The Xbox Domain

TXD Round Up for 3-12-2010

thewilleffect — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:00:19 +0000

It’s a wild world out there and we’re bound to miss or find something just to plain cool not to share. The TXD Staff will daily point you in the right direction. You know, because spreading the love is what we do.

BioShock 2’s DLC is on the Disc to Keep Us All Together [Kotaku]

Kodu Updated! *For the PC [Channel 10]

Molyneux: Motion gaming is making devs ’sweat’ [Joystiq]

EA Inanity: “Turn your Xbox 360 off and then on to fix server issue.” [Sarcastic Gamer]

February NPD, 360 outsells Wii, Big Daddy trumps all [Unscripted 360]

Bungie Weekly Update: 03.12.10 [Bungie]

Video: New ‘Brink’ Cinematic Trailer

thewilleffect — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:18:32 +0000

Bethesda Softwork’s title Brink (from the folks over at Splash Damage) has new ware’s for your eye’s to melt over. With this new cinematic trailer showing off every “bullet point” Brink is trying to hit with it’s agility mixed with heart-pounding gun combat, word comes that the official site for the title is too, all new. Head on over to http://BrinkTheGame.com for everything you want to know about the game up until this point including the factions, the Ark, and all of its gameplay.

Portal 2 Information Roundup

aStagnantSleep — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:05:41 +0000

Ever since Portal 2 was announced last week, details on Valve’s latest project have been trickling out slowly each day. The Xbox Domain hasn’t mentioned the title in the past few days simply because the announcement took several days to decipher. Now that enough information on Portal 2 is out, we decided to round up everything that is know about the upcoming sequel, dated and detailed for your needs.

Valve releases a patch for the PC version of Portal through Steam, citing a “changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations.” A questionable update will surely strike fans odd so members of the Steam community have figured out that radios have been added to each level. The radios now happen to transmit a signal that earn you a “Transmission Received” achievement when you bring them to certain spot in each level. Certain transmissions are actual morse codes that can be deciphered into images. Sounds crazy but Valve seems to know make their games intriguing.
One of the images contained a BBS number that revealed a ton of ASCII images, as well as messages from Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson.
Besides the whole morse code ARG-like nonsense happening within the title, Valve quietly updated the ending to Portal by adding 15 more seconds to the original. The extended ending reveals what could be the sequels player character. The entire ending, including the extended 15 second part can be seen below:

Valve officially announces the sequel to 2007’s Portal and is confirmed to be the cover article to the April 2010 issue of Game Informer. The magazine is said to feature a 12-page article that states the title will include “new gameplay mechanics, storyline, and some surprising new twists” as well as a separate co-op campaign featuring two new playable characters.
Within the time of the announcement, Valve’s Doug Lombardi confirmed the sequel’s arrival on the PC and Xbox 360 is due this Holiday season.

During this year’s Game Developers Conference, Valve’s Managing Director Gabe Newell had one of his slides fail, entering a Blue Screen of Death. Coming from Valve, it isn’t an ordinary screen. The blue screen of death had an message from GLaDOS:

The hexadecimal characters in the message was immediately decyphered by a poster at the Penny Arcade forum as into:

A fatal exception (S) has occurred at (U)(S) : (P)(E)(N)(D) in (U)(N )(T)((I)) *
(L)(E)(E)(E). The current application will be terminated.

And that’s where Valve has led us to today. On hold till E3, where we’ll obviously see more of this anticipated sequel. It’ll be worth the wait, especially since Valve’s “best game [They've] ever done” could include a whole new song by Jonathan Coulton.

[via Joystiq, Steam Community, Steam, Game Informer, Eurogamer, Kotaku, 1UP]

TXD Round Up for 3-11-2010

TXD Staff — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:00:44 +0000

Final Fight: Double Impact Gameplay footage [1up]

Stumbling Through Mirror’s Edge [The Escapist]

Sense of Scale – Postmortem [Bungie]

Street Fighter Legends Ibuki #1 On Sale Today! [Capcom-Unity]

Epic Games Shows New Unreal Tech, Briefly Teases Mystery Project [G4 TV]

No EA Sports Active 2.0 for Natal [GamesIndustry.biz]

Splinter Cell: Conviction – Co-Operative Mode Interview [GameTrailers]

Splinter Cell: Conviction – Last Known Position Interview [GameTrailers]

Shank GDC 2010 Gameplay [Gamevideos]

Master Chief Ski Mask [Hawty McBloggy]

BioShock 2’s Sinclair Solutions Tester Pack DLC now available

thewilleffect — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:10:59 +0000

If you’ve been enjoying BioShock 2’s Multiplayer as you become the best tester you possibly can, more is on the way for 400 Microsoft Points. Giving more to multiplayer, Sinclair Solutions Tester Pack adds 20 new Trials, 2 new playable characters and 5 new Masks. The maximum rank has been increased to 50 with Rank Rewards and a 3rd set of weapon upgrades are now at your disposal.

*Click here to add the Solutions Tester Pack to your download queue.

Fable 3 feature inspired by Twitter

aStagnantSleep — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:30:24 +0000

At a roundtable during Game Developer’s Conference, Lionhead Studio’s Peter Molyneux mentioned how Twitter’s following system influenced the upcoming title. Molyneux states “I Twitter now and, you know, I’ve got followers on Twitter. That’s an interesting mechanic, and we integrate that into the Fable experience.”

His words could be misinterpreted into confirming Twitter integration within the title but Microsoft reassured his statement by adding “what Peter meant was he was inspired by the ‘followers’ mechanic on Twitter, and its influence can be seen specifically in the ‘Follower’ feature [of Fable III].”

The game seems to look promising this time around, as Lionhead Studio’s seems to be verbally open on what needs to be improved and featured. Check out the latest screens in our Flickr stream.

[via Joystiq]

Windows Phone 7 games to feature Achievements

aStagnantSleep — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:00:36 +0000

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 was recently announced and was sgown at GDC this week. The phone contain many features Windows normally has, “deliver[ing] the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile.”

The games on the phone will feature 200 Gamerscore points each and will be added onto your total Gamerscore. Now it’ll be easier for everyone to brag about their Gamescore, as if it matters.

[via Joystiq]

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light set for a Summer 2010 XBLA release

aStagnantSleep — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:00:38 +0000

The latest adventure from the lovely Lara Croft, best known for her adventures in Crystal Dynamic’s Tomb Raider series, is set to release this Summer in a different form than usual. Rather than releasing a new title on a physical disc, Lara Croft’s next trip will be released as a “truly original original experience,” according to Darrell Gallagher, General Manager of Crystal Dynamics. He add “This is a really exciting project for Crystal Dynamics, we have created something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting.”

The title will feature a six hour length Co-op campaign composed of action and puzzle-solving gameplay. Expect this XBLA title this summer for $15. In the meantime, you can check out the latest screens from this title.

[via Crystal Dynamics]

Red Faction 4 scheduled for March 2011

aStagnantSleep — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:43:13 +0000

According to Danny Bilson, THQ’s Executive Vice President of Core Games, the next Red Faction is scheduled for a release in March 2011. The title is detailed to be more along the lines of the original Red Faction games. Bilson states “The new game takes [Red Faction] to a whole new place, it kind of goes back to the old Red Faction because about 80% of it is underground,” Taking what seems to be a sequel to Red Faction Guerrilla as “hybrid” between the original games and Guerrilla. Bilson also adds information on next year’s title stating it will be more “structured” than before.

[via Joystiq]

Xbox Live Marketplace Schedule for the month of March

aStagnantSleep — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:00:47 +0000

Major Nelson recently let out a schedule of upcoming releases on the Xbox Live marketplace. Prices and release dates are subject to change.

March 10: Scrap Metal – 1200 MSP ($15)
March 17: Perfect Dark – 800 MSP ($10)
March 22: Block Party – Free (Free to download. Individual games will cost 240 to 400 points)

March 9: Condemned: Criminal Origins (not available in Germany, Japan, India or Korea) – 1600 MSP ($20)
March 9: Guilty Gear 2 Overture (Japan)

Xbox Live Deal of the Week:

March 15: Fable Originals – 800 MSP ($10)
March 22: Fallout 3 Game Add-ons: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta – 400 MSP ($5)

March 9: Forza Motorsport 3 Jalopnik Car Pack – 400 MSP ($5)
March 11: BioShock 2 Sinclair Solutions Tester Pack – 800 MSP ($10)
March 16: Dragon Age: Origins Awakening Expansion Pack – 3200 MSP ($40)

March 11: St. Patty’s Day
March 11: Scrap Metal
March 18: Perfect Dark
March 18: Alan Wake

Also, for the weekend of March 12th to 15th, Xbox Live Silver members will get to experience online multiplayer for free.

[via Major Nelson]