This is not Morgan Webb. This is not Adam Sessler.

X-play is the gold standard. Its still the most popular show on G4 and was one of the most popular on its previous home TechTV. Why not? When gamers turn off their boxes, they often turn to game news in magazines and on the internet, so its only appropriate they be able to see games on TV too.

But its hardly without competition, and it many cases its surpassed. If you’re still watching X-Play religiously because you think its the only show on TV talking about games (G4’s clusterhump “Attack Of The Show” does not count), you’d be missing out on more informative, more balanced, and in some cases, funnier shows. Allow me to focus on some of X-Play’s direct competitors, shows with similar production values and connections to the industry.
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This video (leaked from GameSpot) shows off some of the new features coming our way, and even mentions a date of May 7th. Marketplace will get its own blade, integrating Friend lists with Windows Live Messenger, and new download options are on the way.

Bungie’s weekly update is upon us with the usual shocking revelations and totally ordinary and expected announcements.

Halo innovated in a lot of ways over the very cookie-cutter FPS genre. One way they very clearly did not innovate was the exploding barrel. The Bungie Weekly Update confirms that newer, prettier “fusion cores” will be present in Halo 3, along with newer, prettier explosions when you shoot them.

Good News! Theres an auto-update coming soon to Halo 2 that will enhance Banhammer functionality to dispatch cheaters quicker. This will pave the way for the new maps on April 17th! Matchmaking playlists will be updated to include the new maps on April 24th!
Bad News! Rankings will be set back to ZERO with the update. Sorry, Sean, you’re going to have to work your way up Rumble Pit all over again. This reset will make matchmaking easier with the smaller, but still dedicated player base. I feel less bad about dropping from a 23 to a 20 in Team Slayer a couple weeks ago, but the last time stuff was reset there it was pretty quick to rank up, so I’m not sweating this too much.

Public Beta still hasn’t been dated, but a new video documentary should hit Xbox Live before it starts.

This week there was also a re-release of Halo: Ghosts Of Onyx in paperback.

Hugo Weaving may have landed the role of Megatron in the 2007 Transformers movie, but the video game adaptation will feature Frank Welker. This will be the first time Frank Welker has voiced Megatron in over 20 years, last seen in Transformers The Movie in 1986. According to GameSpot, Welker will be joined by Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime. GameSpot also has an interview with Frank Welker, and one with Peter Cullen.

GameSpot also released 3 new screenshots from the game, shown here. All three feature Bumblebee fighting Decepticons.

Update! The rub with posting stuff like this in the morning is that by the evening all the press-releases are out and I gotta update the post. So, check out the new game site, http://www.transformersgame.com/. Make sure you’ve got your flash up to date and you’ll get more screen shots from the game , the developers’ blog, and, even a poll to name some of the new Transformers that appear in the game. Coolest of all is a new interview with Peter Cullen and Frank Welker. Just click through to the videos section for that. Bonus: watching Welker talk and hearing Fred from Scooby Doo.

A scan from Japanese Mag Famitsu reveals the rumour of a Resident Evil 4 port is true. RE4 will hit Wii in June with all of the PS2 re-release bonus missions and new waggle controls. The pricetag is going to be a very affordable $29.99.

Sadly, thats the good news. The Umbrella Chronicles game we’d heard would feature a “best of” all the Resident Evil games is actually a rail shooter. The Wii control will act like a light gun, not unlike the (terrible) RE: Dead Aim on Playstation. The story focuses on the downfall of the Umbrella Corporation and… oh come on, a rail shooter? This is the big news? I can’t believe they actually found a way to make another release of RE:4 sound interesting.

If you’re one of the 5 or 6 people who didn’t play Resident Evil 4 or were just PO’d that you got the shaft by not buying the enhanced PS2 version, looks like June is your time.

In a post thanking fans for supporting 4 years of groundbreaking machinima, Rooster Teeth’s Burnie Burns has announced that Red vs Blue: Blood Gulch Chronicles will be complete at the end of season 5 with the 100th episode.

Before we all start gnashing our teeth at the loss of the series that invented “shisno” as a racial epithet, Burnie specifically mentioned that this would only be the last episode of “Blood Gulch Chronicles” and not the last RvB ever. I can’t imagine them throwing away the series completely unless it was demanded by Microsoft or Bungie, who own the Halo franchise their series uses as backdrop. Its possible they’re merely finishing up in preparation of a new series using Halo 3…

Over the weekend the Square/Disney faithful wept openly as this pre-rendered battle sequence found its way to the internet. It takes a while to really get to a point where you can even tell its even supposed to be Kingdom Hearts, but it is. This video was hidden at the end of the recently released Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix on PS2 in Japan.

Or maybe not. Eurogamer reports Tetsuya Nomura, the director of the Kingdom Hearts II, says the next title will be a completely new series. Why change it up? Maybe its not an RPG? Maybe it deviates too far from the conventions of KH? Who knows.

Also up in the air is where this series will be released. The pre-rendered video is no clear indication of hardware. It could easily continue on the PS2, jump to PS3, or even go cross platform to Wii or Xbox 360. The only certainty is that when it comes out it will sell a bajillion copies like the last one.

In what may be the most ambitious music game ever conceived, the developers of Guitar Hero have teamed with MTV and mega-publisher Electronic Arts to release Rock Band for PS3 and Xbox 360 this winter. USA Today brings us the story.

Take Guitar Hero II’s guitar/bass co-op play, add in some Karaoke Revolution singing, and keep the beat with a set of drums. Theres been no mention of how the drums will look or operate, but with so many successful music games under their belt, Harmonix should be able to find something that works for casual and hardcore gamers alike.

Game|Life reports from the press event early Monday that there will no longer be cover versions of songs, instead you’ll be treated to the real thing. Latency problems that kept Guitar Hero II from having full online multiplayer have been resolved and Harmonix promises your band can have practice online instead of in your garage. And though not formally announced at this time, a Wii version is inevitable.

Now… is it too much to ask they get The Clash in there?