We first learned earlier this month that Infinity Ward would be releasing a trailer full of actual Modern Warfare 2 gameplay on May 24th. Well, they have released another teaser trailer again confirming the actual trailer’s existence; it will be aired on TNT during the NBA Eastern Conference Finals which start at 5:30ET. 

In leui of the announcement, they have also launched the game’s official website at www.modernwarfare2.com. So, your best bet is to view the above teaser, squawk at the visuals and tune into TNT this Sunday the 24th at 5:30 because there is no telling when the Modern Warfare 2 trailer will actually debut.

When you take four high school kids and put them in an absolutely preposterous situation—like, say, the rising of the dead to attack the living along with a whole horde of other monstrosities—you know you’re in for one of a few things.  You’re in for action, humor, bloodshed, and quite possibly a video game.  In this case, Monster Madness: Battle For Suburbia on the Xbox 360 (called Monster Madness: Grave Danger on the Playstation 3), will offer up all four.

As far as the plot goes, it’s pretty much what it says on the box.  Monsters of all types and descriptions have descended on a small city for no clear reason, and the only people in any position to do anything about it are four high school kids who were all at the nerdy kid’s house at the time.  There’s a nerd, as I said, but also a goth chick, a cheerleader and a skater punk, assuring you that literally every high school archetype is well in hand.  They’ll be aided and abetted by a fellow named Larry Tools, a guy who travels around in an RV providing souped-up weapons to the kids that he makes from literally random piles of junk so that they can go out and possibly get killed by the legions of monsters roaming town.

On the one hand, this idea is actually fairly awesome.  There are some parts to this game that are just spectacularly fun, including this one really sweet sequence where you drive a swan boat (a fiberglass boat shaped like a swan that you pedal around the water, in case you’re not familiar) that’s been outfitted with dual missile launchers controlled by your Xbox controller triggers.  Left one fires the left tube and right fires the right.  See, I could’ve played a whole game like this and probably would’ve paid the ten bucks to download it from Xbox Live.  I liked timing those missiles’ arc carefully to watch them slam gracefully into pirate ships crewed by the living dead.

On the other hand, that fantastic segment only lasts as long as it takes to kill eight ships.  Then you’re done.  You will NEVER see that swan boat again.  And this made me extremely sad.  Because what I had to do to get to that boat was almost identical to what I would have to do when I got out of that boat, and would have to do for several stages to come.  Specifically, walk around and blast things.  Over and over and over and over again.  Oh, sure, they’d try and recapture that fun with a dune buggy that was almost uncontrollable for the weird camera angles, and a fairly interesting bit with a giant battlemech, but nothing was as fun as that brief swan boat ride.

Oh, sure, there are some great jokes in here, and the storyline isn’t that terrible–if you were any kind of geek back in high school you probably had daydreams that looked a LOT like this.  But there’s no denying that there’s so much wrong with this game that the good doesn’t really shine through.

And when the most fun you have in a game is a tiny little stretch that’s never repeated, well, that doesn’t bode well for the entirety of the game.  Everything about this, except for that one little strip, is mediocre and overdone.  I can’t really recommend it as anything more than a rental, just to see if you enjoy it.  Watch out for those swan boats…they’re a great time.  Everything else is a sad little wreck.

Nintendo’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was easily the best FPS on the Wii, and now the publisher is adding those controls to the previous two games, Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, previously released on the GameCube.

Nintendo has announced that the two previous games, alongside Corruption, will be released as a Trilogy on one disc for $50. This is great news to Wii owners who have only played Corruption and want to know the story that precedes it. And who want to experience arguably two of the best games ever released on the GameCube. It will be available on August 24.

The PS3 version of Tomb Raider Underworld will be getting PS3 trophies on May 28, the equivalent of “achievements” on the Xbox 360. The trophies were originally meant to be released in January, but for unexpected reasons, were delayed and will be released next Thursday. Better late than never, especially for eager PS3 trophy hunters.

Hideo Kojuma has yet again teased with another dark, rainy image, this time with a countdown timer. But once the original timer ran out, according to 1UP, a new one started from 200 hours.

Seriously, Kojima-san, this is getting ridiculous. Get it over with already. Or get some decent PR people.

Bethesda has managed to get some top shelf talent for their last few games; Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean lent their voices to characters in Oblivion and Fallout 3 had Liam Neeson, Malcom McDowell and Ron Perlman. If things had gone differently, we might have had a familiar yet somewhat bizarre voice added to that list.

As happens with most creative industries, Bethesda outsourced the recruiting of voice actors to Blindlight, a firm which specializes in connecting actors, writers and musicians with video game projects. One of the people they sought to gain the sultry tones of was none other than former US President and continual joke-butt Bill Clinton.

As you might expect he was being sought primarily for the voice of President John Henry Eden, though I think hearing the former President’s subtle drawl instead of Malcom McDowell’s voice over the radio would have given it quite the gravitas they were aiming for.

Unfortunately it seems like Mr. Clinton might never have even heard the offer, since the response indicating a lack of interest came directly from his attorneys.

GameStop has released their predictions for sales for the next year and they plan on 33.5 million hardware units being sold stateside. If you’ve been following how sales have gone, things have generally been in a bit of a slump, with demand for the Wii falling off sharply, though the PS3 is performing better than before. Though talk is that the recession may be nearing its end, some consoles seem to be nearing the market saturation point, the Wii in particular.

The gaming retail chain is predicting some price cuts. They’re sure that Sony will be dropping the price of the PS3, since it’s the most costly of the three consoles, and with Wii sales slumping they’re thinking Nintendo might do the same as well. They also point out that the prices for this current cycle of consoles have remained higher longer than ever before, especially surprising given the economic down-turn the whole world has undergone.

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It may not surprise you to find out that there’s a game adaptation of recent release Terminator: Salvation.

Oh, who am I kidding? This isn’t going to surprise anyone. I find myself asking how they can possibly sleep at night after releasing this clear cash grab of a game. Because once again, we’re going to be subjected to more third person shooter…fun…in Terminator: Salvation…the game.

They actually have a name for this kind of thing—it’s called an “interquel”, and it takes place AFTER the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but BEFORE the events of Terminator: Salvation the movie. You’ll be handling John Connor, who launches into a series of missions along with a group of cohorts in an attempt to take down Skynet.

It’s hard to tell how a game such as this could ever be considered fun or satisfying as you already know EXACTLY HOW IT WILL END via the application of SHEER LOGIC. There’s absolutely no way you can defeat Skynet in this game because doing so would render the events of Terminator: Salvation the movie completely worthless. The same goes for any of the characters in the Terminator: Salvation movie that also appear in the game getting killed or otherwise taken out of the fight for any significant length of time because they’ve got to be alive and kicking to be found in the movie. See? Sheer logic just spoilered the hell out of this game.

So I’ve just proven that the plot is a complete hash of stuff you already know will happen, so what’s next? Gameplay, perhaps? In terms of gameplay, this is basically yet another in a long, long series of warmed over third person shooter crap. You’ve played hundreds of games like this—I’VE played hundreds of games like this—before, so if this is the sort of thing you like, if you can’t get enough of advance / shoot / take cover / flank the enemy / shoot / repeat, then you’ll definitely want to get your hands on it.

The graphics and sound are solid enough—I’ve always wanted the Terminator series to focus more on the shattered dystopian future that is Los Angeles of 2016, and Terminator: Salvation will definitely provide shattered landscape and cityscape in superabundance, which is reason enough to be happy. And while playing this game, I was forced to wonder, you know, why can’t we do this with a mall full of zombies? I think even I’d play that game. And for those of you who say Left 4 Dead, I’m sorry, but no. I mean ACTUAL zombies, not that ridiculous post-Romero “infected” spiel. Zombies. Shambling, flesh-eating, stupid zombies. Dead Rising zombies. ROMERO zombies.

But I’m digressing like a lunatic at this point. There IS an upshot here—they really went for authenticity for the voiceacting on this one, getting Common AND Moon Bloodgood to reprise their upcoming roles (although it’s sort of a reverse reprising) in the game. Plus, they’ll get in some pretty solid names like Kelly Hu and Rose McGowan to do some voice work here too—even voice acting mainstay Fred Tatasciore is here. That’s definitely a point in this game’s favor, alongside the incredible action.

It’s just too bad there are so many points AGAINST this game. If they’d mixed things up just a bit, given us some NEW material to work with (how about a play-as-Skynet mode?), then maybe there’d be reason to talk this game up. Sadly, there’s not a whole lot of new here, so it’s just another in a long, long, LONG series of the same old thing.