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Good afternoon and welcome to a brand new episode of TalkRadar UK - the gaming podcast that promises not to mug you off.

This week's episode is brought to you by the esteemed trio of Nathan Irvine, Matt Cundy and Justin Towell... with the addition of GR freelancer Ben Griffin. Ben's in the UK office this week as coffee monkey, experiencing the 'hard work' we do first-hand.

So what can you expect from this week's show? All of the following and more...

NEWS! - Justin's ecstatic because Sega AM2 legend Yu Suzuki has gone on-record to say he still wants to make Shenmue III. Erm, you know that doesn't mean he's actually going to, right? And Matt talks about lies on the boxes of the games he's been playing. Hey, we never said it had to be news about the industry...

QUESTION OF THE WEEK! - The team provide cover as you answer the burning question... What has been your favourite videogame war to fight in and why?

WHAT WE'VE BEEN PLAYING! - Justin masters corners in the original NFS Shift, Nathan plays 'games for girls' and Matt tells us of his trip to Fiddlers Beach in Kinectimals. Then Ben causes a stir by proclaiming PES to be better than FIFA.

PLUS LOADS OF OTHER STUFF!!1!

Listen now...

It’s not hard to find articles poking fun at or cataloging the discrepancies of videogame box art. Hell, we’ve written our fair share and even have an annual “worst box art” feature that posts every December. But has anyone ever stopped to discuss the actual packaging said box art is printed on? How many of us really notice the subtle changes our boxes go through during each console generation? Have you noticed at all? Do you even care?

Of course you do. You love games enough to visit a site that’s known for writing about this exact kind of esoteric nonsense. In fact, you probably noticed how much the 360 and PS3 cases have changed in just the past year. So without further yammering let’s get into a big ol’ list of game boxes through the ages...

December isn’t just physically cold, its game release schedule is pretty chilly as well. With the major studios having squeezed out most of their collective 2010 load, we’re left with only a few choice corn nuggets to remove from the brown. It’s a good thing October and November we’re so packed to the brim with good stuff that you can spend the rest of the year burning through the pile of early holiday presents you got yourself. So enjoy even more guides for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Fallout: New Vegas. I've linked to each game's cheats and hints page as well, where you can find a plethora of user generated help like FAQs, easter eggs and much more.

When you wake up on the 25th there’s a good chance one of the following games is gonna be under your tree; unless you’re not Christian, in which case you already bought and beat it. Either way, you’re gonna want some tips in your never-ending quest to humiliate all the scrubs online who keep getting lucky and embarrassing you. Good news, we’ve got a huge batch of multiplayer tips and strategies for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Halo: Reach and Black Ops right here, including a cool new Achievement video guide for Black Ops. So sit back, pour some Egg Nog (or other non-holiday related beverage) and read up, because the only thing worse than coal in your stocking is an embarrassing kill/death ratio.

Just a few weeks ago we firmly held each others’ hands and danced jigs of joy for 2010’s biggest and best games. Yes, our Platinum Chalice awards were once again a festival of finery directed at the year’s brightest stars, but now come the dreaded Anti-Awards, which force a spotlight on all the bullshit games, trends and ideas we had to endure throughout the year.

To commemorate their anti-triumph, we’re awarding each “winner” with Bayonetta’s own Stone Award, the statue of a falling fat man that added insult to injury and nearly made us quit playing an otherwise brilliant game. Oh, what a day indeed...

Let’s face it: When one player sucks in Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer, the whole team suffers.  And if you don’t realize which guy on your team sucks – well, you know how that old adage goes, right? So we’re here with a public service announcement. Here are eight things a majority of players do that make them worse instead of better. Yes, some great players out there will probably disagree with these strategies – but we probably wouldn’t want to play with you. And yes, people make dozens of other mistakes as well. These are the eight we’re going to work on today...

Today we’re playing the latest DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops, which released yesterday and costs $15 on Xbox Live. “Escalation” comes with four new multiplayer maps, but sorry, we were far too obsessed with the new zombie mode “Call of the Dead” to show you anything else. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Danny Trejo, Robert Englund and Michael Rooker battling Undead George Romero in the snow?

Seriously, this is some crazy shit and, even if you’re not a Call of Duty fan, you should hit the play button right now to hear us try and make sense of it...

Confession: I’m crap at Call of Duty multiplayer. Oh, I do well enough against other journalists and love competing at review events, but as soon as that game releases to the general public, I’m finished. I can’t devote hours, days or weeks to mastering every weapon and memorizing every map, but plenty of other folks can, so I’m quickly rendered obsolete and lose all interest.

Call of Duty Elite could change that. Activision representatives dropped by our office earlier this week to demo the service and, despite my cynicism, I immediately recognized how this could make FPS multiplayer fun for me again – and for the countless other average players just like me...