Before Guitar Hero I owned a guitar and was the kind of player who occasionally picked it up and goofed around. I can hardly play the thing but it's always been something I've wanted to learn more about. When Guitar Hero came out I kind of backed off the real guitar for a bit but, of course, have worked my way back.

Why the ramble?

Imagine Guitar Hero but with a real guitar. Six strings and a pick - the real thing.

That's Guitar Rising a new game heading to the PC and Mac sometime in 2008. Supposedly all you'll need is your own electric guitar (really doesn't matter what it is) and the software. Check out the video and tell me it doesn't look interesting.
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On the surface Coil looks a lot like flow at first. Of course it's just the surface and as soon as you start playing you'll begin to realize that Coil is something much more interesting.

With absolutely no instructions you're goal is to simply follow the story and complete a small batch of mini-games. What's great about this title is that you're left on your own to determine what exactly is required of you. Each level is a bit harder than the last and each level builds slightly on the gameplay of the level immediately before it. The short story pieces that occur in between each level are also interesting despite being minimalistic.

While the game does feel unfinished it's free, and despite being relatively short it's an intensely gratifying experience.

Found on TIGSource

If I were to levy one complaint about Portal it would be the game's length. If I were asked to levy two complaints I'd be totally lost 'cause the game was damn near perfect - except for one thing ...

As you cane imagine I'm glad to hear that Portal will be seeing a second life. That's right Valve has confirmed that there's more Portal in our future. In an interview with Eurogamer Valve's Doug Lombardi says "There'll be more Portal, for sure, [...] but the details of that, to be honest, we're still working out."

With plenty of references to Half-Life and Valve developers going on record that the Portal gun may turn up in the Half-Life universe there sure is plenty of potential. I'd be happy with just a new set of levels but a fully playable adventure that more fully develops both GlaDOS and Aperture Science would be more than welcome. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens though.

Spore is one of those games that I'm just dying to play - unfortunately it's also one of those games that seems to just keep moving further and further away. Today we get some good news though.

Despite further delaying Mercenaries 2, EA was kind enough to give us a slight hint at when we might see Spore hit the market. While it's not set in stone it looks as though Spore will be hitting the market sometime before the 2008 holiday season.

Of course with this good news comes three helpings of iffy. As of right now Bioware's upcoming Dragon Age RPG, Pandemic's Mercenaries 2, and Battlefiel: Bad Company have all been pushed into EA's next fiscal year. The good news is that EA's next fiscal year runs from April 1, 2008 through March 31, 2009 - that's a good possibility for 2008 but leaves plenty of time for a 2009 release.

I've been trying to curb my 2008 game spending - that's led to more renting and less buying which of course knocks MMOs out of the playing field. Truth is the most likely genre to pull me out of my thrifty spending would have to be a Sci-Fi based game. The market right now is flooded with fantasy games and even if you look at a lot of the FPS titles a really good futuristic title is kind of lacking.

Jumpgate Evolution isn't going to be the game that gets me subscribing to play but it sure is a nice looking title and may be worth a bit more attention. A collaborative work of Codemasters and NetDevil, responsible for Jericho and Auto Assault respectively, Jumpgate: Evolution is the sequel to Jumpgate: The Reconstruction Initiative - which I admittedly have never heard of.

While it hardly comes from a prestigious lineage screenshots and in game footage available on the official site is definitely worth a look. So - you tell me ... could it be worthwhile?