I picked up April's issue of Playstation magazine and there was an interesting article that coincides with all the GTA news floating around out there. Apparently if you were pissed off about the X-rated easter egg in GTA SA then you can get restitution.

Apple recently filed to extend its trademark to include gaming-related devices, Trademork reports. This is the most recent story in a long line of rumors and speculation, all suggesting that Apple may be entering the games market sometime in the near future.

The revised trademark will associate "Apple" with a number of gaming-related categories, including "hand-held units for playing video games", and "stand alone video game machines". Of interest here is the specificity of these categories; the iPod may be a device which allows game playing, but it is arguably not a device "for" playing games, leading us to believe the trademark extension may reference an entirely new product dedicated to gaming.

On a possibly related note, Apple posted a job listing in September of last year for a "Game Producer/Designer." The position may be related to game development on the iPod series, however, and not to any new product.

Anyone here use Steam?

Aside from the nifty feature in my iron, I hadn't known much about Steam til now. The PC game download service created by Valve is quite the hit regardless of my awareness of its existence, however. They are now 15 million users strong large in part by their astonishing growth during the holiday season spiking Valve's year-to-year sales growth to a whopping 158% (mostly thanks to their Steam service)!

Person of the Year: Ken Levine, 2K Boston’s President & Creative Director

Best Audio Design: BioShock (360) - Runner-up: Everyday Shooter (PS3)

Best Multiplayer Experience: Rock Band (PS3/360) - Runner-up: Halo 3 (360)

Attack of The Show co-host, and the only reason I watch G4TV besides Ninja Warrior, Olivia Munn has an incredibly hot photo spread in this month's issue of Complex. In the shoot she's depicting various comedy movie hotties from Cameron Diaz's "Mary" in There's Something About Mary, to Phoebe Cates' "Linda Barrett" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Check out their interview, and gallery, and then thank me in the comments for posting this ridiculously un-video-game-related story.

EGM had a great, short interview with Mass Effect Project Director Casey Hudson in their January issue.

There's not a whole lot of news to take from it, but rather an insightful look back on one of the hottest games of 2007. He did have this to say:

Yes, it will definitely be much, much bigger and better than KOTOR's [Downloadable Content]. From the beginning, we were able to plan for DLC because we knew even before the 360 came out how important the Xbox Live stuff would be. So it was built into the design of Mass Effect and built to work really well. That's part of the reason why we created this big galaxy -- it's a good place for us to place downloadable content.

That's quite a bit of good news, especially the part about having DLC planned from the start. I'd personally wondered how they'd do this DLC with having to provide additional dialog for the characters. It could be hard getting those voice actors in the studio again, and I would hate to see schedule conflicts hold up some sweet DLC.

Also stated in the interview is that there are two more planned installments of Mass Effect, meaning it will be a trilogy. BioWare intends for all three to hit the 360, before the next version of the Xbox comes out. As an added treat, you'll be able to play as your Commander Shepard through the whole saga. No word on Liara being along for the ride for more intergalactic booty-knockin'.

1Up.com's got a great batch of exclusive screens from the forthcoming Saints Row sequel.

The screens show an impressive amount of detail of all sorts of stuff you'll be able to do in the game. From car surfing and airplane flying to mexican stand-offs with a gang of lesbians, you can see this is shaping up to be a great title. There're also a few screens that showcase the game's custom character engine, which looks to be nearly as impressive as Mass Effect's.

Saints Row 2 is scheduled for release at some point in 2008, for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Universe At War: Earth Assault is coming to the Xbox 360 on March 25th. It's a Real-Time Strategy set in the near-future, where three different alien races have come to Earth.

One race has come to dominate and exterminate all manner of life on our planet, while another has come to protect us and help fight off the invasion, and the third has already been here in hiding for centuries and gets sucked into the conflict.

The game has been available on PCs since December 10th, 2007, and upon the release on the Xbox 360, it will be the first third-party title to allow PC gamers to face off against Xbox Live gamers. Along with that innovation, the 360 version will also incorporate Achievements into gameplay.

Traditionally, Achievements have been nothing more than bragging rights to a game. They are little trophies of score awarded to a player for performing or completing a task. Universe At War: Earth Assault will incorporate these into gameplay by having special abilities accompany some of the achievements. Xbox 360 players will be able to utilize a combination of up to three of these abilities during multiplayer gameplay.

For more details, visit IGN.

The new title from LucasArts is still months away, but that just means more and more news about it. Vanity Fair has a great, three page article on the new game. They've got some exclusive pictures and a video, which is all fine and good, but the real treat is their scoop on the first level of the game.

The article reveals that the first level takes place on Kashyyyk, which everyone knows is the home planet of the Wookies. That's not really exciting unless you're into tall, lanky hairballs, but what is exciting is who you'll be playing as: Vader. That's right, you'll be assuming the role of the Dark Lord, in a laying waste to Wookies and Jedi mission designed to showcase all of the powers and abilities that you'll be able to unlock throughout the game as his apprentice. Ubisoft most recently did something like this with Assassin's Creed, where in the first mission you had all of the main character's weapons and abilities available for use.

Fantastic news for what is starting to look like a fantastic game.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is tenatively scheduled for release during the 2nd quarter of this year, for pretty much every system.

I recently picked up a DualShock 3 controller for my PS3 a few days ago from an import video game site... and I must admit, that my PS3 has been played much more ever since.

I don't know what it was exactly, but there was just something sweet about playing The Club demo, and (finally) having the controller shake while I was racking up multi-kill combos... and having a fun time playing it.

Two thumbs up, in my book...