The most innovative thing out of Microsoft - ever.

Watch that video, it blows my mind. This surface computer could be the next big thing (not sure about hunching over a table for more than 10 minutes, but they'll figure it out...) Anyways, it isn't really cost effective for the home just yet (kind of like the PS3 eh Ken?) Anyways, the reason I'm posting this here is because the gaming possibilities are pretty interesting here. People on the dtoid forums are already talking about how great an RTS would be on the surface, no to mention Pong. I think this is a truly huge leap technologically and that it will probably change the way we compute in the future. Props to Msoft, a rare thing for me to say but man, that is bad! (in the best way possible)

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Piqued interest: Pollen Sonata

4colourrebellion has opened my eyes to many things. Indie developers are one of them, in fact I think it's safe to say that these guys are all about Independents within multiple industries. Anyways, it IS a Nintendo fan site and so every now and then the worlds collide and an Indie developer is looking to develop for Wii or DS. Judging from the video I think the objective is to get the boy and girl together. You do this by controlling a pollen particle in what seems to be a Dewy's Adventure type gameplay style. A very intriguing video, great presentation, sentimental music, and seems pretty innovative in terms of story and gameplay (I think the wind is a variable here). Looking forward to it.

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PS3 dies as MGS4 makes it's way to the 360, wii?

Pascuzzi try to be strong. Destructoid is reporting that Konami will be bringing the PS3's biggest exclusive to the 360, but also might be planning a Metal Gear game for Wii. Could my dream game: Raiden as Ninja on Wii, actually be coming? they'd be smart if it did. Hit the link, I'm pretty sure Ron Workman (writter of the original post) Works at microsoft (gaming division) so his seems pretty reliable, but no major news outlets are covering it. We'll probably have to wait for e3 to learn anything factual, that is if Kojima doesn't outright deny this tomorrow morning. Sorry if I scared you Pascuzzi, but would you really be surprised?

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Geometry War coming to Nintendo platforms!

It's been confirmed. The best game to come out of the 360 launch is now being tailored to the Nintendo audience - No, that doesn't mean dumbing it down to a series of minigames, that means that Geometry Wars: Galaxies is exclusive to the Wii and DS. Whats more is that the games, unlike the 360 version, will have a few multiplayer modes! Heres a tasty interview that unveils all.

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First Look at FF:Crystal Chronicles on the Wii UPDATED

As Promised Square has released the super short 'teaser' they showed at they're recent media event. The game has that same epic feel as all other Final Fantasy games and I'm really impressed by the change in art style. It definitely caters to a more mature audience artistically. While it is just a short look I can tell that there will be some great animation, special effects and some very detailed environments. But I can't help thinking that character models look a bit flat? probably just the lighting in the scenes. So why are you still here and NOT WATCHING THIS!?

UPDATE: Watch youTube version after the jump! (sorry about the lack of sound)

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Amazing new Rayman 2 teaser

Here is the beginning of my post.

As much as most of you probably hate Ubisoft for turning the Wii into a port box early on in it's life, you have to admit that Rayman: Raving Rabbids was a pretty entertaining game. The humour is some of the strongest in the industry (most in game humour comes off as cheesey or lame to me)and a sequel is definitely welcome, so long as they keep it fresh. Enjoy the Transformers spoof.

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DOXOPhobia First Impressions: Halo 3 Beta

Ready the man canon, I've got your first look at the Halo 3 multiplayer beta for this DOXOPhobia feature! New looks, new matchmaking, new weapons, same Halo gameplay!

Without any doubt Halo and Halo 2 defined the first-person shooter genre on a massive scale. On top of that Bungie hit the nail on the head when they decided to put Halo 2 on Xbox Live, which is now held under high regard with games like Counter-Strike, made by Half Life's Valve. Halo 2's matchmaking is one of the best around, the party up system has been copied, but never duplicated. So who else to actually improve on this method then Microsoft's own Bungie Studios, is it possible to make a great thing even better? Let's find out.

I'm going to start with the most important aspect of this beta. Halo 2's matchmaking is one of the greats, developers have tried to use the same method and improve on it, but haven't come close to what Bungie has done. In the Halo 3 beta, Bungie has revamped matchmaking. It's more customizable to make your Halo 3 online experience the best it can possibly be. If you're not to particular about people not being able to speak your language, you can change the settings so only people who can speak your language will be in your game. Want to play a game without having to worry about people pwning you? Change the settings so games can only be set with people at your level or close to it. This doesn't really apply to ranked matches per say, but in a social (training) match, you might want to consider this setting, since a training game will party any player searching for that game in Halo 3. Bungie has gone the extra step by adding in the new (and much awaited) "shut up button". No longer will little 12 year old brats or people who blast their tunes be a nuisance. You can easily mute these players during a game and it's done in less then a few seconds. While in a game, bring up the player's list, select the players' gamertag and press the X button, voila! That player is muted. Subtle things like this, make matchmaking an even better and more enjoyable experience.

Since this is a beta, the games types and the various games available are limited. I won't bore you with what we already know from Halo 2, but some new features in Halo 3 are, for the most part, found in Team Skirmish. The game types like territories, have been reworked to make it more of an attack and defend scenario. In the previous territories game type, a player would go and capture a specific key area on a map and gain time by defending it. Players from the other team can easily come in and take that back by killing player defending it. In Halo 3 this has changed, the attacking team has has 5 specific areas in which to capture. Once the attacking team has taken an area, the defending team can NOT take it back. Each team has two tries at capturing the 5 territories. At the end of the game the winner is judged by tallying how many territories you've captured, total.

A game type new to the Halo universe is VIP. Where one player on each team respawns as the VIP with an over charged shield. The opposing team must kill the VIP to get a point, once the VIP is dead, the next player to die after that is the new VIP. The game's limit is 10 and can only be found in Team Skirmish.

Everything else is pretty similar in the respect of game types. Halo wouldn't be Halo without their "specialty" games. In ranked matches unless it's an original game, meaning if it's a regular Team Slayer game, a game type of "Shotty Snipers" or Team Rockets will only go up to 25, as opposed to 50 in regular Slayer. Another sublte change to the game types is in Rumble Pit is instead of 8 players they reduced the limit by 2, to a total of 6 players. Like in Halo 2 you still cannot bring a party in a ranked Rumble Pit game, that about sums up the changes to Halo 3's matchmaking service. Keep in mind this is only the beat and changes can still be made.

A lot of people have been complaining about the graphics of the beta, saying they look just like Halo 2 and well, they do. Halo 3 wouldn't be true to the Halo universe if it had Gears of War graphics, it still keeps the Halo aesthetics, but at the same time improving on detail on the maps, weapons, explosions and the spartans. Everything in Halo 3 has a new shine to it, maps in the multiplayer, have an immense amount of details put in them. In Halo 2 things were flat and very square. In Halo 3 there's a lot more detail put in each maps from flowers in the grass, to leaves falling from trees. There's added physics to the game making it much more smoother to play, jumping and tossing a grenade never felt so good. A new addition to the physics would be the water in the game, yes I said the water. If you die and your things end up in the water, your guns and equipment along with your body will float down stream. Explosions have added effects to make it look even better, the weapons from the BR to the Rocket Launcher have all new animations for the shooting and reloading.

Sound is the same for the most part, everything sounds a lot beefier, explosions are louder and can be easily heard from across the map. Which brings me to the depth of the sound in H3. In Halo 2 you were able to hear shots being fired and if you were decent enough you were able to find out where it was coming from. In Halo 3, sound has some serious depth to it, you can still hear the gun fire, but pending where you are from the gun fire you can tell it's far away or very close.

There are some new additions specific for Halo 3. A major advancement to this is the equipment. You can pick up things like a Portable Grav-Boost, Bubble Shield, Trip Mine or a Power Drainer. The portable grav-boost is exactly what it says, you pick this up and if you wanna hop over a wall or get to a specific high spot, plop this down and fly high! The bubble shield is my personal favourite new piece of equipment, you drop this grenade into the ground and a shield comes up and protects you from any sort of projectile coming your way. Be warned that players can walk through the shield forcing a hand to hand combat situation. The power drainer will take out a players shield (friend or foe) and temporarily stall vehicles. Lastly, the trip mine is placed on the ground and mainly used against vehicles, if a vehicle goes over this puppy, consider that vehicle destroyed. Careful though, the trip mine goes by proximity. With this new equipment in place the default controls has changed a bit, H2 players will consider this a major change. To drop the equipment you have to press the X button which replaces the reload button. RB is now your button for reloading, entering/exiting vehicles and picking up weapons.

Bungie didn't have much to improve on for Halo 3 except campaign, but that has yet to be seen. For what Bungie has done for this beta has well surpassed what people have said in reference to graphics, if they still say they look EXACTLY like H2 then you know they haven't played or seen the beta on TV. It seems like Bungie has done it again, lets just hope the campaign is just as strong as the multiplayer.

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Smash Bros. Site goes live, reveals little.

After an anti-climactic countdown reached '0' (and some would say -1) the site went live, but only a portion of it is running. There are a few new screenshots, and some interesting musical information. Hit the jump for more of my almost baseless speculation...

When coming onto the site you'll notice that there are many links that are not available to us yet. I would assume that Nintendo will be blowing the lid off of Brawl (as well as Metroid 3) today and that the site will be filled in soon. Interestingly if you look at the 'how to play' link the graphic they chose to use was a Wii remote on its side. Now they had said that the game was going to use gamecube/classic controllers. I never really thought Nintendo would let them do this, considering they want to push their own innovations. So could we be playing Smash Bros. with the remote in classic position? Could be, but I hope not.

Another thing I wasn't too excited about, but many may find interesting is the composer list they put up. It's an impressive list, thats for sure:

Akihiro Honda (Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.)	Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns Of The Patriots / Metal Gear Solid Portable OPS
Arata Iiyoshi	Pokémon Mystery Dungeon / beatmania II DX
Asuka Ohta (Nintendo)	New Super Mario Bros. / Yoshi Touch&Go
Hajime Wakai (Nintendo)	Pikmin series / Star Fox series
Jun Fukuda (grasshopper manufacture inc.)	killer7 / contact
Kazumi Totaka (Nintendo)	Animal Crossing series / Yoshi series
Keigo Ozaki (GAME ARTS Co.,Ltd.)	PROJECT SYLPHEED
Kenichi Okuma	Melty Lancer series / Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3
Kenji Ito	ROMANCING SAGA series / CULDCEPT SAGA
Kenji Yamamoto (Nintendo)	Super Metroid / Metroid Prime series
Kentaro Ishizaka (HAL Laboratory, Inc.)	-
Koji Hayama	Cho Aniki / Ape Escape 2
Koji Kondo (Nintendo)	Super Mario Bros. series / The Legend of Zelda series
Masaaki Iwasaki	MOTHER3 / Chelnov (Genesis)
Masafumi Takada (grasshopper manufacture inc.)	killer7 / GOD HAND
Masato Kouda	Monster Hunter / Devil May Cry
Michiko Naruke	Wild Arms series
Minako Hamano (Nintendo)	Metroid Fusion
Motoi Sakuraba	Golden Sun series / Mario Golf & Tennis series
Noriyuki Iwadare	GRANDIA series
Ryoji Yoshitomi (Nintendo)	WarioWare, Inc. : Mega Microgame$!
Seiji Momoi	METEOS / The Glory of Hercules III - The Silence of Gods
Shogo Sakai (HAL Laboratory, Inc.)	Super Smash Bros. Melee / MOTHER3
Shota Kageyama	Luminous Arc
Takahiro Nishi (GAME ARTS Co.,Ltd.)	GRANDIA series / PROJECT SYLPHEED
Tomoko Sasaki (TOKIOHEIDI)	NiGHTS
Toru Minegishi (Nintendo)	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Toshiyuki Sudo (Nintendo)	Everybody Votes Channel
Tsukasa Masuko	Star Force / Magical Starsign
Yasufumi Fukuda	Kamaitachi no Yoru 2
Yasunori Mitsuda (PROCYON STUDIO CO., LTD.)	CHRONO TRIGGER / XENOGEARS
Yoko Shimomura	Kingdom Hearts series
Yuka Tsujiyoko	Fire Emblem series
Yusuke Takahama (TARGET ENTERTAINMENT INC.)	Digital Pinball series
Yutaka Iraha (GAME ARTS Co.,Ltd.)	SYLPHEED series
Yuzo Koshiro (ANCIENT)	ActRaiser / Street of Rage

What I DO find interesting though is the possible teasers within the list here. It's obvious that Akihiro Honda who worked on MGS4 is working on the music that surrounds Snake. Probably his theme as well as the music for the Metal Gear themed levels. Now, take a look at that list- there are a ton of well known series being covered. Anybody see anything that could mean new characters? I've read that Yuzo Koshiro did the original Sonic music (not sure why they wouldn't include that here) so could it be that Sonic IS making an appearance?

The Composer for 'Chrono Trigger' is listed. Do I think Crono will be in the game? no. Do I wish that he was? yes. Also note that the 'Fire Emblem' composer is listed and so maybe Marth and whats his name do come back. NiGHTs is on the list, hope he isn't in the game though. I don't want this to turn into a total advertisement (NiGHTS never appeared on a Nintendo console until now, with Wii) Also some of Grasshoppers composers, could Viewtiful Joe be making an appearance? That could be pretty cool but do all these relatively new characters belong with the classic Nintendo characters?

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DOXOreview: Spider-Man 3 (Wii)

I'm just going to come out and say it, there isn't much good about this game. It was clearly a rushed effort and the final product...well I wouldn't go so far as to call it final, considering it isn't finished. The game makes it obvious that publishers were consumed by the black symbiote themselves, and by Symbiote I mean profit. Hit the jump for the full review.


Aesthetics 2/5

Unfortunately this game looks like an awful mess. Plain and simple Vicarious Visions was rushed to get this game out in time with the movie, as was Trey Arch in fact, and over all most versions, save for the DS, have suffered greatly. With that said the time limit is still little excuse for just how terribly unfinished this game is. Why not delay until the DVD release? I know the sales may not be as impressive but, call me old fashioned, I like buying games that are finished. The big problem with the graphics is the …well, just about everything is bad. While some of spidey’s animations are fluid but the environments make this one good aspect forgettable. The city is flat, to say the least. Textures, while remaining crisp even close up are none too inspiring. The buildings look like cardboard models, its horribly primitive. The worst thing about the city is that the textures disappear and things aren’t always drawn before we can see them…Yes, that means that buildings suddenly pop up. The game is clearly not finished.

Sound: 1/5

The game is about as aurally impressive as it is visually. There is nothing really worth hearing, Tobey’s delivery of Spidey’s quips seem even worse this time around and things are overall very repetitive. One interesting quirk I found was that I would sometimes save women with voices that changed after I put them down, occasionally even to a man. Its pretty bizarre. The sound effects are bland, but the classic ‘thwip’ of the webbing coming out of the remote is a nice touch. Music seems to sporadically come in and out just like it did in spider-man 2.

Gameplay: 2/5

One of the only satisfying things this game offers (if not ‘the only’) is the swing mechanic. I have to say that it works pretty well and the motion control feels really natural. This isn’t to say there is no learning curve, no, it’s a pretty steep climb but after about 20 minutes you’ll get the hang of it. Unfortunately though, this one aspect of gameplay doesn’t make up for the awful combat system. Total wag fest, I felt like I was tempting a dog to fetch the whole time. Motion does nothing to help the combat, it actually seems rather unintuitive and becomes more of a mini game where you have to get your timing right, just not good. There isn’t that wide a variety of combo’s either which makes fighting all the more boring. I think if they had implemented a fighting engine much like that of the Godfather: Blackhand Edition it would have been much more successful. Webbing is actually pretty tight during combat the motion control works well (bring hands up to fling somebody over your shoulder), but the variation just isn’t there to keep you interested. The nunchuck controlled camera seems like it could use a whole truck load of revision. Dodging is also handled by the nun chuck , when your spider sense goes off give it a quick flick, you’d think it would work well but leaves much to be desired. I would have liked to the direction of the flick play a role in the dodging, as it is any direction will trigger the same dodge which is dependant on the analog stick. Sloppy. The cineractives (interactive cut scenes ala RE4) stunk horribly of after thought. Not one of these ‘mini games’ offered an intense moment of anticipation like RE4 or GoW, in fact they were often too short to pose any sort of challenge and the fact that motion was involved just felt uncomfortable, luckily the motions were recognized rather well. You would think that I would talk about the black suit but frankly, I never really used it. It makes you stronger, supposedly fast and requires going through another of those cineractives to take off…maybe that’s why I never used it. Truth be told the suit made combat slightly less of a chore and I think that’s mostly due to the fact that fights are over faster when in the suit and in this game, the less time you spend fighting the better. Another couple things that annoyed me was the fact that there was no sprint button was an awful oversight, running and climbing was really slow and this would have helped immensely. Spider-sense seemed somewhat ignored, sure it flashes above your head prompting you to pump the nunchuck but its hardly intuitive, why no slow-mo? That was a great mechanic in Spider-Man 2 and the 360/PS3 version of the game. Missions were few and far between, and there was little variation.

Immersion: 1/5

While swinging around does feel pretty good the graphics just aren’t convincing, I’m no HD junky but I don’t like my cityscapes disappearing. Further more the story is just an awful mess- I know what your thinking - I loved the movie- this is not the movie, this isn’t even X3. The game borrows little from the movie and instead focuses mostly on the Lizard, Morbius and Shriek which I wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t for the dumbed down presentation and rushed story telling. The game is short and so not much gets developed making it all feel like missions rather than a living narrative. The cut scenes are terrible. Some of them are comprised of 360/ps3 in-engine (And actually are taken right from the other games) while some were created by Vicarious Visions. This doesn’t SEEM too bad since it’s true that both games do follow the movie but also that both games have unique story lines as well. Well it IS bad, the difference in artistic design is jarring, so much so that it begins to cheapen the integrity of the product, and just takes you out of the story (just as if they had cast two actors for each role in a movie and played half with one cast and the other half with the others.) What’s worse is that Vicarious’ cinematics were less impressive than the 360/PS3 in game stuff (though I did like their rendition of venom over Treyarch’s) The voice overs added very little to the game despite some of the actors lending their talents, or rather, what was left of it after doing the movie. It seemed that the actors really weren’t too concerned with the game, voice acting was almost lifeless at times and often cheesy. The lines were also FAR too repetitive, and the longer the fight, the more you notice all three of those lines aren’t funny after the 400th time (heck after the first time they aren’t funny). I found myself playing through the game not because I was interested in it but rather because I am such a huge spider-man fan, and that I should play it. It was almost a chore., though swinging feels pretty good after a long day at work.



Recommendations:

If you just need to be spider-man I’d highly recommend Spider-Man 2 or even the 360/PS3 version over this. Alternatively I hear Crackdown is a pretty fun sandbox game with some super hero elements.

Bottom Line:

The Symbiote has obviously corrupt Vicarious Visions, they pull an Eddie Brock in trying to play this off as a real game.

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The heavenly, heavenly sword videos

SURE maybe i could of picked a better title for this post, but I just woke up and well....if you find it funny then ur into cheesy humour. Anywho As i was looking through games presented at the sony gamers day was a few days ago and in my searching on ign.com I found some Heavenly Sword video footage of the game at Gamers Day. I have never played the game and i most likly will never play it before it comes out but wow these videos look amazing the combat system looks really kool. The main character Nariko has a great voice actor and the animations look very smooth. The games been quoted at the "goddess of war" so lets see if it will stand up to that hype. I sure hope it does PS3 needs a strong exclusive like this.

And here is the rest of it. HA HA HA made u look!

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Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3

The BIG question (an understatment) is "will mgs4 be souly exclusive to ps3" and the answer as of right now appears to be YES! On the podcast found at the Kojima Productions Website which is also the offical site for Metal Gear Solid, Ryan Payton confirmed that MGS4 is being made for PS3 hardware not for 360. Keeping in mind....

It is also up to Konami on which console they choose to put it on. This is very good news for Sony and for MGS fans such as myself who can only play MGS on a playstation console. MGS 4 is being made to fit on a blue-ray disc, in which case hopefully the cutscenes, and the cinematic experience that MGS is known for will be better than they have ever been on previous generations. But what Kojima has always done, i should say not done, is use pre-rendered cutscenes. Kojima always used in game graphics for cut scenes, maybe cause of disc space, i dont really know, but will pre-rendered cutscenes exsist in this gen? I mean the graphics are only going to get better, and there already really good. Well see Solid Snake on the PS3 eather later this year or if the game gets delayed for some reason, next year. onestly i dont really care when it comes out, i just want this to be the best metal gear solid that i have ever played, because this is the last one directed by Hideo Kojima.

Kotaku Article

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Outta the Pan and In the Fire

UPDATE: Bungie.net has officially announced that the problem was found and is fixed! A Crackdown title update has been rolled out and should pop up when you put in your game.

Someone certainly messed up this time around. It's not even that it was a little thing, this is HUGE and it has the whole community in an uproar, God help you guys if that beta doesn't go live soon.

Well you probably already know what I'm talking about as soon as the word beta comes into play. That's right today at 5am PST, the Halo 3 multiplayer beta was supposed to come out. When people all around the world put in their copy of Crackdown, an update appeared assuring all was well. People soon came to realize that they were still unable to download the Halo 3 beta via Crackdown. It wasn't that the download wasn't working, oh no, far worse. The link was still greyed out.

After about 20 minutes of people reporting these problems Frankie posted an official statement on Bungie.net, that there were some problems, a short delay is expected and that the proper "Live Authorities" have been notified. This was at 5:22am PST, it is now 5:12pm EST (3:12pm PST) and no word, not a one has officially been posted. In light of the incident the community showed their gratitude by flooding forums all over the place. So much that, Major Nelson's blog was shut down due to the high volume of people posting their outrage. Forums and gaming websites alike, were either heavily bogged down or even shut down.

There is some speculation as to when the beta will be up and running, some say late tonight and some say same time tomorrow. No official word yet. So sit tight kiddies. This is gonna be one long wait.

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PS3 cost Sony 2 billion in profit.

This is pretty cut and dry; The PS3 has cost Sony 1.9 billion US dollars in profit. Kotaku reports,

While last year Sony Corp as a whole raked in 226.42 billion yen (USD$1.88 billion) in operating profits, this year, they could only scrape together 71.8 billion (USD$596 million). That's a drop-off of USD$1.28 billion dollars. Think that was because of the PS3? You bet it was.

Ouch...

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Ninja Gaiden pushes DS to new limits

See that? THAT is a good looking game. It seems comparable to early PS2 games, I can't believe the amount of fluidity in the animation and detail in the environments. The game is gorgeous and it's on the DS. Whats more is that the game, which uses the touch screen almost exclusively seems to control really well. I'd say this is shaping up to be a must have title. Even if Ninjas aren't your bag, the game is played by holding the DS book style (ala Brain Age) and who doesn't like doing that?

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God of War: Chains of Olympus

1 up.com published a 6 page god of war: chains of olympus preview, which includes some very nice screen shots. And if i do add, they look better than most WII games, not ports, as of to date. keeping in mind this is a PSP game, and its not goin to be on ps2. GOW:COO is a prequal to the first two games so well get to see how Kratos was being used by the gods like a puppet, and his eventual rebellious actions towards Mount Olympus! YUMMMIE!

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2007 = Best Year in Gaming

Yes, 2007 clearly is going to be a great year and will no doubt go down in gaming history. From games like Too Human, Bioshock and Two Worlds to new downloadable content, rumored Xbox Live Arcade games to new peripherals. The Xbox 360 is going to have one hell of a year (games wise)!

Hit the jump (to lightspeed or if you have a T3 connection...possibly plaid?)!

Let's get this proverbial ball rollin! First off we'll start with what's new and coming out (soon) for the 360. If you haven't noticed there's been a TON of new XBLA games that have some out, due to Microsoft's "Double Hit Wednesdays" as they had 3 straight weeks of 2 arcade games per week. Speculation says that this is because there might come a drought of XBLA games, but this is all too soon to tell.

Xbox Live Arcade released in the past month:

1) 3D Ultra Mini-Golf Adventures (800 MS Points)
2) Gyruss (400 MS Points)
3) Pinball FX (800 MS Points)
4) Eets: Chowdown! (800 MS Points)
5) Centipede/Millipede (400 MS Points)
6) Catan (800 MS Points)
7) Double Dragon (400 MS Points)

As I won't go into detail about these games there are some that require a little bit of explantion. 3D Ultra Mini-Golf Adventures is a pretty self explanatory game, but it's worth while to note that Ubisoft published this game with more games to come from them. Pinball FX is an obvious game, if you like 3D pinball this one's for you! Eets: Chowdown deserves some explantion here seeing as most people have never heard of this game. Eets was originally a PC lemmings clone (sorta). The gameplay is very similar as a user guides Eets to a levels exit while avoiding hazards. Centipede/Millipede is a two-in-one deal with both retro games ported to the XBLA arcade with new multiplayer. Catan is also a port (with a different name, Settlers of Catan) which brings Big Huge Games back to it's roots with this strategic board game.
Finally this week there was Double Dragon, I don't think I need to say much about this seeing as everyone knows what Double Dragon is. It is worth while to mention that this is not the Nintendo or even the Super Nintendo copy of the game. Much like most games on the XBLA this is a port of the original arcade Double Dragon.

Staying on topic of the XBLA I'll let you guys in on a little secret (well if it's a secret, it's the world's worst secret)...according to a web page from Sega Online, Sonic the Hedgehog (the original Genesis game) is coming to the downloadable service as part of a Sega Vintage Collection (LINK: SegaOnline)above all this are some new original XBLA games like Undertow, which uses the Unreal 3 Engine in an arcade game with 16 player multiplayer action and Puzzle Quest, the DS/PSP hit puzzle game is also coming to the XBLA arcade and with the just announced Happy tree Friends games rest assured there's a game for someone on the XBLA service.

Before I get into the newly announced games and works in progress, I'm gonna talk about some games that are coming out in the near future and some new DLC coming soon and probably mention that the Halo 3 beta starts up next week! With Crackdown being out for a couple months now most people were left wondering about Microsoft's policy that if a game doesn't have a full gamerscore, developers and publishers a like would have to release free DLC to reach that full gamerscore of 1000 points. Well wait no more as Crackdown's DLC is coming to Xbox Live Marketplace next week! Along with a title update, there will be two separate download packs. Free-For-All Pack is free allowing players to get their gamerscore for Crackdown to 1040, then along with this will be the Gettin' Busy Bonus Pack which takes your gamerscore to a total of 1250 unfortunately this pack is 800 MS Points to purchase. The neat thing about this DLC is that you can grab achievements through the free DLC, but what's even better is that if your buddy has downloaded the premium pack, you're able to mooch off your buddy for that session and unlock a few more achievements. Having the premium DLC has it's perks though as there's a few achievements you can only get by having it. Here's the full details about Crackdown's title update, found here at Major Nelson's blog.

Next we have the games coming up for this summer. Shadowrun is the world's first cross-platform multiplayer game. Shadowrun is an online only first-person shooter, although there is a single player "training mode". The main emphasis is going to be the online. Microsoft has announced today that Shadowrun has gone gold, and the release date set in stone is May 29th, with an M rating and a $10 price cut if you're buying it on the PC, be sure to check out Shadowrun.

Due out by the end of the summer Bioshock and Blue Dragon will be coming to the Xbox 360. Bioshock which is developed by Irrational Games (System Shock 2) is giving us a hybrid of first-person shooter with a little RPG mixed, add in some sci-fi and you, my friend, have Bioshock. The story so far is as such: In the 1960's after World War II had finished a select number of people had split off from the rest of the world, going with these people were some of the brightest on the planet. They had created a world called "Rapture". This isn't the case though when you start game as it's mostly deserted. For a full preview of the game go here. Bioshock is due out August 21st.


Not only do this game have 3 discs, Blue Dragon has the same developers that gave you Chrono Trigger AND it has Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, if that doesn't make you want this game, what sort of RPG fan are you??? For the most part the people developing the game and the publisher's have been tight lipped about it, with that said there isn't much about the North American release besides that it's due out for August 17th.

RPGs not your thing? Well action fans all around will appreciate this next game, John Woo's Stranglehold is a third person action adventure game, which is supposedly acts as a sequel to a previous John Woo movie starring Chow Yun-Fat, who also stars in this game! Developed by midway and yet another August release, you can expect a lot of cool and innovative action sequences in the game!

August not soon enough for you? Well there's more! The Darkness, is out June 25th. The Darkness is based on the comic series starring Jackie Estacado, a possessed Mafia hitman. With the same developers that brought you Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (which was a surprisingly good game on the original Xbox) you can expect this game to be the sleeper hit of the summer. Again, not much has been revealed about the story, but it's said some of it is to take place during World War I.

Wait! Don't go anywhere, there's more. (Yea, I know. VERY long post), but I'll keep it short and sweet.

There has been a bunch of games set for even later this year, one of the most memorable ones being Halo 3 in November, but besides that, what else is there? Well here's a list of game to expect by year's end!

- Dark Sector
- Halo 3
- Mercenaries 2: World In Flames
- Hellgate: London
- Mass Effect
- Condemned 2: Bloodshot (early 2008)
- Dynasty Warriors: Gundam
- The Simpsons Movie
- Unnamed FPS based on the Alien movie series (2008)

Lastly I couldn't just put this in a list, but announced earlier Square Enix is making a new series for the next-gen gamers called The Last Remnant. I strongly advise any Square fan to check this out.

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SEGA's Gamers Day unleashes Wii goodness, amongst other things. UPDATED

Rather long title no? Anyways, lets jump right into it. Kotaku is live blogging the event and there were a few announcements regarding Sega's upcoming titles like the Marvel IPs they have acquired (Iron Man, and Hulk) as well as a shooter and RPG for the PC, and a sequel to some 360 game. However what most people seem to be excited for (which Matt Cassamassina alluded too in IGNs latest 'wii-k in review') is a new FPS for the Wii which apparently uses a light gun? I'm hoping they mean Wii remote but...I don't know. The game is called 'Ghost Squad' which sounds like a pretty lame name if you ask me. It will be playable at the event and if we don't hear more about the title today, look forward to their hands on impressions tomorrow.

My two cents? If it uses a light gun now, by release it will use the wii remote with a gun peripheral.

Hit the jump for the update!

IGN pulled through with some more details. Apparently the game is based of an older(2005) Arcade game of the same name. The game WILL use the Wii remote of course, and the graphics are pretty clean (though not 'next gen' looking). The game promises to have loads of hidden content and a wide array of weapons. It supports up to four players at once as well, which is a definite plus.

With the wake of Umbrella Chronicles and now Ghost Squad, is the 'on-rails shooter' going to be the new 'mini-game compilation' for the Wii? Step up if you ask me, but we aren't quite out of this 'gimmick phase' just yet.

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Final Fantasy IV to make DS debut in 3d!

Square has always held a place in my heart, of course they also own much of my wallet as well. Over the years they have become known mostly for their beautiful RPGs and also for recycling their old beautiful RPGs and making them beautiful again to todays standards...Sort of like George Lucas... Anyways, it would seem that, from a japanese scan, the game uses an improved FFIII engine pushing the DS to new limits. The DS has become a gamers staple, and with the stellar support being seen I'm beginning to wonder if I even need a console...

thanks Joystiq, for something...

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Soul Calibur: Legends CONFIRMED!

Matt Cassamassina has become somewhat of a goldmine for Nintendo faithfuls. He seems to bleed exclusive information. In fact, this isn't the first time one of his scabs have led to mass speculation. During a podcast he mentioned the development of an adventure game coming to Wii that would be based off a popular Gamecube fighter. Many thought a new Soul Calibur was in the works - they were right.

This is really exciting news, I'm a huge fan of Soul Calibur (well, the second one anyways) and I think the characters, story, and engine will work wonders in a fleshed out adventure games. Lets just hope it isn't a series of minigames, of course, I've predicted that before...

Hit up Kotaku for the original story and shots of the Famitsu scan that melted many-a-heart.

picsource

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DOXOFeature: Sony! Slaughtered goat! WTF!?

I heard about this yesterday via my friend Anthony and then reading articles on Kotaku. My title pretty much sums up my reaction in three words. I don’t understand why in the hell they would have a dead goat at this Playstation God Of War promotion, journalist party. The fact that there was a dead goat there is actually very interesting. It also pisses me off that Sony is getting ripped apart by this particular event! Ok ok before you jump to conclusions about my personal opinion on the situation, you’ll have to read on…
To say the least you have to watch what you read in the tabloids and on the Internet, don’t trust the media fully; this event is a great example of that. The British press have always been vicious and tell very extravagant and exaggerated stories. Not to say that North American press is perfect and truthful, cause its not! As described by a British newspaper “SLAUGHTER!: Horror at Sony’s deprived stunt to promote Playstation with decapitated goat!” well if I don’t say so myself it sounds like Sony unveiled this goat and hundreds of people were in shock and horror, oh yes! And there’s also a man dressed up as a cave man with blood splattered all over his shirt, to add to the flavour of a deranged transnational corporation gone “off the wagon”. Not only that! people were eating out of the carcass, and they ripped out the goats intestines and use them for a soup! A FUCKIN SOUP! Who the fuck would eat that! Even better Sony tried to shut up the Official Playstation Magazine (OPM) by stopping them from publishing an article that ridiculed the event and the article also came with pictures of the dead goat. Well well it sounds like Sony has got a lot of explaining to do wouldn’t you say so! Some people from the SCEE lost some screws or are just promoting hate to animals, those WWF people just love shit like this.

Now we “know” the gruesome details that press provided for the public, what does sony have to say? In all honesty, in a situation such as this, I would believe a corporation over the press who wants to show only how sick the world can be so the readers can be glad they live in a “normal” environment. The press is looking to get the sales that’s all, they do not care who they fuck over they just want money. Like a bunch of vultures ripping away a carcass of disturbing or sad news. NOW! In saying this, there are many kinds of press I am condemning only those companies who use there journalists to exaggerate stories in order for the sole purpose of money! But! Our capitalists system would not be complete without it. There are journalists out there who do an outstanding job and I truly respect what they do. It takes balls to go out to unstable countries and report on current events there, but that’s a whole different ball game and I don’t want to get sidetracked.
Sony’s response to these wild accusations was released a couple days later after finding out all the crap they was wrote about them. First off, they said, there was no British press there at this event, so how in the fuck could a British tabloid have top-knoch info on this event. What the fuck, its like they play telephone or something “Sony had promotion for god of war, dead goat”….”Sony had a promotion for god of war, dead goat, decapitated head” “Sony had a promotion for god of war, dead goat, decapitated head, practicing of cannibalism” the fact is, it gets a little ridiculous. Sony also said that there was no people eating out of the goat, and yes! There was soup. It was made out the goat’s intestines, for people who think organ meat is inedible you are wrong! Organ meat is actually very good for you and is considered a delicacy in much of European cooking. It my seem weird to us cause we live in North America but there are other cultures besides ours and not all of them are fucked up, I don’t know why we feel we have some superiority over other nations but whatever, ill leave that to the governments and there nukes. Another thing! The goat was purchased at a local butcher and was returned after the event was done. The famous animal lover group PETA (yes, the one that Pamela Anderson is a member of) wrote this about the event “when a company of Sony's stature goes out of its way to commit an act of senseless violence for a promotion, you have to start questioning whether they have any concern at all about the message they're sending to fans” (Kotaku Article). I wouldn’t call this event senseless act of violence, they didn’t kill the goat in front of people it had the majority of it head cut off but they were not promoting violence, the goat was there, like a display. And for all the people who believe that’s absolutely sick for me to say that the goat was nothing more of a display for people to consume there eyes, go to a grocery store and look at the meat counter, it’s the same fuckin thing! The meat is on display, and at one point those little chops where part of a whole goat, the goat was just cut apart by a saw and knives so its easier for the consumer. The goat was on display in order to make sales in a grocery store, and it was on display at the god of war promotion, to make sales. If you find that sick than perhaps you better call up your local butcher and start bitching at him for making you indulge in “senseless slaughter” and while your at it, starting eating vegetables.

Now! Some of my thoughts on the situation even though I’ve shared many ideas with you since the article began long long ago. I don’t know why in the hell that dead goat was there! I don’t know what Sony was thinking and at a moment such as this where your 3rd for console sales….I don’t think it was THE BEST idea you could have. I hope to god there was a good reason for that goat being there. I didn’t read the article sent out by Sony but I’m sure if you look on the web somewhere you’ll find it! This doesn’t change my views on Sony, I really don’t think this was a big deal, but that’s my own opinion and like other people I have the freedom to express it.

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First Transformers game trailer

I'm going to start off by saying that I'm a bit scared for this movie, I'm going to see it, but I'm not all that excited about it. Whats funny is that I feel the exact same way about the game, maybe that isn't so funny considering how good games based on movies have been (Spider-Man 3 tomorrow! - expect a review) To be honest this game doesn't look too great. Once you get passed the 'next-gen graphics' it seems pretty dull, and just doesn't look all that fun to me...A terrible trailer really, considering they usually make games look much better than they end up being.

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RUMOURphobia: EA is at it again! UPDATE

Courtesy of IGN, we see that EA is okay with a GC game still being the best looking wii title around.

EA has a date with Nintendo on May 9th. GoNintendo is reporting that on this day EA will announce some exclusive Wii titles. Hopefully it's some brand new stuff, new IPs and what not, just please, for the love of god...no more mini game compilations.

Let's think about this for a minute. We know about EA's rythme game, Boogie, we know that they aren't due for another sports game for a while, not that it would be exclusive to Wii anyways, so what could it be? To be honest, I'm sort of hoping that they do a really cool sci-fi 3rd person shooter, thats online. Is that too much to ask for?

UPDATE
It would seem that it IS too much to ask for.- IT IS A MINI GAME COMPILATION! essentially. EA has announced (early?) the new IP; EA Playground. Seems they're taking a page from Nintendo's book in putting 'EA' in the title. Apparently it recreates all the fun it is to be a kid. Lets get this online...ah hell, I'll never play it anyways... Hit Kotaku up for the full story.

IGN Interview

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The '07 Downfall of Microsoft

You read right, Microsoft is screwing up, yet again! There's a lot to talk about today and well there's a lot of time to say it in. Here's a short list of what MS has done thus far.

1) Epic Games vs. Microsoft, Round 1
2) No transfer cables with Elite consoles
3) That damn DRM (Digital Rights Management)

On the plus side of things there has be a plethora of XBLA games for download and this week Microsoft is continuing it's "double hit" XBLA Wednesdays.

Read on, gamers read on...


Alright, lately Microsoft has been having some troubles....some BIG troubles. They just can't seem to get this right this quarter. Whatever is wrong with them they better fix it before people start to jump ship. Let's get things rolling...

Microsoft vs. Epic Games, Round 1 *ding ding*

Gamers wanting to get their hands on the new Gears' maps will be happy to know that they will be available to download this Thursday (May 3rd, 2007). The Hidden Fronts map pack will contain 4 new maps as announced earlier by Microsoft. These new maps will contain new features in them known as environmental hazards. There isn't much about the first two maps, but I'll tell ya what I know about them. Subway takes place in a commuting hub and Process is set in an Imulsion plant, that's about it. Bullet Marsh is swapped with Kryll and the only real safe spot is in the lights which are powered on by generators, well...until your opponent starts to shoot it out. Same goes for The Garden, the second map with an environmental hazard, but this time it's dangerous gases that will cause you harm due to the Conservatory's Pesticide ventilation system. This means gamers are going to have to vent out the areas for a safe passage through areas.

Now, you're probably wondering, "Well that's not bad at all". Well, here's the part that will get you a little peeved about the whole thing. When it was first announced that there's going to be four new maps coming out in the form of DLC, the president (Mark Capps) of Epic Games was quoted saying this: "We always take care of our customers, we always give them stuff for free, and we're going to keep doing that forever. That's how we do it. This is Epic.". Well this isn't the case anymore, for now anyway. Epic Games and MS had a falling out earlier last month about what to charge for the DLC. Epic said free, Microsoft said no. So with that, gamers and fanboys alike went wild! Attacking forums wherever a forum was found. In time MS and Epic Games have come to an agreement which is this: When the new maps are released they will cost 800 MS Points ($10) to purchase and by September will be free for all. There new "reasoning" behind this was this, "Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps," said Rein. "So what we've agreed to do is to put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later. They did this with the original Halo2 map pack and it was a huge success. Lots of people bought the maps and lots of people downloaded them when they became free. That's what is going to happen and it seems like a fair compromise for both companies and a win-win for Gears players." said Mark Rein, Epic Games' VP.

The Elite Failure

Number 2, that will contribute to this quarters downfall for MS. The Elite offically launched on the 29th on April. The new Elite Xbox 360 isn't much different, but what it has, boasts for hardcore gamers and people in the market for a 360 with a snazzy black finish for the console, controller and headset. Along with a 120GB hard drive (100GB more the the original HDD)and an HDMI audio/video port bringing resolutions to a glorified 1080p, where only 1080i was possible. The 120GB HDD that's sold separatly comes with a transfer cable to transfer any content from your old HDD to the new 120GB HDD. Odd, because when gamers who already own a 360 will find no transfer cable with the new Elite console. Microsoft was said to say that the Elite system was meant for people who hadn't bought a 360 yet, so it wasn't needed in the package. Well now, after weeks of complaints, Microsoft is offering a FREE transfer cable for those who require it for a limited time only. Again, some may think that's not so bad, but here's the fun part. In order to get your free transfer cable you have to download, print and then fill out this autherization form using both systems' serial numbers. Then the form must be sent out through standard mail to a support center in Indiana, which then will ship out your transfer cable to you for free. Now that that's all done and outta the way, you have your damn cable. You hook it up the cable to your old 360 and then to the 120GB HDD. IMPORTANT: The transfer can only be done once!!!! This will erase any data on the 120GB and transfer over any non-movie content to the new drive and the 20GB will be wiped blank. Your done, the 360 Elite is now complete....or is it?

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

No...it's not over yet, Microsoft is still screwing up, now it's all about their new DRM protection. Even though getting your transfer cable was tiresome, it gets worse. For anyone who has had to replace their system or have brought your HDD to a friends house will know that unless you're signed in to Live you can only play the demos of whatever arcade game you own. This is because of the DRM and that each XBLA game is linked to a single console. Signing in verifies that you are the original purchaser of the game and then will let you play the full copy. The DRM on XBLA games also affect downloaded television content downloaded from the Marketplace. "While all of your Xbox Live Arcade games and Xbox Live Marketplace TV shows will transfer [to the Elite HDD], you will have to be connected to Xbox Live (to verify your identity) in order to access that content," Microsoft said in a statement. "This process is permanent and we advise [you to] not transfer your data if you wish to access it while offline." There you have it, the downfall of Microsoft for this quarter.

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