The Full Circle: 360 News Report (10.10.08)

Posted by Joe Roche on 10.10.2008

It's Friday and Joe Roche is back with another edition of The Full Circle. Check out the full rundown of Microsoft announcements made at the Tokyo Game Show including news on the new Halo 3 expansion, a new batch of Xbox Live Arcade titles, another huge new title coming to Microsoft for the first time, good news about Fable II and much, much more.



It is Friday again which means it's time for The Full Circle. I apologize ahead of time if things seem a bit rushed but I plan on covering the major news stories from the Tokyo Games Show and we'll work from that.

- This week I spent a very good chunk of my free time playing Halo 3. I'm not entirely sure why I was so averse to the game when it first came out but I regret waiting this long to pick it up. The story is a lot better then I anticipated, and the multiplayer is fantastic.

- Also this week I've been playing Mega Man 9 for a full review on this site which should be up on Monday. I don't want to give away anything from the review but this game is f'n hard. I had forgotten how difficult Mega Man was before picking this up and now I feel like a fool trying to get through these levels without having to restart fifteen times.

Final note before we get into it. I am a diehard Boston Red Sox fan, have been my entire life but I am a bit conflicted about the ALCS. Of all the places I've ever lived Tampa/St. Pete remains my favorite, and if it was up to me I'd still be there. Before the season began my then fiancé told everyone who would listen that the Rays were going to the World Series and now they're four wins away from making that prediction come true. I'm still pulling for the Sox in 6, but a part of me would laugh at a Tampa Bay Rays World Series.

Holiday Bundle Time



As we prepare for the holiday season Microsoft has officially announced the once rumored holiday bundle packs will be coming soon. There appear to be two separate bundles, the $199 Arcade bundle will come with SEGA Superstars Tennis, and both the $299 Pro, and $399 Elite will come with Kung Fu Panda, and LEGO Indiana Jones. Obviously these bundles are aimed at family gamers, and kids in particular which is a good move if you're Microsoft this holiday season. According to people who have read through the entire press release on these bundles, they will also come with a free Netflix trial (as that is one of the main selling points of the new Xbox Live Experience this makes sense). I can see where this might be a nice bullet point on a box, but aren't trial memberships to Netflix free all the time?

Xbox Live Experience Dated



That's right folks, we now have an official launch date for the new Xbox Live Experience so get your avatar making helmet ready. The new service which up to this point has been met with anger, apathy, and confusion as to why my current Xbox Live service continues to be affected will come online on November 19th. After seeing how "smoothly" the last Xbox Live update went I can only imagine that this means you'll have full service on the new XLE sometime around New Years.

In related Xbox Live Experience news, it appears that if you're planning on creating your own Avatar you're going to need 256MB of free space available. Most people seem to agree that this isn't a very big deal – I mean at this point who doesn't have 256MB of free space on their hard drive? But when you take into consideration how hard MS has been pushing the Arcade (just read the holiday bundle piece above) you start to see how people might want to experience the new dashboard, and the cheaper Xbox 360 unit only to find out that now they can have an Avatar but can't save any games. I'll be interested to see if this news item, which has not been reported until now, will cause anyone to complain about the Avatars even more.

Halo 3: Recon



When Bungie released a teaser trailer of a Halo 3 expansion it got people's attention. Well at the TGS we got some concrete details on what is now being called Halo 3: Recon. According to people who know things, the game is going to follow a brand new UNSC Marine Trooper – specifically an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper – in a brand new mission that takes place prior to Master Chief arriving on New Mombasa. The expansion will include a brand new campaign, new multiplayer maps, and Forge items, as well as movie capture features, campaign scoring and screenshots.

This is going to be a stand alone expansion, and while there was a reference to 01/09/09 in the teaser video it has been confirmed that the game will see the light of day in Fall 2009.

Halo Wars is Coming with Flood



Halo Wars is the type of game that drives gamers crazy. It's a highly anticipated game with tie ins to a hugely established franchise that has been pushed back so many times that people have started to lose faith. When you take into account the constant delays, and the soon to be out of work nature of the studio behind the game you can understand why people remain skeptical about Halo Wars. However, along came the Tokyo Games Show and official confirmation that Halo Wars is on the way on the specific date of EARLY 2009. If you're scoring at home, refusing to give a definite date and simply highlighting a portion of the year is not a good sign for things to come. However, the game has been promised early in the New Year, and according to people who know things the Flood will be included in the game. There are not further details available so I'm not sure how the Flood will play into the Marines/Covenant battle but I'm sure it'll be awesome when we finally do find out.

New XBLA Announcements



For those of you who prefer the Arcade to disc based games I've got some good news. Part of Microsoft's presentation at TGS involved announcing some new releases for the Arcade. Set to release during the winter season is Space Invaders Extreme, and Arkanoid, while R-Type, and The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match will release in Spring 2009, and finally Slug 7 looks to find a home on the XBLA sometime next year. Of all these announcements I think Arkanoid is the coolest because the game was announced to include 120 stages, and online play. I am not the type of person who can play through 120 stages of a game, but I'd like to give it a whirl.

Tekken 6 in Fall 09



That headline takes most of the suspense out of this next story. The Tekken series is coming to a Microsoft console for the first time during the Fall 09 season. According to the announcement made at TGS, the game will feature the Bloodline Rebellion update that just recently went live in Japanese arcades, and introduces two new characters Alisa Boskonovich, and Lars Alexanderson. I've never been a huge fighting game fan but I do know how popular the Tekken series is, and the fact that this just makes another major title coming to the 360 that you could never before get on a Microsoft console shows how series Microsoft is about keeping their console out front.

Star Ocean Dated



Try to think back to a time before Square announced Final Fantasy 13 was coming to the Xbox 360. Way back then there was still excitement around our favorite console coming from the JRPG crowd because of Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant, and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Of course Infinite Undiscovery was met with a bit of apathy (in this country), but the other two games remain on the horizon, and at TGS we got a firm release date for Star Ocean which remains the most anticipated out of that group of three. The game will drop in Japan first on Feb. 19th and will follow in North America on March 3. This should give everyone enough time to plow through Christmas present games, and be primed and ready to go for Star Ocean in early March.

Bionic Commando Delayed



Remember last week when I showed you all the Bionic Commando box art? Well apparently that's the only thing ready to ship involving the game because even though it is playable on the showroom floor in Tokyo, the console version has been pushed back to early 2009. This still puts the game pretty close to release, but it's never a good sign when you're voluntarily pushed past Christmas and into the New Year. We shall wait for more information as we draw closer to the release of Bionic Commando.

Fable II Will Have Online Co-Op



Once again I'm letting my headlines do the talking. A few weeks ago Lionhead was telling everyone who would listen that online co-op would be available, but not at the launch of Fable II. I was one of the few people who saw a game with hundreds of hours of game play potential and wasn't too depressed about that announcement, others were less sympathetic. But everyone wins now because as it turns out all of the midnight oil burning that went on at Lionhead Studios paid off – Fable II will ship with online co-op enabled. Well – it's almost certain because at this point Microsoft still has to certify everything so that it's good to go on the 21st, but I don't see much of a problem coming so you online co-op fanatics should all rejoice this day.

THE HOT BUTTON

I have almost nothing to talk about this week. It's been a pretty uneventful week for me and since I just covered most of the major stories coming out of TGS there really isn't a whole lot to cover in the hot button this week. Instead of a lengthy piece about the state of the industry I thought I'd just point out a couple quick hit points that didn't necessarily warrant their own heading, and we'll go from there.

- As I was writing this column today news broke that Konami has announced a new Castlevania game for the PS3 and Xbox 360. This announcement apparently surprised a lot of people including series creator Koji Igarashi who didn't think Konami would spill the beans this soon. If the guy behind the game didn't even know that it was ready to be unveiled I think we're tip toeing on the Sony habit of announcing things way to soon, so try not to get excited about this game yet since we probably won't see anything from it until E3 next year.

- If you didn't already know the Dead Space comic has been animated and put online. All six episodes have now been released and if you're at all interested in this game I strongly suggest checking them out. The language is a bit on the heavy side so if you're one of my seven year old readers ignore this suggestion. For the rest of you this series gives some background on the events that lead up to the game (which releases next week). I am really excited for Dead Space, and I don't think I'm alone. I cannot suggest these videos strongly enough.

- This week Jesse Divinich, an analyst at the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research told Sony that they should come out with a pre-holiday price cut. Divinich believes that a price cut is the only way to keep the PS3 competitive this holiday season, as the Xbox 360 has already posted increased sales numbers on the strength of the price cut alone, and then you have to factor in the huge releases that will be coming between now and Christmas, and you can understand Divinich's concern. The concern seems to stem from the fact that we're in the midst of an economic collapse and Sony is pushing LittleBigPlanet and Resistence 2 at a console price of $399, which is just too steep. I tend to agree with the analysts, and understand Sony's side of the argument as well. Frankly with the sales numbers that we're seeing from Microsoft globally after the price cut I think Sony would be foolish to not entertain the idea of cutting their price tag. The more units you can sell even at a lower price has to be better for business right?

- Wrapping up this week: am I the only one let down by Heroes this season? People are really digging this year through the first four episodes, and I feel left on an island when I say that I'm not feeling it. I think there has been to much focus on time manipulation, and while I am sure that things will come together as we get deeper into the season right now it just seems like we're popping back and forth from future's that will never happen as an excuse to pop back and forth in time. I do like the idea of Claire working for the company and trying to kill Peter, even if I have no idea how we wind up in this alternate universe, bad ass Claire is fun.

PUNCHING OUT

Nintendophiles by Theo Fraser

Fact or Fiction with Sean Garmer and Me

Hall of Shame by Vincent Chiucchi

Beyond the Report by Mark Salmela

Achievement Unlocked by Rod Oracheski

Coming Attractions by Drew Robbins

The PC Centric Extravaganza by Chris Evans

The PC Spotlight by Chris Vicari

Working Title by Jordan Williams