Now I know this seems a no brainer for us gamers, but recent research suggests that games can have positive effects on among us where games usually play no part in their lives. (I can hear that simultaneous sucking in of air by you all). Yes, I know, utterly shocking!

Research at the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests a novel route to improving the symptoms of subsyndromal depression (SSD) in seniors. SDD is much more common than major depression in seniors, and is associated with substantial suffering, functional disability, and increased use of costly medical services. However, researchers found that through the regular use of “exergames” (entertaining video games that combine game play with exercise) a significant improvement in mood and mental health-related quality of life was experienced by older adults with SDD.

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Publisher: 2K Play
Developer: The Odd Gentlemen
Genre: Puzzle
Release date: Available now

Who ate all the pies? Not me. I was too busy playing 2K Play and developer The Odd Gentlemen’s puzzle game The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom to take snack breaks. In this case, the culprit is the titular lead character of the game, a villain sporting a fabulously fiendish waxed moustache who harkens back to the silent-film era. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself.

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Bursting through your TV screen in May are the most fearsome foes in movie history, boasts Majesco. Throw on your 3-D glasses and grab your controller to face off against swarms of enemies in the first 3D shooter for the Xbox 360 and Wii. In Attack of the Movies 3-D, players become an integral part of movie scenes they can typically only watch. They are transported to six fantastic movie-themed worlds where they will battle large alien space cruisers, kill zombies, join the resistance against the machines and more. Each scene features genre-based weapons to engage enemies, including zombie-slaying shotguns, and automatic laser cannons.

“We all dream about being the hero in our favorite action movies,” said Gui Karyo, Executive Vice President of Operations for Majesco. “Attack of the Movies 3D lets you live that experience out with a realism and dimensionality previously only found in movie theatres.”

In addition, branching paths, changing enemy attack patterns, unique areas and environmental challenges ensure that players never experience the same fight twice. Four pairs of 3D glasses are included in the game box, so the whole family can enjoy the action. Granny, get set to terminate some robots!

The next set of Mass Effect 2 DLC is currently being priced up by Bioware, but we hear it should be good to go on around April 6 for both the Xbox 360 and PC. Allegedly you will be able to access the DLC content at any point in the game, and will include another new character, Kasumi, who seems to be a bit of a rogue type character. She is able to cloak, move behind a target, and then reappear to deal some unexpected backstabbing. Those of you fond of Peter Pan will also like her black hook. Players will be able to entice her into your party from the Citadel. Once recruited, you can aid Kasumi on a secretive mission of recovery, which requires a suave disguise and a run-in with an influential and predictably corrupt art collector. The mission will be based in a luxurious mansion where players have to mingle over canapés before serving up a lead desert. The new content also provides the “Locust” SMG, a flash-bang grenade loyalty power, a new Achievement, and should take about an hour and a half to complete. Note to self – hire a tuxedo.

But unlike many of its in-game characters it’s not dead, and instead has taken a change in direction. High Voltage Software (Conduit) revealed at GDC that The Grinder is now a top-down shooter. First appearances suggest it plays very much like Robotron or Gauntlet. The game will focus on multi-play with up to four players sharing the same screen and controlling their characters with dual-analog control: left stick for movement, right stick for shooting.

The Grinder places you in the role of a freelance hunter, in a wild west type setting, who sets out to eradicate blood-hungry monsters. Originally to be a Wii exclusive, the game will now end up on every console, which “allows [High Voltage] to show off what our company can really do and get it into the hands of the most gamers”, boasted a company spokesperson. The Grinder is still scheduled to release late in 2011 on the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

The pools of salivation are quite wet, and gamers are oozing more energy from anticipated excitement than is produced by a small nuclear power plant. What is the source of all this commotion? Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening is about to be unleashed on retail shelves! Yet more news today will only send many gamers into meltdown. Before I spill the beans I suggest you all lie down in a dark room with an icepack on your exhausted brows.

EA has already given a very big hint about the release date for the second installment in the franchise – February 1, 2011! This was allegedly spotted by some in an early retail box of the expansion, and agrees with a release window hinted at by EA earlier this year during a financial call. We’re not exactly sure if this is part of the two years of promised content that BioWare outlined late last year – but hey who cares! Let the party continue!

En Masse Entertainment has revealed the first details for its Action MMO, Tera. Currently in development for the PC by Bluehole Studio, the game will first launch in Korea this summer, and Western markets will follow in the winter. En Masse, the company responsible for adapting the game for western players is made up of people from some of the top MMO developers including Blizzard, NCsoft and ArenaNet. The game will combine action-adventure style combat with six character races, eight classes, thousands of quests, a huge array of weapons and items, and hundreds of monsters. It appears enough to amuse the average RPG gamer. The world of Tera has been torn apart by the gods, and monsters and demons have been unleashed as a result.

Dr. Jae-Heon Yang, CEO of En Masse Entertainment, said of the game, “Tera is a new class of MMO that combines the depth and flexibility of online PC games with the lush graphics and immediacy of console action games.” The game’s official web site has already launched with lots of video and screenshots from the game. Looks like this will be a busy year for the wanton adventurer!

Bodycount has been officially confirmed as the new project in development by Codemasters at its Guildford studio. The game’s development team features a number of individuals (notably Stuart Black) who worked on the FPS Black. A Codemasters spokesperson revealed that, “in Bodycount players become ensnared in a clandestine global power struggle as a powerful combat asset with a green-light to eliminate enemies known only as ‘Targets’ on behalf of the ‘Network’.”

Blimey, the world is full of clandestine conspiracies! Maybe that’s what accounted for the power failure at the cafe this morning which resulted in my lack of pre-morning caffeine. The game will be built using Codemasters’ proprietary Ego engine and will feature online multiplayer and co-op game modes, and is set for release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 during the first quarter of 2011. It is being billed as the “ultimate shooter”, but methinks I’ve heard that before.

Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) boasts that his new FPS title, Vanquish, “isn’t a regular shooting game.” He claims that the game will set itself apart from other third person shooters thanks to its focus on acrobatics and agility. “I wanted to create a game that was speedier and more acrobatic than other shooters. It’s a brand new kind of shooting game that’s incredibly tense.” The acrobatics come care of a rocket powered suit and gravity, and Mikami added, “I wanted to make a shooter where the player is active – taking people on. I didn’t want the game to be like other third-person action titles, where people are just trying to survive, taking pot-shots at enemies from behind cover. So it is this aggression and active spirit that I wanted to capture with Vanquish.”

The story is set in the near future. Russia and the United States are vying for ownership of the world’s fast-depleting energy resources and the US has constructed a space station in order to harness energy from the sun. Russian forces capture this space station and divert its harvested solar energy into a blast wave that destroys San Francisco, in an attempt to force the US into total and unconditional surrender. Obviously the US isn’t going to take that, so they send an elite combat unit to reclaim the station, a la James Bond’s and Moonraker.

Vanquish is set to release next winter for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Crystal Dynamics has confirmed that the Tomb Raider franchise is very much alive and well. Lara Croft will be returning to a video game screen near you, for an all-new adventure, Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light. It is understood the next saga will be a download-only title coming to as yet unspecified platforms in 2010.

Darrell Gallagher, General Manager of Crystal Dynamics, frothed with excitement during the reveal. “This is a really exciting project for Crystal Dynamics, we have created something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting.”

Those of you lucky enough to be heading to next week’s Game Developers Conference will be able to catch the first glimpse of the game. One of the aims of the new game might be to collect hair dye and Botox – given the increasing age of our heroine. Also, keep your eyes peeled for stalking tigers and the odd marauding tyrannosaurus rex!

Score one point if you answered the Blue Toad Murder File series. The company behind Buzz make their first foray into the PlayStation Network exclusive games with the six-episode comedy murder mystery title. The point of Blue Toad is solving a murder, and you choose one of four detectives with which to do this. You then must navigate your chosen detective through the quaint English village of Little Riddle that’s filled with haughty accented British types (with a token American thrown in) to solve the murder. Sound like the Professor Layton series to you? Well Relentless has promised that Blue Toad will be a totally different experience as it is designed for multiplayer mode. The game is meant to be played with people, and they boast “the more the merrier”. The first three episodes of Blue Toad Murder Files will be out for the PSN by March 25. Each episode costs $7.49, or you can pick up the three-pack for $14.99. The second trio of episodes will be out during the last week of April. Now where did I put my pie and deerstalker?

Staring out of the window? Wondering how to fill your day? Wonder no further. Mytheon, the much anticipated online, multiplayer RPG from True Games Interactive and developer Petroglyph, is beckoning all true adventures to help beta test the game. The companies have begun distributing closed beta keys and are inviting Mytheon fans to join in.

“We know that our Mytheon fans have been dying to get their hands on the game, but we have hand-picked those who had access to this point,” said Peter Cesario, director of product development and new business at True Games. “Development is an ongoing process and we now feel that the game is at a point where we are ready to really have the community that has been growing and building, come in and play-test the early game as we progress towards open beta and the official launch. We are very happy to get some early feedback that will give us an opportunity to make even more improvements.”

Mytheon is a fantasy based RPG where players assume the roles of “Stonecasters”, powerful humans imbued with the ability to cast spells, summon minions, and erect structures that aid them in battle. The game will offer an assortment of player classes with each approaching combat differently and offering a range of unique abilities. Players can now join the closed beta, and experience the excitement of battling a giant Cyclops or challenging the god Hephaestus. True Games and Petroglyph will demo the game next week at the San Francisco Game Developer’s Conference.

The highly anticipated new FPS from Bethesda Softworks, Brink, has been given an estimated release date of September 7, and Amazon.com lists the same release date for the game on PC, Xbox 360, and the PS3. Those of you too excited to just sit and wait it out can also pre-order the game at your local retailer. The rumored price tag is $59.99 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and $49.99 for the PC version, but that could be subject to change. According to Bethesda, “official pricing and release dates have not been announced by the publisher. These are estimates only and subject to change.”

In Brink, two sides, “Resistance” and “Security”, fight on the outskirts of The Ark, a floating city surrounded by the waters of a flooded Earth. The Ark was designed as a prototype of a perfect city, with renewable resources and no pollution, large enough to support 5,000 residents. Its population has grown to 50,000, however, leading it to the brink (hence the name of the game) of a civil war. The game features the SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) Freerunning System first seen in Mirror’s Edge. It’s a game with teams, guns and lots of explosions! I might be sticking my neck out here, but this could be popular!

ijji.com has just added a massive DLC to its free to play Soul of the Ultimate Nation. This news combines two of my favorite words – game and free. “Soul of the Ultimate Nation is a fast, thrilling and engaging MMO game, so just imagine what fresh, menacing quests and an increased level cap offer,” said Calvin Yang, vice president of marketing, commenting on the new downloadable content. The title is a fantasy MMORPG set in a world ravaged by corruption and war. The upgrade offers gamers yet another alternative to the growing MMORPGs on the Internet. The new level cap has now jumped from level 100 to 115, and includes new missions, quests and area conquests, plus more customizations and a revamping of the shield system. Those of you intrigued by the sound of the game or those of you already playing can find out all you need to know at its official site.

Capcom recently announced that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would be on sale for half price at the PlayStation Store. That’s not all, however, as our Capcom buddies have also revealed that each week for the next five weeks, will see a major price slash on one of their PlayStation Network games by 50%. So for this next week, you’ll be able to pick up MvC2 for $7.49 instead of $14.99. Starting on February 25, the discounted game will be Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix ($7.49); March 4, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix ($4.99); on March 11, Age of Booty ($4.99); and last (but by no means least) on March 18, 1942: Joint Strike is available for $4.99. Sales like these give a nice warm feeling to the start of the weekend. Thanks Capcom!