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Activision and Red Bull have teamed up with a wide-ranging swath of artists toauctionoff customizedGuitar Hero IIguitars. The scratch earned from the auctions will go towards MusiCares, an organization set up in the late 80s as a monetary lifeline for people in the music industry who have fallen on hard times. The artists range from the beloved Tenacious D to the why-won’t-someone-just-hand-him-a-razor-so-he-can-be-over-with-it, Dashboard Confessional and everyone in between. Even non-musicians have been tapped to customize guitars, including Tony Hawk, Missy Broome and the Suicide Girls....

The Advertising Standards Authority has cropped up many times over the past few years in connection to videogames, mostly because the group in charge of London’s many adverts seems to buckle under the pressure of as many astwelve complaintsand has pulled a number of videogame commercials. Now the ASA is hoping tonip the whole thing in the bud— telling game companies to stop causing controversy. Publishers are being asked to consider “the wider context” of their advertising to ensure that the ASA doesn’t ban them from television....

While I applaud Nintendo for coming up with a dynamic new way to control the games you play, I have to make a guilty admission — I really don’t care for holding two separate controllers. Sometimes it works out ok, but overall I just prefer to have one old fashioned controller in my hands than wave around two separate ones. It could also be because I’m lazy and can’t be bothered swing my arms all over the room while I play a game, but that’s another topic entirely....

The Kore Gang, a game that started life on the original Xbox and then later resurfaced on the Wii, is finally seeing a release in North America soon. The Wii action platformer is being published by Atari, and is set for an October 4 retail release.The Kore Gangfollows the adventures of three “kooky crackpots” who use cybernetic , ability-enhancing suits to stop some other crackpots from taking over the world....

I’m trying to think back to the last time I went to visitAtari.com. Heck, I don’t know if I have ever done so before. Something — my guess would be the continued interest in digital distribution as a viable platform — has provoked change, and it’s change for the better. The company hadFantasy Interactivecome up with an all-new design for the site. At this point, I would say it’s a huge improvement over the previous layout, but I have no recollection of the old look....

It’s reassuring to hear that most people are lovingBattlefield: Bad Company 2, or at least what they’ve seen of it through the limitedscope of the beta. I don’t say that as someone who wishes ill of Infinity Ward; quite the opposite. The more competition between war-based shooters, the better. Theoriginal planwas for the PC beta to unleash itself in December, but that’s become a no-go — it’s now “very early” 2010....

It’s been too long since Hideo Kojima has been in the news, so allow me to give the famed game director a quick mention.Tomopop has spotteda few of hisrecent tweets, which so happen to include pictures of a Cyborg Ninja figure that is multiple kinds of badass. Pretty good for a toy that’s only partially complete. It’ll be coming to us by way of Square Enix’s Play Arts Kai at some future point in time that is entirely too far off, I’m sure....

This isn’t that big of a deal, but we thought we’d let you know as a bit of a public service. Well, I guess it would be a big deal if you were aTaylor Swift fan. If you were planning on gettingBand Herothis November (limit 2 per household!), you might see about getting it atGameStop, where it seems that they will offer two free songs as a pre-order bonus. This deal is available both online and in-store....

Here’s a bit of sad news forDiablo IIIfans. So sad, in fact, that if you happen to be one of those “I can never let anyone see me cry” guys, you should probably run off to a secluded area. Like, right now. Go! Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl recently talked about how the Blizzard side of the business has been going, and more importantly, when exactly all of the studio’s games are coming out....

Lev Chapelsky is cool. He’s the general manager of Blindsight, a firm that procures celebrity talent for videogames with big budgets — games likeFallout 3. In an interviewwith Edge, Chapelsky told a story related to Blindsight’s hunt to find the perfect person to be Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic president. One person they might have gone after was once an American president, and a notorious one to boot. Bill Clinton. Chapelsky’s memory is a bit foggy, but during the lengthy conversation, he mentioned Bill Clinton as an example of a celebrity whose attorneys’ answer quickly to Blindsight’s requests....

If you ever needed proof that videogames have become a major force in entertainment, attempt to wrap this idea around your head — a videogame is helping the Rolling Stones to sell music. Yep, thanks toCall of Duty: Black Ops, that legendary band of cradlesnatchers and miscreants is making mad bank. The excellent “Gimme Shelter” features heavily in the game’s marketing, while “Sympathy for the Devil” is played during a level in the single-player campaign....

After seeing the latest trailer forRagefrom QuakeCon, I feel as if the game is going in a completely different direction than what I had envisioned, sort of like what happen withBrutal Legend. That said, I was impressed by what was shown. WithFallout 3still fresh on our minds thanks its DLC, andBorderlandscoming sooner than later, I was beginning to think there were too many post-apocalyptic stories being thrown our way, but then I remembered A) id Software is developingRageB) we really haven’t heard much about the game yet and C) Mad Max is f’ing rad....

Hey,rememberthat patch forCastle Crashers? You know, the one that was supposed to fix the data loss bugs and the online multiplayer issues? The one that they promised would soon be here roughly six weeks ago and yet still isn’t? Yeah. You can see where I’m going with this one. Once again,The Behemoth is statingthat they’re “reaching the end of the process,” and “can’t really comment on the release yet.” If I remember correctly, that’s damn near exactly what they said last time....