I love me some Splinter Cell; if you're in your right mind then you do too. So for the past 1095+ days I've been waiting impatiently for the next entry in the series. So, I felt obligated to bring you a full load of coverage of the game. In addition to providing you with a review I felt that a new episode of Spoiler Alert was necessary.

As always, please do the usual: watch, comment, rate and, if you really like it, repost.

Thanks, and enjoy.

It's that time again. Spoiler Alert, my ongoing series of ruining everything for you (provided you click on the video) is back with the endings for Metro 2033. You can look forward to our full review of the title soon but in the meantime, if you don't plan on getting around to Metro then by all means press the play button.

Like anyone else on this site I do enjoy a fine video game but it still surprises me to this day that most people don't actually finish them and never find out what happens at the end. Well, to help those poor souls (or those who love to ruin things for their friends) I bring you Spoiler Alert, our new Youtube series. What does it bring to the table? Well, the end game of course! Don't feel like replaying a game just to watch those last glorious minutes? I can help with that.

Today's issue is the ending to Mass Effect 2 as a Paragon and without losing a single team member during the suicide mission. No, I don't spoil the final boss for you (pretty epic) but you do get to see the good guys win if you've been rolling along with a Renegade character for the past week.

Look for more installments in the near future (three big titles coming out next week alone) and be sure to watch them all in glorious 720p.

How? That is the question I pose to you: how come people with non-triple digit IQs get positive treatment from mass media sources for violating the law? If there was ever a case for idiot identification cards this would be it.

A 25 year old BBC Radio 1 listener named Raz got his own column on the BBC Newsbeat site about his reaction to getting his Xbox 360 banned for pirating games. Raz, who had pirated "roughly 30-40 games," described his shock at having his console banned after signing in to Xbox Live to play Modern Warfare 2.

[gametrailers=http://www.gametrailers.com/player/56043.html]
Last night Activision held a press event in Los Angeles to show off more of Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 and I REALLY wish I was there. Not only did they have several major announcements, including the 250gb MW2 edition Xbox 360, they let the press get a hands-on multiplayer demo to try out on the show floor. Gametrailers got quite a bit of footage to share so I figured anyone who was even remotely on the fence about the game should check it out. Or, you know, if you need to kill some time at work when nothing is going on. Like me.

Halo 3's live action trailers back in 2007 were incredible to watch and it seems that ODST's continuing that fashion.

Hollywood, hurry up and make the damn movie; how can you not after watching this?!

And I think to myself: what a wonderful game.

When the original Zone of the Enders launched back in 2001 I was one of the few people who played it before playing the demo for Metal Gear Solid 2. I gotta say I absolutely loved the game as well as its sequel The Second Runner. So, when Kojima mentioned his wish in 2007 to work on ZOE3 but couldn't due to Metal Gear Solid 4 I hope you understand that I was immediately ecstatic. On the Kojima Report podcast a while back hosts Aki Saito and Ken Imaizumi discussed the fan's love for the franchise and requested listener feedback on a potential ZOE3. Kojima himself even acknowledged the fervent fanbase for the game in a recent Famitsu interview.

All signs have been pointing to a full-on Zone of the Enders 3 game but many questions remain as to when we'll actually see it. Is it possible that one of the staff on the project inadvertantly let slip the destination for the title though? This writer thinks so as news appeared on composer Norihiko Hibino's company website GEN Impact listing a current project for Konami as an Xbox-only title. Why is Hibino-san relevent? Well, Kojima Productions affecionados will note that Norihiko Hibino was the composer for both ZOE titles as well as every single Metal Gear Solid title since MGS2.

Coincidence? I don't think so. For now this remains within the realm of speculation but if Microsoft's looking to get a Kojima Productions title exclusively on the Xbox 360 then ZOE3 is certainly a prize to be had.

Okay, that may be an awkward way for me to start out this post but when you see this video you'll understand how appropriate the title is. Three months of work went into this and I wasn't going to let it go to waste.

If you might recall, last month a few of us made predictions regarding the future of the Xbox 360 and whether it was time for Microsoft to announce a price cut. Well, it seems that, just like what happened last year, the retailers are beating Microsoft to the punch with leaked advertisements depicting a $199 core system, a $299 pro, and a $399 elite model. In all likelyhood Microsoft will announce what is already obvious just days prior to the impending cut.

Below are two ads, from Radio Shack and Kmart, which clearly depict an impending price cut that may begin in as little as two weeks from now. Stay tuned for more.

While I was skeptical at first years ago when the series first came out, as I figured Splinter Cell to be a clone of the Metal Gear franchise, I quickly joined in on the fun and have been addicted ever since. The first Xbox Live game I ever played was Pandora Tomorrow and I still consider the epitome of the series to be Chaos Theory, as it was the last entry to use the original version of the multiplayer and had a whirlwind story worthy of the series' namesake.

So it was quite upsetting to read that Splinter Cell Conviction has been pushed back AGAIN. While this news coincides with rumors that the game is being revamped in the wake of Assassin's Creed's success and the possibility that Michael Ironside (voice of Sam Fisher) has been removed from the project leads me to believe that the game will be radically different from what it is even in its E3 2007 revisioning. I just hope that the game is released sometime within this decade unlike certain other titles...

Yesterday one of our staff posted a blog regarding Call of Duty 4 and his recent experiences as a devout Halo 3 player. It seems that his experience left him a bit jaded and, as a strong Call of Duty fan, I felt it necessary to provide a counterpoint to his arguements. Take it away, myself.

Call of Duty 4 is by no means a bad game if you count the sales numbers the game has incurred since its launch just two months after Halo 3 launched last year. With ten million copies sold (though counted on two platforms) and it being the number one Xbox Live title for almost every week since December the writings pratically on the wall. I myself play Call of Duty 4 very religiously and have attended exactly 106 evenings (I looked it up) with my friends.

The problems with my fellow staffer's arguement is that, as a Halo 3 fanatic, it is made redundant when comparing the two. Halo 3 is far different in many aspects of play when compared to COD4; its like comparing apples to oranges. First off COD4 is a far more fast-paced game than Halo has ever been; the first kill of a match, depending on the gametype, occurs within the first 15 seconds of the round and the game is designed such that a bodycount of at least 75 kills will occur within a single team deathmatch. The requirement to kill an enemy is far less strict than in Halo; of course Halo involves heavily-armored and energy shielded cyborgs versus equally armed and dangerous aliens whereas COD4 involves Joe Schmo soldier with a helmet and a little bit of body armor. Thus killing a person only takes but a few bullets or just a single bullet to the head via any weapon whereas the only weapons in Halo that can achieve such a feat involve the weapon either being a sniper rifle or it being specifically designed to take out a vehicle.

My collegue addresses the perk ability Martyrdom, which drops a live grenade onto the ground when you die in the hope that your opponent is still next to your body when it detonates. While I detest the perk myself and never use it it is still an affective weapon and is not unlike tossing a grenade at your feet just before you die in Halo 3. His arguement that being able to step away from the game and still get kills does not account for the land mine in Halo 3, which is just as effective as any Martyrdom grenade or claymore mine if it is used in the right context.

My collegue also addresses glitches and cheating which, in my opinion, is present in every single video game our species has ever created. He is quick to fault glitchers who get outside of the map (which can be done; I've seen it before myself) and Infinity Ward is addressing these a-holes just as much as Bungie, though not nearly as loudly or entertainingly as Bungie.net (see any Whambulance or Letters to the Webmaster segments). I'm not defending IW for a few missed issues; I'm just saying that Bungie can't be cited for being a pinnacle of map perfection either.

I could go round for round with my friend here but I think the following sums this up: Call of Duty 4 is an excellent game by all standards but is not designed for anything less than fast-paced gameplay. Halo 3 is not nearly as fast-paced as IW's money machine but if you are going to compare the two you need to be prepared to make a counterarguement about Halo 3. Like every other game on the market if you don't get in on the ground-floor and stick with it its going to come back and bite you in the butt and unfortuntely that's what happened to MarvellousG. Sorry buddy, but you just had a bad night. Spend some time getting used to the game or play with us on a staff gaming night and I'll show you the true power of COD4.

If there is one franchise that's destined to remain in gamer's hearts for the next few years it definitely is the Halo series. While Bungie is already hard at work on the next highly classified project they are still serving out multitudes of multiplayer content to keep the Halo 3/Call of Duty 4 rivalry alive. Though not actual details have been announced as to the nature of the inevitable 3rd map pack, in traditional Bungie fashion, they have teased about upcoming levels with codenames and vague details about the content's of each.

While this is speculation at best it seems that Bungie's set to announce the third set of maps soon. There are two previously announced maps that did not make it into either the Legendary or Heroic map packs known as Moonbase Alpha and Purple Reign. Moonbase Alpha is described by Bungie as an original level set on a UNSC space platform orbiting Earth that is reminiscent of popular Halo 2 map Elongation. Purple Reign, by contrast, is said to be a Covenant-based map involving two bases and the remains of a Covenant scarab. Last Friday Bungie released a teaser piece at the end of their weekly update entitled "The Smuggler."



This pretty much points to the possibility of this third map occurring in a Flood-infected area somewhere on the Delta Halo from Halo 2. Current speculation among elite fans place the map as being either a remake of classic Halo CE map Rat Race or Containment, a map from Halo 2 that was released as downloadable content. Either way, I look forward to this new title in the (hopefully) near future.