Linkin Park's song "The Catalyst" will feature in a minute long trailer to promote EA's Medal of Honor.

The trailer will be directed by band member Joe Hahn. The game's soundtrack will also feature another of Linkin Park's songs - "A Thousand Suns" which is due for a September 14 release.

“I’ve personally known the band since 1999, and they have always been an intensely creative group who understand the power of videogames and have wanted to explore and expand the medium’s possibilities. ‘The Catalyst’ is one of the most anticipated tracks of the year, and the combination of this new song and Joe Hahn’s distinctive visual dynamic re-sets the bar in our commitment to bringing together landmark EA games with artists whose talents go far beyond music,” said Steve Schnur, the worldwide executive for EA's Music and Marketing. Read More

Electronic Arts and Spicy Horse Games have announced the sequel to American McGee's: Alice - Alice: Madness Returns.

The sequel finds our anti-heroine Alice fresh out of the asylum, struggling to recover from the trauma of losing her family in a fatal fire 10 years earlier. In the care of a psychiatrist who is trying to help her with the hallucinations, Alice embarks on a new journey to discover how her family died.

“Alice is a classic fiction, infinitely rich with memorable characters, places and experiences. Our approach to Alice: Madness Returns takes this colorful world and reinvents it with psychotic personalities and pervasive insanity,” said American McGee, Spicy Horse Games Co-Founder and Senior Creative Director. “We can’t wait to share our vision with Alice in Wonderland fans and gamers around the world.” Read More

The Medal of Honor multiplayer beta is currently underway and I was lucky enough to score a beta key. For those who weren't aware of the promotion, I'm not sure if there are any keys left but you could always sign up.

For those who have keys and have yet to redeem them, a quick tip: the key that you receive is not the actual serial key that will give you access to the game. You will need to use that key and redeem it once you've signed up for an EA account. You can't log on without an EA account and you won't be able to play until you receive a second code (which is the actual serial code needed to play in the beta). This might confuse some - I kept receiving an error "Your code is already in use" so figured other peeps might stumble upon this as well. Read More

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit may be coming to a city near you soon. On July 14th EA's latest entry in the popular action racing series will be front and center at the Manhattan Classic Car Club in New York City, headlined by the ‘godfather of mash-ups,’ DJ Z-Trip. From there EA brings the game to Chicago (Aug. 5), Seattle (Sept. 4), San Francisco (Sept. 11), Austin (Oct. 7), Miami (Oct. 21), and Los Angeles (Nov. 16).

Each stop on the Need for Speed Hot Pursuit On Tour will take place at a local venue, will feature hip hop and rock artists and will showcase an assortment of exotic cars including a one-of-a-kind Lamborghini cop car. The tour runs from July to November, culminating with the game’s launch on Nov. 16. Attendees will get hands-on with the game, making them the first to play the game before it hits stores this holiday.

Details on these events can be found at www.needforspeed.com.

There are other streaming game services in this world and one of them - not OnLive - has inked a major detail with Electronic Arts. Gaikai announced a multi-year licensing agreement with Electronic Arts that enables the company to stream several of EA’s PC-based video games directly to any web browser via Gaikai’s technology.

Gaikai will offer a number EA franchises, including The Sims, The Battlefield: Bad Company Series, Dragon Age Series, Mass Effect Series, Medal of Honor and Need for Speed. EA is the first major video game publisher to embrace Gaikai's technology.

Gaikai claims that its technology and services allow consumers to play any game instantly inside a web browser with just one click, with the need for big game downloads, installs or patching. Gaikai is a server-based, cloud-gaming technology.

Electronic Arts has always been active in shutting down servers for online games that don't have much of a following any more. But their latest list has several 2009 titles on it, with online service ending in less than a month.

According to EA's website. more than 25 games are on the online chopping block, including the last year's version of Madden. The 2009 version of NASCAR and NBA will also be shut down, but only in Europe, which makes sense since both franchises have a distincly North American flavor. The servers will be shut down as of Feb. 2.

The complete list of games being axed from online play:

• UEFA Champions League 07 PC and x360
• Facebreaker x360 and PS3
• Fantasy Football 09 x360 and PS3
• FIFA 07 PSP, PS2, PC
• Fight Night Round 3 PS2
• Madden 07 Xbox 360
• Madden 08 Wii
• Madden 08 PC
• Madden 09 Xbox1
• Madden 09 Wii and PSP
• Madden 09 x360 and PS3
• March Madness 07 x360
• NBA 07 PSP, x360
• NBA 08 PS2, PSP, Wii
• NBA 09 Wii - Europe only
• NBA Street (2007) PS3 and x360
• NCAA Football 08 PS2
• NCAA Football 09 PS2
• NASCAR 08 PS2
• NASCAR 09 PS2
• NASCAR 09 PS3 and x360 - Europe Only
• NFL Tour PS3 and x360
• NHL 07 PSP and x360
• NHL 08 PC
• Tiger Woods 07 PC

We contacted EA with questions on why Madden 09 was getting hit and we will post their response once we get it.

After a few days of speculation, it appears the skeptical among us were correct: The Mass We Pray game was just a bunch of Holy Smoke.

Upon visiting the site today, we found that the pre-order link had bcome active. Clicking the link took us to an ominous popup where we were accused of heresy and the headline "Heretic, May thou burn in the 6th Circle:

"He who betrays the beliefs of the Church blackens his soul with the sin of Heresy. A Mass not celebrated by an ordained priest or on consecrated soil  is naught but false ritual condemned by clergy. Thou hast befouled thine eyes with the filth of profabe works and betrayed all things sacred. For thy punishment, thou shalt be damned to burn in flaming tombs and hang from inflamed crosses. And an eternity of infernal fire will not cleanse thee."

The popup then seeks your birthdate so you can watch a Dante's Inferno trailer, which focuses on the 6th Circle of Hell. Clicking on the popup takes you to Facebook where you get the option of putting a Dante's Inferno app on your profile page.

This is not the first time that Electronic Arts has pulled out the stops for a reverse marketing campaign for the game. At E3 this year, there was a "Christian rally" protesting the game, which EA later admitted was staged. In September, gaming editors were sent a check for $200 in a fancy box, with a note that:

By cashing this check you succumb to avarice by hoarding filthy lucre but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality.

Whether you agree with the ploy or not, Electronic Arts continues to get attention for the game.