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Sony have a bit of an uphill battle in front of them this Christmas. Console sales have been poor compared to the competition, their flagship games for the season haven't been the MEGAHITS they were hoping for and Home is...well, yes, you know all about Home. So what was needed from the company was a rousing holiday season television advertising campaign! One that shows off the very best features of the console, the best games, the benefits of the online network! Well, across their two commercials, they got it half right. The PS3 one above will seem like moonspeak to anyone who doesn't already know what LittleBigPlanet and MotorStorm are, but it's got exploding couches and looks pretty, so it's OK in my books. But the second one?

It's for the PlayStation Network. What it should have said was "kinda like Xbox Live, but free". Instead, it takes...well, it's got Pain in it. And the unreleased Home. And...Hancock. Egads.

Section: Gaming News, Originals, Features, Lists, Consoles, PS3, Wii, Xbox-360, Handhelds, DS, PSP, iPhone & iPod Touch, Gear, Ads & Media, Print, Web

For those of you looking for all the great Black Friday (aka the day after Thanksgiving, aka November 28, 2008) video game deals all in one place, you can check out all of our Black Friday posts. For those of you who like things in nice, nifty, easy-to-browse lists, here ya go:

The GameStop corporation happily announced today that its earnings had shot up 5.2% for the quarter ending November 1, with over $1.69 billion in sales. During that quarter GameStop opened 191 new stores, 94 in the United States and 97 internationally. It also snatched up French games retailer Micromania, expanding its influence even further. We hope they bought the protection plan with their Micromania purchase, just in case it gets scratched or... or worse!

New video games sales were up 10%, with GameStop reporting that its five best sellers were Madden NFL 09, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Fable II, Wii Fit and Guitar Hero World Tour.

Celebrate, homebrew fans -- while Sony had managed to evade the attempts of hackers to crack into the latest iteration of the PlayStation Portable, the PSP 3000, it's finally been accomplished. Sure, we knew it was inevitably going to be cracked since it was released in October, but with the talent of hackers these days, I'm surprised when things aren't hacked as soon as they're released.

Of course, this comes at a price -- $30, to be exact. A new battery from the England-based maker of Action Replay, Datel, enables users to put the PSP in service mode, reports Maxconsole.net. From there, you'll be able to downgrade the system's firmware, thereby allowing you to access all of those wonderful (albeit typically illegal) tools, apps, and emulators you've no doubt heard of. The battery features a convenient switch to allow you to jump between service mode and normal mode and functions with both the PSP 3000 and 2000.

At first glance, Ikari Warriors and Capcom's Darkstalkers. Upon closer inspection, though, it's just not as enjoyable as either of those classics. Zombie BBQ is essentially a vertical-scrolling shooter; quite an innovative one at times, but for the most part, it's tedious and overly fussy. It casts players as one of two selectable protagonists: Little Red Riding Hood and Momotaro (bringing the bedtime heroine and the Japanese storybook character together for the first time). The premise is simple: Begin each level at the bottom of the screen, blasting everything that stands between you and the end of the level -- which is always punctuated by some sort of boss battle or miniboss encounter. You use the DS stylus to direct your machine gun or throwing stars (which offer unlimited ammo, but require reloading); this does a good job of emulating 360 degrees worth of shot angles. Enemies -- primarily zombies -- erupt from the ground and march their way downscreen, which is where the bulk of the problems arise.

Since Zombie BBQ doesn't feature a scoring system, you have very little reason to shoot the zombies at all, since most of them walk right on by without so much as glancing your way. Shooting them just gives you something to do as the screen slowly trundles by at a glacial pace. In theory, you could just press left and right and avoid the zombies altogether...at least until you progress deep enough to discover the more mobile skeletons who throw skulls at you, or the coffins that pop out of the ground to do the same. It's mostly slow going until you reach the mid- to high-level stages, at which point almost too much stuff's happening at any given moment. The zombies multiply in excessive numbers; they become too hard to dodge with all the crap flying at you, and it's obvious that the developers implemented things like exploding barrels to help alleviate the chaos -- except they're usually too far from the zombies to offer much help at all. And -- when you haven't accidentally blown these barrels up with friendly fire meant for an incoming zombie -- they inflict little splash damage, which makes them less effective than just shooting enemies head-on. Power-ups (like flamethrowers and shotguns) hidden in crates scattered around each stage offer meager variety, as none of them last very long and aren't powerful enough to bother with.

Now GameCyte is reporting that our suspicions were true. The video was, in fact, created by the ad agency Droga5 in conjunction with the production company Smuggler, according to the full credits listing at Creativity Online.

While I'll admit, this type of advertising can really get under my skin, I still find the video to be an impressive creative achievement. Next time, though, I'd like for Activision to be more up front about their association with a video, but that's probably just wishful thinking.

GameStop managers and the odd journalist have already seen Fight Night Round 4 on the big screen, but come December 14th everyone else will get to see it too. Oh sure, we've seen blurry shaky-cam footage that in no way gives us the proper visuals to over-scrutinize and pick apart and that simply will not do. The world premiere of EA Sports' boxing franchise will hit during the Spike TV Video Game Awards next month. The "ultimate boxing match up" from EA Canada does have at least one thing going for it — the inclusion of video game boxing legend Mike Tyson. His style is impetuous! He wants to eat your children!

Filed under: Peripherals

Whether your psyched or skeptical, a new Terminator film -- Terminator Salvation -- is coming in 2009, and now it sounds like we'll be getting a videogame spin-off as well. On Thursday, Warner Brothers announced that developer GRIN will be creating a Terminator Salvation game that will be released on May 22, 2009, the same day that the film hits theaters.

Though specific platforms and gameplay details are not yet offered, we know that the game will be a third-person action title that focuses on "concentrated armed combat against all of the Skynet enemies from the film," as well as new bad guys designed exclusively for the game. Warner Bros. executive vice president John Quinn promises "action packed gameplay and detailed environments," while Cos Lazouras, president of publisher Halcyon Games, offered the following:

"Terminator Salvation - The Videogame allows players to battle for survival against Skynet enemies utilizing an incredibly fluid and realistic control set. The player will be led through a visceral story with extremely polished production values to create a fully interactive Terminator experience."

South Park has always had a lot of fun with video game referencing, including games like World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero. Both have been used and parodied alot of times, even receiving some help from Blizzard in regards to a World of Warcraft parody. Now, South Park has seems to set its eye on a brand new game, Call of Duty: World of War. Which was revealed in an episode of South Park where the kids are suppose to be learning about computers and Butters has somehow found out that vampires are in the school. It’s really funny so check it out.

It was a down week for hardware sales in Japan, with the Wii the only platform to see an uptick in sales week-to-week. The recently launched Nintendo DSi still tops the charts and is in no danger of losing its position to any of its hardware competitors. It does about half of the total hardware sales for the week of November 10 to 16. PlayStation 3 sales stay solid amid a half-dozen new releases over the past month, including Way of the Samurai 3, Resistance 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV. Wonder how long the DS Lite will continue to chart...

• Nintendo DSi - 85,327
• PSP - 38,153
• Wii - 26,787
• PlayStation 3 - 17,448
• Xbox 360 - 7,983
• PlayStation 2 - 5,421
• Nintendo DS - 3,559

Did you detect that stench of viral marketing wafting from that "Bike Hero" YouTube clip? Your nose doesn't lie; the clip purported to be made by "madflux" and the "Brierwood Vandals" is really the work of production team Droga 5, MTV Multiplayer reports. Activision's chief creative officer Brad Jakeman tells MTV that one of the clip's more impressive technical feats — the flashing LEDs on the handlebars — was born from "some filmic magic."

If you're feeling hornswaggled by the CGI-laden marketing attempt, Jakeman says you shouldn't — this was all according to plan. "It’s not meant to be deceptive. It’s meant to be fun,” he said, claiming that Activision was hoping you'd figure it out all along, that they wanted to "engage" you and get the "conversation" going. If it moved a couple more copies of Guitar Hero World Tour, it's a win-win.

Also new this week is downloadable content for Dead Space (various skin packs and weapon packs, ranging from $1-$4) and new costumes for Little Big Planet (a free Sack in the Box costume and a $3 LocoRoco pack which has five different costumes). Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour square off, with GH adding three tracks from The Raconteurs ($2 each of $5.49 for a bundle of all three), while Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 get three songs from Mission of Burma and three from the Dead Kennedys (both artists' music costs $2 each or $5.49 for a bundle of all three songs). There are also four other songs from Crooked X ($1), Lacuna Coil ($2 each), and In This Moment ($2), which you can get in a bundle for $5.49. Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore 2 also gets five new songs, each for just $1.49.

Dear Nancy: It’s about time someone developed a game worthy of your literary acclaim. Reading your books as a child, I never thought I would someday be solving your mysteries from a computer screen instead of a paper page. You age well, and The Haunting of Castle Malloy stands as one of the best Nancy Drew games I’ve played in my short career of reviewing.

Okay, so we know when, now tell us how much.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Or 'SSF2THDR' - a rare case where the abbreviation could do with its own abbreviation) has been priced at 1200 Microsoft points on Xbox Live Marketplace and $14.99 on the Playstation Network.

As someone who's closely followed the bizarre, often tragic trajectory that Sonic the Hedgehog's mascot career has taken, I approach each successive Sonic release with a heart full of dread. With his edgy, art-deco Sega Genesis glory days now long behind him, Sonic's recent platforming efforts have feebly attempted to recapture the well-crafted 3D prowess demonstrated by Dreamcast launch hit Sonic Adventure. Regrettably, every post-Adventure outing has garishly gilded the proverbial lily, screwing up the formula with the addition of extraneous playable characters (crocodiles, bees, robots -- you name it), misguided new gameplay styles (like Shadow the Hedgehog's guns-n-cars nonsense), and laughable narrative excess (I'm still trying to forget the sick cross-species romance that defiled Sonic's previous eponymous effort). Somehow, the kiddies have remained loyal throughout Sonic Team's decade of desperately grasping for relevance, but many of his more discerning fans have long since jumped ship. If Sega were to pull off something akin to Super Mario Galaxy -- a mainline franchise reboot that augments classic gameplay with clever new concepts -- he could once again be a contender. Sadly, Sonic Unleashed is not such a title.

Filed under: Fan stuff, Peripherals, Tech stuff, Controller, Video

The next batch of downloadable tracks for Rock Band and Rock Band 2 may have been leaked a little early, courtesy of the in-game music store and some eagle-eyed ScoreHero forum members. We'd advise you to take it as rumor for now, as the face-melting promise of these tracks would only lead to disappointment if they're incorrect. We're talking about the oft-requested by Luke Plunkett "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden and a triple shot of Yngwie (Fucking) Malmsteen. Oh, and some Lamb of God if that's up your alley. For the rumored next DLC update, read on.

Coming the week of November 25th (maybe):

Ray Barnholt - Staff Writer, MyCheats