"We were absolutely adamant that we needed a button, something with haptic feedback, that would initiate an action," said Rare creative director George Andreas to Edge magazine (via CVG), recalling his first time seeing the Kinect technology. "It took a long time -- we threw some prototypes together and then we saw you didn't need one."

And it wasn't just Rare that wasn't convinced about buttons-free controls, as Andreas said Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux didn't see the buttons-free system working either. "We were very vocal to Kudo [Tsunoda, Kinect lead] at the time, and Peter Molyneux was as well, that you needed something in your hand," Andreas recalled. But he also says this was ultimately just a case of having to "rein in" their ideas of traditional button-based interfaces, a challenge that remained even after accepting Kinect's buttons-free system could work. "You end up falling back on the [gamepad] control scheme. It's a crutch really."

Players can hit up the DJ Hero 2 demo to sample the game's brand new multiplayer modes, while the Guitar Hero demo highlights developer Neversoft's attempts at a story-driven quest mode -- complete with narration by Gene Simmons of KISS. PlayStation 3 versions of the demos have yet to be announced.

Each demo includes a selection of four tracks, listed below:

The Gears of War 3 "Fate of Carmine" charity campaign officially closed this weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo. Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Fergusson from Epic Games appeared on video at the G4 panel to drop word that the charity shirts had raised $150,000 for Child's Play. No breakdown was given on the real shirts versus the virtual goods; but either way, that's a lot of votes for Carmine.

The two thanked everyone for buying shirts, whether for their Xbox 360 Avatars or the real life shirts sold by NECA, along with corporate sponsors and partners like Microsoft, G4, and Penny Arcade. "Although the fate of Carmine has been sealed, we can't tell you right now," said Cliff Bleszinski. This being a marketing event as well, we'll have to wait until Gears 3 releases to learn what happens to the poor, doomed schlub.

There's nothing else to be found on the site, but according to Siliconera, the domain was registered by D3 last month, so it doesn't look like a hoax. Most recently, EDF 2017 developer Sandlot was working on the Nintendo-published action game Zangeki no Reginleiv for Wii, which was released this past February. The last EDF game was released for Xbox 360 in March 2007. It wasn't a technical marvel but Scott Sharkey did give the game a B+ in 1UP's review, noting it was "like the best parts of every third-person shooter ever, boiled down to the most mindlessly fun essentials."

Besides a Rating Pending from the ESRB and the logo you see above, there's absolutely no information on the new site; not what platforms we can expect to see it released on or when more information will be released. We'll be keeping an eye on the site for any details that might come up.