Gotta love it when you see rumors leading up to the release of a big title, but without confirmation from the company that's releasing said title, and then they come out of nowhere and release it anyway, and the audience remains just as thrilled as they would be if it was announced.  Konami, you sneaky devils.  Anyway, after 21 years of being stuck strictly in arcades (we'll forget the crappy PC port exists), The Simpsons Arcade Game has finally gotten a home release for digital download.  And as expected, it's been worth the wait.

Know what's great?  When an independent game darling gets its time to shine in the spotlight thanks to a generous publisher.  We're seeing a lot more of these hit the gaming scene, and personally, I love it, though a little more advertising for said product wouldn't be a bad thing.  This time around, Konami has published Puddle, a 2010 Independent Gaming Award darling made by Neko Entertainment.  Just in playing it for a few minutes, you see where its appeal lies.  Unfortunately, it doesn't really let on how tough the journey gets until you really get into it.

Consoles and PC's have had a slow month interms of new AAA quality games arriving for your respected platform. While January got off to a slow start, it quickly recovered to bring us high quality tittles through digital distribution. Plenty of great downloadable arcade tittles were made available through XBLA, PSN and Steam, giving us many hidden gems on the digital marketplace. Let's look back at the games we reviewed over the past month.  

NEW ORLEANS – Although CCP Games has put its massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on its popular World of Darkness franchise on the backburner to focus on EVE Online and Dust 514, development continues on the game. Chris McDonough, one of the visionaries behind the MMO, was on hand at the CCP Games Grand Masquerade in New Orleans to offer some new details about the MMO game in the exclusive video interview below. 

Every Tuesday, Sony brings its PlayStation faithful new content, add-ons for your favorite games, Themes and avatars for your PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. Again another standard week of PSN goods you can get, but for the most part the main draw are going to be demos. Twisted Metal is finally going to hit store shelves and the fans of  the series will be eager to get their hands on the multiplayer demo now available.  

Comic book legend Todd McFarlane, best known for creating Spawn, has teamed up with bestselling author R.A. Salvatore and MLB Hall of Famer Curt Schilling for a new series of videogames set in the fantasy world of Amalur. The first title, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, is an action role-playing game for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. McFarlane, who serves as executive art director at 38 Studios, talks about his first full-fledged adventure into the virtual world of gaming in this exclusive interview.

If there's a company that has proven that old-school games do big business, it's Konami.  A few years back, it brought back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game to Xbox Live, attracting a whole new crowd to the old-school beat-em-up antics, complete with online play.  And last year, it continued to capitalize on such success with the enjoyable X-Men: The Arcade Game.  Next week, it'll be back once more with the long-overdue -- and highly requested -- The Simpsons Arcade.  And yes, it's officially coming, at least from what Sony says.