Finally, I got my hands on a copy of Far Cry 2! My full review will be up as soon as I can get myself through the single player campaign, which is gonna be a real time killer. Before you need to ask yourself anything, you really should buy it, at least from my first impressions. The game is absolutely drop dead gorgeous...

[UPDATE] Hour 3: 4% Completion on Single Player: The Single Player is amazing, really. It feels like FPS Grand Theft Auto in the way you can just roam around. The voice acting is a little too fast and it's kind of annoying, but the combat and driving are solid and actually remarkable on the latter. Multiplayer I have barely touched; haven't got a game going and I won't write a review until I do, but the map editor is robust and fairly easy to get going. I can see definite potential in this one. By Day 3 or so I should have the entire review going, but that's a mere estimate. I have barely scratched the surface, as you can tell.

Welcome to Making Headlines, where I (FrostyMD) give you my take on current events in the videogame world. (Words that I type in bold are terms that you should be familiar with to understand what I'm talking about. If you don't know what the words mean, then it's time for Google.)

Early in the month, Bungie released a teaser trailer for a project entitled Halo 3: Recon. I decided of course not to comment, because nobody can every truly speculate correctly on a Bungie project.

Well, it appears as thought they're really blowing the lid off of this one quick. Already we know about the new game's setting, protagonist, and multiplayer. I'm happy to hear that they're switching things up for the single player campaign; Halo 3's campaign was a little too dry and repetitive for multiple playthroughs, and hopefully the new gamplay changes will make for more than just some standard DLC.

The multiplayer, Halo's shining star, is returning in full force. According to a mysteriously vague post on Xbox.com, the simultaneously lauded and complained-about Forge mode will be overhauled in at least some way. Bots...weather...even a true map editor? At this point even speculation would be bone-headed; there's just nothing to work with.

Of course, as more information pours in I'll be sure to give you my two cents. But for know, Recon remains a far-off, tantilizing mystery and hopefully a worthy expansion to Halo. We're in uncharted waters here, at least for Bungie. (But that never stopped them before!)

Once again, keep gaming my friends. 'Till the next time we speak.

So today, I took a drive down to my local Best Buy and dropped down some money on pre orders. I haven't bought a game since Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and I was feeling the addiction again.

So I put down reservations on Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2, and Far Cry 2; all games that I will review and have my opinion on for you guys within a week or two of their release.

It had been a while since I had been in my Best Buy, and I was pleasantly suprised. The service was extremely helpful; when I learned that I couldn't get a copy of Gears 2 in a 'boxed' pre order, the young woman was kind enought to order it online, and have it shipped to my business adress free of charge because I took the time to drive out to them. It really helped restore a little of my faith in the franchise, especially after they botched my order for Halo 3. (Which is a long story for another time).

Anyway, that's enough of your time that I've wasted. Keep gaming!

Welcome to Making Headlines, where I (FrostyMD) give you my take on current events in the videogame world. (Words that I type in bold are terms that you should be familiar with to understand what I'm talking about. If you don't know what the words mean, then it's time for Google.)

Earlier this week, the man behind Age of Conan left Funcom to pursue quote 'other venues'. While at launch Age of Conan was taunted as a sort of proverbial "World of Warcraft-killer", it quickly fell under the radar due to overall poor game design and bugs. (Sounds a bit like Killzone, doesn't it? That Halo-killer turned out to be mediocre as well!)

To put it in perspective; I play neither WoW or AoC. However, I am constantly reminded of WoW's existence and would have made the purchase for said product if I had a computer that I wished to run it on. Conversely, mere days after AoC's release, I had completely forgotten about it and was no longer prompted to remember it existed until today. In case you don't know, that's a bad thing.

So apparently AoC turned out to be unsatisfactory for the PC crowd and the designers. However, I hear that the game is being developed for the Xbox 360. By Xbox MMORPG standards, (FF12 anyone?) this might turn out to be an award winning, AAA game. But the bar isn't set very high, because the first MMORPG turned out to be crap. And if the game is not very easy to use on the PC, where you can use a FREAKING MOUSE AND KEYBOARD, I doubt it will control or look very good on the Xbox.

Well, that's another rant session for you. Take what you will, discard the rest.

Welcome to Making Headlines, where I (FrostyMD) give you my take on current events in the videogame world. (Words that I type in bold are terms that you should be familiar with to understand what I'm talking about. If you don't know what the words mean, then it's time for Google.)

Well, I just finished reading the article on EA walking away from Take-Two Interactive this week. The only thing I could do was breath a sigh of relief. Even though Take-Two's stock tanked in the following hours, (and our stock market is bad enough) I think Take-Two's decision was the right one. Not only was it a good way to keep the Grand Theft Auto and other franchises from being ruined by EA's corporate greed, it was a symbolic victory for other, smaller gaming companies.

Take-Two's decision to refuse EA's multi-billion dollar offer was indeed the right choice. After Criterion was eaten alive by EA "back in the day", the gigantic corporation has been churning out Burnout games with less and less quality, and supposedly with little or no input from the smaller developer. With Take-Two 'taking' a stand (no pun intended?) other companies will see that EA is not an almighy god, and cannot just muscle their way into any house they see fit. Hopefully, EA will learn from this failure and keep it's large, Madden-sized nose in it's own business where it belongs.

Hopefully, EA will take the couple of billion dollars (!) and put it where it belongs, like on quality control for their games. (I'm lookin' at you, Black and Battlefield)

Welcome to my first segment of Making Headlines, where I (FrostyMD) give you my take on current events in the videogame world. (Words that I type in bold are terms that you should be familiar with to understand what I'm talking about. If you don't know what the words mean, then it's time for Google.)

To start, let's take a look at Guitar Hero: World Tour. Formerly called Guitar Hero IV, this sequel to Activision's multi-million dollar franchise is shaping up to be one of the most epic music games ever made.

Hours ago, Rock Band 2 was released, and the jury is still most definetly out on how 'good' the game is. At this point in the industry, music game control and basic formula is pretty much set in stone. With few exceptions, most music games have the same familiar control scheme and premise. So that leaves the tracklist to decide between competing games.

I don't know if you have seen the Guitar Hero: WT tracklist, but you should. It's initial 84 songs look decent enough (at least for me) with plenty of room for DLC to improve upon. However, a decent majority of forum users, commenters, and music junkies that I know have repeatedly pointed out the absolutely huge list of songs available for Rock Band 2 and the superior amount of choices.

In my opinion, (and that is why you're here, right?) the music games this holiday will be split upon creativity lines. What does that mean, exactly? The more musically 'creative' gamers will most certainly flock to Guitar Hero to use the robust music editor and GH Tunes to share their work. But the gamers who want more songs, (and less song editing) will probably want to buy Rock Band 2, what with the almost 300 songs available for it by year's end. Sadly, either way you slice it, music junkies are looking at a lot of money spent this holiday.

Hello all, and welcome to my blog. This is my third Gamespot account, as one was hacked, and one I just gave up on because I felt that it wasn't a clear definition of my personality. I've been with the 'Spot since 1999, and I will always stay a reader of the site, even with all of the controversy and issues with the evil CNet empire.

Well, to get it out of the way, I'm a loyal Xbox gamer since I got my first Xbox for my father in 2001. He loved Halo: Combat Evolved, and he still plays games to this day. I'm a firm believer in the importance of family intervention in choosing videogames for children; it's not the government that should decide whether your underage son or daughter should play M-rated games!

Also, I don't believe in discriminating against other gamers on race, sex, or skill. I'm a very competitive player, with I believe a decent amount of skill in the games I play. But I will never pick on you or complain that you aren't as good as I am, because that's just stupid. Sometimes, I think that the MLG culture of the post-2004 era of games has ruined gaming, because it has turned everyone with a 'clan' into a bunch of raving, sexist, super-pompous and competitive morons who believe only in winning.

I tend to like to write and review games, so watch my profile for major Xbox 360 titles for unbiased, non-paid reviews from a gamer who plays to enjoy himself.

Happy Gaming! ~FrostyMD