As with a lot of gamers, I'm fed up with the whole Guitar Hero thing. After countless iterations of the same basic formula being repeated with only minor tweaks each time, the plastic controller doesn't cut it anymore. That and the fact that the skills you develop are only useful in that particular context, which in itself is pretty useless. I beat Through the Fire and Flames on expert (barely, but still), but I'm still struggling with Wish You Were Here on an actual guitar.

Since I'm clearly rambling, let's get to the point. Harmonix recently announced Rock Band 3, which is due this holiday, and I was like "Meh, seen it", but after some research I found out that they were bringing actual guitars to the table. At first I was sceptical to how they were going to implement this in a game, and that it would either be way to complicated, or way to stupid.

I was sort of right on the former, but they have made some smart decicions regarding the difficulty. I saw someone playing on easy mode or whatever, and it looked reasonably manageable. The expert mode, however, looked about as easy as... well, playing a real guitar. What's neat is that this will actually teach you how to play a real guitar, you know, instead of a plastic one.

My first concern is the pricing. I'm unsure wherther or not Harmonix has announced a price for the peripherals, but I'm guessing it's gonna be a hell of a lot more than what we're used to. But, the cost is what it is, and I would rather spend a large amount of money for a solid guitar, than some cheap knock off, which brings me to...

Quality. This could make or break the game, if they put some effort into replicating a real guitar, or better yet, allow you to plug in your own guitar (assuming you have one), then that could be truly awesome, but if not, then they better make sure that theirs works just as good. I guess only time will tell.

And that is why I think Rock Band 3 could be a revolution for the rhythm genre, and it makes me wonder how it will evolve from here. Maybe in 10 years, every gamer will be a rock star just waiting to happen, or the much more likely outcome, just another bloak with a destroyed guitar lying in the closed, because remember kids, playing guitar is fu*king hard.

I love Fallout 3, and across all playthroughs, I've spent probably close to 200 hours on the game. Needless to say, I'm pretty damn excited about New Vegas which is due this fall. Unlike Fallout 3, New Vegas is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment who recently released the ambitious but ultimately flawed Alpha Protocoll. The game recieved a 6.0 here on Gamespot, which they call fair, but a lot of gamers stay away from everything under an 8, but I digress.

My point is that I don't know if Obsidian has what it takes to follow in Bethesta's footsteps. I know they are using the same tech as Fallout 3, and Bethesda have most likely provided them with tips and guidelines in exchange for their IP, but I can't help wonder if they can live up to its predecessor.

Gran Turismo 5, as most people know, is the upcomming title of the popular sim-racing series Gran Turismo. First let me just say that racing games aren't exactly my favorite genre, but I did enjoy Forza 3 and I am pretty interested in the game. Unfortunately, this is another example of the game-delay curse that seems to happen a lot these days.

What I don't get though, is how long can it take to make god damn racer, huh? I know they have to put in a lot of cars and tracks and stuff, but seriously... Forza 3 was one of the most elaborate and deep racing games I have ever played, and it took only two years to make. To put things into perspective: In the time it has taken Polyphony to make GT5, Turn 10 have managed to squeeze out 3 games. Good ones at that.

I think gamers are well justified to ask: WTF, seriously, what the f u c k?

My main issue with the Wii isn´t the motion controls, or the kiddy and casual games that seems to take over the Wii market, but rather the fact that the games simply look, for the most part, bad. I´m not a graphics whore in any sense of the word, but I´m not particularly fond of playing an HD game on my Ps3 or 360, and then playing some SD almost last gen looking game on the Wii.

Now, this isn´t always the case, I just played Super Mario Galaxy 2 and it is an amazing looking game even by my standards. This leads me to the question: Why is this only the case when Nintendo develops games for the Wii? Is there something they aren´t sharing with other third-party developers, because the difference is pretty significant. Ok, I realize that it´s easier to make fantasy characters and settings look better than real humans and environments, but still.

I think part of the reason is because Nintendo is the only developer who really knows how to make games for the Wii. Not saying that every third party games suck or look horrible, but I don´t think Nintendo is giving enough direction on how to really push the platform to its limits. This may also be why there is a lack of quality titles, apart from Nintendo ones, on the Wii.

Anyway, I just wanna say that Galaxy 2 is great, but I think Nintendo may have run out of settings for Mario, and I think they know it. Infact, I think they´ve known since the first Mario Galaxy was released that after space everything else would be a step back, and I honestly don´t know where they can go from here. But Mario isn´t going to go away anytime soon, I know it, you know it and Nintendo knows it even better. Hell, they still haven´t traveresed into multiverse yet... Hold on I´m gonna make a couple of calls.

People who knows me, know that I've never been particularily excited about the Halo franchise. I don't know why, but somehow I've never cared for the games despite how good they may be. The story is nothing special, the gameplay is OK, but the weapons both looks and feels like shooting with plastic guns at weird aliens. Why Halo has generated such an enormous fanbase, which is bigger than the population of Norway, is something I never understood. It's not that I hate the series, I just don't see what's so special about it.

Recently, a friend lend me a copy of Halo 3: ODST to try to make me see what Halo fans have been coming in their pants about since 2001. Ok, fine, I may have asked for it because I sort of want to play the reach beta, but that's totally justifiable because of two words: FU*KING JETPACKS! So anyway, I popped in the disc and started the single player campain.

The first thing that struck me was the awkward controls. I kept forgetting that LT was grendaes not aiming down sights, which made for a lot of wasted ammo. My second complaint is how the screen turns red when my shield depletes. This is nothing new in FPS games, but it happens way to fast, and after just a couple of hits the screen turned red and blurry which made it difficult to see enemies. This also made me take cover more frequently than neccessary. I don't know why or if I'm just imagining things, but it seemed to me like the aiming wasn't as smooth as say MW2, so I played worse than I normally would which led me to die... alot.

Granted I did play on heroic even though I've never really played much Halo before, but I'm fine with dying as long as it's a fair challenge, but there definitely was a lot of cheap deaths. Since Halo is heavily vehicle focused, whenever I was on foot against a vehicle, I could die from a simple shot even if I had full health. There was one sequence where I had to defend a location against hordes of locu- I mean covenant, and one of them was driving a big, ridiculous thing which could take me out with one shot. So I died, and then I had to rekill all the enemies again. I finally managed to kill it on my fifth try or something, but then my biggest problem with the game happened. After completing the chapter I was somehow sent to a previous mission I had already completed. It wasn't untill I was halfway through that I realized this and I was forced to do the entire chapter again. The same thing happened so I guess I'm fu*ked...

I did get to try the Reach beta, and I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised. The controls were better, the weapons looked cooler, the jetpack was awesome and I had a really good time with it. I liked how you can take more damage than in say MW2, which means less people killing you before you can even react. I have high hoped for Halo: Reach, and hopefully it won't let me down, wops, jinxed it... Damn.

Most gamers have probably heard of Yahtzee, but if you haven't let me tell you. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw is a video game critic who over the past couple of years have made a big name for himself by making 5-minute long video reviews for the escapist. He's known for his brutal criticism and fast talking, as well as making some of the funniest videos on the internet. If you don't know who the hell he is, I strongly recommend that you check him out http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

I know this isn't exactly the ideal place to write about a TV-series, but I don't have anywhere else to turn and I really need to get something off my chest. Dexter is a show that airs on Showtime (the channel), it currently has 4 seasons and the 5th season begins in September. It is an amazing show I think everyone who gives it a chance will absolutely fall in love with.

The plot centers around Dexter Morgan, a serial killer who works as a blood-spatter anayzer for the police (ironic I know). I will try not to spoil too much of the show because I hate spoilers and I reccomend everyone to try not to be tempted to chech wikipedia for what's gonna happen next. Anyway, the show is built up by great characters, most of which have their own storyline as well. The great thing about these characters is that you really connect with them. Even though Dexter kills people (only bad people, though), he is really likeable and you start rooting for him. Dexter is not only the good character, the whole cast is super well put together by great actors, and the writing is outstanding. Debra, Dexter's sister also works for the police in the same department as him (she works homicide though) and she along with Angel Batista, Maria LaGuerta, Vince Masuka solves murders. The fun thing is that (minor spoiler alert) in season two they find the bodies Dexter killed and now they're suddenly hunting him even though they have no idea who he is.

I wanna give a quick review of each individual season to kinda give my opinion of them separately.

Season one is important because if season one doesn't hold up, people won't watch the show anymore, but it does and it is fantastic. The first couple of episodes introduce you to the characters and the overall premise of the show. It is pretty much superb thoughout with almost every episode having you at the edge of your seat just waiting in anticipation for what's gonna happen next. There are also some really awesome revelations to be had in the later episodes.

Season two starts off with a bang, with dexter's bodies being found underwater (where he dumped them) and suddenly they're hunting a man that's right in front of their noses. There is a whole subplot with Rita (his girlfriend) dumping Dexter because he cheated on her, which honestly doesn't get very interesting until the final episodes. I would say this is pretty much on par with season one.

Season 3 was to me a little disappointing because Dexter meets this character Miguel who eventually becomes his friend, and it's not as intens or exciting as the previous two seasons by far. In this season there really isn't a main serial killer, well ok there is, but it has nothing to do with Dexter so I didn't really care for it much. It felt like something made sorely so the police would have something to do, which is a shame because the was a lot of potential. I was a little bit disappointed with season 3, not because it was bad or anything, but because it didn't pull me in the way season one and two did.

When season 4 came out, I didn't really know what to expect since the previous season was a slight disappointment, but season 4 is in my opinion the best season yet. Dexter now has a baby and he's married to Rita. He struggles to keep his urges to kill pleased while also keeping Rita and the baby happy. This is the season where e kills the least amount of people, which sounds bad, but he develops a bond with this other serial killed called the Trinity Killed who is an old man named Arthur Mitchell (played by John Lithgow). John Lithgow's performance is just amazing, and by the end of the season his true self is finally revealed.

Season 5 will resume in september and it will probably be very different from the others because of one HUGE plot twist at the end of season 4. It will blow your mind.

Today I bought a small tube (5g) called Disc Repair Ultra, which was going to fix my broken games (L4D2 and MW2). I followed the instructions and tried out both games. None worked, so I tried again, and again. When the tube was empty, I popped in L4D2 and tried to play it, but it failed. Then I tried MW2 again, and guess what, it worked!

Even though I had no luck fixing L4D2, I only paid 49kr ($5) for it, and I did get to play MW2 again, so I'm satisfied. Still a little pissed about L4D2, with The Passing released and all, but maybe I'll find it in the used games section of Gamestop for a cheap price or something.

Well, it finally happened, my xbox 360 fu*ked up on me. I was gonna play MW2 when I get this error message saying I need to clean my disc because it is unable to read it. I figured my neglect for the safety of the game had come back to bite me in the ass. So I popped L4D2 in, and guess what; I get the same message. I look at the disc, and there's this big circle of a scratch looking me straight in the face, and that's when I realized that something had gone terribly wrong.

Honestly, I was not surprised. All of the people I know but me have had a history of failure when it comes to the Xbox 360, so I guess I've had it coming. My warranty is still valid, and I'm hoping Microsoft will fx it soon even though they said it might take a couple of weeks.

What bothers me, is the fact that Microsoft does not take any responsibility for my scratched games. So as far as I can see, I have three options. Either repurchase both games (which doesn't tempt me much), or I could leave them as they are, but unfortunately that means I will no longer be able to play them. The third option is to buy a disc repair machine which might save my games, but it costs a moderate amount of money, and I've heard they does not always work. I think I'm gonna go the the latter though because the scratches aren't very deep, and if it does work, I will have the device in case I need it some other time.

What really bothers me though, is that I can't play games on my Xbox for up to a month, but there aren't really that many games coming out right now that I want to play (except SC:Conviction).

Though it has not yet been officially announced, I think it's pretty obvious that Cliffy B will announce Gears of War 3 at Jimmy Fallon tomorrow. And though that is great, I have some thoughts on what Epic should let us do in the third Gears. First of all, I should say Gears 1 & 2 are two of my all time favorite shooters, and even if number 3 would be just more of the same, it would still be great.

Weapons: The previous games had a great stack of weapons, but there was one gun I used for the majority of the games; the Lancer. With good damage, fire rate, range and ofcourse the chainsaw; using other weapons didn't seem to be as effective as your standard gun. I pretty much only used other weapons when I was low on ammo or if it was somehow advantageous to the situation (like using a sniper to take down enemies at long range). I hope they balance out the weapons so that each has its advantages on different enemies.

Locations: Gears 2 featured some cool locations, but they were all pretty brownish grey. It would be cool if Marcus and Dom visited some more exotic places like jungles or mountains. I don't know how it would fit into the story, but i'm sure they could think of something. I heard something about an underwater level, which would be cool as long as they aren't just putting it in as a gimmick, so it could go either way. I bet it will be a vehicle section, but still, they have managed to make some pretty sweet ones in the past.

Gameplay: Great gameplay was one of the things that made GoW such a memorable experience, and even though the cover sytem works perfectly well, it would have been nice if they improve the cover system to make for some smoother transitions between cover. I also would have enjoyed some more fluid movement. Marcus isn't exactly the most agile man in the world, and if Epic can make him move less like a tank and more like a prius, that would be great.

Story: Story was never the main focus, but Gears 2 did include more story than th first one. Still, I hope they take the storytelling to the next level and hire some (good) professional writers to flesh out the story . Not much to say about that really ... so I won't.

These are just my first thoughts on a game that might not even exist, but it probably does, and it will be AWESOME!