Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (UU's)
1 Gears of War
2 Call Of Duty 3
3 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
4 LOST PLANET OnlineDemo
5 Madden NFL 07
6 RoboBlitz
7 Call of Duty 2
8 Oblivion
9 Ghost Recon 3
10 Small Arms

Top 20 Most Played PC Games 02:40 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (1 comment)
Here are the top-20 most played PC games online at this very moment:

1. Half Life 34819 servers, 89384 players
2. Half Life 2 25416 servers, 83604 players
3. Battlefield 2 5312 servers, 26563 players
4. Battlefield 2142 2716 servers, 20388 players
5. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory 3618 servers, 13184 players
6. Call of Duty 2 6815 servers, 10416 players
7. Call of Duty 3190 servers, 7808 players
8. Americas Army: Special Forces 2234 servers, 6966 players
9. Unreal Tournament 2004 2462 servers, 6752 players
10. Neverwinter Nights 954 servers, 3684 players
11. Medal of Honor Allied Assault 1850 servers, 3654 players
12. Quake 3: Arena 1840 servers, 3250 players
13. Halo: Combat Evolved 944 servers, 2999 players
14. Soldier of Fortune 2 1001 servers, 2745 players
15. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead 1153 servers, 2651 players
16. Red Orchestra Ostfront 282 servers, 2520 players
17. Unreal Tournament 2128 servers, 2444 players
18. Battlefield 1942 763 servers, 2301 players
19. FEAR: First Encounter Assault Recon 985 servers, 1704 players
20. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy 640 servers, 1534 players

Spike TV Award Winners 02:31 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (1 comment)
SpikeTV held its annual Game of the Year awards last night which were hosted by the one-and-only Samuel L. Jackson. Oblivion was the big winner walking away with the highest honors. Gears of War also did very well winning best shooter and graphics. Company of Heroes was named best military game and Legend of Zelda was the Critic's choice winner. The Wii won best hardware and Alyx Vance was vixen of the year for her role in Half-Life 2: Episode 1. Thanks Planet Gears.

More Hellgate London Previews 02:22 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (0 comments)
GameSpy, GameSpot and 1Up all have updated previews of Flagship's Hellgate London. Here's a slice from the G-Spot write up which is a little more detailed than the others:

Hellgate's cooperative multiplayer has apparently been up and running for some time now at Flagship, and we had a chance to run with a small party, playing as a cabalist character. The cabalist, like the game's other characters, can wield a weapon in either hand, though this character class typically uses both ranged weapons and "focus items"--magical artifacts that channel the character's sorcerous powers into bolts of energy. You can tell when a cabalist is in play because of all the crazy projectiles that are flying around--these characters may be firing plasma weapons or hurling arcing bolts of purple lightning, or both at the same time. In addition to several base-level class abilities, the cabalist's specialized skills include focus (which gives cabalist characters power over elemental fire and the life force of those around them), summoning (which lets cabalist characters summon fire elementals, demons, and undead minions to fight alongside them temporarily), and shifting (which lets cabalists change their own shape into a variety of monsters).

RPG Vault Goodness 02:16 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (0 comments)

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos Wrap Report
Black Hole's recent real-time strategy release with dual campaigns for the human Empire and mutant Chaos factions - Includes nine exclusive 1280x1024 screenshots

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Media #1
Sigil serves up some examples of the eye-catching views awaiting visitors to its upcoming persistent state world - Five exclusive 1280x1024 screenshots

In Other News... 02:00 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (1 comment)
I broke down and bought Star Trek Legacy off of Direct2Drive last night. It was just $39.95, which was a nice change of pace. Usually, online games cost too much. Competitive pricing for the win! How is the game itself? Not too bad, so far. I've just played the first mission but it runs smooth and looks nice at 1680x1050 with everything set to high. This is on a 2 1/2 year old PC. The voice acting is really good, not only do they have all of the Captains from the TV shows, but a lot of the other cast and crew members as well. If you aren't a huge Trek fan, the game might not be very exciting, but if you are, it's pretty sweet. I'll try and boldly go where no other website has gone before and have a review up asap.

Today's question:

If online prices were more competitive (ala Legacy), would you be more inclined to buy games digitally?

It's been six weeks now since the community's purchase habits began driving the pricing of weapons in Counter-Strike: Source. As many of you have probably noticed, the price of the Desert Eagle has been increasing steadily and is now somewhat out of control. This is happening because the Desert Eagle is considerably more useful than the rest of the pistols -- purchasing one of the others is not a smart buy. We'll address this by making the Five Seven, P228, and Dual Elites more effective. The prices of all pistols have been reset to their previous defaults in preparation for this change.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl Q&A; 06:21 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (9 comments)
GamePro helped itself to an interview with GSC level designer Anton Bolshakov who talks about the trials and tribulations of developing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl:

GP: Are you worried about being compared to Duke Nukem Forever due to its numerous delays?

The players will forgive us for any delays once they get their hands on it and experience what the game has to offer. We are not afraid of being compared to Duke Nukem Forever. They should be afraid of us.

GP: What led to the repeated development delays?

The thing that took the most amount of time while making the game is the life simulation system. If we were to just create a linear game, like many other FPS games, we would have already been done with the game long ago. The extra time spent really makes a difference in the gameplay. The world in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is huge and extremely detailed, and it took time to do it just right.

Best.Quote.Ever.

Dark Sector Update 05:37 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (2 comments)
Gamespot snuck a peak at the new demo making the rounds of Dark Sector, the upcoming shooter by the co-developers of Unreal / Unreal Tournament:

Gone are the futuristic corridors, powered armor, and Metal Gear-in-space trappings you saw well over two years ago. They've given way to a slightly more mundane setting that Digital Extremes says will serve to underscore the unusual and exceptional nature of the game's new main character, Hayden Tenno. Tenno is a CIA "cleaner," the guy they call to come in and fix situations gone awry, the guy who "makes plausible deniability happen," according to the developer. At the game's outset, Tenno will head to the fictional former Soviet state of Lasria, where some sort of horrific biological weapons research has been taking place in secret. His mission is, of course, to mop up the situation, but that mission will be complicated when he encounters two factions at war with one another: a group of powerful mutated humans known as the infected, and a well-armed paramilitary force trying to stop them.

Sony "Fixes" Slow PS3 Production 05:13 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: PS3 (16 comments)
Sony has claimed to have fixed its production problems with the Playstation 3 and pledges to crank out at least a million new consoles before year's end.

On the heels of video game hardware and software U.S. sales numbers for November released yesterday by NPD, Sony's PR head David Karraker has issued a statement noting that the company is "very pleased" with the data, adding that manufacturing problems that ham stringed the production of the PlayStation 3 at launch "have been resolved."

Hellgate London Preview 05:01 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (5 comments)
PC.IGN got some trigger time playing a Hunter in Hellgate London:

Playing a Hunter wasn't completely different than the experiences we've had with the other factions at this point. But as we mentioned earlier, we've only played the beginning portions of the game with any of the factions before many of the skills and weapons begin to differentiate the factions and classes. Once nice thing about the early Hunter game is that one of the possible weapon combinations in place at the moment can dispatch enemies from a pretty decent distance. The second weapon we had the chance to check out was a flame shotgun type of weapon without the same range but incredible power to destroy groups of enemies in one or two shots.

There's still a lot to see in Hellgate: London that hasn't even been implemented yet. Hopefully they'll get some of the classes into the game before too long so that we can sit down and play through a bit more of the game and get a glimpse at new environments and some different missions.

Star Trek Legacy Impressions 04:53 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Space Strategy (8 comments)
PC Gamer kicked up some of the first impressions I've seen for the new Star Trek Legacy game:

One of the selling points on this title is that they brought back all five actors who had played a Star Trek captain—William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, and Scott Bakula—to reprise their roles. Normally this is fantastic news, since bad imitators can really kill the immersion factor of any game, whereas real actors can make all the difference in the world. But in this case, not so much—the first thing I noticed when starting up a campaign is the absolutely abysmal voice acting by Backula as Captain Jonathan Archer.

IGN's Top-25 Game Franchises 04:46 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (19 comments)
IGN has picked its top-25 favorite game franchises of all time. Some of the selections and how they are ranked are "interesting" to say the least. Do you agree or disagree with their picks?

November Videogame Sales Stats 04:29 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: General News (2 comments)
TeamXbox wrangled up some data for videogame sales stats for November:

The Nintendo Wii outsold the Sony PlayStation 3 by more than 2-to-1. 476,000 Wiis were sold in November versus 197,000 PS3s. (Wii launched on Nov. 19, the PS3 launched on Nov. 17)

Microsoft sold 511,000 Xbox 360 video game systems in November. Which means it was the top selling next-generation console for the month.

Gears of War was the top selling console game in November with 1 million copies sold. It was followed by Final Fantasy XII, which sold 896,000 units, and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess took the third place with 412,000 copies sold.

Bungie Weekly Update 04:08 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (0 comments)
This week's update has Bungie interviewing the dudes who made that cool pre-rendered Halo 3 commerical.

Bungie: What was the inspiration behind the theme of the commercial?

Scott: The inspiration for the commercial came from us wanting to do something that would resonate with the Halo Nation as well as someone who only has a passing knowledge of the Halo franchise. But the idea to show a young child and then jarringly switch to a battle weary soldier came from Tim Stier. By day he's an Art Director at McCann Worldgroup, SF, by night he's a Halo fanatic. We felt this misdirect would allow for people who had no idea who Master Chief was to be able to connect with a more human side of this war, and the Master Chief's plight, while the Halo Nation would relish the idea of seeing what goes on in the heat of battle.

Age of Conan Screenshots 03:52 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: MMOG (4 comments)
Six new screenies of Funcom's Age of Conan:

(Click to Enlarge!)

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. S.H.O.T.S. 03:45 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (4 comments)
Four new screenshots of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl:

(Click to Enlarge!)

Cool Mass Effect Movie on Live! 03:35 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (1 comment)
You can now check out the X06 demo for BioWare's Mass Effect on Xbox Live. In it, BioWare Project Lead Casey Hudson walks you through the live demo they showed off at X06.

New Forceware Drivers 03:30 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (0 comments)
NVIDIA has released a new set of Forceware drivers especially aimed for the new 8800 family of video cards. Specific game fixes include: Battlefield 2, Civ 4, Company of Heroes, Everquest 2, Splinter Cell Double Agent and more.

In-Game Ads Coming to Counter-Strike 03:22 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (9 comments)
CS-Nation interviewed Valve's Doug Lombardi about the inclusion of in-game ads in the v1.6 update for Counter-Strike:

CS-Nation: Why is in-game advertising being added into CS 1.6? Why not add this into CS: Source, Condition Zero, or one of Valve's more modern titles?

Doug Lombardi: As for why CS 1.6, the main attraction for potential advertisers is the audience size. Counter-Strike is the largest online action game in the world. Putting ads into our games is a new thing for us. Whenever we're testing something new, we try to be somewhat scientific — isolating the implementation so we can measure its success or failure. That's why we chose just one title.

GRAW 2 Announced; Screens 12:47 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (17 comments)
Ubisoft officially announced that it is working on Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2:

Today Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announced that Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™ 2, the next installment in the popular squad-based action franchise, is currently in development for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation�3 computer entertainment system, the PSP� (PlayStation�Portable) system and Windows� PC. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is being developed by the award-winning teams that created the original Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™ in Ubisoft's Paris and Red Storm Studios. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is scheduled for worldwide release in Spring 2007.

(Click to Enlarge!)

"Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter set the standard for what we know as the next-generation gaming experience," said Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft North America. "With Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Ubisoft is taking all the successful elements in the original to an unparalleled level of quality - the sophisticated technology, weaponry, graphics, story and online gameplay will heighten the intensity and bring gamers an even more amazing experience."

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter received critical acclaim and quickly became one of the best-selling games on Xbox 360 and one of the most played games on the Xbox Live� online gaming service. Recently, the prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awarded Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter with "Best Game of the Year" and "Technical Achievement" honors.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 builds off of the events in the first game and places gamers in control of the U.S. military's elite fighting unit, the Ghosts. In the year 2014, the rising conflict between Mexican loyalists and insurgent rebel forces has thrown Mexico into full-scale civil war. Under the command of Captain Scott Mitchell, the Ghosts are called upon to face an imminent threat to the United States. The fate of two countries now lies in the hands of the Ghosts as they fend off an attack on U.S. soil. Equipped with the most cutting-edge weaponry and technology, the Ghosts must battle on both sides of the border to neutralize the escalating rebel threat.

• Groundbreaking Visual Experience: The war zone in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter comes to life as you navigate through trash-strewn streets and pick off enemies from behind bomb-scarred structures. The cutting-edge physics and particle systems will show you some of the most intense and realistic explosions, smoke, and environment destruction ever seen in a video game. Dynamic lighting and shadows will morph as real-time day/night cycles and a constantly changing weather system require you to adjust to the changing conditions on the fly.
• All-New Battlegrounds: For the first time ever, the Ghosts will defend U.S. soil from a cross-border attack, taking the fight to all-new locations. The Ghosts will battle enemies in mountain terrains, barren deserts and even on their home turf in El Paso, Texas. Each environment presents its own benefits and challenges and will call for fresh tactical approaches.
• Vastly Improved Artificial Intelligence (AI): Watch your back as rebels send their own team members to flank your position or gain vantage points by utilizing vertical gameplay to pick you off from the rooftops above. Improved squad-mate AI will now feed you more of the information you need with descriptive commands like "enemy spotted behind red truck ahead."
• Improved Cross-Com: The revolutionary new Cross-Com 2.0 will give the player more information than ever before. You will be able to see what your friendly forces see in the top left display and the click of a button will expand that to full-screen view for a clearer and more precise picture. This will give you a more comprehensive view of the entire battlefield. The new Full Command View will allow unprecedented precision in developing and issuing tactical plans on the battlefield.
• Expanded Support: Command lethal air strikes with jet fighters, gain mobile cover for otherwise impassable situations and replenish armaments on the battlefield using an unmanned artillery MULE. Players can now heal their team on the battlefield, including squad leader Scott Mitchell, with an all-new Medic class of soldier.

Need for Speed Carbon Review @ VE 01:11 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Consoles: Xbox 360 (22 comments)
Here's our review of Need for Speed: Carbon, the latest but maybe not the greatest offering from EA:

Need for Speed: Carbon is EA Black Box's latest annual offering, giving gamers another healthy dose of racing action. EA's recipe for success is much the same this year: dishing out tried-and-true gameplay mechanics, plenty of cheesy full-motion-video cutscenes and stereotypical cocky rivals to race against. Long story short, it's a Carbon copy of just about every other Need for Speed game.

Images may look better than they actually do in-game

Hardware & Tech Nuggets 01:05 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (0 comments)

Audio

• Steel Sound 3H & 4H Headsets - XS Reviews

  Boards
  

• DFI Infinity 975X/G - TechAge
• Foxconn WinFast MCP61SM2MA-ERS2H Mainboard - Technic3D

  Cases
  

• Gigabyte Aurora 570 Chassis - T-Break
• Ultra Grid ATX Case - Thinkcomputers.org

  Cooling
  

• CoolerMaster Mars - Overclockers Online
• Coolit Freezone - Overclockers Club

  CPU
  

• Intel Quad Core QX6700 - CDR Info

  Mice
  

• Fanatec he�d$h0t Controller - Virtual-Hideout
• Gaming mouse group test - Bit-Tech

  Video
  

• Asus EAX1950XTX - CDR Info
• Biostar Simga-Gate GeForce 7600GS V7603GS-21 - PC Stats
• Foxconn GeForce 8800 GTX - Hexus
• GeCube Dual GPU Radeon X1650XT Tested - Tweaktown
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent: A Performance Analysis - Anandtech

RPG Vault Goodness 12:56 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (0 comments)

Hellgate: London Peek #4
Bill Roper provides some insights into the kind of character system the Flagship team is implementing in its game - Includes three exclusive 1680x1050 screenshots

Heavy Duty Media #2
We check out some of the varied environments in Primal's game, from the icy north to a much drier southern clime - Five exclusive screenshots

Game Reviews 12:45 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)
The Wii launches today in the UK. Should be plenty of Anarchy!

PC

• Left Behind: Eternal Forces - GameSpy - 2/5
• Medieval 2: Total War - Play.tm - 88%

  360
  

• College Hoops 2K7 - GameSpy - 3.5/5
• Rainbow Six Vegas - Game Informer - 9.5/10
• RobotBlitz - 360.IGN - 7/10
• RoboBlitz - Firing Squad - 82%
• Tony Hawk's Project 8 - Strategy Informer - 8.2/10

  Wii
  

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Armchair Empire - 9/10

  DS
  

• Eragon - DS.IGN - 7/10

  PS3
  

• Full Auto 2 - Game Informer - 7.5/10

  PSP
  

• Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops - Yahoo - 4/5
• Online Chess Kingdoms - PSP.IGN - 6/10
• Warhammer: Battle for Atluma - GameSpy - 2/5

In Other News... 12:35 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (25 comments)
Whoa, it's Friday already! Finally finished Need for Speed Carbon so its time to give Rainbow Six Vegas a go. Star Trek: Legacy is also out, maybe I'll try to weasel a copy from the D2D guys.

Today's TGIF question:

What games are keeping you busy these days?