Filed under: News, Xbox Live Arcade

Both Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard, the creative geniuses behind recent XBLA release N+, are furious about how Microsoft has handled the Xbox Live Arcade and how huge publishers have taken over the service. So angry, they go as far as to claim that the majority of the XBLA titles are “all sh*t”.

Speaking with Gamasutra, they mention that their biggest problem with the Arcade is the fact that Microsoft has too much control over what gets published and what doesn’t. An issue that they claim has led to hundreds of craptacular games saturating the service. Burns goes on to say that “the real problem, I think, is that the same people who are deciding what retail games get greenlit are deciding what Live Arcade games get greenlit” and that it’s “those decisions that are ruining Live Arcade.”

To an extent, we have to concur with our N+ creators. It does sometimes feel either crappy retro games or crappy classics make it to the XBLA while we know full well other Indy games have more potential. That stated, smaller developers are still a driving force behind the XBLA, with games like Castle Crashers, Dishwasher: The Dead Samurai and Schizoid leading the way. Also, we can’t absolutely blame Microsoft for favoring huge publishers, because, as we all know, they’re rolling out a community fueled XNA service this Fall.

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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Filed under: News, Xbox Live Marketplace

Just a little while ago, HMXJohnlok announced next Tuesday’s Rock Band DLC and Boston fans should get uber excited. Releasing to the XBLM on March 25th will be six Boston tracks sold separately for 160 Microsoft points each or as a six pack for 800 points. All songs are master recordings, all songs are Boston and all songs are wonderfully rocktacular. And here’s what’s headed our way:

• “More Than a Feeling” by Boston
• “Peace of Mind” by Boston
• “Smokin” by Boston
• “Rock & Roll Band” by Boston
• “Something About You” by Boston
• “Hitch A Ride” by Boston

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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Filed under: News, Video Marketplace

It’s a holiday weekend and one would think that our U.S. Video Marketplace would receive some new Easter-themed movies for rent. But, alas, this edition of Video Marketplace Weekly has no such thing and no Easter cheer will be spread. Instead, movies like Malibu’s Most Wanted, Robocop and Poltergeist II will have to fill your Easter weekend movie rental itch and that’s just how it has to be. It may not be eggsellent or eggstravagant (huzzah!), but the XBVM does have new releases and that’s all we can ask for. Hop on over to the break and check out the complete list of this past week’s new XBVM motion picture rentals.

Continue reading Video Marketplace Weekly: not so Easter edition

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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Things are going strong for Friday Night Fights as usual. We’ll be playing all your current favorites that somehow never get old, no matter how many hours you pump into them.

Under normal circumstances, there would be a caption for the picture above, however, this day is anything but normal. You see, trying to create a caption worthy of the pure awesomeness that is Raptor Jesus would be like dividing by zero — it’s just too damn risky.

On a lighter note, we could always use more hosts for Xbox 360 games, so please give out your gamertag in the comments section if you’re willing to.

[Thanks, CaffeinePowered, Macca, Snaileb, vexed alex, and Y0j1mb0!]

Via Destructoid

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Valve and Nunchuck Games Inc. have announced that a special version of Ninja Reflex — a title that hit the Wii and Nintendo DS earlier this year — is now available on Steam. Called Ninja Reflex: Steamworks Edition, the game is designed to challenge gamers’ reflexes, sharpen hand-eye coordination, and measure reactions times to the millisecond.

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The incomparable GameTrailers has an exclusive Dark Sector launch trailer running, showcasing perhaps one of my biggest mysteries of the year. Most games, you kind of form an idea in your head as to whether or not they’ll be good, but with Dark Sector, I just can’t decide.

It tempts me with its brutal slaying, solid looking combat and fun sounding on the internet play, but the lacklustre reaction that Dark Sector has inspired in others worries me. However, I hope it can be good so that Florian Eckhardt takes back his mockery of me for investing interest in Dark Sector. The wanker.

Via Destructoid

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Filed under: News

After obtaining a Battlefield: Bad Company beta code through some questionable means, we proceeded to redeem our code and download the beta off the Marketplace. After firing it up and realizing the servers aren’t yet live, we decided to troll through the game’s menus to learn a tiny more about what we were in for all while listening to the calming piano music being played. Then, almost as if were were slapped in the face with a trout, we spotted the chart you see above. It’s a default controller chart that confirms that Bad Company will include a Halo 3‘esque “take screenshot” feature in multiplayer with the easy press of up on the d-pad. We’re not sure how easy it’ll be to take a screenshot while in the heat of battle or if there will be any other screenshot taking options, but at least we know there will be one. Gimped or not, adding the ability to take screenshots in any game is a huge plus in our book. Now about paying for weapons …

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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Filed under: News, Videos

You might find it odd that almost each Dark Sector post we do is some sort of video, but we’ve good reason. You see, Dark Sector kind of took us by surprise, most impressive thing being the game’s intense visuals and over the top decapitations. With that in mind, how could we not want to blog about the game’s video gameplay? Right? So, today we bring yet another Dark Sector video and this time it’s the official launch trailer that gives a bit of the game’s back story and a bunch of in-game gore. Sever heads, take off arms and toss that boomer-blade like you mean it.

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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Filed under: News

According to our iron-fisted rulers over at Joystiq, the Rock Band patch that we were anticipating sometime this week was just released earlier this morning and changes it makes are ten kinds of cool.

The Music Store is everything Harmonix promised us and more, allowing simple navigation of Rock Band’s entire DLC library from within’ the game and song previews and lots more rock and roll. We’re also told that the game’s new DLC caching system dramatically decreases Rock Band’s DLC loading time and after a one time quick caching, subsequent startups have DLC load in a few seconds.

Grab your Rock Band title update by signing into Xbox Live and spend, spend, spend! Our goal is to line the music execs pockets and push that 6 million number to 10 million by Summer’s end. Twisted, ain’t it?

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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Filed under: News, Xbox Live, MMO

In a recent follow-up to a conference call, the CEO of Ubisoft revealed that the company would be branching out into other territories with it’s IP, including Tom Clancy. With the end-of-year release of the voice-controlled RTS EndWar, Ubisoft does seem intent on moving Clancy games out of simply the shooter genres and the just announced Tom Clancy MMO seems to continue the trend. Nothing is known about the game at this time, other than it is being worked on and that it has the rather massive budget of 50 million dollars. But with many companies with thier own online games searching for substitute methods of revenue, and with no MMOs that have truly broken into the console mass market, any game such as this has it’s work cut out for it.

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Via Xbox360fanboy

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