Ahh, September! Around the world, milli9ons of kids dread September, as School kicks back into gear. But this year, that grim fact is overshadowed by the huge amount of fresh entertainment content being released in the next 30 days.

For Starters, on the videogame front, Bungie is planning on releasing the latest installment in their wildly-popular HALO series ODST. Even though the Main storyline has already finished, a new one is just beginning , as players join an elite squad of fighters tasked with finding answers for the destruction of a far away planet. And judging by previews, this game will be a blast!

Next up on our list is a little-known game, Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising. A more polished version of Arma 2 , opflash promises a large-scale sandbox gameplay style with strategy and FPS elements. One-shot kills, fully destructible landscapes, 4 person co-op play and an immense variety of vehicles and weapons are available.

On the music front, Two bands of interest to me, Three days Grace, and Breaking Benjamin, are both releasing new albums this month, definitely something to check out. If you like hard rock, Look them up on playlist, both have good sounds and dedicated fanbases.

And on a totally random note, The TV show "Chuck" has begun filming it's third season, set to air on NBC in March of 2010, most likely as part of a new initiative to jump start summer programs by extending regular season shows into the summer months. And while were talking TV, September is THE start of the fall season, with most networks launching their shows between now and mid-October. A show to pay attention to ratings-wise is the Jay Leno show, the first 5 day a week variety show to hit prim-time airwaves in decades. if the experiment pays off, Leno could reinvent prime-time programming permanently.


So, with that in mind, get out and enjoy your September, in school!

SimRacing is the final installment of EA's NASCAR series; sad as this may be, they sure went out with a bang. SimRacing combines car and truck racing from the last 4 years together In one big package. And boy is it versatile! You can customize you races against the computer, competing with anywhere between 1 and 43 cars. Pit crews are fully animated and highly detailed. You can tweak every last god-damn thing about your car too. everything from adjusting tire pressure so its just right to changing the amount of tape on the grille. Each one of these trivial (or so they seem) adjustments can change the way the car reacts to the track. But if you don't want to get that detailed, and just hit the track, you can do that too. With easily choose able automatically generated settings, you can be on the racetrack in no time. And boy are there alot of options there. EA included an amazing variety of tracks, everything from road courses to a track inside a football stadium. In career mode, you can start your driver at the bottom of the totem pole and work your way up through different series until you reach the nextel cup. Use your winnings t research improvements for your ride like increased speed or decreased wind resistance. As you become more successful (or not) your advertising opportunities will act accordingly. Screw up once and you my loose a sponsorship! If you want to just cut through the red tape and race, Quick mode allows you to choose from many pro drivers or made up ones if you prefer. And don't forget multiplayer mode! Go head to head with users from around the globe when the AI gets to easy ( you can adjust the AI difficulty over an extremely wide range, but I'm sure someone finds the hardest settings easy to beat. The graphics are very customizable to fit your systems performance specs; for thoes of you with high end computers, your in for a real treat! although there are a limited number of views during a race, all races are recorded and can be played back with a multitude of camera angles and...

As most of you probably already know, X-fire is teaming up with the Compact Arms team to have a contest over who can be on the longest. My trucker had hemorrhoids, so I decided to give it a shot. And boy, was I blown away! Combat Arms Is an FPS game like COD4 or Americas Army: Special forces (both of which I have played, and gotten my n00bish ass kicked). With this game however, you get the same quality graphics and physics as COD4, but for free. You can also customize your soldier and change his equipment around depending on how much experience you have. As you play the game more and more, new weapons and armor is unlocked. Because it is a mulitplayer game, every game is different from the last. While I do wish ere were more maps to pick from (currently there are only about 5) Each one of the maps has at least one secret passage or quirk. It's an infantry-only game, so its not like Halo but it is (in my opinion) better than america's army.

So if you love FPS shooters, & or want to win a new computer, Check out Combat Arms: Online FPS Action.

BOTTOM LINE:
This game kicks ass. Nuff' said
Rating: *****

Download Free: here
Then Enter the competition by joining this X-fire clan:Here

ALH is turning out to be a pretty good competitor for haulin' in the long run, even though die-hard haulin' fans may not see it that way. For people who all ready have haulin, ALH is definitely not worth the upgrade (if you are gonna spend money on it). However, for those who have just joined the community and are looking for a taste of what it has to offer, ALH is nothing to scoff at. Plain-Jane ALH is a piece of crap, everyone can admit. But as we approach the one-year mark of ALH's release, the modifications have started to trickle in. People like Armalyite, xxXxx and Phantom 359 have given us a real incentive to take a second look at ALH. And with the massive new mod project that Chris1 has in the works ALH will definitely be a keeper.

But no matter how hard it tries, ALH can never surpass haulin'. Why? Simple. All of the new quality mods are still for haulin. Ivan does all his mods for haulin only. Glenn52 has perfected his map from haulin and the modders I mentioned above have converted most of their mods backwards to haulin also, so as not to disenfranchise the community. If you were a casual gamer who picked up alh off the shelf because it looked interesting, you would probally say ALH was way better. Kind of like how there are still some hold-out modders like TopDog & DieselDogg who only mod for pttm. To each his own as the saying goes. But here's My take:

ALH vs. Haulin'


Graphics:
ALH:5
Haulin':5

Bugs:
ALH:3
Haulin':7

Mods:
ALH:5
Haulin':10

System Requirements:
ALH:7
Haulin':6

Goodwill:
ALH:-3
Haulin':9

Value:
ALH:7
Haulin':8

User Friendliness:
ALH:7
Haulin':7

Modability:
ALH:6
Haulin':6

Fun:
ALH:7
Haulin':7

Physics:
ALH:2
Haulin':2

Plain-Jane Rating:
ALH:4
Haulin':6



TOTALS
ALH:50
Haulin':73

Average Rating
ALH:5.5
Haulin':6.6

BOTTOM LINE Haulin' wins, but ALH isn't far behind