Welcome to the newest This Is My Joystick feature, where we’ll be providing you with the latest news digest of the gaming world every week. This spread will cover all the major formats; Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, DS, PSP, iPhone, PC and more. We explore the big news, the major announcements and even some that sneak under the radar. So sit back, enjoy and prepare to fill your head with the biggest stories today.

Apple give iTampons to the masses!
Credit: Joystiq
So how do Apple follow on from the incredible iPhone? What do they do next? They create the iPad, that’s what! iPad was revealed to the World on Thursday and described as having a larger screen than an iPhone but a smaller screen than a laptop, placing it somewhere in the middle of both. What we have is something that looks like a cross between an enlarged photo frame and tablet from Star Trek (see pic below). Apple are calling the iPad revolutionary but the masses are crying out for iTampons! This would be far superior; you can even go skydiving, horseback riding and swimming!

To make things even more interesting, Apple also announced a deal with Electronic Arts to ship games from the world renowned publisher on its new iPad! I don’t know about you but I’m eagerly anticipating Medal of Honor: Menopause Warfare as a launch title (sorry!) Analysts are predicting that Apple’s first attempt at trying to muscle its way into the handheld gaming market that Nintendo seemed to have locked down could be a greater success that people are giving credit, however. iPhone gaming sales are certainly doing extraordinarily well and Apple did announce backwards compatibility of all of their games onto the iPad. Time will tell.

However, the system doesn’t come without limitations; aside from its use of bluetooth and ability to surf the web, the iPad is devoid of a USB point, SD slot, web-cam, and features no multi-tasking or flash memory support. In fact, from early indications, it sounds as if the system will be almost completely reliant on iTunes and it’s applications without word on if Snow Leopard will be compatible, either. What we do know, is that the iPad is being considered a firm contender to Amazon’s Kindle as it has been revealed the iPad can be used as an ebook reader. The product has already adopted a series of names both affectionate and derogatory. Period jokes aplenty have flooded the web, and familiar pictures used to promote the iPod have been defaced to represent a woman going through her monthly. We’re such a mature crowd us net geeks!

We gonna need a bigger boat pocket!

Whether you love it or you hate it, the base form of the Apple iPad ships in sixty days, where a more enhanced version with 3G connectivity ships in ninety days.

Capcom announce Worldwide release dates for both Super Street Fighter IV  and Lost Planet 2  complete with an Xbox exclusive!
Credit: Joystiq
After pulling both games from the rather-stacked Q1 lineup, Capcom have announced that both Super Street Fighter IV and Lost Planet 2 fans won’t have as long to wait as originally feared! The remake of last year’s reboot of Street Fighter will be out on April 27th in North America and April 30th in Europe. Super Street Fighter IV comes complete with new characters, new combos and the return of the fan favorite ‘Beat up a Car’ Special Stage for the original Streetfighter 2! No official word on pricing as yet.

As for the co-op based, third person shooter, Lost Planet 2, gamers will finally be able to get their hands on the much anticipated sequel on May 18th Worldwide! Not only that but Capcom have announced a deal with Epic to allow both Dom Santiago and Marcus Fenix to appear in Lost Planet 2 as playable characters as an Xbox 360 exclusive! While there is no official confirmation of any unique weapons the Gears of War protagonists may bring to the party, or even if they caught a plane from Jacinto or took the bus, we have been told that they will not appear as part of the story and most likely will remain as multiplayer characters.

It seems Q2 is getting as stacked as Q1 as we move deeper into 2010. The question on everyone’s lips is, will the moths ever find a home in our wallets again?!

Confirmed: Final Fantasy XIII to have Downloadable Content!
Credit: Xbox360Achievements
After asking ‘will they/won’t they’ over and again, Producer Yoshinori Kitase has gone on record to say that additional content will be coming to Final Fantasy XIII. Here’s the official story below…

“At first we had plans to release the game simultaneously worldwide,” Kitase revealed to Official PlayStation Magazine. “So we had the intention to deliver identical versions between the regions. When we noticed that we wouldn’t make it, we decided to release the game as fast as possible in the west after its release in Japan. We initially had doubts to add extra content to the western version but then it would have taken the international version more months of delay. We did prepare DLC but it will arrive a little later in the west.”

Arrive a little later in the West? Surely not! Either way, this is fantastic news and will be interesting to see whether the content will be as little as some costume changes or as much as a seperate area to explore.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Demo now on Xbox Live for Limited Time.
Credit: Xbox360Achievements
Until February 25th, an online only demo of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has been released, exclusively for Xbox Live Gold Members. This demo gives you a chance to experience the Port Valdez map and try out Squad Rush multiplayer mode which has you either defending or destroying crates! You have less than a month to grab it, don’t delay a second longer.

Mass Effect 2 is currently 3rd highest rated Xbox 360 game and 7th highest rated PC game of all time.
Credit: Metacritic
it’s still early days, but Mass Effect 2 has already exceeded expectation. At the time of writing this article, the game stands at ninety six out of a hundred on the objective game score aggregator, Metacritic.

This means it is now the third highest rated game on the Xbox 360 to date, just two points below #1 ranked Grand Theft Auto IV, which has ninety eight and a notch below Bioshock, which also has ninety six, though Bioshock’s score is averaged over a greater portion of reviews (eighty eight to be precise).  Of course, this can change very quickly as is always the case with Metacritic: a few low reviews can bring that mean score tumbling down, and a few perfect scores can send it shooting up, but right now, that’s some pretty astonishing work if you ask me. Hats off to Bioware!

More impressive still, Mass Effect 2 is currently scoring ninety five on PC based on twenty eight reviews, making it currently the seventh highest rated PC game EVER made, and knocking World of Warcraft out of the top twenty. Just… WOW! Game of the Year 2010 in January? Game of the Decade in the very first month?! Why the hell not…

Mass Effect 2 DLC released early / pulled.
Credit: IGN
In further Mass Effect 2 news, it seems DLC that was reserved for customers who pre-ordered the Space Opera were put up to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace on Monday night. This included DLC for new armor and weaponry within the game. As this was obviously a mistake, the DLC was taken down shortly after, but not before a few hawk-eyed and finger furious gamers managed to grab the goods in preparation for Bioware’s latest, whether they pre-ordered the game or not. It is safe to assume the DLC will be back up on Friday on the game’s official launch date but it’s still nice to be ahead of the crowd and get those extra bragging rights. Also, you get all the benefits of pre-ordering the game without the pre-order. You smug gits, you…

Below is a list of all the items released on the Marketplace before they were pulled…

• Collectors Weapon and Armor
• Terminus Weapon
• Armour Inferno
• Armour Sentry
• Interface Umbra Visor
• M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle
• Blood Dragon Armour
• Recon Hood

On the Xbox Arcade This Week
Credit: Major Nelson
We’re spoiled by Microsoft, we really are. Xbox Live offers us a Deal of the Week and a new Arcade game each and every week. Sometimes you can quite happily pass them by without batting an eyelid, ignoring their very existence and then some weeks, you can’t buy points quick enough. This week is a combination of both.

The Deal of the Week is the absolutely amazing Portal: Still Alive by Valve. The game has been dropped from 1200 points to eight hundred points, a full thirty three percent slash off the price! If you’ve never played the Orange Box and you’ve never tried Portal, then you’re missing out on one of the best games in the last decade. I cannot emphasize enough how much you need to play this game! It’s a bargain at its normal price of twelve hundred points, so it’s criminal not to own it at eight hundred, it’s fantastic!

While the deal of the week is astonishing, the arcade game is somewhat of an unproven commodity. Major Nelson reported that XBLA gamers will be treated to KrissX. I’ll let him tell you in his own words what it’s all about…

“In KrissX players can play through an endless number of puzzles and unscramble over 3,500 jumbled words that will test your trivia knowledge and expand your own daily vocabulary.”

While it’s not the remake of Perfect Dark everyone is so eagerly anticipating, Plants v Zombies or the Avatar fuelled Joyride, this game does sound interesting if you like to give your brain a good taxing! KrissX will be available on Wednesday January 27th for eight hundred points!

Microsoft X Festival happening on February 12th – Fable 3 to make an appearance!
Credit: Joystiq
Good news for X Festival fans. Microsoft feels that this year it has enough to showcase at it’s own-funded and sponsored event. Over the last couple of years, Microsoft has been making the big news at E3 in June, stealing the show for the last two years, but we may not have as long to wait for announcements from the labor of Bill Gates love as the X Festival will be happening February 12th in San Francisco! Already confirmed to be at the event are Crackdown 2, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction, Halo Reach, the Xbox Game Room and first footage from Fable 3, as confirmed by Lionhead on their Twitter!

Of course, one would expect Microsoft to show off Project Natal at the event to give more and more people the chance for some hands-on impressions. One would also expect maybe a big announcement or two. Of course, we could be asking for too much, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, all the same, right?

Assassins Creed 2: Battle of Forli DLC available Jan 28th but no Trophies or Achievements
Credit: Xbox360Achievements
The first eagerly anticipated piece of Downloadable Content for Assassin’s Creed 2, entitled ‘Battle of Forli’ will sneak onto Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network this Thursday, 28th January for three hundred and twenty points / $3.99 respectively. The mouth-watering price seems altogether difficult to resist, although that may not be the case for achievement and trophy whores as it has been confirmed that this DLC will come with neither, by UK Community Manager Korina Abbott. While this may stop some people from purchasing the DLC straight off, for the rest who just want to play, here is a brief synopsis of what to expect for your money.

More Assassin Creed? Ezio as pie.

The “Battle of Forli” has players defending the Forli base against the attacking Orsi brothers. Ezio enlists the aid of Machiavelli and Caterina Sforza in this task across the segment of six new playable memories.

Sounds pretty good to me! The second piece of DLC, ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ will be released sometime in February for four hundred Points/ $4.99 respectively.

Trophies for Heavy Rain now available to view
Credit: PS3Trophies
For those that are eager for any news on Heavy Rain they can get and can’t wait for the downpour at launch on February 24th, then head over to the link above and check out what you’re going to be trying to add to your collection. While there’s not a lot to go on (most of the trophies are secret), and no plot elements unveiled (although be wary of the comments below), it looks as if you get yourself a bronze just for supporting interactive drama. Whether that means you unlock it when you first boot up the game or there’s a code affixed to every retail copy of the game, allowing one trophy per customer, remains to be seen.

The game has fifty seven trophies; fifty two Secret, two bronze, one silver, one gold and one platinum.

UK Playstation 3 sales have topped 3 million
Credit: Joystiq
It’s not been a comfortable journey for the third iteration of the Playstation console, but Sony are finally starting to see some success in the UK with their Blu-Ray empowered machine.. After the price cuts, the emotion engine was cut, and PS2 backwards compatibility was removed, multiple changes in hard drive size and a slimmed down body were produced, the PS3 has managed to sell three million in the UK. While it still leaves the console in third place of sales in the console race behind both Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, this is a great change in fortunes for the company who are due for an incredible year with both Heavy Rain and God of War 3 to look forward to in the next few months.

While PS3 will probably never break the records of its predecessor, this is some of most positive news to come out of Sony’s camp in a long while. Thumbs up team!

Bioshock 2 soundtrack to be released digitally
Credit: Joystiq
It seems a big 12″ vinyl in the special edition of Bioshock 2 is not the only way you’ll be able to listen to the soundtrack of Rapture outside of playing the game. Composed by Garry Schyman, it’s now been confirmed that the music will be released through both the iTunes music store and Amazon Digital Download! No other details released yet, but this is great news if you’ve wanted to stomp around your own home in a Big Daddy costume and make the experience as authentic as possible.

Now, would you kindly give us a price tag? Perhaps a release date? We did ask nicely!

Are you listening Travellers Tales?

Namco proclaims 23 million downloads on iPod / iPhone
Credit: Joystiq
Namco, known to many as the Pacman people, boast that their products have been downloaded twenty three million times for iPhone and iPod touch services. The company goes on to say that their products shift 36,450 downloads a day of its twenty four products already on the iTunes service. Namco have also announced that twenty more titles are scheduled to appear on the iTunes service this year. Pretty impressive statistics that really show how far the platform has come and how popular it has become for gaming. If Apple have their way, the iPad will take this trend even further in the months/years to come.

Monster Hunter Frontier announced for Xbox 360
Credit: Joystiq
Capcom continue their streak of news, unveiling Monster Hunter Frontier for Xbox 360. The game is a port of a PC MMO of the same name and is well recognised outside of the West. Capcom released a promotional trailer for the game and also detailed the proposed subscription plan for the title. Japanese players will be required to purchase Hunter Life Course Coupons for 1,400 yen ($15), which will give them access to the game for thirty days and a one month Xbox Live Gold subscription.

The game’s official site has also gone live and is due to be updated again next Monday (1st February). Check it out here. Unfortunately, there is no word on if this game will be coming to North America or Europe. More news as we get it…

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