I had the awesome opportunity to interview Vince Scheuerman, lead singer of the band Army of Me.  Vince and I sat down and talked about the inspiration for his music, his stance on faith and more.  For more information stay tuned to Episode 144 of the Hardcore Christian Gamer Cast.  Visit Army of Me’s website here.

Merry Christmas from the folks here at Hardcore Christian Gamer. As you’re unwrapping awesome new video games, or perhaps a sweet new console, don’t forget the real reason for the season: the birth of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Sure, he wasn’t really born in December, but that’s not important. The birth itself is what matters; and may we never forget that.

May He bless you and your family today and for years to come! And stay tuned for the next Game-A-Day giveaway!

Sony’s new Comic Store addition to the PlayStation Store begins today. Fitting start date, given that Wednesday is the official new comics day in the U.S. The service goes live in the States at noon PST—that’s 3 PM for all the East Coast kids. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland can get their comic bookin’ on starting at 5 PM GMT.

Marvel, IDW, 2000AD, and Disney will all have comics online and ready for download to your PSP or PSPgo. Strangely absent is DC Comics, who is working on a MMO with Sony as I type this. You can get your Spider-Man and Hulk fix, kids, but forget about Batman for the time being.

For future updates, be sure to keep track of the PlayStation Comic Store via Twitter. If any significant changes are made in the future—such as the addition of DC Comics—we’ll let you know.

League of Legends, a PC strategy game based on Defense of the Ancients—a popular Warcraft III mod—is now entering the open beta phase. The open beta lasts until October 27th, when developer Riot Games starts what they’re calling the “pre-season” launch. No, that’s not a typo. The first phase is really called the pre-season, like in football.

League of Legends will be broken up into several seasons. Each season will bring new maps and “Champions” with which to wage war on online opponents. Kind of like how each new season of The X-Files introduced new creatures and supernatural forces for Mulder and Scully to fight. That’s a bad example though, ’cause that show went down the crapper fast. Hopefully, League of Legends won’t suffer that fate.

The pre-season exists to allow players to learn the ropes of the game mechanics before Season One begins in early 2010. From what I’ve seen of the game, it seems ridiculously easy to learn, but hard to master. But don’t take it from me: check out the trailer above or the official site for more info on the game and it’s unique approach to strategy gameplay.

If for some reason you have yet to play Assassin’s Creed, have a PC and a Steam account, and/or don’t mind blowing a small wad of chump change, this is the deal for you. The wonderful folks behind PC gaming client Steam slashed the price of Assassin’s Creed to a measly $5. The reason? Who knows. Maybe they want to get the five people that didn’t play the original excited for the sequel.

If you’re one of those five people, and you have a PC capable of running a current-gen game (unlike mine), why not plunk down five ham bones? Assassin’s Creed didn’t shake the game industry up or do anything noteworthy, but it’s definitely worth more than $5. Heck, I might just take advantage of the deal, regardless of my crappy computer. Just in case.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: the sale ends tomorrow, October 22nd. So, um, buy it now. Or nowish. Whenever you get the time; no rush.

Ah, the French. Lovely people for the most part; but sometimes I just want to punch them. Case in point: a French retail store sold copies of the forthcoming Halo 3: ODST earlier this week. That’s almost four weeks before the official release date. Or, in other words, that’s crazy. Those lucky French folk…

An unboxing video showed up on Youtube soon after but was promptly removed by the powers that be. Microsoft then issued a statement saying that anyone caught playing ODST early would be permanently banned from Xbox Live. A fine reaction against pirates, but it seemed like a harsh punishment for folks who legitimately bought the game.

Evidently someone at Microsoft thought so too, as they’ve lifted the permaban punishment on legit Halo 3: ODST—but only in France. American gamers who come into possession of a copy of ODST before its release date would do well to be patient and play it at the appropriate time. It could be played offline; but in a game like ODST, that pretty much defeats the purpose of playing.

Promoting their upcoming Uncharted 2: Among Thieves this week at GamesCom, developer Naughty Dog mentioned the interesting fact that said game is comprised of roughly sixty percent action and forty percent puzzles. For you folks afraid to do math in your head, that’s a few more bullets flying than crates getting pushed.

That sounds on track with the original game’s action/adventure vibe. Uncharted, while similar to the Tomb Raider series, took more cues from both games’ mutual ancestor: the Indiana Jones films. With so much action weighting the proceedings in the sequel, Nathan Drake (and players by proxy) will face a lot more tension—exactly what Naughty Dog wants, according to spokesman Arne Myer.

Personally, Naughty Dog could have Nathan running from rabid pink bunnies while trying to fix his Rolex and I’d be happy. I just hope the aforementioned tension-filled action comes with better combat mechanics than the first Uncharted. If the Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta was any indication, it looks like Naughty Dog might nail the action this time.

Lionhead Studios head-honcho Peter Molyneux is ready to weave another tale of Albion and its fantastical inhabitants with Fable III, due in late 2010. Molyneux announced the new fantasy action/RPG at GamesCom today during the Microsoft presentation. Molyneux let a few tidbits slip about the game’s premise and design. Check ‘em out below.

• Players will guide the son or daughter of their character from Fable II on a journey to rule the world of Albion. Whether they do good or evil is up to the individual player.
• In order to take over said world, the player must first overthrow the current ruling tyrant.
• You have to gain the trust of Albion’s citizens to get to the top; and, once there, you must continue to work to stay in their good graces.
• Players will make “judgments” based on citizens’ actions.
• The emote system will be upgraded to a more robust “touch” system, which starts with a simple handshake and evolves into a hug, then maybe a kiss, all depending on the character’s alignment, relationships, etc.

That’s about the gist of his speech. If you’d like a more detailed breakdown, check out GameSpot’s coverage of the presentation.

What you see above is an image reportedly from the newest Hastings catalog (courtesy of Wii Space and HCG member Weston Smith), displaying the 160GB PlayStation 3 unit at $100 less than the current price. Notice it doesn’t say “sale,” but rather “price cut.” If this is legit, it would seem to indicate Sony is officially dropping the price.

GamesCom, a gaming convention held in Cologne, Germany, is the place where industry insiders expect Sony to announce the price drop. GamesCon starts next week, which more or less meshes with the Hastings price drop date of September 8. I don’t know if this is the actual Sony start date for the drop or if this is simply the day Hastings chose to start the price cut. We’ll let you folks know when we know more.

Today we see the beginning of a month-long Star Wars party on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, courtesy of Super Star Wars. The Super Nintendo classic releases for 800 space bucks. We can expect to see Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in the following weeks.

But that’s not all, folks. A Star Wars character creation contest will hit the Check Mii Out Channel soon, as will Star Wars-themed questions on the Everybody Votes Channel. LucasArts promises other classics from their library will hit the Virtual Console in the future following the three Star Wars games.

I still own a working Super Nintendo and plenty of games—including all three Super Star Wars titles—so the Virtual Console release of these games doesn’t much appeal to me. I’m sure, however, that many of you folks are excited. Well, I hope so anyway; otherwise I just wasted my time writing this article. So if seeing Super Star Wars on the VC has you shaking in your Luke Skywalker Underoos, leave a comment!