Pre-orders of the Xbox 360, PS3 and PS3 Limited Edition currently each hold a top five position in the appropriate format chart, making the game the biggest pre-order title so far this year and already one of the most successful games of the year.

Amazon’s Chris Poad said that ‘Demand has risen significantly over the last week as excitement and buzz around the game has built, making it one of the most successful titles we have seen on Amazon.co.uk this year before it has even been released’.

This could be attributed to early reviews calling it a potential game of the year candidate and the vast amount of people wanting to indulge their inner cowboy in a GTA-style sandbox.

With the popularity of Second Life’s Western destination, it’s perhaps surprising that the Wild West isn’t an area that gets mined more in console gaming, but considering the popularity that ‘Redemption’ is sure to enjoy, I’ll be very surprised if there aren’t more virtual John Waynes doing the rounds in the near future.

The recession has been cited as the main reason for There.com closing but Therians don’t care about the shortcomings of Makena, the owners and creators of There.com; they just want to continue living their virtual lives, meeting likeminded peeps and hanging out with friends, and Teen Second Life offers all this and the ability to fly!

Construct your own amusement park, design and build your own ride, take part in one of the many educational programs on offer (beats reading a book huh!) or simply explore with your customized avatar.

Live the dream online; create anything, share with friends, meet new people, explore a whole new world!

Although Teen Second Life is significantly smaller than Second Life, it offers a fantastic entry-level to Second Life as when teen users turn 18 they are rewarded by graduating to Second Life – they reach virtual Adulthood!

March 9th is a sad day for Therians but it need not be: look upon it as a new beginning, a new life. A Second Life!

Within the VAIO signature collection there are three models that have been especially designed for gamers; these models are the Sony VAIO VGN-FW590FFD, the Sony VAIO VGN-CW1FFX and the new Sony VAIO Nebula.

The Nebula has already gained some press attention due to its stylistic design and aesthetic appeal but it is the contents of these VAIO notebooks that are now impressing journalists. The VGN-CW1FFX in particular has a host of technology that makes it an appealing object for gamers, the nVidia GeForce 230M graphics card combined with an impressive 4GB of memory and a massive 320GB hard drive ensures that gamers will be able to play to their heart’s content whilst on the move.

For those intent on playing at home however an inbuilt HDMI output means utilising the widescreen for a spot of high definition gaming is a very real and attainable possibility.

Pricing and a confirmed release date are still a mystery but as the autumn winter signature collection is steadily reported on, hardcore gamers will be waiting with baited breath for these sleek, stylish and ultimately powerful VAIO notebooks.

The problem is that with the exception of the tolerable Silent Hill, there has never been a good one; we get our hopes up only to see them dashed every time, usually by Uwe Boll.

However Bioshock isn’t just another first person shooter – there’s a great story behind it with a couple of excellent twists and some amazing set pieces, not to mention that the city of Rapture is one of the best settings in recent memory, perhaps one of the best in gaming history, so if done right this could be a great film.

My hopes were put on ice back in June when the attached director Gore Verbinksi of Pirates of the Caribbean fame walked from the project saying that Universal didn’t want to give him enough money to do it properly (and in the US to accommodate his schedule), meaning that another potentially solid adaptation looked to have gone the way of Halo.

But now according to Variety magazine Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is in talks to direct the adaptation. With a pedigree including 28 Weeks Later, Fresnadillo has a deserved reputation for turning around films with high concepts and lots of effects (not to mention lots of zombies – the Splicers should be in good hands) on smaller budgets and with Universal wanting to shoot abroad to save money, I might just be getting my hopes up a little.

A Bioshock film simply can’t have ropey effects – a film like this will require high quality CGI, sets and probably some decent animatronics too (who wants to see a CG Big Daddy?) and maybe the choice of this director and the overseas location is a way for them to achieve this on a credit-crunch budget.

That said, it could just end up being another in the long line of adaptations churned out on the cheap by people who have no idea what they’re working with and I’ll never be able to play the game again without some unpleasant memories coming back.

Based on Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s 1997 comic series, it’s been looking like Batman might finally get a decent video game to go with his solid film adaptations. Indeed, many fans of graphic novels have been pinning their hopes on this game so that we might finally see some other good comic to game adaptations, rather than the other way around.

Unfortunately, there are rumblings that the early positive reviews may be tainted. Gaming industry journalist and anonymous blogger RAM Raider has a history of ranting about the corruption he sees in the industry and these last couple of weeks have been no exception, especially his ‘Spot the Corruption’ posts.

RAM Raider claimed a few weeks back that several UK gaming magazines already had review code of the game, but were to sit on their reviews until the pre-release embargo passed (basically, no reviews are permitted before the game is released unless the publisher gives permission). RAM Raider said that Eidos would permit certain magazines to lift their embargo if they guaranteed a Batman cover and gave the game a score above 90%.

As with many stories floating around the Blogosphere, this could have been ignored, derided or parodied, but the recent updates have been showing Dark-Knight-adorned covers of several UK gaming magazines and all feature reviews giving the game well above 90% – 96% in GamesMaster’s case, going as far as to call it a ‘masterpiece.’

While I’m not in a position to really say one way or the other, as I haven’t played the full game and am not working in the industry, I will say that I was disappointed by the demo. It looks great, and I really wanted to like it, but it just doesn’t feel like a ‘masterpiece’ to me. Then again, I’ve been wrong about demos before – I loved the UFC demo, for example, but got bored of the game very quickly.

Unfortunately, Eidos have a perceived history of this: it’s widely believed that a similar ‘arrangement’ occurred for a score of 80% or over with the last ‘Tomb Raider’ game.

At the time of writing, Eidos have been quoting denying that this ‘arrangement’ with magazines has occurred, but for me the seed of doubt is planted. Combining this story with the demo is enough to get me asking questions, but I’ll hold judgement until I’ve played the whole game.