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game: Halo 3
news | 08/01/07 | Chris Martin
I intentionally avoided, up until now, posting news about Halo 3 - pics notwithstanding - because, frankly, I don\'t care to learn about the levels or the neat gizmos the good Master Chief will be using this time around, ahead of time. They, to me, are spoilers. I am at the point where I just want to play the game for myself and be surprised. I am breaking my rule now because the latest news about Halo 3 steps beyond that broad line of \"developer hype.\" Today Bungie officially confirmed that Halo 3 will feature 4 player Co-op play over Xbox Live and System Link. It\'s that kind of important news that just needs to be boldface.
game: Forza Motorsport 2
news | 08/01/07 | Chris Martin
It didn\'t take long for Turn 10\'s gearheaded staff to release the first of, what I assume will be, many downloadable packs for Forza Motorsport 2. In this pack they bring us four cars. The first three come from Nissan and are free for all: 2007 Sentra SE-R, 2007 Altima, 2007 350Z. The fourth car is the second place winner of this year\'s Le Mans: the Peugeot 908 race car - costing 50 gamerpoints (not bad). The Peugeot is also the first racecar (R4-1 class), as gamers will note, that can be painted.
game: Carcassonne
review | 07/11/07 | Chris Martin
Hot on the heels of Settlers of Catan, which invaded XBLA last month, Carcassonne, the board game based on the fortified city in France of the same name, comes to Xbox Live Arcade in a very worthy package. While slightly pricy at 800 microsoft points, Carcassonne is an excellent strategy game for up to 4 people locally, or 5 over Xbox Live, although you\'ll find it best with only two or three.
game: Forza Motorsport 2
review | 06/29/07 | Chris Martin
Turn 10 and Microsoft Game Studios bring us the sequel to the critically acclaimed and commecrially successful Forza Motorsport with more cars, updated graphics, and a heftier customization system. Guaranteed to fulfill all your mid-life crises and car tuning fantasies, Forza Motorsport 2 is the next best thing in the world of racing games. And with the price of gas nowadays, what are you waiting for?
review | 05/17/07 | Chris Martin
\"A gift to gamers\" indeed. Microsoft\'s interns and Carbonated Games of Uno fame have made a wonderful shooter that just comes up on the short-lived side of things. Still, this one shouldn\'t be missed, not for being able to play 4 player coop over live or local, not for the sweet boss battles, and not, especially not, for the brevity.
game: Forza Motorsport 2
preview | 05/11/07 | Chris Martin
Forza Motorsport 2 is all about the cars. It\'s about loving them, tricking them out, customizing them, and collecting them. The game has, indeed, gone gold, but, not satisfied with that, the FM2 Demo has been released. The Forza Motorsport 2 Demo hit live yesterday at 2:00 a.m. PST, and now, having taken each car in the demo many, many times around Italy\'s Mugello track, we have our impressions.
game: Xbox 360
news | 04/20/07 | Aaron Stanton
There\'s an interesting article written back in 2006 that asks the question, \"Why is Microsoft still in the gaming industry?\" After losing $5.4 billion between 2001 and 2006, what incentive does Microsoft have to stay in the home console market? In fact, Microsoft has no incentive, unless you look at what the entertainment division does for Microsoft as a whole. Microsoft wants to keep control of the living room away from companies like Sony and Apple, and uses the Xbox 360 as a strategic tool for a larger company vision independent of its individual profits or losses. Additionally, there\'s an 800-lb gorilla in the room that keeps getting overlooked: XNA.
game: Xbox 360 Elite
editorial | 04/04/07 | Chris Martin
Microsoft seems to be trying to play catch-up with the wrong gaming company. Instead of chasing the Nintendo Wii as it storms through the gaming industry, Microsoft is introducing features that bring it closer in line with the PS3. The PS3 has Blu-ray; Xbox 360 gets a HD DVD drive. PS3 has HDMI, and now so does the Xbox 360 Elite. Both systems now have price tags approaching half a grand. Standing in the middle between Nintendo and Sony\'s price tags, Microsoft would be better served introducing a cheaper SKU to compete as a high-end competitor to the Wii, not a low end competitor to the PS3. Yet both Sony and Microsoft seem to be pursuing features that are driven less by consumer demand and more by their own competition for the beefiest console. There\'s a reason that we don\'t need the Xbox 360 Elite; it\'s called the PS3, and not many people are buying that as it is. Why use that as the model for your feature list?
editorial | 03/26/07 | Aaron Stanton
Viva Pinata is one of those games that continues to surface in discussions amongst the GamesFirst staff in a way that is normally reserved for blockbuster titles. Though it certainly is too far outside the realm of \"normal\" to appeal to every gamer, Viva Pinata does an extraordinarily good job of being different and addicting at the same time. Yet its simple gameplay has one issue. Through its use of context sensitive buttons, Viva Pinata managed to take a simple gameplay experience and endow it with the impression that there were too many buttons. Is it possible that what was once a feature that developers bragged about has in some ways managed to simply over-complicate the game?
editorial | 03/20/07 | Chris Martin
Microsoft Game Studios\' head Shane Kim sat down with GameDaily and they talked about everything from the Xbox 360\'s performance in 2006 to the negative feedback the PlayStation 3 has been garnering from a majority of the online press. He\'s fairly candid about his feelings in regard to Nintendo and Sony. And although he does a fair share of boosting Microsoft\'s image, he does have some constructive criticism about Microsoft as well. More inside.
game: Viva Pinata
editorial | 03/10/07 | Chris Martin
We loved Viva Pinata so much, our resident creative writer Chris decided to do some neato lyric essay work about it. This is not the review,
go here for the review. But for an interesting take on the Viva Pinata universe, from a second person perspective no less, come on in. WARNING: language.
news | 01/29/07 | Aaron Stanton
Microsoft\'s courtship of the homebrew game developer has led to the Xbox 360 running its first unofficial NES emulator. While not useful to the general public, a programmer by the name of Lone Coder used Microsoft\'s XNA Game Studio Express to convert an existing emulator - SharpNES - to run on XNA environments. That includes both PCs running Windows Vista and the Xbox 360. The development introduces the Xbox 360 to its first taste of unapproved retro-gaming, and while limitations built into Game Studio Express prevent a usable release on the 360, it\'s nice to see Microsoft take steps to embrace the homebrew community instead of alienating them.
game: Viva Pinata
review | 01/25/07 | Chris Martin
With Viva Pinata, Rare has produced their first truly standout game since going to bat for Microsoft. The pinata-rearing simulation may look like a child\'s game, but it turns out to be one of the most addictive and deep games to ever grace the Xbox 360. Reminiscent of simulation and collection titles like The Sims and Animal Crossing, Viva Pinata is open and never ending, addictive and compelling, and one of the best games of the year. Because of its unusual style it\'ll never have a fan base the size of games like Gears of War, and most Xboxers will probably never buy a copy even though they almost certainly should. Read the full review for details on what makes this game so great.
editorial | 01/05/07 | Chris Martin
Recently, in an interview with Ars Technica, Scott Henson, product unit manager for Microsoft\'s game technology group, made a statement regarding HD-DVD and Sony\'s defunct Betamax. Unfortunately for those of us who read only headlines and move on, the whole story is not being told. And now it\'s being spun by blogs with a hankering for a little more web traffic into a false statement. In this editorial, Chris Martin discusses the spin that blogs like to put on quotes and tries to understand just why blogs have no responsibility to report truth.
game: Gears of War
review | 12/19/06 | Chris Martin
The Xbox 360 needed a killer app to help counteract the release of both the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii, a game that would make their year-old system more appealing to potential Christmas shoppers. Well, Epic delivered with Gears of War, one of the best games to ever grace a game system. Even after the shiny new gleam has worn off, Gears of War continues to amaze, and promises to be a lasting online and offline hit for some time to come. Between Gears of War and Halo, Microsoft is holding some intellectual properties that will sell consoles, and you better bet that they know it.
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