Good bye Xbox Originals, Hello Games on Demand

While it appears to be simple re branding of "xbox originals" on xbox.com marketplace, it holds promise down the road. This coming August the new "Games on demand", featuring fully downloadable games just like the "xbox originals" section its replaced, will also be hosting a collection of 360 titles. Both 360 and arcade titles are seperate from the original xbox hits but sadly lacking in content when one looks into the 360 section.

Its odd that no official posting was done by microsoft in light of this shift in branding.

Xbox 360 Arcade Upgrading to 512MB onboard memory.

After being confirmed by Eurogamer, its now official that the jasper motherboards found in the arcade xbox 360 will be packing 512MB of memory. Unfortunitly this was done so that the arcade xbox's would be able to make full use of the new xbox experience. Looks like we still need to buy memory cards.

Initial impressions: Terminator Salvation

By: AL3x



yesterday Terminator Salvation arrived in the mail. I'm about 3 chapters in and have a lukewarm response to the game. I'll state the pro's and con's at the end of this post. To summarize, you are john Connor in the year 2016 and rather then being the bad ass portrayed in the movie, you're still finding your footing in world of AI challenged machines. You'll regularly be paired with Blair Williams as you fight your way through hopelessly linear and unimaginative levels, battling terminators that always seem to have nicknames like "spiders", and "wasps".

Skynet's not the most creative psychotic super computer this time around. Essentially there are only 4 (three really since the skin job is just a diguised T600), main enemies to confront excluding the occasional airborne hunter killer gun ships. The T-7-T is four legged juggernaut that is heavily shielded in front but easily taken down from behind where its batteries are CONVIENTLY exposed. One has to wonder if Skynet needs to beta test its designs before going into full scale production. Aerostats are your annoying airborne foes that resemble all of spark's laser shooting robots in the Halo series. They die just as easily, if not more so. The not yet encountered T600 and skin jobs are supposedly "seemingly unbeatable", according to the game manual. I'm not holding my breath for that to ring true.

Excluding some mind numbing revelation farther down the road, the game appears to be a 65%. I know that seems harsh but it feels tacky to the core. The enemies are easily defeated even playing on the hardest difficulty setting. I'm guessing maybe 8-10 hours of game play if that. Baring a full review early next week, I don't see things improving much in the days to come. I could be wrong though, perhaps a seductive fem bot will appear to help save the day a la Sarah Connor Chronicles.

PROS: Short, large amounts of gamer points for easily aquired achievements. Its a terminator game.

CONS: lacks depth, linear events, unchallenging AI, ok looking graphics.

New DS...an upgrade not a remake.

Nintendo has been selling the DS lit as though it were a drug to millions of hard core and soft core gamers. The Playstation portable has been a rudderless ship plagued with low quality ports of hit Playstation one and two titles with lackluster original IPs. Killzone liberation anyone ?

Nintendo rather then wait for its rivals at Sony or Apple (yes some consider apple's touch screens to be handheld gameing systems), to come out with the next generation of handhelds, Nintendo has instead chosen to release its new handheld (DSi), this Christmas in Japan.

We in the States and across the pond in Europe will likely see the new device hitting store shelves in early 2009.

The Nintendo DSi is an upgrade and not an outright revolution. It will play your favorite Nintendo DS lit titles (last gen compatible), but sadly shows no love for the Game Boy advanced generation of games which will not work as there is no port for said games.

The DSi will snap pictures with two different camera's, one facing outward (shown below), resembles the camera's found on apple's macbooks and is capable of take photo's 300,000 pixels large, which in lam ens terms equals out to 640X480 resolution.



The DSi will be able to store and playback music from an SD card which an be inserted into the right side of the DSi. In addition to matching the PSP in terms of audio capabilities, the DSi will also be able to download entire games for ($2-10), via a wi-fi connection from a virtual store. This is clearly a nod to the successful strategy Nintendo and to a lesser extent Microsoft have been employing with their Wii and 360 consoles, both of which have online stores chalk full of AAA, retro and indie titles.

The DSi is retailing for 18,900 yen, or about $185. Its more expensive then the DS lit and its really just an upgrade at the end of the day. If you really need the camera and audio capabilities then go for it, but if your existence will be rendered less fulfilling if deprived of your old GBA titles then feel free to sit this one out.

As for myself, I'll be giving my DS lit to a friend or relative the minute the DSi hits store shelves here in the US. The prospect of sticking it to gamestop by purchasing retro games online is just too tantalizing to ignore.

...................

Sources: BBC / Wired

New Bungie IP ?

Bungie has released a trailer that shows a futuristic society blown to pieces in a flurry of asteroid type impacts. Is this a new installment in the widely successful Halo series or...something more ?

Windows 7 to automatically patch games

With Games for Windows and Windows Vista both being medicore at best and dismal 6 billion dollar failures (vista), at worst, Microsoft could concievably be looking to remedy both tragedies with a single silver bullet. Another operating system!

Windows 7 isn't due out till January of 2010 but if the screenshots leaked out by ThinkNext and referenced by both Wired and ShackNews hold true from now until then, the OS will both alert users that updates exist for games and include an "auto-update", feature removing the otherwise mundane task of manually updating.

Price cuts = sales boom in japan for 360

Until fairly recently most journalists and avid video gamers had written off the land of the rising sun (japan), to be off limits or nearly so, given the difficulty forieghn companies have faced in a country that still shows a strong loyalty to for all its indigenous companies. Sony and Nintendo seem to just plain dominate the market, especially the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, while the Playstation 3 caters to those with a need for more mature and gore filled titles (which you actually find in japan. Sorry USA.).

To buck this trend Microsoft cut prices on its consoles sold in a market where its had the hardest time getting market share. The ploy seems to have worked with 28,681 consoles sold to Nintendo's 27,057 consoles.

Adding to this impressive figure, Tales of Vesperia has become to Japan what the Halo series has been to America. While we prefer a good old fashioned FPS, the japanese are more inclined to opt for 40+ hours of play in an anime RPG. Tales of Vesperia caused the 360 to be sold out even before the price cuts were announced on September 11th.