Cris Collinsworth took over as the colour analyst for the Madden franchise last year. John Madden retired from broadcasting this year. As this video suggests, it’s only a matter of time before the ex-Bengals receiver takes over the title

Collinsworth (as voiced by NYC comedian Rob Lathan) has to start out somewhere, so here he begins by calling the action for Intellivision’s Rural New Mexico Six-on-Six Football NFL Football (and the later All-Pro Football, with the forward pass perfected by the Mattel LED handhelds years before).

Remember, “You’ve never lived until one of those clowns flips you upside down.” It’s a sound bite you hear 48 zillion times in the most mundane Madden NFL 10 game. It’d also take up 20 times the memory of one of these ROMs.

Collinsworth NFL 10 – Rated E for Effort [YouTube, thanks Ian V.]

FromSoftware and Silicon Studio’s 3D Dot Game Heroes, revealed as a PlayStation 3 exclusive last month, an adorable action-RPG that voxelizes a very simple looking 2D game, making for a fantastic 3D presentation.

Whether the game plays as good as it retro-looks remains to be seen. And FromSoftware’s plans for a release outside of Japan haven’t yet been announced, but we’re hoping to see the game at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show. 3D Dot Game Heroes hits Japan on November 5th, with the debut trailer now available for the ogling.

Overfished waters? Melting polar ice? No, the hidden shame of our ecosystem is the virtual disappearance of 2009 holiday releases, Noted ecologists LoadingReadyRun have put together this documentary on the plight of a species no one’s talking about.

Let’s not spoil any of the punchlines, so, enjoy this and pay attention as you do so. Especially to the graph on the whiteboard. And that scientist, something tells me she gets corporate funding to say there’s not a problem here. But any fool can see the crisis when BioShock 2, Red Dead Redemption and others are, quite visibly, driven out of their natural ecosystem.

Save Our Games [LoadingReadyRun]

While the gameplay looks a little “been there, done that”, it’s not the only overly-familiar thing about the trailer. That music sounds awfully familiar…

[Sudden Attack]

The Halo franchise’s real-time simulator is getting ported into the seminal analogue turn-based strategy game RISK, that we knew. This video shows the three factions, three modes of play, and player pieces included in Risk: Halo Wars Collector’s Edition.

The vaguely Europe-y map features 42 territories to conquer. Oh look, “Command Room” features “achievements”! The game will be out this fall through most major retailers.

Halo Wars Collector’s Edition Game [Video Games Blogger]

Capcom’s cyborg secret agent game is now hitting stores a week earlier than anticipated, and the company celebrates with the release of the first cheese-flavored animated webisode for Spyborgs.

In a season full of delays, Capcom pushes up a game for a change, moving Spyborgs’ release date from September 29 to September 22. Capcom punctuates this happy news with the release of the first episode of the Spyborgs animated web series, and my goodness is it oozing with cheese. This is hammy cartoon voice acting at its best right here, with overly dramatic enunciation almost unavoidable when delivering lines like “I eat bots for breakfast,” “Boom baby,” and “Time to kick bot, partner!” If this was done intentionally, then it’s brilliant! If it wasn’t, we’ll just pretend it was.

Not only does this Assassin’s Creed II clip have new gameplay footage and concept art, but it also has new footage of AC creative director Patrice and his beard.

Patrice does the talking. His beard? The listening.

The song list for Guitar Hero: Van Halen certainly seems strong enough, but what about the spandex rendering power of the Guitar Hero expansion? Can current generation console technology keep up with David Lee Roth’s bulging air splits?

Unfortunately, that question is clearly answered in the debut trailer for Guitar Hero: Van Halen, which features ye olde and modern day versions of Mr. Roth, as well as his Van Halen-named bandmates. The trailer also shows a time travelling Wolfgang Van Halen, playing alongside 80s era Van Halen. Former bassist Michael Anthony won’t be permitted to make an appearance in Activision’s newest music video game product.

With a release date of December 22nd and plenty of music game competition beating Guitar Hero: Van Halen to market, will Van Halen fare as well as their Guitar Hero forebears? In the spandex department maybe.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen Debut HD [GameTrailers]

With Burn Zombie Burn and Zombie Apocalypse infesting PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade this year, there is no lack of online undead destruction. But won’t somebody think of the children?

Sierra Online has, reviving Zombie Wranglers for Xbox Live Arcade, due to land on Xbox 360s next month. The game was actually shown to the press last Spring, but given the cuts at Sierra in the wake of the Activision-Vivendi-Blizzard merger, things didn’t quite go as planned.

But finally the kids will have something rotting and shambling to play, as the game is rated E 10+, a rarity in animated corpse disposal games.