The new game Def Jam Rapstar from Konami and 4mm Games isn’t just a hip hop karaoke game or a challenging performance simulator like Rock Band 3. It’s a social media platform for building connections, promoting yourself, speaking your mind and maybe (just maybe) becoming an actual rap star.

We were given a behind-close-doors tour of the game by representatives from Konami, 4mm Games and Def Jam Enterprises, and we learned most of the details about the core music game play and the social media “metagame” that’s attached.

The Music Game

The game itself is similar to other karaoke games; you pick up a microphone and rap along with the track you’ve selected, and the game grades you on lyrical accuracy, timing and other musical factors.

Songs are presented with their music videos, profanity-free, though you’re free to use the harsh language from the original recordings if you want — it won’t affect your score.

You can even play in Duet mode, bringing your friends in to perform different parts in a song with multiple performers. Konami will offer new songs for download weekly, starting on day one.

There are several other modes, but the most unique and exciting is the Freestyle mode. We’ll talk about that alongside the game’s social media features.

The Ambitious Social Features

The social features of the game are tied primarily to the Freestyle mode, which you can use to rap on top of original beats and samples provided by Konami. As you lay down your audio track, the game uses your game console’s camera (the PlayStation Eye, the Xbox Live Vision Camera, and probably Microsoft Kinect) to record your performance on video.

You can edit the video afterwards, throwing in special effects and graphics, then post it to Def Jam Rapstar’s online community.

Links to videos and other updates are sharable on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, but it’s not just about socializing. A whole game is built around a system of rap “battles” between users who upload video challenges to one another. Winners of battles (and MCs who accomplish other objectives) gain badges similar to the Xbox 360’s achievements.

All the profiles, news feeds and videos from Rapstar’s community are viewable by anyone on the web whether they have a game console or a copy of the game or not.

You can join crews, find followers and fans, or even strike up rivalries — either by challenging someone to battles frequently, or by getting kicked out of your crew. That last one will make you a rival to everyone in the old crew.

There are even roles for people who don’t rap. Promoters have their own metagame; they gain badges for using social media to spread the word about their favorite artists.

Becoming a Real Rap Star

Konami, 4mm and Def Jam Enterprises see the game as a breeding ground for new talent, and they’ve designed the Freestyle mode and the online tools with artists’ self-promotion and expression in mind.

They’ll cherry pick the finest talent — rappers who stir up vast armies of fans with superior lyricism, timing and pitch — and put them in professional production studios to create featured content for the network.

That would seem to fit with the hip hop ethos of coming from nowhere to conquer the whole world.

The game will launch on the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 with at least 40 songs and videos from artists like Dr. Dre, 2 Pac, 50 Cent, Ice Cube and more this October 5 in North America and November 2 in Europe.

Video gaming meets cloud computing in the new OnLive service, which lets you instantly fire up and play a library of popular titles on your PC or Mac — and soon, your TV. The service delivers high-end games to even low-powered machines as well as giving Mac users a way to play a number of PC-only titles — neither of which is no small technical feat.

We’ve been following the OnLive service since it came out of stealth mode, went into beta and got a launch date. During E3 last week the service officially launched, and we had a chance to sit down with CEO Steve Perlman for a hands-on demo of the service.

What we saw was very impressive — not only can you quickly hop into a number of great games likeBorderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, Dragon Age: Origins and more, but you can also effortlessly drop in and spectate on other users’ ongoing games via the Arena, a sort of panopticon window into all the current gameplay sessions. Social features allow you to quickly add and connect with friends, plus share and rate Brag Clip videos of favorite gameplay moments from your own and other members’ sessions.

Because all of this gameplay is essentially rendered as a video feed and sent over the Internet, the company acknowledges there is some latency factor involved in the service. However, for the majority of gamers OnLive is most likely going to be “close enough.” The ability to hop in and play these games from older PCs or Macs that otherwise would have little or complicated access is likely going to be a very acceptable tradeoff for many.

During the demo we were also shown OnLive running on an iPad, which again speaks to the powerful platform-agnosticity afforded by cloud-based gaming. For now it’s mostly giving a window into the Arena for spectating matches, but Perlman said game developers are working on custom control schemes to make actual gameplay viable on devices like the iPad and iPhone as well as Android phones — even the Nexus One can reportedly run the OnLive service already as well.

OnLive is also rewarding early adopter customers with a special offer during its first launch month: you can sign up within this period to get a free year of service for “founding members,” along with a second year of service at $4.95 per month. One thing to note, however: the subscription price doesn’t automatically get you into all the games — you still have to pay to buy or rent individual titles. A purchase price can be as much as a regular box copy, although rental prices for a few days can be as low as $3.99.

After months of hardcore skepticism from gamers and press everywhere, it looks like OnLive is off to a great start on delivering its hefty promise of easy cloud-based gameplay access. Check out the video demo below and let us know: could the age of on-demand gaming be arriving?