Sometimes funny things happen when advertising campaigns collide. In the latest Game With Fame opportunity, gamers are being given the chance to play online via Xbox Live with The Burger King. That\'s right, some lucky gamers will have the chance to play against a celebrity opponent that doesn\'t say anything ever. While I can still see how the idea is amusing, there\'s an irony behind giving people a chance to sit down and chat online with someone that\'s not going to say anything back. When it all boils down to it, you\'ll be talking to an empty void for the length of the game. On the upside, you do get to also play with the New York Jets linebacker Jonathan Vilma, but it\'s easy to see which of the two celebrities that Game With Fame is pushing: You register to play at bkgamer.com.

GF editor Aaron Stanton has been trying to win a PS3 for charity from KISSFM 103.3. we\'re sad to say he didn\'t make it. But there\'s still a chance. One of the other contestants, Hollan, is considering donating the PS3 to Child\'s Play if he wins. So, if you want to help Penny Arcade auction off a PS3 that\'s been signed with personal messages by the developers of Microsoft (details on that in the article) all in the name of raising money for sick children in hospitals, you\'ve got to read this. We need to band together as gamers and make sure that Hollan wins this competition. We need him to win by a landslide. Go here and vote for Hollan. If you want to read more about what\'s going on, read this article here, and then go vote for Hollan. Before 4 o\'clock, December 1st, 2006.

In an odd and yet fortunate turn of events, GamesFirst editor Aaron Stanton has been invited to publicly humiliate himself for the sake of video games. By locking himself in a mall for 5 days he has a chance to win a PS3. If we can end up with a system in hand, we\'re going to go ahead and donate that sucker to Penny Arcade\'s Child\'s Play charity. But before we do that, we\'re going to try to get it signed by the last people on earth you\'d expect: Sony\'s rival Microsoft. We\'re taking it to Microsoft with an open invitation to the Xbox developers to sign the system with whatever personal messages they might have for Sony. It\'s just our little way to make the system a bit more of a collectors item before being auctioned away to raise money for sick children across the United States. But, before we can do even that, we need your help...

The PS3 has released in Japan, and the units were eaten up like candy. With 88,400 units sold, the search for second-hand PS3 units has begun. But reports of people buying the system just to resell it for profit have begun showing up all over the place, and 1up.com recently reported Sony sold almost 2,000 more hardware units than they did software titles. Is this indicative of rampant scalping at the PS3 launch? Aaron sits down to compare some of these numbers to the Xbox 360 launch in 2005 to see if he can draw any comparisons.

The National Summit on Video Games, Youth and Public Policy took place this weekend. Researchers from around the country attended to discuss everything from violent media to the legality of government regulation of game ratings. It was sponsored by one of the game industry\'s most politically powerful critics, the National Institute on Media and the Family, which has consistently given the game industry poor marks when it comes to video games and violence. But did anyone from the game media bother to show up? Nope. Aaron Stanton was the lone game journalist at an event that could have real impact on game legislation, and the lack of attention pissed him off. You should read more about it here.

It\'s been months since we\'ve heard anything from Remedy about Alan Wake, the survival horror exclusive for the Xbox 360 and PC. Now, Remedy has tipped a bit of their hand again, showing some footage of their upcoming title at an Intel press conference. Much of the footage is more of what we\'ve already seen, but also the very first hints of what gameplay will look like. It\'s worth checking out, if anything just to see how they\'ve been playing with their physics since E3 2005.

Can\'t get enough of this sharp new game from Ubi Soft? Assassin\'s Creed is a hot item on many to-buy list, but since we have neither chirp nor howl from Ubi Soft regarding a release date, we\'re going to have to deal with this video instead.

The advent of services like Xbox Live and the Wii Virtual Console have changed the dynamics of the industry. Suddenly there\'s a marketplace for less mainstream genres that have a hard time competing against the likes of Halo and Zelda. One such genre: Adventure Games. According to 1up.com, Nintendo has heard fans asking for adventure game content and contacted TellTale games about the possibility of bringing Sam and Max to the Wii. A sure thing? Far from it, but it\'s nice to know that you can make a difference if you shout loud enough. Good job, guys and gals.

Joystiq recently found themselves in the cross-hairs of the gaming community after they published a misleading headline on their site. The backlash from the gaming community, which accused them of over-hyping content for the sake of increased traffic, has been strong. Joystiq issued a public apology (good) and then fired the responsible poster (bad). In this editorial, Aaron Stanton takes a look at whether their actions were the right thing to do.

It\'s common for companies to sell services that a customer could easily do themselves with a little training; it\'s often more convenient to pay someone to do the job than to take the time to learn. But now, Circuit City is offering to install software on your Xbox 360 that is basically shipped preinstalled from the manufacturer. For a fee of $28.99, Circuit City will install software that lets you play original Xbox titles on your Xbox 360. Their advertising doesn\'t mention that many Xbox games can be played without their \"software\" installation, or that what they\'re really offering to do is to install a free update from Microsoft. The problem isn\'t the service, it\'s the misleading style of the service, and we sincerely hope the practice changes very soon.