Instead of bashing games, this senator plays video games, and is damn proud of it. Pacific Daily News recently sat down with Sen. Ray Tenorio, a lawmaker from the state of Guam, who plays a level 70 Dwarf priest by the name of Paleray in World of Warcraft.

“What I like about World of Warcraft is it’s a great way to be able to reach out and connect with other people,” he said. “So many different people play — attorneys, accountants, geeks… all kinds of people.”

He also stated that he currently has no plans to move on to a different game, mostly because WoW adds new content regular. “There’s always something new to come back to,” he claimed.

Tenorio is a member of Guam’s 15-member unicameral legislature. More details on this gamer can be found on his official website.

Big budgets, time constraints got you down? Still want to develop for consoles? Microsoft has the answer for you in the form of XNA Game Studio Express. Aiming to bring console development to the masses, Microsoft will release a new set of tools based on the XNA platform, taking Xbox 360 development to hobbyists, students, indie developers and studios alike.

To be available this Holiday season, XNA Game Studio Express will be available for free to everyone with a Windows XP PC. All one will have to do is join a “creators club” for an annual subscription fee of $99 USD; here users will be able to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360 and access material to help speed their game development progress.

College students across the United States will be able to get their hands on the tools as 10 universities and their game development schools have already joined the program. These include the University of Southern California, and Georgia Tech College of Computing and Southern Methodist University as they have pledged to integrate console game development and XNA Game Studio Express into their curricula for the first time.

The beta will be available on August 30 as a free download for Windows XP, with the final version to be available this Holiday season.

Thanks to a press event held down under, IGN has learned of three new tracks which will make their way to Guitar Hero II. The newly-announced tracks are covers of Stone Temple Pilot’s “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart”, “Madhouse” by Anthrax, and Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil”.

Videos of the three songs in action are available on IGN, so give them a whirl if you’re interested.

Legendary game designer Ron Gilbert is at it again: in an interview to Gamasutra, the man behind classics such as the Monkey Island franchise, Maniac Mansion, and many others, stated that he is working on a “very story-heavy, story-based” RPG game. Sadly, he still hasn’t found a publisher “willing” to publish it.

GS: In that vein, do you personally have any new projects you’re working on? You mentioned in some other interviews that you had a new project in the works.

RG: I do have a kind of very story-heavy, story-based kind of RPG game that I’m currently designing, but I’m still looking for a publisher willing to publish it. So I continue to work on it until I find somebody, but there’s a lot of what you talk about here, you know, very heavily story-based, a lot of sensibilities of adventure games mixed with some of the action fun RPG elements.

No other details were provided, though the existence of such a game brings joy to many a gamer’s hearts.

RedOctane today announced that it has begun shipping a limited number of solo Guitar Hero SG Controllers into stores throughout Europe. Modeled after the Gibson SG, the guitar controller for the game is available for £30.

In multi-player mode, two guitarists compete for the ultimate rock accolade as they thrash off individual sections of each song. Tunes alternate between the guitarists, with each player being judged on accuracy, timing and judicious use of Star Power. The player with the highest score at the end of the track wins - but with clever use of the game’s multipliers and bonuses, evenly matched guitar heroes will be contesting victory until the very final note.

Guitar Hero for the PS2 is priced at £50 complete with a Gibson replica Guitar Hero SG controller. A sequel is on the way.

If you were looking to run pirated games homebrew on your PSP, but couldnt do so because of updated firmware can now breathe a collective sigh of relief. MaxConsole reports of Undiluted Platinum, the first modchip solution for the Sony handheld.

The UP is a flash replacement system for the console that allows the user to run custom firmware builds, as well as maintain the PSPs original firmware or a more recent one. Both firmware can be booted to, and the UP can be used to restore ‘bricked’ PSPs, a plus for users with useless units in their possession.

However, it wont be for the faint of heart: an included picture shows that the PSP has to be opened up and the chip has to be soldered in place. Even then, the article states that it will be easy to install the modchipthat will be fully open-source, letting users write their own firmware builds.

No release date was announced for the modchip, but a suggested retail price pegs the chip at a paltry $90 for those looking into activities other than the ones available through Sony firmware (and I dont mean pirating games).

The Magic Box is playing host to some fantastic non-scanned images of Final Fantasy XIII. They aren’t very high-res, but beautiful-looking, nonetheless.

…or Mario as pro-Communist.

Don’t wait around: just click the image below and embrace a new Mario… a super-cool one!