Over the last week, we've been deriving deliciously twisted pleasure from our LittleBigPlanet beta code giveaway. Oh, to have such power over our readers in exchange for a simple sequence of letters and numbers. Please continue to indulge our pathetic power trip and make a play for ten more codes. Tell us why you don't want entry into the LittleBigBeta and we might just give it to you out of spite. To enter this giveaway:

• Leave a comment telling us why you don't want entry into the LittleBigBeta.
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec and Imaginationland).
  
• Limit 1 entry per person per calendar day (comment more than once and we'll toss poor Sackboy into a fire).
  
• This entry period ends at 11:59pm ET on Friday, October 3rd. We'll randomly select 10 winners at that time to each receive a LBP beta code. Please check your e-mail!
  
• For a list of complete rules, click here.

Also keep an eye out on The Not Unofficial Joystiq Twitter™ for a chance to win more beta codes!

Vicious Cycle Software and D3Publisher have decided it's time to poke fun at our beloved (but grizzled!) space marines, revealing the first, scant details of their upcoming Xbox 360 and PS3 shooter, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. According to the press release, the award-winning writer behind Dead Head Fred, Dave Ellis, came up with the whole shebang-bang-bang.

As you might expect from a modern third-person shooter -- even a humorous one -- Eat Lead will employ a cover system (dubbed "point and cover") and "different interactive melee moves." Provided the game remembers that taking potshots at the genre doesn't exclude it from being judged as a shooter, The Return of Matt Hazard in Q1 2009 may just be welcomed. In fact, we're just about ready to join Matt's appropriately and believably terrible fansite.

Within the circle of paranoid and traumatized Silent Hill fans, there are two fundamental truths that must be embraced upon the release of each new entry in Konami's survival-horror franchise. The first, and more difficult to accept, is that the core gameplay in Silent Hill is sort of awful. Oh, but that gripping atmosphere! That inescapable miasma of melancholy! That's where the second truth comes in: if series sound maestro, Akira Yamaoka, composed the soundtrack (and he did for Homecoming), then it's probably an experience worth having. What say you, early reviews?

• 1UP (B): "Homecoming stays true to the macabre Silent Hill atmosphere without feeling stagnant. Exploration's perfectly in line with previous games, complete with tons of locked doors, decaying structures, and doubling back between the real world and its hellish counterpart -- but some little nuances intrigue."
• Cheat Code Central (84/100): "This game delivers on the experience you have come to expect from the franchise. It will also give you reason to begin clamoring for the next installment. The folks at Double Helix gave me the Silent Hill I wanted: a nerve-racking, scary as hell experience to hold me over this Halloween season."
• IGN (67/100): "Unfortunately, I admit that the game feels like a bit of a letdown. The gameplay has been reduced from a tense psychological experience fraught with spine tingling jumps and scares to a generic, predictable action title set in the location with good graphics and a great soundtrack."

Or, as SCEA producer Taku Imasaki puts it on the PlayStation Blog, "NEW CARS!!" He's very excited. Wouldn't you be too, if a free update to Polyphony Digital's Real But Not Real Enough To Crumple Up Your Ferrari Driving Simulator enabled three new rides and a host of gameplay tweaks?

When you next load up Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, you'll be able to download the "GT by Citroen" concept car (pictured), the Ferrari California and the Lotus Evora. Gameplay enhancements introduced by the update include alterations to the penalty system, race difficulty levels, wireless controller responsiveness, sound volume balance and Drift Trial races, which will now feature a rolling start.

A word of caution, however: "Rankings, arcade time trial times, drift trial records, as well as vehicle-specific quick tune settings and custom key layouts will all be reset with the new update. Replay data created before the second update will no longer be viewable after this update." That's the price of Prologue progress, we suppose.

Buhbuhbuh it's EA, Joystiq! Though we'll save our most obnoxious we-told-you-sos for the more comprehensive metareview ... we did tell you so. Our E3 Game of Show has scooped up its first (and hopefully not last) set of review accolades, scoring 91% in the pages of Xbox World 360. The review reportedly suggests that EA could teach Capcom "a thing or three about survival horror," with Dead Space boasting ferocious foes that make others in the genre seem "decidedly average."

Oh, but there is one thing that worries us: the game's "film-worthy" script. Have they not been to the cinema recently? With rare exception, a poorly formatted paragraph describing a pair of voluptious breasts ramping a Porsche over an explosion would have to be dumbed down by a script doctor. Too arty.

[Via X3F and Twitter, which apparently works in outer space]

Though we still feel the less traditional application of a pedometer is the more prudent one -- you never know how many pedophiles could be in the area -- Nintendo has decided to stick with one that merely counts steps. Judging by one of the videos shown during its recent presentation in Japan, the trademarked device will be tied (at least initially) to a Nintendo DS fitness title.

The promotional material seems to indicate that it will be out in November. The presence of the pedometer indicates that it will require physical activity on our behalf. Therefore, we think it unlikely that the number of steps taken to procure it will exceed zero.

Maybe if the FedEx guy sticks it in the refrigerator.

[Via DS Fanboy]

If there's one thing that disappoints us about Nintendo's Wiivamped Punch-Out!!, it's that it doesn't use nearly enough exclamation marks in the title. We'd like to think that in the year 2008, what with the internet heavily contributing to our subconscious desire to pummel other human bean bags, an exercise in cartoonish pugilism would be announced with at least eight or nine turns of the sentence volume knob.

That being said, if punching (!!!!!!!!) isn't your thing, perhaps you're open to other forms of punishment. You'll find footage of Treasure's shooty sequel, Sin & Punishment 2, after the break.

"Oh, who cares about that thing?" you ask aloud, paying no heed to your alarming habit of vocally addressing the internet. "I can't wait to get that newly announced Nintendo DSi! I don't need no G'bah slot." You pause briefly, ignoring the dire grammar in your previous sentence in favor of concocting something humorous. "I say G'bye to it. Oh, that was clever."

It wasn't. And you're pathetic.

Also, you might just be a tad hasty. As MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo points out, there are several things you won't be able to do on Nintendo's wondrous new device. No Game Boy Advance games -- but will those be offered for download from the DSi store? -- and certainly no rumble cartridges. There won't be any room for your collection of weird-peripheral games either, with Arkanoid losing its paddle pizazz and Guitar Hero: On Tour bidding farewell to its frets.

Though the DSi won't arrive in the US until "well into 2009" and, despite its technological tweaks, be unable to magically transform every DS Lite out there, publishers will no doubt have to start planning new games and, oh yes, new peripherals. We're looking at you, Activision (and we've contacted you about it).

At last, some good news for those gentlemen and noble women who believe battles are best waged in a polite, turn-based fashion. Nintendo has revealed that its cherished Fire Emblem series will see a new installment arrive on the DS, sometime during the first half of 2009. Well, a new-ish installment.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a remake of the original NES / Famicom game, albeit one packed with extra DS content. Nintendo has promised two new scenarios, six difficulty levels, and one-on-one Wi-Fi play, along with full voice chat when playing online (and yes, online play is a series first) or via local wireless. You'll also be able loan out your units to other players via Wi-Fi -- when you get them back, they'll retain all of the EXP, etc. gained while your friends have been using them.

Would you try not to get our dudes killed, okay, hypothetical friend?

Curse you, "supply chain issues!" You can blame them for the undignified nerfing of the Fable 2 Limited Collector's Edition, which will now ship sans Fate Cards, adorable Hobbe figure and splendid, premium box. Thankfully, the reduction also affects the package's price, which will go down by $10 to $69.99 (£39.99 for our UK chums). It will still include a "making-of" DVD and the bonus in-game dungeon, weapon and Spartan armor.

To make up for the loss, Lionhead Studios has offered a downloadable Fable soundtrack. To obtain the tunes, visit sumthingdigital as of October 6th and enter "FableCollection" as a promotion code.

The elaborately titled adventures of the webcomic duo, Gabe and Tycho, are set to continue this Fall in Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two. We're told that developer Hothead Games has just completed the downloadable RPG-adventure, bestowing "Gold Master" status upon the Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

The Xbox Live Arcade and PSN iterations are presumably still being tweaked (much like the PSN's Episode One), but will share the same price of 15 earth bucks. Hooray for subsequent episodic games becoming cheaper!

Having recently confirmed his involvement with God of War's assuredly violent journey to the big (albeit considerably less interactive) screen, film director Brett Ratner is all set to combine his particular track record with the games-to-movie stigma and create the internet's greatest bitchfest. Not everyone's predicting a Greek tragedy, however, with God of War's creator, David Jaffe, earnestly informing us (via video, embedded after the break) that while the adaptation "could be shit," he's nevertheless satisfied with the pedigree of the director, as well as the producer (from Batman Begins!) and the writer, who penned the screenplay for Road to Perdition.

Mind you, he also says he liked X-Men 3, so perhaps he's just pulling our leg on the whole thing. That Jaffe is a rascal, we tell you!

Those hoping to Command and Conquer from a more personal perspective are sure to be disappointed with the demise of EA's upcoming first-person shooter, Tiberium. According to a report on Kotaku (we've verified with EA), development on the game was suspended due to its inability to meet "the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games Label" before its post-delay fiscal 2010 release.

According to EA's Mike Verdu, "The game had fundamental design challenges from the start. We fought to correct the issues, but we were not successful; the game just isn't coming together well enough to meet our own quality expectations as well as those of our consumers."

Though we're glad to be spared from any game that clumsily crashes into EA's recently lowered Limbo pole, Tiberium's cancellation will reportedly result in several members of the development team being "released." The publisher claims that it "will make every effort" to move "talented people" to other, actually-coming-out projects.

Update: We've added a full statement from EA's Mariam Sughayer after the break.

This Wednesday sees a sole new Xbox Live Arcade release in the form of War World, a third-person shooter set in a typically mech-infested milieu. Aside from an assortment of bipedal tanks, War World offers players a 100-level single-player campaign, four multiplayer modes (deathmatch, CTF, etcetera) and best of all, "normal mapped diffuse and specular lighting," in exchange for 800 ($10).

It's also a much better deal than developer Third Wave Games' previous title, Peace World, which pretty much everyone found to be a boring, unrealistic and touchy-feely affair.

Update: Oops! We forgot about Mega Man 9. We just assumed you'd purchased it on a system with a functional d-pad.

"We can't condone people putting up covers of music. It's really there for original content." That's the word from Guitar Hero World Tour director Brian Bright, who's well aware that his upcoming game's music creator may also double as a copyright infringer. Speaking to 1UP, Bright explained that uploaded, custom-made tunes will be monitored by Activision and indiscriminately yanked should they contain any suspiciously familiar riffs.

"If there's a licensed song and someone holds the copyright to it, we'll take it down regardless of whether or not someone complains," added Bright. We sincerely hope this gives you pause before you decide to share your unoriginal, ill-advised rendition of "Motel" California with the rest of the world.

Guitar Hero World Tour and its 86 master tracks are out on October 26th.