1. Do you struggle with the whammy bar in Guitar Hero? Good with a soldering iron? You may want to check out this hack presented by Googlemarks. With just a little bit of soldering and a basic knowledge of circuitry and you've got an automatic whammy bar capable of maxing your scores - of course if you still have to work those pesky fret buttons on your own or just go a step too far and build a Guitar Hero playing robot.
2. The folks over at DSFanboy have a post comparing the three different versions of N+ that will be coming to the DS, PSP and XBox Live Marketplace. There's also a very interesting point made - apparently because the game is essentially being developed by Atari for the handhelds and Metanet for XBLM, and because all three versions will have different aspect ratios, the three versions all basically have unique levels ... over 500 each! Looks like if you really love N you could buy all three games and experience a TON of gameplay variety.
3. I've been avidly watching TIGSource for news on independent games and once again they've come through. Check out this post which highlights the upcoming Bonesaw. Looks like it might be a lot of fun - it also looks difficult but that's a good thing no?
4. GamePro recently released an article concerning Gears of War 2 and it's possible release sometime in 2008.  Epic responded by calling the article "complete nonsense."  Want to read what the article?  Check out scans currently available on at Kotaku.

The other day we mentioned Deadline Games' upcoming third person action title Faith and a .45 and we're happy to say that more media is making it's way into our hands.

The game itself appears to be a depression era title with heavy influences pulled from the Bonnie and Clyde mythos as well as games like Gears of War and maybe even the upcoming Army of Two. Check out the video below to see what I mean. While the game currently looks a bit like a western the developers have suggested that more levels will push more of that depression era America feel.

This is one solid looking game right now - even if the trailer is mostly concept stuff. I'm really dying for a good co-op experience, something along the lines of Gears and while I hop that Army of Two fits that need in the short term, Faith and a .45 is probably a game to watch in the future.

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.

Bully is one of those games that really didn't capture my attention - I'm one of the few gamers that isn't totally in love with open world sandbox games and I've never been a huge fan of Rockstar games. Having said that I'm a bit intrigued now that Bully: Scholarship Edition is making it's way to the Wii and XBox 360.

It's undeniable that the game has a sense of humor - check out the video below to see what I mean. The thought of playing through and scoring some achievements is definitely appealing but this is still looking like a rental title.