WOW! Gears Of War, widely acclaimed as the best ever game since Halo, has done it again for Microsoft! They do love their spiffy, good selling, money making games don’t they? Now there are three Gears of War games to accompany the Halo series in the hall of fame! Read on…

According to Microsoft VP of lots of words Jeff Bell, Gears of War is the first title in a planned Gears trilogy. In a recent interview he accidentally slipped up on his wording and let the trilogy out of the bag. That’s some of the best news I’ve heard in a long while — I can’t get enough of the game! Gears of War has become one of the best titles to come out in a long while and probably the best game on the entire 360 console. Since yesterday, it overtook Halo 2 as the most played game on the Xbox Live and continues to grow rapidly. With all the success that is coming from the game, there was no doubt that there was going to be a sequel, as Cliffyb said before. Here’s what Jeff Bell said:

Gamers today demand an excellent story in their games; they need to know what’s at stake, and why they should care. Excitement tops the list of desired emotions, but they want to be scared, too. They want the rush that comes from being scared by an enemy or trapped in a dark room and escaping with their lives. The goal of this ad is to establish Marcus Fenix as the hero of the Gears of War trilogy. The intention is to create emotional connection with him that is lacking in typical third-person action title marketing, by communicating a sense of desperation, loneliness, overwhelming odds, and the ultimate futility of the situation he faces.” via YourNEWB.

Okay… After just reporting that the PS3 got a battering, it’s been announced that so has the Wii. Pity really. But who cares! I’m waiting for the video!

In the mean-time, as the video of the Wii smashup hasn’t been published yet (still being edited), why not check out these great videos of the iPod and the Xbox 360 getting smashed? As much as I love both of these, seeing them get smashed still manages to raise a smile on my face.

The Xbox 360 - $400. The look of horror on that kids face. Priceless.

And again!

Well, it’s about time! The PS3 has got it’s just deserves. Talk about crashing! Check out this video. Smashing, just smashing!

See what I mean? Smashing. Beautiful! I’m just waiting for the extended version to be released! That should be a laugh. But yes, now Xbox and Wii fans really can rest in peace. The PS3 has been punished. Perhaps next time though, we could do better? Dropping it off the Empire State Building would be a prime example of ‘better’.

Unfortunately, I’m too busy today to cover the Nintendo Wii’s launch in New York, but thankfully the great guys at Gizmodo have a correspondent over there and ready. Head right over and see for yourself. Again, my apologies that I can’t be there, reporting myself, but with a test on Monday at school, it’s just not feasible. I’m sure you understand.

The metro. Distributed free on trains and busses throughout England. As my daily source of offline information, I picked up my copy, as per usual and sat down to read it. Low and behold, not quite as I usually do. After turning the first page, I noticed a large, spiffy advert for Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Fine. It was an Xbox 360 advert for the game. As are all the rest I’m about to mention. I flip the page. BAM! Tony Hawks Project 8. Flip again. BAM! An ad which stretches for the best part of two pages at the bottom. Gears Of War. Flip. BAM! Full double page spread devoted to Gears Of War. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! Dead Or Alive: Extreme 2, Open Season, Need For Speed: Carbon. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! A Giant hand made up of box art from different 360 games. Saints Row. Xbox 360 General Advert. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM! WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2007. Phantasy Star Universe. Cars. Dead Rising. Flip. BAM, BAM! Xbox 360 Live Vision Camera. And again, opposite, a large Live Vision Cam. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! Test Drive Unlimited, Table Tennis, Xbox 360 Classics. Flip. BAM, BAM! General Ad and Xbox 360 High Def gaming ad. Flip. A very bright BAM! Viva Pinata. Great advert! Flip. Odd shaped BAM! King Kong sat on a big green tower. Green planes flying at him. It’s an Xbox 360 HD-DVD advert. Flip. BAM, BAM! Another Gears Of War advert. This one revolving around a red traffic light with the Gears Of War logo on. Call Of Duty 3 advert. ‘Get Closer Than Ever’. (I thought Call Of Duty 2 was, ‘As close as you’d ever want to get’? Admittedly, yes, they’ve gone further!) Flip. GOOD GRIEF! It’s a free calendar! A whole double page spread. It’s a 2007, Dead Or Alive: Extreme 2 calendar. Sweet! I have two copies with me now. Flip. BAM, BAM! Lost Planet ‘Exteme Condition’. Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. Flip. BAM! Ninety-nine nights advert. Flip. Also, on right-hand page, there’s a little red smudge. Flip. BAM, BAM! A big, long-winded technical analysis of the 360. Also, red smudge has got bigger. Opposite page, red smudge even bigger! Sonic The Hedgehog ‘Enter The Sonic Age’ advert too. Flip. BAM, BAM! Yet another red smudge. BT/MS Xbox 360 Wireless Xbox Live advert. Opposite, red smudge even bigger, starts to take a form. Marvel: The Ultimate Alliance advert. Flip. BAM, BAM, BAM! Smudge gets still clearer. Xbox 360 ‘Fly away’ advert. Pics of Wireless Controllers and Wireless steering wheel. Opposite, woah! A fully made out, bloody, Gears Of War logo! Microsoft are loving it. Metro competition. ‘Win an Xbox 360!’ and a Samsung R7 TV plus Q100 home theater system. Flip. HALLELUJAH!I t’s the classifieds. Flip a couple more through the ads and… Xbox Live Arcade advert! It’s World Series Of Poker! Fun, fun, fun! Flip. BAM, BAM! Another Xbox Live Arcade advert. I like the writing style on this one more. Opposite, ‘This Is The Season 2007. This is Fifa 2007.’ Flip. Pro Evo 6 advert. Opposite, a scarf with the words ‘Next Generation…’ on. Flip. Scarf continues to read, ‘Football only on…’ and opposite, ‘Xbox 360.’ Flip. A big green advert at the bottom of the backpage.’Merry Xbox!’ Not Christmas, not Xmas, but XBOX? These guys are losing it. How many adverts was that? I dread to think. How much did it cost Microsoft? More than I care to speculate. Madness!

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The widely speculated Xbox 360 price cut will not go ahead, just as I predicted a Microsoft spokesman admitted last week, but they will be stressing the machines incredible price advantage over the PS3. With the top of the range Xbox 360 costing £270 from Dabs.com, and the PS3 costing twice as much for the lower-end model, which doesn’t even support HDMI, Microsoft are confident that even without a pricecut, they can win the console war. Microsoft did however announce that they would be releasing a number of ‘unexpected surprises in Q4 this year’. I’m personally very excited about this. This is most likely to include the External HD-DVD drive, the Wireless Gaming Headset, more arcade games, the Xbox Live Vision Camera and the possible introduction of certain extended parts of Xbox Live Gold becoming avaialbe to Silver members along with a drop in subscription price for Gold.

It’s the Golden Joystick Awards 2006. The favourites are no real surprise, and we’re pleased with how it’s looking at the moment. With 6 nominations, is Mario Kart DS. This has mainly been attributed to it’s superb online play. With five nominations, is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. And I have to say that, this is possibly my favourite nominee. Other top rated games include Buzz, Resident Evil 4, Hitman: Blood Money, Tomb Raider: Legend, Half Life: Episode 1 and Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones.

There are 16 categories in total. The most interesting, is always the innovation category. The two favourites this year are Buzz, and The Xbox 360 Live Marketplace, both of which are outstanding.

We’ll bring you the winners late October, when on the 27th, the winners will be announced. If you want to vote, go here.

Xploder announced yesterday in a surprise statement that they would be producing HD Upscalers exclusively for the PS2. ‘Sounds great!’ was my initial reaction, until I saw who was making it. Xploder. Nice. They must have broken thousands of consoles, mashed up so many saved files and games etc. with their dodgy cheat packages. I just wouldn’t let them get their products within a mile of my PS2. However, when the Upscaler is released, I will buy it anyway. Why? To see if they can improve their less than impressive reputation and regain some trust among the gaming community. It’s in our blog description ‘unbiased’, so unbiased we shall be. When this comes out for launch on September 1st, we’ll let you know what we think as soon as we can.

Whatever the outcome, at least it saves you £600 on a PS3.

Five thousand readers of the T3 magazine all voted for their favourite console, and the Xbox 360 was best of the bunch, beating the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS to the top spot. Not big news, but we think it does it justice.

Wow! It’s official! Well… Not really, but it’s hilarious. Check out one sites views on how Halo will end here (You need to have your sound on). This is rich. Seriously! Bungie have commented on this after it was pointed out, saying ‘If Halo 3 really does end like this, it will be purely conincidental!’