The Full Circle: 360 News Report 04.03.09

Posted by Joe Roche on 04.03.2009

After a hectic week 411Game's Joe Roche returns to take you around the Full Circle. This week we're talking Modern Warfare 2 rumor mill, Madden 2010, record breaking DLC, and the lost art of long elevator rides. All of that plus your reader feedback and more inside.

It's the end of another week, but before you can head off to the local watering hole to search for the answer to life's great mysteries in the bottom of a Sam Adams Summer Lager (available now) I need to bring you around the Full Circle. But before we can get to that lets take a quick look at my week in gaming to keep you up to date on the banality of my life.

- Spent most of the week playing Star Ocean: The Last Hope as I attempt to finish it so that I can write my review. At this point all I'm willing to say is that it's an average game wrapped in a fantastic game. I am hopeful that things will turn around, because the story behind SO:TLH is awesome, unfortunately the game only pays lip service to that story and instead falls into the same traps that most JRPG's find themselves in. I am holding out hope that things will turn around though as I make my way through Disc 2 so stay tuned for more on that.

- Because I don't have anything else to add, other then you may find me online playing Call of Duty: World at War this weekend, I want to say – thank god it's baseball season. On Sunday night the Major League Baseball season kicks off and while there will be no important games for the next three months (at least) just the thought of baseball makes everything seem better. So crack a brew, and enjoy opening week of the 2009-2010 baseball season.

Alright, enough idle talk – lets get down to business and go around The Full Circle.

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Pulling Back the Curtain
Developer Introvision, the company behind the upcoming XBLA release Darwinia+ has announced that intend on releasing design documents, internal emails, weekly reports, code from the game and even the project plan on their website in an attempt to create some transparency on the XBLA certification process. The company plans to expose "the good, the bad, and the very very very bad."

This move is apparently being done in conjunction with GamesIndustry.biz and looks to be a regularly updating diary designed to "critique the ongoing development process." Let me be the first to say (in this space) that I absolutely love this idea. The XBLA approval process is shrouded in mystery, and for inquiring minds like yours truly the opportunity to have the curtain pulled back and get a nice hard look at Oz will be an interesting read I am sure. Of course this is all being done with the approval of Microsoft, which means there will probably be some things left on the editing room floor, but I'm sure that it'll still be a pretty close to real look at the XBLA approval and design process and I give my stamp of approval to that.



Mass Effect 2: No More Elevators
BioWare's Casey Hudson told MTV Multiplayer this week that Mass Effect 2 will feature a "completely new system" to handle load times. The load times will be faster in Mass Effect 2 and will become part of the game experience.

By now everyone is well aware of the running joke that the elevators became in Mass Effect. It's true that the load times were painfully long, and Commander Sheppard would have saved a lot of time just taking the stairs, but was I the only person who honestly didn't care that much? Maybe it's because Mass Effect was one of the first Xbox 360 games I ever played, so I was still used to the last generation load times, but the long elevator sequences didn't bother me that much. Don't get me wrong – I'm glad they won't be making a cameo in Mass Effect 2, but like Matt Hazard said "it's not like you have anything better to do."



World at War DLC Breaks Record
The 1st downloadable map pack for Call of Duty: World at War set a first week release sales record on Xbox Live Marketplace seeing over 1 million downloads across the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms.

Good news here for Treyarch and the continued dominance over Xbox Live of the Call of Duty franchise. I've spent a pretty good amount of my gaming time with Call of Duty: World at War, which I absolutely love and I enjoy the new maps as well. I didn't play enough with the old maps to be sick of those, so I'm not sure how great this pack is – but I do love killing Nazi zombies and the more arenas I can do that the better.



Madden is Coming
EA has announced an official release date for Madden NFL 10 which will be available on August 14, 2009.

I am on record as saying the additions made by the Madden team last year made Madden NFL 09 far and away superior to the 08 version of the game. I have similar hopes for the next installment of the world's most popular sports franchise. I love NHL 09, it's my favorite sports video game in years and really the entire 09 lineup of sports games from EA gave me hope that the company is done shoveling out $60 roster updates (although I was disappointed with the college game). I guess we're going to have to wait until August to find out – but I imagine there will be many stories about the additions are we approach the summer.



Rumor Mill Churning
File this one under the rumor mill – and give all credit to CriousGamer for these unsubstantiated rumors about the upcoming non-Call of Duty Modern Wafare 2. The game will allegedly contain: . All the weapons from the original are coming again.
2. 3 maps from the original are coming back with a few noticeable tweaks here & there.
3. There is a total of 16 maps including 3 from the original.
4. 20 new weapons will be added to the inventory & the most noticeable are the FAMAS assault rifle, HK PSG-1 sniper rifle, MP7 sub machine gun, AA12 fully automatic shotgun, MG4 LMG and the .44 magnum revolver.
5. Multiple attachment perk has been added which allows 2 attachments to be added to a weapon.
6. The Single Player Campaign is predicted to last 7+ hours.
7. Co-op Mode has been added.
8. A new Alien Terrorist co-op mode is also added with details still unknown.
9. The multiplayer is set to have 4 new modes above the original modes.
10. A new CLAN system & TOURNAMENT system will be added.
11. The PS version of the game is set to have Dedicated severs provided from SONY [Xbox Servers status still unknown].

This story is the exact reason I hate April Fools Day, because I found this story on Thursday, it was posted on Wednesday and I have absolutely no idea if this is real or fake. The reason I tend to lean towards real (as far as rumors go) is that there isn't anything completely out of the ballpark on that list. If it is true there are a couple interesting things, I love Co-Op being added (even though I'm not necessarily the worlds biggest co-op player), and the CLAN system and tournaments are cool ideas. But more so then anything else I love the idea of A new Alien Terrorist co-op mode which seems like the one item on that list that might be a joke, however with the popularity of the Nazi zombies in World at War is there any doubt that there may very well be alien terrorists in Modern Warfare 2?

Of course in the end the reason I am posting rumors is because I'm a fan of the series, and I know there are a lot of you out there that share my sentiment who want all the details of Modern Warfare 2 be it April Fools joke or not.



New Puzzle Quest April 8
The highly anticipated XBLA release of Puzzle Quest Galaxtrix has been confirmed for April 8.

Is this still highly anticipated? Don't get me wrong I do enjoy some Puzzle Quest. It's the perfect game when you want something to play but you don't have a great deal of time. It's the quintessential portable game, which is why, PQ: Galaxtrix has me so worried. The DS version was universally panned as a buggy mess. I'm hopeful that the XBLA version will not suffer the same fate because I do enjoy booting up the XBLA and playing some Puzzle Quest every now and again and I really want to love this game, hopefully that feeling is mutual because I really don't want lengthy load times in my Puzzle Quest.

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The Viewing Room

I loved Battlefield: Bad Company, there I said it. I thought the story was fun, the game play was enjoyable, the sound was amazing and the online play was a great time – so with all that said I was let down by the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 trailer (nothing special, no humor) but I'm still excited for the game.



Here is the underwhelming trailer for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Am I crazy or does this seem like a good looking PS2 game? I think I'd rather have an HD remix of the original G.I. Joe arcade game.



I don't really have much desire to play Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, but for whatever reason this trailer for the game made me laugh. I think it's the Michael Jackson from "Thriller" costume he has on that puts it over the top.

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Reader Rants

Leading off this week is my old nemesis, and the man I once mailed an envelope full of the hanta virus to Mark Salmela: Woah Joe watch it. You still have a ways to go before you have been writing a weekly news column longer than I did with SIXAXIS/B3yond. Lol I remember I did use the term "jihad" against you.

Anyways, Games Only a Mother Could Love is back full time, so be ready for the quality of work around 411games to rise significantly.

While I appreciate all the hard work that Mark put into writing B3yond the Report/Sixxaxis the fact remains that if you write a column that nobody reads for a system that nobody owns did you really write anything at all? As for his "GOAMCL" column – well it's pretty hilarious and I suggest you all take a look. It's amazing what Mark can do when he's on a strenuous one column per month, four months per year schedule.

The ironically, and inappropriately named Karl Marx is here in support of the expansion of the federal government I agree in principle with Jacky T on this. As video games become increasingly photo realistic and adult in their subject matter, they bcome innapropriate for certain age groups.

Age restrictions are sensible and that requires a level of enforcement and liability. Of course a level of parental responsibility is also required.

Unfortunately in a highly litigious society (Of which JT is/was a major contributor) people become rightfully alarmed as to the consequences of what could be quite a sensible legislative approach.

Yes; we should protect the vulnerable, yes; parents, retailers and publishers need to be responsible and yes; the legislation required to ensure this would be easy to draft and need only punish the most irresponsible.

I do not disagree with the idea that if there is a ratings system (the non governmental ESRB) then the video game stores can do more to enforce them. That being said I do not agree that we should give the ESRB the power of the federal government which is essentially what would happen if we listened to Mr. Thompson. I like my constitution in tact, and my government small – call me old fashioned.

Suddenly frequent poster Wyatt wants to share his love for me, which I approve…while also sharing his love for another man, which is something that I also don't hold against him. This column is instantly the best ever posted on 411Games, and possibly on 411Mania as well.

Why's that, Wyatt?

Well, it's about the 360, so that's an instant plus, but then you went ahead and did it - you mentioned Clay Calvert, one of the many, many talented professors I was fortunate enough to learn from during my time as a Political Science major at Penn State.

It is amazing the intelligent people that you run across in college isn't it?

The man known simply as J-Bone is back once again: The pants parties are always gettin down.

And you can't duck me for ever in 2K9.

One thing though.

Why is it that every fucking game I have at least 2-3 errors? Stupid bastards.


I accept your challenge J-Bone, this weekend we'll get down with some 2k9 in honor of opening weekend.

Finally Ukraine closes things out: Tito is my best friend in real life and I feel everyone should know that he eats babies....rare

You know what Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck, a road apple. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble, and it's time that I put the hurt on Ukraine.

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The Hot Button

Sorry all – I know this is one of the top six reasons to visit this column each week but I got caught up at work on a project and didn't have time to finish the column. I'll just ask the question that I was going to address and then write the full thing next week.

With GDC09 in our rear view mirror, we begin the build up to this years E3 and I want to know – what game are you most looking forward to seeing at E3? It doesn't have to be one that has been announced, confirmed, or even likely – I'd just like to know what you want out of E3 this year that would make you feel confident about the Xbox 360 heading into the second half of 2009.

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Punching Out

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