Don't have a gaming collection? Don't know where to start? Well, markcz5581 is selling his collection at a starting bid of $25,000. Buy it now for $75,000 and you get a Wii with that.

List after jump!

After two years of being number one, after two years of being the greatest multiplayer title out there for consoles, after two years of reigning supreme, and being the most played title on Xbox Live week after week...

Major Nelson brings us the news. Halo 2 has been dethroned. It is no longer the number one played title on Xbox Live. Gears of War is now champion. Gears of War is now king. This is truly a sign that Gears of War is the Xbox 360 killer app. that everyone hyped it up to be.

Please excuse me... as I go bury myself in tears... [Digg it!]

Today Burger King announced that in conjunction with Microsoft they will be offering three games for $3.99 with purchase of a value meal. These games will star the fast-food chain's mascot "The King" and will be released with what can only be described as the best video game names EVER!               
"Pocket Bike Racer"
"Big Bumpin' "
and "Sneak King".

I know, I know.

"FINALLY" (pretty much what you're all thinking)

You've all been waiting for it and after years and years of setbacks and delays, it's finally here.



discussion of this momentous announcement after the jump.

Hey all,
Andy here with this mornings gaming update.... I've been way the hell too busy recently, and its nice to kick back and watch the good folks at Xbox.com do some of the legwork for us.... That said, if you're interested in watching the keynote address (I use the term loosely) at X06, you can tune into it over at the UK Xbox.com, where they'll be streaming it live.     No promises the feed stays up, but it should be an interesting ride.

I briefly talked with Major Nelson this morning, and he mentioned that he'd be trying to live-blog the event as much as possible, so if you have issues with the stream you might want to check out his site.

In my standard ear-to-ground protocol, I've picked up a few highly-unlikley-but-very-interesting rumors.

1)  There will be a new Halo 3 trailer + multiplayer game details revealed today (It goes on to mention something about 64 players
2) We're going to see Demos released for both the new Splinter Cell:Double Agent title (multiplayer) as well as Hawkes' favorite "Mass Effect"
3) Tons of HD-DVD details

Take the halo 3 stuff with a grain of salt, that wasn't the most reliable source to be hoenst......

-Andy

With the summer drought almost to a close, I am finding myself in a bountiful environment of hours upon hours of previously un-experienced gaming goodness.  Instead of going out and buying $60 games that I may or may not like, I have been ignoring my next-gen titles and using my Xbox 360 for backwards compatibility.  What a mistake Peter Moore made when he said backwards compatibility wasn't important.  Not only is it important for Microsoft, it is also important for all the Playstation 2 or Gamecube owners who missed out on some Xbox gems.

Continued after the jump...

Agent 47 has neither lost his mind nor achieved that elusive, silent, however deadly kill. But it does seem as though he has hit the sweet spot in between the two.

Hitman: Blood Money is the proverbial marmite/vegemite of the gaming industry: You will either love this game or you will hate it. It's not as black and white as that, but the fact is that some people are just flat out not going to like the game and some will. It's just its niche gameplay.

To a Hitman fan such as myself who has followed the series throughout the years and has devoted time and effort into making it an experience, this game will prove a loving sequel to the previous games. It has the classic Hitman gameplay that you know and love. But if you've never liked the Hitman series, now is not the time to get into it, because this game won't change your mind about it.

Follow the jump to see if this title has earned a next generation label or if it's just another Hitman game ported onto the Xbox 360.

Hey all, another day, another news roundup! Some of these stories may be a day or two old, as I've been packing them up for a while now. Enjoy!

- Xbox maintenance is over. New features after the jump.
- Bytesector provides: Too Human gameplay footage! Looks great!
- Xboxzone.com.au provides: Cloning Clyde video preview. Looks like a fun arcade game.
- TeamXbox reports: EA reveals an interesting co-op game, Army of Two.
- TeamXbox reports: Enchanted Arms coming to the US, courtesy of Ubisoft.
- TeamXbox reports: Overlord coming to the 360 and PC in Summer 2007.
- 1up.com reports: Take-Two shuts down Indie Built Inc.!
- 1up.com reports: Activision to release four maps for Call of Duty 2 during E3 week.
- 1up.com reports: Activision recieves lawsuit for no overtime compensation.
- Joystiq reports: Blizzard's Vice President makes TIME's Top 100!
- Joystiq reports: Assassin's Creed announced for the PS3, but don't forget: it was confirmed for the 360 at X05 as Project Assassin! Not a PS3 exclusive! Screenshots at Xboxyde.
- Kotaku reports: Reggie reveals: Wii racer in the works!
- Kotaku reports: Where be the developers!?
- Kotaku reports: MGS movie... and in English, to boot!
- Kotaku reports: Next-gen Tony Hawk? Looks like it.
- Slashdot reports: Overclocking taken to a new extreme...
- TechEBlog reports: The weirdest controllers ever...
- Next Generation reports: Top developers give their thoughts on the PS3.
- IGN reports: First BIA3 footage! Direct link here! And for those worried about it not arriving on the Xbox 360, no need to fear!

Full stories after the jump!

By John Shea

First things first. I have never played the original FSW. Even better than that, I have never played a game like FSW.  This game is not your average war game. Most war games are first or third person shooters. This is what I am calling First/Third Person RTS. That's right, A completely new genre. At least for me anyway. Enjoy!

Yesterday was the day we all knew deep down was coming, but none of us wanted to admit. Blizzard released a press release indefintely postponing Starcraft: Ghost.

They state in the press release that they are "evaluating opportunities for utilizing the additional power of the new and upcoming console systems." Does this mean we will see Starcraft: Ghost bound for the 360, PS3, and Revolution? Don't hold your breath, with the next-gen consoles very different architecture it wouldn't be an easy task to port over all their existing code.

Blizzard's extraordinarily long developement times are why they have such great polished games, but infortunately they usually take longer to make a game than any console platform lasts.

RIP Starcraft:Ghost, and say hello to Warcraft Adventures for us up in canceled games heaven.

I'm about to get some well-deserved sleep, but before I go I'd like to give you guys a little review roundup of this month's OXM since there's a lot of blockbuster titles for Xbox/Xbox 360 this month.

If you don't want to know the scores, don't go past the break -- these are some of the real biggies, including Oblivion and GRAW.

Thanks to Jack from the forums for pointing us in the direction of these new, very pretty Splinter Cell: Double Agent screenies.

I can't wait to see this game in motion on next gen hardware.

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So, I've been out for a while. I've been horribly sick and recovered... then got a job working way too many hours for a full-time student. Anyways, I'm back, but my posts may be a bit slowed due to the job. So... on with the news!

Xbox DVD Firmware Hacked!
The biggest underground news that happened in my absence was the hacking of the Xbox (1) DVD firmware by TheSpecialist. Basically, this means that the DVD drive is tricked into thinking it's reading a retail game, when in fact it's reading a homebrew DVD. Essentially, it's a modchip-less solution to modding an Xbox without risking the damage that a softmod can cause if done incorrectly. TheSpecialist declined to make a howto or tutorial, but enough information can be found on the XboxHacker.net forums for pretty much anyone to do the hack.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 Update Disables Kiosk Disc
This one is pretty self-explanitory. The new 360 update didn't do much except fix the "crashing when pulling up guide while in-game" problems, but it did remove the ability to play the kiosk disc. Honestly, it doesn't mean too much because the Hexic flash player was very limited.

Finally, the GP2X v2 has finally started shipping.
The GP2X, a low-cost, high-performance, linux-based handheld, had a few very large flaws at launch. So many, in fact, that many retailers refused to carry it. The manufacturer has now fixed all the flaws and the re-launch is looking to be going very steady. Since it's all linux-based and open source, the homebrew is coming along well and it's great for budding game programmers or just geeks in general. I may get one soon and do a review and/or a few columns about the homebrew software available.

That's all for now, folks!

Game ON!
-Matt

Welcome to 2006 everyone, which I predict will be the final year of current-gen sports to make way for the next-gen. I know it's not a very bold prediction but it's the truth. The imminent release of MVP NCAA and Arena Football on PS2 & Xbox along with the NFL Head Coach Simulation game from EA this spring marks the end of current-gen only sports releases. MLB 2k6 and FIght Night Round 3 will both make their way to current gen and the 360 this spring, marking the end of new sports gaming goodness on current-generation systems. I would be very surprised to see a significantly changed NCAA or Madden on current-gen systems if released at all come this summer. Every generation of sports games has begun with football and ended with baseball.

MVP NCAA baseball will mark EA's first game to start using the ESPN license though it isn't used to it's fullest. I would assume we will see all ESPN has to offer to EA in their holiday sports titles though Fight Night Round 3 will also make use of the license.

In 2006, we will see baseball begin to make the transistion to the 360 and with any luck we will see a significant upgrade over the current-generation releases of MLB 2k6 since they have had more time to mess with the final hardware then the NHL and NBA teams did. Speaking of MLB 2k6, this will also mark the first year of the exclusive deal between Take-Two and MLB so it'll be the only game in town....(yes I know, 989 will still make a MLB game but when is the last time 989 made a good sports game)

Fight Night Round 3 will mark EA Chicago's first game for the 360 and from the one clip that has been released is any indication, it's going to be a graphical tour de force. Hopefully some of the animations transistions will be smoothed out and more will be shown to us as we get closer to release.

This summer will see the release of NCAA and Madden 2007(hopefully with all it's bells and whistles back) on the 360 and PS3 upon it's launch (a guess, but a pretty safe one). Hopefully we will see them build on and refine what worked and didn't work in the current 360 version.

Fall of 2006 will see the usual suspects....NHL 07, 2k7....NBA Live 07, 2k7.....Nascar 07....Tiger Woods 07.....you get the idea. I hope that we will start seeing what the new hardware is capable of with these titles as the launch releases gave us a glimpse of some things that are possible but seemed just to be appetizers of what's to come instead of being full-fledged next-gen sports titles.

Also in 2006, I predict that we will get our first glimpes of Gran Turismo for PS3 and Forza for 360....that should be an very intense battle for the gamer's simulation racer dollars. These games were amazing on current systems, it'll be interesting to see what these teams are able to pull off with better hardware at their disposal.

I will begin to try to make arrangements soon to get in touch with both EA and 2K about their sports products so that I will be able to bring previews and interviews to everyone who will listen. I will also try to hook up with any other company who announces a sports game that draws interest. Hopefully I will be able to keep you readers informed and deliver the type of info that you are looking for. I think it's going to a banner year for sports games and I'm more excited about this year's E3 than any other in recent years.

-Brad

Ethan here with some exciting news!, Kojima just saved hundreds on his car insurance by switching to geiko.

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3146425

All you Kojima faithful rejoice there is a new interview from 1up, and he talks alot about MGS and Xbox
http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3146425.
The coolest news out of all this is the possibility of a multi-player MGS for xbox and PC. I know it sounds crazy, but Kojima is interested in doing it. With MGO (metal gear online) debuting in MGS3:Subsistence its all a matter as how people react to it. If the reactions is good the possibility of seeing a MGO standalone is quite possible. The reasons for haveing MGO on a non-sony playform is a bad online service. PC and Xbox own the online market and lets be real Sony's online service has missed the boat.

More after the jump

Well it looks like I'm the one updating in the void that is right before Zero Hour. But don't worry about me I've come to terms with not going to the middle of nowhere.
; )
I suppose everybody remembers the fight night round 3 demo that was shown off at Sony's E3 press conference. It was something to behold, the textures the rippiling of skin. It seemed as though EA's Fight Night was only Playstation bound.
That all changed a few months ago when It was revealed to Game Informer that Fight Night and Def Jam were headed to 360 and PS3.

Now what does the game actually look like? Does it live up to that amazing demo at E3?
In a word Yes.
In an interview with the "G-hole" the game was shown off to look just as sweat, if only a little worse.
http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/#/games/video_games/
(IE only, sorry guys I'll try to work on something)

Hey Folks,
Andy coming at you today from a dial-up connection (At the parents house for a few days). We got our usual blast of weekly footage with an added bonus of the Theatrical Trailer for Perfect Dark:Zero. Unfortunately, I'm on a dial-up connection like I said, and nobody else is online right now so We're just gonna link ya'll to the footage this time around. I can't see it, so I can't really comment on it... Let me know how it is? :)

Perfect Dark Zero HD Trailer
Kameo: Meet Major Ruin! (720p)

So, this morning the launch content of the Xbox Live Marketplace was revealed (Big Thanks to Bert for pointing this out), and I gotta say, it looks interesting but ultimately what has got me all in a tizzy is the fact that on day 1 there will be five free, downloadable demos of games. They'll be available to EVERYONE who has a broadband connection, and they'll store on your hard drive. This to me, is a feature i've been desperately wanting for as long as I can remember - I hate spending 10 bucks on a magazine just to get to the demo's included with it. Honestly, I think the biggest impact this is gonna have is it'll take a chunk out of magazine sales: I can't be alone in that being my primary motivation for buying an "Official" magazine. There are also free trailers, and some free Music that seems to me like MS's attempt to "Engage the hardcore community". My take? Whatever. Just give me demos!

So the other part of this is that right now you can buy a card from EB games for 20 bucks that has a code on it worth 1600 points.

Doing the math we see that from that card you're buying each point at 1.25¢

With "Gamer Pictures' weighing in between 20 (25¢) and 60 (75¢) points each, its easy enough to find a few pictures you like, and be done with it. I know there are people out there who are gonna go nuts and buy everything they can get their hands on, but personally I'll probably pick up the 20 buck card at launch, buy a few icons, definately pick up Joust for 400 points (Absolutely worth 5 bucks, my favorite old school game ever) and then sit on the rest of it until something pops up that I can't resist.

All in all, I think this is going to be an absolute cash cow for MS and game devs.... Now we only need the episodic content and i'm sold.... Full press release in the beyond

Some of this is old news and some of this is brand new. These reviews hit about an hour and a half ago and are the first in what is sure to be an onslaught of 360 reviews as the major publications finish getting their feet wet with the retail boxes.
IGN Kameo Reviewed
IGN Madden '06 Reviewed
IGN NBA 2k6 Reviewed

This review has been out for a few days, it was one of the first to come out and it's largely what made me decide that Call of Duty 2 is going to be one of my day 1 pickups.
TotalGames.net Call of Duty 2 Reviewed

The reviews are pretty legnthy, and if you don't want to bother reading them I'm gonna summarize on the extended...

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here announcing that until Sony brings out its big guns, it is now Xbox 360 week, as TeamXbox has posted the launch line-up for the Xbox 360!

And what are they? 18 titles as follows:

Kameo™: Elements of Power™ (Microsoft Game Studios)
Go on a journey full of magnificent exploration and innovative morph-into-monster action.

Perfect Dark Zero™ (Microsoft Game Studios)
Plunge into a world of corporate espionage and conspiracy as perfect agent Joanna Dark.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Microsoft Game Studios)
Life begins at 170 mph with the ultimate roster of the hottest supercars in existence.

Call of Duty 2 (Activision)
Experience the cinematic intensity and chaos of epic WWII battles in this Xbox 360 exclusive.

Need for Speed™ Most Wanted (Electronic Arts)
Out-race rivals and evade coordinated police pursuits to become the most wanted street racer.

Peter Jackson's King Kong™ (Ubisoft)
Battle for survival on Skull Island as Jack Driscoll and even play as the mighty Kong himself.

Madden NFL 06 (Electronic Arts)
Get ready for the most incredibly lifelike and best looking football experience ever created.

GUN™ (Activision)
Journey through the Wild West in an immersive story of betrayal, greed, and revenge.

Condemned: Criminal Origins™ (SEGA)
Pursue serial killers lurking on the periphery of humanity through squalid urban environments.

NBA 2K6 (2K Sports)
Create your own player and guide him through all of the facets of an elite NBA career.

Ridge Racer™ 6 (Namco)
With more than 130 cars and 30 courses play all-new online modes, plus downloadable content.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (Activision)
Enjoy unlimited skating and BMX biking in the vast wasteland of Los Angeles with no load times.

QUAKE™ 4 (Activision)
Take the battle to the heart of the Strogg home planet as Earth's only hope for victory.

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 06 (Electronic Arts)
Battle through five classic periods of golf with Tiger Woods and legends like Palmer and Nicklaus.

Amped 3 (2K Sports)
Get ready for a fat helping of boarding culture and huge snowboxes loaded with killer gameplay.

FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup™ (Electronic Arts)
With 72 teams and 1700 players, it's a soccer lover's dream as you advance to the World Cup.

NHL 2K6 (2K Sports)
Hockey is back, so strap on your skates and take your favorite team to the Stanley Cup finals.

NBA Live 06 (Electronic Arts)
Feel the emotion and intensity with freestyle superstars and more physical play.

Not a bad list at all. What say you?

Semper Fi!

UPDATE: Its actually our Canadian friends that are getting the Xbox 360's early. This is from the BeTheFirstToPlay contest. I have corrected the article to reflect this. Sorry for the confusion!

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here.. (Grumble grumble) with news: Seems some BeTheFirstToPlay (CANADA) winners are starting to get their Xbox 360's.

But I'm not jealous. No really.

Frack it, of COURSE I'm jealous! Lucky bastards!

And yes I mean you too Andy! :)

Anywhere, here's a link to a posting where the winner is kind enough to show shots.

For all your BeTheFirstToPlay winners: Watch for that truck!

Semper Fi!

Apparently the FCC has now posted the Xbox 360's "Consumer Documentation" on their website.

Check it out:
In PDF
or DOC

Enjoy!

-Matt

Hey guys its me again I was a little off on my last post (one day), but never the less here's a story on the 360's power adapter.

Now for months now MS has hidden what the adapter looks like (is it really bigger than the PStwo?), but your friends at Gamer Andy have been scowering the net and have come across a french website http://www.gamekult.com/ that has the 360 and its power adapter for all to see.
Now I must warn what you are about to see will make you very jealous.

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here letting you know that Major Nelson has pointed out the area of Xbox.com where you can find the full list of Backwards Compatible games for the Xbox 360.

UPDATE: I was so tired when I wrote this, I neglected to mention: Seems all the games will be upconverted to 720p with Anti-Aliasing turned on: SWEET! Thanks to Bert for pointing this out

This information comes from a Q&A with Todd Holmdahl that you can find here.

Go to the next page for the list of over 200 games!

Hey everyone,


First post from Chris here. With the fast approaching release (4 days away) of the lastest Need For Speed game, I figured some more info on the gameplay would be quite fitting.

In a fairly recent preview on GameSpot they were able to give some insights on the gameplay that only a hands-on experience could give.

Hey Folks, Andy here with some more high quality, in-game footage.

This time it's in the form of a 60 second and 30 second TV spot... Still no 720p Feeds of it, but i'm working on that

Until then, Enjoy!
High Quality 60 Second Spot
Low Quality 60 Second Spot
High Quality 30 Second Spot
Low Quality 30 Second Spot

Okay guys, this is heavy Rumor,
ThePlebism tipped us off that as of this morning UK Gaming specialty store GAME has updated their list of Xbox360 Launch Games.

16 Entries on it, and they all sound about right when you compare to the rumblings we've been hearing.

Kameo
PGR3
FIFA 06
Condemned:Criminal Origins
Call of Duty 2
Tiger Woods PGA Tour '06
Amped 3
King Kong
Madden '06
NBA 2K6
NBA Live '06
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
NHL 2K6
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
GUN
Perfect Dark Zero

Another Friday, another unique and odd character from Kameo to talk about
This week they gave us "Ash" and I was REALLY tempted to title this installment "Inside Kameo:Enter the Dragon" but I realized that's what they want me to do, and I'll be damned if I do what THE MAN wants me to do... heh... all kidding aside, this character seems pretty neat, looks like a cross between "Puff the friendly dragon" and "Spyro" The gameplay seems very fireball oriented, but it looks like a fun "Artillery" style addition to the already pretty sweet roster Kameo is boasting.

As an aside, thanks to everyone who has been helping us out by clicking on our ads, at risk of sounding needy, keep doing it. The ultimate goal at this point is to buy our own server and we're not that far off from the goal, and then life will be good and bandwidth will flow like teh Wine

:)

Enjoy the footage guys
720p Full Quality (Torrent)
Low Quality

-Andy

EDIT:
Plebism points out it's easy to make your own Kameo Website, he posted about it On the Forums

Hey Guys I'm here bearing Rumors for all.
Now your thinking "Who the hell are you? My toes are cold!"

Well I'm Ethan and your going to like what I have to say.
The 360's Backwards Compatibility (BC) list has been very closely guarded. A quote from Peter Moore states that there will be "Maybe 15 to 20 games that are BC at launch", and around then there was a source at IBM who confirmed this.

As time went on however the same Source at IBM claimed that the Games that are BC will be Halo, Halo 2 (No freakin way!), and Fable with updates every week for more games. The source claimed that BC was being done by IBM and was converting the game code into machine code and back into game code that is 360 compatible (Edit this is used to create the emulation patches). *Note IBM would not give me any straight answers as to whether this is true or false*

Hey folks,
Today we've got a treat for you - a new trailer that is composed ENTIRELY of gameplay footage. Also, ALL of the camera angles shown are taken from Gotham TV (The Xbox Live Spectator Mode)

The Torrent site is giving me SO MUCH TROUBLE that I'm just hosting the videos on the main site, might kill our bandwidth so if the site goes down you know why

PS: Our bandwidth is running out from all the media we've been hosting as soon as it becomes available, help us out by clicking on a few ads, more bandwidth = more footage at higher qualities
Thanks
Andy
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone whose supporting us by visiting our ads, we've got about 1/5th of what we need to double our bandwidth (to 200 gigs per month) Keep it up!
PS: Check Back here tommorow at 10am PST for the next installment of the full 720p Kameo footage (assuming we reach our goal and can afford the bandwidth)

High Quality (Torrent)
Medium Quality
Low Quality

Wally Worlds around me finally got their kiosks set up today. I had a total of about 30 minutes on them until my neck started killing me, so I'll give some micro-reviews of each demo.

Kameo: Pretty, but AA wasn't doing its job - jaggies everywhere. Fun game, but the lack of multiplayer will make it a rental only for me.

CoD2: Again, prettier than Xbox, but not jaw-dropping. Didn't notice any jaggies, but I was really into it. AI isn't very smart or very dumb, but you have a realistic amount of health so it was of mediocre difficulty. I don't know why but it was very immersive - people gave me weird looks when I started ducking in real life :)

King Kong: Sleeper hit! I just about pissed myself when I saw the dino! People gave me even weirder looks since I yelled "what the fuck!?" really loud :)

All in all, the 360 is shaping up really well. I almost snagged the one CircuitCity had just laying on the floor unattended....

-Matt

Well Folks, before we get our hands on the next installment of the "Meet The Characters" Series, it looks as if MSG has one more ace up their sleeves. According to Major Nelson, there will be a serialized (sp?) podcast that essentially gives backstory on the upcoming game. Looking at the credits of this badboy, it's obvious ALOT of work went into this 6 minute listen. I'm listening to it as I write this, and it's interesting. Definately worth a listen - strikes me as a cross between a disney book-on-tape and you're british father reading you a bedtime story.

Go to the Download page and grab it here

If you're interested, you can check out the "Making Of" available at the Kameo website

Either way, I think chances are we'll stick this into the middle of the podcast (Which we're recording tonight btw) so if you want to wait until then feel free.

-Andy

With the launch of the Xbox 360 less than three weeks away and still no official launch list announced, some people are understandably starting to wonder what the hold up is. Does Microsoft have anything at all? Well, unfortunately for you, I'm not going to answer or even really address those questions

What I am going to talk about is the apparent genesis of Xbox Arcade. In it's first iteration, I can't particularly say I was impressed - it was overpriced bastardized versions of games you could play for (for the most part) free on the internet, or cheap arcade rip-offs...
With that said, I think I wasn't alone in my opinion of the service, and Microsoft knows it. With Game Development costs growing exponentially, Microsoft is presenting the new Xbox Arcade as a way for Indie developers to get their games to a whole new, and until now untapped market. I bring this up because of an article I saw over at GameTunnel.com which 4 of the Indie titles that will be available on launch day via Xbox Arcade

It's definately worth a read if you're interested in something that's likely to slip beneath the cultural radar.

Titles discussed in the article are:
Mutant Storm Reloaded
Marble Blast Ultra
Wik (This game confused the hell out of me on the PC)
Outpost Kaloki X

So Check it out, definately worth a read

-Andy

P.S. While we're on the subject of games you've never heard of, theres a conversation going in the Forums about games and series that have died out, but would make good next generation games.. Check it out, contribute your two cents, we're all dorks here :)

After spending the morning scouting the net, I stumbled across 2 french gaming sites who both were running stories that Dead or Alive 4 (A confirmed launch title for the Xbox 360) has been delayed to early january for Europe. Wasn't really buying it at first, because they didn't cite any sources for the info, but a quick check at amazon.co.uk made me think otherwise. As you can plainly see, the release date has been moved to January 13th, 2006. What does this mean for you and me? Well, if you're in Europe, it means you won't be getting any hot Master Chief on Ninja action until after christmas. But if you're in the US I think it has a much scarier implication. It says to ME that MS still doesn't

UPDATE
After Many unsuccessful updates, the problem is finally solved, for full details see the above post or click HERE

Well Folks, looks like this is going to be at least a weekly installment (though they'll have to speed it up if they plan on getting all 10 different characters out there before the release on the 22nd)

Today we're talking turkey about Rubble, a stone-throwing pile of rocks.... Sounds a little odd, but hey - I just played a game where a Zombie threw his guts and limbs at other folks, so why should I be suprised by this?

Last month we only used 20 gigs of our downstream, so in an effort to use more I'm posting three versions of the clip including the full quality, 720p feed.... Which is so very pretty...

So here you go:
The New GamerAndy.com Hi-Def Download Land

This character is alot more appealing to me, because (as you'll see in the video) its not like he has unlimited ammo, he IS his own ammo, and the rocks roll back to him and join his body after they do their damage. I think it's a cool concept, though I'd like to see his movement more affected than it appears to be in these clips. He gets down to only having his head, and he still appears to be moving at the same speed, and I think it's actually floating where it was when there was the whole pile of rocks under him. Looking at this character I can see alot of potential for creative level design.

For example, throwing himself upward to reach a previously unreachable area, or throwing all his rocks but his head off to the side and then rolling under a very low ledge. This is just me blabbing on, enjoy the vids.

-Andy

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here with a bit of Xbox 360 Trivia:

What was the first Xbox 360 game to achieve Gold Status?

And the answer, according to GameSpot.COM would be:

Condemned: Criminal Origins

With the launch of the Xbox 360 a mere three weeks away, Microsoft still has yet to officially announce the day-one launch lineup. Several games have fallen in and out of the lineup, with 2K Games' role-playing game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion most recently falling back to 2006 and Activision's Gun and 2K's Amped 3 possibly making a run at a launch release.

Sega, on the other hand, knows one game that will definitely be there on November 22. The company today announced that Condemned: Criminal Origins has gone gold, and it has confirmed that it will be available the same day the Xbox 360 is in US stores. The game is the first Xbox 360 game to officially complete development and be sent off for duplication

This game is unique in its gameplay and looks incredible. I hope this is a sign of things to come from Microsoft’s Next Generation console.

Semper Fi!

ArsTechnica.com has put together a very well written piece that really lays out everything that is known about the three upcoming consoles.

From the article:

With receipts from video game sales poised to pass those of Hollywood movies sometime this decade, there's quite a bit more at stake in the coming round of the console wars than there was when Microsoft first entered the fray with the Xbox. Video games, once the domain of geeks and kids, are now mainstream global entertainment, but even that doesn't tell the whole story.

I really couldn't pick a quote that would represent the article as a whole. As far as the nitty gritty goes, I'm not particularly knowledgeable. This article however, breaks the technobabble down into bite-sized chunks that even I, the quintisential layman can understand.

Now admittedly, some of their information is out of date used in this comparison (For example, they report the PS3 as still having 3 ethernet ports, which was confirmed dropped down to 1 earlier this year.) But still in all, a very informative and unbiased read.

It gets the GamerAndy.com seal of approval (lol)

-Andy

Take Two quietly delayed Oblivion to 2Q 2006 in an updated financial press release to investors today. The line, "reflects the movement of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for PC and Xbox 360 from the first quarter to the second quarter," really hit me like a ton of bricks. My most anticipated Xbox 360 game and quite possibly the best launch title of the next generation of gaming has been delayed and will now release sometime after February of next year. I was happy about the short delay to tweak it before, but Take Two has just gone too far...

-Matt

Well Good Morning Folks:
Turns out GamerAndy.com finally hit the radar for Microsoft, we started getting their press releases and things last week, and this morning we recieved some Video that's brand new and hot off the presses

Let me introduce you to one of the 10 creatures you can morph into in the upcoming Xbox 360 Launch title, Kameo

The below movies are little 45 second in game clips of Kameo in action, with one of the Dev's talking about the evolution of the character Pummel Weed

Low Quality

High Qualiy

In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of adventure games, but the more I see of this baby, the more tempted I am to pick it up

FYI this is going to be a fairly regular occurence, and we should have vids up of all the characters by Launch day

-Andy

I spoke to someone I know that works at EB and was told that all vendors were told not to have their interactive 360 units turned on until Oct. 30th. I guess this explains why my Wal-Mart has one but it was turned off, and no it wasn't due to interference. The kid I asked about it said that it had been on all day so he had no idea why it wasn't on. That's when I went to my local EB to see when they were getting theirs and was told no earlier than the 30th. If true, that means Wal-Mart can expect fines for stores that didn't comply.

Hey Folks, real quick blurb here
While stumbling through numerous forums, I happened upon a reference to a feature called "GamerVoice" that is showing up on the Singapore version of XBox.com I've contacted Microsoft, and am waiting for a response, let you know as soon as I do.

-Andy

Hey Folks, sorry I've been slacking on the Microsoft side of all this, I'm going through some stuff with school and it's been a busy week - next week I'll be back in full swing. But until then, heres some of the current goings-ons

Xbox 360 Kiosks interferring with Walmart's Internal systems

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here to let you know:

I have touched an Xbox 360 controller.

I have played Kameo and Call of Duty 2.

I have worked my way around the Xbox 360 Blade system.

And I will be talking about it on Tonight's podcast!

Stay tuned!

Semper Fi!

Hi folks, Cooper Hawkes here going out side of my "Journalistic Jurisdiction" to bring you this because it's just soo cool:

From Xbox.COM: Introducing My Xbox

It seems that the new Xbox Forums will link directly to your GamerTag/GamerCard where you'll have online access to a majority of your Xbox 360 live features!

Thing's are slloowwwlly happening for Microsoft. Should be interesting!

Read the article and check out these sweet little pictures.

Semper Fi!

...For Maintenence
*smile*

Yep, MS announced today that both the Xbox Live service and XBox.com will be down for maintenence both the 24th and 25th of October in preperation of the Xbox 360 joining into the fray. Good news bad news here, It's neccesary of course, but seems like bad timing since Battlefield 2:Modern Combat Hits shelves on the 24th... Ahh the bot-love *shudder*

-Andy

CGOnline is reporting that they've purchased a 360 controller marketed as a WinXP gamepad at a local retailer. Nothing different (apparently) from the actual 360 conrtroller, so it's not a whole lot of news other than that it's out over a month before launch. I will be heading to my GameStop this weekend to see if I can pick one up to try on Mac OS X Tiger and with an adapter on my Xbox.

-Matt

Gamestay.com has an interesting entry that turns into a rant towards the end of the Pros and Cons of the upcoming 360, One thing that's discussed pretty throughly is that the 360 won't be able to take Xbox saves for older games in any way.

From the article:

All of your tracks, stats, and carefully decorated cars from Forza Motorsport? Gone. Those hard-earned DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball swimsuits that you spent weeks or maybe even months trying to get? Like they were never there. Your 100 hours of Morrowind progress? Forget about it. You're back at square one picking out a name and distributing skill points.

So heres my question:

Am I really the only one who could care less about all that? I might be alone in this, but I'm not buying the 360 to play Halo on, I'm also not buying it to play movies, and I'm definately not buying it to stream content from the PC I don't have.

I'm buying it to play high quality, state of the art, games.

When the PS2 came out, I DID NOT buy it to play PS1 games on it (Though I did initially at launch because it was pretty limited...) As soon as a decent stable of games are established for a new console, that whole "benefit" goes out the window. Who gives a shit that Fuzion Frenzy won't play on the Xbox 360 (though it probably will, as that was a popular game) I'm just looking forward to the innovation.

Backwards compatability to me, has always been a crutch for a console. If you don't have a strong library, make your console BC and then you can claim to have hundreds of games playable at launch.

[/rant]

Well folks,
Xbox 365.com got their hands on some scans that show a female Master Chief vs. Mr. Ninja Gaidon.

Now the question is, Do we care?

Though many sites have previously reported that Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would be a launch day title for the Xbox 360, 1up is now reporting that Oblivion's release date has been pushed back by about 2 weeks (EB and Gamestop list it for Dec. 5th now) for further polishing and tweaking. The PC version is still slated to ship on November 21st.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm very happy that, for once, a developer has gotten things right by adding a short delay to a game in order to polish and tweak it to make it even better for us. (If only something like this would have happened to Halo 2...) I'll still pick up my 360 on launch day for PGR3 and PD0, and I'll just have to wait a week or two for Oblivion.

-Matt

Hi everybody, Nate here with some rather strange news about the Xbox 360. A few weeks ago a few modders were able to get their hands on 3 Xbox 360 development kits, nobody knew how or why they were able to acquire them or even why would Microsoft give them something that they were working so hard to protect against them, anyway they posted tons of pictures of the insides of the 360 and all the components that are contained in it. Now, we find out that those modders got the development kits not by ordering them but by stealing them, those 360s were only three of the ten xbox 360 stolen in Germany. A German site has the official article on it but the translation is very rough and hard to understand

I just got off the phone with Microsoft's media liason, and according to her the "Launch title announcements" that hit today are not the complete list of launch titles... *thank god* . As to when the full list of launch titles is going to be announced, i'm waiting for a call back on that.

Keep you informed as new info comes up.

UPDATE
Just got a message from the good folks at Microsoft, apparently the list above is a "Complete list of planned games for the Xbox 360, but not a launch list -

The Xbox Launch Lineup will not be be announced at X05

Which strikes me as odd, but its straight from the horses mouth.

-Andy

Let the war for your basketball gaming dollars commence!

As if the NBA 2K6 news from yesterday wasn't enough, it seems as though IGN has posted some in-game footage of Oblivion -- over 200 megabytes worth! In my opinion, this is shaping up to be an absolutely awe inspiring game. The procedural synthesis, special mapping techniques, and radiant AI are enough to make even the most hardcore game developer crap himself in the face of the daunting task, but Bethesda seems to be pulling it off beautifully! Rumors are that it was even from the E3 build, which would mean it was only running on a high-end PowerMac G5, making the final build even better than seen in the video. Of course, some of the animations could be smoother and there are some framerate hiccups, but there's more than enough time for Bethesda to work out the kinks and get Oblivion out before we all flood our homes in drool.

-Matt

Disclaimer -
Trust me on this - don't seriously flood your home in drool. It's not fun or easy to clean and repair a flooded home.