Pretty awesome stuff! It will be an uphill battle for EA MMA though, as THQ’s UFC Undisputed 2010 hits shelves May 25th – months before EA MMA’s unannounced release date. Undisputed 2010 also includes all the fighters you really want to have: Anderson Silva, Brock Lesner, and just about everyone but Randy Coture.  UFC fighters are, with a few exceptions like Coture, strictly prohibited from appearing in any game other than the UFC’s.

EA’s title does look to feature a much greater variety of locales/ ring types, as well as different rule sets for different organizations. However, the lack of recognizable talent will surely need to be made up for with massive upgrades in gameplay, creating/careering fighters and visuals if EA really hopes to put any dent in Undisputed’s hold on the existing market. Undisputed 2009 was a huge seller and got very positive reviews, so it’s doubtful that existing players will be looking for an alternative that comes out much later and features few (if any) of their favorite fighters. We’ll see if this contest goes the full 5 rounds…

I wonder if they could agree to just hug it out?

You'll see this guy in Undisputed 2010 as well.

“Sony bet on the physical disc, and there are costs associated with that,” Greenberg told Edge magazine.

“The fact that we’re able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost.”

“For us, our bet was on digital distribution, that was the future – the ability to [play] 1080p movies with no disc, no download required; we have the largest movie and TV library, the largest HD library of any console.”

Can’t argue with that logic. But it’ll be interesting to see forthcoming figures from Sony and how much ground they’ve made up against Microsoft with their new $299 price point.

Source: CVG

The demo for the hotly anticipated Splinter Cell: Conviction from Ubisoft will grace XBLA tomorrow, according to Inside Xbox. Conviction has been touted to be a much more gritty and hard boiled entry in the  Splinter Cell series, one of the most popular of the previous generation. Many feel that the the 1st next-gen outing, ‘Double Agent,’ didn’t quite live up to expectations, so here’s a St. Paddy’s Day glass to hoping this is the best Splinter Cell yet!

Download the demo and see what you think. Word is that Conviction features awesome co-op elements and some seriously down-and-dirty combat scenarios. Don’t you get it? Your daughter got killed by the government and now you have NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE. Conviction hits shelves April 13th. Maybe you can use the same goggles you got with MW2?

If you played Perfect Dark Zero when it released for the Xbox 360, but haven’t played the original, please don’t judge the Nintendo 64 classic by its prequel’s attributes—this game is the reason Zero was such a letdown to many. Plus, for just 800 points, you’ll be picking up a game with more to do than many of today’s retail releases, never mind the fact that it towers over every single XBLA game—even Shadow Complex—in terms of depth and the hours you will sink into it.

Perfect Dark stars Joanna Dark, a British secret agent with gadgetry and weaponry at her disposal in a sci-fi themed future. She works for the Carrington Institute, who at present are investigating dataDyne, a wealthy corporation with their hands in some shady business. What starts as a simple romp through a near-future world turns into a race to save the president, shut down super weapons and end an alien threat in space. The voice acting is what you would expect from a game released originally in 2000, and the script is as corny (in an enjoyable way) as you would expect from a Rare release. Characters don’t open their hands, but flail fat looking fists around when they talk to let you know it’s their turn to speak—character’s lips don’t move with the words, so some kind of indicator was necessary.

That’s about the only thing that hasn’t aged well over the past 10 years though. The campaign is a bit short, but there are four difficulties—the first, Agent, is meant to familiarize you with the story and the levels. Special Agent adds additional enemies, moves some weaponry and shields around, and gives you more tasks to accomplish within each stage as well. This makes each playthrough a bit different, especially since the final difficulty does more of what Special Agent did, only harder. The game is also designed with speed runs in mind, thanks to some generous auto-aim, fast walking speeds and online leaderboards that can track your progress. Once you complete the game on Perfect Agent, a Perfect Dark difficulty unlocks as well, and you can unlock bonus levels through some of the other game’s modes in order to use previously non-playable characters.

Graphically, while not stunning by any means, Perfect Dark has cleaned up very well. The textures are highly detailed, the game was originally meant to run in 16:9 widescreen, meaning there is no weird transition issue, and the game’s art itself is also well done. This game was too ambitious for the system it was on—it required the expansion pack for the N64 just to play, and despite that still chugged along at an inconsistent 24 frames per second. Now it sits at not only 60 frames per second, but 1080p, full HD.

There are two areas where Perfect Dark shines as bright as any other first-person shooter on the Xbox 360, and that’s in the weaponry and the additional game modes. There are 32 weapons for you to choose from—the Carrington Institute weapons, which range from standard issue shotguns and pistols to sci-fi rifles, the dataDyne weapons, as well as an array of alien weapons from both the Maian and the Skedar. At their most basic, these are standard weapons, but each gun holds a nifty surprise—a secondary fire mode. Your AR34 assault rifle has a scope you can walk around with. Your Callisto NTG fires high impact shells rather than at an assault rifle rate. Your shotgun can have a double blast. The K7 Avenger becomes  a threat detector for locating mines, defense turrets and enemies. The Devastator, a grenade launcher, shoots sticky grenades. The Slayer rocket launcher has a camera-guided missile that you control to ram into targets. Most famously, the Laptop Gun becomes a turret that you can place anywhere, and it will fire until it runs out of bullets or enemies to kill. The thrill of experimenting with these guns will keep newcomers glued to their televisions, and veterans will do the same in order to excel with old friends and tactics.

As for game modes, there’s seemingly no end to them. You have multiplayer, which consists of six different game modes: Combat (death match), Hold the Briefcase, Hacker Central, Pop a Cap, King of the Hill, and Capture the Case. Capture the Case is basically capture the flag, Hold the Briefcase has you scoring points for holding onto a case the longest before losing it via a bullet to the head, Hacker Central has you invading enemy territory to hack into their computers, King of the Hill and Death Match are self-explanatory, and Pop a Cap has everyone targeting a specific person at a time. You can customize these matches to include stimulants (bots) as well, and these can be tailored to your preferences. Use the JudgeSim, whose only goal is to kill the current leader in order to keep the score even. The VengeSim wants nothing other than to attack the last person to kill them. The TurtleSim has a ridiculous shield to fire through. There are many others, and there are also difficulty levels for all of these sims—Meat, Easy, Normal, Hard, Perfect, and Dark. The Perfect and Dark sims are meant to move faster than you are capable of—you will find yourself shot at without ever seeing who did it, despite them being in front of you.

You can play these modes online now in eight-player multiplayer, but there is also four-player local, a godsend for those of us who want to revisit the days when we played nothing but Perfect Dark with friends at home. My one complaint in regards to multiplayer is that instead of eight simulants you can now use just four—this was most likely done to keep things streamlined so the game always maxed out at eight players, on or offline, but the original, despite its jarring frame rate issues in multiplayer, supported up to 12 players at a time thanks to the eight stimulants and four humans. [Edit: This is untrue--after completing the first eight Challenges, you unlock the ability to use eight bots in multiplayer  alongside up to four human players.]

The original game had maps from Goldeneye in addition to the Perfect Dark ones, as well as some unlockable Goldeneye weapons—these have returned, and are now available from the start. You can’t get Goldeneye on your 360 (or your Wii, for that matter), but you can play Goldeneye maps and use its weapons while playing the better game.

Perfect Dark also features 29 Challenges, which can be played with 1-4 players. These range from the simple (kill enemy bots with standard weaponry) to the slightly ridiculous (kill enemy Dark sims in a level without radar), but you unlock additional content for the game as well as a higher ranking for your profile by completing them. You can’t unlock things like the Dark sims in multiplayer until you have completed a certain number of challenges, so it’s worth your time to explore this portion of the game.

Additionally, there is a firing range for you to test out all of the game’s weaponry. There are bronze, silver and gold level challenges within the firing range, and you will find yourself sinking time in here in order to earn the best scores possible as well as unlock bonus levels. It’s also a great place to test out the secondary fire modes and capabilities of weapons without having to worry about someone trying to shoot back at you.

There’s still, amazingly, more to do: there is a co-operative campaign mode, as well as a counter-operative mode. Co-op is self-explanatory—I couldn’t care less that it doesn’t make sense from a story point of view to have two characters at once, because including co-op is a win. Counter-operative has one player take on the role of Agent Dark, while the second player uses a guard within the level—if the guard is killed, you simply take on the role of another guard until there aren’t any left.

One last thing—there are three control schemes. 4J Studios translated the N64 pad’s controls to the 360’s very well in the classic style. If you’ve played a lot of Perfect Dark, this is what you will want to use. If you’re more of a Halo guy, go with “Spartan”, and for Call of Duty fanatics, there’s “Duty Calls”.

Blast Factor: One of the most critically acclaimed shooters in gaming history is available once again with a new coat of paint, multiple control schemes, as well as all of the things that made the original great and then some. If you have played this before, go get it. If you have never played it, go get it. If the cartridge is sitting in your Nintendo 64 that’s kept in your bedroom on your other television (guilty), go get it.

Perfect Dark is available for 800 Perfect Dark is available for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Arcade. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The epic saga that is and will be ex-Infinity Ward heads vs. Activision took an interesting turn yesterday with news that the ousted Jason Ward and Vince Zampella have signed with the prestigious Hollywood talent firm, the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Many apparently consider this to be the top or, at least, one of the top talent brokers in the entire world. Here’s a short list of their clients other than Jason and Vince: Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Miley Cyrus, Will Ferrell, Will Smith and David Letterman. Not too shabby…

We’ll see if this high-profile coming together will affect any of the legal goings-on between Ward/Zampella and the mighty Activision, as the ex-IWers move forward with their lawsuit charging wrongful termination and breach of contract. CAA is a powerful agency with powerful contacts and now has a vested interest in seeing these 2 men continue to succeed.  It’s a good thing since the Activision counter-suit is sure to show up any day now (though they have been uncharacteristically mum on the entire affair so far). Let the bloodletting begin I suppose…

Looks like the folks who cruised through Mass Effect 2 won’t have to wait around for additional content to make itself available.  “Kasumi’s Stolen Memory,” available April 6th, will introduce players to a new character, a new weapon and what is reportedly a new way to play the game.

The DLC can be launched at any time and features a scavenger hunt in a gorgeous mansion ala Resident Evil for its first act.  The Space Rogue Kasumi is searching for a rare item inside the mansion which Sheppard must find first.   Once it is located, Sheppard is forced to blast his way out through heavy resistance.

Bioware claims this to be some of their best stuff yet.  We’ll see in just a few weeks.

Data-tracking firm the NPD Group reported its findings today and revealed Microsoft sold 422,000 Xbox 360s in February, ahead of Wii at 397,000 and PS3 at 360,100 units sold.

Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 surged over January’s figures, with only the Wii dropping from 465,800 in January to the aforesaid 397,000.

• Nintendo DS – 613,200
• Xbox 360 – 422,000
• Wii – 397,900
• PlayStation 3 – 360,100
• PSP – 133,400
• PlayStation 2 – 101,900

Well now, isn’t this intriguing. A statistic I’d like to know though is how many Xbox 360 owners have purchased more than one system in their lifetime. I’ve shelled out for two. My first, a launch console, crapped out and Microsoft replaced it. This happened three others times before I just went out and bought a more reliable model. Anyone else do this?

Looks like Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios has found a home for it’s well-mythysized game. EA has picked up what is currently titled, Project Mercury – an ambitious RPG that not much else is known about at the present. time.  Creative is being handled by best-selling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and comic icon Todd McFarlane – creator of Spawn and author/creator of tons of other awesome stuff. Big Huge Games, the studio delveloping, is headed by Ken Rolston who previously designed the Elder Scrolls games.

The game is said to be pretty amazing and was vetted for EA by the industry giants behind Bioware, who are also reported to have been collaborating to some extent.  No release date as yet for Project Mercury but it is official for 360, PS3 and PC.

This looks like is could be a really killer title.  We’ll have more to report as details trickle out…

From Kotaku: Curt Schilling

MLB 2K10

While ‘The Show’ has not been credited with any groundbreaking improvements this time around…

-*SPOILER ALERT*-

MLB 10 The Show

…the consensus is that it really was not in need of any.  MLB 10 The Show  remains the superior baseball title according to Cnet – though not by a ‘landslide’ as has been the case in previous seasons.  Since ‘The Show’ is a Sony exclusive, however, 360 owners will have to go for MLB 2K 10 or no baseball at all.  Fortunately, it’s better than it’s ever been on this generation of consoles.

Head on over to Cnet for the full story…

The kit

Don’t know about you, but I’m still on my 2005 original 20 GB hard drive. And with the rise of digital gaming, I’ve been left biting the bullet and downloading something, erasing it to make room for something else, then re-downloading it when I want to play it again.

I’ve been waiting to buy a kit like this to upgrade to a 120 or 250 GB HDD for some time and now, with certainty, I’ll do it.

And at $14.99, it’s not the totally “bend-over” price point I expected. Hooray.

Buy your [way too long of name] kit at the Microsoft Store today.

According to the stat-tracking NPD Group, who collected data from over 18,000 gamers who own at least one gaming platform, Xbox 360 owners end up on top, clocking a mighty 7.3 hours a week playing online.

Where I log all my hours.

The survey found PC gamers to log 5.8 hours a week and PlayStation 3 enthusiasts at only 3.

However, the PC remains the most actively played platform, accounting for a whopping 85 percent of the online space.

Anita Frazier, an NPD analyst said online video games are growing, growing, growing.

“The installed base of video game systems continues to grow, the platforms available to play games continue to expand and the options for content acquisition have never been greater, especially online,” she said.

Personally, I fit that mold perfectly. Except for during my World of Warcraft days. Yeah, let’s not talk about that.

Source: CVG

Today, GameStop has listed a 250 GB Xbox 360 hard drive for $129.99.

250 big ones

The hard drive, previously only available in the Modern Warfare 2 Super Elite bundle, is supposedly going on sale in March, but not without some controversy.

Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg told Joysitq “We’re always evaluating, but for now we feel like the 120 is serving us very well as the standard offering, and then having the 250 as a limited edition is a good balance.”

No official word has come down from Microsoft about the move to sell the spacious hard drive just yet, but when they comment, and they likely will, we’ll have it.

Source: Destructoid

The Special Edition Splinter Cell: Conviction Xbox 360 Elite Bundle comes with a 250GB Elite console, a copy of the game and two wireless controllers for the reasonable (I guess) price of $399 and tax when the game releases April 13.

This bundle joins the ranks of Final Fantasy XIII and Modern Warfare 2 as third-party games receiving bundles.

Source: Major Nelson

The deal is good for the black Elite units. The $299 ones with the 120 gig hard drive and the copies of LEGO: Batman and PURE.

It’s kind of amazing how affordable these units have become. Sure, we know the gift card is really an effort just to get you into the store to buy more goodies, but either way, the consumer wins.

Anyone still without an Xbox 360 should definitely consider this.

See the Target Weekly Ad for  more.

Well, until the sequel. Mass Effect 2 is a direct sequel of course, but more than that, Bioware set out to refine the gameplay of the original—beefing up its strengths and, frequently, eliminating what didn’t work. The result is nothing short of stunning.  The continuing saga of Commander Shepard is proving to be one of the most rewarding and interesting experiences in all of gaming, particularly because the game makes you feel as if you’re actually part of something epic.

Importing your Commander Shepard from the first game and seeing the decisions you made affect the second part of the storyline is a superb gameplay mechanism. Further, the past and present decisions will eventually have significant consequences to the third part of the story—whenever Mass Effect 3 is released. It’s this sense of continuity that makes Mass Effect so damned engaging. Although the gameplay is as much shooting action as full-blown role-playing, the sheer amount of choices, characters, and situations to explore makes this series feel like a singular experience on your Xbox or PC.

Few titles bring together such a cohesive sense of action and actual role-playing in so seamless a fashion. Combat is much more intensive this time around, with simple, yet effective cover system and team mates that are more useful. You can easily adjust NPC situational behavior and use their special abilities on the fly, and both ally and enemy  AI react surprisingly well. This makes your computer-controlled cohorts far more useful allies during some of the harsh combat missions, and also makes the choice of team mates for individual missions a bit more important.

While action is a more focused effort this time, the RPG elements are very much in control. The stats and character developments have been streamlined, but you are always fully in control of how Shepard and his group advance. Dialogue choices in particular affect your morality, but the game allows you to be both a paragon (good) and a renegade (bad) in whatever measure you deem fit. Dialogue trees allow for both paths, and there are even chances to change the conversation mid-stream for a specific moral action that can have long-term consequences.

The set of characters that join Shepard are a motley bunch. You’ll track down some old friends, but mostly the cast is completely new. There’s  a surly, dangerous merc; a nearly psychotic biotic chick covered in tattoos and not much else; a hilarious alien scientist; a scarily sexy blue-skinned priestess of the law; a zen-like reptilian assassin, among others. Each has a distinct personality and personal mission that Shepard can complete to earn their trust.

Although a couple of them will likely grate on you, causing you to hardly ever use them, the group is fascinating to talk to, learn about, and fight beside. Just the same, it would have been nice had the selection of possible team mates been both larger and more pliable. There’s no real options here except simply not seeking them all out. You can’t ditch characters you don’t want, you can only ignore them. Another issue is that transitioning from the original game leaves some real gaps—particularly in the relationship department.

If Shepard found love in the original Mass Effect, don’t expect it to have much meaning this time around. This is especially strange given how important so many of your other choices turn out to be. The game clearly wants to foster Shepard into new relationship directions, but the option to be monogamous to your first love in some real way would have been nice. That said, it’s much harder to find romance in Mass Effect 2 than in the first game and especially in comparison to Dragon Age.

The other main complaint with the game is that it seems to go by much too quickly. Skilled players will blow through most of the side missions and the main story in around 30-35 hours. Gamers who take their time will likely make it to the 40 hour mark. It’s certainly a testament to the game’s addictiveness and expert design that 40 hours seems too short, but Mass Effect’s galaxy is a place that you’ll want to spend more time in.

While many chided Bioware’s Dragon Age for having middling graphics, that’s definitely not the case here. Mass Effect 2’s visuals are stunning. The level of detail of the characters is nearly movie quality, and the locations look much more varied and interesting this time around. The voice acting is universally excellent, the digital surround effects immersive, and the soundtrack is great.

Blast Factor: While Mass Effect 2 is an undeniably better game than the original, it’s important to stress that it’s the middle of a greater story. As such, it’s highly recommended that you play the original first and transfer that character over to the sequel. You’ll find a far richer and more rewarding experience that way. Either way, this is a truly great game. Epic, mature, and intelligent, Mass Effect 2 is just the sort of title that the industry needs to see more frequently. Where so many RPGs, especially those from Japan, are merely cookie-cutter copies of each other, this is a sci-fi adventure boldly going where few games have gone before.

Mass Effect 2 is available on the Xbox 360 for $59.99, and the PC for $49.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Here’s a breakdown of the plot for anyone who is unfamiliar with the series:

The campaign is said to pick up as “B Company” is patrolling the Russian-American demarcation line when they discover the Russian military transporting a scalar generator prototype to build fully functional weapons near American soil. B Company travels the world in order to put an end to the threat.

The game looks like it can take on Modern Warfare 2 in terms of combat and weaponry and its multiplayer component, with its massively-scaled battles, might have enough to steal a bit of Modern Warfare 2’s thunder.

Check out the trailer below in order to get a better idea of what is going on.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be available on March 2, 2010 in North America for the Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC.

Looks like the same is happening with Modern Warfare 2’s first batch off downloadable content, as Microsoft today said the DLC will be exclusive to Xbox Live for 30 days.

Talking with Eurogamer, a Microsoft spokesperson said “We have a 30-day timed exclusive on the Modern Warfare content packs, so it will be available on other platforms, but you get to try and play on Xbox 360 first.”

As for the DLC itself, developer Infinity Ward has yet to detail the content, but it has been promised for Spring 2010, so we’re likely to learn more very soon.

Source: Eurogamer via Destructoid

For those who have played SCE Studios God of War, Darksiders will definitely have an air of familiarity to it. Combining button-combo, action style game play with classic ‘Legend-of-Zelda’-ish platforming, Darksiders is an impressive homage to gaming past and present. You start the game as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The stage of the game is Earth, where mankind live unaware of the ancient battle between Heaven and Hell that has been raging for centuries. The Horsemen are charged as keepers of the balance of the three worlds. In present day, Armageddon begins and angels and demons descend upon Earth to wage battle once more. Armed with your sword, Chaoseater and a badass attitude, you dive headfirst into the action, destroying both angel and demon alike.

The only setback is… well, the apocalypse wasn’t supposed to happen quite yet.  War is brought before the Charred Council to accept his punishment for supposedly starting the apocalypse. Instead, the Council agrees to let War attempt to seek his revenge on the real parties responsible. To make sure War keeps his end of the bargain, they assign to him The Watcher (voiced by none other than Mark Hamill!), a demon who has the ability to destroy War if he happens to be lead astray. Thus begins your quest to seek the Destroyer, main bad dude extraordinaire. Upon War’s return to Earth, he discovers that 100 years have now passed, and with the help of some unlikely allies, he begins his march on the Black Tower.

Not shown: Phil LaMarr exclamining, "My manwich!"

War is made for fighting, and has an arsenal of weapons to prove it. Along with your blade, you receive several amazing weapons throughout the course of the game, and as if that wasn’t enough, there are plenty more to be had at the store, run by a demon named Vugrim. Vulgrim also provides War with special abilities, new attacks, and general items that can level up his health, wrath meter, and his already obtained attacks. The combat system is fairly simple, and definitely easily learned. Button-combos and timing control turn War into a slashing, demon/angel-killing machine. After lowering enemies health to a certain point, a finisher attack becomes available, all of which are unique to the type of enemy you happen to be fighting.

Along with your normal attacks, War also has special attacks, and a Chaos form which turns him into an invincible god-like entity for a short time. War can even pick up objects in the environment and throw them at his enemies, causing major damage. Your reward for killing monsters are three types of orbs: health orbs, wrath orbs, and soul orbs. Wrath is the meter for War’s special attacks, soul orbs are bargaining chips at the local shop, and health orbs restore any damage that War takes during battle. If by some random chance War is killed in battle, Darksiders incorporates a check-point system that allows players to return to the game without too much of a hassle or back-tracking.

Get used to facing massive demon bosses

There is much to be discovered as you work your way through the game. Treasure chests are plentiful, most containing health, wrath, or soul orbs, but there are also other artifacts and weapons to be found. The level design creates a challenging puzzle to work though, mostly involving tools that War receives along the way, including a grappling tool, the ability to slow time, and even the creation of portals to get from one place to another. The levels go from being fairly easy to maneuver to a time-consuming challenge. The variety of ways War gets around is fairly impressive as well; you could be climbing up a wall and clinging to pipes and suddenly be underwater and swimming through underground tunnels. Sometimes, the level design gets to be a bit overwhelming, and in the later parts of the game, it is easy to get turned around. Fortunately, there is normally a way to get back to where you started, even if it may take a little while to find it.

Character design in this game is one of its best focus points. War himself is almost bland compared to some monsters that you will meet in this game, including an extremely devilish, huge winged demon, Samael. Visually appealing, the graphics are smooth and colorful creating some of the most interesting backgrounds to a game that have been seen in the next-gen console lineup. Monster design is diverse, and the game is rampant with zombies, demons, angels, and giant boss battles that put other bosses to shame. Darksiders is a violent, beat-em-up, bloody game that will delight gamers, treating them to a feast of gore.

Blast Factor: As a whole, Darksiders uses a lot of tried-and-true elements that we have seen before to create a new experience for gamers. Although nothing revolutionary happens mechanically in this game, it stands tall as a beautiful demonstration of great game play combined with gorgeous graphics and a likeable story. Unless you spend hours and hours gaining souls to use at the shop, your first-playthrough will probably not be enough to unlock everything the game has to offer, making Darksiders a fine example of a game with replay value. Although sadly the actual story doesn’t quite pop out during the game, the voice-acting, level design, and polished combat system make Darksiders a good show and definitely worth taking a closer look at.

Darksiders is available on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and retails for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

A New York Times report today speaks of Xbox Live acting as yet another means to accessing ESPN’s massive breadth of sports programming.

The report states Microsoft executives have held in-depth meetings with The Walt Disney Company concerning a program deal with ESPN.

The service is likened to that of ESPN 360, which streams many sports broadcasts to those with high-speed Internet connections, and will offer the same kind of thing to Xbox 360 owners.

Additionally, the report cites Microsoft as saying it regularly counts upwards of a million users logged into XBL at any given time, which is very comparable to that of TBS and Cartoon Network, which reach about the same amount, according to Nielsen.

Would you watch ESPN programming on your Xbox 360 if you could?

Source: Xbox Takes on Cable, Streaming TV Shows and Movie @ The New York Times

Much like its predecessor, Blood Bath does an excellent job of satirizing the gaming culture of the next-gen, poking fun at countless genres, even pointing out that you can find Eat Lead in the bargain bin at your local retail store. (“Budget cuts, bad reviews… but that’s besides the point.” claims your command buddy right at the beginning of the game.) While the writing is charming, there isn’t much story to be found; essentially you’re thrown into a side-scrolling shoot em’ up with the threat of having your past-self be deleted by your nemesis, Neutronov. D3 cuts out voice acting and replaces it with standard text boxes, so unfortunately, Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnett won’t be repeating their performances from Eat Lead. Unfortunately Blood Bath never quite takes full advantage of the parodies that it creates throughout the game, and the player is left with one-liners that never actually go anywhere.

Graphically, Blood Bath is well-made for an arcade game. 3-D character design and levels make this game pop, and the gore that will amass on your screen as you plow down wave after wave of enemies is incredibly satisfying. You are rewarded for killing enemies with showers of blood. Smooth and polished, Blood Bath’s art style stands out from other 3-D and 2-D side-scrollers. D3 offers 8-levels of walking left to right while spraying bullets in random directions until you hit something. Eventually, the gameplay gets repetitive, but between levels there are different bosses that you will face to break the monotony. But once those battles are over… back to the horde. What D3 does do for this okay 1-player game is the addition of 2-player co-op, which is definitely one of its stronger selling points. Because lets admit it; blood baths are more fun with friends and 2-player has been around since Contra.

Here's Matt Hazard, accidentrally trapped in Wii's de Blob

Mechanically, the controls all work generally the way they should. However, there are tedious occurrences that happen far too often during play. Matt can jump, shoot, throw grenades, and even shoot into the background at approaching enemies, but what he can’t do is stop and shoot. A lot of the enemies you face are above you, and you have to jump and maneuver up and down obstacles to progress through the level. More often than naught, Matt would aim his gun up to attack… and then run into death water. Or cannon fire. Or a spiked wall. Or a piranha. Yeah, you get the drift. It gets almost impossible in the harder difficulties to actual control your fire, especially because of the amount of enemies that are thrown at you. But if facing a challenge is appealing to you, these harder modes will definitely present one.

[Editor's Note] You can stop to shoot if you hold down the right bumper, which allows you to fire at a 360 degree angle while stationary.

Blast Factor: Regular story mode lasts from 2-4 hours, but there is always second run-throughs with your friends waiting to happen. With a little more effort and focus, this game could have been a lot cooler, and ultimately a lot more fun to play. Unfortunately for Matt Hazard, his second appearance seems about as lack-luster as his first, but hey, he really is trying his hardest to stay alive.

Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond is available for the XBLA and PSN at a cost of $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

According to Microsoft, the company has no need to release a new console in the immediate future.

“I think it’s important to say that the Xbox 360 is the console of the long future for us,” David Hufford, senior director of Xbox product management, told the Guardian. “There is no need to launch a new console, because we’re able to give this console new life either with software upgrades or hardware upgrades like Project Natal.”

Project Natal is the motion-control hardware the company is launching Holiday 2010.

And the director went on to liken the Xbox 360 life-cycle to that of the ten-year PlayStation 3 model.

“The Xbox 360 was designed for a long life,” Hufford adds, “and I don’t even know if we’re at the midpoint yet.”

Well now, do you think this is good news? Everything new coming in the form of new software and hardware upgrades? Or do you want a new system entirely?

Source: Kotaku

Called the Orza, this controller has customizable buttons and sticks and is said to be a true upgrade to the first-party offering Microsoft is selling.

So very nice looking!

Destructoid, who had hands-on time with the gadget, said the best part was its fully adjustable analog sticks. In its report it is said that the tension can be altered to your preferred play-style, which is always a good thing.

Additionally, the D-Pad, always a finicky little bugger on the official controller, is said to do away with the problems and may look and feel something like the pad on Sony’s Dualshock line.

The CES pre-production models shown on the floor of CES are not yet finalized but when they do release sometime in 2010, they’ll sell for $49, the same price Microsoft sells its for. War!

Source: Destructoid

January looks like it will have something for everyone with planned releases for: Vampire Weekend, Creedence Clearwater Revival, up-and-coming blues artists Tyler Bryant, Joe Bonamassa and Scott McKeon and metal bands Shadows Fall, Amon Amarth and Dethklok.

Today marks the release of Guitar Hero’s New Blues Masters Track Pack featuring:

- Tyler Bryant’s “Who I Am”

- Joe Bonamassa’s “Lonesome Road Blues”

- Scott McKeon’s “Broken Man”

Jan 11 – Vampire Weekend’s new album, Contra, drops in stores, so to celebrate Guitar Hero is releasing “Holiday”, “Cousins” and “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance”

Jan 21 – The Metal pack is released so that Metalheads can play Shadow Fall, Amon Amarth and Dethklok on their consoles.

Jan 28 – Creedence Clearwater Revival comes to Guitar Hero with “Proud Mary”, “Bad Moon Rising”, and “Travelin’ Band”

For more information about the game and future track releases and pricing, visit their website.

Here’s a rundown, for those who didn’t watch the livestream last night, of the highlights of the speech.

Project Natal-Microsoft’s “your body is the controller,” motion-control gaming movement, was announced to be released Holiday 2010, so we can probably expect the new technology about 10 months from now.

No controller...oh wait, you are the controller!

Coming soon, during Spring 2010, is Game Room for Xbox Live and Games For Windows. This online destination, compared to Sony’s Home, will be a place to play classic arcade games…for a price. You can either buy one of the thousands of retro titles at a low price point of between 240-440 MS Points, but can also fork over only 40 Points/50 cents, if you want that true retro feeling of popping in a couple quarters, but only get to play the game once. Additionally, Microsoft is promising a new game every week and that this Game Room will be a popular hangout for your Xbox Live Avatars. We’ll see.

If you build it, they might come.

In bloody, war news, announced last night was yet another timed exclusive for the mighty corporate brethren at Microsoft, this time involving everyone’s favorite FPS, Modern Warfare 2. When the first batch of DLC hits for the shooter this Spring it’ll be available first for paying Xbox Live members. No mention of what the DLC will actually be however, though it’s likely a combination of new multiplayer environments, and or more Spec-Ops missions.

More of this. Coming soon.

Finally, Ballmer said there are now 39 million Xbox 360s in the wild and between Christmas and New Year’s this year, Xbox Live had its busiest week of all time. During this time a new member signed up for XBL every second and at one point over 2.2 million members signed on at the same time, and XBL didn’t crack under the server stress like last year.

Xbox Live. w00t

Stay tuned later today for what Sony had to say and show at CES.

Why should you care? Well, if you’re a racing fanatic, there are $40,000 in prizes to be won and the grand prize winner will receive $30,000 for a car on AutoTrader.com! The top 4 finalists will receive a trip to Vancouver to compete!

If you’re interested, you should totally sign up. Need more info? Check out their website to learn more. Good Luck!

For those unfamiliar with Army of Two, the story focuses on a two-man private military team:  Salem and Rios. Trapped in a besieged city, the pair must put their skills to work and help each other fight against a horde of enemies.

The trailer definitely sets the game up as a kick ass adventure for friends who like teaming up to go head to head with a horde of enemies. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Army of Two: The 40th Day will be available on 360, PSP and PS3.

The setting has changed to 15^th century Italy, and there’s a new assassin to go with the times. His name is Ezio Auditore de Firenze, and while the overall plot is still assassins versus Templars, Ezio is an incredibly different character than the original Altair. The main difference is that unlike Altair, Ezio isn’t a born assassin. In a plot twist reminiscent of the movie Wanted, Ezio discovers that his father was a master assassin in a covert war. After his father’s murder, Ezio must take up his father’s trade.

An improvement on the genetic memory story arc is also a welcome surprise. Although the future takes a distinct backseat, the kidnapped possessor of all these killer memories, Desmond Miles, has some fascinating, if clichéd, character development. It also ties in nicely with, and expands upon, Altair’s history.

Of course, Ezio is the focus of the masterful mix of history and fiction that creates a thriving, vibrant, and fascinating world. You’ll become best friends with Leonardo Da Vinci, get caught in famous family turf wars, and visit an amazing array of spectacular Renaissance cities, beautiful Italian country, and even small towns and villas. Moreover, Ezio will have his own villa and town to maintain—complete with a simple, yet engaging economic system completely new to the series.

Every location offers a slew of art, weapons, armor, and other upscale finery to purchase. Purchasing such things adds to the value (and wealth) of your villa, as does paying to upgrade the various stores and services. The more you spend on improvements, the more income you receive. What’s it all for? The core of the gameplay hasn’t changed. You are still a master assassin running, climbing, jumping, and killing for hours on end. But this time, you have friends. Or at least, employees.

Groups of courtesans, thieves, and mercenaries are readily available—for a price—to either draw attention away from you or to help you fight.  For instance, courtesans can work their wiles on a group of guards while Ezio sneaks into a restricted area. Alternatively, you could keep your money, kill the guards yourself, and then steal the treasure behind the door. Yet another option is to just ignore the guarded treasure altogether, and stick to the main storyline. Boredom is simply not an option with so many choices.

Happily, the entire world is ripe with hidden treasure chests, collectible feathers, and valuable codex pages, not to mention vigilante justice, timed rooftop races, and courier jobs. Feathers are the new flags, but this time with an actual purpose. Treasure chests both increase your wealth, and are simply fun to find—especially the well-hidden ones. Your local art dealer will be happy to supply you with treasure maps, should you need them. You could spend hours exploring and taking on side missions without touching the main story. Fortunately, the overall story is so well done that spending even more time on the central story is no chore. So, the biggest problem with the original game is solved in spades.

The actual gameplay, however, will be instantly familiar to fans of the first game. Free-running and the counter-based combat have been a bit refined. Ezio is a little better at finding purchase while climbing, though the controls still suffer from the same occasionally stilted feel and unresponsiveness. You can now taunt a slow opponent into attacking, instead of playing a waiting game. There are a lot of new counters. Ezio can fight with both of his wrist blades, and even steal opponents’ weapons and use them against them. New assassination moves also spice up the action, letting Ezio become a master of death from both above and below.

Blast Factor: All these small improvements improve the sequel. The increase in the physical world of the game, and in the variety of the gameplay add to the diverse refinements. The presentation is still stunning, the voice acting is much more authentic, and there’s just a lot more to the game. As great a game as the first Assassin’s Creed was, this sequel is better in every way. It’s easily recommendable and absolutely one of the best games of the year.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The basic premise of the XBLA release, Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure!, is similar to the original in that you must make your character climb as high as he can to escape the sinking city within a certain amount of time.  Using magical powers to create rainbows, players will be able to jump higher and higher, while also attacking dangerous enemies (such as caterpillars, mini-tanks and giant blue bees!) in the process.

The gameplay for Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is incredibly simple: pressing the B-button makes your character jump and the A-button makes your character shoot out a rainbow.  While it isn’t the most fluid gameplay, with a title that is based on clearing stages in limited time allowances, simple controls are more than welcome.

What I really like about Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is the fact that your character has no life meter, which has been replaced with a timer.  This timer counts down for every second spent enjoying the rainbow-ey goodness; when the timer runs out, the game is over.  Instead of losing life, being attacked by enemies results in a subtraction of time.  Likewise, when a player defeats an enemy, their character can collect not health, but more time.  I thought this was a very fun and imaginative way to make a game finite without bringing the whole life-and-death scenario into play.

Another somewhat unique thing about Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is the fact that the rainbow magic can be used as both a climbing tool and a weapon against the evildoers that have overrun the town.  This becomes especially helpful when a platform you are jumping to is a bit out of your jumping range as you can just shoot a rainbow, use it as a stepping stool and be on your merry way.  Advantageously timed rainbows will allow players to jump higher, get rid of enemies and let your character collect the bonuses your fallen foes have dropped.

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is also full of entertaining game modes as well, complete with Story, Challenge, Time Attack and Xbox Live Match modes.  In Story mode, players take control of Bub and Bob, whom were also the protagonists in previous games.  Bub and Bob must escape the city before the evil Dr. Crescent submerges it compeletely.  Bub and Bob will be able to collect gems throughout the game that will help them do a super move that can combat Dr. Crescent and his large destructive ship.  This mode can be played in single player and two-player cooperative styles.  In Challenge mode, players simply try to get as high as they can with a set number of lives, while Time Attack mode tests players’ speed by seeing how quickly they can complete a stage.  In Xbox Live Match mode, players race against other Xbox Live users on certain levels.

In the Challenge and Time Attack modes, players can actually use their Xbox Live avatars to take part in the action.  Unfortunately, those are the only modes that this feature is available in.  One could imagine that letting Xbox Live users incorporate their avatars would increase the entertainment value of both Rainbow Islands and the avatars themselves, but obviously the developers seemed to go in a different direction.  To many, this will seem like a pretty simple idea that was just not capitalized on for whatever reason.

In terms of aesthetics, this game brings as many colorful graphics as you would expect from an old school Japanese platformer inspired by rainbows.  At first look, players may confuse this title with one of the Sonic games for Sega Genesis as they seem to be designed with very similar graphics and stylization.  Each of the levels has many different shades and tones of pastels, while the enemies look like cute and colorful toys in lieu of anything threatening.  I wouldn’t consider this a negative, however, as I think most of use fell in love with Bubble Bobble for more than its gameplay.

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! implements what many gamers have referred to as “2.5D” graphics, which is a sort of blend between the 2D and 3D styles.  Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is a good example of this because of the use of 2D scrolling environments and 3D character models.  Though I think 2.5D is a good strategy, especially for updating older games like Rainbow Islands, I thought the stylization of this title was a bit lackluster.  I’ve seen many iPhone adaptations of old games that make Rainbow Island: Towering Adventure!’s graphics pale in comparison.  For a system like the Xbox 360, I think the look of this game could have been stepped up at least one or two notches.

Blast Factor: Overall, Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure is as cute a game as you’ll find in the Xbox Live Arcade.  However, with flaws in the aesthetics, gameplay and general development of the game, it’s hardly the best value one can find.  For fans of the original, coughing up 800 points (about $10) will probably not sound too bad.  For everyone else, it’s probably not worth it.

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure! is available for 800 Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Arcade. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

The endless stream of fighters that hit during the 90’s have managed to either steadily evolve or perish. Tekken has long been a mainstay on Sony’s platforms, starting with a killer port of the original arcade hit on the PSOne. Tekken 6 was built to take advantage of the latest uber-hardware and as expected, it really does look great and the animation is stunning. That’s not to say it’s visually perfect. The game still has a few unwanted last-gen leftovers like slight jagging outlines of the character, bit overall, Tekken 6 is easily the best the series has looked and certainly competitive with the latest Virtua Fighter, DoA, and Street Fighter IV. The game sounds great as well, with some surprisingly powerful surround effects.

Beyond the presentation, however, there’s not a lot of major upgrades. Although many of the old characters have been tweaked in some fashion, there’s no earth-shattering changes. There are several new characters such as the beautiful Zalina who uses a bizarre style, crazy school-girl android Alisa, and Bob, an amazingly fast far guy. The new characters are surprisingly fleshed out and refined, and add more than just a few more headshots to the 41 character roster.

Veterans of the series and hardcore fighter fans will get more out the more subtle gameplay enhancements, yet Tekken remains a remarkably novice-friendly affair as well. There’s an in-depth training mode to learn the ropes, and the classic four-button layout still makes for fast, fluid combat. That said, like most Tekken titles, Tekken 6 has a couple amazingly cheap boss battles in the arcade mode, which will cause even advanced players frustration.

Tekken 6 also tries to alleviate a major problem in all the Namco fighters—one dimensional arenas. While the fighting zones are still flat planes, there’s some real creativity in their presentation including a parking garage covered in flames. New to the series are multi-level arenas. Set up your opponent right through the use of new juggle and ground pounding techniques, and you can smash them through some arena floors. Granted, Mortal Kombat 2 did this in the mid-90’s, but given how slow these games can be to evolve, it’s a welcome gimmick. Now they just need to learn how provide elevation and contours to their arenas like Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive…

Beyond mere one-on-one fighting, the Tekken Force mode makes a resurgence in the form of the scenerio campaign mode. This single-player, story-driven mode takes the classic side scrolling beat ‘em up gameplay of previous games in the next gen with sharp graphics and plenty of action. Unfortunately, the mode has a terrible camera and no way to manually adjust your view. The enemies and action are also incredibly repetitive, but the mode does allow fans to delve more into the nearly incomprehensible  storyline. More importantly, it lets you earn bonus objects to accessorize the fighters with. A real sore point with this mode is despite the fact that you always have an AI companion, there’s no actual cooperative play option.

Online action comes in two different forms. The first is standard online matches against live players. While Namco has announced patches, at this time the online play is noticeably spotty. Although not unplayable, it’s hard to imagine why this is still an issue for Namco given how smoothly Soul Caliber IV works online. The other net-based feature is the ability to download player ghosts, which gives the illusion of fighting a real player without actually having to deal with one.

Blast Factor: Tekken 6 is, without a doubt, a great fighting game. It’s the most expansive Tekken yet, with a great roster, impressive levels, and plenty of gameplay tweaks. That said, it’s hard to outright recommend it to casual players or newcomers to the series, since Tekken Dark Resurrection is a far cheaper download and still a remarkably solid fighter. The $60 price tag here seems a little steep for anyone other than a diehard fighter fan, but price aside it’s a worthy addition to any fighter’s collection.

Tekken 6 is available on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

Ranging from the mundane to the extreme and furry, for 240 MS Points, the following can be yours to love like your own!

Large Dog, Pug Dog, Dog in Bag, Cat, Siamese Cat, Long Haired Cat, Goldfish, Guinea Pig, Monkey, Bird, Snake and a Pony.

If I had an extra 240 MS Points kicking around I’d most definitely buy myself any of those creatures, I mean, who hasn’t dreamed of owning a pony I’m not actually a 12 year-old girl?

Here’s a look at how you’ll look with a cute little pet in tow.

Yes you can haz Pony via Major Nelson

The guidelines, as Kotaku points out, are really just a “set of rules governing how avatars can be displayed in both internal and external (ie, catalogues) marketing program,” and mostly pertain to graphic designers and such, but it was interesting to learn how Microsoft aims to protect the image of these little men and women.

Here’s what Microsoft deems okay and not okay.

- When Avatars are used in a group of three or more, at least one Avatar must be female.

- When Avatars are used in a group of three or more, consider including different ethnicities.

- When Avatars are used in groups of three or more, one of them should be facing forward and looking outward.

- Avatars must be playful and mischievous, not devious or inappropriate.

- Do not show Avatars with closed or blinking eyes.

- Do not show Avatars using any hand or body gestures other than those provided.

- Do not use an Avatar as the main message of a marketing piece.

- Do not show Avatars interacting with the Xbox 360 Sphere.

What do you think of these guidelines? Responsible? Silly? A little bit of both? Do share!

Source: Kotaku

The game series, available on the 360, PS3, and Wii, has music of more than 390 bands which provides the best selection of interactive musical content.

In addition to Rock Band and Rock Band 2’s content catalog, there’s additional content in the form of weekly downloads and LEGO Rock Band. The weekly downloadable content is now in its 105th consecutive week which is incredibly impressive.

Soon Rock Band fans will be able to make some of their own content via Rock Band Network. Rock Band Network, a new suite of tools that wil allow bands and labels of all shapes and sizes to turn their own songs into downloadable, playable Rock Band tracks available for sale. This will cement Rock Band as the leading game with downloadable content for music-based videogame content.

For a complete list of the 1,000 songs visit their website!

But what the gaming Gods have bestowed upon us this week are Borderlands’ first downloadable content The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, and the approachable and fun Madden NFL Arcade for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

Here’s the full list. Gobble, gobble, gobble.

Monday (Nov. 23)
Bit.Trip Void (Wii)
Coldstone: Scoop It Up (Wii)
Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (DS)
Hello Kitty Party (DS)

Tuesday (Nov. 24)
Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny (PC)
Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned (PS3, 360)
Chicken Riot (Wii)
Karaoke Revolution (PS3, Wii, 360)
King Arthur – The Role-playing Wargame (PC)
Madden NFL Arcade (PS3)
Marines: Assault on Terror (Wii)
Party Designer (DS)
Rec Room Games (Wii)
Scene It? Twilight (Wii)
Tekken 6 (PSP)
Your Shape featuring Jenny McCarthy (Wii)

Wednesday (Nov. 25)
Madden NFL Arcade (360)

Friday (Nov. 27)
Cocoto Surprise (Wii)
Puzzlegeddon (PS3, 360)

Source: GameSpot via Kotaku

So of course, when Left 4 Dead 2 was released, not even a spinal chord injury could keep me from playing.  Much to my delight I found the gameplay mostly unchanged; you’re still controlling four immune survivors through five campaigns filled with Hannibal Lecter cosplayers.  The major changes are the new campaigns and an expanded library of weapons, medicines, ammunition, and enemies.

The South is a trendy setting, and luckily it jives well with the series sense of the absurd.  You’ll be fetching snacks for hillbillies in exchange for rocket launcher cover, driving through plate-glass windows in a stock car ala the Dukes of Hazard, mowing down killer clowns with your trusty banjo, and all-in-all enjoying a game that takes itself much less seriously than the average FPS.   From a carnival of death to a rainy swamp, the new environments are–frankly put–amazing.  They’re atmospheric and diverse, and are sure to provide hours of creepy delight.

The series displayed its flair for the cinematic in the Dead Air plane crash of the first release; moments like these are sprinkled throughout all campaigns, and my first play-through dropped my jaw more than once.  I never thought I could be so excited about fetch quests, but there are great strategic mini-missions that force you out of the “shoot everything that moves” mentality.  The levels are much less linear this time around, with multiple routes to the safe-house, adding another layer to strategy.  There are even moments where you benefit by breaking the cardinal rule of the Left 4 Dead Series: NEVER split up.

Multiple new weapons and items have been introduced to aid your zombie-killing efforts.  I’m very much a barbarian when it comes to weaponry: if it kills things, I’ll use it until it breaks or runs out of ammo, then I’ll just pick up whatever is closest.  Guns still fall into three categories: things that shoot a lot but hurt a little, things that shoot a little but hurt a lot, and sniper-type rifles.  Laser sights are fun add-ons, but they’re more flair than substance.  Incendiary rounds and Boomer Bile are best saved for big enemies, but as I stated, I’m a big fan of good-old-fashioned lead.  Defibrillators are an implausible but fantastic addition to your medical arsenal, allowing you to revive even long-dead party members.  Adrenaline, which will increase your speed, is only useful in very specific situations, and I find the pain pills to be a more practical inventory item.  While the expanded choices aren’t uniformly useful, they certainly increase your strategic capabilities.

Unfortunately, with increase in tactical abilities, the intelligence of your companions seems to plummet.  I remember fondly that I could count on Zoe to snipe the roof-top Smokers while I was busy spraying friendly shotgun fire onto Louis and Francis.    Man, those were the days!  Perhaps they gain competency when playing on easier modes, but on advance they felt a bit dopey, especially in the missions that required more action than just firing guns.

Of the new special infected, we have the Spitter, the Charger, and the Jockey.  I only really loved the idea of the Jockey, which will take control of you and steer you off of cliffs and into traps; the Spitter overlaps a bit too much with the Boomer for me, but perhaps he’ll grow on me.  The Charger, however, was a waste of programming.  It’s the annoying little brother of the pants-wettingly frightening Tank, and it fills no function that the Hunter doesn’t.

Perhaps the only disappointment I feel with this release is the loss of the feeling of simplicity and lightness that came with so few options.  You had health packs, pain pills, pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and that’s was it!  Now with defibrillators, adrenaline, Boomer bile, laser sights, axes, crowbars, baseball bats, samurai swords, three more kinds of special infected, and multiple variants on common infected, the game has lost the simplicity that made its balance so apparent and so appealing.  Since it’s such an appealing party game, I regret that my more casual gamer friends may have difficulty keeping track of all these new toys.

I also detect a small downgrade in the intuitiveness of the game’s flow.  Music cues that both helped the gamer and enhanced their excitement have suddenly become as slow as the AI.  Character movement feel less vetted, and I found myself firing often at Nick, whose silhouette I found indistinguishable from the zombie masses.  Almost invisible features, such as auto-crouching to enter low spaces, has been done away with.  You know–small things that made the game faster, easier to learn, and gave you fewer scrambling-for-the-right-button moments.  I definitely feel some of the additions were superficial: padding added to justify the release of a new game rather than additional content for the first, especially when so many of the game elements are identical.

Blast Factor: Overall, I probably would’ve been happier with additional content for the first game, or a greater amount of time and thought put into balancing the sequel as well as its predecessor.  But despite some issues, this is still a great game, and I’m sure myself and my friends will be pouring as much time into this one as we did the last.  The new campaigns are the stars of the show, and they alone make this title well worth owning.

Left 4 Dead 2 is available on the Xbox 360 and the PC, and retails for $59.99 and $49.99 respectively. A copy of this game was purchased for the purposes of reviewing.

I wasn’t kidding when I described the gameplay above. That’s the bulk of the experience. You get missions to do from job boards in towns and settlements, or from talking to certain people scattered across the expansive game world. When you finish a mission, you return to wherever you earned it and pick up a reward, in the form of items, experience and money. You can take on as many quests as you want at a time, and can complete as many as you want before you ever return to claim your prize, so you don’t need to run back and forth constantly. These missions do fall into a somewhat small set of categories though–kill this thug, kill this beast, collect these items, kill this guy and collect these items, etc. You don’t really mind though, because each kill means experience, and experience means leveling, and that is the metaphorical crack pipe upon which addiction to this game relies.

Even within the first area of the game, there are certain sections you are not going to want to visit until you have sufficiently leveled. You may find some of these places in your random travels though, and when you do, you could very well be killed, and fast. You want to be very close to your enemy’s levels when you engage them, so the missions become important so you can always stay ahead of the curve, or at least with it.

Plus, you get more stuff. There’s a never ending supply of stuff for you to pick up. Some of it is better than your current stuff, much of it is worse, but it can all be sold so you can buy even better stuff. Certain characters use certain gun types better than others, meaning that when you play multiplayer, stuff should be shared for more reasons than just fairness.

The single and multiplayer experiences are similar in many ways. You still run around completing missions, leveling up and collecting loot, but now you get to do it with a buddy (or a stranger, but that’s not as much fun, especially in a game where picking up items is so pivotal). If you play with someone over Xbox Live, whoever hosts the game is going to be the one whose story is played, meaning you can replay missions you may have already completed in order to boost your character’s levels further. You can also keep multiple characters saved to your hard drive at once, meaning you can play online with a friend using one of the four character classes while playing alone on your own time with another. All of the items, experience and money you acquire in multiplayer carries over to your single-player experience, so even if you have to replay certain sections later, at least you will be well armed.

Each class is, at the simplest level, different thanks to their special skill. The Soldier drops a shielded turret, the Hunter has a war hawk that can attack far off enemies or those behind cover, the Siren can turn invisible and invincible for short periods of time, letting out a wave of energy when the shift occurs, and the Berserker, which, as you may have guessed, excels at being a damage absorbing tank that can punish enemies with melee.

There is more to the class differences than that though, as you earn skill points that can be used to differentiate them further. There are three separate paths to take, and you don’t need to stay within a single one–you can also cash in all of your skill points and re-align yourself however you wish, for a small cash fee. Let’s use the Hunter as an example. One path has him becoming more of a pistol wielding gunslinger, while another has him becoming more of a sniper. If you take the Sniper path, you will earn bonuses through skill points for things like experience bonuses on critical kills, faster reload times on rifles, or shield penetrating bullets. If you take the gunslinger route, you can get some similar bonuses, but also some very revolver/pistol exclusive ones, like chance to fire two rounds with one press of the trigger on pistols. You can customize them into all three groups and get an all-purpose blend, or you can focus heavily on one section–each time you upgrade a skill five times, it opens up the next level of skills for that designation. Shield penetrating bullets don’t come for the Sniper until you’ve used at least 15 skill points on Sniper related skill, which means 15 levels (20, really, as you don’t earn any skill points your first few levels) in a game with 50 tops. As I said though, you can get them back for a cost, so don’t fret if you change your mind 15 hours in.

That’s not to say anyone can’t play and enjoy being a virtual DJ here. The game caters to all skill levels, but to really get the most out of the mix table peripheral, you’ll need to master the higher skill settings. Regardless of which difficulty level, DJ Hero is amazingly fun.  Almost 100 mix tracks come with the game and it’s the first music game since Dance Dance Revolution to especially appeal to the techno crowd. The mixes cover the musical spectrum though—plenty of rap, hip hop, Motown, and pop from the last 30 years. But the magic is how the game mixes two tracks together to create something new.

Nowhere else could you hear Marvin Gaye crossed with the Gorillaz, the Beastie Boys and Queen, the Killers vs. Rihanna, David Bowie and 50 Cent, and an impressive and entertaining number of other great mixes. It’s not a stretch to say that this eclectic, dance-centric line-up is the best yet for a Hero game and it makes the color-coded button pressing gameplay feel more distinctive than ever.

The mix table controller is a cool new addition to any gamer’s stash. The main focus is on the turntable, which both spins and has three colored buttons. On the medium difficulty level and below, this is all you’ll really need, and the game plays just like any of the Hero/Rock Band games. Color-coded circles stream down three trails on the screen and the object is to hit the appropriate button at exactly the right time. At times, you’ll have to spin the turntable up or down based on the onscreen cues. The concept is simple, the execution is fun, and the presentation is bright, colorful, and quirky.

Once you get comfortable with the basic gameplay and switch to a higher level, the crossfader becomes a major part of the game. This slider bar is at home in the center, but at times, you’ll have to slide it right and left in time with the music trail, while keeping pace with the button presses and spins. The crossfade bar adds an interesting level of challenge in general, and adds some great variation to the music. On the downside, it can be a bit unruly. Despite have a bit of feedback, when the game is in high gear, paying attention to the current position of the bar without having to actually look at it can be frustrating.

There’s little in the way of onscreen prompts to keep track of the slider’s position as well, making the learning curve a bit steeper than it could have been. Another feature that is great in concept, but still in need of some work is the overlap with Guitar Hero. Some of the tracks allow for a guitarist, yet few of them felt particularly optimized for this feature. Usually the guitar tracks end up being painfully repetitive. Still, it’s a nice bonus feature that could use improvement in the sequel.

The overall presentation is much like other music game, with the moving gameplay tracks taking up most of the screen acreage, and stylized graphics of your on-stage DJ, the crowd, dancers—all reacting to how well you’re doing. The pumping soundtrack is especially awesome for home theater-equipped systems, but as expected, it sounds great in general.

Blast Factor: Without a doubt, DJ Hero is the most distinctive and original music game on the market. While the game is enjoyable for all skill levels, it takes on a whole new level coordination for the hardcore crowd. The packed soundtrack is phenomenal and mix table controller is responsive and fun to use. The  main problem for DJ Hero is the steep asking price. $119 is a lot to spend on one game with only a single controller. If you don’t mind the cover charge though, this is the coolest virtual rave in town.

Another Take — Bradley Ouellette

Activision’s latest Music game is an interesting new twist. They have taken the well-known style of the Guitar Hero franchise, and instead of playing a guitar, the player spins a record, and acts like a DJ mixing tunes. The Music in the game always consists of two pieces that the player has to mix together, fading between the two pieces and adding other effects including scratching, freestyling, and cross fading.

The game plays similar to any other Guitar Hero style game, moving the cross fader to select the track, scratching, or pressing the buttons to cause different effects to the music. When the player gets all of a lit up section correct the game gives a charge to the Euphoria button–this is the same as star power.

The scoring in DJ Hero feels different than the scoring in Guitar Hero also. The multipliers earned from rows of correct notes is very important since if you don’t hit 4x multiplier for a while in the game, you pretty much can’t score more than 3 stars. So hitting an extra note that isn’t there can kill your rating. Also if the player gets enough notes correct in a row, there is a rewind button that will show up in the display. This looks like the regular rewind button on a remote. When that’s on the screen, spinning the turntable back one full turn will rewind the song, and let the player replay a section to increase their score. This can be especially fun, if in Emode, when there is a bunch of cross fading back and forth, since it will allow the player to get a huge score with little effort. That being said, the rewind mode can also kill the score, since while it rewinds it’s easy to mess up a note and lose the multiplier.

Over all, I loved the game. I thought it was a neat new twist in the music genre; whereas the guitar band games haven’t had as much innovation lately, this was completely new. I found that game played smoothly, except for the cross fader. Even with the issues of the cross fader, loved the game, and will highly
recommend it if you generally like music games.

DJ Hero is available on the Wii, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, and retails for $119.99. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

“We are very proud of the phenomenal launch of Dragon Age: Origins and we’re pleased to announce the next installment of downloadable content that will be available to fans of the game,” said Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager, RPG/MMO Group of EA, and Co-Founder, BioWare. “The Return to Ostagar DLC pack is a prime example of BioWare’s commitment to give fans a game that continuously offers new experiences and further enriches a storyline that has already received critical acclaim and positive feedback from the players.”

The first two packs of DLC were solid additions to Dragon Age–you picked up some exclusive items and abilities, and also got a chance to earn some more experience for your party, something that’s definitely useful on harder difficulties. I won’t turn my nose up at more of DLC, especially at a $4.99 price point. It gives me an excuse to go in with both of my characters too, especially since they play and act so differently. There’s no set date yet, but it’s releasing this holiday–somewhat vague, but at least we know it’s soon.

This is a new way to play Madden which focuses on a fun, pick-up-and-play, 5-on-5 game between fans. Each team included features the five top offensive and defensive players.

We can’t give you the whole list of available players, but we can give you a list of the teams which are included in the game: Bears, Bengals, Bills, Broncos, Browns, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Chargers, Chiefs, Colts, Cowboys, Dolphins, Eagles, Falcons, 49ers, Giants, Jaguars, Jets Lions, Packers, Panthers, Patriots, Raiders, Rams, Ravens, Redskins, Saints, Seahawks, Steelers, Titans, Vikings, Texans

Are you excited? Let us know below. Don’t forget to mark your calendars!

RTL interactive Games Publishing announced that they are hosting an exclusive competition for redeem-codes for their Xbox 360 Arcade titles Ion Assault and Football Genius – The Ultimate Quiz on their facebook page.

Curious about either of the games? Well go to the RTL Games Publishing Page and become a fan and you’ll be able to learn more about the contest!

Ion Assault is a new shooter game which looks kinda cool from a visual standpoint, while Football Genius – The Ultimate Quiz is kinda self-explanatory.

So go, check out the Facebook contest and win some free codes. Let us know how you fair and what you think of the game in the comments below.