Every time we say his name, he just gets more power. This is officially the last time you’ll see me say Jack Thompson. From now on, the law buff will be known as Chuckles, because every time he does something, the entire gaming world gets a laugh.

So Chuckles decided to rock out another “sting” operation. He previous sent his son in to a Best Buy to pick up a copy of BioShock. His son isn’t yet 18, which is what he’s trying prove. However, he’s going after 2K Games for the problem instead of Best Buy. 2K Games doesn’t control a retailer’s action. They brand the game as mature and it’s up to the retailers to enforce the sales. The new “sting” operation involves Halo 3.

Chuckles sent his son into a South Florida Target store to buy a copy of Halo 3, which he was able to do on the first try without an ID. Granted, this shouldn’t happen. But again, Chuckles isn’t going after Target, he’s going after Microsoft. Because somehow the gaming industry is responsible for this happening at retailers. Are they also responsible for R-rated movies and CD’s with Parental Advisory stickers being sold to minors as well?

This editor can only hope Chuckles stops his antics and gets put in his place pretty soon.

I honestly didn’t think it would happen, but Halo 3 is getting better reviews than BioShock. I didn’t think the single player campaign would have the chops to take down the underwater beast. But I was wrong.

According to Metacritic, Halo 3 has an average score of 97, with BioShock nipping at it’s heals with a 96. We haven’t thrown our review in the ring yet, but expect to hear some high scores from fierce Scuba on it.

With the Xbox 360 pulling in two games this Holiday with average scores over 95, could it put a lock on the winner of this console generation? Or is it too early in the life cycle to call? Could Halo 4 get even higher scores?

Here’s the first in our series of Reader Reviews. This one comes from Fragloser for the hit title BioShock. Read and enjoy….

If you haven’t heard of Bioshock, it’s a FPS with a twist. It is kind of related to the System Shock games, but I wouldn’t say it is a sequel. With most FPS games, you know what you’re going to get right away. You usually get guns as you progress, and they just get more powerful until you finish the game. However, Bioshock is very different from these games. During the game, you get plasmids which alter your genetic code, giving you powers to do things such as shoot electricity at enemies. Here is a breakdown of some of the elements in Bioshock for the 360.

Presentation and Graphics: Bioshock is set in the 1960’s, and it will “wow” you as soon as you load the first level. When you first see the water in this game, you know that the developers put a lot of work into the water effects in this game. In addition, the fire looks particularly good. The great thing about the graphics is that Rapture is styled in an “art deco” manner. This means that as you look into each room, you get taken in by all the visuals, which helps you feel like you’re actually in the game, unlike WWII games where you pretty much have an idea what everything should look like. My only minor gripe is that you will see a lot of the same enemy models over again, which sometimes don’t look as detailed as I expected. However, don’t let that draw you away from the game, the world looks amazing, and the visuals are on par or better then those of Gears of War. 4.75/5

Hit the jump for more…

A game of this magnitude had to have a complete look at to give a good review. Many sites rushed through the game to fire out a review just to have it. Here at Loot Ninja, we strive for perfection, and to be honest, BioShock is very close to it.

Presentation and Graphics: Is this the best looking game on the Xbox360? No, but it is a close second to GoW. There are some instances where mapping can be an issue and not every inch of the game is perfectly done, but lets face it folks, not one of us could even fathom putting together a game of this magnitude. I am not easily startled, but there are quite a few times I almost shit myself. Ripping a little girls stomach out for ADAM might be the single creepiest thing in the history of gaming. Although, they strike a cord with some of the things you do not see. There are many times that a shadow looms around the corner or that feeling you get when a Big Daddy is stomping around and banging the wall for a Little Sister to come out. You just know you are in for a fight. 4.5 of 5 Hit the jump for more…

Looks like Take Two has decided to divest itself from the video game acessories business by selling of it’s subsidiary Joytech to the evil empire of accessories – Mad Catz. So looks like Mad Catz will strengthen their accessory monopoly while Take Two will focus more on games, which I think is good. Take Two needs to go make more Bioshock’s and not worry about controllers, go and be quick about it.

From the press release:

New York, NY – September 7, 2007 – Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) today announced that it has sold substantially all of the assets of its wholly owned Joytech video game accessories subsidiary to Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (AMEX/TSX: MCZ). The Joytech sale reflects Take-Two’s previously announced plans to divest its non-core businesses.
Hit the jump for more…

If you have not downloaded the BioShock patch, then please do not. There has been nothing said of its purpose and it has caused my game and several of my friends to experience lag issues. This is absurd for the reason that its not a multiplayer game. The makes for an awful experience and I had to turn the game off because it was painful to play through. I can only hope that this will be fixed soon because this has made the game of the year basically unplayable.

[Update] To remove the patch, clear the cache on your Xbox 360. Go to the System Blade, then Memory. Highlight the Hard Drive and hit Y. Hit X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X. Choose Yes to perform system maintenance. This will remove ALL downloaded patches. The next time you load up BioShock, do not download the patch.

Around 5:00 PM EST, I got home from work and fired up BioShock. There was an auto-update screen that I obviously had to accept. As of now, 5:22 Pm EST, there is no sight or sound of any reason for this post. There are no multiplayer aspects of this game at all. What could the update be for? New content?

Gabe Newell threw down the gauntlet and banned his employees from playing BioShock on either PC or Xbox 360. Not forever mind you, but only until Half-Life 2 Episode Two and the Orange Box are done and shipping, which is scheduled for mid October.

“We had to ban Bioshock from our offices,” Valve boss Gabe Newell told us. “Nobody gets to play it until Orange Box is done – that’s our reward to ourselves as a company; everyone gets a copy of Bioshock.”

At least everyone will get a free copy from Mr. Newell. I know I wouldn’t be able to wait until mid October for BioShock.

I know this is only my first impressions, but I’m going to prematurely call BioShock my game of the year. There’s a couple titles that may come close, but I don’t think anything will beat this.

BioShock is absolutely beautiful. The visual styling of the game is modeled with 1950s tones in a sunken undersea world. From the minute you enter Rapture, you’re overwhelmed by your surroundings and immediately filled with a sense of haste and nervousness. Something has obviously gone wrong here. From the sounds to the visuals to the gameplay, BioShock is the most complete single player experience I’ve seen in a game in a very very long time. I can’t wait to get through more of the game and find out what happened here in Rapture and try to fix things.

That feeling is what really immerses you into the world of Rapture. There’s always some tense fears as you play though the game, with it’s very tight control scheme. Choosing to use plasmids of weapons and the strategy behind that choice determines whether you live or die in this undersea world.

The only complaint I have with the game is there’s no multiplayer. I’m happy the development team didn’t just tack on something that didn’t feel right, but I would love to shoot bees at someone with plasmids online.

If you have an Xbox 360 and haven’t picked up BioShock yet, do yourself a favor and go buy it. This could be our first 5/5 game in the upcoming review…

If you have downloaded the PC demo, you need to continue reading. Their have been issues with third parties activating the BioShock game on other users computers and it seems that you need to scan your PC for existing root kits that would allow a third party access. Here is a Microsoft utility that will allow you to scan your PC for these troublesome root kits and keep your copy of the BioShock game yours and yours alone.