An interesting hybrid of real-time and turn-based strategy play, Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath does its best to set itself apart from the masses of other strategy games. Set in a hypothetical alternate history that posits the Cuban Missile Crisis led to catastrophic nuclear war, the game has a lot going for it: Optional missions, nuclear wastelands, several different campaigns based on different superpowers. There is a lot to like here, but can Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath stand out among the faceless masses of hardcore war games? George has the review.

An Xbox 360 demo disc intended for kiosk 360\'s in Europe appears to lack the normal protection of other 360 games, and has been pirated on the Internet. A group known as \"PI\" have released statements about their progress hacking the Xbox 360\'s software protection, including releasing an ISO disc image of the demo disc, which contains demos found in Xbox 360 kiosks.

We reported back in October about an anti-violent videogame law passed by California legislators and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, who has starred in enough violent videogames to know something about the matter. The legislation immediately sparked a lawsuit from the Entertainment Software Association, which argues that the law is both unnecessary and impedes the First Ammendment rights of minors. Yesterday a US District Judge Ronald Whyte issued an injunction against the law, citing the likelihood of the ESA winning its case to reverse the legislation, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

When half your comic team disappears overseas for the holidays, it\'s hard to keep things running smoothly at a game comic. That doesn\'t explain all of TP Comics recent venture into the bizarrely inconsistent, but it explains a good portion of it. Now that the Xbox 360 is resting next to piles of used wrapping paper and a Christmas tree suffering from dehydration, it\'s easier to find the time to make fun of things. Hopefully that means we\'ll get back into a pattern again here after the new year. Take a look at this week\'s TwoPlayer comic, FingerBang, the \"banned\" ad commercial.

Twoplayer game comics are published kinda, sorta weekly at http://comics.gamesfirst.com.

Though large publishers like EA and Ubisoft might get most of the mainstream media coverage, the most creative companies sometimes tend to be smaller, less well known. Ambrosia Software, creators of Darwinia, have come up with another instantly recognizable success. Now heading into Beta, SketchFighter 4000 is an action exploration game that\'s defined by its presentation. The entire game looks like it was drawn during third period on a notepad.

On behalf of the staff of GamesFirst!, we would like to take this space to wish all of our staff, readers and colleagues a happy, happy holiday season. We wouldn\'t be here without you, and we know that. On our 10th holiday season, we are thankful for all the people who have helped make GamesFirst! what it is today. Our staff is among the best online, and we value your efforts. To our fellow websites (especially the ones who kick down the kind links), we thank you. You know who you are, and you inspire us to do better. To all of the game developers, PR reps, and publishers who work with us on a daily basis, we want to extend our most sincere gratitude. We couldn\'t do what we do without your continued support, and life wouldn\'t be as much fun without you.

And, of course, we want to wish Happy Holidays to our readers. We are proud to be able to serve you for the past 10 years, and we look forward to number 11. Without you, we\'d just be posting up articles for our mothers to read, and although they never complain about our reviews or call us idiots, GF! would feel pretty empty without you. Thanks.

This week in the Wrap-Up, Val takes a look at a bunch of the reviews we couldn\'t fit into other podcasts. We rundown some of the best games of the season, including the wild-west adventure game GUN, the vehicular mayhem of Need for Speed: Most Wanted, the stylish Project Gotham Racing 3, alien warfare in Quake 4, and the handheld racing action of Mario Kart DS. We\'re cutting the crap and getting right to the goods. Check it out.

The 4th Asian Game Show & Digital Entertainment Expo Asia 2005 in Hong Kong might not be showing off anything cool from Microsoft, but they\'ve certainly got something from Sony. GamesFirst editor Aaron Stanton takes a quick peek at the show floor the day before the expo opens to the public, and reports on the warm fuzzy feelings he got at seeing the PlayStation 3 logo being raised above Sony\'s booth. AGSDEE might not be as well known in the west as E3 or CES, but it\'s an opportunity to see hands-on what Sony plans to offer. You\'ll want to keep an eye open as the four day exposition kicks off.

Via Major Nelson (the Xbox Live Director of Programming), we discovered Sean Alexander\'s blog posting about how to keep track of recent Xbox 360 shipments. Alexander describes a method of using the Ben\'s Bargains Xbox 360 Shipment Tracker along with URLy Warning, a program that allows you to monitor web pages for any changes. By following the simple instructions outlined on Alexander\'s blog, you can be sure to find the Xbox 360s as soon as they arrive in your neighborhood. Check it out.

Quake 4 arrives on the Xbox 360 and all of its next-gen processing glory and gore. Built on the Doom 3 engine for super-hot graphical prowess, this time out ye olde Quake features both a single-player Strogg hunting single-player story and the intense arena action we\'ve come to expect from the series. But can a few Halo-like improvements rocket-jump Quake 4 to the top of your holiday wishlist? Check Jeremy\'s review to find out.

Chromehounds is a big mech action title coming to the Xbox 360 this spring from Sega and FROM Software. FROM Software is best known as the makers of the fan-favorite Armored Core series, which makes them immensely qualified to tackle a next-gen heavy robot game. Taking place in an alternate history centered around Cold War land grabs, Chromehounds looks to bring big battles and big mechs to a console near you next Spring. Get the full preview here.

Turtle Beach has long been one of our favorite audio component manufacturer for PCs. They have released their Ear Force line of surround sound compatible headphones, which offer great 3D audio. GF! recently took the Ear Force AXT headphones for a spin, and we found not a lot to like. Consult this review before laying down the $80 for an experience that will most likely leave you with buyer\'s remorse.

Slamdance, the indy film festival that runs opposite Sundance (the just-shy-of-Hollywood film festival), will hold a Guerilla Gamemaker Competition this year. Featuring well-known indy and art games such as Cloud and Facade among a list of others. Slamdance will feature a Game Lounge area where attendees can play all of these indy games and Slamdance will bestow an array of awards on the independent developers, students and artists who have created some of the most unique games we\'ve ever seen.

We recently published a review of Call of Duty 2 on every system except Xbox 360. So now we deliver to you our review of Call of Duty 2 for Xbox 360: What\'s different? Everything. Unless you were playing the PC version. The Xbox 360 is as pretty as a high-end PC running the game, so the graphics are amazingly beautiful. Fortunately, CoD2 developers Infinity Ward didn\'t need to add or change anything to make the 360 version a worthy launch title: The game is just that good. Cut through the glut of other WWII FPS titles and head straight for CoD2. Our man, Matt James, says it\'s just that good.

We all love post-apocalyptic video games, don\'t we? Of course we do! Square-Enix\'s Code Age Commanders takes us to a world where humans, warheads, and self-propelled mobile phones co-exist together in a stylized action adventure game which will be appearing on American shores in the near future. CAC hasn\'t seen a lot of popularity in Japan, but will an English language release make it a hit? Amanda checks out the entire Code Age Project for us.