This latest trailer for Skate 2 gives us a bit of a look into the storyline for the game. Now I know you might be thinking that the story in Skate 2 is just about as important as the story in a pornography but after watching the video I was pretty impressed (with the trailer not the pornography). While the story is very light, I really like how the pro skaters have been integrated into the cut-scenes, with the voice work and animations looking pretty solid as well. This is just another reason that Skate 2 has so many people eagerly awaiting it's release and is showing just how important it was for the Tony Hawk development team to take some time off to renew the brand, because this is looking incredible, Skate 2 comes out at the end of March in 2009, so there is still a little bit of a wait. If you own the first skate then you can still break that out to get some practice and if you somehow missed that train, I suggest you go and pick up what is now a very cheap copy of the first Skate so that you can start perfecting those 360 flips.

One of the new additions to Gears of War 2 is the ability to take photo's whilst spectating then upload them to your profile on the Gears of War website so that you can view them, download them or share them with your friends. Here's a small gallery of a few images that I took this week, check out the action of some of our multiplayer sessions and it's easy to see how crazy some of the battles can get. All the pics are available after the jump.

While a lot of us have been enjoying Gears of War 2 this week, there are many fans out there who do not feel the same way.... Pump-Action Peanut Lobber While it becomes pretty obvious from the start that Gears of War 2 is far from perfect in terms of bugs and glitches, the main beef seems to be with the weapon balancing and how the games pace has been slowed down significantly. A lot of "Shotgun Bunnies" as I like to call them, are not happy with the fact that the good ol' shotty has been nerfed (weakened) significantly, especially since the introduction of stopping power has already made it so difficult for shotgun runners to get closer to their enemies.... If you rev up a chainsaw and walk towards someone you can walk through a whole bunch of lancer fire and even a take a couple of shotgun hits without too much issue, leaving the enemy almost defenseless against your incoming saw attack. A glitch in the matrix We have heard that glitches like the "crabwalk" have already been discovered as well as some issues that we have personally experienced with players starting rounds with no weapons in their hands, as well as the inability to select a different one or pretty much make any use of themselves whatsoever. Leave the matchmaking to Cupid With Gears of War 2, Epic also decided to switch from the simple multiplayer and lobby interface of the first game and change over to a matchmaking system not unlike the ones seen in Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.... A lot of the fun was had in the fact that there was no real lobby, maps would load up one after the other and everyone was able to have fun playing the game, or enjoy chatting to their friends if they were out for the round.... I am going to assume that the reason that dead people and live people cannot chat to each other after each round is simply a bug and not a choice made by Epic and I hope it gets fixed soon.... Once the host accepts the settings, you sit through another loading screen to get to another lobby, which allows map, character and team selection (no invites can be sent from this lobby).... After the loading is done you are taken into the map but still sit in a lobby waiting for textures (and if needed, bots) to load up as well. After all of that, you then get given a 10 second countdown to the start of the match, as if everyone wasn't ready 2 minutes ago. This new lobby system really breaks the flow of the game and has frustrated some players to no end.... Gears of War 2 is a fantastic game, however there are no doubts there but it has become heavily apparent that Epic needs to make a few major changes to the game if they want the game to be as addictive and successful as the first. While a lot of people played the original Gears of War's multiplayer right up until the day of the sequels release, this weekend, only one week later had a lot of people on my friends list playing other games and even some who had jumped back into Gears of War 1 to get a bit more of the action that they are used to. If Epic are smart, they will listen to their fans because no matter which way you look at it, it is them who will keep the game going strong for years to come. While I personally do enjoy the multiplayer I do have to accept that deep down, it doesn't have the same appeal as the first game and I do kind of wish that they would release a patch to change a couple of things.

In case you haven't heard, A new and impressive local gaming E-Magazine called Console has just been released. Forget that fact that it's local because the first issue is looking impressive as hell. The magazine offers something quite different from the usual as it focuses on gaming culture and is also still jam packed with reviews, tech help, game guides, reader mail, competitions and writer columns spanning over a massive 56 pages. c lick thumbnails to zoom in As previously mentioned, the e-zine is completely free and if you subscribe, you will get the notification of the new issue sent to your e-mail so that you can go and check it out. The entire magazine runs through a nifty in-browser magazine layout that allows you to flip through the pages, click on links and even zoom in to images and articles for easy reading. For something that's completely free, it would be ridiculous to not subscribe. If you want to subscribe, it's as easy as clicking here and hitting the "Sign up" link.

It’s not the best screenshot in the world but it gets the point across. Wave 50 has been completed on Insane level a mere 8 days after it got released. The intrepid heroes in this story are Zoso Fan, Infidel, 3Suns, Sai Tyrus, and Blankman. What was really sad to see though is that you don’t get anything special for completing …

Over the last week we have been running a simple competition to win a copy of SingStar for the PS3, all you had to do was email in a song that you could find in the game and if you wanted extra entries all you had to do was get someone else to tell us that you referred them when …

  F.E.A.R. 2 P.O. ‘Story Behind The Scenes’ HD Monolith give us a good idea of what exactly to expect from F.E.A.R 2 project origin. The first game is one of the best shooters I’ve played and this iteration looks like it will more than live up to it’s predecessor. Last Updated: November 14, 2008

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has laid down the basics for what will land your Little Big Planet level in the bin, according to a post on VideoGaming247. The company’s statement says that SCEE is “committed to continually improving our moderation procedure, in particular regarding the reasons that user complaints are upheld.” But, for the time being, they say there are …