Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Come on down, wrestling fans! It's the latest, the greatest, the most gut-wrenchingly exciting digitized depiction of guys pretending to grapple in the history of...this year! Your credit card pays for the whole disc, but you'll only need the edgggeeeee!

So, yeah, SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 isn't too different from previous titles in the lineage: you've got your marquee wrestlers from the WWE stable: Randy Orton, John Cena, Rey Mysterio, the whole bunch. Gameplay is tweaked, but not enough so that veterans of the series will notice the difference. In my hands-on, the guys who'd dominated on SVR 2010 were easily able to do so again in the latest version. Really, the biggest difference this time around is the incorporation of object physics into the game world. In previous versions of SVR, ladders, tables, chairs, etc. were static or extremely limited in the way you could manipulate them. This time around, you can lean ladders on the ring ropes to run up them and outside, you can smash people through tables at all kinds of angles (heck, the demo I witnessed had an entire section just on breaking tables). You can even hit people with the stairs that the wrestlers use to enter the ring. Good times!

Last year, NCAA 10 made a conservative play for non-gamer football fans with Team Builder: a browser-based application that served as the game's Create-a-Character, Team, and Stadium Modes. No purchase was necessary; anyone could create a team from the color of the end zone to the style of the shoelaces. Team Builder drew a lot of attention from the sports blogosphere, but judging from NCAA 10's average sales, it was more a first-down for the franchise than a touchdown.

So to one-up Team Builder, NCAA Football 11 throws deep, bringing Online Dynasty Mode almost entirely to the web. Will it connect? And what is Online Dynasty Mode anyway (hey, last year, 350,000 Madden 10 players played online only once; it's a legit question)? Online Dynasty is a private league between you and your friends in which players can be traded, championships won and bragging rights rewarded. It spans multiple seasons (thus, "Dynasty"), so team and player development are key. It is play online, natch.

When rumors of Band Hero first surfaced earlier this year, some assumed it would be a rebranding of the Guitar Hero series, which embraced a full band lineup with last year's Guitar Hero World Tour. Instead, it has ended up being something else entirely -- well, almost. Though the core of the game looks very similar to this month's Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero differentiates itself via a focus on pop and mainstream music, featuring a mix of timeless favorites and recent hits, plus licensed artist avatars and a nod to our current celebrity-crazed culture.

According to Alan Flores, lead designer at developer Neversoft, the idea to do a pop-focused title came to mind when the team started putting together Guitar Hero 5, as they realized that some prospective players weren't being lured in by rock anthems. "There has definitely been a void of pop music in previous Guitar Hero games," admits Flores. "I mean, we've had some poppier stuff, but Guitar Hero has always been a game about rock 'n roll. There are some big music fans out there that aren't being served by Guitar Hero's music selection; the cool thing about Band Hero is it gives us a chance to be a bit more experimental with picking the music we include in-game."

Fans of THQ's annual series SmackDown vs. Raw can look forward to plenty of new features for the upcoming SVR 2010 edition. It's hard not to get excited by an updated roster of more than 60 wrestlers (including WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin -- an exclusive download for those who pre-order the game at Gamestop), six new Road to Wrestlemania character storylines, and a completely overhauled creation/customization system. From their previous games, THQ learned that that SVR players use their own created wrestlers "three times more" than the default roster," so they want to give you the tools to create your own unique game experiences in SmackDown vs. Raw 2010, and, at the same time, build a community to share videos, custom Superstars, and more.

THQ, working with developer Yukes Yokohama, rebuilt the Create-A-Superstar mode to make player-created wrestlers look as good as the real ones. This means better quality body textures, a larger selection of attire and accessories, and the development of "free-flowing parts" (no more jackets or ties that look like they were painted on characters' bodies). You'll find over 1000 parts to help create your wrestlers. There is also a new Paint Tool mode, which allows you to design art for logos, tattoos, or on the wrestlers' clothing. For the fan wondering if "Green Lantern" could beat Triple H, that dream is oh so much closer.

Some game companies like to play hard to get: they trickle out nuggets of information right until the game comes out, trying to build excitement by letting you guess what's going to be in the final game. But that's not how Activision is treating Guitar Hero 5. They know they have a hit on their hands, and they've been forthcoming with pretty much every multiplayer mode and song in the game. All that was left was to see how the game plays, and at a recent press event, I finally got my hands on a guitar.

Since it was an open event, I spent most of my time in the game's inviting Party Play mode, which allows up to four people at a time to jump into a song. Even though Party Play doesn't carry over any progress to the game's regular Career mode, you still get a results screen, so you can judge your friends by their scores and skills. But doing poorly won't kick you out of the game, and you can change pretty much anything on the fly -- song difficulty, player instruments, or just stop playing all together -- no matter what, the song goes on. For jumping in and out of a quick game, it's far superior to Quickplay mode.

Even though the upcoming Guitar Hero 5 doesn't have World Tour in the title, that doesn't mean the game is meant strictly for solo guitar shredders. The latest in the ever-expanding Activision franchise has more options for jamming out with your friends (on guitar, mic, and drums) than any of the previous Guitar Hero games. But what is GH5 doing differently, exactly? We emailed a few questions about the game's multiplayer over to Brian Bright, project director at Neversoft, and here's what he had to say.

I am not, generally speaking, a fan of survival horror games. Since Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil defined the genre all those years ago, developers seem content to smash together action and adventure tropes, creating a rough slurry of dodgy controls and unfriendly design decisions using clichéd slasher film aesthetics as an excuse for never bothering to evolve the games into something more refined.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, then, looks like a creation for people like me: survival horror for everyone who hates survival horror. Although it's a remake (or reimagining, as the creators would have it) of a ten-year-old adventure, the move to Wii has given Konami and Climax an excuse to rethink many of the genre's basic underpinnings. Gone is the clumsy combat; protagonist Harry Mason is even more of an average guy than he was in the original PlayStation game, a normal man trying only to find his daughter and incapable of fighting back against the nightmarish creatures who stalk him through the streets of Silent Hill. Gone are the cheap scares of dogs crashing through plate glass windows; instead, Climax is looking to the true psychological roots of horror by creating a game that aims to unsettle and unnerve rather than simply startle. Gone, too, are the horrible controls that seem endemic to survival horror; Harry moves about like a normal video game character, walking and running with the Wii Nunchuk's analog stick and looking about with the Wii Remote. The Remote serves an additional purpose as a flashlight, which simultaneously illuminates important details and creates long, eerie shadows. Even amidst the light and noise of the E3 show floor, Shattered Memories was perhaps the most unsettling game I've ever played.

What's the game about? Cranking out sequels and band-specific side-projects at an aggressive rate, the series that started the current "rocking with fake instruments" craze returns for its holiday release with Guitar Hero 5. It's not just about guitar-playing anymore; this installment continues the full band show introduced in the previous game with bass, drum, and vocal roles. The 85-song setlist continues to broaden the series' musical scope, with a number of new additions including Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Wild Cherry, and Dire Straits. Career mode also switches to match the band concept, with the focus now on your overall progress regardless of instrument -- letting you play what you want when you want.

What's the game about? MotorStorm Arctic Edge marks the series' debut on the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation 2. Naturally, the visuals have taken a hit, but developer Bigbig Studios aims to keep the well-regarded gameplay fundamentals intact. That means there will be plenty of alternative routes, plenty of environment hazards and, of course, plenty of crashes.

What's new for E3?There was one track available in the E3 demo, and it had as much mud as it did snow. Nevertheless, Arctic Edged includes a robust selection of vehicles, including old standbys like the motorcycle and stock car.