Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Search Newss

Page Listing: 891011121314

News List

• Halo 3 still king of Live week ending July 21st

  by Chris Holmes July 30th 2008 2:37 PM CDT0 Comments

  Xbox Live's Major Nelson has today unveiled this week's most played titles for 360s connected to Live, confirming that Halo 3 has retained it's surprise lead established last week, fighting off Call of Duty 4 again at the top. The rest of the chart doesn't provide any surprises, with old favourites Guitar Hero III and Rock Band holding up the middle, with Bad Company holding on. Strangely, the Too Human demo is still within the top 10, even though it got a rather mixed reception back when it was released before E3, so Dyack might be saved this time.
  
  The Live Arcade side of things is holding up well, proving that gamers still have good taste, with DOOM, N+, Worms, Geometry Wars Evolved, Marble Blast Ultra and Puzzle Quest all selling tremendously given their age. Next week, watch out for Geometry Wars Evolved 2 smashing into the top ten after the torterously long wait we have had to endure for it. Here are the full Live activity lists at Major Nelson's site.
  
• HAWX delayed until 2009

  by Chris Holmes July 30th 2008 2:14 PM CDT0 Comments

  The release for upcoming Tom Clancy branded flight sim HAWX has slipped until Q1 2009, Ubisoft has confirmed today. The game was expected to land this Fall along with Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway, Prince of Persia, Far Cry 2, Tom Clancy's Endwar, and Shaun White Snowboarding, but instead Ubi could only offer a rather bleak January to March 09 timeframe.
  
  This puts a bit more pressure on the release of the other titles, with Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway the first to be slipped down the release calendar from August to September 26th already. We are surprised yet pleased with Ubisoft's move to delay their titles to ensure quality, as previous recent games from the company evidently could've done with a bit more polish.
  
• 360 "Opus" board finally out in the wild

  by Chris Holmes July 29th 2008 6:30 PM CDT0 Comments

  
  
  After realising that their methods of fixing the ever-fearful red ring of death may in fact be causing even more ever-fearful red rings of death, Microsoft decided to come up with another solution to help finally put the problem behind them. This solution is a whole different motherboard for red ringed consoles codenamed "Opus", and is essentially a mutated current generation Falcon motherboard so that they can fit in the old style 360 cases that lack the space for HDMI ports. At the time of writing there has been no reports of reliability as it seems they've only just been sneaking them out. Thanks to Electric Tuner at the Xbox Underground forums for the image.
• Red Faction: Guerilla beta coming to Live

  by Chris Holmes July 29th 2008 6:03 PM CDT2 Comments

  The folks over at Volition have spent four tiresome years hammering away at their new Red Faction title, but now development is starting to reach the beginning of the end. Following a private internal Live beta for only THQ staff, they will release the beta to people who sign up for keys within the next week.
  
  One site started to give away keys today, but they were all snapped up straight away. However, IGN will be getting 25,000 keys very soon, so be sure to check them out if you want to partake in it. This trend of giving beta keys to gaming websites is somewhat bizarre, why can't developers give them away themselves? Surely this could result in a much more focused userbase and less sign-up confusion and chaos. Regardless, keep your eyes open and hope for the best.
  
• Target selling 60GB 360s early?

  by Jereme Puik July 29th 2008 5:49 PM CDT0 Comments

  There is a snapshot that has popped up thanks to a tipster from Joystiq that seems to indicate that the 60 GB Pro models of the Xbox 360 are already on Target shelves. We were given more details at this past E3 where Microsoft would start selling these SKUs in August, so how can these be on the shelves this early? Some one in the stock department seems to have not gotten the memo. The sign on the box of the unit says "Now with 60 GB Hard Drive" so, what say you readers? Is this real, have any of you spootted these in the wild yet?
  
  Have you seen any of these 360 units prowling the shelves of stores either at Targets or elsewhere?
  
  Source
  
• No lancer bundle for Gears of War 2

  by Chris Holmes July 29th 2008 5:15 PM CDT0 Comments

  
  
  
  After all the kerfuffle the other day about a possible $130 Gears of War 2 Collector's Edition with a replica lancer, Microsoft today confirmed to Xbox 360 Fanboy it was all a big misunderstanding and that they will not be offering such a bundle themselves. However, Amazon.com are exclusively selling replica lancers from this November, and should be able to create their own bundles if there is enough demand, and seeing that so many fanboys purchased a cat helmet with their copy of Halo 3, they could cash in quite nicely.
• Fable has three more titles left in the series

  by Beau King July 29th 2008 12:30 PM CDT0 Comments

  One, two, three, four, five. Apparently that’s how many Fable titles will be in the series once it’s over. Molyneaux has recently confirmed the completion of number two barring a few thousand bugs, but he also admits that it won’t stop there. The second rendition holds a few aspects of the first and so will it go the way through.
  
  He doesn’t want to stop at Fable either. Molyneaux has shared an interest with MMOs and already has a secret project in the works. He won’t say much about said project, but alludes to other genres nonetheless. One such area is sports where he has this to say, "One day I really should do a sports game, just because it really seems such a genre which is just locked in stone.”
  
  If this means Molyneaux wants to expand the creative boundaries of sports games then we’re in for something possibly odd yet beautiful.
  
• Ghostbusters and others get the boot after merger

  by Beau King July 29th 2008 9:33 AM CDT0 Comments

  Mergers can be great, like two families coming together, only sometimes that process turns out bastardizing a child or two. Let’s take Activision/Vivendi for example. Two great publishers have bonded in matrimony only to kick a few key games like Ghostbusters, Wet, Brutal Legend, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, etc out on the doorstep.
  
  These poor illegitimates are now left to find a new mommy and daddy. What’s surprising is that a game like Ghostbusters seems to be pretty promising. Which is totally opposite of a survivor of the merge. The Mummy:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. C’mon really? They kept Ice Age too. WTF mate.  
  
• New playlists coming to COD4

  by Mustafa Unal July 28th 2008 2:45 PM CDT11 Comments

  After a lot of fan feedback and testing, it seems Infinity Ward are finally going to give us some new playlists to get our frag on. Upon going through the list, I gotta say these are all welcome additions and should be a blast to play. On the other hand, there's no set date yet as to when these new playlists will go online, but I imagine it won't be too long now. Hit the jump to see a list of all the upcoming playlists along with an explanation on what they’re about, courtesy of FourZeroTwo.
• Force Unleashed demo is special

  by Jereme Puik July 28th 2008 2:44 PM CDT1 Comments

  Star Wars fans and gamers alike will be happy to know that Lucas Arts will be throwing up a demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed next month, with no exact date given. It is said that the demo will have a 'unique ending'. You'll be getting quite a load of force powers to play around with and destroy stuff with as you'll be playing inside the "Tie Construction Facility" level.
  
  The demo was confirmed, according to Destructoid in a G4 TV interview with PR man Matt Shell. So, if you're getting tired of unleashing badass force moves in Soul Calibur 4, then you can move right along to this demo and kill some stormtroopers and just plain old destory stuff in general. I for one am overly excited for this.
  
  Original Story Here
  

Page Listing: 891011121314