Yes, The Game Of The Year (GOTY) discussion is already beginning! Spike is hosting its 5th annual Video Game Awards this December in Las Vegas, and this morning the nominees were released on Spike.com. What's in contention for Game of the Year? Orange Box, Halo 3, BioShock, and Mass Effect.
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Australian GfK's weekly software sale charts for All Formats, PC, Xbox 360, DS, Wii, PS2, PS3, and PSP.
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Metroid Prime 3 is followed by The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, making it a Nintendo top two on the multiplatform chart.

The top twenty includes six football games. Last week's best seller, Football Manager 2008, sits at No3, while three versions of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 and two versions of FIFA 08 also chart.

01. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
02. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
03. Football Manager 2008 (PC)
04. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS3)
05. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
06. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (PC)
07. Singstar Swedish hits Schlager (PS2)
08. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (360)
09. World of Warcraft (PC)
10. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
11. FIFA 08 (PS2)
12. Counter-Strike 1: Anthology (PC)
13. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (360)
14. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage (PC)
15. The Witcher (PC)
16. Halo 3 (360)
17. Battlefield 2 (PC)
18. Warcraft III Frozen Throne (PC)
19. FIFA 08 (PS3)
20. World in Conflict (PC)
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Link's latest Legend of Zelda adventure for Nintendo DS debuts at No1 in Spain and Germany, and at No2 in Sweden.

FIFA 08 makes three entries in the Spanish chart and two in the German top ten. In Sweden, Football Manager for PC tops the league.

While PC titles dominate the German and Swedish top tens, the Spanish chart has a distinctly console, specifically DS, flavor.
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"The second Orange Box 360 update has been released by Valve! This time, the focus is primarily on Team Fortress 2. What, exactly, have they changed?

- Reduced network bandwidth usage in multiplayer.
- Improved overall game performance.
- Arranged search results to favor preferred host conditions.
- Improved searching for ranked games.
- Addressed a possible false report of too little storage space on larger hard drives". - Gamernode
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Some consumers who purchased Valve's Orange Box from vendors located outside of their home country -- mainly in an attempt to save on cheaper products -- have recently reported that their otherwise legally-obtained games have since been deactivated by Valve's Steam software for territory violation.

Talking with Shacknews, Valve's Doug Lombardi now says that the Steam software is merely carrying out this function by design.

"Valve uses Steam for territory control to make sure products authorized for use in certain territories are not being distributed and used outside of those territories," said Lombardi.
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The Consumerist writes:

According to reader Todd, there are quite a few customers are finding their "Orange Box" games have been deactivated by Valve because they bought them from a seller that wasn't authorized to do business with US customers.

The seller made the mistake, but the gamers are paying the price.
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The Orange Box debuts at 3, Phantom Hourglass at 4

Sega's Football Manager 2008 has entered the UK's all-formats chart at number one this week, knocking EA's FIFA 08 off the top spot.

Accounting for 38 per cent of all PC titles sold in the past week, Sports Interactive's management sim is Sega's first multiformat number one title since last year's version of the popular football franchise.

1. Football Manager 2008 (PC)
2. FIFA 08 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS, PC)
3. The Orange Box (Xbox 360, PC)
4. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
5. Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
6. Project Gotham Racing 4 (Xbox 360)
7. Ratatouille (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS, PC)
8. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS, PC)
9. Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
10. Crash of the Titans (Wii, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP, DS, GBA)
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The review scores from EGM #222 (December 2007) are revealed:

* Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock: 9, 8.5, 8
* Sega Rally Revo: 7.5, 7, 7
* Conan: 5.5, 5.5, 5.5
* WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008: 8, 7, 5.5
* Clive Barker's Jericho: 3, 4.5, 4.5 (Shame of the Month)
* The Simpsons Game: 7, 6.5, 7
* Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War: 4, 6, 4
* Folklore: 5.5, 7.5, 8
* The Eye of Judgment: 8, 8, 8
* Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: 8.5, 9.5, 9
* Halo 3: 10, 10, 9
* Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation: 6.5, 6.5, 8
* Half-Life 2 Orange Box: 10, 9.5, 10
* Beautiful Katamari: 7, 4.5, 4
* Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations: 9, 7, 7.5
* Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness: 7.5, 7, 7
* Silent Hill: Origins: 7.5, 7, 7
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Oct 19, 2007 Huzzah! The Orange Box is released today (It's already out in the US), bringing what's perhaps the best videogame series ever conceived to Xbox 360 (and PlayStation 3, eventually) bundled along with one of the greatest multiplayer mashups and the world's first perfect game. Given that Gordon Freeman's only made one visit to consoleland, with Half-Life on Xbox and PS2, we thought living-room gamers might need to catch up. Much of the info contained in this article is only gleaned ... » Read More

So you've played through Portal and loved every minute as much as we did. Maybe you've even gone through the advanced maps and tried out some of the challenges? So what comes next?

How about the ability to play through Half-Life 2, HL2 Episodes, or other Source-powered games with the portal gun in-hand? We've been doing that very thing for the past few days now, and after hours spent experimenting with various techniques and tricks, we're here to show you how.
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UPDATE [Oct 18, 2007]: In light of reader feedback, we're happy to supply the details of how we tested and sourced the images for our comparison. We hope this will clear up any queries you have. All shots were captured direct-feed, PC shots by using Fraps and 360 shots by using an image-editing suite to pull the image directly from the input, using component. We ran the PC at its highest quality settings, but in a 1024x720 window to replicate the 720p resolution setting on Xbox 360. No ... » Read More

Oct 15, 2007 Weve all become rather enamored by Portal, which has been untangling the folds of our frontal lobes since its release last week with Valves Orange Box. While it may appear simple at first glance, Portal is jammed full of subtleties, Easter eggs, and easily repeatable tag lines that have been rapidly absorbed by the Internets collective cultural consciousness. If youve been on the wrong side of the space-time continuum for the last week and have no clue what were talking about, ... » Read More

Oct 11, 2007 Want to kill some time without breaking the bank? This excellent free flash game provides a 2D take on Valve's first-person puzzler, Portal. Portal: The Flash Version contains 40 levels of mind-bending puzzles and according to its authors, it has just about everything the real game does (minus the third dimension). Energy balls, cubes, turrets, and the giant crusher from the trailer all make an appearance. Click here to try out Portal: The Flash Version, and find out what we ... » Read More

Oct 11, 2007 Valve's Orange Box compilation burst its way onto Steam yesterday, the reviews have begun to go live, and early indications show its average review score of 98 (so far) is going to beat both BioShock and Halo 3. You can read our review of Half-Life: Episode 2 here, Team Fortress 2 here and Portal ... » Read More

Valve Software boss Gabe Newell has slagged off PS3 calling it "a waste of everybody's time" in a latest attack on the console.

"Investing in the Cell, investing in the SPE gives you no long-term benefits. There's nothing there that you're going to apply to anything else. You're not going to gain anything except a hatred of the architecture they've created", Newell told Edge magazine.

"I don't think they're going to make money off their box. I don't think it's a good solution."
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CVG reports: " Valve's Orange Box compilation burst its way onto Steam yesterday, the reviews have begun to go live, and early indications show its average review score of 98 (so far) is going to beat both Bioshock and Halo 3. Could this be the highest scoring game of the year? "
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MSNBC Reports: A video game company would need a truckload of chutzpah to release a first-person shooter in the wake of "Halo 3."

Such a company would have to be absolutely sure its game had enough fun and value to compete with arguably the biggest title of the holiday season, which launched to first-day sales of $170 million, according to its publisher Microsoft.

Valve, makers of the best-selling "Half-Life" series of PC shooters, is convinced its "Orange Box," launching on the PC, and for the first time, on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and is such a game.
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Oct 9, 2007 The Orange Box goes live at 12:00 am Pacific Time on Oct 10, and 8:00 am in the UK. If you're on the beta now, prepare to own some noobs when the great unwashed come flooding in. And if you haven't preordered, you're going to need a headstart. Either way, it's time to brush up on a few of the lesser-known factors in the TF2 ... » Read More

Valve has revealed that it has tapped the songwriting talents of Jonathon Coulton, computer programmer turned modern day rock star, for a surprise single to be included in its massive multi-platform game offering, The Orange Box.
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