Fans of the Xbox LIVE Arcade will be happy to know that the next two titles slated for release have been announced and are en route: Rocky & Bullwinkle, and Battlezone. They’ll both be on XBLA this Wednesday and ready for download.

Rocky & Bullwinkle is a homage to the oldschool cartoon that was probably made by stoners but was marketed to children. It’s about the crazy adventures of a talking moose and his castrato sidekick squirrel as they… actually, never mind. It sounds lame. Battlezone does hit something of a happy place for me in that it’s a decent adaptation of the old Atari classic with some new visuals and new game types. Each costs 800 MS points and, as mentioned, will be good to go tomorrow.

Halo 3 fans have eagerly awaited Microsoft’s release of the “Legendary” map pack for download on April 15 (i.e. today), but the $10 pricetag might be a bit off-putting for those who don’t want to buy three new maps sight-unseen. Fear not: 1up has been playing the Legendary maps for a while now and have given some pretty thorough impressions (replete with video) and will fill in a lot of the blanks for those of you who are wondering what’s behind the curtain. Here’s a taste of what they had to say about a new map called “Avalanche”:

Helping to cut down on the long treks are two-way teleporters and lots of vehicles, including Ghosts, Warthogs, Wraiths, Scorpions, and a toned-down-and-balanced-for-multiplayer, rocket-launcher-less Hornet. (”We knew the [original] Hornet was a death machine,” says Bakken. “It wasn’t tweaked very well for multiplayer.”) The developers also removed the interior hallways that used to connect the two bases, forcing most of the conflicts outdoors. The result? The most exciting, most action-packed large-sized Halo map yet.

As a side note, the previous map pack (entitled “Heroic”) was also priced at $10 (or 800 Ms points) when it was first released, but as of the 15th will be available for free download.

Electronic Arts, publisher of the wildly successful Call of Duty 4, describes competitors’ attempts to usurp the first person shooter’s pole position as “failing to inspire”. EA marketing guy David Tyler wasn’t shy about reminding print mag MCV about who’s number one where the shooter genre is concerned: “We’re pleased to have Call of Duty 4 leading the way in the FPS genre, with recent launches such as Army of Two and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 failing to inspire.” Sure, it’s a bit like asking a Ford dealer if he likes the latest products from Honda, but EA has sold more than 1.3 copies of CoD4 in the UK alone, so he has reason to be smug. “One of the things we’ve seen is that people outside of what you’d consider ‘normal’ gamers, are actually getting into this a lot, including quite a number of celebrities.” I’m not sure what the celebrity angle is supposed to leverage for him. Personally, if I knew Tom Cruise and Steve O were on the other end of the server, I might just log off.

This piece from Eurogamer about mod support on the Xbox caught my eye, and with games like Unreal Tournament and Half Life 2 - two games with a healthy mod-making community - playing such a prominent role in the Xbox’s history (and popularity), it does give one pause to ask why it is that the Xbox doesn’t support certain kinds of user-based add-ons. Microsoft XNA general manager Chris Satchell cited several concerns with user-created mods becoming commonly supported for the Xbox, some of which included security concerns:

Really what works in this industry is the people who have access to that native metal of the console, that go through these processes, are financially invested in this industry; they wouldn’t do anything bad. Developers want to do good things because they want this industry to work. There’s a lot of people out there that just want to prove they can screw things up.

I think there’s very mature, sensible hackers who just want to prove how good they are, and they don’t cause harm, and there’s malicious hackers, and any platform that let’s you do that, and doesn’t have the right security measures in place - whether it’s Sony, whether it’s Nintendo, whether it’s Apple, whether it’s anyone - you’re inviting trouble, because sooner or later someone will want to prove they can do it.

This begs the question of whether or not Satchell is suggesting that PS3 users are exposed to security threats that the Xbox 360 is not (as there are no such restrictions on the PS3). He didn’t totally answer the question.

Bethesda’s cult-classic franchise, Fallout, will be receiving its third installment (rumored to arrive this October), and GameStop has cried “ta daaa” and shown off a special collectors’ edition for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The verrrrrry special box will include a Vault Boy Bobblehead, a hardcover art book and a making-of DVD (the box itself will be a Vault-Tech Lunch Box). According to Shacknews, the Collectors’ Edition will be $79.99 (whereas the PC version is $69.99), and the “standard” version will be $59.99 for consoles and $49.99 for PC. Shacknews also has some nice impressions in their preview of the game in case you want to get a sense of whether or not it’s good enough to fork out $79.99 to get it in a special lunchbox.

Most folks who are following emerging news about Grand Theft Auto IV will know that there are Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions on deck, and a lot of people also know that the Xbox version boasts something that the PS3 doesn’t: Downloadable content. Joystiq decided to rub some salt in Playstation 3 owners’ wounds by running a little poll to see which of the two would be the one gamers want to grab. Not surprisingly, the Xbox 360 version came out on top (capturing 58% of votes where the PS3 grabbed a more modest 42%). It’s an interesting poll, and Joystiq reports these findings:

The top reasons cited for playing Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 were achievements (24), the downloadable content (24) and more friends on Xbox Live (20). As for those who picked the PlayStation 3, the reason commenters most often gave was hardware concern for the Xbox 360 (17), either the Red Ring of Death or the loud cooling fan, especially after 100 hours of gameplay. Surprising to us was the number of people who said they didn’t care about downloadable content (10).

Personally, if I own one console or the other (few people own both) then I’d have to learn to live with the fact that certain titles that the other guy can get aren’t available to me… or aren’t available with all the same features. Obviously, if I own a PS3 I’m going to vote for the PS3 version (cause I’m gonna buy a second console to play a game I can already play on the console I have?), so I wouldn’t say the methodology was rock-solid… but it IS interesting to notice which features matter most to those who voted.

Vivendi’s upcoming Bourne Conspiracy game for Xbox will have a demo, Vivendi confirms, and it’ll appear next month around the time of the game’s release. No word on a Playstation version yet, but CVG reports that it’s on the way for Xbox and will be grabbable off the Xbox LIVE Marketplace store.

Press have been singing this song’s praises, especially in the graphics department, but it’s worth mentioning for fans of the Bourne movies: Matt Damon’s likeness wasn’t licensed for the creation of the game… so if you’re hoping to see Mr. Good Will Hunting beat someone down with a rolled-up magazine (that was awesome btw) you’ll be disappointed.

If you were listening to pop and rock in the 80’s then your life, like mine, has in some way been touched by a music legend… and that legend’s name is Motley Crüe. Their heyday may be 25 years behind us now, but they’re bringin’ The Dirt to Harmonix’ Rock Band this week when their song, “Saints of Los Angeles” is made available as downloadable content. You’ll be able to get it Tuesday on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 80 MS points. The Playstation version follows this Thursday for $0.99.

Saints of Los Angeles is off their upcoming album, The Dirt, which you’ll be able to get for yourself in June when Gen X’ers all over the world will be Shouting at the Devil.

(See what I did there?)

I just stumbled across this YouTube video, showing off the loading times in the Xbox 360 version of Sonic the Hedgehog. I know it’s an older game but I simply had to share the video, as I’ve never seen anything this bad. The video shows a gamer’s attempt to play through a mini-game where you view a stack of boxes with a fixed camera angle and have to guess the number of boxes in it, taking into account the ones you can’t see. This is already bad, a prime example of “boring mini-game filler,” but I can get over it. Unfortunately, what should be a 2 minute process is turned into an interminable ordeal by the ridiculous loading times. After accepting the mini-game, you’re treated to a 20 second loading screen so that a character can say one 3 second line, followed by another 20 second loading screen allowing you to view the boxes, followed by another 20 second loading screen so you can pick a number, followed by another 20 second loading screen so you can find out if you were correct. If you were, you get to view another stack of boxes (after a 20 second loading screen), but if you were wrong you get dumped back to the main world (after a 20 second loading screen) and have to start all over. I’ve seen bad, but… wow.

I love a happy ending.

Quick recap: Nathaniel took his XBox 360 to the shop because of Red Ring of Death issues (like so many other people do) and got it fixed. No big, at first, but this Xbox was special: The Halo team had signed it all over with personalized messages and autographs, so obviously it was of great sentimental value. Imagine the shock when Nathaniel got it back in working condition but scrubbed from top to bottom with all the signatures gone from sight. Not a happy boy.

Destructoid tells the tale of “all’s well that ends well” by talking about who stepped up to the plate to make amends:

Bungie stepped in and showered Nathaniel with a ton of Halo swag. Most people figured this would be the end of the story but it looks like Microsoft actually stepped in and made it up to Nathaniel. Microsoft sent Nathaniel a box full of awesome things. He got an Xbox 360 signed by the original RT signers, new artwork by Luke McKay, signatures from the Xbox 360 team and signatures from Bungie. The faceplate was also signed by a few others including Bill Gates himself. The package also contained:

* Devil May Cry 4
* Lost Odyssey
* Rainbow Six Vegas 2
* Gears of War
* Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
* 2 ‘What’s Your Gamerscore?’ Bumperstickers
* Xbox 360 CD Wallet
* Signed picture of Bill Gates

That signed pic of Bill Gates is gonna make him Big Man on Campus, I tell you.

A bit of news about a game I really like: Value will be dropping new content for the PC version of Team Fortress 2. Due to arrive some time around April 20, the new stuff will include unlockable weapons for the medic and a new map as well, entitled Goldrush, which will show off Ep2 cinematic physics. Also coming is a new game mode called “Payload” (where Blue Team takes a mining car full of explosives to the Red Base. As you can probably imagine, the Red Team works to stop the Blue). More weapons for other classes will be forthcoming in future downloads as well.

While we’re on the subject of TF2, I’ve been wanting to show this image off to all the TF2 players out there (mainly because those who don’t play won’t understand it much).

This is kind of weird, so stay with me.

The recent Bank of America SmidCap Conference (yeah, I’ve never heard of it either) spurned Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to give a presentation at the event about how Take-Two was going to continue telling Electronic Arts to get stuffed and that their takeover bids will garner no traction any time soon. This was presented in the form of a ridiculously boring slideshow full of graphs and charts and other things I didn’t pay attention to in high school before I quit. The gem, however, is slide 24… which suggests that Bioshock and Civilization carry pretty good value as the nuclei of successful MMO’s.

So if you wanted to get into those worlds and rock out with thousands of your close personal friends, Take-Two may have you in mind.

Supreme Commander (a darn good game, let me tell you) is making its way to Xbox 360. Many of you know that already, but what you might not know yet is that we won’t have our hands on it until this summer, according to Gamespot. The sequel to the Chris Taylor cult classic, Total Annihilation, met with good reviews on the PC side… but critics will have to keep it in park for a while longer where the Xbox is concerned:

Aspyr Media announced today that the Hellbent Games-developed Xbox 360 edition of Supreme Commander has been pushed beyond its expected March release to “later this spring or early summer.” According to an Aspyr spokesperson, the extra time in development will allow Hellbent to further improve SupCom’s gameplay on the 360. Aspyr announced in November that Hellbent would be handling console-adaptation duties for Chris Taylor’s supersized real-time strategy game.

You can get some Supreme Commander mojo over at Game Infowire where they are showing off some SC Xbox pics. It’s better than nothing.

Bungie.net showed off the new map from the soon-to-be-released Legendary Map Pack which will be coming down the pipe for Halo 3 on April 15. Entitled “Blackout”, the map goes under the microscope in this interview with several of the Bungie team, and Producer Allen Murray had this to say about what goes into a piece of work like this one.

It’s a UNSC research station set in the Arctic, and I am pretty sure that this is also where all of the R&D on military grade Otter Pop rations took place. Early on I thought it was going to be an oil derrick, but that changed over time. We have some cool racks of glacier core samples, Doppler radar and other pieces of research gear strewn about, which makes for a nice touch – and when you look up to see them make sure you notice the beautiful Aurora Borealis in the sky. There were other, more outlandish settings done in the concept phase, but we’ll keep those secret as you never know when we’ll dig into that bag and pull it out for a future project.

The Legendary pack will cost $10, but the previously released map pack (”Heroic”) will be available for free starting on the very same day.

This weekend some sites brokes some leaked screenshots from this trailer. That’s just fine, but I’m going to take my time if it’s only screenshots. I mean, with rendering tech what it is these days, those could have been from some fan-made thing. But no, the movie from official sources kind of proves it.

FINALLY! A Sonic game that captures the feeling of speed. Jeez, about time, people.

Hm, coming “soon.” Where’s the rolleyes icon…

I admit, however, the Wii guy in me wonders what’s so great here that requires the power of the XBox 360 and the PS3. I mean, how about a little Wii lovin’?

Bungie is about to drop a second map pack, entitled “Legendary” on Halo 3 fans this April 15, which will be downloadable for anyone who has the game. It’ll ring in at a cost of 800 Microsoft points (which is worth $10), but Microsoft also intends to simultaneously make the previous downloadable map pack (called “Heroic”) available for free on the same day. I don’t like paying for downloadable content for a game I’ve already bought, but I find it a bit telling that Luke Smith of Bungie doesn’t seem to either (on the company’s site he says “Remember, we just make the maps, we don’t get to price them”).

The pack includes three new multiplayer maps, one of which is a reworking of the original Halo’s Sidewinder map (which was quite popular). The other two maps, Ghost Town and Moonlight, are being kept under wraps at the moment… but they promise to be real purty.

After reporting yesterday about the pervasive and widespread problems people have been having with Rockstar’s Bully: Scholarship Edition for the Xbox (including freezing and abysmal frame rates), Rockstar stepped up to the plate and spoke to Kotaku about it.

We have just become aware of the issues people are having with Bully Scholarship Edition on Xbox 360. It appears that some older 360s are experiencing framerate issues, freezes and other problems. You have our word that we never experienced any of this in QA - in any of our offices or at Microsoft. I am horrified, and we are now working around the clock to rectify this situation. Thanks to Neo-Gaf for bringing this matter to our attention. We love our games and put a huge amount of energy and care into making them all that they can be. We would never shove anything out the door - we never have and never will. We apologise to everyone affected for the inconvenience. Respectfully, Sam Houser

I don’t want to be overly cynical (especially because I really respect it when a company just comes out and apologizes for a screwup rather than trying to white-wash it… particularly when it’s done in such a sincere way as this), but I can’t help but think “that’s all fine and well, but what about my game?” When they say they’ll rectify it, do they mean in the form of a downloadable patch? A trade-in program? I sure hope it isn’t just “We’re really sorry and we want you to know we feel your pain” and nothing else.

Oh, and Microsoft? It wouldn’t kill you to say something contrite right about now, either.

An XBox 360 price cut? Yes please. MCV is reporting that a drop is planned for the Xbox 360 pricetag, presumably to allow the lower-end Xbox model (the Arcade) to compete more directly with Nintendo’s Wii. The new price of the Arcade would be in the area of £170 (~$340 USD) from a previous £199, but it’s not yet clear if this price drop will run the whole gamut: “It is unknown if Microsoft’s other Xbox 360 SKUs, the Premium pack and the Xbox 360 Elite, would enjoy similar price drops. However, the platform holder introduced a simultaneous price cut on more than one model in August last year.”

News about Blu-Ray overtaking HD DVD as the Ultimate Warrior of Destiny has been pretty thoroughly documented, and now the inevitable vanishing of HD DVD devices has begun: Gizmodo reports that Microsoft has k-lined their HD DVD version of the Xbox 360. They’ll still support your console if you’re one of those poor saps who got an HD DVD model, but don’t be so sure you can move to a Blu-Ray Xbox just yet; nothing has been announced and, as Gizmodo explains, it’s hard to get the cost of a Blu-Ray add-on down to a manageable price for consumers… especially when the PS3 does it for $399.

News about this has been going around for a few days, but we wanted to make sure you heard it from GameLedge’s mouth: Gears of War 2 is officially announced and coming to the Xbox 360 (as if everyone was expecting it to be a Commodore 64 exclusive, but whatever). Epic’s Mark Rein is (predictably) ecstatic about the upcoming title and shared a few thoughts on the subject with Kotaku:

Yes, we’re doing Gears of War 2! Did you ever doubt that? It’s been in development since before Gears of War 1 shipped… We had an executive review the other day and I can tell you it is definitely more badass. It’s really good. One thing I can say is that compared to where we were in the February before we shipped the last Gears, the game is in phenomenal shape. There are some good surprises for people.

Nice to hear they’re turning up the “badass” dial. Otherwise, that quote kinda says… absolutely nothing.

Just when you think there’s nothing left in the Xbox bag of schadenfreude, a story like this comes along: The Red Ring of Death (an Xbox 360-specific phenomenon where the unit suddenly dies and only shows 3/4 of a red circle on the front panel) plagued a company called XNA at this year’s GDC… and Gaming Today is not only there, but they’re there with video cameras rolling. The link leads to a short blurb about demonstration Xbox units going belly-up on the show floor and a brief movie in which one of the XNA guys squeezes some restrained words through his teeth about how it’s “pretty embarrassing”.

To be honest, the article is a tad “much ado about nothing” in the sense that you don’t see floor models keeling over everywhere at the show… but the Red Ring is a persistent thorn in Xbox 360-owners’ sides and causes plenty of complicated problems for them (while covered by standard warrantee, the RRoD resets the machine in such a way that all Xbox Live games you’ve downloaded and paid for revert to demo mode). Microsoft still (still) hasn’t come up with a viable way to transform this issue from a big-P “Problem” into a little-p “problem”. Here’s hoping it won’t be something they only take care of for the Xbox Mk III.

Addendum (excerpt from a chat I had with Kit Pierce this afternoon):

Kit Pierce: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gaming/xbox-360-failure-rate-30-says-retailers-271487.php 30% is not much ado about nothing.
Corey Tamas: So be it
Corey Tamas: I was referring specifically to how many were dying on the floor. I didn’t want to give the impression that all the Xboxes at GDC were going up in smoke.
Kit Pierce: I’m going back to work now.

A little hard to believe? Maybe… but sales figures show that Sony’s Playstation 3 has pegged the 10 million mark… four months ahead of the XBox 360. Folks who remember the PS3 launch a couple of years back will recall that it didn’t have the most auspicious start: Not that many kickass games, and the ones they had were delayed considerably… Nintendo coming out of left field with the spunky Wii to make the PS3 look bloated and mirthless by comparison… and let’s not forget the insanely high price of $600+. As time went by, however, Sony fought back… reduced the feature bloat, dropped the price, pushed some nifty titles out the door and beat their marketing department with frozen garden hoses until they got results. The Xbox also had a few problems (*cough*redringofdeath*cough*) that may have put a bit of a dent in their sales and gave Sony a bit of a boost in that area.

Wanna see some official-looking chart type stuff? If it’s on the internet, it must be true!

Despite the fact that I am sick of editing images which either feature an Xbox or the Microsoft Logo (for today, anyhow), I think you all need to hear about the possibility of a new Xbox Live that’s rumored to, well… not suck as much as the current one. The rumor is sparked by a job listing from Microsoft which states: “Want to be involved in the next release of Xbox? Join the server-backed games team, part of the Xbox Live team that’s responsible for creating a completely new way for mainstream audiences to enjoy the Xbox and Live.” It goes on to say “We’re building the games, the console interface and logic, and the server support for a totally new Live experience. Both the games and the dashboard experience will be deeply paired with dynamic server support to create a compelling, fresh scenario each time” and “We are looking for a passionate games producer to help implement our first generation games that will run in this new environment.”

Naturally, this has all the Xbox fanboys by the short and curlies… and why not? It could possibly signify some new directions for Microsoft and their popular but beleaguered Xbox Live system.

Most Xbox 360 users and enthusiasts have heard about (or experienced) what’s sometimes referred to as the “Red Ring of Death”; a common condition where the Xbox 360 unit breaks down and displays 3/4 of a red ring around the start button. While the Red Ring of Death problem is covered under standard Warrantee, the complicated issue around the RRoD stems from the fact that once the problem is fixed the unit no longer plays games which have been acquired through Xbox Live (Microsoft’s online service which sells games over the net to Xbox 360 owners). Fixing the RRoD apparently resets or changes the serial number of the device, which trips the machine’s DRM alerts - in essence, making the Xbox think that the downloaded content on the hard drive was not downloaded by that particular owner and, therefore, isn’t legally theirs… rendering all that legally acquired software as useless.

Consumerist follows the story of one reader who had exactly this problem and the harrowing process he went through to try and resolve it. The step-by-step tale of woe basically goes like this:

-November 2007: Kevin’s XBOX 360 is replaced, causing his content to lose full functionality. He calls Microsoft.
- Microsoft keeps Kevin on the phone for an hour trying different methods of restoring functionality to his content. Nothing works. They say they will call him back in two weeks.
- They do not call him back, so he calls them. Microsoft makes him repeat the steps he tried the first time he called. They tell him they will call him back in two weeks.
- This cycle repeats twice more before Kevin gets a call from Frank at XBOX escalations. It’s now the second week of January.
- Kevin periodically speaks to Frank. Frank has no answers for him.
- February 7, 2008: Frank tells Kevin that there’s nothing more he can do and, when Kevin asks when he can expect a resolution, Frank says “hopefully sometime in 2008.”

Stories like this seem to be quite common where the Xbox 360 is concerned, and anyone who owns that machine may want to give the Consumerist’s feature a looksee in order to know what they may be up against if the RRoD situation ever happens to them.

File this under “pure awesome”; do-it-yourselfer Ben Heck has actually turned an Xbox 360 Elite into a laptop… case and screen and everything. Pictures and video at Engadget show off a somewhat homely but entirely workable laptop concept, and even shows you how: “Luckily for us lay-people, he’s included a graphic breakdown of just about every step on the road to a portable Xbox 360, replete will all the case cracking, innards opening, wire splaying photos you could possibly want or need.” It’s no MacBook Air, but… if you wanted to play games then you weren’t thinking about getting one of those anyhow.

The story about how people are trying to sue Microsoft for the Xbox Life’s failure to let them play online as much as they thought they should be able to is well documented on the net lately, but four gamers from Texas are now filing a class action lawsuit on the matter. MTV news reports that Jason Gibson, lawyer to the four whelps who are suing, has a few things to say on the matter.

“When you have one person who is mad and they can’t get a response, and they can’t get their complaints addressed by a company like Microsoft, the only way to get their attention is in numbers,” Gibson said. He said the company had to have known what was going to happen with the Xbox Live overload. “If they had not anticipated the sales, then they would not have put out that many units of the Xbox to begin with.” Last week, Microsoft announced that Live had reached 10 million subscribers and claimed record-setting revenue for consoles sold in 2007, covering strong sales through the holiday season. Gibson said that proves Microsoft’s priorities were out of order.

As much as I like to make fun of people who sue Microsoft over the inability to play video games, this lawyer has a point: Did Microsoft just think all those people would wait till spring to go online? Or not go online at all? Claims from Redmond that they couldn’t anticipate the demand are kinda silly.

There’s an ongoing problem that a lot of us have heard about (and many, many of us have seen) with the Xbox 360 where you end up seeing the “Red Ring of Death” (the name for every technology problem is always “…of Death”; that part is non-negotiable). It appears to be a problem with the stuff that’s used to glue the heat sinks to the CPU. When this happens, you get the RRoD — when three quarters of the “on” light glow red and the Xbox doesn’t want to work anymore. Microsoft is pretty tight-lipped about the specifics of what causes it but, to their credit, they’re good about replacing or repairing the units that bite the biscuit this way. Unfortunately, the Xbox DRM system is screwed up; the games you buy on Xbox Arcade will often vanish or revert to trial versions (even if they’re paid for) after repairs to fix the RRoD are done. I found an interesting blog entry which talks about it and how it gets fixed.

How is this getting resolved? You’re going to love this.

First, you have to create a new gamer profile and make it an Xbox Live “Silver” membership. It’s free to create that new profile since the “Silver” membership is free, but there is a heck of a lot of data entry for contact information, not to mention the fact you need to give it an email address and password so it can sign on - just like a real profile. The representatives on the phone will tell you it doesn’t matter what email address you give it, but from experience I know they send account notices and such to that email address, so it should probably be legitimate. Of course, that means if you don’t have your own domain and/or can’t figure out how to set up email address forwarding then you’ll need to create a new, dummy Hotmail account or something. Super convenient.

Once you have the dummy gamer profile set up, Microsoft will credit that account with enough credits to go in and re-purchase all of the games you previously had unlocked. Getting that credit to come through takes eight-to-ten business days.

Even now, Microsoft still hasn’t fixed the DRM issue which locks people out from games for which they’ve paid. We aren’t officially telling anyone not to use Xbox Marketplace to buy games, but only to be aware that, although the RRoD problem is usually repaired without much hassle, the DRM problem exists and support and/or compensation from Microsoft for lost content is reportedly very bad. Mazeltov.

We’ve been making jokes at the expense of the ever-delayed Duke Nukem Forever that we sometimes forget its predecessor, Duke Nukem 3D, was one of the greatest shooters ever created. Now there’s a possibility we may end up playing it again on Xbox Live; according to Ign.com, George Broussard has suggested that his studio (3D Realms) would create a version of the acclaimed Duke game for Xbox Live, and this Monday sources close to 3D Realms confirmed kinda-but-not-totally-on-the-record that it’s a done deal and should appear in the next several months. Wanna hear the cool part? “And best of all, it’ll feature a four-player online cooperative mode over Live. Insiders also allege that it will boast an eight-player online deathmatch mode.”

I’m so happy to hear about this that I’m going to hold off my Duke Nukem Forever jokes until the next time the subject comes up. And for me, that’s really something which requires a lot of will power.

Again with the Goldeneye XBL thing: Kotaku reports that Microsoft lays the blame squarely on Nintendo for the cancelation of Goldeneye for Xbox Live. Straight from the “Big Surprise There” department, Microsoft spoke to Kotaku, and had a few interesting words about the matter…

Sources within Microsoft who were very close to the project (and who also pointed us towards the above, alleged screen) have told us the game was canned not because of disagreements between the two parties, but because of Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata, who believes that, as a title which appeared on a Nintendo console, GoldenEye shouldn’t be made available on a competitor’s system.

I’m not saying Nintendo is necessarily going to stand as the paragon of altruism and generosity, but I wouldn’t quite buy this one at face value. It’s rather like going to a Ford dealer and asking them whether Ford or Honda makes better cars; you can sorta guess the answer before it comes out of his mouth.

In a very entertaining and informative article, Gaming Today looks at the 12,000 word Xbox Live Terms of Service Agreement and distills it down to a brief article that explains how Microsoft, as always, pretty much has you by the thumbsticks. The catalyst for this descent into legal gobbledygook is the stuttering, patchy service provided by Xbox Live ever since (let’s just say it) Halo 3 came out. This slowdown has prompted a lot of very serious gamers to shake their fists and threaten lawsuits (for our own editorial spin on that kind of thinking, click here). Gaming Today holds a candle for the common gamer but finds, before long, that it snuffs right out:

…But then we reach clause #16 which takes the issue and just slaughters any argument to the contrary. (It was also at this point that I went insane.) The clause, in its entirety, reads:

16. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY
We provide the Service “as-is,” “with all faults” and “as available.” The Microsoft Parties give no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that this contract cannot change. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, workmanlike effort and non-infringement.

This is a pretty darn good article and also very informative about just what you’ve gotten yourself into by plopping your headphones onto your head and diving into your favorite Halo map.

Portal is a bit like Radiohead; sure, you occasionally meet people who don’t like Radiohead… but they’re so few and far between that it really underlines just how many people love Radiohead. Ask yourself: Have you ever met someone who played Portal and didn’t like it? A few of you might say yes, but I’ll bet none of you say “I meet someone who dislikes Portal every day”.

As it is with most things we like, we wonder what comes next… even if the thing we like wouldn’t necessarily benefit from “more”. This is how we ended up with two Matrix sequels. Anyhow… Joystiq is asking today: Should we have a Portal sequel, or is it better to leave it as it is? Getting inspiration from MTV (and there’s a phrase you won’t hear very often around here), Joystiq poses the question to its commenters for feedback, asking “But what do you think? Do you believe Valve should leave well enough alone? Or do you think it needs another slice?”

Last week we reported that Goldeneye for Xbox Live was canceled, primarily due to the fact that Microsoft and Nintendo couldn’t figure out how to divide up the money (ok… maybe “primarily” is the wrong word; it’s more like “entirely”). Since then, sweet, innocent and wide-eyed gamers all over have begun to chant the common mantra that gets chanted every time something happens that they don’t like: “Petition”. It’s adorable, really.

The truth of the matter is that in the 10-or-so years I’ve been reporting on game cancelations of one sort or another, I have yet to see a petition bring a game back from the dead. It’s great to have that plucky never-say-die attitude, but more than one publisher has told me that petitions are an annoyance (at best). In fact, sometimes petitions confirm the decision to cancel a game when they see only enough signatures to compose a fraction of the total numbers needed to buy the game and make it financially viable. Yet, the phenomenon repeats itself: Gamers fall in love with their favorite games and begin to feel a sense of ownership where there is none, and that attitude gives them a skewed perspective which makes them think that the consumer wanting a product is the only consideration in getting made. Even more erroneous: They often misjudge the scale of the market and their contextual influence, thus thinking that a hundred to a thousand signatures on a petition adds up to critical mass. Look, I’m an eternal optimist myself… but optimism is best when tempered with a little knowledge. Otherwise, I think we call that naiveté.

On a personal note, I think that if you can get off your ass to gather up all your little buddies and make a petition to get an antiquated N64 game made for the Xbox then you can probably spare the time to raise awareness about, oh… I don’t know… literacy, hunger, poverty… you know. Stuff that’s almost as important.

Team Fortress 2 fans will be happy to know that two new maps for Valve’s awesome Team Fortress 2 will be released in the next two months or so. One map is reportedly a remake of the old “Badlands” map from days of yore. Shacknews spoke to Valve guy Robin Walker and he claimed we’d see the maps within 60 days, but “We expect to ship other new content before that.” The content of which he speaks is a new “Medic achievement pack” which gives the Medic more achievements and some gameplay changes (Walker reports all classes will get buffed the same way eventually). Shacknews goes on to mention that Walker confirms these maps for PC, but can’t say yet whether we’ll see them on the Xbox or PS3 versions.

An Xbox Live version of the classic N64 shooter, Goldeneye, seemed like such a great idea… but, alas, was not meant to be. It really was in development but, according to Kotaku, Microsoft and Nintendo couldn’t agree on how to split up the profits and they k-lined it. 1up.com and Kotaku both seem to think that complaining loudly will make it come back, but I wouldn’t be so optimistic. Anyhow, 1up goes a bit more in depth about what happened and adds their moaning to the pile.

Kind of a shame tho.

Stories like this seem to be all over the place lately; Microsoft contacted the Editor in Chief of GamePartisan to ask them to drop writer Ben Paddon to “remove any potential sources of contention” between the site and Microsoft. Paddon wrote an editorial about his experiences with Xbox Live and how he was unable to use it overseas (you should just read the editorial to get the whole story), and Microsoft didn’t particularly care for his take on the matter. Paddon went on to blog about his experience and, as you can imagine, isn’t very happy.

…I’m not sure what DeViney’s answer was exactly, but the general jist of it from what I’ve heard is that he told them to take their hand and go f*** themselves.

Not content with denying me my request to be able to, y’know, pay for my Xbox Live services, they’ve now taken to flat-out attacking me by trying to lose me a writing job. Well, no. I’m very thankful that DeViney has decided to back me on this one…

I don’t like to be the one to throw cold water on the mushy-mushy feelings everyone has for Microsoft and Bill Gates after this week’s CES show in Las Vegas where Gates retired and everyone joined hands and sang Kumbayah to celebrate the life’s work of the man who gave us The Blue Screen of Death, but… it’s good to remember that Microsoft is still pretty good at, well, being Microsoft.

You know… I’m the one who wrote the title and even I can’t totally grasp what I’m reading.

The idea, if I understand correctly, is that there’s a lot of racism and racist comments happening on Xbox Live (gosh… I can’t imagine), and Dr. Phil has some input on the matter about how to respond, what’s in and what’s out of bounds, and apparently has even advocated on behalf of an african-American gamer directly to Microsoft.

We explained to them that you have filed multiple complaints. You have the numbers; you have the tagline of the people who are doing this sort of thing, so Microsoft has said they are going to set up with [you] one of their security team members, and they are going to discuss this investigation regarding your complaints and try to get the ball rolling. So we have gotten them, at least, to assign an investigator specific to you, so they can sit down and start this ball rolling.

I don’t totally get it… but I’m gonna tell you that anyone who makes an attempt to stuff a cork in the mouth of racist idiots gets a thumbs-up from me. I just never thought I’d have opportunity to create a “Dr. Phil” tag here at GameLedge.

I had to read this one a couple of times to see if I had it right: Xbox 360 Fanboy is reporting that Microsoft, Bungie, and the US Army are planning to get recruits from the best of the best at the first ever Halo 3 Championship Tournament this April. What’s kinda cool about it is that registration will open in March and there will actually be classes and training to help get players into shape, including Sniper School (which is now open), Heavy Weapons on Feb 9, and Vehicles on March 1. That does sound pretty cool. Here’s the part I’m not sure I totally get…

Finally, the US Army will be sponsoring a Destination Experience site on Xbox Live that will serve up videos, tips and expert Halo 3 advice. Get in on the action by registering for Sniper School right now, join all the other events through March, learn to pwn like a pro and come April you’ll have a chance to prove yourself in the online tournament. We expect that you’ll do just fine.

I’m not sure how that’s all supposed to work out, but I do know one thing: I don’t think I want US Army recruits to be under the impression that putting as many grenades as you can under a personnel transport vehicle to see how high in the air you can make it fly is a good idea.

NVIDIA is giving away a free copy of Portal: First Slice to its customers. Simple as that. It’s an extended demo of Valve’s everyoneisinlovewithit game and can be nabbed by having a Steam account. There’s nothing to it; head over to Steampowered.com and click.

It’s a great game. You won’t regret it.

I’m actually getting a bit sick of “Blu-ray this, Blu-ray that”, but there’s no denying that it’s a news story when Microsoft decides to throw in their hat. Albert Penello, Microsoft’s director of global marketing, reportedly told Betanews that they could possibly decide to create an external Blu-ray player if that does, in fact, become the standard. According to Betanews, “He admitted that Sony’s inclusion of Blu-ray in the PlayStation 3 has helped that format, but said Microsoft’s add-on HD DVD drive alone has outsold all standalone Blu-ray players combined.” There’s no ignoring the fact that Microsoft admitting that Blu-ray might be worth supporting comes as a kick in the nards for the Big Company from Redmond, and that every single public word they utter about the format will be bookended by two comments about how awesome they are for previously supporting HD DVD, but the news is still good if they end up making it possible for Xbox 360 owners to keep step with PS3 folks where cutting-edge technology is concerned.

Namco has announced the console-specific characters that will be appearing in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Soulcalibur IV.

The PS3 version of the game will feature a playable Darth Vader, while the Xbox 360 version will allow gamers to play as Jedi Master Yoda. Namco has included characters from other games ever since Soulcalibur II, which featured Link, Spawn, and Heihachi Mishima (from Tekken) on the Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 ports respectively. Soulcalibur III was only ported to the PS2, but the create-a-character mode allowed you to make lookalikes of KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga series and Arthur from Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, amongst others.

Screenshots of the two in action after the jump.

There’s a rumor floating around that Goldeneye 007, which many consider one of the best FPS games ever (and easily the best on the Nintendo 64) might be hitting XBox LIVE Arcade along with a few other Rareware titles.

XBox Evolved apparently spoke with “very reliable sources” who revealed that Microsoft and Rareware are talking with MGM Studios and Activision (who hold the movie and game licenses, respectively, for the James Bond franchise) to update and rerelease Goldeneye 007 on XBLA. The update will feature new and better graphics and, of course, Xbox LIVE multiplayer action.

If the prospect of having proximity-mine-only battles with people around the globe doesn’t excite you enough, there are also apparently plans to have Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie on your 360. I cannot be excited enough about this.

At this juncture it’s only a rumor, but there’s talk going around of a Bioshock prequel. Next-Gen.biz has a piece about the next chapter of the successful X Box shooter, and how we may be going back in time a little to take a look at the underwater city of Rapture. Set for a possible 200 release, Take-Two has suggested that the franchise could see a new installment every two years.

Another rumor based around Take-Two job postings suggests the title will primarily be developed at the publisher’s recently formed 2K Marin studio, while it has also been speculated that BioShock creator and director Ken Levine will not be involved in the project.

You can get the whole story over at Next-Gen… but it’s the kind of rumor that makes us all warm and squishy inside.

Wired Blogs has dropped this juicy tidbit onto the internet for all to see.

Turns out that, despite Microsoft’s insistence that XBox Live is completely secure, the evidence is clear: it’s not. A hacker snuck into the system and walked away with some rare armor awarded to players as a gift directly from Microsoft or Bungie.

What good is something like this? Can you wear it in-game without being found out and shut down? Oh, and another thing, so frickin’ what? Dude, just because you wheedled a virtual costume away from another gamer doesn’t mean you’re still not going to get your armor-plated butt handed to you in-game. Tool.

Oh my! Where did that come from? My inner smack is trying to get out, apparently.

Anyway, the whole skinny is here for your perusal.

VRX Industries Ltd. has announced the VRX MACH 4, which had better be the ultimate racing simulation because I’m not sure how it could get better.

Designed solely for Forza Motorsport 2, this bad boy features four Xbox 360s powering four screens: three 37″ LCDs showing the left, center, and right views and one small 7″ display showing the rear view. There’s also a surround sound system with subwoofer, a tactile vibration feedback system, a virtual wind system with two fans, and of course two pedals and a real steering wheel.

I don’t even like racing games and I can’t even begin to describe how badly I want this. There’s no pricing information, but you can email them from their website to inquire about sales.

Hudson Entertainment has announced a new tournament taking place on Xbox LIVE.

Players have to attempt to get on the Week Ranked Friendly Fire Leaderboard by participating in the new Friendly Fire game mode, which is available in the download Bomb-Up Pack 3 add-on. The grand prize winner will receive 100,000 Microsoft Points, worth about $1,250. There’s also a sweepstakes where you can win, like, a t-shirt or a sweater or something. I’m not sure why you’d bother.

Check this link if you like blowing up tiny, cute little men and think you can do it better than anyone else!

Microsoft has announced that Bungie has released the much-awaited map pack