03.31.06

WWE Smack!Down vs RAW 2007 for Xbox 360 + New Kameo DLC!

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 9:11 am by UNSCleric

On this WrestleMania 22 weekend, where WWE always goes all the way with everything, THQ has announced that for the first time ever, the “Smack!Down” series of WWE games will be put on a non-Sony owned console, and will be put on the Xbox 360. This is also the first news that the game is even in development, and the announcement came with a few pictures of a match between John Cena and Rey Mysterio.

The announcement will officially take place tonight in Chicago, home of WrestleMania 22.

In other news, Microsoft Game Studios and Rare Ltd today announced the immediate availability of three exciting new downloadable content packs, expanding the already epic next-generation games experience enabled in “Kameo: Elements of Power.”

Kameo Co-Op Pack – Free of charge to Xbox Live Gold members. Players can now enjoy the exciting two-player cooperative gameplay in the Kameo: Elements of Power action levels over Xbox Live and System Link.

Kameo Masquerade Pack – 200 Points. Introduces 10 new exciting costumes for Kameo, including recognizable outfits from classic Rare titles. Players can use the Bonus menu in the last page of the Wotnot book to change Kameo’s costume in-game.

Fright Warrior Pack – 200 Points. Provides gamers with a full set of fantastic and scary fright-themed costumes for Kameo and all of her warriors. Use the Warrior Upgrade page and the Bonus menu in the Wotnot book to change costumes in-game.

Players can get in on the action and download the packs via Xbox Live Marketplace beginning today, 31st March, 2006.

The Free Xbox Live Weekend began just a few hours ago and will be going on all weekend!

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03.30.06

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter Demo Now Up!

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 12:50 pm by UNSCleric

You can now download a demo of ‘Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter’ from the Xbox Live Marketplace. This demo is available in all Xbox Live regions.

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Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter Demo Coming Today.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 7:33 am by UNSCleric

It’s an Xbox Live only demo, and will take place on the level “Boneyard”.

All multiplayer competitive modes will be available and up to 16 players can play at once.

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03.29.06

Back. Compat. Updated.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 11:59 pm by UNSCleric

For 3-4 months, I have told anyone who asked about it that the BC update was coming in March, and time and time again I was ridiculed, called a liar, etc.  Well today, what I always said would happen in March happened.  I don’t bring that up to brag, I bring it up so that those who read this site and were one of those people, can maybe see the truth and see that I was right and maybe give me the benefit of the doubt in the future.

New games:

BLACK™
Star Wars Battlefront™ II
World Soccer Winning Eleven 9

Updated games:

Darkwatch™
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas™
Half-Life® 2
Fable®
Fable®: The Lost Chapters™
Forza Motorsport™
Ninja Gaiden®
Ninja Gaiden® Black
SSX 3
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell® Chaos Theory™
kill.switch
World Series Baseball® 2K3

Reminder: You need to play an original Xbox game on your Xbox 360 while connected to Xbox Live in order to get the update.

There is also a Battlefield 2 Theme (150 points) and Picture Pack (50 points) now available in the Marketplace.

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Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Demo Now Up!

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 4:38 pm by UNSCleric

Just as promised!  382 MB download.

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03.28.06

New Xbox.com Feature + News on this weekend’s event & Xbox Ambassador Program.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 7:08 am by UNSCleric

Over at Xbox.com, you can now send, receive, decline, and accept friend requests right from the website. There’s also a new button on everybody’s Gamercard that will add them to your Friends list with one click.

Starting this Friday, Xbox Live Silver members (which are able to do everything on Xbox Live besides play online multiplayer, which means they can still check out the Marketplace and Live Arcade, etc.) will be able to play with Xbox Live Gold members throughout the entire weekend, for 72 hours. This is the first of many Xbox Free Live Weekends. There are a lot of cool contests going throughout the weekend as well, go here for the details.

Most of the contests just require you to play a certain game during a certain period, or play a number of total hours on Live itself. For a more detailed hourly list of events, click here.

Now…onto a semi-major announcement.

A couple weeks ago the Xbox Live team announced the “Xbox Ambassadors” program. The aim of the program is to try and add some helpfulness to Xbox Live, especially during the Free Xbox Live Weekends. Only people with accounts in good standing (like never been banned) were eligible to apply, and I, of course applied, and last night TriXie, one of the main community people on the Xbox team personally e-mailed me and notified me I have been accepted!

Sometime before Friday the list of Ambassadors will be posted on Xbox.com, and we’ll be online this weekend along with the Xbox Live team to help anybody, but especially those who are coming onto Live for the first time with any problems or questions they may have, but mostly, we’re there to play! This Silver Goes Gold weekend kicks off Midnight Pacific time (so it’s 2am central time, 1am mountain time, 3am eastern).

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03.27.06

New Picture Pack and Movie Trailers.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 1:55 pm by UNSCleric

The Outfit now has a free Picture Pack (Picture Pack 2) now available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

There is also 3 new movie trailers, all are available both in 480p and 720p, and the 3 movies are; Stay Alive, Cars, & Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

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Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Demo coming this week. (Seriously!)

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 8:00 am by UNSCleric

We all know the demo didn’t come out last Thursday or Friday as EA said it would, but over the weekend, over in EA”s official forums, an EA rep has said the demo was pushed back, and will be out either tomorrow or Wednesday.  I figured there was a good chance of this happening, since the Live team has said things like a new demo would rarely come out on a Friday, but I figured if EA announced it on their site, that it was reliable enough to report on.

In other news, it’s confirmed from Larry Hyrb (Director of Xbox Live Programming) that some nice new features regarding Live and Xbox.com are coming very soon, which I would assume would be today or tomorrow, but that’s just my guess.  I don’t think the new feature(s) will be anything groundbreaking, but just some cool innovative additions to the Gamercard on Xbox.com and things related to that.  We’ll see as the week goes on, as every week brings more content to the Xbox Live Marketplace and (usually) Xbox Live Arcade.

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03.26.06

Upgrades to Xbox Live Hinted At…

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 8:22 am by UNSCleric

Anyone up on Microsoft’s next-gen war strategy, knows that they were going to use Xbox Live as their main weapon.  Because of that, I figured that at E3 2006 in May, Microsoft would not only show off Halo 3 for the first time, but also announce/release new Xbox Live features, like the Xbox Live Webcam.  That assumption, which many have made, seems to be edging closer and closer to truth as E3 nears.

“Microsoft’s Scott Henson says that the Xbox group is considering how to improve the Xbox 360 dashboard and multimedia features - and is currently looking at, and prioritising requests made by users.

Those include upgrades to the music player, support for networked media playback from PCs not using Windows XP Media Center, and the ability to download content from Xbox Live Marketplace in the background.

In an interview with gaming website Kikizo, Henson, director of Microsoft’s Game Technology Group, also defended the firm’s decision to treat 1080i as the top resolution for its high-definition console as Sony this week told GDC attendees that it would support 1080p worldwide.

Henson also spoke a little about HD-DVD, which Microsoft plans to support, reiterating that the company will not be offering games using the next-generation disc format.

While a lot of talk this week has focused on how Sony’s proposed user interface for PlayStation 3 will include most of the functionality familiar to Xbox 360 owners with a little bit more on top, Henson says that 360 dashboard features are not static and identified several areas likely to see improvement.

The “capability is there” to update the music player, he told Kikizo. “There are all kinds of feature requests that have come in. One of the top requested features is the ability to download from Marketplace in the ‘background’. So we’re looking at, and prioritising, that list of requests.”

“I am not going to commit to anything specific, but I think what you’re going to see in the coming months and year is us add more and more capability for both Windows XP systems, as well as Media Center Editions,” he added.

He was more specific about 1080p, which he thinks is “basically impossible” for developers to do. “I think if you talk to any developer they will tell you that they will not have a performing game at 1080p.”

Microsoft decided that 720p and 1080i is the “sweet spot” for the next generation, he said, having reviewed movies, television, games and the television sets themselves that are likely to spring up in the next decade.

As for HD-DVD, which will be offered as a movie-playback attachment for Xbox 360 - in contrast to Blu-ray on PlayStation 3, which will be the only disc developers can deliver games on - Henson said that “it will all come down to content”.

HD-DVD’s strengths included its compatibility with an existing DVD library, he added.

As for whether Microsoft would ever consider supporting Blu-ray, should the expected battle between the formats turn in Sony’s favour, Henson didn’t rule it out, instead referring to the Xbox 360’s strengths as a system “architected [sic] so that we can continue to add components over time”.

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03.23.06

New Demo on Marketplace.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 10:46 am by UNSCleric

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII now has a demo on Xbox Live Marketplace!

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03.22.06

Microsoft Comments on Xbox 360 hacking rumors…

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 8:01 am by UNSCleric

As you may have noticed, this site will not be reporting on all the little updates hackers have been sending out to the internet relating to their pathetic campaign to hack the Xbox 360, so that they can play illegal games while not supporting the industry they supposedly enjoy.  I will be showing you the official Microsoft response of these rumors though, and here it is:

“The core security system has not been broken. However, it is reported that the authentication protocol between the optical disc drive and the console may be attacked, which if accurate could allow people to play illegally copied games.  Our security team is aware of this and we are investigating potential solutions to this issue. The Xbox 360 platform was designed to be updated, and we are prepared to respond appropriately should any unauthorized activity be identified.

Everyone should keep in mind that Microsoft invests a great deal of time and effort to ensure that Xbox gamers enjoy the most powerful and exhilarating game experience available today. Genuine and unmodified Microsoft Xbox products provide gamers with the reliability, security, support and dynamic gaming experience that they expect.  Microsoft works with a large group of legitimate business partners to sell and service genuine Microsoft Xbox products. Microsoft does not authorize or support any products or companies that modify or change the Xbox console in any way.”

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