• Brad Paisley - "I'm Gonna Miss Her"

• Jimi Hendrix - "Wild Thing"

• Tom Petty - "Needles and Pins"

For those of you set up with left handed controls you can use X, X, B, B, Y, A, Y, and A on the letter pads instead. I have tested this out myself and it work just fine so go and enjoy yourself two great new songs and one rather questionable one. (I'll let you decide which one that is for yourself.)

Konami codes and secret messages in Jam Sessions [DS Fanboy]

This week has a nice choice of titles spread out over various systems (sans the PSP). I'm trying to get to Heavenly Sword tonight so I can see for myself what it's going to be like and I am anxious to check out Jam Sessions and Drawn to Life for the DS. I've avoided Oblivion for a while just because I'm afraid of getting sucked in, but the inclusion of all the expansions on one disc is intriguing. What to do, what to do?

Heavenly Sword (PS3)
Will Nariko and her moves rival Kratos?

Skate (X360)
Skate to your heart's content and see what life is like without Tony Hawk.

NHL 2K8 (PS3, X360, PS2)
All the fun of Hockey without the broken teeth.

NHL 08 (X360, PS3, PC, PS2)
Because we always need more hockey games.

Galactic Assault: Prisoner of Power (PC)
Rule the planets in this sci-fi RTS.

.hack//G.U. vol. 3//Redemption (PS2)
The final game in the trilogy. The end of an era...

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition (X360, PC)
All of Oblivion including the two expansions in one tidy package.

Kengo: Legend of the 9 (X360)
You are a legendary samurai in feudal Japan doing the stuff a samurai does.

DiRT (PS3)
More racing action for your PS3.

Jam Sessions (DS)
Strum your blues away.

Drawn to Life (DS)
Draw your own character and put him through his paces.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (WII, PS2)
Still guilty after all these years.

Fatal Inertia (X360)
Race in supersonic planes and kick some ass.

Ship Simulator 2008 (PC)
Imagine the fun of piloting your own oil rig!

Tired of the colored button tapping of Guitar Hero and want to take your video game music playing to the next level? The Jam Sessions may be for you (if you have a DS). Instead of playing a predefined set of notes, Jam Sessions lets you pick and choose what chords and notes you want to play, thus creating you're own rockin' tunes.

This trailer is really less a trailer and a bit more like a gentle, quiet prodding from the games producer, Carlo Delallana, to get you to check out the game. It actually looks like a lot of fun and sounds pretty relaistic, but do yourself a favor: stock up on screen protectors.

For those who haven't imported the original Japanese version, the game "plays" quite simply. The touchscreen requires only simple strumming, with quick strokes emitting louder strums, softer strokes for quieter chords. You can't play individual strings, mind you, just chords.

Directional presses on the DS d-pad will choose your chord, from a stable of eight, with the left shoulder button modifying that set for another eight. Those two chord palettes and the pitch of the chords themselves are completely customizable with the game's drag and drop palette editor. You'll also be able to save these custom chord palette's to your cart's internal memory.

Jam Sessions will let budding musicians record their performances to the game's internal storage as well, so if you've come up with some catchy toe-tapper or sappy folk tune, you can play it back later. The game will also ship with a bunch of popular tunes included in lyric and chord chart format, so you won't have to learn songwriting on the side.

A number of guitar sounds and effects (reverb, chorus, tremolo, high and low pass) are available which can be toggled with the right shoulder button for those moments when you need to kick up the distortion. Players can also tweak their effects processors, which are simple, two-knob pedals, and can stack a pair of processors for a wide variety of sounds.

The interface is quite simple, as you'll see in the screenshot gallery below. Michael McWhertor

I'm sorta kidding, but honestly, I don't have a lot of interest in DS games like Animalz Marine Zoo, Fashion Designer DS, and Horsez 2 DS. To be fair, Cosmic Family does look intriguing. The game, geared toward the kindergartener to first-grader group, it lets kids use the Wii remote to explore an interactive rocketship packed with more than 300 animations and sounds and 20 minigames. Brian Crecente

They had me at Bob Dylan.

There I was sitting on the cusp of Ubisoft's annual pressfest, just feet away from a chocolate fountain, strumming my heart out to Like a Rolling Stone on a DS hooked up to a Marshall amp. Granted, the song isn't part of the guitar simulator for the DS, but it's pretty easy to program in your own songs.

The game does a pretty good job of simulating the sound made by playing chords on an electronic guitar. You use the touch screen and either the stylus or a guitar pick to strum a digital string and then hold the D-pad in one of eight directions to play a chord. It's very easy to pre-program your chords, but once you're into a song, you can't change the chords. You can also drop some effects into your jam session with the shoulder buttons.

The game will come with a setlist which will let you see the words for the song and the timing and notes to be played as you strum. Or you can program your own songs in and sort of wing it. The game also includes a built in metronome for those completely lacking in rhythm.

While jamming on a DS may sound unwieldy, it really wasn't. Granted, you have to sort of sit and prop the DS up on your knees or place it on a table, but at least it sounds cool. I think this could be the next big thing for the DS. Brian Crecente

Pretty awesome news? Hell yes. This, alongside titles like Assassin's Creed and the rumored Senko no Ronde, mean Ubisoft is going to have a very interesting release list year. Michael McWhertor

Exclusive: Ubisoft to Publish Jam Sessions, an Improved Version of Japanese Cult Hit Guitar Game, in North America This June [N'Gai Croal's Level Up]