Will New Vampire Movie Go To The Dogs? This weekend, two quite polarized movie choices demand your ticket purchases, with the "winner" anyone's guess. On the one hand is "Twilight"; one of the most widely ballyhooed vampire movies I've ever seen outside of Halloween week. On the other hand is Disney's Bolt, a movie which is CGI, not by Pixar, yet looks extremely good, presuming you don't mind telling friends "I didn't see the vampire movie I went to the animated dog movie." While some people may think the number 1 box office winner this weekend is "obvious"...don't count your chickens just yet. On the one hand: Bolt does look cute, though after the falsely-advertised marketing tease, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, parents and kids alike might be slightly wary of anything "Disney" until they hear from friends/critics how the movie is, first. Meanwhile, Twilight ius seemingly a movie that would've been best left for Halloween, and yet it is also a publicity machine juggernaut, based on a hit book series, and has seemingly been promoted forever, based on how impossible it was to avoid all the hype. Then again: it is the weekend before Thanksgiving, not Halloween, so will people grab hold of this movie's premise easily: "I love him so it's okay he wants to drink my blood"...? Don't get me wrong; I miss the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, though everyone kept acting like vampires were "passé" so it was cancelled. If this movie actually succeeds...where were you guys when Buffy needed you, huh?

Major Game Releases Continue This Week. The games available to gamers at the end of this year keep coming out, with past weeks including such big names as Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2, with Mirror's Edge released just last week. This week three more highly promoted games were placed on store shelves, including Mortal Kombat Versus DC Universe, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Nintendo Wii also saw the release of Sonic Unleashed, which is multi-platform yet got released early to the Wii for some reason. The good news is that these three games are from such polarized game types ---fighter, action-adventure, and platform game--- it's likely you need to buy just one depending on your favorite genre. In short it's a very bittersweet time to be a diehard gamer, with many games to choose from, though which ones to buy? See Techtite.com's take on the matter when these games get reviewed on the Xbox, PS3, and Wii review pages.

Snapshot of the Week: Tools In Space. This week's Snapshot of the week is something I was a tad bit apprehensive to post online, to be honest, though it is irrefutably one of the top viral videos I was alerted to this week. However; it's also a sign of how hard it is to make even the slightest mistake these days, or else you're Youtube fodder. Take, for example, a small, unexpected calamity while the space shuttle was in orbit this week, when someone lost their tool bag, and due to kinetics and whatnot, it just floated away, never to be seen again. There's not much else to say about this video, aside from the perfectly chosen title by the video's original source, MSNBC: "Oh...great!"

Good News For PC Gamers: Direct X 11 for 7 and Vista. Back when Direct X 10 was offered, it was a seemingly exclusive Windows Vista deal, that was incompatible with Windows XP. Many people wondered, with the impending release of the so-called Windows "7," if Microsoft will make the same mistake. Though reports from sources like Voodoo Extreme insist that, while Direct X 11 is apparently going to be released alongside Windows 7, it will be fully Windows Vista compatible. Says Voodoo Extreme at their web site: "Microsoft's Ben Basaric just told us that Windows 7 will...be delivered with DirectX 11. Furthermore DX11 will also come for Windows Vista although Microsoft wouldn't confirm if this will coincide with the release of Service Pack 2."

Finally; Preview Themes Before You Buy. If you're like me (and many gamers I would imagine) you are a bit apprehensive when buying new "Themes" to decorate your video game system's main screen, or "dashboard." Many of these themes are not free and while they cost "only" a small amount of money, they do not offer any sneak peeks at what you're buying aside from the title of the theme. Well, the folks at the web site NeoGAF have heard gamers' pleas and are offering sneak peeks at all the themes available for sale...specifically, those pricier, "premium themes" offered for the new Xbox 360 dashboard. Check out the link above to get enough photos of each theme, to give you an idea if it's "you" or not. One thing I like is how the premium themes change the "wallpaper" not just in back, though for each "page" shown on screen. The premium theme for Forza Motorsport 2, for example, places characters and whatnot in front of various cars and gas stations and whatnot from the game. Check it out...I may buy that one, myself!

Prince of Persia Goes Gold. Word is that the newest installment of the Prince of Persia game series has gone gold and will be available in stores December 2nd for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. The game is a slightly different take on the earlier "Sands of Time" trilogy, with, apparently, no "time" shifting powers this time around. However, the prince does have a seemingly powerful ally at his side; a super heroine of sorts who can perform various magical spells and aid the prince on his quest. Pre-ordering the game, via links like the one added to the cover art at left, offer an intriguing added bonus: an automatic upgrade for the "limited edition," which includes special packaging, a behind the scenes featurette, a digital mini-strategy guide, a digital art book, and the original soundtrack, among various added bonuses. Yet one thing keeps nagging at me: no way-cool "time rewind" powers this time? Seriously, guys?

Final News Byte This Week: NYC's new giant LED Billboard. If you're unable to get to New York City anytime soon, sources like Gizmondo offer internet surfers a peek at the newest addition: a gigantic, eco-friendly LED screen on Times Square, which is so large it "wraps" around the building. While the new screen is said to be environmentally friendly, it doesn't come cheaply powered. Word is that the screen requires 30 computers, for a total of 150GB of data, just to offer 30 different seconds of video. Shots of the cool new screen are available via the link above.

News we missed...?

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