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If you're anything like us, you've been looking at your iPhone's old, boring, regular version of SimCity, anxiously anticipating a deluxe update with "improved UI" and "4 distinct season" (ooh, and they're "linked to seasonal disasters!"). Thankfully EA has announced just such an update in SimCity Deluxe, heading to the App Store this summer.

As you can see above (and more thoroughly below in the gallery), the game will come with a variety of cultures throughout history and their respective accoutrements (pyramids, for instance). No price has been set, but we'd wager it won't be too far off from the $2.99 asking price for the original game -- and hey, under $10 for pyramids? We're okay with that.

Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia recently visited EA to check in on the progress of the company's upcoming, cutscene-driven MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. He reported that "earnings are somewhat depressed" due to the development costs for the game, but EA management is hopeful that they'll recoup this cash when the title brings in over two million subscribers. He added that, at the very least, the game needs over one million players in order for EA to break even.

We think they might be setting the bar a little too high for themselves. Why not make the monthly subscription fee cost $20,000, and then just hope that 500 outrageously wealthy, rabid Star Wars fans hop on board? There have got to be at least 500 successful venture capitalists out there who own a baker's dozen of collectible Millennium Falcon models.

Not content to wait for March to end, EA went ahead and announced that "Battlefield: Bad Company 2 tops March sales charts." The somewhat hasty press release goes on to explain that with 2.3 million copies sold so far, Bad Company 2 is "on pace" to be the top selling title in March 2010. It is already, according to EA, the best-selling March release yet, which lends credence to EA's early claim of March dominance.

We look forward to seeing if this claim rings true at the end of the month, after Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver have had two weeks to sell. Or maybe that's why EA issued the "we won" press release now?

There's nothing quite as satisfying as learning how to skateboard from a crazy old coot named Coach Frank (as played by ex-pro skateboarder Jason Lee -- you know, the guy from Mallrats?). Experts that they are, the folks at EA developer Black Box are well aware of the attraction, and they've employed the character to teach Skate 3's "Skate School" mode.

Frank acts as a framework for the fleshed out Skate 3 tutorial, teaching players how to nail tricks and polish their execution -- it probably helps that he's full of goofy, if occasionally awkward, humor to lighten up the mood as well. And hey, if we learned anything from the previous two Skate games, we're going to be spending a ton of time just figuring out how to ollie without faceplanting over and over (and over), so we could use the levity.

Hey, you remember when Infinity Ward released that unbelievably offensive "Fight Against Grenade Spam" video starring Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels to promote Modern Warfare 2? Yeah, we were trying to forget it too (sorry to remind you!), but Battlefield developer DICE just released its own variation of the video (found after the break) starring New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia to explain why grenade spam isn't so much of an issue in Bad Company 2.

According to CC, due to the variety of other gameplay options (destructible environments, a handful of different vehicles and "adrenaline pumping weapons"), grenade spam isn't the same problem that it is in "competing games of this particular genre." (It probably helps that each class only starts with one grenade too, huh?) Rather than being sponsored by the notorious acronym that closed out Infinity Ward's ad, this one ends with: "Friends Really Against Grenade Spam."

Oh, and for those of you playing along at home, this is at least the second advertisement for Bad Company 2 that directly parodies Modern Warfare 2 promos. We're still holding out hope that all this culminates in a cage match between Robert Bowling and Patrick Söderlund.

Mega64 gets back to its roots in the troupe's latest video, enlisting the aid of John and Jane Q. Public to create another minute and a half of comedy based on The Beatles: Rock Band. You're probably asking yourself how the trio can recreate the full British pop quartet. To answer that, we offer this: through the aid of a surprise guest, of course!

Head past the break to see who. We're pretty sure you'll never guess who it is.

[Thanks, Brock]

When EA DICE decided to release some downloadable armaments in the original Battlefield: Bad Company, it proved to be a fairly unpopular decision. However, the recently found a way to outfox the gaming community, releasing Bad Company 2 DLC without drawing our ire. How did the studio accomplish such a feat? Easy -- it just released the DLC in a completely different game.

Battlefield Heroes recently received a large push of content inspired by Bad Company, including six modern weapons and the outfits of George Haggard and Kirilenko. Best of all, if you log onto Heroes while using an account that's also linked to Bad Company 2, you'll receive the Battlefunds required to purchase the new gear. Check out the new equipment in the trailer posted after the jump.

[Thanks Graeme!]

Steam is having a "midweek madness" sale on Dragon Age: Origins until Thursday at 4PM PST. BioWare's fantasy epic is discounted 33 percent, making the regular and "digital deluxe" editions $33.49 and $43.54, respectively.

Of course, the discounts are to get you on the hook to purchase the game's first expansion, Awakening, which releases today. But, just so you go into this with eyes wide open, DA:O is a long game -- especially if you get the bundle stuffed with the extra DLC missions. The game is so long, in fact, that if you purchase the base game now, by the time you're ready for Awakening, you may very well be able to get that at a discount, instead of its initial $40 price.

Though we don't have any new gameplay details on upcoming grappler EA Sports MMA for you today, we do have a whole mess of new screenshots. The images feature everything from the usual "two sweaty dudes staring each other down" to the brand new "dude walking down a runway with fire shooting in the air" -- there are even several images of MMA rings with the audience seated at dinner tables, presumably in the VIP section, watching the fight. Nothing says "Roman Colosseum" quite like eating dinner while watching two meaty gents beat each other into the mat!

These stills beg the obvious question: Could the MMA game engine, with its crowd-eating technology, be used to create a fully-realized "Medieval Times" game? We think so.

It's rare to get excited for a Need for Speed project. Sure, it's a reliable franchise that's spawned a number of good, and sometimes great titles as of late, but innovation is hardly its strong suit. Considering the series' track record, I was surprised to find that one of EA's most ambitious and innovative upcoming titles is Need for Speed World, a free-to-play massively multiplayer online racer for the PC. It's the largest Need for Speed title yet, offering a potential platform for limitless updates, and it could easily become the last Need for Speed game EA will ever need to make.

Imagine a world not unlike the one found in Burnout Paradise and Test Drive Unlimited. Now, imagine those worlds with persistent online multiplayer functionality. Essentially, that's what Need for Speed World is. Even at its pre-beta stage, the gameworld is incredibly expansive, spanning over 150 miles of playable road, comprised of a "best of" tasting menu from the entire Need for Speed franchise. If there have been certain tracks, certain environments and certain streets you have enjoyed in previous games: chances are, you may find them in Need for Speed World.

[Heads-up: Details about the open beta -- launching today! -- are posted after the break following the preview.]

I have an admission to make: I haven't played the original Risk board game. For hardcore fans of the game, that fact alone may discredit my opinion. However, after playing the upcoming XBLA adaptation, I wish I had discovered the board game sooner.

Risk Factions looks and feels like a Penny Arcade game: the art style is similar, and the writing is just as irreverent. As evidenced by the shorts released by EA so far, the world of Factions is animated (in more ways than one). The Colonel, who's fully aware that he's in a game, is one of the funniest characters I've seen in recent memory. Knowing his audience well, he promised that if I kept playing, I'd see tons of nudity in the game. (An EA representative hurriedly reminded me that it was just a joke, though.)

While Factions will allow players to play classic style Risk, newcomers will undoubtedly want to play through the main campaign first. The campaign does a good job of easing players into the basic rules of the game, and offers shorter, focused, objective-based challenges to conquer. The level I played didn't take place all over the globe: instead, it was a rather small map comprised of about a dozen tiles. One tile offered occupation of a missile silo, allowing you to launch a devastating area-wide attack against enemies.

EA assures us via Twitter that, after a rocky launch period, the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 online servers have now been stabilized. Pretty much every iteration of Bad Company 2 has seen issues arise when connecting to EA's servers for online multiplayer, with Xbox 360 kicking some users all the way out to the Dashboard and PC users experiencing authentication issues with PunkBuster.

The developer now says that those issues have been addressed, due in no small part to new servers being added over the weekend. "All new hardware is in place and ready to serve your BFBC2 needs," the tweet reads, backed up by a Q&A on the Battlefield Blog with more info. While some players may still experience a stat loss issue, EA and DICE are actively looking into a fix and encourage anyone who experiences said glitch to report it online. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got dudes to sneak up on and knife in the back.

Source 1 - Twitter
Source 2 - Battlefield Blog

I think we can all agree that, aside from being hit by a speeding train or dropping a hot meal you've been cooking for hours, being fired from your job is like, the worst thing that can happen to you. As such, we expected the speakers on last week's GDC rant panel, titled "Fired and Fired-up: Jobless Developer's Rant," to be especially inflammatory. We were not disappointed.

Just past the jump, we've highlighted three of our favorite presentations from the panel. Some of them get awfully, explicitly blue, so if you happen to find yourself reading this video game news site while at work, you might want to think twice about going beyond the break. (You should also get back to work, you lazy so-and-so!)

Justice takes center stage in the latest, and perhaps last trailer for Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening (which is due out this week). Justice is actually a "person," and not the principle -- a ghost trapped in a human body by a sorceress. Uh-huh, it's up to you to help him escape this mortal dilemma.

To make things worse, Justice's "new" body is basically Christian Bale's body (and not the Batman one). In other words, he's a skeleton tightly wrapped in skin. We're surprised Justice can even lift that shield and mace! Forget Elfroot, somebody get this guy some delicious Corpse Gall to fatten him up.

As you might imagine, the vast majority of the "heat" that the newest trailer for NBA Jam brings with it is through the various players running up and down the court fully ablaze (it certainly doesn't hurt when the screen catches fire as well). Don't get us wrong -- it's full of gameplay that puts us right back on the couch in 1994, trying to desperately remember the code so that we can play as our favorite US president.

That said, the announcer probably says "Kaboom!" four or five times. And yeah, somewhere in the middle there, we realized that NBA Jam just doesn't have that many catchphrases. But that's okay with us -- the gameplay looks fantastic! We'll have our impressions of the game up in a few weeks, but for now you can peep the trailer yourself just a few inches up.