Xbox 360 Elite: We were right

I hate to say it, but well, we told you so. In our very first update we said that the HDMI Xbox 360 would be available by Summer. April 29th happens by Summer, right? Trust us, we have good sources.

Monolith set to make multiple big announcements at E3

I was talking to William Westwater the other day and asked about what they're working on right now. He said they'd be announcing some big stuff at E3, and that the game(s) would be for 360, PS3, and PC. When I asked about whether they would be FPSes or not, he said "Well that's generally what we do, but you'll see." I'm putting my money on FEAR 2 and possibly a new intellectual property. They still aren't doing anything for Wii or DS, but judging by how much Westwater likes the two Nintendo systems I wouldn't really be surprised if Monolith did something on either the Wii or the DS during the systems' respective lifespans.

Devil May Cry 4 coming to 360, PC, in addition to PS3

Capcom revealed today that in addition to a PS3 release, the fourth installment of the too cool for school Devil May Cry series will see action on both the Xbox 360 and PC, and it looks like it'll be a three-way simultaneous release.

Capcom's Japanese DMC4 site

Shadowrun Impressions

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Fasa Studio's new FPS sequel to the classic RPG Shadowrun. It was actually a lot of fun. The gameplay is reminiscent of Counter-Strike, in that there are two teams and one objective, and one team is supposed to stop the other team, while the other team is supposed to complete the objective. It's very fast-paced gameplay, and you have to do a lot of improvising.

One thing that sets this one apart from other team-based FPSes is the magic and skill system. As you earn more money, you can upgrade your character with different magic spells, tech upgrades, and weapons. The spells range from things like summoning a giant beast to attack your enemies, teleporting(which works really well), shooting icicles, or even reviving your fallen allies. The gadgets available include things like the glider shown in the trailer for the game, agility/reflex boosters, and enhanced vision. The weapons, however, are pretty boring. It's my one big complaint about the game, in fact. The weapons are extremely standard; there's a pistol, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, a machine gun, a submachine gun, a sniper rifle, a katana, and a few other common FPS weapons. The weapons are also pretty unbalanced. The katana doesn't do nearly enough damage for being the only close-combat weapon (although it does make your enemy bleed out if you slash them from behind), the sniper rifle is also far too weak, and really the only decent weapons are the SMG and maybe the shotgun.

Another interesting aspect to Shadowrun is the class system. Your character can be either Human, Elf, Troll, or Gnome(or maybe Dwarf), and each race naturally has its own advantages and weaknesses. Trolls are the tank class, elves are the stealthy class, I didn't try out the gnomes/dwarves, and humans are of course the all-around class.

Overall I think Shadowrun has the potential to be the next big online game, at least until Halo 3 comes out. And even then I think PC players will stay with it for a while. Oh and one other thing about the game now, as many of you may know, is that the art style for the game has been changed. It is no longer super-cartoony, it's now pretty realistic, maybe similar to Perfect Dark. Based on what I've played, I'm hoping Fasa will improve the variety of weapons available, and make the single-player campaign more than just a Chromehounds-esque tutorial for the online mode. Other than that, I think Shadowrun will definitely make a big splash this spring/summer/whenever it's released.

GTA IV to feature 360-exclusive episodic content!

From teamxbox:

"Take Two also announced that Rockstar will introduce in 2008 exclusive episodic content downloads for the game."

Now before you say that Take Two will be putting out an unfinished product, remember that the exact same version will be coming out on PS3 at the same time, however the 360 version will get more content past the initial game. While I myself probably won't be getting the game, this is still pretty neat news!

Image of the day: new Mass Effect screenshot

Another new screenshot can be found here. Reminds me of General RAAM!

Alien Hominid available on Xbox Live Arcade!

It's 800 points and 48 megabytes.

Upcoming under-the-radar 360 and Wii games for '07!

There are quite a few games in retail store computer systems that there either have little to no information, or haven't even been announced at all! Here a couple highlights for both Wii and Xbox 360, with tentative release months:

360

• Battlestar Galactica Online - October
• Blacksite: Area 51 - September
• Overlord - July
• Project Sylpheed (!!!) - June

Wii

• Driver '76 - March EDIT: It appears that Driver Parallel Lines is coming out in March - John
  
• Elevator Action - June
• Emergency Mayhem - April
• Escape from Bug Island (Formerly Necro-Nesia) - October

So among those, Battlestar Galactica, Blacksite, Overlord, Sylpheed, and Bug Island have all been announced. Elevator Action was a Gameboy game and later had a sequel on the Saturn, and Emergency Mayhem is completely unknown. So while some of these dates seem kind of sudden (Driver, Emergency Mayhem), Bug Island's date could make a lot of sense- a spooooooky Halloween release!

HDMI Xbox 360 by Summer 07?

A very very high-up and reliable source of mine from an internal Xbox company (it starts with a 'B') has informed Septapus that the rumored black HDMI-enabled Xbox 360 with 120gb HDD will be available on store shelves sometime before Summer 2007. Of course this is not 100% confirmed, but you heard it here first.



*Not actual image (but you knew that)