Monsters in Final Fantasy 13-2 are a lot more important this time around than they have been in just about any other Final Fantasy game out there. In FF13-2, you basically catch monsters that you fight and can then add them as members of your party to fight with you. Every monster is different and there are hundreds to collect, each with their own unique abilities to bring to your party.

• GUIDE: Final Fantasy 13-2 Chocobo Racing Guide

With this Final Fantasy 13-2 Beginner Monster Guide I'm going to show you how to catch monsters, how to train them,  how to infuse your monsters with others in order to make them stronger, and more. There's a lot to get through, but honestly the monster taming feature in FF13-2 is one of the most diverse and interesting things that the entire game has to offer. It's basically Final Fantasy mixed with Pokemon...maybe that's why I like it so much.

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Last week, we brought SoulCalibur 5 users a SoulCalibur 5 creation guide, and provided directions on how to create some very un-SoulCalibur fighters like The Green Lantern and Dovakhiin from Skyrim. Our creative minds didn't stop there, though. The great Donell Tucker and Leah Jackson spent this week making SC5 version of characters like Tinkerbell, Freddy Krueger, Ghost Rider, and many more! Click on the video to check out  their work.

G4's Donell Tucker and fighting expert Ernie Moreno share their thoughts on the new fighting mechanics and gem system behind Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken. This fighting franchise comes out in the beginning of March for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Vita.

Electronic Arts has announced that two celebrated actors, Rosario Dawson (Sin City, Men in Black II) and Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity) will star in the sci-fi first person shooter, Syndicate. "The stars take on the role of cutthroat executives working for the biggest and most aggressive syndicate, EuroCorp, in a near-future world ruled by three mega-corporations," said EA.

Rosario Dawson will be play Lily Drawl, the rising star of EuroCorp with a shattered and conflicted psyche. "Lily is torn between the demands of her corporate masters and the underground resistance to syndicate rule. She knows that this balancing act can only last for so long before she falls, most likely, to her death," EA said.

• DETAILS: Syndicate Hands-On Impressions: Stealthy Yet Satisfying

“I’m amazed how videogames have become so deep in story, delivering fantastic worlds and memorable characters rivaling big Hollywood films,” said Dawson. “I was excited when EA approached me to play Lily Drawl in Syndicate. She’s an interesting and strong female character. How cool is it to play the mastermind who designed the military chip inside the player’s head!” 

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Like Tiger Woods himself, Adam "The Riveter" Rosenberg is the product of a lifetime spent in pursuit of a single goal. Woods' dark mistress is golfing perfection, while Rosenberg's is writing game previews. The two met when Rosenberg played Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 recently. Here's a taste of his preview.

"Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 Hands-on Preview -- You are the Golfer Adam Rosenberg You can, in fact, play through an entire tournament without ever picking up your controller using a series of mostly intuitive hand gestures and body movements. While your golfer is standing at the tee you can raise your left hand up over your eyes, like you're shielding them from sunlight, to go into aiming mode. The camera zooms in on a high-angle view from further down the course, highlighting where the ball is expected to land after you hit it with whichever club you've readied."

Check out the rest of our Tiger Woods 13 preview for more on the game's Kinect integration... but before you do, check out the playable Tiger Woods baby above. Is that the creepiest video game character since Pyramid-head, or is it just me?

Every time I post a story about some new DLC coming to the Rock Band Network, I think "This is the last time I do this,"  but then Harmonix announces another awesome song for download. Next week's tune: Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."  It's time to Rick Roll folks like it's 2007.

Astley joins Heary, Mr. Big and Poison in the Rock Band store. Here's what's coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii on February 14:

• Heart - "Alone" O
• Mr. Big - "To Be With You" X
• Poison - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" O X
• Rick Astley - "Never Gonna Give You Up" O

What do you think? Is Astley enough to blow the dust off your fake plastic instruments and give it a go?

Next week on X-Play, the new release season is upon us, and we'll have verdicts on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Twisted Metal, UFC Undisputed 3, The Darkness II, and Amy.

Plus, the PS Vita is almost here, and we'll get one in our hands and deliver our first game reviews for this next generation of portable gaming hardware from Sony.

We'll also get Battlefield 3 pro tips from pro gamer Tsquared, and have our top 7 games for Valentine's Day. All this and so much more when a brand new week of X-Play kicks off this Monday at 6:30PM ET.

My most awaited PlayStation 3 game, The Last Guardian, is still in development but making slow progress, according to Sony Worldwide Studio Boss Shuhei Yoshida. "The project has been making progress, but slow progress," he admitted. According to Yoshida, the project, which has been in the works for over five years, is still one of Sony's top priorities.

• DETAILS: The Last Guardian: 11 Things You Should Know

"We haven't changed any focus. It's still a really important project and a vision we want to see realized, and Fumito's vision is really causing a very difficult challenge for the developers," he said.  "So there's some scrapping and rebuilding - iteration in the process. That's why [it's taking so long]."

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During a quarterly financial call yesterday, Activision dropped some interesting stats on FPS Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. There are more than 40 million monthly active users across all COD releases, and Call of Duty Elite boasts 7 million users with 1.5 million paid annual members. Activision reported that it is working on Call of Duty Elite 2.0, which will add new features and will support the next major series entry, due to launch later this year.

Basically, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a very successful video game. The most successful ever, according to Activision. To make sure we understand the dominance of MW3 over every other video game and other piece of entertainment ever in history, Broadband Choices sent us a huge infographic outlining the ways in which Modern Warfare 3 has trounced all competitors. I've taken some interesting slices of the scroll-like thing and pasted them below the "Read More" tag, but if you want to view the entire thing, click there... it's a huge file, though.

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Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim was the big winner at the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards held last night as part of DICE 2012. Skyrim was named Game of the Year, and took home four other awards as well including bestRole-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Online Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Story, Gameplay Engineering and Game Direction.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception received accolades for publisher Sony Computer Entertainment America and developer Naughty Dog, getting awards for Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Art Direction and Visual Engineering.

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You all knew this was going to be coming at some point, so hopefully you've properly steeled yourselves: LittleBigPlanet Karting is officially a thing. We first heard about it earlier this week when Canadian retailer FutureShop tweeted about the game's reveal at a Destination PlayStation event. A Move-compatible racing wheel and 3D support were both mentioned. A subsequent tweet from PSN Stores included an image of a promo poster for the unannounced game.

Well it's unannounced no more. Sony's issued an official tweet on its @PlayStation feed that reads: "Update: We can confirm that LittleBigPlanet Karting is in fact in development and we look forward to sharing more on the game soon!"

Yay? Your mileage may vary (pun definitely intended). Is the world ready for a LittleBigPlanet kart racer?

Source: @PlayStation

Mass Effect 3! Videos! Information!

That pretty well sums up everything you need to know about this news. The official Mass Effect 3 website is now home to five new gameplay videos, with each one focusing on different aspects of the game. The RPG junkies out there will definitely want to check out the "Custom Arsenal" video. For all its accolades, some felt that Mass Effect 2 was a little too stripped down compared to its predecessor in the realm of customization. ME3 not only has more weapons to find, it also brings back a more involved mechanic for modding those weapons (and armor).

You'll find four more new videos after the jump, offering closer looks at things like online co-op, enemies, storytelling and action. You should also head over to the official website, as each video lives on a page that offers even more details on what you can expect to find when Mass Effect 3 launches for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC platforms on March 6.

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Well, this is weird. David Jaffe wants you to shoot Sweet Tooth's f%*king ice cream truck remotely from the comfort of your own home. That's right, the Twisted Metal director is holding a contest where you sign up for a chance to shoot the truck.

Over two days, this one truck will have over 100,000 bullets shot into it from users just like you. Isn't that...psychopathic? Maybe, but it's a fun stunt to get you to pre-order Twisted Metal. Before you sign up over at ShootMyTruck.com, watch this video of the psycho king himself, David Jaffe introducing the contest. There is a hell of a lot of David Jaffe language in the video, (a.k.a. NSFW). You've been warned!




Twisted Metal is out exclusively for the PlayStation 3 on February 14.

Today, the NPD Group released its January sales figures, and the beginning of 2012 was not good at all. Total consumer spending on video games fell 34 percent to $750.6 million in the US. Video game hardware sales totaled only $324 million, down 38% year over year. That's the worst it's been since January 2004.

"One factor for the double digit declines in new physical software was the lack of new launches, according to NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "New launches in January 2011 represented 13 percent of dollar sales and new launch performance dropped 99 percent in Jan 2012. Games like Dead Space 2, Little Big Planet 2, and DC Universe Online ranked within the top ten last year."

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Yesterday, we brought you a compendium of some of the coolest Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim mods out there, including useful inventory management tools, map tools and more. But those nearly-essential tweaks to Skyrim don't tell the whole modding story. The other side of the coin are the mods listed below. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy The Top Ten Weirdest  Skyrim Mods In Existence!

10) Lydia Dialogue Removal

Remember the first companion you get, loyal Lydia? Remember how when you ask her to carry your stuff she's all, "I'm sworn to carry your burden," in a really sarcastic way? Well some modder out there was appparently so offended at Lydia's insolence that he took that line of dialogue out of the game. All this mod does is make Lydia more subservient.

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