Leadership tensions with the Federal Coalition reached crisis point overnight, with Australian Prime Minister John Howard categorically ruling out Treasurer Peter Costello as the obvious succesor to the top job. Howard has instead endorsed a relatively new face in his cabinet--Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117--as the man most likely to become Prime Minister when Howard retires sometime in his next term should the Coalition win the upcoming election.

Howard and Master Chief discussing Australia's carbon emissions policy.

OK, so the above may not actually be true, but Howard did meet up with Master Chief earlier this week. The Prime Minister had "won" a new Xbox 360 through the Footy Show "That's Gold" competition (that's the NSW Footy Show), and decided to donate the prize to the St Alban's Community Centre in Epping, NSW. Microsoft was on hand to take some snaps of the handover, and even brought along their star character for a photo opportunity.

The Prime Minister also took the time out while at the community centre to try Halo 3 on for himself. GameSpot AU asked the Prime Minister's office for further details--including what level he was playing at and what Howard's gamertag is, but had not received a response as of the time of publication.

Howard woos young voters through the power of the headshot.

While rumours have been floating around the web for a little while now, Activision has just confirmed that pioneering punk rockers The Sex Pistols have been locked in for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The Pistols will contribute one of their best known tracks, offering 'Anarchy in the U.K' to budding guitar rockers as part of the monster lineup for the third version of the rhythm game.

So dedicated are the former Hall of Fame nominees to the project that when the original master for the song couldn't be found, three of the original members, John Lydon, Steve Jones, and Paul Cook hit the studio to re-record their hit. They even opted to use an original 1969 analogue sound desk to keep that authentic Pistols feel.

Activision apparently helped the trio re-record "a couple of songs including 'Anarchy in the U.K'" making us wonder if more than one track will appear in the final version of the game--unlockable perhaps? We'll find out soon enough though, with the game set to kick over couches and throw television sets into swimming pools at the end of next month.

Australian retailers have joined a growing worldwide trend by releasing one of the most anticipated games of the year--Halo 3--a week ahead of its scheduled official launch date. A thread appeared on the GameSpot AU forum mid this afternoon from user lucas_kelly claiming to have a copy of Halo 3 limited edition. Amid speculation from other users demanding proof, he posted a picture of the Aussie Halo 3 limited edition packaging and contents alongside a piece of paper showing his username next to it.

When contacted by GameSpot AU, lucas_kelly refused to name the retailer but did explain how he managed to get Halo 3. "I pre-ordered it, then they [the retailer] got it in today and rang me up to say I could come and get it," he said.

There is always a risk of leaking copies when sending out your biggest titles for the year to retailers a week or more before official release. 2K Games recently learned that lesson when BioShock was released in a few rogue stores in the United States before the official release date. GameSpot UK also reported earlier today that copies of Halo 3 have leaked out into customers hands by trigger-happy retailers.

Microsoft Australia declined to comment.

To celebrate the release of Drawn to Life this Thursday, THQ have launched a competition for school kids around Australia. The winning student not only wins a Nintendo DS and a copy of Drawn to Life, but their whole class receives a Nintendo DS Lite! Damn, if only we were still at school.

The individual winner also receives 12 months worth of DS games. A link to the site can be found here, where you can try your luck at drawing your own hero. Surely it's got to be better than ours...

This afternoon GameSpot AU got a brief hands-on session of Turok for the Xbox 360. The game starts off on a spaceship, which is taking your hapless character to the objective on an unknown planet, only to be attacked en route.

After the mayhem, Turok is woken up on the planet by another squad member and told he's crashed on an unknown planet filled with bad guys. As Turok and your teammate patrol through the planet's jungle you'll encounter a few small squads of enemies, who are easy to dispatch. Our weapons of choice for this was the submachine gun we picked up and Turok's trusty knife. When using Turok¹s massive knife, you can either slash at foes or--if your timing is right--the game enters a Manhunt-style brutal execution.

Graphically, Turok is great. It's hardly surprising considering the game uses a modified version of the Unreal 3 engine. During our session with Turok, we noticed that the dinosaurs were more detailed than that of their human counterparts. The textures on their skin were quite impressive, showing off the individual scales and any scars or skin imperfections that the dinosaur may have. The humans on the other hand looked more like a stock enemy model and compared to the dinosaurs, and seemed to lacks texture and detail. Bear in mind that the game is still five months away from release so this might be improved.

The next level we saw was much shorter and contained significantly less dinosaurs. For this mission we had Turok¹s trademark Bow, which has evolved into a compound bow from previous versions of the game. As we were sneaking over a pipe to infiltrate an unknown building, we were instructed to shoot the dinosaur eggs which sat below us. Once they were broken, a Raptor burst out of the bushed and attacked the guards at the base. As we continued to crawl across the pipe we noticed two guards patrolling a balcony within the outer perimeter of the compound. For these two, we pulled out our compound bow and took them out from a distance. The second guard was hit in the chest, and was pinned by the arrow to the wall behind him.

From what we got to see, Turok is turning out to be a decent FPS. No doubt we'll have more of this game so keep checking GameSpot for the latest coverage.

With Guitar Hero 3 , Activision is not only introducing a whole range of new songs and game features, it's also unveiling a brand new guitar peripheral into the mix--the world-famous Gibson Les Paul. We managed to get some dedicated hands-on time with the new guitar at the recent Activision Activate: Asia conference, and we're happy to report that the new controllers (which are all wireless) feel and play great, and shouldn't bother any long-term fans of the series. The Les Paul's also have some cool new features, such as the ability to change faceplates and to be taken apart for easier storage. Check out our pics below as we dissect the Xbox 360 version into its requisite pieces.

Activision had plenty of wireless guitars on hand.

As you can see, the new Les Paul's fret buttons are now outlined in their respective colours, as opposed to be being solid blocks in previous guitar controllers.

The Xbox Dashboard and D-pad have been moved up to the top of the guitar. This was in response to user feedback that it was far too easy to accidentally push the Dashboard button while on the whammy bar on the previous X-plorer 360 controller.

The back of the guitar features a sliding switch which is used to detach the neck of the guitar.

And here it is--the neck and the body of the guitar apart. It's a pretty simple and hassle-free process to take apart and put together again.

Detaching the neck allows you to more easily transport the guitar.

The faceplate can also be detached, allowing gamers to decorate the Les Paul with whatever design they like (or, more accurately, buy as an accessory). Unfortunately, you have to take the neck off to change the faceplate, but changing the faceplate itself is also quite easy.

The dissected Les Paul--all up, it takes less than a minute to do.

Fatal Intertia--the next-gen-platform-fence-jumping racer has finally been given a date down under. THQ, the Australian distributor of Koei titles has confirmed an Xbox 360 ship date of September 20. Meanwhile, there is still no hard land date for the PlayStation 3 version of the game.

Fatal Inertia made its debut at E3 2005 during the PlayStation press conference, where it was indicated that the game would be a PlayStation 3 exclusive. However, in November last year, GameSpot reported that like other thought-to-be PS3 exclusives, that Fatal Inertia was indeed a multiplatform game and would appear on the Xbox console.

Keen-eyed GameSpot AU readers will know from a previous Spot On! post that EA recently held its official media launch of FIFA Soccer 08 at North Sydney Oval. Check out our coverage of that event (plus our preview of the game's new Be A Pro mode ) by clicking here .

At the event, we caught up with Socceroo star and Melbourne Victory striker Archie Thompson, who is the official ambassador for FIFA 08 in Australia and New Zealand. Press play on the video below to hear what Archie has to say about FIFA 08, the A-League, and how Melbourne Victory will fare this season.