GameSpot has put together a pretty thorough roundup of the many retailers, both on and offline, that have started to sell the PS3 Slim before its vague “early September” release date.

According to GameSpot, Amazon and GameStop’s online stores have the PS3 listed as in-stock and ready to ship. Additionally, calls made to San Francisco GameStop and Best Buy retail stores have confirmed that some brick-and-mortar locations are selling the new system too. The questioned GameStop and Best Buy retail locations have stated that they only received roughly a dozen systems per store.

When the system was first announced at GamesCom, Sony told the general public that the system would be available in the U.S. during the first week of September, while GameSpot was told “September 1 isn’t an official street date.” Whether it’s overeager retail workers pushing the system out early or Sony being lax about setting a firm release date, one thing is for sure; the customer wins.

Lead designer Alan Flores told us about all the extra things headbangers should try in order to put the (double bass) pedal to the metal.

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Neversoft’s Must-Do List for ‘Guitar Hero: Metallica’ Players
(Xbox 360/PS3/Wii, March 2009)

As written by lead designer, metalhead and musician Alan Flores:

Try to play Slayer’s “War Ensemble” on Expert+ drums.
I say try because most people (like 99% of you) will only be able to get through a little bit of the song. Even so, this really has to be attempted to fully understand what a challenge it is. The song starts off easy enough with a couple of accent hits, but once that double bass drum beat kicks in… good luck!

Experience Cliff Burton’s bass lines in “Orion.”
Its funny, “Orion” is the only song that I know of in “Guitar Hero: Metallica” where people actually fight to play the bass. Cliff’s bass lines completely drive the song and there are even a couple of bass solos that he does along the way. Bass playing has never been this fun in a “Guitar Hero” game.

Sing Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy.”
People don’t really think of singing as a challenge in “Guitar Hero,” but trying to mimic Freddie Mercury’s machine gun delivery and wide vocal range in “Stone Cold Crazy” gives you renewed appreciation of the man’s talent.

Drum over a song from The Black Album.
Guitar Hero Metallica has a cheat code that allows you to play an entire song like it’s a drum fill, mapping the drum sounds from the song to your drum kit controller. It’s a really fun mode, but especially fun when playing something like “Sad But True” from The Black Album. Lars’ drums just had this monster-huge sound on that album so it’s really satisfying to plug in a second kick pedal and lay down your own beats when they sound this good.

Check out old Metallica set lists in the photo gallery.
There are a couple of images of old Metallica set lists in the Extras for the game. If you’re in a band, seeing that Metallica didn’t always get paid is encouraging.

Put an alternate outfit on the band and re-watch the “Ecstasy of Gold” intro.
In case you haven’t seen it, the Career mode of the game starts off with the band walking to the stage in slow motion to Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold,” just like they do at their live shows. We have some alternate outfits in the game. I don’t want to spoil the surprise of what they are, but if you put on one of the alternate outfits and re-watch the intro, the band will appear in the new outfits. It’s pretty funny!

Watch the motion capture video of Lars trying to play “The Shortest Straw.”
He had a little bit of uh…trouble.

Write a metal song in the studio
We sampled an ESP Truckster guitar model that James Hetfield plays and an ESP bass model used by Tom Araya from Slayer so your epic metal masterpiece should sound better (i.e. more metal) in the Music Studio.

Check out Metallifacts, learn something new and appreciate the band’s performances.
The Metallifacts mode is a great way to learn about each song in “Guitar Hero: Metallica.” I learned quite a bit once Lars and James added their own personal information to each song. The Metallifacts mode is also a great way to appreciate the band’s performance, the light show, the pyrotechnics and all of the hard work that went into making the game look great. In the Metallifacts mode you can just sit back and watch the band perform; it really is the next best thing to being there live.

Create a set list that reflects your mood.
In Quickplay, you can create a set list of up to six songs and it’s fun to try and theme them. Want to sing songs about the hardships of the road Then make a set list with Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam,” Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone.” Feeling a bit crazed? Put Suicidal Tendencies’ “War Inside My Head,” Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” and Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” in a set. You can even try making a set list of the fastest, most insane stuff with Slayer’s “War Ensemble,” Metallica’s “Fight Fire With Fire,” “Disposable Heroes” and “Dyer’s Eve.”

Play “Creeping Death” as a full band.
The song is such classic. When you get to the break, all four members of your band get to shout “die” at the top of their lungs. Truly epic!

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There are many gamers going around the Web indicating that 2009 is the year of the PS3 or Xbox 360. However, another platform that many gamers have undermined may be picking up steam to take over 2009. According to reports PSP may have an awesome lineup in store for 2009 with unrevealed titles as well as existing franchises.

The PSP is one platform that many gamers overlook as a contender in the gaming device arena. The PSP truly is a portable multimedia device considering you can play games, watch movies and listen to music all from a single device. However, gamers have been complaining about the lackluster lineup in 2008. The PSP lineup did start spectacularly with titles such as Final Fantasy
VII: Crisis Core and God of War: Chains of Olympus, but quickly died down near the last quarter.

Sony execs have admitted that the game release pacing for the PSP in 2008 was poorly planned and promised that the lineup will be three times better in 2009. According to John Koller, Sony’s director of hardware marketing, 2008 was the best year for the PSP. Apparently the PSP sold 31 percent more year-over-year. However, something tells me Final Fantasy and God of War really deserve the credit for this sales boost.

It seems like the brains at Sony got together 16 months ago to try to resolve the PSP game lineup issue. Koller stated, “We talked with each of our internal developers and looked at all of our franchises and asked: How can you create them for PSP?” The games that resulted from the meeting so far include: Resistance: Retribution, MotorStorm Arctic Edge and a portable LittleBigPlanet.

It seems like third party publishers have jumped on board, taking advantage of the PSP as well. There is a new Assassin’s Creed and Rock Band game planned for the PSP this year. Monster Hunter Portable is slated to hit the US sometime this year as well. The game that I am still waiting for is Elder Scroll Travels: Oblivion for the PSP. It doesn’t seem like the game is canceled but it has been two years since anything has been announced. Metacritic recently updated the release date for the game to November 2009, so it doesn’t look like its completely canceled.

Koller also indicated that the lineup for 2009 could be 50 percent more than that of 2008. He also teased that there are major franchises yet to be announced. I recently talked about a new rumor pointing to a new Grand Theft Auto game for the PSP. It seems like this could become a reality with Sony hinting at a few unannounced big franchises coming this summer. Make sure to keep your ear to the ground for more information on upcoming games.

Super Stardust Portable is an adaptation of the arcade shooter game released on PS3 earlier. On the PSP, this game provides players with a space ship dashing around five planets. You can protect your spaceship with the help three types of weapons. A bomb and a boost is also at your disposal to enable you to protect your delicate vessel from hooligans and space rocks.

Content in the PSP version of the game is similar to PS3. There are five planets, each one being a stage. Each planet throws at you a lot of enemies and asteroids and you have to fight them to cross five phases. The fifth phase sets you up in confrontation with the boss. There are different modes you can choose from including the Arcade and Planet mode. In the Planet mode, you can play just one planet while in the Arcade mode, you go through five planets automatically looped to the higher difficulty levels.

PSP features the analog nub which controls movement of map, the face buttons with which you can choose and the right and left triggers which are for activating and boosting bombs. D Pad up and down controls are used for handling weapons like Ice Splitter, Gold Melter and Rock Crusher.

Super Stardust Portable is a quite smooth flowing. An interesting addition is the Impact mode. Here you substitute shooting with boosting through planets. Your speed picks up as you go around boosting through more things.

All this is fine for those who are playing Super Stardust for the first time. For those who are experienced playing this game on the Sony PlayStation 3, the portable version is bound to be a disappointment. Precise and well designed controls in the original version feels much better than the difficulty faced on the portable moving around the analog nub. Shooting with the face buttons is also not as smooth and precise as the player would like it to be.

Another disadvantageous difference from the original version is the gameplay technique where you could move as well as change weapons simultaneously. Doing that is pretty difficult and awkward here. On the whole, this arcade game is enjoyable for those playing Super Stardust for the first time.

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Sega just confirmed it’s completed a deal to publish official games based on the 2010 Winter Olympics, to take place in Vancouver.

According to the announcement, “SEGA will publish a wide variety of games with winter sports and events including skiing, skating, and snowboard bearing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games emblem.”

“SEGA is extremely excited to once again work with ISM on a series of multi-platform games celebrating the Olympic Games,” says Sega COO, Okitane Usui.

“The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games offers gamers a collection of exciting sports to master, as well as a stunning location for players to take advantage of. We aim to bring fans around the world an exhilarating experience whenever they play any Olympic title.”

Press release after the break.

THE OFFICIAL VIDEO GAME OF THE VANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES – SEGA ANNOUNCES PUBLISHING AGREEMENT

TOKYO (February 5, 2009) — SEGA® Corporation today announced a worldwide agreement with International Sports Multimedia (ISM), exclusive licensee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to once again become the sole approved video game publisher of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. After an　extremely successful series of video games from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, this exclusive license will allow SEGA to once more publish the only official interactive entertainment software titles of the world’s most famous sporting event.
Through this agreement, SEGA secures the sole rights to publish console, PC/Macintosh, handheld, arcade, and mobile games worldwide. Under this exclusive license, SEGA will publish a wide variety of games with winter sports and events including skiing, skating, and snowboard bearing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games emblem.
“Working with SEGA has resulted in Olympic Entertainment Software achieving unparalleled success and we are delighted to support SEGA once again for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games”, says Raymond Goldsmith, Chairman & CEO of ISM.
“SEGA is extremely excited to once again work with ISM on a series of multi-platform games celebrating the Olympic Games,” says Okitane Usui, Chief Operating Officer, SEGA Corporation. “The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games offers gamers a collection of exciting sports to master, as well as a stunning location for players to take advantage of. We aim to bring fans around the world an exhilarating experience whenever they play any Olympic title.”

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It’s dark and mostly gray. And it has a familiar, popular flavor that increased my heart rate for reasons good and bad. This is my kind of, sort of “Killzone 2” campaign review.

“Killzone 2” is a PS3- exclusive first-person shooter from Guerilla Games with a cover mechanic and a great-to-hate sci-fi version of the Nazis. It has graphics that should provoke a debate about whether a game can look too good for its own good.

It has a campaign that took me nine hours, 15 minutes, 45 seconds and an almost-devilish 667 killed enemies to beat.

It’s got multiplayer I have not played, an exciting score, obligatory motion control gimmicks, obligatory vehicle missions, and obligatory supporting character death as a plot device.

You’ve played this game before.

It’s got a train level, a bridge level, a section where you wield an unstoppable weapon, a clipped ending and other elements that make it advisable to not play this game immediately after one plays “Resistance 2,” “Gears of War,” “Gears of War 2,” “Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare,” “Half-Life 2,” “Halo 2.” And there are other games it reminds me of, but to name them would be to spoil other elements of “Killzone 2″ that you don’t want to know about in advance.

At its best, “Killzone 2″’s campaign has you advancing down that bridge or through a palace courtyard, gaining inches against the Helghast. You fire at them through the smoke, when you see the orange of their eyes. During those best moments, dozens of soldiers advance behind and beside you and — like none of those games mentioned above — you are made to feel as if you control not just a gun but the morale of fighting men.

The game is at its worst at its ends, dull in the beginning hour and infuriating during a final battle that punishes the player for employing the combat strategies taught in the rest of the campaign. The developer that rewards a trophy for beating that final boss in under 20 minutes is the developer who must admit something went wrong.

A year from now few will discuss how this game played: smoothly, heavily, with lumbering guns and uncommonly helpful allies. A year from now people will still discuss the graphics: how good they do look.

Let a friend play and enjoy the show. There are so many characters on the screen, such detailed ruins of the Helghan planet. The rubble, the tanks, the explosions, the electrical storms and the wind — oh, the wind. You can see it. Red dust blows. Gray smoke billows. Light tries to rip through. Bullets do. Shadows stretch, as enemies bark from somewhere that a stereo sound system will not specify. If you play and your friend watches, he will see Hollywood. You will feel confusion, oppression. You’ll wonder if that wind makes for a better game or if all that dust - and the many Guerilla Games engineers and artists who labored to make it — did your friend a favor, but you the gamer a pain.

Unless you like the panic.

Then you’ll cheer and bellow at the intensity amplified by the orchestral strings as showdown after showdown feels thrilling and desperate enough to be a big budget finale.

The enemies are smart, the script less so. This game tells you nothing that video games haven’t already suggested about war. Your squadmates make no fresh jokes and curse in only the old ways. There is one bold writing decision. An armed ally makes a bad choice, one that would normally get him written out of the game: killed or turned evil. Instead, he sticks to our side, an annoyance so unusual for a game character that it’s welcome. We fight with someone we hate. That’s new. But the real stars of the game aren’t your hero or his allies. It’s those smart space-Nazi enemies. They are ferocious, thick with armor and cloaks. They all but goosestep to battle beneath the broadcasted battlecries of their wicked leader. The game makes icons of them, the chief visual fetish rendered on screen.

“Killzone 2″ is a linear war to be fought from cover at four difficulty levels, or contested in multiplayer skirmishes of up to 32 players, different classes and custom classes activated and crafted by earning experience in various match types. I can assess little more about the multiplayer until I play it, with access to it limited until the game’s release on February 27.

I can say little more about this PS3 exclusive’s relevance to system owners than what I’ve described above. Lacking co-op, it technically has less content than “Resistance 2,” offering a package more of the scale of the modern classic “Call of Duty IV.” Its middle will excite; its ending will enrage.

“Killzone 2″ is first at nothing but among the best in its stab at many familiar setpieces and technical achievements. Its bridge level is better. Its train level is better. Its graphics are better. Its enemies are better. It’s a good game in a crowded genre.

Unlike, say “Flower,” it’s the kind of game hardcore gamers ask for. You’ll enjoy it if your appetite for such flavors hasn’t been exhausted over the years or even over the last few months.

“Killzone 2″ will be out in North America on February 27. A demo of the game should be available on the PS3’s PlayStation Network the day before.

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It’s fun playing guitar Rock Band or Guitar Hero, even more fun with this WarBeast Wireless PS3 Guitar.

The B.C. Rich custom designed guitar features 2.4Ghz latency free wireless game play, glowing strumbar, custom neck with detailed inlays, detachable faceplates and neck and custom skull fret inlays.

It is going to cost you $90 to get one.

• Compatible with Playstation 2 and Playstation 3
• 2.4GHz wireless technology
• Responsive whammy bar
• Extended strum bar for enhanced comfort
• Removable neck and headstock for portability