Along with Damnation and Resistance 2, Prince of Persia will be one of the titles releasing next Friday (5 December). The end of next week pretty much brings the awe-inspiring game release season of 2008 to a close. While their may be a few titles still releasing here and there, all of the most watched titles will be on the shelves. Many have had their eye on the new Prince of Persia title, with it's cell-shaded yet detailed look as well as some really interesting combat mechanics. The official trailer has been put up on Gametrailers.com and judging by what I have seen it looks like it is going to be quite a ride.

While I was aware that it was looking really good and I have been a fan of the Elder Scrolls series, I really didn't expect it to impress in the way that it did. While I am still trying to wrap my head around how much there is to do in the game and how many areas I still have to explore, I am happy to say that new DLC has been announced for consoles (as well as PC) and in another sense, I am sad to say that us console guys aren't going to be able to get our hands on the PC creation tools, called the G.E.C.K (Garden of Eden Creation Kit). The creation kit will be released next month and the DLC is set to hit in January, with even more coming in February and March. It looks as if it will only be the Xbox 360 getting the DLC, which sounds like a bummer to PS3 owners but it gets me thinking about PSN and how there is no reason that the content creation tools won't be able to be used on the PS3, so it may actually be good news for the PS3 guys. Bethesda says that they "can’t wait to see what the community does with the G.E.C.K.”... I can only hope that if we are lucky, Bethesda will choose some of the best content and then add it as DLC to the consoles. A list of what you can expect in the DLC as well as some more info on the G.E.C.K, after the jump. [Thanks Poddle for the tip] The G.E.C.K sounds pretty awesome, giving gamers the ability to not only change and create areas, but to also create missions and stories as well. Bethesda say that: "The Garden of Eden Creation Kit will let users create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons and creatures." It makes me wonder if gamers will also be able to record and add voice for the characters? In any case, the rest of us can all still look forward to the DLC. Here is the list of what is going to be made available: • Operation: Anchorage. Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders.... Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh.... Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all.

Well, I am an old-school NFS fan, I played them from the first one, right down to the point when I started losing interest, somewhere around the release of Carbon, So I take it that I am the perfect candidate for one of these promised smiles and to be honest, I am more than happy to have my mind changed.... Watching Maggie Q standing in a strangely dark lit room saying something like "Ok, your getting in deeper and that's exactly where I want you" (I can't tell if that is supposed to sound that bad) over the span of what must be around 5 - 10 seconds does not exactly make me want to break out the popcorn just yet. We can't expect too much of a story from a racing game but this time it looked like we were going to get given one, which is the only reason why it's quite a letdown so far.... It seems as if they have tried to squeeze every single next-gen visual effect onto the screen at the same time, ultimately making it so overdone that you basically can't see what is going on. image: IGN All the races take place during sunset or sundown (and there is no excuse for not yet integrating day/night cycles into the series yet) , so you have the sun in your face a lot of the time.... The roads are strangely reflective, as if they are constantly wet (but even more shiny than usual) and the cars themselves are also overly shiny and reflective, essentially making everything look so full of white reflection marks that it just looks plain ugly and the glow effects on everything can be such a visual distraction that you will end up slamming into a pillar at full speed just because it was too difficult to see what's in front of you.... Most of the time it will be relatively fine but it can drop like a brick through certain areas and is so inconsistent that it will pick up when you face your car away from the city towards the open seas, causing times where the framerate could drop down to around 5 - 8 framers per second and then jump straight up to 60fps as you turn a corner.... While I never really thought about them much in previous games, the sound guys have done such a fantastic job in keeping the dialogue realistic that I started to wonder if they had just plain stolen it off of some Real TV episodes.... The customisation has been cut down, which I don't really see as a bad thing to be honest and to make things even more laughable (especially when compared to other titles on the market), elements like simple vinyls don't even show up in online Multiplayer races.... While I can understand that yes, maybe there are some people out there who are short on time and would rather pay to get ahead, It is not in the spirit of gaming and comes across more as a willingness to make extra profits in every way possible and with no shame.... image: IGN Take that great driving mechanic and destroy it's fun factor with low framerates, repetitive races, lack of motivation from the story and an almost useless open world and you are really left with nothing but a game that feels like it has only moved backwards. At the end of the day the game feels like a stripped down and emptied out version of some of the past titles and while that may be fine for handheld titles, it really is unacceptable for a Next-Gen title from a large company such as EA.... Those were the good old days of the Need for Speed franchise and while I really did enjoy the move to street racing with the Underground series and even Most Wanted, I think that it should have ended there. Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon and Undercover feel like they are still the same game at their core and while I commend EA on trying something different with Pro Street, it isn't the kind of "different" that many of the fans are looking for.... I really cannot recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun racer to play on their console because in all truth, I would rather recommend picking up a cheap copy of NFS: Most Wanted instead, purely because it feels like it is a more advanced game.... Scoring: Gameplay: 6/10 [ Driving is fun but hampered by too many other factors ] Presentation: 4/10 [ No, no ,no ,no, no ] Sound: 8.5/10 [ A magnificent gem in a bucket of rocks ] Value: 6/10 [ While there is quite a lot to do, there is little motivation to carry on and the multiplyer is easily trounced by rival titles ] Overall: 6/1 0 [ Nothing more than a reminder that the Need for Speed series is in need of a serious change.

Anyone who has been playing Left 4 Dead knows that it can be quite an exhilarating experience, what with all of the zombie trying to eat your face and everything. The result can easily boil down to a few crazy moments of shouting and screaming as you do all that you can to avoid being swarmed by a massive horde of Zombies. The guy in this video however, seems to have taken "living the experience" to a whole new level. Please, please, please tell me that this guy is just messing around because if there are any gamers out there who actually react like this in games, I would have to wonder what this world is coming to... and I don't want to.

Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 and PC hits shelves this week and looks to pack a ton of multiplayer mayhem. Think Gears of War 2's horde mode, on crack, with zombies and with a different experience every time that you play through a level. There are quite a couple of gameplay videos available now and I can tell you that some of them are showing off exactly how dark and scary some of the locations will actually be. I'm all for zombie bashing though, so I cannot wait to pick up my copy and let rip on the suckers. Honestly, where would the world be if Zombie's weren't invented.

I don't really know what to say about stories like this anymore... You would think that somewhere deep down inside the mind of gamers, a small bit of logic would kick in and tell you that playing a game for 27 hours solid is probably not very good for your health. This unfortunately was not the case with 15 year Swedish old World of Warcraft player who was keen to give his new "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion a good go when his body decided to have epileptic seizures instead. I found it quite funny to read that "Understandably, the boy's father plans to place limits on the amount of time his son can play videogames after he makes a full recovery." Did it have to come to seizures for the parent to realise that letting a 15 year old play for 27 hours was a really bad idea? Nice job parent and now videogames are going to take the fall for it, not you.

So then, we are midway through what could be called the most incredible release line-up in gaming history and to make things even more interesting, it's right in the middle of a worldwide financial crisis. With all of the games that have been released and indeed, a few more on the way, our poor little wallets and credit cards are cringing in fear as well decide on how much debt we are happy to sit with. This week sees the release of Left 4 Dead, the zombie infested, action filled, not-so-randomly generated gore-fest from Valve that promises to bring gamers a co-operative experience like no other. But promises are one thing, what is actually delivered is another. I went to go and check the first review scores that have been released and it looks like the wallet is going to have to prepare itself for one more hit. Check out some of the initial reactions, after the jump. To give you a rough idea of the initial reactions, IGN have given it a 90/100 saying that: "There's absolutely no doubt that Left 4 Dead is one of the most social and exciting multiplayer games that we've ever played. It's almost pitch perfect in how it captures the tension and the action of a Hollywood zombie movie." Then there is the reaction from the Official Xbox Magazine that has slapped it with a mighty 95/100, saying: Left 4 Dead's simplicity offers purity of gameplay - the same reason that gamers keep returning to classic arcade games. Come to think of it, with a handful of levels and unpredictable events happening within them, Left 4 Dead has more in common with "Ms. Pac-Man" than just the eating. It's the same thing over and over - but when simple ingredients are perfectly prepared, what could be a mere snack becomes a feast. This one just happens to be on human flesh. [Holiday 2008, p.32] With the lowest score of the four released reviews being a 90 and the highest being a 95 I think that it will be well worth your while to take notice of Left 4 Dead, because it looks like we might have somewhat of a gem on our hands. Keep your eyes peeled for our review soon.

Here's a funny one. A whole bunch of Red Alert 3 manuals had some printing issues that cause the 20th digit or letter to not be printed in the games security key. So EA has taken the incredible approach of asking an owner to guess. They replied to his query by recommending that he "enter your existing code, and try guessing the last character". Cool, that means that he could land up having to punch the code in around 36 times as it could be anything from A - Z and then 0 - 9. Sounds like a fun mission, does it unlock any special vehicles? Then again, at least Red Alert came with it's code (Poke, poke, Microsoft).