Cliffy B., lead designer of Gears of War video game has recently announced some time ago that new maps are available for the gamers on the Xbox 360. The maps have been tested for a few weeks and you can even find out more details and ingame action in the video below:

In a few days we all will be celebrating at the party for the coming of the new year, and you will most likey see in the center of the cities fireworks like the ones in the image above. Along with the new year, we hope that within the gaming world there is still room for something better, tweaks or fixes for the current games, and new games really interesting and full of substance.The video games resolutions for 2008, as a source gives us a hint, are pretty hilarious but also show some of the issues the developers are dealing with at the moment. Here's a short list with the most amusing ones:

Xbox 360: I resolve to finally figure out how to fix my red ring of death and to start making money for Microsoft.

PlayStation 3: I resolve to stick to a single SKU and stop making Jack Tretton continuously put his foot in his mouth.

Nintendo Wii: I resolve to start to believe my own success and actually make enough systems so that eBay doesn’t turn into WiiBay next year. Oh yeah, and I resolve to stop making people from making Wii puns.

Sony PSP: I resolve to lose more weight and become the “super-duper slim”.

Nintendo DS: I resolve to come out with no more than ten new designs a year.

Electronic Arts: I resolve to not to milk BioWare to death and have them produce no more than one game per year … or two … and only very occasionally three. But never more than four games a year, I promise.

Activision: I resolve to act with class and only mention that I’m now the largest publisher in the world only in every other sentence.

Ubisoft: I resolve to stop cackling with evil laughter every time I mention Assassin’s Creed’s amazing success (giggle).

Take Two: I resolve to release GTA IV and then finally get acquired by a larger publisher.

Blizzard: I resolve to stop making people totally nuts and finally announce Diablo III.

Valve: I resolve to release the next Half Life 2 Episode before 2010.

Kane & Lynch: I resolve to stop getting people fired.

Bioshock: I resolve to kindly be nothing more than a pretty remake of System Shock 2.

Halo 2: I resolve to stop being nothing more than a marketing ploy for people to buy Vista.

Super Mario Galaxy: I resolve to continue to piss off the hardcore gamer with my cute graphics and continuous Game of the Year awards.

Call of Duty 4: I resolve to be an awesome 5-hour first-person-shooter on rails.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: I resolve to stop making everyone motion sick.

Crysis: I resolve to start selling.

Unreal Tournament 3: I resolve to make people remember that I exist.

God of War II: I resolve to kill every single man, woman, child, and god in the universe.

Manhunt 2: I resolve to go quietly into that goodnight.

Vanguard: I resolve to continue to be ignored.

The Witcher: I resolve to continue to be my awesome monster killing, fist fighting, drinking contest, womanizing self.

Portal: I resolve to stay alive.

It's not realy unexpected the fact that Xbox is not so popular in Japan this winter. And how could they (Microsoft) really dare to promote this gaming system in Japan, the land where the competitive products are made (and those have also a much smaller failure rate)? It is hilarious enough that they actually expected some sales numbers which would never really come up. To sump up, all the best 50 games sales haven't even reached the 2 million level. In comparison, in the USA, Halo 3 has sold 4 million units during the first 2 months of market, and heavy advertising wasn't even required in this case - it's a question of gamer mentality.

Fox News presented a few days ago a very hilarious case of a child who got a phonebook instead of a PS3 for which his parents payed over $500.

Well the fact that they ordered the PS3 for the boy was a nice thing, what was quite interesting is how the boy took it: he was very much amused by the "prank", and laughed. However, his parents didn't find it funny and are likely to file a complaint and take the box back to the Thousand Oaks mall local store. More details and a video here. 

Remember those old cartoons where you could see some elaborate traps built by some genius so that the mouse gets caught pretty fast? It's what the little being does that triggers a whole series of mechanisms which click one into another resulting in an overall movement - which led to the activation  of the capturing device. In the case of the video below you will see another crazy stunt: a Halo 3 player will perform a lot of "bungie" jumping in order to... get a suicidal finish. In this case it's not something that looks horrible, but rather very amusing: