While you're patiently waiting for the end of the week so you can cash that paycheck and pick up High Voltage Software's The Conduit for your Nintendo Wii, why not take a gander at what the rest of the interweb had to say about the game? Considering the lack of correlation between Metacritic scores and the sales numbers of Wii games, though -- at least according to Peter Moore -- you probably shouldn't let these numbers get to you too much.

• GamePro (70): "The Conduit is the closest you will get to recapturing the magic of Goldeneye ... To be blunt, The Conduit is a by the numbers shooter that offers a couple of thrills but ultimately doesn't make much of an impact ... anyone who loved Goldeneye will want to give a look as well if only to get a nice dose of nostalgia, but the rest of you shouldn't feel a need to abandon your favorite next-gen shooter for this one."
• GamesRadar (80): "The Conduit is fun, controls well, and is, at times, quite beautiful ... Both humans and alien drones are animated with competent physics and personality that puts High Voltage Software's Quantum3 engine outside the realm of the "GameCube 1.5" criticisms ... The truth is you probably wouldn't bat an eye at The Conduit had it appeared on PC, PS3 or Xbox 360 ... The solid, yet unremarkable single-player won't win any awards, but The Conduit still features the most finely honed online outings available on Wii."
  
• IGN (86): "The Conduit is not a revolutionary first-person shooter, but it's a damned good one ... the title features the tightest, most comfortable control scheme of any console-based first-person shooter to date ... The Conduit features a robust list of modes and maps to play online and nearly 20 weapons to use as you rip through arenas blasting foes ... it's not revolutionary, but The Conduit is a great first-person shooter designed just for Wii owners."

Traveling to Osaka, Japan has its perks. For one, it's the food capital of Japan, so there's that. On the other hand, it's possible to get your mitts on early code of Lost Planet 2, Capcom's upcoming sequel to its planetary labyrinth action-adventure 360 near-launch title, as GamesRadar discovered this week.

In horrifying detail, they describe as a giant lizard (currently named, "salamander") is taken down by a crew of folks: one person takes it's legs, another it's back, and another is intentionally eaten as to attack from the inside -- and eventually drop out of the monster's ... ahem ... nether quarters. According to them, this time we'll see a much bigger focus on co-op, larger and more varied environments and a general focus on "more" -- "more towering bugs, more bosses, more players, more stuff to do." Bigger, better, and more badass, you might say?

Hey, that's a good catch-phrase! Someone should get on that!

The chaps at GamesRadar have compiled a list of the most annoying female game characters of all time. It's a standard "Top Whatever" ranking, with seven (not six, not eight?) entries. For the most part, it seems to accurately summarize the worst characters in a few non-Nintendo games, but we're a bit shocked at number one.

Navi, everyone's favorite helpful fairy from Ocarina of Time is deemed as the most annoying. The reasoning behind this is simple -- LISTEN! HEY! HEY! HEY! LISTEN! HEY! LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! HEY! ... sound familiar? Sure, but was it really that bad? Some might call Navi's sweet little voice a siren song, other might want to smack the little insect with a giant flyswatter. What's your take on the pint-size companion?

We've seen our fair share of previews on Rockstar's crime drama opus, Grand Theft Auto IV, but we've yet to hear from someone who has enjoyed the bullet-riddled adventure in its entirety -- until Xbox World 360 editor Rob Taylor, after 24 hours of play time, triumphantly viewed the ending credits with the knowledge that he was the first person on the planet (aside from a gaggle of Rockstar employees, we assume) to finish GTA IV. Can someone be envied to death?

Fulfilling his civic duty as a gaming journalist, Taylor gave his impressions of the complete work in a spoiler-free interview with GamesRadar -- unsurprisingly, he was a fan. The fourth installment apparently "craps on all the others" in the franchise, and the main character, Niko Bellic, is "most amazing protagonist in any game [he's] ever played." We suggest perusing the remainder of his colorful commentary to help pass the remaining twenty-three days and nine hours until the game lands in our quivering, anticipatory laps.

Publisher Future US recently responded to the very strange charges filed against the company by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. AG Abbott claims that Future's website GamesRadar.com doesn't "adequately protect [children's] privacy and safety" and the site "unlawfully collect[s] personal information such as names, ages, and home addresses from children." If true, this would violate the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Future US responded, "This is the first contact we have had from the Texas attorney general on this matter and we are urgently reviewing the complaint"

Shacknews properly notes that registration for their free RadarNation accounts is currently closed ("We're sorry, registration is currently unavailable. Please try again later") so we presume that has something to do with the "urgently reviewing" part of their response.

Read – Texas sues GamesRadar
Read – Future US responds to Texas suit

Back in March, GamesRadar, believing in a Louis XIV fashion that heavenly bodies orbit around them and not visa-versa, accused IGN of stealing their ideas (for the second time) in a story entitled "IGN: officially out of ideas? PART 2: Are they really just copying us, again?" It seems, however, this was a case of the pot calling the kettle black as Scott Sharkey – 1UP editor and lifelong fan of Johnnie Walker – posted an entry on his blog drawing similarities between an article he wrote, "Videogame Breast Exam," and a similar GamesRadar piece, "Best in breast."

Sharkey's response to the possible copying? Making fun of GamesRadar's "Wah-Wah IGN copied a Top X Games on a Console Feature" story, utilizing the <strike> command to its fullest capacity. We giggled the most at his altering the email address from "areignrippingusoff@futureus.com" to "crybaby@growaf***ingpair.com." However, this didn't tickle the funny bone of a GamesRadar editor, who posted a response on NeoGAF.

"I have a multitude of potential snarky responses, one of which implies that I could buy 1up and EGM with the change under my sofa, but instead of silly faux rivalries, let's all play some ehcks-bawks thr3-sicksty at my house and have a good time." The real question is if Sharkey wants to hang out and drink beer in a glass house?

Games Radar has had their hands on the upcoming PlayStation Eye for a while and have posted an article with some quick impressions and a short video showing off the video quality of the PS Eye (embedded after the break). The video is on the small size, but even so it looks like the quality of the camera has definitely increased. A lack of compression artifacts make the image amazingly clear and smooth compared to the EyeToy of yesteryear. Hopefully GR will update their hands-on with more information soon - intrigued fans want to know more!

Games Radar recently did a feature on the 10 worst game intros of all time. A PSP title had the dubious honor of being in the list. That game is Pocket Racers, and it came in at number 8. I watched the opening for myself, and besides looking terrible, it doesn't seem to make a bit of sense. Some cult leader uses soul power to shrink cars. Or does he fuse car owner's souls into the cars, to give them mini-power? I honestly can't figure it out in any way. Do any of our readers own Pocket Racers? Also, post your theory as to what the heck is going on in the game's opening.

See the opening video for yourself.

GamesRadar has just put up their list of historical Nintendo blunders, and ... wow. We hope they're wearing flame-retardant clothing. The list has seemingly noble enough intentions: to analyze how Nintendo went from the absolute biggest name in video games to pretty much third place. Ultimately, it's probably meant to incite arguments, and they'll get plenty of them.

But if there's anything we've learned from years of being on the Internet and from specializing in Nintendo discussion, it's that any negative word about Nintendo will summon a cacophony of fanboy hate. Never mind that a lot of the things on the list (with one very notable exception) are definitely huge mistakes and probably did contribute to Nintendo's semi-downfall in the pre-DS days.

Let's try to buck the trend here. Let's have an open discussion about Nintendo's missteps, instead of screaming at naysayers and trying to spin the Virtual Boy as a good thing.

I've complained from time to time about the selection of downloadable PSone games for PSP in the US, but right now the UK has it much worse. At launch of the PS3, there are zero PSone games on the PlayStation Store for download to PSP. Sony hasn't made any statement as to when they'll show up, but the US had to wait a little while for this feature. Still, since the UK launch was much later than in Japan and the US, one would think Sony would have titles lined up for day one. In any case, let's hope for the sake of UK PS3 owners that the wait isn't too long.

[Via Games Radar]

If you weren't able to quite tell from the demo whether you liked Puzzle Quest or not, maybe the reviews of others will help you. Other than these reviews, we'll have a review of Puzzle Quest up soon. But enough of that for now, what did the critics say?

• Gamespot (8.5/10) "The parts may seem commonplace, but Puzzle Quest's blend of RPG and puzzle-game convention makes for something refreshingly unique and dangerously addictive."
• Games Radar (7.0/10) "The PSP version loads a bit more slowly but looks better, and the DS version features lighting-fast loads but tosses in slightly sluggish, clunky touch-controls."
• PlayStation Official Magazine UK (5.0/10) "It's gently hypnotic stuff, but fight a dozen super-intelligent skeletons and you'll soon be yearning for the simple pleasures of Lumines." (Mar 2007)

[Via Metacritic]

Rockstar's upcoming PSP port of The Warriors has a pretty nice bonus: the side-scrolling Armies of the Night, a bonus "minigame" of sorts which has you brawling in classic beat-em-up form. But wait ... wasn't this game included in the original PS2 and Xbox release? You're right! But we PSP gamers are the impatient type, and we no longer have to beat the game to get access to this treasured game: it's available right from the get-go.

Previews of the PSP build have all been pretty glowing so far. Games Radar notes that the PSP version of the game holds up quite nicely, with some great graphics and (sigh of relief) good load times. With a budget price of only $20, this is one port that PSP fans might want to pay attention to.

Smackdown is out today. I was originally going to do a Metareview for this game, but I decided: why not focus on the one crucial flaw of last year's game? The load times. As you may remember, WWE SmackDown! 2006 got smacked down by the gaming community by having quite possibly the worst load times of any game in recent memory. Is this year's iteration of the popular wrestling franchise any better? Let's find out:

• Gamespot (79/100) - "Load times are still a big issue, as well, though not quite as humongous an issue as they were last year. Prematch load times are still long and annoying, especially when you have entrances set to on; menu transitions, especially in season mode, take longer than they ought to; and creating a wrestler can still be a time-consuming process, thanks to the loading. Again, Yuke's did improve this aspect somewhat this year, but load times continue to get in the way of the game."
• Games Radar (80/100) - "The developers remembered this, too; they made a focused effort to drastically reduce loading. And it worked: the loads aren't lightning quick, but they are far faster, now measuring in double-digit seconds instead of minutes."
• GameZone (85/100) - "On to the bad news, the game suffers from heavy lag that just doesn't pertain to the Ad Hoc multiplayer mode but throughout the single-player mode as well. This, of course, is a major annoyance that often leads to missed punches or choke slams. Secondly, the long load times are back, although - on a lighter note -they're not as frequent as the first game."

The critics say the load times have improved, but are they tolerable yet? I'm placing an open challenge to all readers: if you own this game, please make a similar video, for PSP Fanboy fame, and maybe even a little swag, or something.

This franchise has come a long way since it was released on the 3DO back in the mid-90s. I remember how frustrated I got having to slow down to a near stop just to successfully navigate a curve. But now, the Need for Speed franchise is one of the best around, and it seems Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City continues the franchises forward progression.

PGNx Media (87/100) - It's one of the rare times where you should purchase both the console versions and the PSP version since both offer different yet extremely compelling racing.

Games Radar (80/100) - We're definitely keen on the PSP version, serving up some solid racing fun that'll get your heart pumping and your fingers moving. Just be sure to get by with a little help from your friends.

IGN (70/100) - Own the City simply feels like more of the same. Sure, there's an open city and wingmen that'll take out your opponents during a race, but neither of these are huge, game-changing additions.

I haven't had the chance to play the game yet, but from these reviews, it seems like a pretty decent game. Hopefully, EA continues the Need for Speed franchise on the PSP.

Death Jr. gets a bit more attention than it may deserve, simply because it was the first PSP game ever to be shown. We were wowed by its impressive non-GBA quality graphics, but when we got our hands on the original, we were a little underwhelmed by its gameplay. The sequel was supposed to fix the problems of the original game, but it appears that the critics are still a little negative on this franchise. Maybe they focused too much on the tech? Let's find out:

• IGN (71/100) wants to believe in the franchise, but they end up disappointed: "The game is still sloppy in execution despite its best qualities -- it's time for DJ to grow up and scythe straight. The story again makes little sense, despite some funny sequences, and it feels short with only three bosses and little to revisit stages for on your second play."
• Games Radar (60/100) fails to find any originality in the gameplay: "You know that game where you run around and hit things repeatedly? It's the same one with floating platforms, simple combos and a camera that almost gets it - ringing any bells yet? Oh wait, that's practically every third-person run-and-jump game made in the last eight or nine years, and even though it's a marked improvement over the original, Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil still falls squarely in the "pretty OK" department."
• GamePro (80/100) loves the game, more than GTA: "Death Jr. 2 is definitely a game that works for those of you who just love hacking at things. Levels spawn swarms of enemies with complex AI that keep coming at you unless you attack their regeneration area. The creative randomness of the enemies is delightful. After all, not too many games have llamas, chickens, hamsters, gorillas, possessed trees, gigantic centipedes, and mechanical spiders going for you all at once.."

There's a pretty wide range of opinions on this game so far, but one thing's clear: this game is much better than the original. But does that say much? The game is now available.