watching the mayhem unfold in the ring. Wrestlers are eliminated from the Royal Rumble only if they are tossed out of the ring, and it's common for alliances to be formed and broken at any moment as wrestlers gang up to get opponents out of the ring.

Once your wrestler is in the squared circle, you'll be looking to chop, slap and slam anything that gets in your way, while doing your best to avoid getting ganged up on. With lots of wrestlers in the ring at once (I counted a maximum of six in the ring during our time with the game), your best bet for success will be to take advantage of someone else's weakness: look for Superstars that are getting ganged up on and wait for a chance to push them over the top rope. If a wrestler is struggling to put someone over the top, you can join in on the action and help him out as well.

Unlike previous versions of the Royal Rumble, ring-outs in SVR 2010 won't just be button-mashing minigames. There are several different types of ring-outs in the game, each with a slightly different control scheme:

Middle rope elimination: The most straightforward of the bunch, this ring-out is accomplished by rapidly pressing the button shown on screen. If you've got an AI wrestler or two helping out, the chance of eliminating your opponent increases. If you're on a defense and have a finisher stored up, you can instantly escape middle rope elimination by pressing the right bumper (R1 on PS3).

Bottom rope elimination: When attempting an elimination here, a meter will pop up; to ring-out your opponent, you'll need to stop a cursor in the meter's blue target zone by pressing the A button (X on PS3). If you've got a finisher on defense, you can escape by pressing the right bumper (R1).

Corner elimination: This one's all about timing. When attempting to eliminate an opponent in the corner, you'll see a button icon appear on screen; press it before your opponent and you'll gain an advantage--do it enough times and you'll eliminate him. Again, if you have a finisher stored you can escape a corner elimination by pressing the right bumper (R1).

Naturally, conserving your energy in the Royal Rumble is of supreme importance. Unless you're the last one in the ring, you can inevitably count on some of the biggest WWE stars coming late in the match. In one Rumble I played--using Finlay who had entered early on in the bout--I made it all the way to the final pairing only to be eliminated by a relatively fresh Triple H. Surprises are common in the Rumble; in one case, you might think you've got a wrestler ready for elimination, only to have him flip over the top rope, land on the mat and roll back into the ring.

As elsewhere in the game, you can use created wrestlers in both Championship Scramble and in the Royal Rumble but, unless you've spent some time building up their attributes, they won't be much challenge for the heavy hitter Superstars. One of the best ways to beef up your created wrestlers is to spend some time in SVR 2010's story mode, known as Road to WrestleMania. We'll have a look at the mode, its multiple storylines, and how you progress your created Superstars in the game, in our next look at the game on Wednesday, October 7.

You don't have to travel far in the Polyphony Digital offices to find accolades. The home of the Gran Turismo developer is chock-full of platinum sales awards, awards for excellence, and trophies galore. Yet there's one award that might just all of the rest, at least for GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi--a best-in-class trophy he won while driving at a four-hour race at Germany's Nurburgring in August. Yamauchi won the race driving a Lexus IS-F and set fastest lap among the three drivers that drove for his team (an impressive 10 minutes, 9 seconds).

Along with that real-world racing result, Yamauchi's day job--Gran Turismo 5 continues to creep closer to its own finish line. The game now has a release window--March 2010 in Japan--and, according to Yamauchi that release for the rest of the world won't be too much different from the Japanese release.

"I don't think it's going to be that much later in the U.S. and Europe," Yamauchi said during a press presentation on Gran Turismo PSP and Gran Turismo 5 from the Polyphony Digital offices on Saturday. "This is based on our production schedule. The reason why the dates for the U.S. and [European] regions are not decided yet is because their marketing is still discussing their issues. It shouldn't be too far off from [the Japanese] date for the other regions as well."

Yamauchi gave a brief overview of the what to expect from GT 5 during the presentation, including a rundown on the numbers fans can expect from the game: more than 950 cars, 20 locations, and 70 variations of tracks to choose from. Yamauchi said the team at Polyphony Digital have been working on several different areas of late, including a new physics engine, damage, adding moveable objects on the track (such as destructible tire walls on the Tokyo Route 246 track, playable on the show floor of TGS 2009), as well as the inclusion of hybrid and electrical vehicles into the ever-growing roster of cars.

Referring to damage specifically, Yamauchi mentioned some details about the how damage will work in the game. There will be two types of damage in the game, depending on the car you're driving. For regular production model cars, you'll be able scuff the paint job as well as deform specific areas of the cars. For race model cars, like WRC and NASCAR models, damage will be extended to include parts falling off the car during particularly violent shunts.

Sony's Gran Turismo PSP, which is due for release this week, will have a connection with GT 5; players will be able to move the cars they've collected from the PSP game to their garage in GT 5 which is a good thing, considering the ease in which money and cars are available to players in the PSP game (Yamauchi estimates that the car acquisition rate in the PSP game is about 10 times as fast as in GT 5). According to Yamauchi, players won't be able to move their credits from one version to the next.

Yamauchi also went over the modes in the GT 5, and it's looking similar to what GT fans have come to expect from the series. As in previous games, the game will be split into Arcade and GT Mode. In Arcade Mode, you'll have a couple of different options--single player race and split-screen two player race. GT Mode is where the majority of the players will spend their time. Players will have a world map to navigate around, their own garage to house their car collection, dealerships and tuning shops to buy cars and parts, as well as championship race events, and the ubiquitous license tests. The tuning shop will be more than just internal parts--there will also be external bits like bumpers, sidesteps, rear wings, and more.

Gran Turismo 5 will have an online presence, but it won't be quite as ambitious as originally planned… at least not yet. When GT 5 ships, it will include online features such as lobbies to set up races, text/voice chat, private rooms, as well as the places to share your photo and replays online (and even the ability to automatically upload your replays to YouTube). However, the plans outlined by Yamauchi back in 2006 for a marketplace that would let players download cars, tracks, and parts, won't be part of the game at launch.

"It's a definite possibility of something we might do [in the future] but, at the release of GT5, I don't think we'll have that functionality where you can buy single components for your car."

Elsewhere in the game, expect some new Phooto Mode enhancements as well as a new and improved Gran Turismo TV with a new user interface, progressive downloading and the ability export videos to your PSP for later viewing. After the presentation, Yamuachi showed off a new trailer for the game which featured, among other things, peeks at some of the new courses that will be part of the game--including a quick look at the familiar tower from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which appears to be set for GT 5.

Finally what about the decision to include hybrid and EV cars which, when compared to the high-end Mercedes models, Ferrari's and suped-up imports, will likely feel a bit underwhelming? Yamauchi said the decision has more to do with Polyphony's interest in technology rather than the performance of the cars themselves.

"I tried driving EV cars and hybrids as they've been released and I've found that they're actually fun to drive, [doing things like] monitoring the battery while you're on the road, it's actually kind of interesting," Yamauchi said. "And honestly we have this curiosity for new technology. When a new technology is released into the world, we're interested in trying to [learn] about that system and trying it out."
Afterwords, I joked at the possibility of the inclusion resulting in Prius-based race series in the real world.

"No joke," Yamauchi said, "I think things like that will happen."