Some gamers are apparently having problems playing Halo ODST straight from the disc "A rather large thread is continuing to develop on Bungie's forums today which sees a number of users complain about disc-read errors when playing the newly released Halo 3: ODST. Joystiq reports that one of the theories surrounding the crashing discs is that DVD drives found in the older hardware revisions of the Xbox 360 might not like these new discs. Anecdotally, our own David Hinkle encountered the DRE issue on a 2008 Elite. According to Hinkle, installing the game to the hard drive seemed to fix the problem. He later bought a second copy of the game and hasn't encountered the issue again. It's also worth noting that this issue seems to be isolated to the ODST campaign and Firefight mode. The Halo 3 multiplayer disc appears to be unaffected. Bungie is apparently sitting up and taking notice, and has one member of the game's test team poking around in the forums asking for very specific feedback from those affected by the disc-read errors." The original story posting is here : http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/bungie-project-2/1028457p1.html Yet again, we have another instance of devices not working as intended. It really makes me wonder just what exactly goes on behind closed doors when they bugfix these kinds of things. The idea that a retail game can't perform as intended on the device it was intended to play on is ridiculous. It's bad enough people are shelling out 50-60 dollars for a game and now they're finding out it's defective. Of course, as mentioned above you might be able to get it to work by installing the game to the hard drive, but as everyone knows storage space can be a rare commodity and anyone with the arcade 360 is SOL if their disc wont play from the disc. Perhaps this is something that will be fixed with a firmware update or something, but the need for one just to play something is always bad form. Sure, there's the multiplayer disc in the meantime, but for those that have this problem and have that content already, it's a lot like ordering a gourmet meal and instead being served a Big Mac.
Meet Yusuf. And his affinity for tighty whities "This one's a corker -- it's time to meet one of the main characters that'll be featuring in Rockstar's GTA IV downloadable content, The Ballad of Gay Tony. This time around, we're given the opportunity to hang out with Yusuf Amir -- a no-good, foul-mouthed yet highly amusing chap who likes money, crime, fast cars and apparently, strange underwear." Give Gamespy a look for the video here : http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/grand-theft-auto-iv-episode-2/1028449p1.html Alex's take - Well, now we know what those terrorism comments from weasel news in the other trailers were about. Retardedly biased fake media notwithstanding, Yusuf actually seems like a somewhat interesting character, if only because they basically copy and pasted Playboy X's personality on an arab real estate developer. At least it brings a little bit of humor without so much of the stereotype, or at least a lesser seen stereotype. And of course, we can already guess this man will be the cause of much mayhem, so flaws can be somewhat forgiven. Except for the sight of him in his underwear, I think that would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Millions of dollars of arab money and the man can't afford pants, shameful.
 Alex's take - While generally optical cables are talked about in terms of internet it also works in terms of various other modes of transfer as well. For anyone looking to overclock or have better airflow in their computer the prospect of having thinner cables along with higher transfers is quite tempting. Mechanics of certain devices will get in the way, but reducing the size of cables even if they aren't used to their full potential is a good start. It will be nice to see what kind of jumps in speed on various devices this kind of technology will bring, along with the reduction of clutter.
Reports and rumor are spreading around that Microsoft may buy out publisher EA. As reported from 1up.com "Whether purely the product of imagination or a legitimate piece of inside info, the rumor is plausible enough. The last year has seen a steady fall in videogame sales, the largest sales drop in nine years, leaving EA in a potentially weakened state. Such acquisitions have happened increasingly often, as in the case of "Activision Blizzard", and Zenimax/ID, and even EA's own attempts to acquire Take-Two." It does make sense seeing how EA is not in the best of times but still one of the biggest publishers around. If this rumor is true this would be huge. I wonder if this would topple and get EA back into the top company with the most money? who knows lets see how this pans out.  Anthony's take- This is huge news. If this does happen it would put EA back in the number 1 spot for the most rich company aside from activison/blizzard. I do wonder what that would mean for some of the games EA has been working on. I mean all things considered the head of the sports EA section of the company is former head of Microsoft PR so you know that had to do with something like that, but I do wonder. Recently EA has been putting out great games as of late and becoming more of the company that people are starting to like then the hay days of EA where everyone pointed them to for putting out crap games and generic titles that was just out there for money and not enough effort into making these games. But I digress and I keep a close eye on this rumor if it is true or not.
Oh hey look, its Pyramid Head. Oh lawdy. (By Raychul Moore) Contrary to a lot of opinions, I thought the Silent Hill movie was great and very well done. As a huge fan of the Silent Hill video game series, it's difficult to not notice the amount of detail that went into making the movie as true to the games as possible. The ash covered town, the fact that fog seems to always be closing in on the character, the roads that are broken and end leading into an abyss, and hell even Pyramid Head and the nurses were straight from the games. I don't see how any fan going into the theater with an open mind could not like this movie. Whether you are a fan of the movie or not, the original writer, Roger Avary, and original producer, Samuel Hadida, have signed on to do a sequel, according to Dread Central. The things that might set the sequel up for immediate failure is the fact that the original director, Christophe Gans, may not be returning for the second film. What makes this fact rather disturbing is Gans was the true fan of the game series on set. Without him, the film may lose its detailed references to the games. Another red flag is producer Hadida is known for his work on the Resident Evil films and well, enough said. I would love to see a sequel to the Silent Hill movie, but I do not believe these are the right guys to do it. Even though there has been no announcement on the storyline of the sequel, in true Silent Hill fashion, the new movie should follow a completely different story of someone's fate who ultimately brings them to the creepy town -- not a continuation of where the last film left off. I guess only time will tell on whether Silent Hill 2 can break the trend of shitty game-to-movie adaptations and actually become something gamers are proud of. We will see. 
Chris's Take: Uh, lolno. Being someone who loves the series to an extent but is too afraid to finish, I'm.. well. Disappoint.
With the fan of the game possibly not coming back (That being the director), who knows what horrible twists they'll pull, along with the boner-inducing Pyramid Head everyone knows and loves. If they do stick to the actual game plot and story, I'm hoping that they'll tell the story as well as the game did. But seeing as its a movie, I'm guessing that it will be a steaming pile of crap that the superfans will see and might enjoy. Is this necessary? Of course, to milk the series and get more money in our pockets! Ridiculous I say. Opinions?
This past weekend SpikeTV showed a preview of the new upcoming anime project Halo: Legends, taking the world of halo and turning it into an anime with 5 different stories with 5 different directors working on thier own type of story. Such companies that are working on it are Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation. Halo Legends is planned to be released by next spring. via dvd and or Xbox live.  Anthony's take- After seeing this trailer and hearing about it, halo legends seems to look like its going to be one hell of an anime. Taking the same route Batman did this past year it seems this looks like its will have a a good number of sales and the most downloaded movie in bungies lifetime. okay well not the most but it will be highly praised for a good long while. I can't wait for it and I be the one either buying it or any other way of getting it. I hope there's an option to switch to sub instead of dub because the dub voices are meh to me after seeing this trailer.
If this is true, anyone going for the next Nvidia cards will probably want to change their minds or be ready for a delay. "The first hot lot of GT300s have 104 die candidates per wafer, with four wafers in the pod Nvidia got back a week and a half ago. There is another pod of four due back any day now, and that's it for the hot lots. How many worked out of the (4 x 104) 416 candidates? Try 7. Yes, Northwood was hopelessly optimistic - Nvidia got only 7 chips back. Let me repeat that, out of 416 tries, it got 7 'good' chips back from the fab. Oh how it must yearn for the low estimate of 20%, talk about botched execution. To save you from having to find a calculator, that is (7 / 416 = .01682), rounded up, 1.7% yield." You can read the full story here http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/09/15/nvidia-gt300-yeilds-under-2/or give Hardocp some attention for also linking the story here http://www.hardocp.com/news/2009/09/15/nvidia_gt300_yields_are_under_263 Alex's take - If this is accurate, WOW. Unless the other four pods come back with a much higher yield, it's going to be tough for Nvidia to really stick it to Atis new card lineup. While it's possible somebody botched the chips while making them, it also makes me wonder if the schematic being used may be just that bad. While buying the first batch of retail parts generally isn't a smart idea, anyone about to pick up one of these cards at launch should probably wait a month to gather information and inspect the reviews. Let's just hope this doesn't end with errors that would have been caught in normal yields slipping through the cracks.
 Anthony's take- Well this is a big surprise, finally they have decided to end this anime more or less. I have heard that in the manga that they finally ended it a year ago. So now someone is rather actually the original crew on who made Inyuasha will finally be able to make the last season of this anime and end it for good. Not to say its not bad no it's just well.................it had to end somehow right? Anyways glad to hear it be out sooner then later.
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