According to a reader at GoNintendo, stuffed within the pages of the latest issue of Play magazine are a few impressions from the staff's romp with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption at the Nintendo Media Summit. According to Play, Corruption is aimed at Metroid fans and hardcore gamers alike but will still be accessible to grandma thanks to intuitive controls. The game's long delay was to add a "Twilight Princess level of polish" and, in the magazine's own words, Corruption could be the "biggest revolution in FPS gaming since Halo".

Mighty strong opinions from playtesting the demo, but we'll be able to find out for ourselves on August 20. Hit the jump to read more impressions from Play magazine, complete with miniature spoilers!

Tonight in San Francisco, Aaron Loeb, who works at Planet Moon Studios (Armed and Dangerous and Infected) premieres his play First Person Shooter at the San Francisco Playhouse. The guys over at GayGamer.net attended a preview last night and have a review up on their site. The story follows a successful fictional company known for making violent video games. Things go wrong at the company when they are blamed for a schoolyard shooting and the young CEO of the company has to deal with the lawsuit which follows and the parents of the victims.

The SF Playhouse says, "Aaron [Loeb], who now develops videogames, worked as a journalist covering the world of videogames at the time of Littleton, Colorado shootings and 'wanted to write a play about the people caught in the echo chamber of the debate. What must it be like for the people actually accused of making a game that turns kids into killers? What about the parents of the victims? Their children are dead and the news is jam packed with talk of something so trivial as videogames!'"

The play premieres to the public tonight and runs until June 9 at the San Francisco Playhouse. Ticket information is available at the playhouse's website. If you live in the San Francisco area go check it out and let us know what you think. Hopefully after the play's run they'll make a three camera video of it. Sure, it kinda defeats the purpose of seeing it live, but not everyone that wants to see it can make it out to San Fran and it sounds like a good play.

Two weeks out from the PlayStation 3's launch, UK retailer Play.com
has the has given the system a price cut of around $50. Sweetening the deal is the inclusion of a free HDMI cable and a Blu-ray copy of Adam Sandler comedy, Click, all for £399.99, which is £25 less than the current asking price for the console.

It could be easy to look at this as Play.com trying for attention or moving some excess stock were it not for a recent 82% UK PS3 sales drop reported by Chart-Track. The tracking group later made efforts to downplay the importance of the statistic, but this price cut would seem to justify, in some small part, the poor PS3 reception that the drop indicated.

While it's unclear if this is necessarily a portent of doom for the console's future in the UK (we suspect not), it's at least a good deal for our friends in the UK; though, at nearly $800, still not even close to what US customers are paying for the thing.

[Thanks, fromat]

It seems that British gamers who are willing to shop around can get the Xbox 360 for quite a bit less than the manufacturer's suggested retail price. GamesIndustry.biz reports that discount wholesaler Makro is selling the Premium system for £199.99 (Regularly £279.99) and Joystiq tipster Joanthan pointed out that UK game store Play is selling the Core system for £149.99 (regularly £199.99). The retailer-specific price drops are not officially endorsed by Microsoft, who told GI.biz through a spokesperson that "Xbox does not control the retail price of the Xbox 360" and that "prices are set by retailers."

This statement may seem a little laughable to readers in America, where game hardware prices are remarkably consistent across retailers. In contrast to other consumer electronics, where retailers constantly try to undercut each other on the same merchandise, stores that sell game systems are reluctant to lower the price for fear of being cut off by the manufacturers. Hence, the price of a game system comes down across the board only when the manufacturer decrees it.

Nintendo got a slap on the wrist from the FTC for such price-fixing practices back in 1991, but the lesson doesn't seem to have stuck in today's market. If Wal-mart wants to sell me a system for less than Target, who's the system maker to tell them they can't?

Yeah, we know, making jokes about fake Wii games and "playing with my wii" innuendo is, like, so 2006. But when Ze Frank does it, it all seems so fresh and new, mainly because he does it ... oh, what's the word ... well.

In between the "sophomoric ... even freshman ... ish" jokes, Ze also gets into the differences between playing with "girly" button-filled controllers and the Wii controller, which "you grab ... and you instinctively know what to do with it." Whether or not you agree with his sentiment, it's hard not to laugh when Ze makes absolutely everything about playing games seem dirty. Hey, if it works for space news, it can sure as hell work for video games.

[Via VH1 Game Break]

Video Games Live is heading to the Hollywood Bowl and bringing with them a few pages of sheet music from the Halo 3 score, as well as music from Civilzation IV. Guests at the September 21 show include guitarists Steve Vai and Dweezil Zappa, as well as electronica artist Brian Transeau (BT).

For those of you with old-school tastes, the original Lucas Arts composers will be giving "a rare special acoustic performance." The press release promises, among others, pieces from Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series. Sure, there's Halo 3, but we're more geeked out by the thought of Lucas Arts compositions.

Ticket prices range from the very low ($3.00) to the very high ($65.00) and are on sale now.

Philly is racking up the video game concerts this summer. First, the Video Games Live concert at the Merriam Theater in June*, and now rival production PLAY! at the Mann Center tonight, 8:30.

Just to make the evening super special, the promoters added some music from the (better than you'd think) Prey soundtrack to the already impressive program. Other titles on the RPG-heavy lineup include Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross and Trigger, Morrowind, Kingdom Hearts, Shenmue, and more. Tickets are still available so if this is the first you've heard about it, get buying.

I'll be at the show tonight with (just a) couple oddly sized Joystiq shirts to give away so, if you can answer me who composed the music for Sonic Rush (don't answer it here!), you may get yourself a fancy tee.

*I promise I'll recount my very tardy VGL experience in addition to PLAY! so y'all can compare and contrast.