My Best Games

9lives: "Ubisoft has just announced that it will ship an exclusive making of dvd of Splinter Cell: Conviction with all the pre-orders of the game. The making of is 24 minutes long. A teaser is already released."

BeefJack writes: "What’s that you say? Gears of War? You remember that game, right? It’s the game that you bitched about, bitched that it was never fixed but then continued to be your third choice behind Halo and Call of Duty. Whichever way you look at it, Gears 2 is trying to make amends (or unsuccessfully trying to keep you away from MW2) by offering triple XP for 9 days, the last of which is tomorrow."

BeefJack writes: "What’s that you say? Gears of War? You remember that game, right? It’s the game that you bitched about, bitched that it was never fixed but then continued to be your third choice behind Halo and Call of Duty. Whichever way you look at it, Gears 2 is trying to make amends (or unsuccessfully trying to keep you away from MW2) by offering triple XP for 9 days, the last of which is tomorrow."

MundoRare writes: "Recent times and cancellations have shown that all is not well in Rare-land. As if the cancellations of both Perfect Dark 2 and Kameo 2 in favor of Project Natal have shaken the faith of even the most loyal Rare fans, David Wise’s departure from Rare could very well be the killing blow. [...]

From his Facebook: "I think the business of Rare has changed a great deal, and at the moment there is just not the opportunity to create the soundtracks that Rare were fortunately very famous for."

Unfortunately, though, this is only the most recent loss of a distinguished employee within the British developer in the recent months.

Back in August, Steve Burke, another prominent Rare musician from Kameo fame, also left the company to take a year’s sabbatical "to go travelling," according to some Rare sources; no word if the real reason could be or not related with his well known desires to work for the film industry. Burke and Wise’s departures only follow the trade open by Grant Kirkhope a year ago.

Out of the musical department, there has recently been huge losses, with Microsoft’s recent restructuring process affecting several engineers and artists, including Steve Malpass, designer for Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark, Ghoulies and Nuts & Bolts. Moreover, some programmers have also left, like veteran Mark Edmonds, one of the remaining members of the original GoldenEye 007 team, who abandoned Rare in late 2008 after 14 years of work at Twycross."

Mike from Project Gamers writes: Next week Harmonix brings us Rock Band gurus an AFI pack 01 including: Beautiful Theives, End Transmission, Love Like Winter, Medicate, The Leaving Song, Pt II. The AFI pack 01 will cost $8.49 or $1.99 a track. Harmonix will also bring us The Bangles – "Walk Like an Egyptian" for a Lego Rock Band family-friendly track, also available for non-Lego Rock Band owners. (All tracks are original master recordings.) Now if your a PSP owner of Rock Band don’t fret (pun intended) we have you covered for two tracks next week including: Dead Kennedys – "California Über Alles" and Sleater-Kinney – "You’re No Rock’n'Roll Fun". Both tracks are $1.99 each.

Update: Beatles Rock Band tracks added.

Split-screen: "Gears of War 2 is one of the most successful games on the Xbox 360 ever, and is infamous for selling millions within a matter of months. This, despite being limited to a single platform, was a humongous feat for developer Epic Games. However, some recent evidence uncovered suggests the impossible. Could it be that Gears 2 is really going to lose it’s Xbox 360-exclusivity?"

Bungie writes:

"I want you to lean back and take a long, deep, cleansing breath.

As you begin to relax, allow your mind to drift away to a different place and time. Think back…waaaaaaay back. Remember when we first launched Bungie Pro Video, the technology formerly known as the thing you shouldn’t still be calling BuTube?

Yeah, that was great. We wrote about how you were going to be able to take all of your favorite Film Clips from Halo 3 and turn them into videos you could play on your computer and stream over the World Wide Webs.

On that front we delivered, and plenty of people have been taking advantage. But we also promised a mechanism by which you could take advantage of more Render Minutes at a fine, but fair price. And that’s where we hit a little snag."

Gamervision: As you might know by now, Gamervision takes Collector’s Editions very, very seriously. You can be sure that at least one person in the office will be picking up one or another, and then chatting about it the following day. What can we say, we love plastic stuff! It’s also cool to see developers try and one-up each other, each trying to give gamers more bang for their buck. As of now, the winner is likely BioShock, which came with a fantastic Big Daddy figure for a measly $10, or Modern Warfare 2 with it’s night vision goggles, since, you know, they technically have a use outside of sitting on a shelf.

That crown might be shifting, however, since we’ve been sent some images of the new Assassin’s Creed II Special Edition that make it look like the new lord of all things materialistic. Yes, yes, we already knew what was in the box, but the images below give a great sense of scale, and show exactly how awesome the $80 box is.

In a Q1 earnings call, SouthPeak Interactive hinted that DLC for Section 8 may be released before Christmas.

MCV can reveal that 360 action title Alan Wake will be released globally in May 2010.

A source close to the game told us that the Microsoft-published adventure – developed by Finnish studio Remedy – will be promoted "in the style of a Hollywood movie".

MCV understands that Microsoft is aiming for a global release late in the month.