What is up my fellow Axeheads??? I’ll tell you what’s up; this edition of EpicBattleAxe’s The Rumor KILL, which is accompanied by the unofficial start of summer! Also, the long awaited Red Dead Redemption has finally galloped to a store near you and guess what? It’s just as awesome as we all thought and then some!! So, whether you choose to kick off summer with some brewskies, some serious gaming sessions or any other activity remember that if you’re reading this, then you’re REALLY starting your summer off right, with some rumor killing that you can’t find anywhere else. So for those who started the festivities early and are feeling a little hungover, the absolute hangover cure is just a click away.

THE RUMOR: Virgin will launch a cross-platform, online gaming service that will be revealed at E3

THE SOURCE: GameSpy

MY TAKE: A great man once asked: what do you do when you have too much money? This man now has a great answer in Sir Richard Branson because apparently what you do is EVERYTHING!!! Has anyone actually looked at the list of brands that is under the Virgin Group? It’s freakin’ HUGE. They have airlines, record labels, festivals, cars, a bridal wear shop, vodka, cola, space shuttles and the list goes on and on and on…and on once more. Now, according to unnamed sources (because those are always so reliable), Mr Moneybags Branson himself will be at E3 in Los Angeles in June to not just ogle the booth-babes but to announce the companies gaming venture as well. The timing is definitely interesting since that’s about the time OnLive is set to take off its invisibility cloak and prove to everyone the service isn’t an urban myth…apparently, the Virgin service is very similar. Virgin hasn’t commented as of yet, which is odd, but hey, if I had that much money I wouldn’t feel the need to comment either.

THE VERDICT: SPARE IT!!!

Tough call on this one since Branson is about as predictable as a horse on acid. On the one hand it seems plausible when you factor in that back in the day Virgin was a video game publisher under the brand Virgin Interactive . The company published such titles as M.C Kids, Action Force: International Heroes, Realms and even some more well known titles like the original Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer: Red Alert and the European version of Devil May Cry. Reigniting this brand could put Virgin back into the gaming world with authority and further expand Branson’s empire into every aspect of life. On the other hand though, maybe he’s not going to E3 at all and this is all a load of crap…or maybe even he’s going just to piss on Gabe Newell’s foot. Like I said above the man is an enigma so until E3 we’ll leave this one alone and let Branson stumble his way through it.

THE RUMOR: Dante’s Inferno 2 is already in development

THE SOURCE: 1UP

MY TAKE: Another great man unrelated to the great man mentioned before asked: how do you create a sequel to a game about a poem whose sequel was never written? The usual answer in the gaming world is: not very well. Seriously there are some games where a follow up is plausible due to the nature of the story and then there are those games that have a sequel that was never needed or should have been made. That will probably end up being the fate of Dante’s Inferno 2 if it does indeed come out. What does Visceral Games plan on doing? Creating a whole new poem that’s as good as the original just for the sake of the game? If they do it better be one hell of a poem (no pun intended).

THE VERDICT: BELIEVE IT!!!

Of course this is happening…it’s EA for god’s sake! The original game moved over 1 million copies and that’s good enough for them to justify a sequel. So what if it wouldn’t make sense? So what if the original was decent but forgettable? The game made money which means that it is EA’s job to milk another franchise dry even if there was barely any milk to begin with!! In all serious though the evidence from Visceral Games’ job listing mentioned in the article points to Dante’s Inferno 2 being the new game in development since the studio has only made 2 games and the other one kind of already has an announced sequel in case you didn’t know. So, if you didn’t think you went to hell long enough last time it appears EA will solve that problem sooner rather than later.

THE RUMOR: The PSP2’s features have been leaked

THE SOURCE: Destructoid

MY TAKE: So the PSP2 has been coming up off and on in this column since it began back in January but this is surprisingly the first time we have some serious rumors about what features the device is supposed to have. According to the latest gossip the sequel to the less then successful PSP will have: a touch screen, 2 cameras, no physical media, a four-core Cell CPU (making the device half as powerful as a PS3) and be 3G enabled. O..M..G that actually sounds…good! Hell it could even be put in the awesome category of life since it essentially sounds like a DS on steroids and no one can deny that a DS on steroids is a good thing. Of course, we’ll have to wait to find out if these specs are even true before passing judgement.

THE VERDICT: KILL IT!!!

Now I’m not killing all these features (at least not yet anyway), I just believe that it is unlikely that all the features mentioned in the article will actually become a reality once the device is announced. The big glaring thing that is making this rumor an easy kill is the cost to put all these features into one device. Right now the current generation handhelds sell in the $200 range give or take. Now image if the PSP2 has all the features listed above, the two cameras, the beefy CPU, the 3G connection etc. How much do you think that’s going to cost? Yep, it’s not going to be cheap and we are already complaining about the current price tag being high for the PSP GO! Sony has probably learned from the GO experiment that people don’t want to pay that much for a portable game device so in order to compensate they’ll have to make a cost effective PSP2 which sadly probably won’t have ALL these features right out of the gate. That’s definitely too bad since the potential specs forced me to use the word “good” in the same sentence as “PSP”, which for many is a life changing experience.

THE RUMOR: Premium PSN will be revealed at E3 and cost less than £50 per year

THE SOURCE: VG247

MY TAKE: Man this is seriously becoming one of the worst kept secrets in video games. Yes Sony, we know that at some point PSN will have a premium service and that it will cost some coin…now just reveal it so that fanboys can stop whining that this will destroy the free version of PSN! The good news is that according to the article it looks like the premium service won’t gimp the free service at all. According to the (again) anonymous source, the service won’t include the cross platform voice chat and instead will give subscribers a free PSN game every month from a choice of two or four. Not a bad deal for less than £50 a year if the games are worth £5-£10. Anyway, we will apparently see this service at E3 to co-star with the Playstation Move which will make for an interesting one-two punch if it does happen.

THE VERDICT: BELIEVE IT!!!

If this premium service is going to start this year it’s pretty much guaranteed to be revealed at E3. Sony will want to hype this service to the extreme in order to rake in some serious green and get people on board with its new service. E3 will provide the perfect stage for them to make this premium service feel as important as possible and show the gaming masses that without a premium subscription you are missing out on some of the key aspects of gaming online with a PS3. Though I’m sure this will happen I am kind of hoping it doesn’t because to have Move demonstrations and then someone stand on a stage going through features that apparently are important enough to be worth £50/month but not important enough to alienate the free users sounds kind of boring. I don’t know…as long as the games take up as much time as these demonstrations I’m sure it will even out.

THE FINAL SAY

This week I want to express my disappointment that my most anticipated game of the month UFC Undisputed 2010 is going to have a $5 fee for playing online if you either rent the game or buy it preowned. Of course I feel for people who will inevitably buy the game used or rent it only to find out that on top of the price of the game and possibly the price for Xbox Live they will have to shell out $5 more just to enjoy a feature that is included on the disk. The big thing that I’m disappointed about is that a great game like UFC Undisputed 2010 is going to be remembered not for its great gameplay or career or whatever but instead for being the first one to use the online pass type fee. I was all set for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 to be the first one to use the feature and it wouldn’t feel like such a rip because I know that Tiger has paid a lot more to play on another person’s green (too late for a Tiger sex joke?).

So, this goes without saying but for those just tuning in, the forum is now open for you to judge whether these rumors should be BELIEVED, SPARED or KILLED!!! Remember folks this is EBA so the more bloodshed the happier everyone is. Oh, before I forget, I wanted to thank those who ever so politely pointed out my unfortunate deficit/defecate mix-up from last week. For the record it wasn’t a crazy left field attempt at a pun it was indeed a typo and I apologize to those whose weekend I apparently ruined but what can I say… “shit” happens right guys? Have a good long weekend courtesy of EpicBattleAxe.com’s The Rumor KILL!