If you live in a cave and haven't bothered to leave it's sanctity in a while, then you don't know Halo 3: ODST comes with it's own Horde-esque game type known as Firefight. Where players will fight wave after wave of randomly generated enemies with 3 other people. It's just too bad that it lacks a certain matchmaking feature.

Yes, that means you can't pop the game into your console and find others to play Firefight with when you're friends aren't online. Bungie has clearly stated that Firefight is an experience that is to be shared with friends so you can only invite your friends or join their games. Ok, that's not a great thing really, but one thing I noticed among the community though, is that it seems to have been split into two sides over this. The people who support Bungie's decision to nerf Firefight, who are also known as the diehard fan boys, and those who feel it makes it less worthy of a purchase.

While I can see why some people think this is a good thing, I can only see it in a gray light. Sure, friends are a tad more trustworthy when it comes to these sort of things, what do we do when they're not on to play though? We are allowed to play Firefight by ourselves, but where's the fun in that? If I want to play the game by my lonesome, I'll load up the campaign. Firefight is an experience to be shared with friends. Ok, that's cool and all but why can't we share it with other people? It might stop me from getting into games with children who curse like it's going out of **** but not every Xbox live member is a pre-pubescent sailor.

Which brings me to my next point. Matchmaking is a necessity for these kind of games. Even if it's the only form of multiplayer a game has to offer and might have made Bungie put a few more months of work into the game(supposedly 6 months), but doesn't that just help justify the games $60 price tag? I'm fully aware that there is more than one reason for my one example to have matchmaking, but just try to imagine what Left 4 Dead would be like if there wasn't any matchmaking and it only had it's campaign mode. Sure, your allies may be smart when your friends aren't around to control them, but how many people would choose to just play it's campaign without their friends around? Probably not a whole lot.

If you have the option to play with other people online, don't limit it to our friends. They're not guaranteed to be on when we are on and in the mood to play Firefight. Firefight can be a wonderful way to meet more people and make more friends, which will in turn, make the chances of having more trusted people to play with greater. Not everyone wants to play with their friends all the time or by themselves and would rather get out there and meet other people. Different strokes, for different folks.

There's always the chance of landing in a game where one guy wants to team kill everyone, or talk **** about everyone's performance when he himself does just as bad, but that won't stop our friends from doing the same. Not only that, but as I said before, it'll help justify the games $60 price tag Microsoft slapped onto it and gives a greater feeling of completion instead of some half assed job on the developers side. One good way to meet other people may be to load up the second disc included with ODST that contains Halo 3's multiplayer in it's entirety, but we shouldn't need to do that. We also shouldn't have to whore ourselves out and friend request every Tom, Rick and Harry we meet on the internet who's looking for some Firefight fun.

The exclusion of matchmaking from Firefight certainly has it's up' and down's, and that won't stop me from buying the game. Buying the game won't stop me from wanting more included in it though. So I ask again, why can't we have both?

The Wii was the first console to give its users the ability to create a digital representation of themselves. It also let us use our custom avatars in a plethora of games. Microsoft and Sony quickly hopped on that bandwagon and rode that wave all the way into shore with the 360's Avatar support and the PS3's Home.

Now, my whole reason for writing this lies in the Xbox 360's recent update. Now players can buy clothing, accessories and props for their avatars. Now, you'd figure that one dollar for a t-shirt is a reasonable price, which it is. I mean, it's a dollar. I don't mind letting go of a dollar. However, is there any reason why they're charging 400 MicroSoft points for a lightsaber? 320 for an RC warthog?

Straying from the topic at hand allow me to say, yes, I bought the lightsaber. I'm a fan girl who's been playing both KotOR games and Republic Commando recently, leave me alone. I also happen to be a Splinter Cell fan girl who squealed at the fact that I could dress my avatar up like Sam Fisher and I ended up buying both the Elite uniform and Sam Fisher outfit. I even got the Big Daddy doll to top it all off.

But outside of being aesthetically appealing to fan boys and girls around the world, what use do these have? Why did I just spend $15.00 on a few pieces of digital fangirlism? Where the hell are my steam punk goggles!? Aside from giving us more reasons to throw our money away, I can't really see any reason why anybody would feel the need to purchase these things. Our fanboyism if going to drive us to be suckered into this scheme and let's be honest, there's nothing we can really do about it. At least we'll eventually be able to unlock items as rewards when we play games. Is there an award for spending too much money in the Avatar Marketplace?

I'm also disappointed in the lack of unique items. I know I'm kind of complaining about them, but bare with me. If they're going to add them, they should add something for each game. There's no Spartan armor in the Halo 3 section, but there's marine armor in the ODST section which doesn't make sense. It's Halo 3: ODST, so wouldn't it be better provide us with the various suits of armor that the characters they've introduced us to wear? If that's too much of an issue, then I'd be fine with armor that looks like Rookies. Bioshock gives us helmets that look out of place and a doll, but can I please have a Big Sister outfit? I want a giant cage for carrying Adam digesting children in on my avatars back. At least Star Wars, Gears of War, and Splinter Cell categories deliver unique items for players to sample and purchase if they so choose.

At least my avatar looks cute compared to my lifeless Home avatar. This actually gives me more of an incentive to give MS my money instead of Sony. I actually feel like I've been raped out of the small amount of money I put into my Home Avatar and I haven't really put any money into Home at all. Oh and Microsoft..... Mass Effect 2 is coming out early next year(hopefully), avatar items. Make it happen.

Aside from the anal probing, is exploring the final frontier with Mothership Zeta worth your money? Don't worry, I took the time to venture out into the capital wastes of Fallout 3 once again to get abducted by aliens and give you the low down on Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta.

Mothership Zeta starts off when the Wanderer receives an ominous signal and is then beamed up into a spaceship upon locating the source of said signal. The Wanderer wakes up on an operating table surrounded by a few of the aliens that sound a lot like the Martians from "Mars Attacks!" Then, everything goes all white and you find yourself in a cell where you're soon introduced to one of the new weapons...

The Shock Baton! It's a baton... That shocks people. You'll use it for about a minute until you come across your things. Then there's the Alien Atomizer, which is your basic extra-terrestrial pistol. It has better accuracy than the Alien Disintegrator but doesn't do much damage. The rate of fire is where the Disintegrator fails. It does a great amount of damage, but takes forever to actually kill it's creators. If you take your human brethren along for the ride through various areas, you may have access to the cryo grenades and mines. They don't do any damage but they freeze you're target allowing for a quick and easy kill. Finally, there's the Drone Cannon, the alien variant of a grenade launcher that does absolutely no damage to your intended target. It's not that it doesn't do any damage it's just that explosives in Fallout 3 don't do any splash damage and enemies are constantly listing lazily to the left, easily avoiding damage. There's also some new armor, such as the Winterized Medic armor and the Samurai armor. Both which are really only there for eye candy. The only notable items are the Adapted Biogel and the Alien Epoxy. The Biogel heals a large amount of your HP, while the Epoxy will only repair your weapons.

I think it's best to say that Mothership Zeta is easily the best DLC released..... Ok, I can't actually say that with a straight face. Truth is, Mothership Zeta is not the high note Bethesda was looking for with Fallout 3's final expansion. You're pretty much paying for an hour or two of wandering through a maze that's filled with aliens and tells you where to go. There's a lack of things to do and there aren't any new perks added to the mix. You'll shoot plenty of aliens and their robot companions and you may even find all of the aliens recordings, which offer some insight into what the aliens were doing when they were abducting people and who the people were, earning you an achievement along the way. You can also count on Mothership Zeta to end with quite a blast but alas, you might want to spend your money on something better like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, or buy the other 4 expansions that have been released.

Swamps, drugged up savages, dangerous mutated inbreeds and that ever so familiar apocalyptic wasteland. I take a ride on the Duchess Gambit, down to Maryland and try to survive the horrors of Fallout 3's newest expansion, Point Lookout.

Point Lookout is based on Point Lookout State Park in, you guessed it, Maryland. With promises of treasures and loot untold, the Lone Wanderer heads towards the Duchess Gambit and finds him/herself in the apocalyptic swamps of Point Lookout. Soon however, players will find out that this is just another war being raged between two factions. It lacks the horror elements that Bethesda promised us when they announced the expansion even though the haunting setting is perfect for it. However, Point Lookout is a little more darker, mystical and packed with more explosive quests than the other expansions. The rewards you get are pretty weak compared to the previously released content sadly.

The new enemies aren't really anything "new". The mutated inbreeds known as Swampfolk are the equivalent of super mutants with the speed of a feral ghoul. They are less focused on using firearms. Meaning you won't see a Tracker(largest of the Swampfolk) with a mini-gun, but an axe and their speed makes them quite dangerous. The tribal's that you'll meet soon after arriving in Point Lookout are like the raiders in DC. There's also the swamp versions of feral ghouls and Mirelurks. You'll come across a few new weapons like the lever-action rifle, double barrel shotgun and the unique bio-gas canister, which explodes into a cloud of vapor that then ignites into a ball of flame when an enemy fires a gun while inside it. There are some useful new perks as well. One increases the Wanderer's strength and damage reduction when standing still. Another increases the effects of Punga fruits, a new consumable item. The last one raises your damage against Ghouls by 5 points.

Point Lookout is a great purchase for anyone itching to get back into the wasteland. It's a fun, new experience with hardly any bugs. The only bug I ran into was easily fixed by loading a previous save. If you're strapped for cash and don't know what expansion to get though, wait for Mothership Zeta or download Broken Steel(if you haven't already) first for the raise in level cap.

Empire City, it's not as great as the pamphlets suggest. Gang-related crime is out of control, there's an odd problem with electricity and don't even get me started on the gas prices! $8.67 a gallon? No thanks, I'll walk. Oh wait, the sidewalk is filled with sick people taking a nap. Anywho, just click the jump to read our inFamous demo impression.

When you first start the inFamous demo up, you'll be greeted with a peaceful scene. Nothing can go wrong, if only for a few seconds. Then, a nice portion of the city is engulfed in a large electrical explosion and the hero of our tale makes his entrance. Cole MacGrath gives a brief explanation about Empire Cities current spiral into darkness. Basically, the American government attempted to contain the situation by closing down all access to the city. This kept the plague and mutants locked inside... As well as the citizens. Cole, upon discovering his new abilities, is their only hope.

The first time I played the demo, I focused on the four missions with minimal exploration. This was mainly attributed to the fact that I died and the game loaded up the next mission it wanted me to do. Anyhow, the demo starts you off in the beginning of a mission. Cole is tasked with delivering a train filled with prisoners to a train station. As you proceed along the tracks, Reapers attempt to stop you by shutting down power to the train. You'll have to get off the train, power up the tracks, kill Reapers and stand on top of the first cart in order to make it move(Cole's body acts as an electrical rail). The other three missions have you defending a crate of medical supplies, stopping a large truck, and destroying a keg that's pumping poison into a water supply. When you complete missions, you'll clean up certain areas and free them from Reaper control. The missions introduce you to the Reapers, a gang of mutants with all sorts of abilities and firepower, and the karma system. You'll see the dramatic shift in power as Cole goes from being a hero to infamous. When you're a hero, Empire City looks as though it is flourishing and the citizens are a little more friendly towards you. Some even take pictures of you. As Cole moves towards infamy, the city falls into decay, people collapse in the streets and they fear Cole. Cole himself receives a change in appearance as well as his powers.

On my second play through of the demo, I took the time to explore, play with the parkour, kick Reaper ass and collect Blast Shards. You have about ten minutes to play around in Empire City before the demo loads up a mission, so I made the best of it. My favorite aspect of the exploration is the parkour. It's not as smooth as Assassin's Creed and Cole occasionally glitches through items. Sometimes he doesn't even make an attempt to grab onto objects while other times, he grabs onto things you don't want him to. Despite this, it's still fun to scale a tall building and leap to the next. Cole can grab just about anything if he can reach it, create ways to cross large gaps, zoom around the city on top of trains, or zip across electrical wires. Blast shards are necessary for increasing your "battery power" or the amount of power Cole can actually use. If you need a quick recharge, you can suck the power out of a nearby electrical source or leech it from a wounded target(killing said target in the process and netting an infamous point). Those of you who want to play the hero, will need to use the "Arc Restraint" to capture Reapers and heal wounded citizens.

In the demo, we get thrown into the neon district, so there's plenty of electrical sources to allow us to experience all sorts of abilities. Cole's shock wave can be used to clear obstacles and send enemies soaring through the air. If he so chooses, Cole can combine the shock wave with his lightning bolts to kill enemies while they float through the air. If you find yourself falling into a nest of Reapers, you can use Cole's ability where electricity explodes from his body upon hitting the ground, damaging everything within a certain range. You can glide into enemy territory and deliver death from above. The higher the drop, the larger the range. After completing three missions, players will get to play around with the lightning storm ability. Basically it summons a few bolts of lighting from the sky to damage devastate everything in it's reach. If you're like me and like to get up close and personal, you can always deliver an electrified punch to the jaw and kick to face.

Needless to say, I am very impressed with the demo. The parkour could use a little more attention, but aside from that, I don't have any complaints. You can expect inFamous to hit(shock?) shelves this 26th. Now if you don't mind, I need to go take care of those Reapers down the street. Damn kids and their rap music.