I need to get at least 1600 microsoft points now.

I played these games, and I have had an epiphany:

Lumines
Street Fighter II

both for Xbox Live Arcade.

I played both trials at my friends house, and I LOVE THEM!

I played Lumines first. I didn't expect that I would reach the actual end of the trial game without losing. And I seriously enjoyed it. 20,008 points. I'mma go play it again in 7 and a half weeks.

I also played SFII with both of my friends, and although the both are just ok at the game and only beat me once, I had a ton of fun.

AND I FINALLY LEARNED HADOUKEN! WOOT-EN!

Right, Right-Down, Down, X!

Look at what I stumbled upon on the interwebs. A game about hitting a guy with a bike as far as possible, with a couple of twists I still don't understand but kinda do. You know home-run derby from Super Smash Bros.? Yeah, it's like that, but it just requires a small click-and-hold from the mouse button.

Try to beat my record of 3145.67m

No, instead, that was an update that was released a few weeks ago to a very few number of Xbox Live users that is NOW released to the public. Update 2.07363.0 was apparently a fix to a problem with audio problems with HDMI audio cords. Hey! Be happy! You still have your golden lancer, and now for those who have been waiting for this update has finally come! Yay!

Thanks, Joystiq!

Listening to the Xbox 360 Fancast, I just confirmed that the Golden Lancer you might've downloaded a few days ago is going to be taken away. Xav de Matos, writer for Joystiq [Xbox], was talking about it on the show and has said that he recieved an email from a Microsoft PR team that has said that it was a mistake and they are planning to take it away from people that have downloaded it someway. They were supposedly only supposed to give a few downloads away, but somehow somebody screwed up.

They haven't said how they are going to do this, or when they are going to do it, but the idea that Microsoft can take out any downloads you might've downloaded is actually kinda creepy. Don't you think so?

All in all, I think Microsoft should just let it go, and let us have the lancer. :) Or you know what? Just give it to every one, jeez. I mean, it's a big deal for some of us but not MOST of us.

Once again, Best Buy seems to have the only offers worth posting about. Here are the two noticeable savings you should look at.

SAVE $20 ON NOW CURRENTLY $30 XBOX LIVE 13 MONTH GOLD MEMBERSHIP CARDS!

In a year, you probably wouldn't regret it.

SAVE $10 ON BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY! NOW $19.99!

In a year, you probably will regret it. I say rent, you say,"Yes, please."

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN SAVE $10 AND GET FREE SHIPPING FOR KILLZONE 2!

I say, totally worth it.

Those are the only savings you are ever seeing for the next 5 days.

The Epic Games official forums have been attacked recently with disturbing, sad, and true news that the game cannot run, with a message prompting the player to reinstall the game.

As of January 28th, the game's digital certificate has expired, so anyone playing close to the midnight of the 27th then your computer's internal clock clicking over to the 28th immediately exited out. Epic has "been notified of the issue and are working with Microsoft to work it out."

A quick fix before a permanent fix ever comes out is very simple. Just change your computer's internal clock to an earlier date. Do you see the clock on the corner of your computer? Yeah, that's the internal clock. If you don't know how to fix it...umm...google it.

Remember what happened on the same day last year? Yeah, it happened again, except this time, without reason.

Awesome news for you Call of Duty: World at War online players out there, it's double EXP weekend throughout January 30th-which is TODAY!-to February 1st! Not only that, but they are also releasing two new playlists; Team Tactical(4v4) and Mercenary Team Deathmatch(no parties allowed). Team Tactical, of course, is a a playlist that rotates around team-based matches, while Mercenary Team Deathmatch just pits random people together to team-up.

If you would like to suggest a playlist to Treyarch to add to the game, you can go to the forums by clicking here.

A game where you bounce on all the platforms and reach the finish with the most points possible. Sound like something that came out 27 years ago? Well, it's very damn similar. Artoon is like a revised version of Q*Bert, with slight twists. You are small bouncing ball and you must change the color of most of the platforms to finish.

Let's start out with the features that make this game different. There are a multitude of different levels with 5 different types of worlds the player can be in. Every world has a different feature or art style that makes them unique, such as; everything is neon in one world, if you looks towards one side of the world there is a large screen effect which makes it harder(not really, it's annoying, though) for you to progress, etc. Every level is pretty easy but it will take a little bit of work to get an A+ rank on all of them.

The bad things of the game are as follows, the style function is almost useless. If you can get every single platform in a row(which doesn't take a much of a while to figure out), then you already get the A+. That's another thing, this game is not very challenging. The levels with the screen effects are easy because you barely have to turn the camera around anywhere to beat a level. You could beat the whole game looking backwards if you have to.

All in all, I don't think it's worth $5. Something a little more worth your money would be Groov, which is $2.50. If you would like to try the game yourself, click here to download it to your 360.

Bungie.net has released a(read: ONE) hi-res screenshot of the Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack map of Sandbox. From what sources our leading us to believe is that it seems that, if you look closely, every single object in the map is movable. Information leaked from that official Australian Xbox blog would also lead us to believe that the map pack will cost 800 Microsoft points and will be released on March 3rd. The blog also has leaked information on both Orbital and Assembly, the two other maps in the pack.

Gridplane, a completely unknown design studio until now, recently released presumed mock-ups of previous designs of the NXE. All I can say is...it's really open. It's like a virtual plain in the 360.

Thanks, [Xbox] Joystiq.

NXE UI

Awesome time to pick up some Street Fighter IV fighting sticks if you want them, FREE SHIPPING included, because they are 10% off on the Capcom online store! First, you should make sure that you turn off any pop-up blockers you have, then visit the website, add any item you want into your cart, then click the CAPCOM Store icon, which should trigger a survey pop-up. Complete it, then it will automatically get you 10% off your next purchase.

Sadly, all the fighting sticks are sold out so....get something else! :)

UPDATE: Just a reminder, it seems that you only get free shipping with a purchase of $75 or higher.

Excited for the new Friday the 13th movie? Me neither, BUT! There's a new reason to get excited for the little promotional campaign Epic and Microsoft has been using to entice some new Gears 2 players. On the first 13 days of February, Microsoft is planning to give away $25,000 worth of prizes to Gears of War 2 players! Prizes include:

A Samsung 40" 1080p LCD HDTV
An Xbox 360 Limited Edition Red Wireless Controller
A Marcus Fenix bronze statue from Mindzeye Studios
A life-size Locust drone maquette from TriForce Sales
The "Gears of War 2" video game soundtrack from Sumthing Else
The Gears of War Aspho Fields novel from Random House imprint, Del Rey
Codes to download the golden Hammerburst and Lancer(lol)
A "Gears of War 2" poster signed by members of the development team
Five first prize packages every day, which includes the soundtrack, novel, in-game golden weapons(heh, lol) and a signed poster

Sunday, Feb. 1 -- Annex
Monday, Feb. 2 -- Submission
Tuesday, Feb. 3 -- Execution
Wednesday, Feb. 4 -- Horde
Thursday, Feb. 5 -- King of the Hill
Friday, Feb. 6 -- Guardian
Saturday, Feb. 7 -- Warzone
Sunday, Feb. 8 -- Wingman
Monday, Feb. 9 -- King of the Hill
Tuesday, Feb. 10 -- Wingman
Wednesday, Feb. 11 -- Wingman
Thursday, Feb. 12 -- Horde
Friday, Feb. 13 -- Horde

The two met each other while playing Halo 2. They are both gamers. They want to marry each other. The bride-yes, that's right. The BRIDE-comes up with the great idea of making the wedding Halo themed; her avatar was embroidered into her wedding dress, favors that look like plasma grenades contained in a little box that says,"Happily stuck together",organized a violin quartet to play "Unforgotten", the music that plays in the Halo 3 main menu, and has someone dress up as Master Chief to preside the marriage.

I now present to you, "A match made in Halo".

That's right! Until today, Golden Lancers were only available by purchasing the limited edition copy of Gears of War 2. Now, every new copy of the game contains a voucher for the Golden Lancer and is also available for free on XBLM. For the time being, it's free. Download it now so you don't have to think about whether or not it will stay that way.

Click here to download the Golden Lancer onto your Xbox.

P.S. If you are wondering about these links, Xbox.com has released a feature that allows you to download content right off of Xbox.com onto your Xbox 360 from your internet browser! Yay!

Thanks Xbox 360 Fanboy(now currently known as Joystiq [Xbox]).

UPDATE: This only seems to work on Xbox.com's marketplace, not Xbox Live's Marketplace.

The long awaited Resident Evil 5 demo has finally come out on Xbox Live Marketplace! Sadly, the PS3 will not be getting this demo for a while. The demo features 3 levels on two stages(if they are as long as RE4's chapters, that should equal to about 2 hours of gameplay, but it doesn't.); Assembly Place and Shanty Town(which was featured in E3 08', as shown in the video below), and allows for 2 PLAYER CO-OP with AI, local, or OVER XBOX LIVE. You can tell by the caps lock that it is very exciting news(although I already played the Japanese version-OOPS! Should I be saying that?)

Best Buy is having a pretty decent sale during January 25th thru the 31st.

Left 4 Dead (PC) is going for $39.99.

Halo 3 is going for $39.99.

Xbox 360 Wireless Controllers going for $39.99!

And get a free 3-Month Xbox Live Gold card with a purchase of Gears of War 2($59.99)!

The F.E.A.R. 2 Demo is available on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. No noticeable differences, really. Here are the impressions.


The demo opens up what seems to be the opening cut-scene for the game which pretty much gives you a small hint as to the back-story of the original F.E.A.R.. The demo then puts you into the perspective of Michael Becket who is supposed to arrest president of Armacham Genevieve Aristide. The start of the demo takes place a few seconds after the original game ends(almost the exact same time because the game starts after the explosion).

Just to give you a little head-start this is how the demo begins:

You start out getting up from a helicopter crash in a hallucination. You see the young version of Alma standing a few feet away. After you get up and start moving forward she appears a couple of more times before slowly morphing into the older version of herself and disappearing.

This demo can only be fully experienced completely alone, with the brightness levels they want, and your surround sound turned up very close to the max(or at least before you start pissing neighbors off). Playing the demo it seems that for FPS novices it might be a little challenging considering there is no noticeable amount of auto-aim. And we all know that sound design is what makes a horror game, with the perfect example of being BioShock. This game perfects the sound of what your player should be experiencing and will have you turning around a numerous amount of times just to see what's behind you.

Controls are a little confuzzling. If anyone has played a Splinter Cell game you will know that you must hold a button down to open up a menu to change weapons or other things in your inventory. Unlike Splinter Cell, only ONE button switches weapons; Right on the directional pad; ->, which means that if you accidentally skip the weapon you want, your going to have to cycle through all your weapons until you get back to it, which can get a little annoying in a hectic battle. Thankfully, Slow-Mo is back from the first game which gives you a small amount of time to either switch your weapons or see your foes die in a very bloody bath. The gameplay seems to be very generic and very old-school as I haven't seen a first person shooter bring back med-packs in a LOOOOOOONG time. And although there is a flashlight, expect very little from it as it will only help you look in completely pitch-black corners as it isn't that bright.

Graphics are great. Nothing Gears of War or Crysis, but definitely better than a Halo or Call of Duty.

One thing that I HAVE to bring up is the scripted events. Some of the greatest in-game cutscenes to freak the hell out of you, but the greatest ones are the ones outside of the cutscenes. There are some great in-game scenes in the demo such as a falling bus about to crush you completely, or when you turn around in a tight hallway and see nothing, but once you turn around again to continue you see that crazy b**** for a millisecond and completely disappears, only leaving you with a slight evil snicker.

Before the demo ends you are treated with one of the games new features, which is a vehicle. A heavily-armed, mech warrior style, robot which I haven't died using yet. It's armed with a Gatling gun which can overheat and four missles that shoot all at once that take a few seconds to reload. Of course, you would use that Gatling guns to rip normal foes to shreds, while using the missles with the guns to fight the other armored warriors of death which are at least half the size of you. At the end of the demo, you encounter pretty much a clone of the mech that you are using, and after a few seconds of engaging a battle with this thing, the demo cuts off.

The demo is out now and the full game is coming out the 10th of February in North America and the 13th of February in Europe.

In a 4-freakin'-page interview with Gamasutra, Braid developer Jonathan Blow has awnsered questions about his feelings for the future. But one part of the interview shows that he has been working on an RPG.....and other things as well.

[Gamasutra] So aside from the other versions of Braid, presumably you're working on another game?

JB: I am. I don't really want to give much detail about it, though. And the reason is that I've had three or four different games that I was convinced was the next game I was working on, and I'd work on it for a little bit and decide I could maybe do something better.

My newest game I started is looking very promising. I'm very excited to do it. But if the patterns of history continue, then I may not be working on it a month from now, so I don't want to start telling people about it.

JB: Yeah. It's an RPG right now, a 2D RPG that I'm working on. You never know. Next month, it could be a Pac-Man clone or something.

NOTE: This catch-up is full of SPOILER!s. and takes into account that you already know everybody and everything's names.

The game starts out with a cutscene that shows Alma presumably taking control of Paxton Fettel and a group of telepathically controlled cloned supersoldiers. He then procedes to kill every single person in Armacham Technology Corp. (ATC) Headquarters. You then proceed to hear a phone call between ATC president Aristide and an unknown senator, stating the "Origin" has had an uprising, informing the player that "Fettel has taken over the prototypes."

The game then gives you control of the "point man", who is described to have "reflexes off of the charts" both in-game and in the manual, and set in the briefing room for F.E.A.R. being attented by Commissioner Betters, and the F.E.A.R. team Jankowski and Jin Sun-Kwon. Your mission objective is to eliminate Fettel, who, as the info states, is a psychopathic commander. After the cutscene ends, you will have a hallucination showing Fettel asking you, "What's the first thing you remember?". and someone saying, "You will be a god among man."

As you progress through the game, you will have MANY more hallucinations that focus around the creepiness of Alma and how she seems to be able to kill people with her mind, messages going through your mind hinting of that "you were born here". Throughout the game Fettel himself gives you many cryptic messages, and you also find many laptops throughout the mission, learning many details describing "Project Origin"; how Fettel is the son of Alma, how he is a powerful psychic, and that there is another child, born before Alma. There are also a few very cinematic in-game cutscenes of Alma appearing herself, such as trying to escape and exploding hallway with her walking towards you, and when you encounter a small child in the sewers that always seems to escape your view.

All the hints in the game and quotes from Betters lead you to believe that Alma has taken control of Fettel, who was securely kept in the Origin facility when ATC closed the project because of the believed danger the woman posed. You also start to encounter ATC soldiers, who have appeared because of orders to cover the Project. Later in the game, once you encounter Fettel himself, you learn that YOU are the first son of Alma, and you are given control to kill Fettel. You learn that the father of Alma, Harlan Wade, leader of project Origin, freed Alma himself because he felt guilty giving his 8-year-old daughter to the project. After sabotaging the whole facility to blow, you escape on a helicopter, but not right before the game ends do you seem Alma over side the helicopter about to-