GTA4 on Dowloadable Content "We want to fry Xbox Live"

There is a rumor floating around that Rockstar may release exclusive content for xbox live. It's also rumored that it will cost an upwards of $50 million.

According to Rockstar's CEO Sam Houser, the downloadable content may take in the form of random missions. For example, "In the game, you might be walking around and then someone will come up to you and say something like, 'Hey, I need your help', and you'll be like, 'What? This isn't a story mission', and he'll be like, 'You see that room up there? That's my wife and she's f***ing some bloke, and I need you to go and do...' and this little story will unfold from there just randomly," Houser told Edge magazine. Hosuer also said that it will depend on the fans reactions to the random missions to whether or not to continue with the missions.

Hosuer also stated that even if the content came in the form of a mission pack, it will be "substantial".

"I think the mission packs with the episodes are going to be pretty deep, offering another full-on adventure in this world," he told Edge. "I think we will be in a position to market them not a million miles away from the way the boxed game is marketed."

I think it would be really cool if they did have random missions popping up throughout the game. It gives the game a more open feeling to have random thing happening around you.

Is the release of a 60GB and Blu -Ray Xbox 360 in the works?

There have been a couple of big rumors floating around about the 360. Both of these rumors came from Trustedreviews.com. The first one is that Microsoft will be releasing a 60 GB Xbox 360 model. This seems like the most logical choice, since there is only the 20GB and the 120GB versions out there.

The second rumor is that Microsoft is working on a 360 SKU. According to the site, Microsoft has been thinking about the idea for some time, and it would be the most logical explanation to reveal the new Blu-Ray 360's.

Microsoft has not commented on either of the rumors. Also, as of right now, no other gaming news site has heard anything about these rumors. It just maybe Microsoft isn't ready to announce these features yet, but I would keep an eye on these developments.

Bungie To The Rescue!

A couple of days ago I was reading a story about this guy named Nathaniel who is a huge Halo fan. He was able to get autographs from xbox 360 team members and original sketches from the Bungie staff on his 360 over time. Then, the dreaded 3 ring of death happened.

When he sent his 360 off to the technical staff at Microsoft, he left instructions specifically saying to not to mess with the artwork. Unfortunately, when he received his 360 back, it had been wiped completely clean.

Then, Bungie staff got word of Nathaniel's situation. They came together and offered Nathaniel a brand new 360 with autographs of the staff and an original sketch of the Master Chief himself.

It's pretty awesome that he was able to get his customized 360 back. What Bungie did for this fan was amazing. It just shows you that some companies really do care about their fans.

Fixing The 3 Ring of Death With Towels?

The other day I watching some videos on youtube, and landed on a video where a boy was covering a towels over his Xbox 360 to get rid of the 3 ring of death. It seemed to work, but I thought to myself, "Wouldn't that just make your 360 overheat and really mess it up?" I thought the whole idea of having it stand up and vents inside the system was to prevent overheating.


Fortunately, I haven't had the 3 rings of death yet, so I don't know if that putting towels on your Xbox would really help. I've also heard that unplugging all the connections to your Xbox and then reconnecting them would work. Do these methods fix the problem permanently, or just fix it temporary? What's your thoughts on this.

Heroic Map Pack For Halo 3 is Released

Yesterday, the heroic map pack for Halo 3 was released on Xbox Live. In the pack there are 3 all new maps for players to explore in. Standoff is a good place for team slayer matches. In the map, it has entrenched bases and fields of boulders to run into and hide. Then there is Rat's Nest, which is ideal for big team matches and Foundry, the ultimate forge map. In Foundry, you will be able to edit every single object in the map to make a totally new map.

Right now the heroic map pack is available exclusively to Xbox Live and will cost 800 Microsoft points. By next spring, this pack will become free to download prior to the new multiplayer maps that will become available to download.

Xbox Live Siver Account Users Get Late Content

Apparently, if you have a silver account on Xbox live you will not be able to access the free content like demos for a week after it is released. For that week, Gold members will have exclusive access to the free stuff before everyone else. I guess this is one of the advantages of having a gold account.

Mass Effect Review

Mass Effect is a science-fiction action-roleplaying game (RPG) created by BioWare, the acclaimed RPG developer of Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and the Baldur's Gate series. Mass Effect delivers an immersive story-driven gameplay experience with stunning visual fidelity.

Storyline

The story revolves around an ancient alien prophecy stating that every 50,000 years a portal opens that separates the "normal" universe and a realm beyond, releasing an ancient artificial intelligence that will harvest all organic life, and the time of their return is approaching. As you progress through the storyline, you will meet other characters who you can have in your squad, and each one of them comes with their own set of unique abilities and talents. Every cut-scene and conversation plays out like a movie, with different camera angles and plenty of cuts to keep the scene interesting and the storyline flowing. There are multiple endings based on certain decisions made during the game, and at least 20 hours worth of side-quests which have all been given the same amount of care as the 20 hour long main storyline. Although only the main storyline mode is needed to complete the game, accomplishing the side quests are highly recommended.

Characters

As with any RPG, Mass Effect starts you off in the Character Creation menu. It has a decent enough customisation system, however it is limited to facial characteristic (face, hair, ears, nose, etc). There are three primary character classes in Mass Effect; the solider, the engineer, and the biotic user. Each character class have unique talents and abilities which increase in power as the player progresses through the game. Apart from choosing the look of your character you can also customise their background, military history and combat style.

Character models are beautifully detailed, such as with your Krogan teammate Wrex, whose every wrinkle and ridge is carefully textured and molded. Characters look life-like and the lip-sync is pretty perfect. Characters realistically react to your words; in fact, your conversation choices shape your game from the missions you're offered to enemies you make.

Graphics

At first glance, Mass Effect is an absolutely stunning example of the raw graphical power of the Xbox 360. The graphics are a beauty to behold, however the text on an SDTV is a bit on the small side. From what I've played so far, it really does feel like KOTOR with the updated graphics with a focus on gunplay and a less robotic dialogue system.

Gameplay

Given the chance to create their own world, Bioware has produced an immersive action/RPG with a compelling plot, memorable characters, and entertaining gameplay. The gameplay itself is either first person shooter style with guns blazing, roleplaying where you have to interact with other characters to find out what is going on, or tactical squad based allowing you to bring up a secondary HUD and control other members of your team. While there are some technical issues and awkward gameplay decisions that are hard to ignore, when it comes down to it, Mass Effect is so compelling that most people will be able to push the issues aside and immerse themselves in one of the most detailed game worlds every created. You'll want more from it, but by no means does it hold the experience back, nor does it make you wish you were playing something else.

Nothing is sufficiently amiss here to prevent you from enjoying Mass Effect's class-leading gameplay, and it deserves to be remembered as the first truly great role-playing game of this generation.

Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility List Is Finally Udated

Xbox has finally updated their backward compatibility list a couple of days ago. Here is a short list of the games they have on their list.

2006 Fifa World Cup Germany
25 to Life
AMF Bowling 2004
Apex
Arena Football
Armed and Dangerous
Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance
Batman Rise of Sin Tzu
Bionicle
Blade II
Blinx: The Timesweeper
Blitz The League
Blood Omen 2
Blowout

You can check out the whole list here from xbox.com

If you do not know how to update your 360 to play your original xbox games check out this post right here.