Major Update != XMB sparkles and a bunch of other fluffy horsesh1t to draw attention to the store and weak social networking

FAIL

Best: Oblivion

Worst: Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2009 (although, I like games like this for the same reasons I like bad horror/monster movies ;))

The best dungeon crawler available IMHO for PS3 is Oblivion...I'm not 100% certain 3rd person view is supported but it probably is (only played it on PC). Even so, that game is more a true 1st person RPG than Diablo/Sacred/Dungeon Seige type action games. The Witcher is close, but that's been scrapped in lieu of Witcher2 development. PS2 and 1's have more titles along these lines. Heavenly Sword, Conan, Viking...all those PS3 games have their moments...I'd say Conan out of those three. Oh yeah, there's also Gauntlet II on PSN, but that's DEFINITELY not the PS2 flavor of that title -- it's a straight port of the arcade classic

Agree w/ most here....Official PS3 headset. Stay away from the MadCat ones...I have one, I forget but think it was about 50 USD...it works "ok"...but overall I think it's junk

As a manner of practice I always shut the game of first and then the system via XMB. I am sure the PS3 system software architecture has built in cleanup routines to handle appropriate resource (memory, for example) cleanup if you decide to Turn Off System first before shutting the game down...same with the BluRay Disc reader. Killing the system via the power switch in the back, however, is another story...same deal with a power outage. That you should definitely not do...but even said, there is probably a manner of software startup detection for any type of orphaned resources that need to be disposed and/or reclaimed the next time you start it up.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma -- the entire f'ing game.

Force Unleashed -- Bull Rancor boss fight.

Super Stardust HD -- anytime my first death is > 1hr in.

And I don't really throw the controller...it's more like a twisting/snapping kinda deal...although I stopped that after I messed up my first Dualshock. Plus, it's not really in keeping with my Anger Management!

something involving the first - complete mind you - 15 second mission from Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2009

Random square patches == digital "tearing"...combined with popping in your speakers -- that sounds like a power issue to me -- if not in the immediate cable throughput (i.e., a different HDMI cable is no better), do you have anything that would bear on this in terms of the power supply to the TV and PS3? Or other appliances on the same circuit?

Contrast Ratio is the spec to compare, based on what you've said...and also agree on liking Samsung in in this space! I'm loving then < yr old 650 series LCD we have..

Updating the video drivers (whatever they may be in your machine, ATI or Nvidia I'd guess) will probably do it. That said, I've installed a few games in recent memory over Vista where I've had to explicitly use Directx9 (dll) assemblies in order for the main executable to even run.