Weekly Special - Terminator Salvation for Xbox 360

Did everyone see the movie? It wasn't the glorious return of Terminator people were hoping for, but I guess it was better than the crappy Terminator 3. Anyway, now's your chance to play as John Conner for the first time in a video game and at a bargain price to boot! Get it now for the low price of $24.90, that's a whole $20 saving!

It's region free and will work on all Xbox consoles and includes English, French, German, Italian and Spanish languages, so you can kick Skynet's ass in your own native language of choice. So get to it and start taking down those terminators. Oh and it's limited to two copies, so you can buy one for a friend to join the fight against our biggest threat.


"In Terminator Salvation the videogame, based on the upcoming Terminator Salvation film from Warner Bros. Pictures and Sony Pictures, players assume the role of John Connor, a soldier in the resistance, battling for survival against the far superior forces of Skynet.

Terminator Salvation the videogame is an intense action-packed third-person shooter featuring concentrated armed combat against all of the Skynet enemies from the film and new killer machines specifically designed for the game. Taking place two years before the events of the upcoming film set in a post apocalyptic, decimated Los Angeles, players will be lead through a visceral, story and character driven gaming experience.

Featuring intense third-person action, Terminator Salvation the videogame will take combat to the next level with iconic enemies, cinematic fight sequences and advanced weaponry, drawn directly from the film, as well as an innovative, multi-layered cover mechanic."

Xbox 360 HDD

Yep, until today, I didn't have a hard drive for my 360. In my opinion there was no need, I don't play online and I had 256MB of memory with the arcade pack I bought, it was plenty for save games. That all seemed to change when my 360 came up with a read error. I keep my discs clean, but it might have been the extreme heat and length of time it was on, which cause it.

Another factor is the noise from the DVD drive, it's pretty loud, don't you think? While the PS3 is almost silent, the 360 sounds like a mini lawnmower. It's loudest when it's loading data off the disc at full speed. It started to annoy me while playing Guitar Hero, it's distracting and doesn't make the music sound better. Then I heard that with a hard drive you can install the whole game from the disc and it the 360 reads it off the hard drive.

There, I kill two birds with one stone. By installing the games onto the hard drive, I'll be saving the lens of the DVD drive, and yes, they do wear out over time. Instead of the drive reading the disc for hours on end, I just need to install the current game I'm playing and after it copies the files to the hard drive, I only need to insert the game disc into the drive to start the game. Once I've booted up the game though, the drive is silent and the disc is never read. It's excellent, you'll be surprised by how quiet the 360 is without the DVD drive going nuts. But not only that, the game was loading much faster, bonus!

The game I installed took up about 5gb, so it's best to get at least a 60GB HDD or higher if possible, but of course a 20GB one will suffice for two or three games. Did I mention that installation is quite quick too? It's a very nice feature on the Xbox 360

PS3 Slim - To upgrade or not to upgrade?

I think I'm in a unique position when it comes to the PS3 slim. I'd say I have mixed feeling about it. On one hand, I'm happy that it's been slimmed down, weighs less and is double as power efficient (an important point this one). On the other, I don't play my PS3 much at all these days and even though I'm a sucker for the latest technology, I don't think it's worth the money and effort to trade for the new slim.

One reason I don't play it much is because I don't have much time these days, I don't play online and the final reason is that I was tired of getting the short end of the stick with multi-platform games. I've got an Xbox 360 too, which I'm quite fond of.

Many games that are available on both systems are almost always better on the 360 than on the PS3. This isn't always the case, but 95% of the time it is. Usually the Xbox 360 version has better graphics, faster loading times, more polished and has no massive GB's install before you can play the game! If the Xbox version is better, I grab it instead. So I only play the PS3 exclusives (the good ones) and my PS3 doesn't get much love. I'm looking forward to Uncharted 2 though, it looks amazing.

If I played the PS3 a lot, I could probably earn my dollars back on the electricity bill, but really, it's practically gathering dust. While I like the slim, there's no reason to upgrade for me, my PS3 works just fine, even if it is power hungry. But if you've been holding out on buying a PS3, there's never been a better time to get one, so grab one now if you don't have one, there's plenty of excellent exclusives to play through.

Weekly Special - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for Xbox 360

Here we go again! An Xbox 360 special for everybody (yep it's region free too!). If you're wanting a game with robots that transform into cars, planes and tanks (among other things), look no further! Join Optimus Prime and his gang of Autobots as they fight the evil decepticons over earth...or was it something else? Anyway, you can pick this game up for the very nice price of half price. How much is that you ask? Just $29.90! This time you're not limited to one copy but three, so buy you everyone in your family a copy or your car, I bet it transforms at night and wages war with other robots. It's based on the live action movie and not the 80's cartoon, so if you're wondering, no, there aren't that many similarities between the two.

"The Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen video game, based on the upcoming live-action feature film from DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures in association with Hasbro, lets players take on the role of their favourite AUTOBOTS or DECEPTICONS, picking from the largest, most diverse range of playable Transformers – each with their own distinct abilities and weaponry.

Set in unique environments across the globe such as Cairo and Shanghai, the game allows players to instantly switch between vehicle and robot modes as they drive, fly, fight and blast their way through intense, pressure-packed levels. After engaging in single player action, for the first time ever players will be able to go online and battle friends in all-new multiplayer modes."

Play-Asia Affiliate Program

So, you like Play-Asia and you want to grab a bunch of cool stuff from the site, but in these pressing economic times, you wish you had some free money in your Play-Asia account. Well, maybe I can help. Let's look at how you can use Play-Asia's Affiliate Program to earn some extra buying power.

First of all, if you're already using Play-Asia's affiliate program, this article won't help you out much. In a later article, I will get more into tips on how to work the system a bit, but for now, I'll just detail the process of getting started with the program.

I am going to assume that you already have an account at Play-Asia.com. If you don't, that's step 0. Head over to Play-Asia, and look at the top of the browser. You should see a link to create a new account.

Step 1 would be to browse to the Play-Asia affiliate program page and sign up for an affiliate account. It should be hard to miss. Just click on the big button that says "Sign up here!" Actually, to tell you the truth, I think that if you didn't have an account already, it would ask you to create a new account before signing up for the affiliate program.

Well, that was entirely too easy. I suppose we could talk about what to do now that you're an affiliate. I suppose if Step 1 was signing up, then Step 2 can be making a profit. It's even easier than the underpants gnomes 3-phase process.

When you're logged in to Play-Asia.com, take a look at the very bottom of any of their pages. You should see a little block labeled "Your personal affiliate link to this page." This is set up for you to easily copy and paste anywhere you like. You could use it in an email, your own personal website, a web forum, a bulletin board, or whatever.

For example, if you were on a forum that was talking about Pokemon, you could mention Pokemon Heart Gold and paste in the BBCode found at the bottom of Play-Asia's Pokemon Heart Gold product page. It would look something like this.

[url=http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-e-71-hk-49-en-84-j-70-3guk.html]Buy Pokemon Heart Gold (Nintendo DS) at Play-Asia.com>[/url]

If the forum accepts BBCode, then that's all you'd have to do. Then, when someone clicked on the link, they would be using your affiliate version of the Play-Asia page for the product. Then, if they bought anything, your account would receive a credit based on the following commission rates.

It really is that simple. You can even track your affiliate links and products that people buy from them under your Play-Asia "my account" "my affiliation" page. It's quite slick.

Once you have earned some commission, you can cash out the money if you want, but better yet, you can use the funds to purchase products from Play-Asia. I say "better yet" because if you use the funds at Play-Asia instead of transferring them to PayPal, then you will automatically receive a bonus of 5% on top of your balance when using your affiliate funds as store credit at Play-Asia.com.

What are you waiting for? Give it a try.

Need for Speed Shift returns NFS to fomer glory?

When did Need for Speed fall to the depths of mediocrity? Was it with Most Wanted, Carbon or maybe even further back with Underground or even Hot Pursuit 2? I actually like Need for Speed Underground, it was a nice change from the previous games and I thought the sequel was even better, so I think the downward spiral started around Most Wanted, which was still pretty fun, but not as good as Underground 1 & 2.

NFS Carbon was even worse and the whole "Let's copy Midnight Club's open world setting" blew up in its face. The open world sucked and so did the tracks. What's wrong with regular tracks, why did it need to go open world like Midnight Club (great games, by the way). The Burnout franchise went the same route and I think it was much worse than the very awesome Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout: Revenge. If you haven't played Burnout: Revenge, you owe it to yourself to find a copy and play it, it's one of the best and most fun arcade racing games ever.

But I'm getting off-topic. After crappy Carbon (hehe), came piss poor Pro Street (see what I did there?). Now Pro Street was offensively bad, it was the lowest point of Need for Speed EVER. It tried to be all Street and cool, but was lame and lacked in the gameplay department. Mainly because of the terrible handling of the cars. They didn't feel much like cars, but more like boats. Did I mention the tracks were poor too? No? Well, they were. Still, it sold really well. I don't know why, but it did. GRID and Dirt were much better driving games in everyway.

Anyway moving on, NFS reached the bottom of the barrel with Undercover. A terrible plot about an underground cop being a street racer to stop some drug shipment or something, I dunno, I wasn't paying attention. Terrible c-grade acting in the live-action videos telling the story and again the actual driving wasn't satisfying or much fun. Also, it was open world again and the tracks were (you guessed it), not much fun.

I have no love for EA, that much is true, but I've always been a fan of the Need for Speed series. Seeing it butchered more and more with each release was very dissapointing. Interestingly, EA decided it was time for some quality control and this was due to bad reviews and not sales figures. Yep, Undercover sold well even though it wasn't worth wasting time on. For NFS Shift, EA handed the development to a new studio (good move) and with a little quality control have brought back the series from a near brink of death with hardcore gamers. I will post what I think of it as soon as I give it a go, but sites like IGN and Gamespot have given it a 9 out of 10, so it must be a huge improvement over the previous titles. Stay tuned.

Weekly Special - The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS

We've had a whole bunch of Xbox 360 specials, but this week it's onto a new Nintendo DS special. Zelda fans will be happy to pick this one up, it's the Japanese version of Zelda Phantom Hourglass slashed to less than half price for just $19.90. A very cool saving of $29! So if you haven't got it already, now's your chance to grab a bargain. Yes it continues the story of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which was one of the more controversial titles around, due to the cutesy cartoon type look. Well it's back here again!

As always, it's in Japanese so make sure you can read it or get by and it's region free, so it will work on all DS consoles worldwied. Well, start buying, only one per customer.

"he epic story of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker continues as Link finds himself lost and alone in unknown seas in a new adventure. Featuring intuitive touch-screen controls and innovative puzzles, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass offers new challenges for fans of the series and an easy-to-grasp introduction for gamers new to The Legend of Zelda. But time grows short, and only the Phantom Hourglass can buy Link the minutes he'll need to survive.

Many months have passed since the events of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Link, Tetra and Tetra's band of pirates have set sail in search of new lands. They come across a patch of ocean covered in a dense fog, in which they discover an abandoned ship. Tetra falls into danger when she explores the ship alone, and Link falls into the ocean when he attempts to rescue her. When he washes up unconscious on the shores of a mysterious island, he is awakened by the sound of a fairy's voice. With the aid of this fairy, he sets off to find Tetra – and his way back to the seas he once knew."

Weekly Special - Midnight Club Los Angelas for Xbox 360

The Visa sale at Play-Asia was extended until the 9th, so there's still one day left to grab yourself a 20% off bargain. In the meantime, we also have a new weekly special and it's another Xbox 360 title. Racing game fans will get a kick out of this one, as it's Midnight Club Los Angeles and it's quite a good racing game indeed. Certainly beats the pants off the Need For Speed releases lately.

Using the GTA IV Rage engine, Midnight Club lets you race in an open world environment, in true street racing fashion. Earn cash, buy new cars, bling them up and go for the top in this adrenaline fueled racer. All this for the astonishingly low price of just $18.90! That's a a whole $31 off!. But wait, there's more. It also qualifies for the Visa 20% off promotion. Need I say more? Your only excuse is if you own a North American Xbox 360, as this version only works on Japanese and Pal machines. It includes English, French, German, Spanish and Italian languages.

"The best way to see Los Angeles is at 245mph.

Race at breakneck speeds through the streets of modern-day L.A. recreated in stunning detail. Drive the hottest range of real-world tuners, muscle cars, exotics and superbikes on the streets today. Customize your vehicle with the best after-market performance parts and custom kits. Illegal street racing with no track, no load times, no rules: Welcome to the Midnight Club."

Weekly Special - Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs for Xbox 360

Apart from the great 20% off visa sale available at the moment, we also have a weekly special. And it looks like it also qualifies for the 20% off visa sale, how cool is that?

Another region free Xbox 360 game that will work on any console. I'm sure that anyone who's a fan of the Ice Age movies will want to grab this game right now. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is available as a $20 off the regular price bargain for only $24.90. If you add the extra 20% discount with a Visa card, it comes to under $20! It's got multiple language options and is limited to one copy per person. So what are you waiting for?

"Join Ice Age's unlikely herd of prehistoric pals for their most exciting adventure yet!

Embark on a rescue mission across melting snow to the mysterious Dinosaur World - an all new, fur-raising jungle of carnivorous plants, lush foliage and fierce dinosaurs!"