Halo 3: Recon - the standalone expansion pack for Halo 3 coming to the Xbox 360 next year - is no longer called Halo 3: Recon. It's now called Halo 3: ODST, a reference to the type of marine soldier you play (an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper).

The name change is so the team can directly reflect what your experience with Halo 3: ODST will be - perhaps they had focus groups who were scared they'd be restricted to reconnaissance the entire game when all they wanted to do was pew pew.

To celebrate the name change they released a name change trailer where you can see the same stuff you've already seen but with a brand new name!

All joking aside, how do you think this standalone expansion will go? Are you still playing Halo 3 online or have you moved on to bigger and better things?

The ambitious plan to recreate Half-Life on the Source engine has picked up steam recently - with a range of new screenshots and a brand new trailer being released.

The new trailer for Black Mesa shows off scenes from the iconic beginning to Half-Life as well as quite a few other memorable scenes from the game.

You can watch the Black Mesa Debut Trailer in our videos library now to scope it out for yourself, or head over to the official site for more details on how the project is coming along.

What do you think of the project? Did you miss out on the original Half Life - would this version make it more playable for you? And do you think there are any other games that could do with a 1:1 conversion to a brand new engine?

Jodie hit the streets - or pavilion floor it seems - this week to see what people think of three music rhythm band games - Wii Music, Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band.

Not a huge surprise in the answers at this point really. On a different note people, we need a new name for the genre of music rhythm games which involve bands. Suggest away!

Creative Assembly - the guys behind the Total War series - are working on an RTS for consoles at the moment and they've got a new Dev Diary out.

As the team behind Stormrise is based in Brisbane, their Dev Diary for the game has a very familiar tone to it. It's a decent watch as well - hopefully they really flesh out the armies in the game to give them truly different playing styles.

Watch the Stormrise dev diary now to see more info on the unique vision CA has planned for the game.

Our man Andy snapped up interviews with some of the winners at the GDAA Awards last weekend - there weren't many as Melbourne based developers Blue Tongue Entertainment snapped up the lion's share for their title De Blob.

Dung - the game created by other Melbournites Firemint for the Project Joystick competition - also won an award at the show.

Andy wraps up with not just his opinion on the planned net filter - he and Jodie asked some others for their opinions at Melbourne's (Melbourne again!) eGames event.

Rockstar Games sent us through a nice little tutorial video for their Grand Theft Auto IV video maker feature, a how-to on what you need to do to make your own cinematic masterpiece.

It was supposed to be a helpful tool in our quest to win the Journalist competition Rockstar are running with for the launch of GTA IV PC - something to stave off a thousand entries that look like absolute crap. It's not quite that helpful, but it is yet another cool video in a long line of sweet videos made by Rockstar using the video maker.

You can watch the new video in our videos library, and the other eight videos are listed below it. My favourites are "Super Niko" and "Burgatory"!

Meanwhile, the video competition goes live next week via the new look Rockstar Social Club - Rockstar Games will donate $10,000 to the charity of the winners choice. We've got a decent video lined up - which charity should we donate the money to if we win?

It seems the reason behind F.E.A.R. 2's refused classification comes down to the violent nature of the game.

The copious amounts of blood, dismemberment of your opponents and the scenes of after-action violence heavily contribute to the game being refused classification it appears.

Also a contributing factor was the game's "enhanced graphics and realistic behaviour" which increased the impact of the violence to a level higher than the MA15+ rating could sustain.

We're forced to wonder - again - what it is that EA did to get Dead Space awarded the MA15+ rating, considering the game features copious amounts of blood, dismemberment of your opponents and scenes of after-action violence.


Good, clean wholesome fun

The annoyingly named F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin will not be released in its current state in Australia thanks to it being refused classification by the Classification Board today. The details of the refused classification are not yet available, but we hope to find out more details as soon as possible.

The first F.E.A.R. game combined some pretty decent horror elements, time manipulation effects and some pretty decent (if a little repetitive) gameplay to become something of a cult classic. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin will come out on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 February next year for the rest of the world - stay tuned for what Australia can expect.

Quantum of Solace is out now - both at the movies and at your favourite video game retailers - so if you're looking at grabbing the game make sure you check out our review first.

Quantum of Solace's development must have felt like one of those inspirational sports movies - like Rocky or Champions - where the odds are stacked against them from the very beginning. First off, QoS is a movie to video game crossover directly tied in to the launch of the movie it's pimping. Next up there's the whole "Goldeneye" factor, where any game featuring James Bond will always be compared to one of the most famously championed video games ever. Then there's the fact that the game is made by Treyarch - a competent development team commonly known in gaming circles as "Not Infinity Ward".

The rest of the review details the ups and downs the game has, so make sure you scope it out. Have you seen the movie yet? What did you think? And if you've played the game, do you have a favourite part?

The Rogue web browser lets you surf the net without all the hassle of alt-tabbing or opening two windows at once while you're playing a video game, and it's out now.

Well, it's in beta form at least. The browser lets troll forums in between rounds of Counter-Strike or Civilization IV or whatever you kids are playing these days - more importantly it works in World of Warcraft - which means you can have Thottbot or James Levelling Guide at hand at all times.

The browser is free and available from GotGame's website now - GameArena videos appear to work flawlessly in game so you can watch Benny & Richie or Andy Wells do their thing while waiting for the next round of awp_map or something.

Part of me thinks this is a fantastic idea - the part of me which is tired of trying to work out how to do quests in WoW - while another part of me wonders why people don't just decide... Are they playing a game or are they surfing the net? What do you think - should people be getting web browsers in their games to alleviate boredom while they're playing, or is boredom while you're playing a game the sign of a fundamental design flaw? I think we just found our latest poll. Head to the front page and vote now!