This is absolutely hilarious. A ridiculous and peculiar glitch in EA's new racing title, Need for Speed: Shift, has allegedly been unearthed, and it's amazing. The title supposedly contains a game-breaking error in which the Xbox 360 version crashes while attempting to connect to the PlayStation Store. You have read that correctly, a 360 game is trying to connect to PSN.

This is just one of many bugs reported to have shipped with Shift. According to reports, the poor game is riddled with problems. The blogger who discovered the PSN connection error describes Shift as "the most bug-ridden piece of code I have witnessed in recent times." 

On the one hand, I feel sorry for the developers over what is an incredibly embarrassing cock-up. On the other, I can't stop sniggering at such an amazing failure. I don't think I've ever heard of a game trying to use one console to connect to a rival network, and I am itching to find out how such a disastrous mistake could have happened. 

Expect patches to be coming out for this thing very, very soon.

I'll give Southpeak credit where it's due. We've torn many of their games to shreds, but not once have they ever complained, demanded a re-review, or thrown bitter accusations at us. That said, one of our more positive reviews, Section 8, caused the publisher some concern and they looked into the main problem I had with the game -- the lack of an online community.

Southpeak said that people were playing Section 8 and that, contrary to my review, servers were quite healthy. Developer TimeGate Studios was collecting data for me to prove this claim, but then stumbled upon an issue that apparently explains why I couldn't get into a decent game.

"TimeGate investigated the issues you were having and we attribute the experience you had of low-player multiplayer games to a bug where the matchmaking system favored placement of players into empty/near empty servers," explains the developer. "TimeGate has worked feverishly to make sure that all players are getting the full multiplayer madness they deserve. Currently, things are looking great, with servers normally running at near capacity, and tests showing that over 95% of players looking for a large match are getting in with groups of 14+ players on server. Apologies to any early players that had issues."

I am now going to use this situation as an opportunity to declare that Destructoid reviews help to fix games. Had we not brought up the multiplayer issues in our review, this problem may never have been discovered. Yes, we are now basically game developers and our words can alter the course of the industry. Only our JOURNALISM can make videogames better.

The day after PS3 Firmware 3.0 launched, the expected slew of complaints came tumbling in. The PS3's latest update saw isolated but aggravating issues, with copies of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune randomly freezing and DualShock 3 controllers refusing to work. Fortunately for the afflicted, Sony has acknowledged that problems exist, and that they are being worked on.

"SCEA is aware of reports that PS3 owners are experiencing isolated issues with their PS3 system since installing the most recent system software update (v3.00)," the company confesses. "Rest assured that we are looking into the matter and will provide an update here as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience, as it's our mission to deliver the best consumer experience on all PlayStation platforms."

Among the noted issues, some players have also experienced trouble accessing Trophies and logging onto the PlayStation Network. The issues are varied, but fortunately restricted to a select number of people. Nevertheless, I'm still not keen to switch my PS3 on until I know we're in the all-clear.

If you play Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the PlayStation 3, then be warned. A mob of hackers and glitchers have essentially overrun the game's online component, griefing the Hell out of the multiplayer and then posting Youtube videos of their nefarious chicanery. The videos tell people how they too can fly and walk through walls, helping the problem to propagate itself as others get wise to the unfair tactics.

"Apparently the new hacks are for flying (no clip), no reloads (endless supply of ammunition), god mode, laser sights and the ability to move through buildings," explains the Modern Warfare forum moderation team. "More mods may or may not exist at this time however. This is apparently devastating the community and is rampant ... The most affected game modes seem to be Search and Destroy but were reported to be in all gametypes. Hopefully something can be done to address this issue."

Infinity Ward has been made aware of the problem, stating that it hears the victims "loud and clear," and that it's looking into things. 

I play Modern Warfare on the Xbox 360, so I don't know how bad things are on the PS3 side. It sounds like the game's being absolutely wrecked by cheaters, however, and I send out my commiserations to unlucky PS3 players having to deal with such nonsense. Have any of you been affected by these glitches? I'm interested to see just how bad things are over there.

Those of you who have spent every hour of your waking day climbing the Halo Wars leaderboard (although why you'd want to lay claim to such an honor is beyond me), then some absolutely devastating news might be headed your way. According to Microsoft, a most horrendous error has seen the boards completely wiped clean. Oh dear.

"An Xbox Live technical issue wiped all Halo Wars Xbox Live Leaderboards earlier today," confirms The 'Soft. "This includes all singleplayer, multiplayer and Trueskill leaderboards, as well as all matchmaking data. At this time it's unknown if the data can be restored, resulting in the Halo Wars Leaderboards being reset to original Launch Day status."

There is some consolation in the fact that it's just Halo Wars, and not something that truly matters. Even so, those that got into the game will surely be upset by this grave news. MS will provide a further update as soon as possible, but things are looking bleak. 

Personally, I only wish this had happened while I was reviewing it, then nobody would have been able to bitch about my progress.

In the past 24 hours it seems that World of Warcraft has been having a few hiccups. Hiccups as in players can't log in to play and now that some of them can their characters aren't there anymore. The WoW forums are full of complaints from people who can't get past the authentication screen and a fix doesn't seem to have occurred yet. It's sad, but I'm pretty sure if this goes on for too long a nation wide riot will start.

As of this writing the last update from Blizzard was at 10:49 PDT last night and they explained that they are "still working on alleviating the Account Management issues, folks. You have my apologies for any delays in getting this issue resolved.” Even more troublesome is that now some people have been able to get on but their characters are missing. I don't know about you, but if I had spent a solid chunk of my life perfecting a character and then Blizzard lost it I'd be pretty angry at them. Hopefully they get it all fixed up soon and WoW players can return to their regularly scheduled clicking.

A new European Union proposal could very well determine the future of videogame development, claims a new report from the BBC. The EU is demanding that games be made to march in step with other products and offer a two-year guarantee, with refunds expected for any videogame that is found to be too glitchy to get through. To put this in perspective, the chaps who made Two Worlds would be bankrupt under this new law.

Dr. Richard Wilson, head of European games representative TIGA, disagrees with the proposal: "They have to be careful not to stifle new ideas. Consumers need good quality products -- that is only reasonable -- but if the legislation is too heavy-handed it could make publishers and developers very cautious."

With all due respect, I don't think publishers can balk at the concept of new game ideas anymore than they already do. Besides which, since when has "new" and "buggy" been in the same league? BioShock was new, but I don't remember it being glitchy at all. Meanwhile, Bethesda takes the Fallout license, merges it with established Elder Scrolls-style gameplay, and presents to us a glitchtastic tale of buggy delights.

I do see what Wilson is saying, that developers would rely on established engines and be afraid to make new strides in the industry, but at the same time, there's no excuse for a broken game. "We're trying something new," doesn't quite cut it when you've demanded fifty quid for what you're now claiming is an experiment. 

Personally, I feel the threat of a refund might force developers and publishers to seriously think about finishing their games before release, rather than just rely on patches after rushing something out of the door.

Those of you who downloaded the latest Killzone 2 update last week may have noticed that the patch, while welcome for its new ranks and exploit fixes, carried with it an unfortunate side-effect. The intro movie, at least for some people, is refusing to skip despite players hammering away on their controls.

I noticed this at the weekend, when I was trying to get my daily KZ2 fix but was unable to shut Emperor Visari up. The game makes a noise as if it's acknowledged your controller input, but will keep playing the opening movie regardless, only skipping until several seconds after the Guerrilla logo has appeared onscreen. 

We asked Guerrilla if this was a common problem or just my copy screwing up, but were informed via Twitter that we're not alone. Apparently, this was not a deliberate attempt by Guerrilla to force us to look at its logo and the team is planning to resolve this rather irritating issue. 

"We've had many reports of this," states Guerrilla. "The QA team is aware of it and looking for a fix."

That's good to know. Life is too short to listen to Brian Cox screaming about the terrible vengeance he's going to wreak on us. As much as I enjoy listening to a space Nazi with a Scottish accent, I still need to get that Air Support medal.

Killzone 2 is an excellent multiplayer game, but that hasn't stopped it falling foul of a few bugs and, by extension, dirty glitch exploiters. It would seem that, while Guerrilla has been letting a number of infractions slide, the studio is reaching the end of its tether and offenders may now run the risk of a PSN ban.

The news comes via Twitter, that social networking site that most of you hate hearing about. The official Killzone Twitter made the stark warning, so any of you currently falling through floors or finding other nefarious ways to cheat death and claim an easy victory should be prepared. 

"Glitchers risk losing their PSN ID altogether," warns Guerrilla. "We've been quite lenient so far but that's going to change."

Looks like fighting words to me. I guess I'll stop doing that thing where I put a forklift truck in front the elevator so the Helghast can't get out.

Bethesda today released the next part of its Fallout 3 DLC, The Pitt, but warnings have come in from early downloaders to avoid this thing like the plague, because it's borked to Hell. Described as "completely broken" by one poster, and flagged as a "corrupted file" by a Dtoid community member, it sounds like this download needs to be avoided for now.

Giant floating exclamation marks seem to be the most striking phenomenon in The Pitt, although glitchy graphics and missing textures are also quite prominent. Raiders are showing "rainbow colors" on certain parts of their bodies, and that classic -- the complete game freeze -- is also rearing its ugly head with regularity.

With three threads on the subject at Bethesda's forums already, this is looking to be quite a widespread issue. The general consensus right now is to avoid The Pitt, especially on the 360, where it seems a majority of these issues lie.

Frankly, this doesn't surprise me. Fallout 3 was, itself, a shameful mess of glitches and bugs. The fact that the DLC is a botched mess seems rather in keeping with the spirit of the game.

LittleBigPlanet really has had it bad since it launched. The highly promising PS3 title was delayed a week due to Muslim-themed controversy, the launch was riddled with glitches and server issues, the sales have been less than fantastic and, to top it all off, people are now having their data mysteriously delete itself. Nice.

According to reports, random parts of save data is at risk of simply disappearing, be it MGS4 level pack progress to whole swathes of user-created content. "I lost four costumes and she lost all 12 of her saved costumes, as well as losing the level status. Also we found that all of our community and saved photos were erased too," claims one unfortunate LBP fan.

It is being theorized that bloated profile data may be causing the bug to occur. Especially since this follows the MGS4 level pack release, which adds a lot of content, some believe the game is automatically deleting things when a profile gets too large. Nothing official has been said in response to these reports, so be careful out there.

At this rate, I just feel really sorry for LittleBigPlanet. To go from one of the most hotly anticipated titles of the generation to little more than a series of tragedies just isn't right.

Several of us at Destructoid have been messing around in the magical world of Fable II as of late and we’ve been experiencing a few bugs here and there. But according to a report from X3F, there is a bigger, nastier bug than merely freezing when initiating a flourish against a wall. This bug could force you to have to restart your game completely.

The bug revolves around a main story quest called “Monk’s Quest,” where players are sent to the Temple of Light to take care of a task for the Abbot. If players leave the region while the Abbot is talking about the finer points of the task, then they will be unable to complete the quest. Considering that this is a main story quest, this is a very bad thing.

Lionhead is aware of the problem and has advised players to finish the conversation before heading back out into the wilderness. They are also currently working on a fix, but be careful in the meantime.

Rock Band fans better watch out, because if the string of complaints are anything to go by, your Rock Band 2 progress could be at risk. The rather brutal glitch, seeming to affect only the 360 version, waits for you to make significant progress through the game before wiping your band leader off tour mode, and reducing the whole group's work to nothing.

Although this sudden destruction of a hot band's career could be used as a rather effective and smug metaphor for the music industry as a whole, the reality of the situation is that this is nasty news for Rock Band 2 players. The Rock Band forums contain the details of the issue, which is outlined below:

A number of Rock Band 2 players are experiencing an error in tour mode where at some point through the game (it seems people most often make substantial progress and are just prior to the airplane award) they start the game and find they cannot access their band. Your character and your band do not show up in the selection screen, but unlocked songs are still available. If you enter quickplay mode your character is deleted. For some reason your band will show up in online mode, but when you access it you get a message stating "looking for band leader" that never resolves and you have to back out. In the game options screen, when you try to load your band, or modify it in any way, you can still see the band but your only option is to delete it. This error seems to becoming more and more common, and its incredibly frustrating because your only option is to create a brand new band and start your tour all over again.

The common threads seem to be the use of an X-box Live Enabled primary account and a non X-box Live Enabled secondary account. To form your band. This makes me believe this will be an X-box 360 error and not anything that would effect the Wii or PS3 versions.

I'll have to get Nick Chester to seek an official response from Harmonix, since none has yet been issued. He certainly hasn't had any complaints so far, although Nick and Rock Band complaints don't go hand-in hand. Have any of you guys had similar problems, or are your bands alive and well?