Back at E3 2008 Microsoft announced that the ‘New Xbox Experience’ would be coming to the Xbox 360 the following November. Along with the dashboard re-design and a raft of other features Microsoft also announced a feature called ‘Xbox Live Primetime’. The idea of ‘Primetime’ was to bring the experience of a live gameshow to the console, with scheduled shows, live hosts and the ability to win prizes. The first of these shows was Endemol’s 1 Vs 100.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the concept of 1 Vs 100, given that there are many different versions of the show around the world (here in the UK it’s hosted by the National Lottery) but I’ll explain it for the benefit of those that don’t know. Basically there are 100 people in what is called the ‘mob’ (at least on this version anyway, as the UK TV version simply calls them the ‘100′) and one person is picked from here to face off against the 100. The ‘one’ and the ‘mob’ is then asked a question, with a choice of three answers, and if the ‘one’ gets this question correct they can then see how many people they have eliminated from the ‘mob’ (those that got the question wrong).  The more they eliminate, the bigger the prize gets.

In the Xbox 360 version the prizes are gamer points, arcade games and, every week, physical prizes including a camera and a car. If the ‘one’ gets a question wrong the mob get a small amount of gamer points or a free Arcade game and the ‘one’ is eliminated. The ‘one’ can also choose to walk away a certain points of the game, taking with them the points that they have earned so far. Unfortunately the prizes weren’t available from the first night of the beta, meaning that some people chose to walk away when they weren’t actually winning anything. It’s still not certain when the prizes will start being up for grabs, but popular opinion is next week.

Of course, with the vast amounts of people playing at the same time (80,000+ on the first night alone) not everyone will get the chance to be the ‘one’ or be in the ‘mob’. Everyone else is put into the ‘crowd’, where they can still answer questions and compete against each other in groups of four. These sessions, as well as the ‘extended play’ sessions (which I’ll get to in a moment), help to increase accuracy and speed at answering questions, which in turn gives you a better chance of getting into the ‘mob’. So, Microsoft says that the more ‘extended play’ sessions you take part in the better chance you have at winning a prize when it comes to the live shows. You won’t get any prizes in ‘extended play’, as there are only 30 minute rounds of 37 questions with no ‘one’. It is basically everyone sat in the ‘mob’ answering questions and competing against each other. If you get the question correct you also get a bonus of points based on how many people got it wrong, and as in the live game you also get a small bonus for how fast you answered the question (even if you get it wrong). The problem with the speed thing is that some people have an impossible response time of ‘0′ seconds simply because they are constantly bashing the ‘x’ button. I don’t know how this could possibly be fun for them , plus it drives their accuracy way down, but I suppose some people just have to flatter their incredibly large ego’s to appear at the top of the speed rankings. Thankfully the speed bonuses aren’t that big, so they can’t rack up a large score just by button bashing.

As for other problems I haven’t encountered many so far, but there has been talk of random disconnections and crashes which are always going to get with a beta. The biggest problem I’ve had is not being able to hear the live host (James McCourt does live commentary on the ‘ones’ performance and the stats during short breaks) on the first live show last Friday. Checking the Xbox forums shows that I’m not in the minority and, although it’s not a major problem,  the breaks can be a bit dull when there’s nothing but silence.

So far the game has been really fun; although the questions can be really hard at times (that’s part of the challenge!). The ‘extended play’ sessions are nowhere near as fun as the live shows, but if you ever want to get a chance at winning a prize (when they become available) you’re going to have to play them. The chances of that ever happening are pretty low, but at least you can enjoy the game for what it is - good old trivia fun!

1 Vs 100 is available for free to all gold members. You can set yourself reminders for upcoming live and ‘extended play’ shows through the Primetime channel which should now be available on your dashboard.

When a Crackdown 2 trailer (here) appeared at Microsoft’s E309 press conference plenty of people - including myself - got immediately excited. Unfortunately it was little more than a teaser trailer, with absolutely no information at all. Thankfully Microsoft has seen fit to correct this, filling us in a little on what the sequel has to offer.

Microsoft says that the sequel to 2007’s underappreciated open-world riot will support four-player co-op and sixteen-player competitive multiplayer. Apparently this will take “multiplayer gaming to unprecedented levels”, but whatever the press blurb says it should add even more fun to the world of Crackdown 2; providing the game is actually good of course.

I had a lot of fun with Crackdown’s two-player co-op; so four-player co-op should theoretically be fun, right? I do have some concerns with how the game will handle four-players causing mayhem in a big rendered city, as the first game suffered from occasional lag problems even with two. Fingers crossed the developers will be able to make it work without too many problems (I know GTA IV had more than four players in a big city, but if you threw a lot of exploding cars, gunfire and players into a single area the game played like a slideshow).

Crackdown 2 should be with us sometime next year.

(Image source: VG47)

Unfortunately you won’t be getting any extra use out of your copy of Unreal Tournament 3 just yet, as the expansion pack I brought word of last month has been delayed.

The original plan was to give players extra levels, weapons, game modes and more from tomorrow on both PC and PS3. Epic has said that the pack won’t arrive until 19th March, two weeks from the original release date. Steve Polge posted an explanation on the developer’s official forums.

“Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of our control, the certification process for the PS3 patch and DLC has taken much longer than we expected. As a result, we have been forced to push back the release date for the PS3 version to 3/19.

The PC patch contains updates that will improve mods cooked for PS3, so we’ll be taking advantage of this extra time to work with mod authors to make sure the best mods for UT3 are cooked with the latest patch” - Epic

I suppose it’s not that much of a wait, but for eager UT fans looking to fresh content it’s just another two weeks of boredom. At least it’s free!

Epic Games has announced that it plans to release an expansion for Unreal Tournament 3 on 5th March. The ‘Titan’ pack will be free for the PC and Playstation 3 and will add new maps, units, vehicles, characters and awards for the game.

Will the ‘Titan’ pack be coming to Xbox 360? Epic Games is saying that “Given the file size requirements for updates on the Xbox 360 platform, we have no plans to release the Titan Pack for Xbox 360.” (Via Joystiq). Sigh Microsoft, why must you prevent things like this?

Anyway, there are a hefty 11 multiplayer maps that can be used for the Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes. If that’s not enough maps for you there’s also a further 8 maps from the first UT3 bonus pack and Xbox 360 version.

More content? As you wish! Two new game modes will also be along for the ride: Greed mode, which is a “tug-of-war” style point’s battle; and Betrayal mode, which makes you turn on your teammates to get a higher score. If that doesn’t sound good enough then the new Titan mutator turns you into a 15-foot tall Behemoth that grants you the effects of every power up in the game all at once. Now try telling me that this doesn’t sound awesome!

Last but not least there’s also some new equipment for you; which includes two new turrets, an X-Ray deployable field that instantly weakens all enemies inside it and new vehicles. The PC version also allows Steam achievements.

Phew, you can’t accuse Epic of not delivering! Head on over to Big Download to check out an in-depth preview of everything this amazing free expansion has to offer.

Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith is claiming that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has become the highest-grossing game ever.

During an Activision CES presentation Griffith’s revealed that the game surpassed $1 billion (£675 million) in sales during the 2008 holiday season. He believes that this is the first single game to hit the massive $1 billion milestone.

This has not only put a smile on an Activision shareholders face, but it has also improved music in general.

Data from national instrument retailer Guitar Center indicated that sales of real guitars were also up. Griffith said two-thirds of non-musicians exposed to music games plan to start playing a real instrument in the next couple of years, while three-fourths of musicians said they’ve spent more time with their instruments since picking up a music game. - EDGE Online

See? Video games can lead to good things! If a game is going to get more young people into music then that’s great, and hopefully they will be the superstars of the future.

If you don’t have the game yet then what are you waiting for? Guitar Hero II is an absolute blast to play - especially at parties. However, while the Wii tends to be something I don’t play much unless I’m with other people Guitar Hero is a game that I’ll still continue to play on my own. So, while I’m left here cringing at that fact that I just wrote the word ‘blast’ why not treat yourself to some good old modernised (what? does that even make sense?) musical fun? If all else fails then you could always try Rock Band, just don’t tell Activision I said that.

I’ll be posting my impressions of Call of Duty: World at War when I’ve had enough playtime with it, but until then I have one major gripe with the game that I want to talk about.

I don’t have much money at the moment (plus, with it being close to Christmas there’s no real point in splashing out on loads of games) so I have to be very careful when it comes to choosing which game I want to buy. While there are games that I would rather buy over the new Call of Duty (like Fallout 3 or Fable 2), I had to have my brother in mind when buying a new game since I haven’t bought a multiplayer game (well, one that includes offline multiplayer anyway) since Gears of War (I only bought this back in the summer, so it’s not as long ago as you think). We wanted a game where you could play split-screen co-op throughout the same campaign as the singleplayer one, and the new Call of Duty provides that. Unfortunately you can’t play split-screen online multiplayer like you can with Halo 3, but I can live with that.

Anyway, we loaded up the co-op campaign, ready to fight the Axis forces, and we were both immediately disappointed with what we saw. For some strange reason Treyarch have decided to only use a tiny amount of the screen for spilt-screen co-op. So, instead of a simple vertical or horizontal split you have two tiny boxes in the middle of a dull background placeholder. Why oh why would anyone choose to do this? The Call of Duty series is supposed to be cinematic, but this means nothing if you can’t see anything that’s going on. You literally have to sit incredibly close to the screen just to aim at somebody. We were playing Left 4 Dead the other day and that manages to make use of the full screen when playing split-screen co-op, so why can’t COD:WaW do the same? It just takes a lot of the fun out of the co-op experience.

Apart from that I am enjoying the game, but those impressions will have to wait until I’ve played more of it.

Bioware - a company well known to Star Wars fans due to the excellent Knights of the Old Republic series - has announced that the new Star Wars MMO rumored a few months back will be called Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game will be set three centuries after the events of KOTOR II and will feature two opposing factions - the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. You won’t be forced to pick good or evil right from the start though as, like KOTR and Mass Effect, your good or evil status will evolve through the choices you make.

“Players get to come in and take the roles of heroes–or villains–at this pivotal moment where we’re starting to go back into a big galactic war,” promised Erickson. - Gamespot

There’s not much more we know yet, aside from the basic information about the story (which is apparently going to be pretty important to the game, and each class will have its own unique story). The game’s art direction will not be realistic (as you can obviously see from the screenshot above) but it will not be overly cartoon-y either. The big reason for not having spectacular realistic graphics is similar to the approach that Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. Having more simple colourful graphics means that the game will be able to work on a wide range of systems, which is part of why WoW is so popular.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the second attempt at creating a Star Wars MMO. Star Wars Galaxies was certainly ambitious but never quite managed to fully grasp the attention of the extensive Star Wars fanbase. Then there was the complete change to the way the game played that angered most of those still playing the game, and while the game still exists today its playerbase is tiny compared to what it could have been.

Hopefully it will be a better game than its former attempt, especially as it’s being made by the rather excellent Bioware. The game is only in development for the PC at the moment but Bioware aren’t ruling out a console release just yet.

More information:

Star Wars: The Old Republic Revealed - Gamespot.
Star Wars: The Old Republic - What we Know so Far - Kotaku.
BioWare Compares ‘Star Wars’ MMO Combat To ‘WoW,’ ‘Age of Conan’ And ‘The Force Unleashed’ - MTV Multiplayer.

For those of you anxiously waiting for the release of LittleBigPlanet - a game that may force me to buy a Playstation 3 - you’ll be highly disappointed to know that the game has been delayed for an unspecified period of time.

The delay is due to two references to the Qu’ran which were discovered in a piece of licensed background music. Not wanting to cause any offense to religious groups (especially since the two references aren’t exactly the friendliest of quotes) Sony has recalled their entire shipments of the game so they can remove the offending material. You may wonder why they can’t just remove it in a patch, but you have to realise that not everyone connects their PS3 to the Internet so this problem will affect those people.

The game was originally due to hit stores on 24th October, but Sony said that a new date will be announced shortly. Retailers are speculating that the new date will be 14th November, but the date may be earlier than that yet.

UPDATE: There’s still no concrete release date but Sony are saying it will be ‘no later’ than the week of November 3rd.

One game I completely forgot about in this months must buy line-up is Far Cry 2. I must have been a bit brain dead when I wrote that post as the game is looking more amazing by the day. Plus, there’s that little fact that I’ve pre-ordered the game. Oh well, with so many good games coming out in the next few months I suppose it’s forgivable that one or two may slip your mind from time to time. I think that space in my brain must be taken up by the worries about just how I’m going to be able to afford them all.

As you can see from the screenshot above Far Cry 2 is looking absolutely gorgeous, and it’s looking like it’s going to be the best looking sandbox game on today’s consoles so far (Fallout 3 comes close, but the grim post-apocalyptic vistas are in stark contrast to the beautiful and bright plains of Africa). Long grass sways in the breeze while gazelles hop gracefully through it, until you come along and all hell breaks loose - of course! I’m most looking forward to tossing a Molotov cocktail into the long grass and watching as the fire propagates across the landscape; hopefully setting off conveniently placed explosive barrels that go on to destroy an entire village. If that sounds good then imagine doing that in multiplayer!

I’ve been secretly hoping for a new game to come along that will drag the masses (and most of my Xbox Live friends list) away from Call of Duty 4 and give them a new obsession. As much as I love Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer mode you can’t really deny that it’s getting a little tedious these days. With the PC you can add tonnes of extra life to a game by playing user created levels and mods, with the console versions of COD4 this just isn’t possible and it makes it all a little boring. Thankfully Far Cry 2 is shipping with what looks to be an incredibly detailed yet simple level editor that will hopefully get the Xbox Live or PSN population playing the game past the first few weeks. I know I’ll be playing with the map editor a lot anyway, but I doubt I’ll be creating maps that will be popular with thousands of players. In any case, it’s looking way better than Halo 3’s Forge.

One problem I have with the multiplayer is that character classes won’t be progressive. Any upgrades will simply be confined to the game you’re playing in and when you leave you’re right back at the beginning. For those players used to the excellent rank system in COD4 this may be a bit of a downer, but I guess it’s something you can live with. Instead you’ll be able to unlock ‘blood diamonds’ by killing players and completing objectives. There’s a maximum of three but each time you gain one you’ll have access to higher power weapons for whatever class you might be playing. The classes, by the way, are Commando, Gunner, Rebel, Guerrilla, Sniper, and Saboteur. Commando is your standard assault class while Gunner and Sniper are pretty obvious. The Rebel plays with fire and the Guerrilla uses close combat and ambush tactics. Finally the Saboteur is basically a scout class, specialising in stealth tactics. If you get a diamond as the Gunner class you can start using the rocket launcher, but remember that you’ll have to fight to gain it again in the next match.

Class problems aside I still can’t wait to go paragliding over the African continent; and maybe it will also be amazing to do this while people are blowing each other up below me. In any case you’ll be able to find out with me from October 24th.

Mods provide an excellent way of squeezing more life out of your PC games, and there’s even a few that become so popular that they eventually get picked up by a publisher and become a whole new game. One of the most modifiable engines out there right now is the Source Engine - which is the engine that games such as Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 run on - and the creators of the engine, Valve, have always been extremely appreciative of the work the mod community does (such as hiring the people who make the mods). This appreciation has become evermore apparent as Valve has released five of the most popular Source mods for download on their digital distribution platform Steam.

The five mods you can now automatically install on Steam (you have to own a Source game, of course) are Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency (above), Synergy and Zombie Panic. Each mod deserves a try (Insurgency is excellent) and, hey, they’re free so why not? Obviously you’ve always been able to download and install these mods but now the process is far easier. Each mod will automatically update like the rest of your games on the ‘My Games’ list, plus they’ll also have access to Steamworks which provides stat tracking amongst other things.

You can expect more mods to come but, for now, log on to Steam to try the first five out.