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With the Christmas period over and done with the games that were bought will either be well over used and worn down to something resembling a DVD used to cut food on or they will be retuned for being the most pointless game ever.

I always wonder how many games will be returned to shops as a result of them being unwanted by the masses.

I reckon that the figure will probably hit the massive figure of 1 million or so just for UK alone. I would hate to guess how many games were returned over the world.

Well I am back again for another stint behind the wheel of Shadow Shield to give you top quality news and reviews about the world of gaming. I am going to try and concentrate on current news that is hot off the press.

I mean hot of the press stuff like the news Sonic the Hedhog is getting killed off for good as he reportedly the cause of 60% of gold crime in America.

Or

That 35% of plumbers in New York were found out to have learnt there trade by playing Nintendo’s Mario Brothers for 40 hours before becoming fully fledged Plumbers by the State of New York.

I know that this does not really relate to games but this is a social media games blog and the talk about how Catholics and Protestant in Ireland are using Social Media networks to organise altercations.

I think that something like this has been coming for long time and I think that social media organisations such as facebook should take more responsibly in their website and try and prevent this sooner.

Games do, yes I heard it on bbc 2 by a group that had a chain that is sort of golden looking.

There has been another study yes another one that is basically contradicting the last one. Yes the last one basically said that games where good for people and allowed people’s minds to grow but now they have changed their minds and they think games are a bad thing.

No wonder kids in America find the urge to take out a school, 40 school kids and 2 teachers.

They say if we don’t get out more will be too fat and too un-motivated to lead healthy lives.

There have been reports of a man who has been able to chip the PS3 so that you can play downloaded games or fake blu ray disc on the PS3. This guy has been working long and hard at trying to get this completed and has finally done this. He has stated that he will be announcing how to do this to world this week at some point.

This guy originally was the first person to be able to unlock the Iphone so he is very good. He has stated that he will next try to hack into scrabble so that there are more z’s on the board game.

The iphone has really taken off this year, but even more than the iPhone itself, the App store, which launched just over a year ago has seen massive success; But with over 50,000 apps to choose from which ones are the best. To give you some help I have listed the top 10 here. These Apps are definitely worth putting on your phone.

• Slacker Radio – With this application all you need to do is fill in an account with the name of an artist or song, along with a genre of music you like and the app will build a playlist for you.
• Hey Where Are You – This app allows you to share your current location will chosen friends and family.
• Textfree Unlimited – This app does what it says on the tin, and offers free text messaging.
• TweetDeck – This works the same as its desktop counterpart, by allowing multiple columns as well as separating user groups.
• Flight Tracker – This allows you to get real time information about arrival and departure times, which is especially useful at this time of year, if you are going to be picking up family and friends from the airport.

This year has seen a massive rise in social media. Everyone from celebrities to Joe Bloggs have been using it to tell the world what they are up to and to spread the news, so it seems right that the big news story at the end of the year has to do with social media.

For the past 4 years the Christmas number one has always been the single released by that years X Factor winner, but after a massive Facebook campaign Rage Against the Machine have beaten this years’ winner (Joe McElderry) to the top spot.

This is a massive achievement considering how many people watch X factor and the fact that the Rage Against the Machine single was only available online and not in the shops. This only goes to show how powerful social media is and we will no doubt see it used even more over the coming year.

Computer games are always a popular choice as presents for Christmas, and with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii and DS, these games are great for the whole family whereas previously the market was geared more towards males.
So what are the most popular games for girls this Christmas?

• Wii Sports is popular as it is an interactive game which exercises the whole body rather than just your thumbs.
• High School Musical, making the cut – This game allows user to feel part of the movie, by writing songs and becoming part of the show.
• Lastly puzzle games are always a popular choice so why not try out brain training.

The new Aliens vs Predator game released recently was banned a few days ago due to it exceeding the maximum MA15+ rating. Now it has been refused classification, it basically means the game cannot be made commercially available in the country.

“Initial submission of Aliens vs Predator has been refused classification by the Classification Operations Board of Australia”

Sega are currently investigating the possibility of appealing the decision. We are also likely to see a slightly less-violent version of the game for Australians. I can’t imagine how disheartening it must be for a Game developer to put in all that work and then have it refused at the last minute due to something like this.

One of the biggest games next year (2010!) is due to be the next installment of the Halo series.

The game is set as a prequel, setting up the stage for Halo 1-3 and ODST. It will be a pretty interesting addition to the story provided that they actually put some effort into making the game and not just churning out another one in the series…

On the 5th November, there were some rather fuzzy looking screenshots that were leaked, which pretty much proves that the game is almost completed.

Either way, there will be millions of XBox owners who are eagerly awaiting the next installment.