The black Xbox cases

With the announcement of the special edition of Fable 3, i've begun to notice a trend with the special Xbox editions of games.

On one hand the black case shows you spent the extra money to get the special edition goodies rather than just the game. Alan Wake and Halo Reach are also retailing a black case with their special editions, possibly this is only available for Xbox Exclusive games. Only time will verify if that is true.

However, being that Microsoft is not one to manufacture for novelty, this black case offers a possible hint toward the future of Xbox. Since the special editions with this black case cost more, the special editions have been called into question as a test of how much people will pay for a game. Indeed when the next generation started, the game case design was changed and raised from $50 to $60 retail.

Going back to the fact that Microsoft doesn't manufacture for novelty, it's a possibility that the black case is what the next generation of games for the new Xbox console will look like.

Think about it, Nintendo only made a red case for the New Super Mario Brothers. No other game, Nintendo does make special cases to manufacture unique items, but that definitive Mario title has now called for the successor to the Wii. Microsoft on the other hand, if they don't release a slim xbox 360 this year, is making these black cases for a reason. All the different versions of the Xbox just have a different harddrive, redesigning the whole xbox would help the red ring of death issue. But Microsoft is content with a universal design for its line of gear, and won't change it (even if the controller's D-pad is disliked very much).

So when I saw the black case for Halo Reach, it surprised me Microsoft would make special cases for the game. However it is the last Halo title for Bungie, so Microsoft may have gone for significance in this move. Lets be honest, they aren't that far into their own products. When Alan Wake and now Fable 3 showed this case, it shows me Microsoft mainstreamed this black case. Why?

Perhaps the larger amount of Special Edition purchases, incentivized by this black case now represents the arrival of the next generation. The next xbox line will have these black cases, and since we had no problem paying over retail for the special editions, these black cased next gen xbox games (for whatever they call the next xbox) will be $70.

That's just my theory, to me it makes sense.

X10: Fable III didn't really piss me off

Peter Molyneux said before X10 rolled around that what he was showing about Fable III at X10 would get people "super pissed"

Kind of a bold statement to make about your game. If you're making a game that people are going to be pissed off about, then how could it possibly be good? I mean, it was obviously just a marketing ploy for people to check out what he was showing at the event, but instead of getting pissed off I found myself more interested in what he did end up showing.

The first thing he showed was a set of six new screenshots:


The game is set 10 years after Fable II, with you taking the reins as the son of Fable II's main character. Save data from Fable II could be imported to change the game slightly, but Molyneux went on to say it wouldn't be necessary, and the changes wouldn't be incredibly significant.

About halfway through the story, you will become the ruler of Albion, and this will play a much bigger role in your relationship with the town. Followers will become your new form of currency, and you will have to face many tough choices, which will leave you with either many or little followers.

There's also a new "Touch" system that people have been comparing to ICO, and I can definitely see the similarity. As you progressively become more comfortable with a character, you will be able to go from a handshake, to a hug, to a kiss, etc.

Another thing Molyneux talked about was the weapon morphing system. Over time, depending on your actions in-game, your weapon will change over time, becoming more accustomed to your character and it will change, just like your character has changed in the past two games.

All of that seems great, but I think we're missing the part that's supposed to make us super pissed off. Well, Fable III is NOT AN RPG! Apparently there will be no XP, no glowing orbs, no leveling up no health bar, no red edge-of-the-screen effect to show you're about to die, none of that! In fact, Molyneux has stated that there will be no HUD elements in the game. Honestly, I'm not really pissed off about it, and it's hard to imagine many people being super pissed by it. This is quite surprising, and definitely turns the game into something much different, and something much better in this writer's opinion.

Overall, I'm pretty excited by what Fable III has to offer, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops in the following months till the game's release in Q4 2010. Until then, I'll watch the new set of Lionhead Developer Diaries. You can find the first one Here, just be sure not to get too pissed off about anything while watching it.

The Who to Have Super Bowl S-Mashup in the Rock Band Music Store

Well folks, it's Super Bowl Sunday, and while I normally don't follow sports, this story flows over well enough into video games that I felt it was relevant.

As we all should know, The Who is preforming live at the Super Bowl Halftime show this year. Harmonix is getting in on the deal by releasing a specially recorded version of the performance The Who plan to play, and they're releasing it directly after the Super Bowl!

They have announced on the official forums that it will be available for 160 MS Points on the Xbox 360, and $1.99 on the Wii... The PS3 version is said to be "coming soon" which I'm guessing is going to be the standard Thursday update for PSN.

This is rather surprising that they're releasing it on Sunday. Besides the 20 free DLC songs, which didn't really have a definitive release date, this is a first for Harmonix, and it'll be interesting to see if they do any more of this kind of thing in the future.

Xbox Live Discontinues Original Xbox support, Increased Friend Cap a Possiblity?

Marc Whitten, Xbox Live's General Manager has recently posted a blog over at the Xbox 360 Press website.

He has stated that on April 15th, 2010 Support for Original Xbox games, played through either off of a disc, or through the Xbox Originals service will no longer work on Xbox Live.

The main reason for this has not been stated specifically, but he goes on to say that they will continue to evolve the features of the service, and they need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with Original Xbox games.

I'm just taking a wild guess here and saying that the main change he's referring to is the 100 friend cap on games with a built-in friends list like Halo 2. If so, I would definitely not mind having a higher friends list cap, seeing as how the 100 friend limit has kind of become a burden on me a number of times.

He also mentions something about Natal support with Xbox Live, and I have to imagine that will be something big. I guess we'll just have to wait till more details get trickled out. Until then, you can check out the original article Here.

Leave your consoles home when flying

I've gotten into the habit of bringing handhelds or game consoles with me on a trip, short one day trips seeing as I value the idea of getting away from gaming on longer vacations. However, I can understand someone bringing their consoles with them, but you might wanna consider leaving any console you have home.

Seems that technology as "advanced" as the Xbox 360 is a flight risk, until they take it apart.

Apparently airport security takes apart things to find CPU sized explosives hiding in game consoles, and decided to rip out components of the noted Xbox 360. As much as that is drawing the line of paranoia, those security guards seem to make quicker work of the 360 than the Texas repair center does. (Okay, bad joke.)

So, as a warning to gamers out there. If you plan on flying and desire to take your gaming devices with you, do as Kotaku columnist Luke Plunkett says in this article. Carry on luggage only.

So you could fit a Nintendo Wii in your carry on, maybe your Xbox if you don't even have carry on luggage. I think that might raise a red flag to security though, and a "fat" PS3 certainly isn't going to fit in there.

Razer's Xbox 360 Controller

Kotaku's Brian Crecente was drooling over Razer's new $50 Xbox Controller, a modified design with the start and back buttons being placed on the bottom. The D pad was also supposedly improved, I clicked the article thinking to myself there is no way I would b-



.....

W-Wow, I actually like this. It's wired, which seems like a step back but dang it reminds me of the original Xbox controller look. I might actually consider grabbing one of these when it comes out.

Microsoft talks Project Natal at CES 10

This year's Consumer Electronics Show has gone underway, and what a way to start off the year of 2010 (which I am now just going to be calling "the future") than with a presentation about the most futuristic piece of hardware coming out, Natal.

I watched a few different videos that you can take a look at below:

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

I really appreciate them diving more into the technology front in their explanations, even if they didn't dive too deep. It's understandable, however, since they don't want other companies like Sony or Nintendo stealing their technology. at the very least not until theirs is released. Which is something else that he announced at the keynote speech. The release date for Natal is this Holiday, 2010.

I'm personally very excited for Natal, even though I am still a tiny bit skeptical. It definitely seems like they've been working on smoothing things out since E3, and if nothing else works as good as it should, I'd at least like to be able to navigate my Xbox's menus using my hands.

Here's to you, Project Natal, and here's to the future of gaming, and really, entertainment.

Xbox 360's flood Craigslist

Take heed for those wishing to get a 360 on the cheap if they don't have one, or had enough with their RROD'd version. Avoid Craigslist.

Icrontic made me aware that due to the oncoming ban for modded 360's, you might notice more cheap 360's on craiglist

Selling for as low as $90 may be tempting, and if you have no intent on playing on Xbox Live be my guest. But if you want to connect to Xbox Live, cheaper does not always mean good value in this case.

Take a Look at This Ugly-Ass Xbox 360 Controller

I originally saw this posted over at Kotaku, and I just thought I'd share it with you all. Look at this awful looking Xbox 360 Controller they're releasing:



Not only does this thing look like Spiderman and Venom had creepy disturbing sex and popped this thing out, but it also seems like it has some sort of texture on the black parts but not the red parts. That makes me think holding the thing would be kinda awkward.

What are they asking for this montrosity, you ask? It comes bundled with a Play & Charge Kit for $70!! Kind of outrageous, if you ask me.

More Left 4 Dead 2 content news

Joystiq's overview of Dark Carnival Gameplay

Left 4 Dead 2 has been debated for being released too early, most of us at Geeksquisite think quite the opposite.

So with Jostiq's hands on experience of the Dark Carnival level I gleaned a few nice things to look forward to in Left 4 Dead 2 within their article.

First, we were introduced -- rather suddenly -- to a brand new special type of Infected, the Jockey. The Jockey is a small hunchbacked creature pulled straight out of Frankenstein's laboratory, complete with a crazy little laugh. True to his name, once the Jockey gets close enough, he will jump on a survivor's back and proceed to ride him.

This reminds me of the feature in the Activision Spiderman game, based on the movie, where you could jump and pound on the head of a criminal as he runs around the room. I'm sure the Jockey's actions will be similar, and be an annoying Pain in the Ass to kill as well as something entertaining to watch your fellow players go through.

We also are told there is a katana which seems an unusual and unfair advantage to survivors. But Joystiq maintains it doesn't:

Of course, running around with a melee weapon does limit your ability to help teammates escape from the Horde and special Infected, so you might want to keep a decent long range weapon as a backup

Zombies aren't exactly going to care if their arms are cut off.

A few other details: There's a new magnum pistol that downs enemies in a single shot (and blows holes clean through them). There is a grenade launcher available too, though we never actually saw it.

Sweet, I love the molotovs and pipe bombs, but we need some tools like the grenade launcher to make the body parts fly off the infected. Remember kids, hurting people is wrong but zombies make a nice tossed salad of limbs. HAZZAH!

I cannot wait for this game.

Geeksquisite Diary 8/31/09: New XBOX 360 ELITE

A few of the DVD's I've bought over the course of the last few weeks. Also I just bought and XBOX 360 ELITE. WOOTS

New Left 4 Dead DLC

campaign and survival related

Coming on the heels of Left 4 Dead 2, new DLC!

A new Campaign titled Crash Course and its new environments being available for survival mode. PC users get it for free, but Xbox 360 owners must fork over 560 microsoft points to have it.

It is good to know Left 4 Dead isn't going to phase out anytime soon when Left 4 Dead 2 is upon us. If the DLC is as decent as this from now on, Left 4 Dead will definitely be a game to go back to.

Xbox 360 outselling the Atari 2600..So?

the significance of John Lucas's words

I recently came upon this article and really understood the significance of it, but to put it at face value the Xbox outsold or will outsell the Atari 2600 and be the biggest selling American born console.

the Atari 2600 hasn't been made since 1992, and Atari is defunct except as a publisher. So the comparison seems pointless, considering that Atari sold a similar amount of consoles in 4 times the amount of years the Xbox 360 has existed. Many reason that because there are more gamers, and gaming being a mainstream, that is nothing to celebrate about. Indeed, Nintendo has dwarfed Xbox 360 even though it isn't an American born creation, and the Xbox 360 is built in China anyway.

The Atari 2600 is Taiwan made, so what makes the Xbox 360 any less American than say Sony's PS3 is to its loyal fans and roots in Japan? Nothing because Japan sees a loyalty to the PS3 even though its also made in China. We should never consider manufacturing as the roots of a product, merely as an effigy of the designs. I have grown to be insulted by the comment of being a fanboy, and in this I am not really a fanboy as I am a loyal American to buy into the gaming market of Xbox from Microsoft. I won't pretend that the 33 percent failure rate and Red Ring of Death misery to Xbox owners doesn't hurt the console's image, especially considering that Atari 2600's almost never failed to work. But as technology grows, this comparision seems extreme since the current generation is more failure prone than past generations.

This being said, the highest selling American game console is also currently leading the console wars with Sony extremely close behind. It is amazing that a console with bad history in terms of its overheating problems will likely be cemented in history, and is still trying to make history with Natal. Something that may detail its epic presence in the face of its flaws.

Battlefield 1943 Demo Impressions

In the Xbox Live Arcade store, 1200 points is expensive, and the game better be really good to earn that price. There is a very big judgement difference between a game worth 800 points and one worth 1200, Battlefield 1943 is a heavily online multiplayer oriented game. So how does it shape up?

Battlefield is actually pretty damn decent, so decent that the only reason it is not on my hard drive is because I am not fiscally sound at the moment. It is that good, especially considering it turns something as simple as a 3 island area into a fun and chaotic warfare ground.

With the ability to choose what type of soldier you want to be, there are different weapons given to you with different strengths. Your character can drive turret mounted vehicles around the island, and when neither plane, boat or bridge exists you can simply swim across to another island. The planes are especially regarded as fun by most players, so fun that I could not ever get in one in the 30 minute demo I had. Although the plane seems cheap because it has nuclear bombing capability that pretty much covers half the island.

However the game definitely is not your run of the mill shooter either, you cannot just shoot and run. It has a much slower killing rate than other games, and I unlike some actually appreciate the amount of attention you DO need with your health being that resilient. If there was any trouble I had, its the difficulty to keep up with friends if you lose them. The mapping and lack of a good hud to indicate friendlies caught me off-guard at times.

Alan Wake exclusive to Xbox 360

A Remedy spokesperson has since confirmed to Digital Spy that the firm is "currently working exclusively" on Alan Wake for the console and that any decision on a potential PC version now rests solely with publisher Microsoft Games

I wasn't altogether sure Alan Wake would be a 360 exclusive, I also wondered why they would do a PC version. The results are in from a lot of people that PC gaming is suffering, mostly due to piracy :/.

Oh well, alot of people said PC gaming was dying anyway and this move to not make it on PC isn't definite, so maybe it will happen later on.

Get ready for Alan Wake in Spring 2010, along with almost every other awaited title.

Xbox 360 Laptop

That is pretty cool

No More Heroes coming to Xbox?

Desperate Struggle to be finale for Wii

The Developer CEO of No More Heroes has signaled it's departure from the Nintendo Wii and has expressed interest in going beyond the limits of the Wiimote to the Xbox and Natal.

Natal has been a controversy for the revolution in motion controller technology it could represent but also for how it could lose its appeal quick, and be a big flop for the Xbox 360. So it doesn't hurt when a franchise exclusive to the Wii will stand behind the technology. You can't blame the open window Natal appears to offer for the motion driven gameplay in the No More Heroes series.

If they are moving away from being an exclusive Wii title to go to Xbox, I bet Grasshopper wouldn't look towards the PS3 with the complexity issues for developing with the PS3 and its motion controller being as limited as the Wiimote.

So Natal has another positive on it's side in that it is attracting developers, and if Grasshopper decides to go, Xbox users get an exclusive title from the franchise.

We'll see what they decide. I for one don't show much interest in the game...yet. Lets hope moving to the 360 gives it a chance to change it's look a little, the graphics don't appeal to me much.

How do you become The One?

Tonight I played another great game of 1v100 with friends, goooood times. At 10 PM the game became a live show, and while many just want to be The One, I wanted to because today was the beginning of the big prize sweepstakes.

Although unrelated, I'd like to believe it increases your ability to win the sweepstakes and most of my party was begging to be The One. So we began talking about HOW YOU BECOME THE ONE. Afterwards I thought of it more and more, and I realize there is some confusion to how they choose someone.

Some of the people i've seen get it have little to no gaming score, you have to immediately believe the choosing is random. But consistently I hear playing a lot more extended play increases your chances. If this is true, and it might be, then how is it random? If playing more helps you get a chance at being the one, then its a pool. Not exactly random, but yet once again the low gamer scores tell me they aren't being chosen very wisely.

I'd mostly believe the picking is extremely random if it weren't for the people picked always looking so weird. Take of it what you will, but I think we need some clarification if anything you do gets you closer to being The One.

Xbox Live issues

Xbox live's downtime until late last night made several of my friends get a little annoyed, I was a little annoyed since I decided yesterday to purchase Ghostbusters.

Ironic since I still haven't touched the multiplayer because the single gameplay is addicting, but it's been a frustrating time for some people to lose Xbox Live.

What I want to make clear to people, who are going to say PSN is better or Xbox live sucks because of these technical issues, think before you speak.

The thing with technology, and especially gaming. Is that we, the gamers, offer very very little room for mistakes when it comes to gaming. If a game wants to win us over or in this case an online service, they have to be consistent. Microsoft has serious issues in the technical department, think about the fact that Xbox's sell like crazy
even though there is a 40 percent plus RROD failure rate for the consoles.

Now for Xbox Live, it's the most popular service so far. and with people hating Xbox for HAVING technical issues after it came back up. I don't get why people complain about that, it's going to get fixed. It drives me crazy how everything is supposed to be 100 percent perfect, just chill people and play your multiplayer games =)

Gamestop unveils Halo ODST Exclusive

Gamestop Offer

Gamestop is offering a nice package for those pre-ordering Halo ODST to order from them, in return you will get a controller, a code to play Sgt. Johnson in firefight, the game and the beta code. Wait....PLAY SGT. JOHNSON IN ODST!

This will probably appeal to many hardcore Halo fans, I am one of those people. But to put this in an economic perspective the price tag for this pre-order is a 100 bucks. People are already up in arms about the price of Halo ODST at 60-65 dollars, getting a code for the Reach multiplayer beta was a nice "cushion" among other things to make people believe it's worth full retail. And I won't be stopped by price to get ODST, but the Gamestop deal I'm probably going to pass.

I have three controllers, and while I could use a fourth controller while making machinima, I'll pass. Being able to playing Sgt. Johnson makes me envious nonetheless, but the killer for me is that Project Natal is replacing the controller for about 30 percent of your controllers functions. Only time will tell if it replaces a handheld controller more, but with the rumors of a new console as well I'm not in the mood to hold four controllers for a possibly obsolete console.

But should anyone take this deal, its a sweet deal to be sure. The controller looks sick :D, and being able to play Johnson is pretty awesome. It's kinda funny though, because I kept talking to Rob saying "where does he fit into ODST?" since ODST's trailer clearly shows it takes place after Regret left Earth in Halo 2. And Johnson went with the chief after Regret, but since this is in firefight it makes sense now. But to be able to play only in firefight? meh it's not much for me.

So since an Xbox controller costs about 40 bucks, and this one is special. Your not really paying for the Sgt. Johnson extra, so it's a nice deal. It's not for me, but if you don't have more than two controllers, I recommend it.