E3, the video-game industry's big trade show, is next week, and you'll be hearing a lot about all the new software coming between now and Christmas. But there's a bit of a lull until Aug. 12, when Madden NFL 09 unofficially marks the beginning of the fall game season. July is a good time to catch up on some of the games you may have missed. Here are the best of the year so far.

MTV Multiplayer writes: "We won't learn anything new about Tim Schafer's Jack Black-starring rock action game, "Brutal Legend," next week.

"Brutal Legend" will not be making an appearance at E3, Schafer told me over e-mail today. But "Psychonauts" fans need not worry; the game doesn't appear in trouble.

"We're not going to be showing at E3, but soon after that we hope," said Schafer. "As soon as the dust settles from this whole [Activision Blizzard] merger thing we should be able to talk about the game a lot more.'"

VG247: In a post on the AVForums, a System 3 developer has assured Ferrari Challenge owners that problems many are experiencing with the game's online side are being ironed out, and that the first DLC will be released shortly.

Joystiq has put two and two together and is guessing that a Lost Planet movie may be showing up at E3.

Turkish PlayStation web site PSTurkiye profiles most anticipated PS3 games of E3.

Game List:
-Killzone 2
-Resident Evil 5
-Mirror's Edge
-God Of War 3
-Bioshock
-Resistance Fall Of Man 2
-Dead Space
-LittleBigPlanet
-Fallout 3
-Infamous
-Motorstorm: Pacific Rift

Lots more songs in the SingStore.

English

Blue, One Love
Blur, Coffee & TV
Coldplay, Fix You
David Bowie, Absolute Beginners
Hanna Pakarinen, Leave Me Alone
Hard-Fi, Cash Machine
OutKast, Hey Ya!
Placebo, Nancy Boy
Saybia, The Day After Tomorrow
Sunrise Ave, Fairytale Gone Ball
The Offspring, Self-Esteem
The Rasmus, In My Life
The Rasmus, No Fear
The Rasmus, Shot
The Rasmus, Chill
The Stone Roses, She Bangs The Drums
The Ting Tings, Great DJ
Sanna Nielsen, Empty Room

As rumoured on the US Playstation Blog, the Super Stardust HD 4.00 patch is back online. This patch will allow users who didn't download the patch before it was removed from the servers shortly after 2.40 to get trophy support and start racking up those gamer levels.

Eurogamer writes: "Damnation developer Blue Omega reckons there was "no frigging way" BioShock should have ended up being successful.

Game designer Jason Minkoff was comparing it to Damnation to illustrate that all you can do in the shooter genre is pour your heart into a project and hope it gets noticed.

"We're just making the best we can, because a good game is a good game. And if you make a good game, somebody is going to notice and somebody is going to play it," Jason Minkoff told Eurogamer on our trip to see Damnation."

Electronic Arts Inc today unveiled the music track listing for Madden NFL 09, set to release August 12, 2008. The new soundtrack features 26 songs from a multi-genre roster of superstar acts and soon-to-breakthrough artists, including Franz Ferdinand, Good Charlotte, Airbourne, From First To Last, The All-American Rejects, Rev Theory, K'Naan, and Kidz In The Hall.

The v4.0 update for Super Stardust HD is once again available for download. This patch introduces the highly anticipated trophy system into the game.

Middle-East website Al Bawaba reports that Disney Pixar's Wall-E will be the first Arab localized video game. Luke Keighran, THQ Export Sales Manager said:

"We are delighted to be part of this, launching an Arabic game is every Arab gamers' wish. This is a great opportunity for us to grow further in promising territories like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and a solid demonstration of our commitment to the Middle East market. It is [distributor] Pluto Games' enthusiasm and will that made this commercially possible and we hope it will be the first of a long line up for Arabic titles in the future.

"There are only few games that would suit the Middle East's morals more than WALL*E. The game depicts family virtues in a fun adventurous story line immersing the players in a world of passionate pursuit for adventure."

PS3 Fanboy reports:

''Linger in Shadows is quite mysterious. We know that it's going to be a rather experimental release on the PSN -- a daring piece of "interactive art," according to PSN producer Rusty Buchart. But, what the experience be like? We're still unsure, but the ESRB has just rated the title -- and has claimed it A-OK for Everyone.''

CVG reports:

''Bethesda has claimed that Fallout 3 will have over 40,000 lines of dialogue in the game, dwarfing the amount in the original game by about 20 times.

The amount puts it level pegging with Fable II, which we reported last month contains over 370,000 words of dialogue. If you accept that an average sentence length is ten words, it comes out about the same, which is a bit of a funny coincidence if you ask us.''

TalkPlayStation.com writes:"Echochrome, the mind numbing puzzle game, already out in America was meant to be released in Europe as part of last weeks Playstation Store update. Did it make it? No.

GameFAQS have Echochrome listed for the 10th of July 2008 which is a couple of days away. Lets hope Europe will be playing Echochrome this Thurdsday."

Hearing recent news from friends and forums it seems people using pirated versions of the game are not only getting banned from playing this game but EA are resetting peoples accounts.

Metal Gear Online has been patched and now includes a new team sneaking mode and adds more host options.

According to EA's Battle Field Bad Company website. Today Is the day that they have released a update to allow you to take In game photos of all your wrong doings in Multi player games. They have also set up a website so that you can see all the photo's that you have taken. So go play the game take some sweet shots then send them to us and well post the good ones¿

Online mega retailer Amazon.com has listed a standalone wireless drum set and wireless guitar for Rock Band 2 on Xbox 360 for $90 and $70, respectively. Of course, the bundled Xbox 360 guitar with the original Rock Band was tethered to the console and the drums were wired on all platforms, so Joystiq is hopeful this means the instruments included in Rock Band 2's big bundle will all be wireless. A Harmonix representative informs Joystiq that no prices, shipping dates, colors, astrological signs, or further details concerning Rock Band 2 will be released until next week's E3.

IGN writes: "As one of AX's most distinguished guests of honor, voice actor/screenwriter David Hayter was the focus of some the convention's most interesting and crowd drawing panels. On Friday, Hayter hosted an open Q&A panel with an audience of several thousand enthusiastic fans.

While a majority of the questions were related to the Metal Gear Solid game franchise and countless requests to recite lines as Snake, Hayter did make mention of two new projects he is engaged in: an unannounced action/adventure film that he will likely direct, and a screenplay for the film adaptation of Capcom's Lost Planet. As of June, Hayter was engaged in preliminary talks to draft the latest game-to-film, however, when we spoke to him at an press exclusive panel this afternoon, it would seem that Lost Planet is closer to fruition than previously thought.

"It's not entirely confirmed yet," said Hayter. "But we are just closing the deal with Warner Bros. for me to adapt Lost Planet." Unfortunately, due to Hayter's contractual agreements, we were unable to obtain more specific information about the film. However, we did get a chance to probe into Hayter's approach to adapting games to film, having now been slated to write the adaptation for Lost Planet, and a treatment for the potential adaptation of Metal Gear Solid."

http://www.petitiononline.com/cc2nar/petition.html

So many of you have seen the videos and some of you have even played the demo. A lot of you don't like anime, but everyone can agree that this game will be something special. That is... if it has online multiplayer.

I know everyone online always has to be a pessimist to feel cool, and you all are just itching to say things like "petitions do nothing" but honestly think about it for a minute. It takes about 10 seconds of your time to sign it. And if it works, you get to have have many years of fun with this amazing game. Without online, you'll only have a few days, or maybe weeks, of fun. Petitions don't always work, I agree. But they have worked before and if you can just spare those 10 seconds of your life, this one might work too.

Use the power of N4G for good. Sign it!