08.31.06

Movie Marketplace

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 3:36 pm by UNSCleric

On the Xbox Live Marketplace, there are now trailers available for the following movies, “The Fountain, The Departed, & The Wicker Man.

Thanks to Matt (Gamertag: YourExWife) for the tip.

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Far Cry Instincts: Predator Demo & Oblvion Content

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 8:44 am by UNSCleric

“FCIP” Demo now available in the Xbox Live Marketplace.  A patch for this game fixing some aiming & online issues should be out sometime soon.

You can now download ‘Spell Tomes‘ for ‘Oblivion‘ This content is 80 points

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08.30.06

Xbox Live Marketplace Explosions in Late September

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 11:43 am by UNSCleric

Miicrosoft is planning to recreate their outstanding coverage of E3 2006 in late September during two of the year’s biggest gaming expos. During the week of E3 2006, Microsoft flooded Xbox Live with new demos, trailers, and other content.

Microsoft will do this all over again during Tokyo Game Show on September 22nd, and again during the Microsoft event, X06, which will take place on September 26 & 27.

You can be sure there will be huge hype for games like Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Forza 2 & other titles that come out in fall 2006, but will Microsoft show another hype trailer for Halo 3?  Epic has already said there will be no Gears of War demo however, so don’t expect that.

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F.E.A.R. Demo in OXM

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 10:49 am by UNSCleric

As I reported on August 6th, this month’s Official Xbox Magazine (October issue) has a F.E.A.R. demo in it. Many subscribers already got their issue and have played it, but I just picked mine up today, and thought I’d add some closure to my story earlier this month. If you’re planning on heading out to pick up the magazine, here’s what you should look for:

Click image to enlarge

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Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 3:21 am by UNSCleric

Xbox Live members in all regions can now download the arcade classic ‘Time Pilot‘ from the Xbox Live Arcade. You can download a free demo of the game, or purchase the full game for 400 points.

[Details on Time Pilot from Xbox.com]

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08.29.06

New Halo Novel Officially Announced

Posted in Xbox 360 News, Halo at 5:04 pm by UNSCleric

From Bungie.net

The next Halo novel is Ghosts of Onyx, by Eric Nylund. Let the celebrations begin! Our new publishing partner, Tor, will release the latest novel in November, 2006 continuing and expanding the scenarios and characters created by Nylund, and expanding the Halo universe a little bit more.

”Halo has established itself as one of the finest science fiction universes to emerge from the video game industry,” says Tor editor Eric Raab. “The first three novels merely scratched the surface. The storyline that the folks at Bungie have created is phenomenal, and its characters are begging to be explored further in novels.”

The announcement of the new novel also heralds the fact that (at least) two other Halo novels will be published by Tor, and those will have some very exciting news attached to them, but we’ll tell you more about that much later.

Fans of the Halo novels and followers of Nylund’s fiction probably already saw the leak of the book’s production title, “Ghosts of Coral.” The novel’s actual title, “Ghosts of Onyx” will reveal its fictional origin in November. So if you’re interested, you can pre-order it now.

The cover art for the new book was actually created in-house by a Bungie artist, and we look forward to revealing that very shortly. Maybe even in the next week or two.

I know that Onyx is a human planet, just like Coral was, but I can’t remember exactly what happens there.  I can’t remember if it’s the first planet the Covenant and humans fight on the ground on, or if it’s where the Covenant find the artifact that leads them to the first or second Halo, or even Earth.  I’ll have to try and find out for the next Halography update, which will now happen this November/December, if not sooner.

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Saints Row Faceplate

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 11:36 am by UNSCleric

Just got back home with Saints Row and wanted to show you what the faceplate looks like. To get the faceplate, you can either buy it for $9.99 (it’s that price at Circuit City at least) or, if you buy Saints Row at Circuit City, it’s free!

Click each picture to enlarge & zoom for the best quality.

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Saints Row, Burnout 5, XNA, & F.E.A.R. News

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 9:10 am by UNSCleric

Saints Row, the first huge title of fall 2006, is now on shelves everywhere!

XNA Game Studio Express will be released tomorrow, and you can download it here when it becomes available..  XNA Game Studio Express is a set of tools based on Visual C# Express 2005 that allow students and hobbyists to build games that target both Windows and Xbox 360.

Burnout 5 has been announced for the Xbox 360! 

“Burnout 5 is a complete reinvention of the series, built from the ground up for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. To create truly next-generation gameplay, we needed to create a truly next-generation game, from top to bottom.”

The game will give players the ability to crash, bash and smash their opponents in Paradise City - “the ultimate seamless racing battleground”, which is said to have a massive infrastructure of traffic-heavy roads. According to the press release, there is no need for menus in the game, as every intersection is a potential crash junction, and every alleyway is an opportunity to rack up moving violations. Gamers will be given a Drivers Licence as they start the game, and this will record the player’s most aggressive, reckless and destructive exploits behind the wheel.

The press release then goes on to say that the Xbox 360 has the

” technology allowing gamers to literally rip their cars in half.”

In a recent interview, lead programmer of Marble Blast Ultra, Pat Wilson, has announced new content coming for the game, as well as some fixes:

Friends Leaderboard bug: This was reported very early on and will be fixed.

Crash exploit: There is a way to crash a server on several maps. This will be fixed.

The other fixes on the table:

Removing the advantage of dropping during a multiplayer game to protect your rating. This is very destructive behavior for the game because it breaks up servers. It also allows the host to unfairly effect the game for all other people in the server should they decide to kick the server back to the lobby to prevent a stat hit. We brainstormed many solutions to this and discussed it quite a bit, because we don’t want to provide a bad play experience for people who want to leave a server for other reasons. The implementation we chose, I feel, strikes a good balance, and I think it will have a positive effect on the game.

When you re-spawn in a multiplayer game, you should be facing the gems.

The HUD should inform everyone of voice activity so that abusive players can be identified by the host and kicked from the game.

Shadowing on the text for the scoreboard on the HUD to make it more readable on all levels.

There are eleven new maps. [Level Designer] Alex [Swanson] really outdid himself on this batch. I won’t list them all, but we got to really play with the gameplay even though we kept the game-type the same. Playing “Spires” is very, very different than all other multiplayer levels. All the gems are at the top of high-friction covered spires and platforms, and all the powerups are on the ground. The strategy is totally different, and it requires players to improve their flying, falling, and marble control skills. Alex also crafted a multiplayer level, “Bowl”, that mimics the skiing movement that makes single player levels like “Black Diamond” so much fun. “Blast Club” is another level in the style of “King of the Marble” but with a larger, more varying playing surface, and a different central conflict point.

That content will also be FREE.  No release date given.  Gamerpics for the game are also planned.

Lastly, in a recent interview with OXM, Francis Choi, Associate Producer of F.E.A.R. mentioned that the Xbox 360 version of F.E.A.R. will be “even more beautiful” than its PC counterpart.

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Backwards Compatibility Update

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 8:10 am by UNSCleric

The Xbox 360 is now able to play even more original Xbox titles for the minority of Xbox 360 owners that still wish to play them.  Click the link below for the full list.

Read the rest of this entry »

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08.28.06

Saints Row Tomorrow + Live Content

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 2:04 pm by UNSCleric

     As I was searching for some interesting news to post about today, I found this article over on IGN that lists the Top 10 best things about Saints Row, which will be in most stores tomorrow, and all stores will have it by the end of the week.

For the IGN Article - Click Here

For the Achievement list of Saints Row - Click Here

    Some Targets and Best Buys have already started selling Saints Row, but it’s not likely you’ll be able to find this until tomorrow.

    Saints Row is the opening salvo in what will be a barrage of exclusive AAA titles to hit the Xbox 360 this fall. As the competition begins to come out swinging, the Xbox 360 is here ready to stand firm and keep its lead for years to come.

    Also, on the Xbox Live Marketplace, there is now a video demonstration of the upcoming, “Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway” & also a 45-minute recap show for the TV series; “Battlestar Galactica” is also available. This is the first download of its kind (as in, having full-length TV shows available right on the Xbox Live service), and it leads up the third season of the popular TV series.

    In more Marketplace news, there is now a trailer out for both “Crank” & “Beerfest”.  Crank also has second download which is a 2-minute clip of specially cut scenes from what looks to be an amazing movie from Lions Gate Films.  Fpr those who are fans of the SAW movies, the first scene from SAW III is scheduled to play ahead of Crank in theatres, but the MPAA is fighting to block it due to gore.  I would not be surprised to see a SAW III trailer soon on the Marketplace as well.

(Thanks to “Levi” for the tip off on the Battlestar content being available.)

    Also, there is now an auto update available for Street Fighter II that fixes the online lag issues some people were experiencing since the game’s record-breaking release on the Xbox Live Arcade a few weeks back.

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Madden 07 Demo Now Available

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 8:48 am by UNSCleric

Xbox Live members can now download a free demo of ‘Madden NFL 07’ from the Xbox Live Marketplace. This free demo is available in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

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