If you got enough dough and are feeling generous then here’s something really interesting you can still do this year.

A guy who attended Jack Thompson’s open panel debate about violence in video games at the VideoGame Expo in Philadelphia, had a PS2 copy of Grand Theft Auto III signed by everyones favorite video game lawyer and is now selling it on eBay for a hefty sum.

He states he doesn’t really want to sell it but if you manage to cough up the asking price of $4000 for what the seller calls “a physical piece of hilarious gaming irony”(which it is), then he’ll gladly accept and donate the whole sum to Child’s Play charity. And if you need to explain the purchase to someone then you already have your excuse - it’s for charity!

As a lot of 360 gamers know there have been numerous problems with Xbox LIVE in the last few days. Problems like matchmaking, account recovery and even signing in have become far too common. Thankfully Microsoft is well aware of the issues and is working on them.

Xbox LIVE’s Director of Programming Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson has given an update on the status of Xbox LIVE. The man says that the entire LIVE team is hard at work, things are improving by the hour and no one is going home until the job is finished. So keep your fingers crossed, hopefully all the problems will be history soon enough.

Update: LIVE seems to be running smoothly once again. Just came back from a two hours of gaming and at least for now, the problems seem to be gone.

There’s a much desired armor variation that many hardcore Halo 3 players desire. It’s called the Halo 3 Recon Armor and is specially made for Bungie employees and a few select gamers they choose to give it to. So it can’t be earned by just playing the game and unlocking stuff.

Halo 3 gamer ‘Skyllus vBi’ was one of those lucky people to be on the receiving end of this special armor - for shooting himself in the head with his own Sniper Rifle (video) - but it’s turned into kind of a curse for the poor guy.

As always, there are some jealous people who just can’t keep their hands to themselves and must do anything to get their hands on the most wanted item. And a few of these people have went as far as hacking Skyllus vBi’s account. And not just once but three times in the last two months.

The worst thing is that Microsoft isn’t helping the poor guy - 18004MYXBOX has hung up on him and Windows Live Support has turned a blind eye to the issue. So he and his buddies are working on getting the message heard by as many as possible with the obvious goal of forcing Microsoft and Bungie to deal with the issue.

I’m no lawyer but if they manage find this guy - and they think they might already have is IP address since he was dumb enough go and brag about his “achievement” on a forum - could this perhaps be treated as identity theft?

Update: Microsoft investigating Halo 3 armor hack

Metal Gear Solid 4 is one of the biggest upcoming titles for the PS3 and is bound to sell a few systems for Sony. But if the rumor mill is to be believed, Microsoft has something up their sleeves.

According to a game blog based in India, Microsoft is in collaboration with a “highly talented studio” that is working on something “way better than Snake”. Their sources say that executives from Microsoft have recently seen a demo of the mysterious game in action and came away thoroughly impressed.

It’s not clear yet if the game is a FPS or a TPS since the studio is apparently having problems deciding whether to keep the game in a 1st or 3rd person perspective. But the core gameplay mechanics have been “somewhat finalized”.

The game will take place in the future and will incorporate major political events that have occurred in the last few years. The site also claims that the games’ visuals are better than anything anyone has seen so far from the PS3 camp. Now if that’s not the perfect bait for a heated battle between fanboys then I don’t know what is.

Be sure to treat this as nothing more than a rumor for now since the site doesn’t say who their source is and offers no proof whatsoever.

Looks like Microsoft is planning on starting the new year strong. Starting early next year, the company is planning on spending a rather interesting sum of money - $200-300 million - on advertising.

Not all of it will be spent by their gaming division of course - Xbox 360, Windows Vista PCs, the new Zune, and Windows Mobile will all get their fair share. But it’s certainly interesting to see how one company has to stop advertising because they can’t keep up with the demand while another is pumping millions upon millions of advertising dollars into their products.

Sega sent out an updated release schedule today which shows that the release of Condemned 2 will be facing a one month delay. The game was supposed to be released in February but has now been pushed back to March 2008. No exact date was given.

In case you’ve forgotten what the game is all about: Players will assume the identity of Ethan Thomas, the former Serial Crimes Unit investigator, who’s been called back to duty to track down his missing partner. As Ethan, players will engage in visceral combat using a variety of firearms, blunt instruments and an all-new fighting system complete with defensive and offensive combo chains. To help track the killer and solve the mysteries behind Condemned 2: Bloodshot, players will crack open an all-new set of high-tech forensic tools. Using wits and brute strength, murders can be solved in a number of different ways to keep players guessing throughout each suspenseful investigation.

The delay affects both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.

[See also: Condemned 2 gallery]

Gamespot.com has just finished compiling their extremely comprehensive game award list for the year. There were a lot of good picks from a plethora of categories ranging from best Technical Graphics (Crysis) to best new Character (GLADoS from Portal), but their prestigious Game of the Year award goes to none other than Super Mario Galaxy.

Deciding this year’s winner for Game of the Year was probably the single toughest award deliberation that GameSpot’s editors have ever had to participate in. Even narrowing our top list of finalists to just 10 games was extremely challenging and very, very, very contentious. Really, any game in our top 10 list would make a fine winner and could be easily supported by some very strong arguments.

Ultimately, it came down to Super Mario Galaxy as our top game because it is (by a narrow margin indeed) the best overall package of polish, gameplay, and presentation for what it is–a traditional but highly evolved platformer. Let’s face it, this is a game that Nintendo could easily have phoned in and still sold about a zillion copies. We could’ve seen a game that took very few risks and more or less replicated the same old stuff we’ve seen in previous games. We could’ve seen a game that relied heavily on nostalgia value and trotting out the same old characters and reprised music tracks instead of adding in fresh and exciting new content. Traditionally, every Nintendo console has been christened with a blockbuster Mario adventure, and with every Nintendo console launch, fans everywhere are always ready and waiting to grab their copy simply because the game features their favorite video game plumber.

But that didn’t happen. Nintendo didn’t take so much as a single step back with Super Mario Galaxy, and instead reinvented Mario’s traditional platformer adventures with beautifully designed levels that make unique use of zero-gravity gameplay and clever, enjoyable puzzles. All of the levels are varied and look fantastic, and they even add replay value because the game has a set of collectible stars that you can go back to hunt for, as well as a limited but still enjoyable multiplayer mode. This is a game that plays great and looks fantastic; this is a game that you can recommend to basically anybody who might have any interest in video games–without having to qualify it or apologize for it with “it’s great, but.”

Again, this was by no means an easy decision to make, but GameSpot’s ultimate pick for the top game of 2007 is Super Mario Galaxy. That’s no reflection at all on our other nine finalists, all of which are remarkably good games in their own right and all of which are absolutely worth playing. For a year like this, with so many incredible games available to play, the real winners are each and every one of us.

The polls are still open for the reader’s choice awards, so be sure to stop by and cast your ballot and show your support for all the year’s best titles!

A handful of new Project Origin screenshots have found their way to the intertubes. They’re not exactly the best quality but head on over to our Project Origin gallery to check them out anyway (the first seven are the freshest), they should give a good idea of the games’ visuals.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Project Origin is the sequel to Monolith’s F.E.A.R. game. The developers are promising to expand upon the work they began with in the original game and “establish Project Origin as a premier gaming franchise in its own right.”

The game is being developed for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and should be released some time in 2008.

[See also: Project Origin gallery]

While there was no update released for the US PlayStation Store this week(it seems last week’s update was big enough), gamers in Europe got a little surprise in the form of an unexpected demo. Bizarre’s The Club demo to be exact.

We haven’t had the chance to check it out ourselves yet but the 1.75GB demo is waiting for you on PSN right now. And while it downloads, check out a trailer and the video tutorial the developers sent out early last month.

Here’s how Bizarre (the developer) themselves describe the game on their website: “The gameplay is fast paced and very arcadey; don’t even think about hiding behind cover in this one folks! A unique new scoring system asks you to chain kills together in quick succession, building up your combo and grabbing you more points. The higher your combo the faster the bar ticks down, so it gets tougher and tougher to continue your deadly killing spree.”

The Club will be released on February 8th and it will be available for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The French PSM3 magazine has an eight page preview of the upcoming 8th game in the Tomb Raider franchise and - you guessed it - we’re treated to some nice new information.

According to the magazine, the game takes place in present day and all the places the player will get to visit and explore in Lara Croft’s first true next-gen outing are brand new and include locations in Australia, Easter Island, Rome, the Vatican, Mesopotamia and the Golden Triangle. There’s also promise of one or more underwater levels.

What mysteriously went missing from a number of previous Tomb Raider games was Lara’s ability to sprint. Well, no more - once again, she will be able to run like mad and jump longer and higher as a result. As for the enemies, you can expect the usual wildlife that you have to get rid of but you’ll also encounter also more intelligent enemies and bosses.

The completely redone Croft Manor will allow Lara to improve her training and techniques and will apparently also have a “Research & Development room like in James Bond” that will hold her gear and vehicles. We have our fingers crossed that the developers will return the training track outside the manor itself as well.

As you can see from the scanned image above, the game looks good. Hopefully Eidos will start releasing high quality screenshots in the coming weeks. But for now, check out this post in the TombRaiderForums for more scans from the PSM3 magazine.

Xboxfamily writes that according to ‘what they’re hearing’ from Saratoga, California, Microsoft is working on a motion sensing feature for Xbox 360. They say it will likely be a 1st party add-on and will be attachable to the 360’s controller, probably similar to the chat pad.

According to Xboxfamily, Microsoft has contracted Gyration for the job, the company behind the prototype designs for the Wii-mote and the motion-sensing remote for Microsoft’s Media Center.

We’ll file this in the rumor section for now, since Xboxfamily says nothing about their source(s). But third party motion sensing add-on’s for Xbox 360 are already being produced, so Microsoft releasing an official add-on doesn’t sound that far fetched of an idea at all.

If this rumor pans out, the release date for this should be Q4 2008.

A 13 year old kid from California got a nasty surprise on Christmas morning when he opened his present. His parents bought him a PlayStation 3 with a few games but when he opened the sealed box, he found a thick phone book instead of the system.

The mother suspects that someone who works at the EB Games store the system was bought from must have decided they wanted a PS3 and so made the little switch. If the store doesn’t fix this problem, the parents say they’ll have a fight on their hands.

Check the video report at MyFoxDC’s website here.

Next to having problems with Xbox LIVE over the past few days, Microsoft has recently earned the anger of a number of 360 owners for another reason as well. It seems Microsoft has once again taken on the task of banning modded consoles from Xbox LIVE and again, innocent 360 owners seem to be getting caught in the middle.

ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote a little over a week ago that he’s received a number of emails from users who complain that their unmodded consoles have been banned from Xbox LIVE. What makes matters worse is that Microsoft currently has no system in place that would assist people who have been wrongfully banned. In his post, Kingsley-Hughes ‘forcibly’ suggests that Microsoft must put in place a system that does just that. And I’m betting there is no soul on this planet that would disagree with him.

The current solution to being banned is buying a new console. But if you’re banned wrongfully, then that solution is of course pure nonsense and - just stating the obvious here - Microsoft should do everything in their power to fix their error as soon as possible.

In a recent interview about the progress of Halo Wars - the real-time strategy game based on Bungie’s Halo universe and developed by Ensemble Studios - Graeme Devine, the lead designer on the game, said people just can’t stop playing it. When asked why he thinks Halo Wars will be one of the biggest games of 2008, Devine said:

“I think we’ve got magic in the disc. We’ve worked on the controls, gameplay, and story for this game being very much aware of what has gone before us. I was down in playtest yesterday and actually did not get to sit down and play because folks were spending their lunches playing the game. I know we’re doing well when that happens. More than that, I believe we will be huge not just because I believe, but because when we put the controller in your hands, you will believe too.”

Continue reading to check out a list of features that were revealed earlier this year when the game was announced during E3. Continue reading this story..

The sequel for one of Wii’s most promising launch titles - Red Steel - has been officially announced in the Official Nintendo Magazine, a scan shows. Red Steel 2 (working title), scheduled for a Winter 2008 release, basically promises improve on everything the first game had. That means better controls, better AI, better multiplayer, more guns and more swords.

The original Red Steel game kept improving each time it was previewed but when it finally launched, it still didn’t quite end up being the the critics’ favorite (Metacritic average of 63) that Ubisoft probably hoped for. Nevertheless, the game sold well and if they manage to considerably improve on the first games’ issues then the sequel should be a definite hit.