Red vs. Blue Season 5 started a few days ago. The first episode is pretty good. Season 4 had a great ending, so I have been waiting for Season 5 to start for a while. You can get the latest episode here.

If you have never heard of Red vs. Blue, the series chronicles the story of two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon, in a parody of first-person shooter games, military life, and science fiction films. According to Simmons, one of the Red Team soldiers, each team’s base exists only in response to the other team’s base. Although both teams generally dislike each other and have standing orders to defeat their opponents and capture their flag, neither team’s soldiers are usually motivated to fight each other. Teammates have an array of eccentric personalities and often create more problems for each other than for their enemies. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its April 1, 2003 Internet premiere. Therefore, Rooster Teeth decided to extend the series.

If you missed the first four seasons, I uploaded them all to Google Video. You can find them here.

The season premiere of South Park last night was a pretty good parody of World of Warcraft. If you missed it you can watch it here. Hopefully GT won’t take the video down, but there is a chance. So watch it while you can. You can watch it on South Park Studios

As you probably already know, I am a huge fan of Xbox Live Arcade. The system is so easy to use, and it provides an outlet for creative game developers to have their game published. X06 had more then a few announcements about the future of Live Arcade, so here is an update on what has been going on:

The Xbox Live Vision Camera recently shipped. Four Xbox Live Arcade titles were automatically updated to include support for the new camera. These include Bankshot Billiards 2, Hardwood Hearts, Hardwood Spades, and Hardwood Backgammon. Up till now, the Xbox Live Arcade version of UNO was the only game to include camera support. The camera can be found for around $40.

TotemBall, the first game to require the camera, should be released tomorrow. Players use gestures read by the camera to control the characters. The game will be a free download.

Doom was released last Wednesday on Live Arcade. I was actually hoping to see classic games like this remade. The Live Arcade version of Doom features multiplayer support, new graphics and sound, achievements, and online leaderboards. I have already spent a few hours playing it and so far it is excellent.

The release schedule for the rest of the year looks like its going to be pretty packed. While there are no official dates as to which games are coming out when, expect to see the following games before the end of the year: Lumines Live!, Contra, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Small Arms, Gyruss, Mutant Storm Empire, Defender, Assault Heroes, Heavy Weapon, Carcassonne, Alhambra, Settlers of Catan, and Dig Dug. Some of these are games that I have been looking forward to for a while now.

Anyway, expect the rest of the year to be a busy time for the Arcade.

It appears that some Playstation 3 fans have been spreading rumors that Team Ninja’s producer Tomonobu Itagaki, one of the Xbox’s most loyal developers, is leaving the console. One can only wonder how this rumor started, but it probably has something to do with Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

But don’t let that PlayStation 3 version of Ninja Gaiden trouble you. Tomonobu Itagaki is not going anywhere. In fact, he isn’t even working on it. He’s left that up to Yousuke Hayashi, who requested that he be allowed to bring the Ninja Gaiden franchise to a broader audience. Hayashi worked on Ninja Gaiden Black for the original Xbox, so it seems that Sigma is in capable hands.

Check out this interview for more on Itagaki’s love of Sega and Microsoft hardware, as well as a clue as to what he’ll be focusing on after Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 ships (hint: it’s Ninja Gaiden 2)