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Phantasy Star open beta starts this weekend [update 1]
This weekend, Xbox Live users will be able to download Phantasy Star Universe and participate in an open beta until October 18. The download will be available for only two days, so keep an eye out if you're interested. The open beta was originally set to begin yesterday, with the download available October 11 and 12, and was also set to end October 18. Phantasy Star Universe will arrive October 24 for PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox 360. Online play will require a subscription fee of about $10 per month. Both Xbox Live Silver and Gold members can subscribe to online play, but Gold members will receive no discount. PSO-World has an exhaustive FAQ on the game, including online vs. offline play.[Thanks, Brandon][Update 1: It looks like Xbox Live aims to screw PSU fans. On top of the delay that took 2-3 days out of the open beta, the Xbox Live service will be down for "up to 24 hours" on October 17, during the beta test. At least there's offline play.]
Surf the XBLM pipeline
Microsoft has set up a convenient "one-stop guide" to that confusing mess of content on XBLM. So why can't the actual Marketplace look more like this instead of the current bare bones set up? At least the marketing gurus grabbed a new buzzword before Sony could use it. PS3 Pipeline has a nice ring.[Thanks DapperDan]
Need for Speed Carbon demo vrooms onto XBLM
Been looking for something to fill up that free space on your increasingly crammed 360 hard drive? Download the demo for the latest Need for Speed, dubbed Carbon, and watch 1GB disappear. Of course, this only applies if you live in an area that's not Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Sinagpore or Taiwan ... but we know what to do about that, don't we?Promotional blurb from the Dashboard hidden after the break.
Xbox 360 launches in South Africa
If you're a gamer living in South Africa, chances are that your visual periphery was dominated this past weekend by Microsoft's Xbox 360 launch and its accompanying marketing campaign. Nearly a year after the system's first-worldwide launch, the Xbox 360 became officially available to eager shoppers at the stroke of midnight on Friday, 29 September. Playable in-store kiosks, radio advertisements, campus tournaments and vaguely sinister cardboard stands announced not only the arrival of "the next generation of gaming," but the expansion of choice.Unless you wanted to import the original Xbox or stick your hand into the awkward and tangled mess of Gamecube distribution lines, the PlayStation 2 was the only console the average gamer could reliably and affordably find in game stores. The merits of Sony's system have long since been established and it's easy to argue that South Africa got the best console out of the bunch, though "best" loses much of its meaning when it becomes interchangeable with "only." Consider for a moment how your gaming habits might be affected if two out of three consoles weren't readily available to you. For comparison's sake (and because we didn't have much else to do) we attended one of the midnight launches at BT Games (Northgate) in Johannesburg, taking care to snap pictures and generally harass people who simply wanted to pick up their pre-orders in peace. Several midnight events took place all over the country, coinciding with the beginning of rAge -- a gaming expo we'll tell you about later.
Bringing home a barrage of Xbox 360 trailers
Major Nelson has once again updated his blog with a convenient list of X06 additions to the Xbox Live marketplace. If you're in any way enamored with glitzy trailers, pre-rendered footage or relentless teasing, you'd best switch on your console and start downloading some of these clips: Call of Duty 3 Banjo Kazooie Marvel Ultimate Online Viva Pinata Assassin's Creed Splinter Cell: Double Agent Blue Dragon Lost Odyssey Bioshock FIFA 07 Rainbow Six Vegas Halo Wars If you're a more traditional gamer and actually enjoy interactive forms of entertainment, you'll be pleased to learn that several of our readers have spied F.E.A.R. and Sonic the Hedgehog demos scurrying about in the marketplace. Be sure to let us know what you think of them, but not before viewing the embedded video (after the break) and answering one simple question: What the hell is going on with that nose?
LEGO Star Wars II demo impressions
LEGO Star Wars II, put simply, is a lot of fun. I downloaded the demo this morning and found myself playing it until lunch. If you've got room for a simple, lighthearted game, it's definitely worth checking out. Read on for a breakdown of the demo and my impressions.
Tokyo Game Show and X06 footage on Xbox Live Marketplace starting tomorrow
Microsoft had a pretty good response (1.5 million individuals downloading 5 million pieces of content over several days certainly qualifies as pretty good) to their Bring Home E3 event on Xbox Live, allowing Xbox 360 owners to download large amounts of trailers, demos and high definition video direct from the show floor, so for the next nine days they'll be doing it all over again. With the Tokyo Game Show and their X06 event in Spain coming in the next few days, they plan on making over 100 pieces of content available including HD video from the show. Since our passes to the shows appear to have been lost in the mail, we're definitely feeling this. Add in the ability to queue up 5 downloads at a time added in the Spring dashboard update and it's even easier to get everything posted for the next nine days. Make sure that you do because some of it will disappear forever after September 29th. We're still playing the Lost Planet demo from E3, as good as reading about all the HD gaming coming our way is, we'll take actually experiencing it at home any day.[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
First look at fall dash update
MaxConsole scored some screens of the Xbox Live Fall Dashboard Update that show a spruced up UI and XNA integration. Like (or dislike) what you see? Don't tell us, tell the guy actually working on the update.Update: Here's the same pics in high res.[Thanks Xantium]
Bioware demonstrates digital actors at Austin Game Conference
An intriguing article on Gamasutra details Bioware's visit to the Austin Game Writers Conference and their resulting presentation, "Creating Characters for Games: Writing for Digital Actors." One of the few developers that puts as much, if not more, emphasis on stories and characters versus other elements of their games, Bioware outlined a change in writing methodology required for visually lush next-gen games. Unlike older, less ambitious role-playing games which furthered the story via motionless character portraits or a handful of canned animations, the upcoming Mass Effect has tasked writers with taking things such as body language and subtle physical gestures into account. It's an interesting case where the writer can rely on the graphics to tell a part of the story -- usually it's the other way around.The article also delves into the creation of the story and how the player's choices need to be plentiful while still remaining within the framework of the overall game. Again, the digital actor can be used to guide the player down certain paths, avoiding erratic or non-sensical behaviour that has a character suddenly going from cheery to murderous after the press of a button. There's definitely a tug of war going on between the player (who wants freedom) and the storyteller (who wants to tell a coherent tale). With more realistic graphics and lifelike characters being introduced in the coming years, it's unclear as to who will end up having the greatest grip. See also: Bioware defines Mass Effect Video of E3 Mass Effect demo hits XBLM Joystiq's impressions of Mass Effect at E3
XBL stats unleashed
Xbox Live statistics courtesy of Major Nelson: The Xbox Live Marketplace just passed 50 million downloads. That is double the 25 million mark from just three months ago. In the first week of Madden '07 releasing, Xbox Live members unlocked over 600,000 achivements and hosted more than 2-million hours of Madden gameplay. 'Texas Hold 'em' set a one day record as the fastest download item ever on the Marketplace. There were over 100 downloads a minute in the first 24-hours of release. Other Xbox Live statistics: More than 50 million downloads of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox Live Marketplace to date Over 2 billion hours spent on Xbox Live by gamers across the globe since the launch of the Xbox Live online gaming network in November 2002 More than 60 percent of Xbox 360 owners are connected to Xbox Live 1,300,000 text and voice messages are sent via Xbox Live every day. Currently totaling half a billion sent messages between the Xbox Live community per year, this figure is set to explode with the launch of the Xbox Live Vision camera on September 19, 2006 in the U.S. 65 per cent of all connected consoles already downloading and playing Xbox Live Arcade titles Over 8 million downloads of Xbox Live Arcade games following the launch of Xbox 360 Over 2 billion Microsoft Points sold to date Shouldn't the 50 millionth downloader win a prize or something?
FCI: Predator demo on XBLM
A belated multiplayer demo for Far Cry Instincts: Predator is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace. The 344.48mb download features 1 map and 5 game types for a max of 16 players. People who played this game last Spring will recall that it just didn't seem like enough of an improvement over the well-executed Xbox version to be worth the money. Not that it matters with a free demo.
Far Cry Instincts Predator marks territory on XBLM
We never could figure out if the lukewarm reception of Ubisoft's Far Cry Instincts Predator on the Xbox 360 was because it was a quick and dirty port of an Xbox title with some graphical flourishes, or the rambling assembly of words they call a title. Far. Cry. Instincts. Predator. ?. Either way, we have a chance to reconsider our initial revulsion by downloading the 345MB demo the Xbox Live keepers have thrown in our cage. Like a wild animal -- with the default inventory of wild animal skills -- we'll lunge at the demo and pin it to the ground in one fluid cat-like motion, before plunging our incisors into its single map and rending all five included gametypes from its mutiplayer skeleton. It goes without saying that we do this instinctually. Predatorily. While crying.
Back to school with Oblivion Spell Tomes
Bethesda has some end of summer beach reading for you. Spell Tomes that grant you "wonderous and powerful spells" just by cracking a book. Naturally, it will cost you. Too bad they don't come in paper back.
Hell's Highway demo available in UK?
Reader Ciaran reports that the demo for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is available in the UK. Can anyone else confirm? And if so, how is it? By the way, UK gamers can also download something called the "The Cuban Brothers Game With Fame Trailer." That's cool, but I'm not sure about the "fame" part. The only Cuban brothers I know are Fidel and Raul.
Time Pilot not worth the time
The early 80s coin-op "classic" Time Pilot is the latest retro title to hit Xbox Live Arcade. Unfortunately, according to Xboxic's review, it's a total waste of time.[Thanks Alex]
Battlestar Galactica on Xbox Live: Not HD, not widescreen, not at all satisfying
The recap episode of Battlestar Galactica was posted on Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday and we regret to inform you it was not high definition. We're not entirely surprised at the resolution, a 720p-encoded file would have been a long download, not to mention the Xbox 360's smallish 20GB hard drive. Unfortunately it gets worse, the presentation was in widescreen, but with included bars at the top and bottom as though it were intended only for 4x3 SDTVs. Why they opted for a version that looks like it was taped off of Sci-fi network onto someone's VHS we will never know, but with the artifacting and low quality of the file we cannot recommend this to anyone in good faith. Hopefully they will do better when the episode is aired on Universal HD in September and it will be presented natively in widescreen. Oddly, despite the low quality of this file, you can download two HD clips of upcoming kids show Viva Piñata that look fantastic; hopefully future downloads will follow their lead instead of the quick and dirty approach apparently used on BSG.[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
Marble Blast updated, free maps!
Mike from K1lla's Xbox Domain sends us news of his super spiffy interview with Pat Wilson, lead programmer of Marble Blast Ultra from Garage Games. The topic of the interview: the impending update. The update promises to fix lots of little bugs found in Marble Blast, including some kind of fix for people who drop out of games to keep their stats from going down. The really big news is that the update will include 11 (eleven!) new multiplayer maps. Garage Games is planning on releasing themes and gamer pics on Marketplace as well. Unfortunately, there is still no concrete release date for the update. Hit the read link to check out the whole interview.
Full length Battlestar Galactica on XBLM
You can download an entire episode of BattleStar Galactica: The Story So Far -- actually a recap of seasons 1 and 2 (Season 3 starts in October) -- on Marketplace. As Major Nelson notes, this is the first time a full length TV show has been offered on Live, albeit in crappy standard definition (492.20mb0. Of course, the thing that really hinders a solid library of long-from HD content is the small size of the 360's hard drive. Apart from a bigger drive, what we reall need is a way to transfer this stuff to a computer (or Zune), or better yet get it there to start, yet still play on our 360 with ease. It's called "Live Anywhere" right?[Thanks Aragorn]
Fence sitters take note, Madden 07 demo
If you're still not sure whether you need Madden 07 -- or if you've already bought the game and can't decide whether or not to open it -- the new demo on Marketplace should help you make up your mind. Go give it a shot and figure out if you really need a working fatigue meter anyway.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
Prey gets patched, new content soon
Some of you may have noticed an update last time you loaded Prey. This may or may not have been a recently announced patch from 3D Realms -- according to their site, the ETA for the patch is still "soon". Looks like ten years just wasn't enough time to test and polish all the bugs (I keed! I keed!). Seriously though, the patch should address the multiplayer lag issues on the 360 version and a few other bugs as well. In addition to the patch, expect to see some new content soon. Included in the content will be some new maps tooled for smaller groups. These should accommodate 2-4 players (and possibly limit lag). 3D Realms will be releasing 6 new player models as well (4 female and 2 hunters). Thus far, none of this content has been priced and no release date has been given. New content is great, fellas, but how about some more multiplayer modes?[Via Joystiq]
