Your XBOX 360 is getting it’s first big make-over today. Today the New Xbox Experience is launching. Microsoft has given the Xbox dashboard a complete visual overhaul, and also added customizable avatars that can be used directly in games like Scene It? Box Office Smash. Finally, there’s also a new chat system called Xbox Live Party. Party lets you create a persistent chat room so you can keep in contact with up to seven other players, no matter if they’re watching a movie or playing a totally different game. So don’t be surprised if your Xbox dashboard doesn’t look like it used to.

Another unlikely videogame is stirring up controversy. Cooking Mama, yes, that cute little DS game, is under fire from PETA, the People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA claims that Cooking Mama ignores the suffering of animals that have been raised for food. They’ve even launched a new website with a gut-wrenching Flash game called Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals, complete with real life bonus videos of animals being slaughtered. PETA has called on the makers of Cooking Mama to include more vegetarian recipes in their game. I guess no one told PETA that the food in videogames isn’t real.

Our home and native land is going to be getting a little more censorship. The government of New Brunswick will soon being forcing retailers to be licensed to sell video games, the same way they’re licensed to sell alcohol and tobacco. This comes as a push to make it harder for minors to buy violent games like GTAIV or Saint’s Row 2. The provincial government will even being sending inspectors to stores to make sure ESRB ratings are being abided by. Maybe after that the government can start hacking into your PlayStation Eye or XBOX Live Vision Camera and just start watching you all the time.

If videogames make you violent, does the interactivity of the Wii make you extra violent? Nope, says Dr. Patrick Markey at Villanova University, so don’t throw out Manhunt 2 just yet. The good doctor has just completed a study and determined that Wii games don’t make you any more violent than other videogames, even if you’re pretending to punch someone like in Wii Boxing. Somehow I don’t think this’ll get videogame detractors to back off, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Some very cool info about the new Halo 3 expansion. Halo 3: Recon will be an open world game, and will not be as linear as it’s predecessors. Players will start off with a map and set waypoints, with the goal of searching an area and finding missing teammates. Could be interesting. Bungie also released details about new equipment in the game, including a silenced SMG for those quiet kills. The only bad part? Halo 3: Recon is not due out until the end of next year.

We’re getting our first good look at what’s sure to be one of the biggest games on the horizon. A few concept stills from Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex 3 have been posted online, giving us good impressions about what the game has in store. The third game in the series, Desu Ex 3 will actually be a prequel to the first game released back in 2000. We’ll have lots more on this game as it develops.

It looks like PS3 owners might be able to get into some more MMO action. Cryptic Studios, the developers of the upcoming Champions Online and Star Trek Online, are looking to port their engine over to the PS3. In an online job listing, the company has said quote “we have developed a cutting edge MMO platform [that] runs on PC and XBOX 360 – now we want to support PS3 too.” Hopefully this means we’ll be playing Cryptic’s cool looking new games on the PS3 at launch.

Get ready to shoot some hoops. EA has released NCAA Basketball 09, the latest from Vancouver-based EA Canada, and they’ve added some cool new features. Check out the show to find out more.

Looks like Canadian actor Seth Rogen really likes porn. The star of the recent Zack & Miri Make A Porno is looking to make more porn-based comedy. Rogen plans on making a yet unnamed series for Showtime about a group of twenty somethings who run a pornography store. I guess working with the dirty mind of Vancouver Film School alumni Kevin Smith has rubbed off on the actor.

Big surprise. Samuel L. Jackson will be playing a role in the new Quentin Tarantino movie. Apparently Jackson, who previously starred in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, will be doing narration duties in the new WWII epic Inglourious Basterds. The film began filming last month, and is expected out in theaters by the end of next year. And in other news, Martin Scorsese wants to do another movie with Robert De Niro.

Now some cool wave of the future news. You can now talk into you phone. With a recent update to the Google Mobile app for the iPhone, users can now simply speak their search queries into their phone. State of the art voice recognition software interprets what’s being said and searches Google for results. It makes getting to the official Electric Playground website that much easier.