Stories by: Matt Peckham

Who wants scads of commercial PC games for free? No, I don't mean the kind you download illicitly, silly. I'm talking about older but as well a few newer games, including a few award-winners that publishers have made available over the years and on the house.

Shame on Activision for poaching Guns N' Roses songs in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. That's band frontman Axl Rose's testy take in a sprawling missive delivered at band fan site Mygnr.com. According to Rose, Activision used GnR songs inappropriately and without proper authorization. While he's doesn't lay out any legal particulars, his "it'll take some sorting" comment has bloggers in a tizzy.

There's a new game in town and it's called Second Life, but it's nothing to do with Linden Lab or its virtual alternate universe. Instead, it's all about songs. Songs you once heard, but probably haven't moshed to for years. Songs like Aerosmith's "Dream On" and David Bowie's "Suffragette City," Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and KISS's "Detroit Rock City." They've all been enjoying a kind of "second life" in recent years courtesy of tap-and-strum rhythm rockers like Activision's Guitar Hero and EA's Rock Band.

The BBC reports that a trial version of Muxlim Pal, a virtual community catering to Muslims, is officially open for business. Don't confuse it with the actual Second Life, however. It's not a wraparound 3D virtual world, but more a series of isometric areas linked together, kind of like The Sims.

It packs in a sleek new wireless six-piece drum set with fan-like cymbals, a slap-strum pad on its 25 percent larger sunburst guitar, a stunning 86 master recording track list, and absolutely nobody, I repeat nobody, dies in this game.

Sony's new re-brushed and buffed-up PlayStation Portable 3000 handheld video game system should finally be dangling from plastic retail hooks or resting in neat little rectangle stacks on shelves as you read this, but should existing PSP owners think about upgrading?

Spore was never meant to be all things to all people, and it's a hoot reading the mea culpas marching in from the folks who did the game such a disservice by hyping it so unreasonably.

PC World talks with Lucy Bradshaw, Spore's executive producer

The Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 iteration of Electronic Arts' golfing finger-slinger plays like last year's version with perks, ironing out the kinks in its core play while shoring up accessibility with features like a club tuner that lets you tweak everything from wedges to woods, dynamic skills that fluctuate up or down based on your performance, and commentary plus custom drills from Tiger's own real-life coach, Hank Haney.

The John Madden Football series has since developed into the biggest franchise in digital gaming, hosting some of the most critically acclaimed but also controversial incremental instalments in simulated NFL history. And we have all 20 covers.

Flush with new features, encyclopedic but accessible, and fantastically good looking, Madden 09 is the most streamlined Madden ever.