After the Bungie/Microsoft split debacle, we're not going to discount anything out of hand, which is why we're bringing you this news of a rumored Prince of Persia prequel trilogy first reported by a blog called, and we're not making this up, "Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars."

According to the site, which has displayed a couple of early images from the alleged game, Prince of Persia 4/0/Ghosts of the Past is supposed to be released in the latter half of next year. According to the author, "stylistically and gameplay-wise, the game has abandoned the dark edginess of the last two titles in favor a fantastical cross between The Sands of Time, Ico and Zelda." ... Wow. Now we really hope it's true.

[Via Gamespot]

A little bit of non-dongle related Rock Band news for you today: Apparently Coheed and Cambria will be joining the line-up with "Welcome Home." As we're not terribly familiar with the band, we sought out Dr. David Thorpe for his take: "They have deliberately combined all of rock and roll's worst traits, all of its most horrible, nauseating excess, and turned it into something so patently awful that, of course, every nerd on the internet loves it." ... Ouch.

In case you're also unfamiliar with the band, you don't have to judge from Thorpe's vitriol or this brief IGN clip. We're delighted to bring you the full song played the way God intended: Over clips of Dragon Ball Z.

Answers are slowly starting to emerge about the mysterious dongle the PS3 uses for wireless guitar capabilities in Guitar Hero III. The over-simplified version is that even though PS3 and Wii both use Bluetooth, the Wii guitar plugs directly into the Wiimote hijacking the signal, while the Sixaxis doesn't plug into the guitar -- hence the USB wired dongle as a wireless bridge.

Before we go any further, this isn't just a GH III problem. Rock Band will also use some sort of PS3 dongle. This might also explain a lot about why there isn't a Wii version of Rock Band announced yet. Although it's completely disputable, here's our basic idea: Two USB ports on the back of the Wii for the drum and mic (which are wired on every console), then if Harmonix wants the guitars to be wireless they need to design a guitar modeled around the Wiimote to plug into so that Rock Band does the same signal hijack that GH III accomplishes.

Apparently Sony doesn't feel up to talking about why these dongles are necessary as they stonewalled 1UP when the site went looking for answers. Maybe Sony will give Red Octane and Harmonix the tools to make their guitars work dongleless one day, but to get things done for this holiday season this was the only (or most cost effective) solution available.

Valve's Gabe Newell has been pretty open about his displeasure with the PS3 in the past, and it's clear from a recent interview that time has not softened him, calling the system "a waste of everyone's time" in Edge magazine last week. Newell continued, saying, "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. I don't think they're going to make money off their box. I don't think it's a good solution."

Though Newell is one of the few developers in a position to speak out on the system (we would too if our game was rocking a 98 on Metacritic), a slew of PS3 game delays have us wondering: Is he speaking the minds of more than we know?

[Via CVG]

Until recently, some of you probably thought you'd be avoiding the PlayStation Eye, packed in, as it was with Eye of Judgment. Listen, if your spirit (read: your dignity) won't let you play a game that practically necessitates shouting "It's not Pokemon!" to passersby, we totally get it. If we weren't required to (and if it wasn't so much fun) we wouldn't be doing it either. Also: What else are we going to do with all these robes?

Thankfully for the proud among you, the PlayStation blog has revealed that the cam will also be sold separately for $40 and will arrive alongside the Eye of Judgment pack on Oct. 23. But for just $30, can we recommend you go ahead and spring for the game? Two facts: 1. If EyeToy is any indication, there's probably going to be five games for the Eye, so you'll want to enjoy all of them. 2. Maybe you'll have a really dorky kid someday. Oh, and there's a third: Sometimes the house is empty and then its you time. If that involves cards and mythical adventure, who'll be the wiser?

We've yet to hear a single complaint about Sony's monolith overheating, but that didn't stop PS3 fan (and dragon aficionado) Dragonpower from drilling some holes into the bottom of his PS3, running liquid coolant over the processors, and adding some extra fans just for good measure. The end result: 32ºC (90ºF, 305.15ºK) under heavy load. Oh, and it's "almost dead silent," which we're assuming is a step down from "dead silent."

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Valve may have the most deficient understanding of episodic gaming EVAR(!), but they are masters of smoke and mirrors marketing. Valve made us completely lose focus on Half-Life 2: Episode 2 being in The Orange Box (YAY!) by bundling so much gaming goodness in the package, that instead of us cracking jokes about their episodic incompetence, we end up calling The Orange Box the gaming value of the year -- 'cause it is with Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. Sure, if you've played Half-Life 2 on your PC it might not be such a fantastic value, but for console owners (minus those that played Half-Life 2 on the original Xbox) this is their first go at HL2 and its episodes.

• GameTap (100/100): "If your PC isn't quite up to snuff, the Xbox 360 version is a good substitute. Occasional framerate hitches, plus one minor gaffe with the gamepad (weapon selection) are the only things dragging down the 360 version. That, and it has freaking 99 Achievements spread across all five games. Due to the delay of the PS3 version, we haven't played it yet, but we'll update you when we do."
• Team Xbox (96/100): "So, is The Orange Box the best bargain in gaming? While there might be longer games (Oblivion, for example) or games that pack more titles onto a single disc (any of the 'classic' compilations), this is a near-perfect blend of varied games. ... Although this is undeniably one of the must-own games for the Xbox 360, we have a few questions. Will we be getting Episode Three over Xbox Live? And where's our Counter-Strike: Source?"
• IGN (95/100): "There's nothing else available on any console like The Orange Box. Though you could argue that Half-Life 2 is old news by now, there are still four components of the Box brand new to consoles. That so much great content is offered at the standard single-game price is astonishing ... And all on one disc. While Portal and TF2 may not be strong enough to stand on their own, coupled with the Half-Life titles, The Orange Box really is one of the best games ever released."

Get ready to saddle up your blessedly armor-free horse and don the Crusader's relics one final time. Bethesda announced today that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would be receiving new downoadable content on Xbox 360 and PC next week, beginning on Oct. 15. The good news? It's free for a week! The bad news? It's the last bit of DLC for the game. Fighter's Stronghold will add a new castle for you to run, complete with your own vintner to create wines for you, a combat trainer, even a taxidermist to create trophies for your pad ... and creep out the local girls.

In other Oblivion DLC news, Bethesda says that they're "close, very close to working something out to bring Shivering Isles to PS3 owners." Which is close, very close to being very good news for those of you who didn't wait out for the Game of the Year edition.

Though we haven't been able to obtain a copy and confirm, the latest issue of Game Informer is rumored to have a feature piece on Shadow of the Colossus developer Team Ico's latest PS3 title. The game, reportedly called The Last Canyon, will have you exploring a desert similar to Death Valley, searching for "something" (that part not revealed yet).

The protagonist's method of transportation will consist of a simple, non-motorized glider that you can mount and dismount. From the alleged excerpt: "From what we've seen there's never before been that feeling of flying around in the sky, combined with this scale of environment."

Clever rumor or legitimate clipping? We won't know until the next GI hits newsstands.

Update: The original source of the rumor doesn't lend it much credibility. We'll just go back to begging Ueda to hurry up then.

Last night, Nintendo confirmed that Monster Hunter 3 is coming to the Wii. Capcom's uber-popular title was previously known to be a PlayStation 3 title, so what came of that project? According to Capcom, that version is gone.

"Due to high development cost of titles for PS3, we have decided to switch the platform to which we release our Monster Hunter 3 title," said Capcom's Katsuhiko Ichii in a report from Thompson Financial News (via Gamasutra).

Though the series has not enjoyed as much popularity here, Monster Hunter is a highly successful franchise in Japan and sure to drive hardware sales for Nintendo up a bit. We can't resist pondering, though, if the Wii version will re-use assets from the previous PSP games in the series.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, literally rocks with action. In an early stage, a freight ship that you siege pitches and rolls, like a giant movie set-piece. While playing a close-to-shipping version of the title, I felt like the action game used these special-effect focal points to drive its frenzied pace and huge scope.

Because of the "modern" setting, I had assumed I'd be plodding slowly with a squad of soldiers, tactically (and tactfully) knocking on doors to root out bad guys. And while there are sometimes AI-teammate elements, I never felt like I had to slow down and proceed with caution. Instead, I often had to speed up and dive for cover; depending on the situation, snipers, RPGs, and essentially armies of enemies are firing at you at the same time.

We'd heard about the Collector's Edition for Assassin's Creed, but now that we've laid eyes on that 12-inch figurine, our lust for it has reached fever pitch. Listen to that ... if you're quiet, you can almost hear significant others from all across the country wondering aloud "Where you're going to put that ugly thing" from more than a month in the future.

While the Altair figure does look incredible, we're having some Big Daddy flashbacks looking at his weapon. Anyone else think Ubisoft should go ahead and set up the "Broken Stiletto" figure replacement site now?

[Via X3F]

While Kane & Lynch's bank heist multiplayer had us intrigued, we were quite disappointed to learn that the eponymous duo's criminal cooperation wouldn't extend beyond an offline split-screen mode. Eurogamer politely asked game director Jens Peter Kurup to explain the omission, to which he responded, "It's a matter of focus, choosing what you want to deliver at what time. We looked at it and decided it was too much of a risk to change our code to be very very good at that, and we're not going to be very very good at other elements." He noted that he'd miss the feature, "but not terribly."

As that's not a sentiment likely to be shared by those enjoying the online co-op of a little game called Halo 3, Kurup places a divide between the two titles. "They are not only selling Halo," he said, "they are selling technology, they are selling consoles, they are selling Microsoft, the whole online package. That's not what we're doing." He's right on two counts! They are selling (by the boatloads) and IO Interactive isn't selling the whole online package. Instead of applause, let's offer some commentary.

Regardless of Microsoft's intentions for its platform, Halo 3 is still a video game competing for the time and attention of gamers, as is EA's cooperatively themed Army of Two. With Gears of War well behind us and Perfect Dark Zero (thankfully) even further back, we're of the belief that online co-op is (or should be), where appropriate, a standard "next-gen" offering by now. Kurup made a valid point about increased development time when he said gamers "also want the game at some point," but when some point happens to be November, you'd best give your game a full pair of water wings before tossing it into that shark-infested maelstrom.

Yahoo! Games has posted a video preview of this holiday's multi-instrument music extravaganza, Rock Band, paying special attention to the venues you and your faux band will be tearing up, bringing down and figuratively destroying. Spread across the cities of Boston, Los Angeles and New York, the initially revealed venues (out of the final 41) are divided into three size groups, with your band's surging popularity pushing you out of small clubs and into large arenas.

In an accompanying interview, Rock Band's senior artist Peter McDonald explains that the fancy venues provide not only bigger crowds, but also more spectacular stage effects and sophisticated camera work (read: "crazy crane shots"). Have a look for yourself at places like "Heebie Jeebie's," "Empire Square Garden" and "The Snake Pit" by clicking that Read link.

[Thanks, Whymog]

Deathmatch? Deathly boring. Capture the flag? Go capture it yourself. Assault? More like ass-ault. We admit that even we can get a little bored with traditional multiplayer game types. So you can imagine our excitement when the developers of Kane and Lynch said that their brand of online action was so fresh, so radical that they can't believe that no one's thought of it yet.

When playing K&L online (known as Fragile Alliance), you'll be part of a bank heist. Basically, your squad will try to grab as much loot as possible, taking out cops and other security measures all the while. If you notice that a teammate has a sack a bit fuller than yours (or you just want to pad your sack a bit more) you can, as they say on the streets, kill him. But once you do so, the whole team knows, and they likely won't take kindly to it. Even if you do get popped, you're still in the game, reincarnated as a police officer, allowing you to take delicious vengeance on your killer.

We don't know all the ins-and-outs of Fragile Alliance yet, but, suffice it to say that we can't wait to get our hands on it.