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The Soup host Joel McHale livened up an otherwise low-key Ubisoft press conference that had a bit too much casual (OK, we get it...Imagine and Petz rule the world!) and not enough hardcore (mainly because we already saw the awesome Splinter Cell: Conviction demo earlier in the day at Microsoft's presser, and Ubisoft didn't show any Assassin's Creed 2 gameplay).

He's the latest in the line of comedians that game publishers bring in to entertain the nerd press, from (good) Kevin Nealon doing an SNL Weekend Update-style news segment for Sega and the Dreamcast to (bad) Jamie Kennedy interviewing developers for Activision.

McHale, as expected, got the crowd laughing. Some of highlights:

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Editor's Note: Hearing the news about Metal Gear Solid: Rising reminded me of a cool story from a couple weeks ago that got buried far too quickly. What do you guys think about Matthew's ideas for the next Metal Gear? Where's Raiden!? -Greg

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The biggest fear we all harbor about the Metal Gear series is that it won't be allowed to die gracefully, that it will be drawn out and milked for all its worth. Perhaps we should have more faith in the ability of Konami and Kojima Productions to remain faithful to the series. Or, perhaps, after some less than glorious outings on portable platforms, we should not. But there are some very strong points that anyone who is developing the scenario and game design for Metal Gear Solid 5 (or whatever the next main-series Metal Gear game will be called) should consider. Following are 20 mostly detailed points. Some are things Kojima Productions should do with the next Metal Gear; some are things Kojima Productions should not do. Some are things they would never even consider doing, some are things that would never happen in a million years, but have been included just to make sure. You can’t beat 100 percent. [This story originally posted on my Metal Gear/Kojima Productions blog, Metal Gear Scholar]

How to make the next Metal Gear awesome:

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Editor's note: Poor Brett Bates. We gave him a copy of Rhythm Heaven and it ruined his life. Now he'd like to give you the game, so it can ruin yours. It's like the monkey's paw of Bitmob! -Demian

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[Update: Sorry, folks, the contest is over. Congrats to Toby Davis!]

As some of you may recall, I won Rhythm Heaven in a contest last week. At the time, I thought that my winning was a wonderful thing. I mean, a free game! Who wouldn't be excited about that? But what I didn't realize was that Rhythm Heaven sprang forth from a circle of hell so heinous that not even Dante himself would venture into it. It's bar none the toughest game I've ever played. Worse, it kicks your ass and then lets you know how much you suck.

Rhythm Heaven starts out innocently. The first level simply makes you flick bolts in a factory to create some sort of widget -- in retrospect, I'm thinking maybe an iron maiden? -- in time to the beat. On my initial try, I struggled to perform the proper flicking action and failed. Fair enough: it often takes time to acclimate to the controls of a new game, especially when the game is stylus-based. So I gave it another shot. This time I felt more in step with the beat, but I still messed up a few times. Failure. I tried again. Epic fail. Tried again. Fail again! Finally, on my fifth attempt, the game grudgingly informed me that I was "just OK" and could go to the next level. In response I leapt off the couch and pumped the air with my fist. "Hell yes!" I shouted. "I'm 'OK'!" I don't think I've ever been so excited for someone to tell me I'm merely average.

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Hello Bitmob readers. My name is Paul Gale, and I'm one of Bitmob's official moderators. As you all know, E3 is around the corner, and with that I would like to offer you my services. During the three days of E3, if you come back to this article, you can ask me any question you can think of about anything going on at the show, and I will personally do my best to answer it.

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We've replaced the Ubisoft E3 2009 press conference live stream with this archived version, courtesy of G4TV and Justin.tv.

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OK, some technical difficulties prevented us from live-blogging the Microsoft conference, but we all took down some notes about our best, worst, and other notable moments from this morning's event.

Shoe:

Best Bit: I'm not a big music-rhythm gamer, unless it's bursting with weird personality (see: Parappa the Rapper, Patapon). But The Beatles: Rock Band stirred up something emotional inside of me. The trailer started with the young Beatles belting out raw tunes inside The Cavern and continued all the way through the band's trippy, psychedelic years. I never wanted the clutter of Guitar Hero and Rock Band in my home before, but now I can't wait to sing, strum, and drum with the Fab Four.

And to top off a great video and demo, the real Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr came out on stage to a roaring crowd, to say a few words about their game. I rarely get star struck, but today, a gaming press conference nearly made me cry.

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Games On Demand
After the main Microsoft conference, GM of Xbox Live Mark Whitten announced the Games On Demand service coming to Live. Games On Demand launches in August with 30 titles, including Mass Effect, BioShock, Oblivion, and Assassin's Creed, with new titles added every week. You'll be able to buy and download these with a credit card rather than Microsoft $pace Bucks. Mass Effect was listed at $20 -- Whitten said On Demand prices would be the same as retail.

New Avatar Crap
Whitten also announced that game makers can now award players with avatar items for in-game accomplishments. These items include regular clothes as well as full-body costumes and props. Whitten showed a Halo 3: ODST costumed-avatar with pom-poms and also a remote-controlled Warthog.

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Please find enclosed the EA press conference from E3 2009. Thank you.

Watch live video from G4TV - LIVE at E3 2009 on Justin.tv

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We've swapped out the no-longer-live stream that used to be here with this archived version, which should prove significantly more exciting in the long run.

Watch live video from G4TV - LIVE at E3 2009 on Justin.tv

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We're here, and Monday morning at 10:30 in the AM PST we'll be at Microsoft's press conference for E3 2009. We plan to have a live video stream of the presentation embedded on Bitmob, accompanied by a live blog. Which, come to think of it, might be a little bit redundant, but we'll see how it goes! The Nintendo and Sony conferences on Tuesday will get the same treatment.

We encourage Bitmobbers to post E3-related news and commentary to the Mobfeed this week (like PJ Lantieri's PSP Go! write-up) -- please tag your stories "E3 2009" (without the quotation marks). We may not be able to promote a whole lot of it because we'll be busy attending and covering the show ourselves, but we'll do our best. Should be a fun time.

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Editor's note: We're a little late to the party on this post, considering it's already been picked up by Kotaku, but just in case you missed it.... -Demian

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Some of you may remember a post I wrote on Bitmob recently about a makeshift 'arcade' in the Himilayan hill station of Darjeeling. Called The Highest Arcade in the World, the story recounted a Street Fighter Alpha 3 battering I received at the hands of the arcade's Indian owner, referred to in the story only as ‘Arcade Boy'.

As a result of that post a mysterious benefactor contacted the editors at Bitmob and offered to send a Dreamcast and a box of games to the arcade. They in turn contacted me and asked if I could arrange it. I would love to, I replied, but there was just one problem....

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Editor's Note: Although we'd really prefer it if users used their real names here before we promote their stories to the front page, "MinorNelson" did dig up something cool, right before E3. Also, Justin Dennis points out leaked images from Eurogamer. -Shoe

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PSP Go! footage leaks early, along with video of the new LittleBigPlanet. Also mentioned: watching TV shows on the PSP Go!, the new Metal Gear, and Gran Turismo. The speaker also states that it will not replace the old PSP.

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