The rumors and speculation are finally over and Duke-Nukem 3-D is official on Xbox Live Arcade right now, how awesome is that? The game is in it's original form with a few extra features thrown in like the new checkpoint system. Online can be a little laggy at times but who cares, it's freakin' Duke-Nukem 3-D. As you may have already guessed, I really love this game. It played a huge part in my gaming life, I first played it over at my buddies house on his PC and I was blown away. I didn't have a computer at the time so seeing this game in it's 2.5D glory was jaw dropping. The sweet guns, catchy one liners (for the time) and main badass character - this game had me hooked. Years have gone by and I have not really tried to play it since. I tried looking for it on the PS1 and tried installing it on the first computer I got a few years after it came out but neither method worked. So like DOOM before it, I am really looking forward to completing this classic.

Now having these old FPS games on XBLA isn't really following the Arcade theme that XBLArcade was originally shooting for but I guess that was thrown out the window when we started getting Sudoku and crossword puzzle games. So if XBLA is a free for all regarding classic games, get some more classic shooters in there Microsoft. Wolfenstein 3-D, Take No Prisoners, Fallout 1+2, Goldeneye (please God), Outlander, okay maybe not Outlander but I would buy it. You know where I'm going with this, don't flood XBLA with casual garbage and Pub Games. Fill it with all the shooter games of years past, we want to line your pockets with money Microsoft, so put some more great shooters on your platform so we can!

The E3 08 Microsoft Press Conference was a solid line-up of hardcore games with some casual gimmicks sprinkled in. Long awaited rumours confirmed and one hell of a surprise ending, this years Microsoft Conference was a blast.

To kick it all off we are treated to some game demos. First up is a live demo of Fallout 3, first showing a half of a full trailer accompanied by some gameplay. The combat was shown off in real time and this slow motion feature that allows you to target any part of your enemy strategically. The combat looks a bit on the easy side if you abuse this feature. Resident Evil 5 was up next, showing off the online co-op feature that allows you and a friend to tackle the zombie onslaught together. The demo ended with a teasing battle of the two of you vs. a chainsaw wielding maniac but was cut short because of time constraints. The game looks very good and it has the same interface and core gameplay from Resident Evil 4 which is awesome.

Peter Molyneux graced the stage, announcing that Fable II is "done". Now Peter has been know to promise the world but I think he's not exaggerating for once. The live demo showed off some early gameplay where you are a male or female child and transitioned into co-op gameplay. The ability to join your friends game is now easier than ever. Just walk up to a glowing bubble in the world, invite him in and your playing co-op. Some more interactions with your family were shown off, socializing and doing things your family like seems to build relationships. This is easily shown by the very "The Sims" style of "+17" or "-8" bubbles that pop up over the NPC's head. Giving you feedback in real time as to what your doing and how it effects your partner or child.

Clifford "Don't call me Cliffy B" Bleszinski came on stage showing off a new trailer for Gears of War 2 as well as a demo of a never before seen level. The trailer is very Epic, showing Marcus charging into a group of various types of locust - trying to get to his pinned down buddies all the while holding a meat shield. The demo displayed showed a level where the environment was destroying all around you in glorious scripted Unreal Engine III graphics. The kind only Epic knows how to make, you even stay in a building while it falls down and the demo ends with Marcus suggesting to Dom to ride one of the Brumacks. An additional game type was revealed where you and friends online beat wave after wave of progressively harder locust.

A Microsoft rep then went on stage and touted that videogames are now the biggest form of entertainment in the world. The Xbox 360 is fueling this by great sales and great software. Putting the Microsoft spin on everything of course. "Winning" the console war in "North America" according to "NPD". Selling way more units then PS3 but only outselling the Wii by about 100,000, again, all this is North America not world wide stats. Quickly moving to the new Xbox 360 dashboard that will be released in the fall that offers a new look and some cool new features. The core look of it reminds me of my Windows Media Center program with the list of options scrolling in the top left and the stylized look. The much rumoured Mii rip offs, I mean avatars are confirmed and will be displayed in this new dashboards as well.

The avatars just look like hi-res Mii's and to prove that they are going to be used in games they also announced a new Uno game that will be coming out in the fall. It looks just like the old Uno but where there used to be Xbox Live Vision Camera's there is now your avatar wiggling around, woopie. One of the main creators in charge of the avatars seemed to drink the kool-aid and said, "Where else, beside Xbox Live, could you introduce the concept of an avatar and it immediately become a community of 10 million." Really? Think hard, what are avatars like? You can now see your friends avatars on the dashboard as well and invite them into a party (max of 8) where you can then launch any game or movie (more on that later) right from the menu. This all sounds good but it seems like someone at Microsoft might have been looking into Sony's Home for inspiration.

A new blade (I'm not sure if their Blades or just pages anymore) shows off only game show videogames. This PrimeTime section lets you play game shows like 1vs 100 online and compete for real prizes. Get ready to battle through weeks of ladder style tournaments for your Deal or No Deal keychain! Xbox Live Arcade was there in full force showing off Geometry Wars II, Galaga: Legions, Portal: Still Alive and a sneak peak at a South Park project. Most of these titles will be available this fall but my highly anticipated Duke-Nukem 3D is no where to be found, that sucks. Along with arcade games, Xbox Live Community games is launching this fall where you will be able to play games the community has created using the XNA tools provided by Microsoft.

Netflix and Xbox Live are now happy and together. The much rumoured joining goes back a few months and the mole who dug that one up deserves a carrot. So: if you live in the United States, have a XBL Gold subscription as well as a Netflix subscription, you will be able to watch any Netflix movie on your console AND you'll be able to share this viewing with your friends in your party. Sounds pretty cool but again, Home was all about showing movies in your virtual house to your friends first. With this much "borrowing" of features going on I wouldn't be surprised if gamerscore was now Gamer Trophies and the dashboard turns into the Cross-Media-Interface, prove me wrong Microsoft. Another Scene it game was also revealed as well as a new trailer for Banjo Kazooie which showed off gameplay on land, sea and air.

Your In the Movies is the latest in Microsoft "borrowing" ideas from Sony with this blatant EyeToy rip-off. This game allows you to play a series of mini-games that force you to pose, dance, run in one spot, swat bugs, etc. After a set amount of these games are completed, the footage of you looking like an idiot gets spliced into a cool looking move trailer. Guitar Hero World Tour was there, showing off drums with symbols, a new guitar and it's music making capabilities along with a ton of master tracks featuring: Van Halen, The Eagles, R.E.M. and Metallic just to name a few. Rock Band II shows up and totally schools Guitar Hero with over 100 master tracks at launch, everything backwards compatible and a very good variety of bands from Modest Mouse to Megadeth. To wrap things up a higher up from Square Enix comes on stage showing off a new trailer for The Last Remnant that looks a lot like Final Fantasy XII if you ask me.




O yeah, FFXIII is coming to Xbox 360 as well.

Another year, another Microsoft E3 conference in the bag. With Xbox being more aggressive towards the casual market with their avatars and casual games as well as going head to head with Sony's Home features. It seems that Microsoft is trying their hardest to appeal to everyone, nabbing the most popular options from the competition and spitting out system selling exclusives, their in great shape to have another solid year of hardware and software sales.

I have recently got my copy of Mass Effect back from my buddy. It was there 4 a while but I had to get it back to play the new DLC. Bringing Down the Sky, sounds epic, it's not. In Mass Effect you travel the galaxy as a specter trying to eliminate the main villain: Saren. Along the way you travel to many planets and encounter new scenarios that move the story forward or lightly populated ghost planets. These usually have you eliminate a few rooms of enemies and then some lines of dialog. Well, the Bringing down the Sky DLC was just that with a few cut-scenes spliced in. Nothing really special and not really worth the price of entry.

So that initially got me back into Mass Effect but I got sucked in when I started to explore more and more planets. At this point, I have completed all bonus missions but 2 and have turned my in game timer from seventeen hours to just over fifty. Needless to say I'm getting a little bored but there are still some things I want to do in it still. I am waiting for some more DLC, hoping it will be a bit better than BDS. I also want to play it through again, this time being nice and choosing the other story altering decisions.

Other than that I got Devil May Cry four, I'm only on mission six right now but I'm really impressed so far. It feels much easier than three (which is a very good thing) and I like the combo system they have in this one. Instead of Dante I am Nero, a half human half demon hunter like Dante, has white hair and wears a red trench coat like Dante, has the same gun+sword fighting style like Dante BUT Dante has stubble and Nero has a Demon Arm. There is almost 0 real big differences in the characters but it`s not a big deal. Super pumped about GTA IV still and I fear if I don`t finish DMC four before GTA comes out, I won`t beat it for a long long time. O well, this is GTA we`re talking about here, Devil May Cry can wait.

My last post I was talking about my difficulties with playing Halo: Combat Evolved on my 360. Well I got my money back from that game and I downloaded Dreamfall: The Longest Journey instead. It did the same thing, exact same message, exact same errors. So I downloaded it over at a friends house to see if that would make a difference. He had a different internet service provider and the ethernet was coming straight out of the modem. Same error message again, time to call Microsoft. I give them the reference number and they still need my address, gamertag, postal code, phone number I registered my console with, jesus christ. Why don`t I just send a blood sample over so I don`t have to give my biography over the phone just to talk about a problem with a game.

Anyway, I give her the rundown on everything I did, I get transfered from hardware support to live support. I tell him everything, transfered from live support to tech support. I tell her the run down and I get put on hold while she talks to the higher ups in tech support. It came down to telling her serial numbers on the modem, to see if anything was messed on my end. This is getting stupid and I`m losing my patience with these tech support idiots, next thing you know their going to ask what type of ethernet cable I use. After over an hour on the phone I got hung up on, great, that`s what I need. I`m going to try and contact Microsoft for a solution by mail rather than phone and I`m going to check some forums.

Some of you may recall, back about a month ago I bought Halo Combat Evolved for the Xbox360 from the Marketplace. One of those Xbox Originals for 1,200 space bucks. I finally remembered to call Microsoft about it and the results are a little concerning. I called from my home line and big surprise I was put on hold, so I thought I could double my odds of getting through if I used my cell too. So I got through on my cell right away (jaw dropped) and I told the English speaking (jaw is on the floor at this point) customer rep my reference number and he said that it was not processed. What!? Two weeks and "it seems the order was not placed properly" is total bullshit. The order was for a backwards compatibility disc because the customer rep told me last time that it was the only option I had left. I explained the situation about Halo not working when I wanted to play it and the rep said, "That's not a backwards compatibility issue at all." *steam from ears*

It seems that it is something much much bigger. He runs me through the normal, "Is your Xbox 360 console plugged into a ethernet broadband connection?", "Is your Xbox 360 plugged into a wall or surge protector?", blah, blah, blah. After five minutes of that I get put on hold, so I play a little Warhawk in between, and the head honcho (supervisor) gets put on the phone. He seemed like a really nice guy, that or he was just trying to wiggle his way out of me yelling on the phone about him wasting my time. I just talk to the guy for about five minutes about games, weather, odd stuff and before you know it he refunded my space bucks and the call was over. It seemed that this was one of those, "I never heard of anything like that before, your the first" issues. No big deal, I'm downloading Dreamfall: The Longest Journey as I type. I heard it was very good but never had a chance to play it, hope it actually works this time, peace.

Culture

Culture is a flower planting game created by Hidden Path Entertainment and is a compilation of three mini-games. They consist of: Bloom Game, Paint with Flowers and Flower Garden. Bloom Game being the best overall. In Bloom Game the objective is to cover the planet in flowers while removing all the weeds. Enclose areas with flowers to create combos and get to the next level. The challenge in this game comes from circling the weeds with the same type of flower. If I circle a weed with white flowers and halfway through it starts giving out blue flowers, the circle will not kill the weed. It has to all be the same color and you alternate colors throughout. You can see what`s coming next on the right hand bar, sort of like Tetris. The visuals are alright, flowers on the planet sway as you move it, giving the plant life a realistic look.

Paint with Flowers , the title says it all. You are given a grid called ``landscape`` or ``Angel Fish`` and you put flowers in the squares of the grid. A part of the grid maybe a cloud or a fish, if you put a blue flower in there, that set will be painted with that flower, resulting in a blue fish or cloud. My paintings looked like a mess but I didn`t mess around with it too much. With a little practice, I`m sure that these grids might actually look like art. The final mode is Flower Garden. In this game type you get to see the flowers you have unlocked as well as make new ones from the strains you have. The ability to move the flowers anywhere in the garden is available if you want to spruce up the look of your garden a bit. Overall a pretty flat game that has some interesting visuals and not a whole lot more.

JellyCar

JellyCar is a very basic, bar-bones game. It was created by Walaber and the trial version only consists of one level that can be completed in about 15 seconds or less. You are in a vehicle that has to get from the start of the level to the end. The vehicle can transform into a larger version to get over tough obstacles but it only lasts for a few seconds. The style is very reminiscent of Crayon Physics, though JellyCar is very basic the game looks like it has potential.

Little Gamers

Little Gamers was created by Loic Dansart from Belgium and what a great little game this is. The style is very much like Alien Hominid or Castle Crashers with a online flash vibe. The background, sayings and even the environments are taken straight out of videogame lore. One of the difficulties is ``l33t``, and words like w00t and ORLY are present as well. It is based on the web comic little-gamers.com and it is a gory 2D sidescroller. The environments range from your house to sky-scrapers and the music changes to fit the environment as well.

You might be hitting your friends in the head with a baseball bat in one level and killing zombies in a graveyard with Shotguns and AK-47`s the next. Power-ups are there to help you along the way as well, such as coffee that makes your attacks more powerful or beer that slows time. The game is hard but not too hard like other games of this type, it has all the essentials to becoming a full fledged Xbox Live Arcade release. A few more levels and some text for a story and that game is as good as sold.

Proximity HD

Proximity HD is a puzzle game, like Hexic HD. Unlike Hexic HD, the game is all about numbers, not matching colors or shapes. The game was made by Brian Cable and what`s offered in this trial is very rough. First off, you can not play this trial by yourself, there is no AI to speak of. Each player takes turns placing numbers on a grid and each number touching the other reacts to one another. If the number you place is touching one of your opponents it will either decrease in value or it will become your number depending on it`s value. When you place a number that is lower than a number that it is touching which belongs to you, your original number increases by 2. Whoever has the highest number when the grid is full wins. It`s about as fun as it sounds. Maybe with four people playing at once could be fun but I didn`t have any in my 1v1.

Rocketball

Rocketball is a 2v2 dodge ball game created by Fuel N` Spark Games. The objective is to get the other opponents out while keeping your team in. Rocket power-ups appear on the field at random and deliver a near dodgeless throw at you or your opponent. The controls are very simple but extremely stiff. Many times I will be over a ball or power-up and try to pick it up only to get hit by an opponents ball because I was a centimeter off over it. The premise is cool but if Fuel N` Spark Games wants this game to be a success they need to put on some polish.

The Dishwasher

The Dishwasher is an ultra gory 2D side Scroller created by James Silva. This game takes place in back alleys, kitchens and warehouses. You are a bare chested, long haired disturbed fella wielding dual cleavers to dispatch agent after agent. The combat system works well with a light and heavy attack button, great for delivering combos. There are clean and messy finishing moves to dispose of dizzy agents, resulting in a blood soaked screen. The music and art style is very cool and it works well with the games darker tone. The story is told in comic strips that periodically appear on screen and do a good job of putting you in the shoes of the main character. The game is fun right now and has a the right style to it, some polish and she`s ready to go.

TriLinea

TriLinea is a puzzle game created by Edison Prata of Brazil. The game lets you place pieces on either side of the board, clearing sections based on combinations and matching. Power ups help you clear blocks faster and hinder your foes. These are chosen before the match and are mapped to the four face buttons on the controller. There is a story mode but when you get down to it, it`s just another puzzle game. The game is very early since not all the basic modes in the demo where available which leave you with Story and Verses to choose from. The game is not bad but it could get lost in the sea of puzzle games this day in age.

It seems that Microsoft is being extra honest this year at GDC. Showing media and fellow game developers the full experience of the Xbox 360 Gaming Console. With many display 360 kiosks working properly and showing off upcoming content for the platform. There was one on the show floor that was hit by the evil Red Ring of Death. Is this an attempt from Microsoft to show that their console failing is a fact of life or is it just some faulty hardware, you be the judge. With me not the only one here on staff who has had their beloved 360 suffer the same fate, I can't help but crack a smile at this. If your going to bring your console to a place where all the developers are hanging out, make sure it works first.

Sadly, this is not the only negative thing that has happened to Microsoft lately. Toshiba has announced that they are no longer producing HD-DVD players. With places like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and even NetFlix going pro Blu-ray, this can't sit well with the corporate giant. Microsoft never said they wouldn't make a Blu-ray add on so it could still be in the cards. Hopefully that "Microsoft Buying Epic" rumor gets confirmed soon so we can turn that frown up-side-down.

I have just got my 360 back from Microsoft. The dam thing red ringed on me about two weeks ago. Well now I finally got it back and I'm loading up my new 120GB HDD full of crap. Mostly music, some game media and the stuff I missed while it was in the mail. I finally have enough space on the drive to install FFXI, six hours later and I haven't even made a character yet. I'm really anxious to play, I'm a little behind on my games. I rented Shadowrun and C&C 3 for 360 but I have yet to complete Assassin's Creed, Mario Galaxy or even Half Life 2 from the Orange box. I wouldn 't mind playing some COD4 too, well if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of games to catch up on.

It was a beautiful freezing day, the sun was shinning, the sound of cars trying but not totally starting. It was a average day just like any other. I woke that day, at a fashionable 12:30pm, turned on my 360 and listened to some music. Shortly after I turned it off and went on the internet to check my e-mail and junk. Later in the day I turned it on to work on the side quests of Mass Effect on my Renegade Soldier character. It was quiet, too quiet. I am usually greeted with the jet engine sound of my 360 booting, all I heard was low, short, beeps of the system trying to cling to life. As I looked down in horror, it was there, starring right at me.... the Red Ring of Death.

Was I angry? Did I go on the forums and flame Xbox for what tragic fate they laid upon my sleek white beauty? No, I went over to my buddies house and played Rock Band for 9 hours. He was one of the first in the city to own it and dam is that game fun. Unfortunately the strum bar on the Guitar was all messed up and didn't work quiet right. It was for the 360, so miles of cords feeding into the 360 was imminent. Drinking, playing and trying not to trip over the sea of cables, it was a pretty good day after all.

Now I sit, typing this, waiting for the dam box to come from Microsoft so I can send my 360 away. Passing the time by playing Call of Duty 4 on the PS3 and Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. My 120GB HDD has been sitting next to my 360 for 2 weeks now, finally getting the data disk and transfer cable to put my 20GB HDD data on my bigger one. Only to have no Xbox to do so now, Final Fantasy XI has been waiting for about a month for the dam Hard Drive to arrive, now it sits and waits to be played even longer. I love my 360, I just wish it worked, all the time, is that so much to ask?