If the upcoming Modern Warfare II Xbox 360 bundle doesn’t take your fancy then here are two yet to officially confirmed bundles that just might.

Distributor Gem broke news of bundles to tie-in with Paramount Pictures release of Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD. The Star Trek bundle includes an Xbox 360 Elite, plus the movie on a themed USB stick, 800 MS Points to download Star Trek PDLC from XBLA and an extra controller.

The Transformers bundle is similar, including an Elite, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on a USB stick, the mediocre Revenge of the Fallen game and extra controller.

Because nether has been officially confirmed prices are unknown. They certainly do exist though – MCV has a rather blurry image of the packaging.

This Week’s Games

If you’re wanting DJ Hero then you’re also going to need a healthy bank balance – you’ll struggle to find it for any less than £89.99. The Renegade Edition costs even more – (£139.99) but comes with a stand for the deck controller and mixes by Jay-Z and Eminem. Reviews have been very good, including a 9 from IGN and 92% from GamesMaster Magazine, but still…it’s £90 quid. I bet the controller doesn’t cost much more than a fiver to actually make.

If you do happen to be surviving on a budget at the moment then there’s a lot of stuff out today that won’t leave a dent in your pocket. Semi-sequel Wii Fit Plus is £17.99 at Game while Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City is only £24.99. I’m going to give Activision’s Arcade Zone on Wii a mention – as well as basketball, air hockey and stuff it features some classic retro games like Freeway and Kaboom. Price? A nice £14.99.

This week also sees the multi-format release of Tekken 6 (providing we ignore Tekken Advance on GBA). Namco hopes this will get into the Christmas top 10. I don’t fancy their chances much, even though reviews have been pretty good.

Next Week: Ghostbusters, Band Hero, Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Sith Edition, A Boy and His Blob, Rabbids Go Home, Dragon Age: Origins, Star Wars: Battlefront Elite Squadron, Need for Speed: Nitro, World Of Zoo and Madagascar: Kartz.

The way that technology usually works is that things end up getting smaller and thinner. This isn’t the case with Nintendo’s new DSi LL though – they’re making the screens a whole 93% bigger.

With a screen size of 4.3 inches, it’s fair to assume that this DS will be aimed at “elderly gamers” who have found the DS’s screens too small to read in the past. There are two other things that also suggest this. One is the trio of DSiWare games that come installed – DS Easy Dictionary and two Brain Training Games. And the other is the range of somewhat dull colours – Dark Brown, Wine Red and Natural White.

It’s due out in 21st November in Japan, meaning it’ll more than likely make it out over here early next year. Or whenever Nintendo feels like it.

During an interview with the Official UK Nintendo Magazine, Warren Spector revealed that Epic Mickey – the most promising looking Wii-exclusive in a long, long time – was originally for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. To quote:

“The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title.”

“It’s burned in my brain – Graham Hopper [Disney Interactive boss] pulled me into my office one day and said ‘What does it take to deliver on the goals we have for this product? And I said, well, you need enough time and enough money to be competitive. And it’d be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform.”

“At that time we were talking about a Wii port and I was begging people – no, we can’t just port to the Wii, it’s not going to work. It needs to be its own game. A lot of the design ideas just won’t work on the Wii, we need to give the Wii its dues. Graham looked at me and said ‘What do you think about a Wii exclusive?’ And I went ‘Holy cow – yeah!’”

“They walked away from three other platforms – no other publisher on the planet would have done that. It was a magic moment for me. No-one has even mentioned other formats since that point.”

The game itself looks like a combination of Okami and a Tim Burton movie, set in a world of forgotten Disney characters who have become jealous of Mickey’s popularity. There’s some screenshots and art-work here. Robotic Donald Duck looks deeply disturbing.

It’s gaming week on Radio One this week, and as well as playing sound effects and speech samples from Mario, Metal Gear Solid and Tekken during music there has been various videogame related features. And not all of them have been about the launch of DJ Hero, would you believe.

Up on the Get Your Game On page at the moment there’s footage of Alex Simwise and Greg James wasting their cash at the Namco Wonderpark arcade in London, a sound clip of Kano and Sway playing Forza 3 and Rampage’s guide to family gaming.

There’s also a free game to play – Fastest Time Wins. It’s a Mario Kart style racer, only minus the weapons. And fun, it would seem. There is one nice idea though – if you choose to play as one of the DJs at the same time they’re on air you’ll get a speed boost.

Widespread videogame coverage like this can only be good for the UK gaming industry, even if it is just for one week. In related and somewhat more negative news, Gordon Brown was critised today by The Conservative Party for “failing to care” that the UK development scene is falling behind other nations in terms of economic generation.

I don’t know what that means, but it sounds rather important.

UK Charts

Last year FIFA was at #1 in the top 40 chart for two weeks before being knocked off the top spot by PES. This year it has managed to stay on for a whole week longer. But even though Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 has gone straight to #1, it hasn’t sold as well as it did last year. It has though sold more copies on PlayStation 3 this year, with the breakdown being 66% selling on PS3, 32% on Xbox 360 and 2% on PC compared to 57% PS3, 40% Xbox 360 and 3% PC in launch week last year. So now you know.

Forza 3 skids in at an impressive #2, WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2010 at #5, Borderlands at #7 (who says new IP doesn’t sell near Christmas?) and the TV advertised EyePet at #18. Rhythm Paradise is back in at #31 thanks to being reduced to a mere tenner on the likes of Amazon.

This Week’s Games

Microsoft starts wheeling out their big Christmas games this week, with Forza 3 and Lips: Number One Hits hitting shelves. Forza 3 got a 9 on Eurogamer, even though they said that the difficulty level was a bit bumpy and that the damage modeling looks a bit naff. GamesRadar though seemed to think that it was near perfect, awarding it a 10.

Fans of big sweaty angry men will no doubt want the new WEE, Sorry, WWE game – WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2010. GamesRadar reviewed all three versions, and you should probably take the scores with a pinch of salt – the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 scored 9, the Wii version an 8 and the DS version a 7. Asda are doing the console versions for £25, according to the internet.

Boarderlands, which keeps on being unfairly compared to Fallout 3, has mostly been getting 8s. It has RPG elements, but it’s more of a shooter. I’m willing to bet it’ll sell more copies on Xbox 360 than it does on PlayStation 3. There’s also Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, which isn’t quite as good as FIFA this year. How times have changed. If you still fancy a kick about though, Asda are also doing this one at a reduced price of £27-odd for a limited time.

Another new release bargain is Sony’s EyePet and Camera for £24.99 at HMV. It’s a virtual pet thing, if you hadn’t guessed.

Next week: Tekken 6, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, DJ Hero, Wii Fit Plus, Ju-On The Grudge and Agarest: Generations of War.

Most Played

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard feels like a clunky version of Gears of War, with mindless shooting against constantly re-spawning enemies that have fewer brains than a piece of broccoli. So why then did I find myself glued to it until the very end? That’ll be because it’s constantly throwing up surprises thanks to a pleasingly daft plot.

Everything in Eat Lead is one big lie. The intro explains that Matt Hazard was in a series of hit games dating all the way back to 8-bit 2D shooters and that Eat Lead was meant to be his “comeback” after a series of flops. Namely, Mat Haz Cart and Soak’em – a kid’s shoot’em up with water pistols. The reality is, of course, that is Matt Hazard’s first ever videogame. The developers of his comeback – the fabricated Marathon MegaSoft – wanted to include a twist at the end of the first level of Eat Lead that involved Matt being killed off and new character Sting Sniperscope taking his place. But because he’s a double hard bastard, Matt survives and so the developers are told to hack into the game and do anything they can to stop Matt from reaching the last level. This includes altering the game world and pitting Matt against enemies from him previous games, soldiers with water pistols included.

So, one minute you’ll be blasting enemies in warehouses then suddenly a load of cowboys appear and the warehouse is suddenly turned into a Wild West scene. There’s plenty of parodies of other games – you get to meet Master Chef, who wears a green chef’s hat – and at one point there’s a parody of Wolfenstien 3D, with bright blue walls and 2D enemies. There’s also battle an anime-styled character that looks like he’s walked straight off the set of a Final Fantasy game. Amusingly, hit points appear above his head when you shoot him and he converses via familiar blue text boxes. Then towards the end of the game you’re supposed to fight Nuke Duke’em but because he’s taking forever to get ready the fight is cancelled.

If anybody still rents games then this is ideal for a rental – it’s only five hours long and most of the achievements can be obtained on your first play through. Or if you do happen to miss a few, then just replay the second level a few times as there’s plenty of opportunities to get the achievements for shooting 30 fire extinguishers and 30 plant pots and also the one for attacking a bandit from behind. See what they did there?

As TV’s Harry Hill might say, “parody games, more of them please!”

I might be wrong, but I kind of get the impression that Zelda: Phantom Hourglass didn’t sell as well as Nintendo anticipated. If my suspicion is right, then it might be the reason as to why Nintendo are offering a pre-order incentive for Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

According to CVG if you pre-order from Game from 26th October onwards you will receive the game in a metal tin along with two figures – one of Link and one of a Phantom.

How awesome would it be to receive one of these as a Christmas gift? Very awesome is the answer.

UK Charts

The high praise that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has been receiving has managed to get it into #2 in the chart. FIFA 10 holds onto the top position, with Mario & Sonic at the Winter Games skating in at #5, Brutal Legend at #7 (I bet Activision wish they’d kept hold of it now) and Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition at a surprisingly high #10. It’s the PlayStation 3 version that has shifted the majority of the copies, no doubt due to the fact that the add-on packs it contains were never released on disk for PlayStation 3.

There are no other new entries in the top 40, but in the single formats Magna Carta II arrives at #21 in the Xbox 360 chart – which is pretty good seeing the first one is largely unknown – while in the Wii chart Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter goes in at #31 and Cate West: The Vanishing Files at #37. Cate West might just be the last game ever to be published by Oxygen, who went belly up last week. I guess that means that there will never be a sequel to Chegger’s Party Quiz.

Rare aren’t as secretive as they were when they were under the watchful eyes of Nintendo but there’s defiantly still a mysterious aura around them. This week though they’ve been slightly more loose lipped than usual, answering fan’s questions on their scribes pages.

The “big one” is that they aren’t making DS games any more. Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise flopped at retail and DK Racing didn’t score as well as the original, so you can kind of see why. They also confirm that Perfect Dark will arrive on XBLA this winter and claim that they have “no idea” why Donkey Kong 64 hasn’t been released on Virtual Console or re-made for the DS.

Rare senior software engineer Nick Burton then stated that Kameo 2 was in development back in 2007 (two years after the original was released) but later canned. There’s demo/prototype footage on YouTube showing Kameo wearing a cloak and running along walls and the like, suggesting that it would have been more akin to Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed and Heavenly Sword.

So just what are Rare working on at the moment? I’m guessing stuff for Natal, Killer Instinct 3 (this one has been rumoured for ages) and maybe Perfect Dark Zero 2 seeing that games like Rare’s own Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Viva Pinata don’t sell that well on 360.

This Week’s Games

They’re quite the odd couple, but having got together two years ago for a trip to the Olympic Games after years of acrimony, Mario and Sonic are still an item, and now they’re off to the Olympic Winter Games. What I’m trying to say is: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is out today, for Wii and DS.

Its predecessor was a slow burning hit, so will this do the same, or will everyone who bought the original run out and buy this too? No-one knows. But Metacritic.com knows that it’s gone down about as well as, with them there reviewers.

Our man Adam pretty much loved Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and this week sees the release of the sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. It’s caused something of a critical explosion, so is, you know, probably worth a look if you’re a PlayStation 3 owning sort.

There’s more reputed genuine quality in the form of Brütal Legend for Xbox 360 and PS3. It’s from Tim Schafer – he of Psychonauts, Grim Fandango and such – so you know it’s going to be a little… alternative. As the umlauts might imply, it represents the intersection between heavy metal and fantasy hack ‘n’ slash. Jack Black is among the voices, and there’s lots of ROCK! music in there.

What else is there to tempt you? There’s another dose of draw your own adventure in Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter for Wii as well as DS this time; Fallout 3 Game of The Year Edition; and plenty more besides. Though not all of it necessarily universally tempting.