First off: no Mario games. We all love Nintendo’s main man, but I could list off the good plumber’s titles ’til the cows come home, and I don’t have any cows…so that might go on for a while. Also, all entries come from this generation of consoles, because frankly, my entire list would consist of GoldenEye otherwise. So with that said, how can you get your gaming fix this holiday season with all manner of trash talking siblings, rambunctious cousins, and overly curious aunts and uncles scurrying around the house?

Blur – These days, it seems like split-screen racing has become a thing of the past. Thankfully, this under-the-radar Arcade Racer offers the kind of nitrous-infused mayhem that the big names have relegated to the online realm, from the comfort of a crowded living room couch. While the local multiplayer might not have all the goodies of the online experience, it still allows for up to four players to unload missiles on each other at dangerously high speeds. Is there ever a time when power-up/weapon based racing isn’t fun? Oh, right: when your sister steals your controller from you right before the finish line and spends the rest of the night telling the whole family how you got beat by a girl…

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Unfortunately, there aren’t any split-screen competitive modes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a romping good time in Spec-Ops. Grab a friend and strap in for hours of the kind of hardcore challenge that most games just don’t offer any more. There’s always the possibility that Grandpa will want to start telling war stories and put a bit of a damper on your virtual fun, but that’s a risk worth taking for such a finely tuned and varied co-op experience.

Dance Central – Even the mythical powers of eggnog can’t get some family members on the dance floor. But if you call it a video game, then all of a sudden Uncle Jack will have no problem humiliating himself in the name of some friendly competition. And with more popular tracks than the techno fare of Dance Dance Revolution and the novelty of full-body motion controls to boot, Kinect’s crown jewel probably has a little more appeal for all those fun-loving family members who have mysterious mid-winter tans. Give them some Santa hats, a few drinks to go with the sugar cookies, and sit back while relatives of all ages and genders make fools of themselves. Just pray that nobody stumbles into the tree.

Gears of War 3 – Assuming that you have at least a few visitors that can manage to play a Shooter without whining about how disorienting two analog sticks are, then Gears is surely a good choice. Even if every player isn’t a lead-spitting phenom of death, the myriad of co-operative modes should allow you to pick up the slack so everybody can have a good time. It might be a little on the violent side, so perhaps it’s not the best choice if little ones are going to be running around, but there is a gore filter; just slap that baby on and tell little Susie that the berserkers in Beast mode are simply hugging all of the tiny humans they love so much.

Halo: Reach – For the more competitive-minded gamers in the family, Halo‘s latest offering features the finest four player split-screen you’ll find in any game this generation. The level of customization you can bring to any given match is nothing short of mind-boggling, and it’s easy to set up too. There should be no problems establishing the proper handicaps to make the action fun for everyone, and with off-the-wall game types like Rocket Race, nobody ever will want for variety. Oh, and if playing armchair game designer on the dozen plus maps that shipped with the game isn’t good enough for your more creative friends and family, just start up a game in the Forge and let him or her alter the level as you play. That’ll certainly help with cousin Kyle’s God complex…

Left 4 Dead 2 – If the cooperative demands of Gears just aren’t intense enough for your holiday homies (or if you suffer the misfortune of blood relation to a zombie freak), Valve’s Survival-Horror Shooter should do the trick. The combat is ultra fast and positively requires teamwork, but few experiences bond a family quite like escaping hordes of salivating undead whilst Dad contemplates the phrase “So, Sis: I heard that they hired you to do the motion-capture for the spitters.”

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga – The gameplay is simple and easy to pick up, but offers a surprising amount of depth for such a family friendly title. The second player can drop in or drop out at any time, so if somebody’s not feeling the prequels, they can go watch A Wonderful Life and come to the realization that life’s too precious to be so cynical. Meanwhile, the rest of the family can take turns enjoying the entire Star Wars saga, playing Star Wars trivia games when they’re not on the console, and drinking cold beverages with the help of some Han Solo ice cubes. Families are cool like that, right?

Little Big Planet 2 – The adorable art style is sure to draw in your more apprehensive gamers, and the AAA platforming and level-creation tools will keep the more hardcore interested. Supporting up to four local players, the sample platter of genres on display in Media Molecule’s latest is sure to be a blast of of cooperative hooting and hollering. It’ll also give you an excuse to call your brother “Sack boy.”

Madden NFL 2012 – Of course you’ll all be watching the Green Bay Packers continue their march to perfection against Da Bears on Christmas day, but the glory of that beatdown can’t last forever, can it? Thankfully for the less fortunate fans out there, EA has graced us with yet another hopes and dreams simulator. Get everybody to pick their favorite team and set up a good old fashioned tournament where Aunt Kelly can finally earn some bragging rights for the Bills. There are sure to be some obscenities shouted, and maybe a controller or two will get thrown, but Mom knows that common manners go away during football time.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe – A fighting game simply had to show up somewhere on this list; it was only a matter of which game could satisfy your biological desire to destroy your siblings while also appealing to the less seasoned gamers and not appalling half the room with decapitations and X-ray mutilations. Comic book characters should hold some appeal for the less nerdy participants (Hollywood has just gone too far!), and if you have to choose between Marvel and DC, there really isn’t much of a choice; Batman and The Joker are just that awesome. So pass the controller around and get to the bottom of all those “Who would win in a fight between…?” questions. If that’s not in the Christmas spirit, then I don’t know what is.

Portal 2 – Finally, a game that will convince your parents that your brain isn’t rotting away! Whether you’re hard at work in the co-op campaign or just letting the room shout out tips for your single player puzzling, Valve’s monument to edutainment is sure to turn some heads get everybody involved. Just be warned that GLaDOS might not make many friends if you’ve got any adopted folks around…or fat folks…

Rayman Origins – This game has been described as what New Super Mario Bros. Wii should have been. That should tell you something. The zany art style is sure to enchant anybody in the room into watching up to four players speed through masterfully designed levels as they collect all manner of doodads and fight off monstrous and imaginative bosses. Oh, and you can slap your fellow players. That’s fun for all ages.

Rock Band 3 – It might not feature “Rockin’ around the Christmas tree,” but that’s surely what will happen when you bust out the guitar, bass, drums, keys, and mics for some 100% Natural Good Time Family Band action. The playlist is massive and stretches across decades and all kinds of genres, so everybody will find something they like. You might get some real musicians mocking your fun from the dark corners of the room, but everybody else will be having a rocking good time.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – If you absolutely must play a single player game while the family’s around, Skyrim probably won’t go over too well. But Drake’s second outing–the highlight of the series–is so excitingly cinematic that Mom, Dad, and anybody else in the house might actually enjoy watching you play. It’s that good. And who knows: maybe all of those collapsing buildings and speeding trains will convince somebody to take a crack at the co-op with you.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves – I know I said earlier that I wouldn’t include any Mario games, but I think we can let a cameo or two slide considering how different his nemesis’ titles are. With hundreds of “micro-games” that last just a few seconds, there’s a sense of urgency to WarioWare that the best team boardgames have mastered. The ridiculous amount of micro-games also means that you’ll be using the Wii-mote in more creative ways than you ever thought possible, but it’s always intuitive enough for non-gamers to pick up. It’s certainly a little stranger (okay, a lot) than most party games, but that’s what makes it so fun.

And that’s that. If you can’t manage to have some video gaming fun over the holidays with this list, then you need to find a new family. I think that’s how The Sims actually got started.

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In an unprecedented move, Valve is releasing downloadable content that will function the same in two different games: Left 4 Dead and its even more popular sequel. It doesn’t matter which game you get the DLC for because somebody is dying either way.

“The Sacrifice” add-on, as it’s being called, stars the cast of the first game in a cross-over with the heroes of the second. 1UP reports that it “will explain the death of a character as established in The Passing [previous DLC pack].” But we won’t be restricted to the series’ canon. No, that’d be far too upsetting to let such a beloved character go not so quietly into the night! Instead, we’ll have the choice to sacrifice any of the characters from the original crew (sorry, Francis).

The new pack “will contain stages in Campaign, Versus, and Survival modes, plus it will add the No Mercy campaign from the first game into the second.” So if you’ve got a hankering for some emotionally heavy Left 4 Dead then go ahead and sacrifice the $7 come October 5th. Or just download it for free if you own the game on Mac or PC.

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Yup, the Midnight Riders of Left 4 Dead 2 fame. Hopefully their managers (and by managers, I mean Valve and their ability to create awesome meta-stories for their games) will look into a Star Wars special next.

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"Bill! We've got company."

In perhaps the awesomest news ever, Left 4 Dead 2‘s survivors will be meeting up with the iconic survivors of the first game in a new DLC pack titled, “The Passing.”

“The Passing scenario takes places just after the Dead Center campaign,” reports GameSpot. “It ties together Left 4 Dead 2 and its predecessor from 2008, as it sees the original game’s cast meeting up with the second game’s contingent of survivors. According to Valve, The Passing DLC will be ‘the most important campaign in the Left 4 Dead story.’ The add-on will also introduce a new zombie type, melee weapon, and firearm.”

Not sure how I feel about a game’s most important campaign being charged for as DLC, although pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but I do know how I feel about the concept of the crossover–snazzy! Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey will be “passing” through the Xbox 360 and PC in early 2010. More details are sure to emerge before then.

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Well, at least they’re adding a new game type to the sequel of half-game Left 4 Dead. And from the previews I’ve seen, Left 4 Dead 2 looks just as fun as last year’s hit undead frag-fest. It also looks exactly the same in every other way, besides new skins and a couple of melee weapons. I really haven’t seen anything to keep me remotely interested in this game, which is why you haven’t seen much coverage of it here at InsaneBear. Why would anybody in their right mind pay $60 for that when they can just play the first game and get the same experience? It doesn’t even have the graphical improvement of a Madden. Pass.

In other news, it’s been two years since Half Life 2: Episode 2 came out. Still no word on Episode 3…

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News Links

Developers say interesting things

Command & Conquer 4 Announced

Eidos Publishing Merges With Square Enix Europe

Tomb Raider Reboot Rumors

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I didn't think pictures of Dude Huge without a Lancer in hand existed...

That caption was going to be a witty D&D reference given what I’m about to tell you, but really, Clifford Bleszinski looking professional for once is the real news here. But anyways, earlier this week the Epic Design Director told British magazine Develop that, “I had a conversation with Harvey Smith–one of the lead designers on [the action RPG] Deus Ex–and said to him the future of shooters is RPGs. He said he completely agreed.” Bleszinski then went on to praise hybrid shooter BioShock and offered a few words of excitement for Gearbox’s upcoming Borderlands. “Randy Pitchford at Gearbox is an absolutely brilliant designer and business man, and I think Borderlands is not getting as much hype as it should because it really looks like a more accessible, shootery version of Fallout.” If future Gears of War titles move in a direction closer to Deus Ex and BioShock and Borderlands, I’m completely fine with that. I have a soft spot for shooter-RPGs and wish there were more. Speaking of which, it’d be nice to hear something about Deus Ex 3.

Young Clifford also had a few words on the subject of Microsoft’s Project Natal. “Y’know, we’ll take a look at Natal–no promises–but it’s likely that the classic control interface is what Epic will be working on in the foreseeable future,” he said. “But I think there’s ways that you could merge the two interfaces and supplement a classic game with Natal controls to make something compelling.” It’s nice to hear that Epic isn’t jumping ship to a gimmicky control interface that I’m still very skeptical about.

Tecmo Koei CEO Kenji Matsubara echoed those statements when he said “We understand that, for casual gamers playing dance games or some sort of fishing game, this controller-free system can be popular. But for hardcore gamers who like action games, we have to research and develop games that satisfy our core gamers…we specialize in making action games, so we have to explore whether we can achieve real-time response from a controller-free system.” Or at least that’s what he claims to be the reason behind his company’s lack of interest. I think it has more to do with how the real world breast physics that Natal would be mapping to its players don’t live up to the ridiculous standards of Dead or Alive breast physics.

And lastly, Kotaku is reporting that Valve is looking into cross-play between Left 4 Dead and its controversial sequel, which is due out this November. “That’s something that we’re trying to work out the details of right now,” Doug Lombardi said. “So nothing specific to say today, but we understand that it’s a very valid thing to be working on and looking at.” Not sure exactly how that would work, especially with Valve claiming that the improvements in Left 4 Dead 2‘s AI Director are too great to have been DLC for the first game. Hopefully it works out though, just so Left 4 Dead 2 can have more than a measly four maps.

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My name is Eazy E, yeah you know me.

I get the feeling the guy in the white suit might have to make a trip to the dry cleaner’s after this.

Kratos, kicking ass and taking names.

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Here’s our roundup of what we believe to be the best games and announcements shown during Microsoft’s E3 press conference.

Left 4 Dead 2 Announced

Halo 3 ODST Gameplay

Halo Reach Announced

Alan Wake Gameplay Demo

Xbox 360 to get Social Networking Integration

Metal Gear Solid Rising coming to the Xbox 360

Project Natal announced/Milo Demo

Modern Warfare 2 Demoed

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