The new demo for Splinter Cell: Conviction has just arrived on the Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox 360.
Experience original game play based on improvisation where your environment becomes your weapon. You need to react to changing situations and use the environment and the crowds around you to create diversions, and deter your enemies.
For years, Sam Fisher has been off the grid and on his own, chasing his daughter's murderer. But the trail leads to the last place Sam wants to see again: Washington D.C. Now Sam must work with old friends he can no longer trust, forced to save a country he no longer serves. For unless he can stand against both a vast, faceless enemy and the shadows of the past, he'll never know what happened to his daughter - or himself. SPLINTER CELL - CONVICTION (Co-op) Russian weapons of mass destruction have been stolen and need to be recovered before they are sold on the black market. Third Echelon and their Russian counterpart Voron must work together to find them, sending American agent Archer and Russian agent Kestrel into the darkest heart of Russia's criminal underworld. Together, they will embark on a mission that will require their cooperation and combined skill, one that will test their very conviction in everything they think they are.
Content: Splinter Cell Conviction Price: Free Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions
Dash Text: Experience the highly-anticipated stealth action blockbuster critics have been raving about. Enter the treacherous world of rogue agent Sam Fisher and witness an unparalleled level of action. Arm yourself all with the high-tech weaponry and lethal skill of an elite operative, then take full advantage of cutting-edge gameplay innovations that let you outflank foes, mark enemies for execution, and much more. When you’re ready to take to the next level, get the full Splinter Cell Conviction. Inside you’ll find hard-hitting multiplayer modes, a co-op campaign with split-screen functionality, and a gripping single-player storyline that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.
Documentation obtained by Joystiq – and subsequently confirmed with two separate sources – reveals that "USB Mass Storage Device Support on Xbox 360" will soon be a reality. The document, authored by a senior software development engineer at Microsoft, states that due to "increased market penetration of high-capacity, high throughput USB mass storage devices, a 2010 Xbox 360 system update" will allow consumers to save and load game data from USB devices. The update is purportedly coming in Spring 2010.
Once the update occurs, Xbox 360 owners will be able to download Xbox Live Arcade games, Xbox Live Indie games, Games on Demand, DLC and Title Updates to the storage device. "USB storage devices may, however, have far greater memory capacity than MUs (at the date of writing, the largest MU is 512 MB), and may therefore support previously infeasible operations-such as installation of a full disc-based title." That's right, you can also store disc-based games to the USB device; however, it will require the disc to be in the tray for authentication, identical to the current functionality.
According to the document, the USB mass storage device must be at least 1GB and the system will do a compatibility check. "The system partition occupies 512 MB of space, and by default the consumer partition occupies the remainder of the device capacity, or 16 GB, whichever is smaller." Upon inserting a blank USB storage device, "consumers are offered two choices: 'Configure now' or 'Customize'." The "Configure now" option will use "the entire device capacity, up to the maximum of 512 MB plus 16 GB" meaning, regardless of the overall size of the device you're using, the Xbox will only enable 16 GB of usable, non-system storage. The "Customize" option will allow you to "preserve some pre-existing, non-console data on the device" such as music.
It should be clear by now that Microsoft is simply pulling out of the Memory Unit business and not the highly lucrative Xbox hard drive business. With an artificial cap of 16 GB – still shy of the 20 GB hard drive that shipped with the original 2005 Xbox Pro and a fraction the size of the currently shipping 120 GB hard drive – USB storage support simply removes the onerous requirement for a Memory Unit on Xbox 360 Arcade units, and brings the Xbox 360 platform a feature that's been present on the PlayStation 3 since that console's 2006 launch.
If you're intent on circumventing Microsoft's cutthroat hard drive pricing the Xbox 360, you can use two USB storage devices for a maximum of 32 GB of usable storage; however, the console "has a fixed limit of two external USB mass storage devices" regardless of whether they're "formatted for the Xbox 360 or not." If you fill all three USB ports on the console, only the first two to be connected will be recognized.
With talk of a new (slim?) form factor for the Xbox 360 picking up, and plans to abandon (or at least obviate) Memory Units underway, we're guessing those Memory Unit slots could be cut entirely from future iterations of the console.
Stuart Black and other members of the Black development team are working on an all-new new modern shooter with Codemasters.
Bodycount probably doesn’t mean anything to you right now. After you read this, it will.
Codemasters member Stuart Black is the man behind this new shooter monster that picks up and runs with Black‘s spirit. From the man who created “Black” last console generation (2006), we expect nothing else.
Stuart Black is a man who created a pioneer FPS. Black was a game with immensely interactive environments; a player was encouraged to blow up a guard tower rather than kill the guards inside; because they could, and it was fun. Almost everything in the game was destructible, or interactive. The graphics were great, and it featured game play that still sticks out in this writer’s mind.
Bodycount’s interactive environment can be summed up by the following: “Take a gun to a wooden weapons crate, and it will slowly, believably disintegrate, the wood chipping away to reveal a more stubborn metal frame and within an ammo box that sits atop a bundle of straw - shoot the ammo box and as you'd expect it's fireworks time. None of which may sound thrilling in itself, but here's the thing – this extent of destructibility extends to nearly everything in Bodycount's world. Spray a vending machine with bullets and it'll begin to tear itself apart convincingly until all that's left is a metal skeleton and a pile of broken glass. It's a first-person shooter with an exacting eye for the explosive.” (Martin Robinson, IGN)
If that doesn’t have you interested, please check yourself for a pulse. Bodycount’s single player follows main character John Doe as he blows up, shoots apart, and kills everything he (you) can. The game boasts an intriguing, mysterious story driven by testosterone through what will become one of the best game environments to date. The main character, John Doe, is “dragged out” of retirement by a shady organization named simply “The Network”. The player soon finds that the Network is not a good place to work, though, as Doe is drugged by the organization; then wakes up free falling from a few thousand feet in the air. A message scrolls across the screen, “Welcome to the Network. Your safety is our concern.”
Bodycount implements a distinct class system with its enemies, much like Killzone 2, but in more depth. At the top of the bad guy food chain is the tank. As in every game, the tank is a well armed and hard to kill opponent. A great thing about the game is that the enemy ranks are not just broken up by the size of a health bar. For a little strategy, shoot the medic first in a group of soldiers and the rest will be weaker. Shoot an officer and they may become disoriented. Bodycount looks to be a game where a player can do anything. Run through the campaign with guns blazing, or develop strategy for each enemy encounter.
The game is also said to feature a chain multiplier that will unlock special abilities such as a minigun, predator drones, and helicopter strikes. How will it work? By the body count, of course. The faster and more you kill, the more points you receive. This feature will also be a part of Bodycount’s separate co-op campaign, but no word yet on whether or not the multiplayer will sport a similar system. Multiplayer and co-op from the spiritual successor to Black; the game looks to be an all-in-one package to redefine FPS once again.
The game is also said to feature colorful and beautiful areas, “other networks” with high-ranking agents, an intuitive cover system, and some of the same developers that worked on Black. Look for more news in the coming months, and hold your breath for Bodycount to hit shelves early next year.
The highly anticipated remake of Perfect Dark is now available for download from the Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360. Perfect Dark is available in All Xbox Live regions except Japan and Korea. The game weighs in at 239MB.
Play the original full game beautifully restored and back in full HD, 1080p at 60 frames per second! All the original game features are included plus new Xbox LIVE ones.
Content: Perfect Dark Price: 800 Microsoft Points Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions except Japan and Korea Dash Text: (ONLINE INTERACTIONS NOT RATED BY THE ESRB) Buy the full version of Perfect Dark to unlock the classic package in its entirety. Experience every twist of the story, every stray bullet, every gadget and upgrade, every newly polished texture – and top it all off with full access to multiplayer modes now playable across the globe through Xbox LIVE.
A new "Final Fantasy XIII" comparison video which compares the load times between the Xbox 360 and PS3 and version has popped up on Youtube.
The following video compares the load times between the PS3 and Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII. While the Xbox 360 version has been fully installed on the hard drive, the PS3 version gets all the data from the Blu-ray.
“Final Fantasy XIII” uses the power and cutting-edge technology of Xbox 360 to deliver seamless transitions between real-time gameplay and in-game cinematics as gamers summon the courage to execute powerful attacks with an evolved Active Time Battle system and ultimately fulfill their destiny.
The explosive open-world action game Crackdown 2 is slated to hit store shelves on July 6 for the Xbox 360, Microsoft has revealed.
The sequel to 2007's Crackdown features the law enforcement group the Agency as they attempt to thwart criminal activities in Pacific City.
The game will feature four-player cooperative action as well as a 16-person competitive online multiplayer mode.
The first Crackdown, best known for packing a beta code to Halo 3's multiplayer, became one of the surprise hits of 2007, receiving a pretty strong critical response.
For more details, check out a trailer of Crackdown 2 released last December. Readers, looking forward to more Crackdown?
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