Bobfoc

You can also get it for £10.99 on both platforms at Gameplay.

As I'm in a slightly generous mood, I'll offer a free copy of Freedom Force to the first four people who provide me with their Steam IDs via personal message. I will gift the copies to the first claimants as soon as possible. I know this isn't the newset of games, but it is, in my opinion, an overlooked classic and, besides, it's a free game, after all. EDIT: All of them have now been claimed.

I wasn't really interested in this game, but I bought it as it would have felt foolish not to for 10 Microsoft Points. I'm a big fan of the Civilization series and I remember playing the demo of the Original Age of Empires, so perhaps I will end up getting into this. Even if I only get five minutes of enjoyment out of it, I'll probably have got my money's worth.

It should work, but remember that the demo only allows you to load one nation with a small database. If that's all you want with the full game, it's no issue, but just don't use it as an accurate guide as to how the game will run if you want to load multiple leagues simultaneously and in full detail.

HMV is offering a free mini football and Steam, Gamers Gate and Direct2Drive are offering collections of SEGA Megadrive/Genesis games for those who pre-order the game. If you're talking about prices only and you're not bothered about such extras, Coolshop and Zavvi seem to be the cheapest options at the moment, with ShopTo closely behind.

If this is Hodgson's last game, at least he'll have travelled in style. From BBC News

The ending of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II or, more specifically, the lack of one. Which game do you think most exemplifies a title that, despite having several notable flaws, is greater than the sum of its parts?

1. Marge vs The Monorail 2. Cape Feare 3. Sunday, Cruddy Sunday 4. You Only Move Twice 5. The Springfield Files 6. Trash of the Titans 7. The Cartridge Family 8. Homer at the Bat 9. The Joy of Sect 10. Homer the Great

I would imagine that you will get a fairly similar quality of service from both retailers as Game now owns Gamestation. I've heard mixed reports about delivery times, but there have been plenty of people who have received pre-ordered games either on or before their scheduled release dates. If, as you say, you have a Game reward card, you might as well go with them, but the difference will probably be negligible.

That's a fair point, and I agree that $250 is the most likely US launch price. I can see the UK paying over the odds, though, as is usually the case.

I dare say there will be plenty of new iterations of the 3DS over the years, so I won't be rushing to buy it at launch. To put things into perspective, 25,000 yen is the same price at which the Wii was sold at launch. Having said that, though, I'm more excited for the 3DS than I ever was for the Wii, and I'm not even into handheld gaming.

The 3DS has been given a Japanese release date of 26th February 2011, and it will be sold at a price of 25,000 yen (approximately $300 or £190). A release date for North America and Europe has not been fully specified, but is expected to be around March 2011. Link

The next piece of downloadable content for this game, entitled "The Sacrifice", has been given an official release date of 5th October. As some of you may know, it will be a prequel to "The Passing" and will also be compatible with the original Left 4 Dead. Source

Try this one. I agree that it looks great, but I can see it being like last year's Create-a-Storyline mode in that it will be limited for no good reason other than to allow the developers to modfy said restrictions in the following instalment and tout them as groundbreaking improvements. EDIT: Beaten to it.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1122960p1.html A few more details and some new footage of the WWE Universe Mode.

1. Metal Gear Solid 2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3. Super Street Fighter II 4. Comix Zone 5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 6. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 7. Halo: Combat Evolved 8. Streets of Rage 2 9. Sonic The Hedgehog 10. Max Payne

If you're referring to my post, I actually called it a 'gritty' shooter, not an FPS, but I can see that I probably didn't make myself totally clear.

Thanks. That's a shame, but at least it will mean that I don't have to be as picky when it comes to choosing where to pre-order the game.

I'll be looking forward to it. As far as I'm aware, there should also be a demo released a couple of weeks beforehand. Does anyone know whether or not the retail version of the game can be activated on Steam if one happens to be fortunate enough to purchase it before the official release date? I have recently had a few of my pre-ordered games arrive a day before release, but never anything that requires activation through Steam.

I'll add myself to the Zelda bridgade on this one. While the games in the series have never really struck me as being particularly bad, I never got into them myself. Under normal circumstances, I could probably let my feelings of indifference for a video game slide, but it just irks me that Zelda seems to be the franchise that most posters on other message boards deem immune from criticism. The mere suggestion that Ocarina of Time, for example, isn't a divinely perfect creation sent from the heavens is akin to blasphemy in the eyes of some people, or so it would seem. The general distaste for the FPS genre doesn't surprise me, particularly as far as Halo and Call of Duty are concerned. I quite like shooters myself, and I do enjoy the Halo and Left 4 Dead series, but the main problem nowadays is that there are so many "gritty" shooters out there that everything seems so stale and saturated at the moment. We all know that Activision will continue to churn out new COD games every year until people eventually lose interest, and I certainly can't see Microsoft abandoning Halo and Gears of War for many years to come. As a result, quite a few of the other genres tend to get lost in the mix, which is a real shame. As for Guitar Hero/Rock Band, I can't see a great problem with them, other than the fact that they seem to be released far too frequently. To me, as other people have said, rhythm games simply serve as a source of harmless fun, and those who genuinely believe that they will turn them into rock stars make up an extremely small minority. Those who try to take the high ground and slam them for not taking up a real instrument instead are far more irritating to me.

1. Ronnie James Dio 2. Bruce Dickinson 3. Corey Taylor 4. Steve Perry 5. Rob Halford 6. Tim "Ripper" Owens 7. Ozzy Osbourne 8. Sammy Hagar 9. Ian Gillan 10. Vera Lynn

Some of the achievements for the Xbox 360 version have now been revealed: List Several predictable ones there, such as those relating to the Road to Wrestlemania mode, but the first few achievements on the list seem quite interesting.

A pre-load is now available to those who pre-ordered the game through Steam.

I am looking forward to the prospect of playing the likes of Mass Effect 3 and Uncharted 3, and I fully expect both to be formally announced within the next year or so. You could throw Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in there as well, but that should have already been released if Valve had stuck to their original timeframe. As for sequels that appear to be unlikely to ever materialise, I will echo the support for Jade Empire 2 and KOTOR 3, but particularly the latter. The KOTOR series is one of my all-time favourites and, even with all the cut content from KOTOR 2, it still had more than enough legs to carry a third instalment. Other than those two titles, I would really like to see a sequel to XIII, the cel-shaded game from around 2003. Its reviews were mixed and it ended up in the bargain bins very quickly, but I loved the story, artistic style and simple FPS gameplay. The cliffhanger ending left it wide open for a sequel, but poor sales have all but killed off such a possibility.

Out of curiosity, what exactly did you dislike about Condemned? I can see that it has some flaws, but I would call it one of my favourite games of this generation.