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GTA IV : The Ballad of Gay Tony

Content: Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Price: 1600 Points     
Availability: Not available in Japan
Dash Text: (ESRB: M (Mature) BLOOD AND GORE,INTENSE VIOLENCE,PARTIAL NUDITY,STRONG LANGUAGE,STRONG SEXUAL CONTENT,USE OF ALCOHOL,USE OF DRUGS,ONLINE INTERACTIONS NOT RATED BY THE ESRB) The Ballad of Gay Tony injects Liberty City with an overdose of guns, glitz, and grime. As Luis Lopez, part-time hoodlum and full-time assistant to legendary nightclub impresario Tony Prince (a.k.a. “Gay Tony”), players will struggle with the competing loyalties of family and friends, and with the uncertainty about who is real and who is fake in a world in which everyone has a price.

Add The Ballad of Gay Tony to your Xbox 360 download queue and begin playing right now or purchase Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City which contains both The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned as stand alone games that do not require the original Grand Theft Auto IV game to play.

Two Xbox Live arcade games

Content: RAINBOW ISLANDS: TOWERING ADVENTURE!
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Not available in Australia, Korea and New Zealand
Dash Text: Rainbow Island returns as an XBLA remake, with completely new features added! Use your Rainbow Magic to shoot out rainbows to defeat your enemies as well as climb them towards the top in this platform gaming classic! Use your Avatar to personalize the colorful action! Play cooperatively with a friend with 2 Xbox 360 Controllers or race to the top against other players over Xbox LIVE. Conquer all 10 Areas in 4 different game modes! A range of quirky costumes can be acquired in the game to customize game character’s outfit. All Areas are seamlessly connected as you climb from the earth to the far reaches of space!

Add RAINBOW ISLANDS: TOWERING ADVENTURE to your Xbox 360 download queue

Content: Inferno Pool
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Asia and North America
Dash Text: Inferno Pool is a revolutionary, simultaneous multi-player Pool action game.

Add Inferno Pool to your Xbox 360 download queue

Xbox LIVE Activity for week of Oct. 19th

Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on UU’s)
1    Halo 3
2    Call of Duty 4
3    Call of Duty: WaW
4    Halo 3: ODST
5    Gears of War 2
6    FIFA 10
7    Madden NFL 10 (Download the demo)
8    GTA IV (Purchase the full game)
9    Borderlands
10   Left 4 Dead

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)
1   Trials HD
2    SOUTH PARK LET’S GO TOWER DEFENSE PLAY!
3    Tower Bloxx Deluxe
4    Zombie Apocalypse
5    Panzer General Allied Assault
6    Battlefield 1943
7    Hasbro Family Game Night
8    Magic: The Gathering
9    Castle Crashers
10  Shadow Complex

Original Xbox Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1    Halo 2
2    Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
3    Counter-Strike
4    Fable
5    Conker: Live Reloaded
6    Splinter Cell Chaos
7    Star Wars: Battlefront
8    Doom 3
9    SW: Republic Commando
10    Call of Duty 3

Top Indie Games (Full Versions purchased)

1    Avatar Drop
2    I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
3    Headshot
4    Avatar Golf
5    Miner Dig Deep
6    Pumpkin Chop
7    Night Of Doom
8    Cassie’s Corner
9    Fishing Girl
10   Who Did I Date Last Night

These lists are based on global unique users connected to Xbox Live or in the case of Arcade and Indie Games, full versions purchased during the week.

Xbox 360 System Update – Wireless Adapter WPA2 support

The Xbox team has released a system update for the Xbox 360 over Xbox LIVE.

When you signed into to Xbox LIVE during the past couple of hours you have probably received a prompt to accept this mandatory update – if not, it’ll probably come some time during the evening. I know I haven’t gotten it yet!

This update does not include the Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and Zune features. Those will be coming to Xbox LIVE later next month.

This update adds WPA2 support for the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter.

New Xbox 360 Games on Demand: Dead Space and DiRT

The following Xbox 360 games are now ready for direct download from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace:

Content: Dead Spaceâ„¢

Price: Check pricing for your region
Availability: Not available in Japan
Dash Text: (Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB) Download the manual for this game by locating the game on http://marketplace.xbox.com and selecting “See Game Manual". When an immense mining ship, the USG Ishimura, comes into contact with a mysterious alien artifact in a remote star system, its communications with Earth are mysteriously cut off. Engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to repair the Ishimura’s communications array, but he arrives to find a living nightmare-the ship is a floating bloodbath, the crew unspeakably mutilated and infected by an ancient alien scourge. Clarke’s repair mission becomes one of survival as he fights not just to save himself, but to return the artifact to the planet … at any cost.

Add Dead Space to your Xbox 360 download queue or download the free demo

Content: DiRT
Price: Check pricing for your region
Availability: Not available in Japan
Dash Text: (Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB) Download the manual for this game by locating the game on http://marketplace.xbox.com and selecting “See Game Manual". DiRT™ is an off-road racing game. The player’s role is to race their way through the world of off-road motor sport, increasing their fame and prestige on their way to becoming the ultimate Off-Road Champion of Champions.

Add DiRT to your Xbox 360 download queue or download the free demo

Xbox Live Gamerscore, Completion Stats Show Major Trends

In the latest in-depth Gamasutra feature, Microsoft Game Studios user research expert Bruce Phillips looks at a simple but vital problem – why people stop playing games, and what feedback Microsoft can give them to encourage them to continue.

Phillips notes that, despite common attempts to balance difficulty for a wide range of audiences, players will still experience failure — and negative feedback doesn’t just lose players, it creates detractors.

How serious is the quitting issue? In the following table, percent completion is found by dividing each player’s Gamerscore by the total possible Gamerscore for the title; those numbers are then averaged.

The table below shows the average Gamerscore completion for each of the top 13 Xbox Live games for 2008. The data was drawn from about 14,000 players that Microsoft surveys regularly.

As you can see, even the games with the highest achievement completion rates (Fable II and Call of Duty 4) had players who, on average, attained less than half the possible Gamerscore.

Phillips comments that this particular cross-section of Xbox 360 players tends to be more hardcore than the average player, and he would expect the actual completion rates for the entire population to be lower than the numbers recorded here.

Of course, the Gamerscore tells only part of the story. Players could finish a game and do little else, resulting in a low Gamerscore but high completion rates. However, most games award achievement points for completing the single-player campaign.

In this next table provided by Microsoft, the bar graphs show how many players earned a campaign completion achievement — in other words, finished the game — for the titles listed.

This shows how many players finished a sample of the games listed in the first table as determined by whether they earned a campaign completion achievement (on any difficulty). For even the most popular games on Xbox Live last year, about 30 percent of the cross-section of players didn’t play to the end.

Players don’t finish games for many reasons, Phillips notes, but no matter what explanations arise, it’s also likely that a significant number of players stopped out of frustration.

What leads some people to persevere after experiencing failure and others to give up? Why do some people anticipate eventual success where others only see continued failure? The full Gamasutra feature from Phillips explores the issue in much more depth, and offers design-oriented ideas to help address it.

Why I think Xbox 360 beats Playstation 3 @ Home Entertainment

To me, this is a no brainer. I have absolutely no need for a bluray player, the future for digital media (music, games, movies) is for sure the broadband.

For the most geeky movie lovers, the size of the videos they would need to download to get the “raw” quality they are after is insane. Really insane.

For “regular” people, such as myself, that doesn’t care THAT much about the barely, close to NOT, visible difference between compressed 1080p in mkv format and bluray – this is perfect. It’s way better than “regular” TV, DVD and it’s a noticable difference between 720p and 1080p.

If somebody puts a 52” fullHD TV next to our 52” fullHD TV and connects a bluray player and plays the same movie – I’m sure I’d see a difference, but honestly – I don’t care, as I’m not intrested to spend that kind of money on technology that will be outdated not that far into the future.

Even Sony has realised this – just look at PSP Go !

Anywho, to sum it up, this is a quick video of just what makes Media Center the obvious winner of the very tame PS3 Media Server. The requirements are basically the same – dedicated computer running, that has access to the wanted media.

Please note. Video is in really bad quality, as I could not find any decent software that could capture video played in full screen mode. Even Fraps fails, which surprised me. No audio either – it’s the GUI we’re intrested in, and we all already know that the Xbox does 5.1 surround.

Modern Warfare 2 Opens with Terror

October 27, 2009 – The following story contains spoilers from the Modern Warfare 2 campaign. If you do not wish to know anything about the game, please stop reading.

I’m serious. Don’t read if you don’t want spoilers.

Seriously.

Last warning.

A leaked video from France surfaced on the internet a couple of days ago, showing what appears to be the opening single-player campaign mission for Modern Warfare 2. In it, the players apparently assume the role of terrorist, and are seen entering an airport through an elevator with the rest of your squad members.

The team enters near the baggage check area where about 20 civilians are standing before being gunned down ruthlessly by your squadmates. The rest of the level takes the team through the airport shooting civilians lying on the ground and running away in fear. The graphic depictions in this sequence are some of the most violent-looking and realistic scenes we’ve seen in a video game. This could cause controversy from the mainstream media for obvious reasons.

Activision or Infinity Ward have not returned requests for comment on this video at this time. We do know Modern Warfare 2 has officially leaked in France when a video from yesterday showed the new 3rd-person perspective camera angle, which Infinity Ward did confirm.

Xbox LIVE Activity for week of Oct. 12th

Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on UU’s)
1    Halo 3
2    Call of Duty 4
3    Call of Duty: WaW
4    Halo 3: ODST
5    Gears of War 2
6    Madden NFL 10 (Download the demo)
7    GTA IV (Purchase the full game)
8    FIFA 10 (Download the demo)
9    Left 4 Dead
10   SOUTH PARK LET’S GO TOWER DEFENSE PLAY! (Download the demo)

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions purchased)
1   Hasbro Family Game Night
2   SOUTH PARK LET’S GO TOWER DEFENSE PLAY!
3   Trials HD
4   Zombie Apocalypse
5   Battlefield 1943
6   Castle Crashers
7   Shadow Complex
8   Magic: The Gathering
9   Marvel vs. Capcom 2
10  Axel & Pixel

The above arcade list is based on full versions purchased.
Original Xbox Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1    Halo 2
2    Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
3    Counter-Strike
4    Fable
5    Conker: Live Reloaded
6    Splinter Cell Chaos
7    Star Wars: Battlefront
8    Doom 3
9    SW: Republic Commando
10    Call of Duty 3

Top Indie Games (Full Versions purchased)

1    Avatar Drop
2    I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
3    Headshot
4    Avatar Golf
5    The Visualizer
6    Miner Dig Deep
7    Dark
8    Colosseum: Hammerball
9    Paint Boll
10  Cassie’s Corner

These lists are based on global unique users connected to Xbox Live or in the case of Arcade and Indie Games, full versions purchased during the week.