For over 25 years, Matt Hazard has been a staple of fake gaming culture, beginning with 1983's The Adventures of Matt in Hazard Land up until the final blow to the dying franchise with the 2002 stinker Choking Hazard: Candy Gram. After the poor reception of his last few titles, I was certain Matt Hazard was gone forever, but D3 Publisher has just given me new hope with the announcement of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, due out at the beginning of next year for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"Eat Lead parodies some of our fondest memories in classic gaming and pop culture, so gamers will have a laugh out loud experience everytime they pick-up the controller," said Pete Andrew, vice president, product development, North America, D3P. "With an original storyline, Eat Lead perfectly blends action and humor with rock solid gameplay for an experience like no other."

The game features Matt Hazard finally making his big comeback, only to discover that the new game might just be a plot to kill him once and for all. Judging by the hilarious and rather elaborate viral marketing that's cropped up for the title, we could be in for something special. Welcome back for the first time, Matt Hazard!

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Traveller's Tales, it seems, have discovered a licence to print money. Find a popular franchise, turn even the most insane, homicidal characters within the story into teensy digital mini-figs and let them get to popping each other apart. But with LEGO Batman the developer took it a step further. Instead of riding on the popularity of an existing franchise and epic plots, they created their own story, a story that is doled out from a multitude of perspectives, first Batman and Robin and then the variety of villains.

Does Traveller's Tales have what it takes to mine Batman for both mini-fig fun and a decent story? Do they even need to, or does the mechanic alone keep the LEGO franchise afloat? Hit the jump to read up on the game's good, bad and ugly.

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Dammit! Several readers have dropped us a line to let us know that the release date for Codemasters' action RPG Rise of the Argonauts, according to retailer GameStop at least, has slipped to 1/1/2009, which in release date speak means sometime after the beginning of the new year. I just called my local GameStop where I had a reserve down and they confirmed that they are now showing the new date in their system. I've dropped a line to Codemasters, but GameStop isn't generally in the habit of pushing back a title's release date arbitrarily - pre-order now and have it in a month sounds a lot better than pre-order it now for sometime next year.

I know this fall is littered with amazing, blockbuster releases we've been waiting years to play, but this was the one I was really looking forward to playing. If I were a panda right now, I would not be a very happy one.

Rise of the Argonauts Pre-Order Page [GameStop - Thanks James]

Living in Georgia, getting some hands-on time with a game still at a relatively early point in development generally means packing my bags, finding someone to watch the cats, assigning a backup person to check on that person, and plenty of time eating bad airport food. Not so for Global Agenda, a fast-paced action MMO being developed by the Atlanta-based Hi-Rez Studios. All that took was a quick shower, an application of some mostly clean clothing, and a fifteen-minute drive north. That kind of convenience is addictive. We need more developers in Georgia if only to keep me from running down the street every afternoon to stare into Hi-Rez's windows to see what they're doing - most likely testing out the gameplay in Global Agenda, which is exactly what they were doing when I showed up at their offices last week. See? Convenient.

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Hercules is so huge! Look at him! That guy could eat Schwarzenegger for lunch and still have room for Kevin Sorbo, but to be fair there's really always room for Kevin Sorbo. Codemaster's Rise of the Argonauts has quickly risen in my opinion over the last few months, ever since I got to see the game in action during E3. What I initially thought to be a cheap attempt to capitalise on the popularity of God of War is shaping up to be one of my most eagerly anticipated titles of the year. If the gameplay is up to par with the art direction seen in these new screenshots, I will not be disappointed.

Rise of the Argonauts Gallery

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Obsidian Entertainment says it's found the right mix of action and RPG, balancing subtlety with "over-the-top" visual style, and weighing realism carefully against the "abstraction" of fantasy elements.

Alpha Protocol, though billed as an "action-RPG", sounds a bit weighted more toward the former than the latter, aiming for a happy medium that hopes to make RPG elements accessible to twitch fans, while still adding the depth to please RPG purists. Not only that, but the team's touted a heavy emphasis on character interaction and player choice.

It sounds like a a tall order to fil, but when the developers' pedigree includes projects like KOTOR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2

The Obsidian team held a conference call today to answer tons of questions about the game. Is it challenging to do a modern, realistic RPG (especially with Star Wars and NWN in your rearview)? How do the action elements balance with the RPG elements, and just how much influence will the players have? What kind of man is hero Michael Thorton?

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I'm sure by now most of you are familiar with the genius cell phone PR stunt that Sierra threw together for the upcoming Bourne Conspiracy game. While it was cool, the real question is, how was the game? I met with some of the developers from High Moon Studios to check out the game being played and get some explanation of was all about.

The Bourne Conspiracy is somewhat an amalgamation of the three Bourne films although the books are used as reference pretty heavily. You'll find no Matt Damon character models here! They really wanted to make this as entrenched in the Bourne lore as possible and as such there is very little gunplay involved. You must rely on your McGuyver like wits to help you make your way through the game, using the things you can find around you and your trusty fists to their greatest use. Remember that pen stabbing scene?

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I am really liking what I am seeing coming out of Russian publisher Buka. First they reveal the human hunting game The Hunt, the very concept of which gives me chills, and now they unleash The Swarm, a 3rd person action adventure title that places you as a survivor of an alien invasion in post-apocalyptic Moscow. Start off as a normal human who slowly assimilates alien abilities and characteristics, becoming something entirely different and infinitely more dangerous. The game promises huge aliens and an eerily accurate modelling of Moscow in demolished form. With two intriguing game concepts announced in the span of a week, Buka looks to be coming out in a big way. They've definitely got my attention.

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