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Three of the greatest rock bands ever are bringing some of their best songs to Guitar Hero this month!

Activision announced the holiday lineup of downloadable tracks for its latest music title today. The company is bringing some sweet gifts to music fans with three track packs for the biggest bands of the 70s and 90s- The Eagles, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Nirvana.

In addition, a free trio of reggae songs will be released on Christmas week. That's a merry jam, mon. Here's the list of tracks due each week. The track packs are $5.50, and individual tracks are $2. Downloads are available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii.

Dec 4th: The Smashing Pumpkins Pack
1979- The Smashing Pumpkins
GLOW- The Smashing Pumpkins
Everlasting Gaze- The Smashing Pumpkins

Dec 11: Nirvana Track Pack
Negative Creep- Nirvana
Silver- Nirvana
You Know You're Right- Nirvana

Dec 18: The Eagles Track Pack
F... More »  


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It seems no matter which Web site you go to, they all shower praise on the latest game by Valve entitled Left 4 Dead. As a zombie—and video game enthusiast—I assumed this would become one of my favorite games. It sounded like a match made in heaven.

Unfortunately, I came away from the demo very underwhelmed. Sub par graphics and average gun play killed my enthusiasm pretty quickly. I did find the gun play enjoyable in Left 4 Dead, but I really wasn't overwhelmed by how good each gun felt. They felt appropriate.

The guns sounded average. Nothing praise worthy, but nothing to whine about, either. I don't want to offend anyone, but if you're going to tell me that this game has amazing texturing, lighting effects, environments, character models, and animations then you are probably one of those people that think Turok is a great looking game.

The environments themselves looked appropriately drab but they weren't very inspired or pleasing to the... More »  


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The console market today is as tough as any industry there is, but it wasn't always like this. For the past several years the PS2 has been the console to trump, and before it there was the original PlayStation which also dominated the market.

One unclear question still remains though; will the PlayStation 3 remain atop the market? Many analysts believe that this will in fact hold true, but why are they claiming this? In my personal opinion, here are the Top 5 reasons that the PlayStation 3 will eventually re-take the lead in the game industries market.

#5 The Xbox 360 and How It Matches Up

The Xbox 360 is a great console, but it has its flaws. The Xbox 360 is a very similar console to the PS3. They have similar play and they have similar specifications. The Xbox 360 has an estimated 30% failure rate and this will cost Microsoft dearly. The Xbox 360 is struggling to maintain its position in America, and if that isn't enough it can't even ga... More »  


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I am a huge PC gamer. I don’t necessarily have the most powerful rig to run the latest and greatest games with all the bells and whistles turned on, but it serves me just fine.

However, there are some of you who will stop at nothing to have the ultimate gaming PC. For those people I present to you... the nVidia Quadro FX 5800.

What makes the nVidia Quadro FX 5800 so awesome, you ask? Well, for starters it has 4GB of onboard memory, and has a bandwidth of 102GB/s.

Or to translate: It’s the most powerful graphics card on Earth.

So how much do you think this bad boy costs? $400? $500? $800?! ...no. Try $3,500.

Yeah, $3,500. For $3,500 you could buy a whole computer — and a damn good one, at that. But, if you have the money to burn (and I mean that literally) and you want to see if a graphics card that was designed for medical computers can handle Far Cry 2... why not?

Note: I know it’s not a ... More »  


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You'll have to forgive me; I would rather be playing Gears of War 2 on my Xbox 360 instead of writing this. Unfortunately, Microsoft's customer support has made that an impossibility.

Now, I'm well aware that the internet has become a haven for Xbox customer support horror stories and with good cause. In fact, I think that these types of stories are quickly catching up to porn as the most popular use of the internet.

I kid of course, and I would think my experiences with these people would be good for a laugh or two if I didn't have a fresh copy of Gears 2 staring me in the face. Before I begin with my multiple tales of woe, let me tell you a bit about how our operation works here at GamingExcellence.

GE is made up of a staff of about two dozen very enthusiastic folks that contribute to the site through sheer love of all things gaming related. We're not doing this for the big bucks, we're not doing this for the fame, we're doing this because gami... More »  


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I’ve said it time and time again, video game storylines suck. But that doesn’t mean that the character’s in those horrible storylines can’t come up with pearls of wisdom (Or is it just comic gold?) when they open up their mouths.

Below are, in my opinion, the ten greatest phrases to ever come out of a video game character’s mouth. I’m sure I’m missing a few here, but that’s what comment boards are for. So here they are, the top ten phrases ever.

See if you can close your eyes and remember just how they sounded the first time you first heard them. Just don’t do it while you’re driving or operating heavy machinery. You should usually keep your eyes open for stuff like that.

10. “Waka Waka Waka, etc.” —Pac-man
Fauzy from the Muppet Babies, is that you? Nope, it’s just everybody’s favorite yellow one-third-of-a-pizza chomping down on pellets while avoiding ghosts, or Klan members, or whatever, Inky, Blinky... More »  


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Has there ever been a better video game series than the Zelda video game series? Maybe the Super Mario, Castlevania, Metroid and Mega Man series, but after those, Zelda has no competition.

The single factor that contributes towards a great gaming series is the amount of great games in the series. The same cannot be said for the Double Dragon series, for example, where it fell drastically in quality after Double Dragon 2.

In the Zelda series though, the games seemed to get better with each subsequent addition. This is rare for a video game series, and the Zelda series has been able to accomplish this with flying colors. Controversy will be heard in the sequencing of this list, but that only goes to show how strong each game in the series was.

5. Link’s Awakening

Who thought that Link’s Awakening would be as good as it was on the Gameboy? This game packed in as much information and detailed story line as any of the Zeldas f... More »  


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The question is, do game companies sell less games because they offer a beta or a demo?

In an interview with GamePro magazine, Gears of War head-honcho Cliff Bleszinski said the following: "Once you play a BETA, you can check it off your list - you can say, yeah, I played it."

So, what Cliff seems to be saying is that they will not sell as many games to the public if they offer a beta/demo. Makes some sense and as the old saying goes, why buy the cow (or GOW in this case...) when the milk is free.

Of course BETAs can be looked at in a slightly different light than demos because a beta is supposed to help the devs sort out issues that they might not have found otherwise. Wide-scale testing also stresses servers and other support systems that routing in-house testing just can't do as effectively.

On the other hand, betas do provide quite a bit of insight into the final product. The gameplay will almost certainly be the same and ... More »  


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