BESTBUY "EXCLUSIVE" MAP FOR THE OUTFIT NOW IN LIVE MARKETPLACE
The Arnhem Mayhem map which was previously only available to Xbox 360 owners who purchased The Outfit at BestBuy is now available for free in the Xbox Live Marketplace. Guess someone figured what good is a map, if no one plays it due to a limited audience.
-----------------------

So what's your take on "exclusive" content becoming available to everyone after a short period of time?

TAKE-TWO CLOSES "INDIE BUILT" STUDIO
Gamespot is reporting that Take-Two Interactive has shut down their Indie Built studio, the folks responsible for such games a Amped, Links and Top Spin. According to the article, Take-Two has advised;
-----------------------------------------

"Employees are being offered packages including continuation of salary and benefits, as well as other opportunities within Take-Two as appropriate, Take-Two is fully committed to its 2K Sports brand and franchises and retains all rights to the Indie Built IP." - Gamespot article
-----------------------------------------

So while it seems the franchises themselves aren't dead, the folks behind them most likely are. You'd think they'd have canned the clowns behind the Xbox 360 version of MLB2K6 before they'd fire anyone else.

TAKE-TWO ACQUIRES RIGHTS TO GHOST RIDER GAME
Take-Two Interactive announced today that they were the undisclosed buyer who purchased the rights to the Ghost Rider game from Majesco back in December when the publisher exited the high-end game industry. The game is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name and the upcoming film starring Nicholas Cage.

Xbox Live scheduled downtime - 5/2/06
Xbox Live Director of Programming, Major Nelson posted on the Xbox.com forums that there Xbox Live, Xbox.com and the Xbox.com forums will be down on Tuesday, May 2nd for 14 hours from 5:00am (EST) to 7:00pm (EST) for scheduled maintenance. Not sure what they're updating back there, but my guess is it's E3 related.

Indiana Jones coming to the Xbox 360
LucasArts has announced that one of their next projects will be an Indiana Jones video game for the Xbox 360. According to the press release, the game will also debut NaturalMotion's Euphoria behavioral simulation engine, which according to LucasArts will bring games to new heights of realism.
-----------------------------

"For the first time ever, euphoria enables interactive characters – from Indiana Jones himself to the foes he pulverizes – to move, act and even think like actual human beings without the limitations of traditional animation. Characters move and adapt realistically to their given situations on the fly, resulting in a series of experiences and payoffs that will never be the same twice. As one of only two publishers with early access to the technology, LucasArts is well advanced in integrating euphoria into Indiana Jones’ 2007 next-generation adventure.

Imagine a swaying rope bridge. With euphoria in action, characters visibly attempt to balance themselves, their feet stumbling, their arms flailing, and their hands reaching for security as the unpredictable movements of the bridge threaten to send them plummeting to their doom. Perhaps they all survive. Perhaps they all fall. The use of euphoria means the action isn’t scripted – it’s simulated – so you’ll never be able to predict exactly what will happen, no matter how many times you’ve experienced a certain scenario. " - LucasArts press release
------------------------------------------


Now we've all heard promises like this before, and I'm certainly not buying into it until I see some concrete proof that the Euphoria engine will make for unique gaming experiences every time. LucasArts has promised to demonstrate the Euphoria engine at E3, so we'll be sure to know a little more then. No details as to the plot of the game have been released as of yet, so hopefully we'll also see something on that at E3.

Is Wii the real name of Nintendo's new console?
With all the rumors going around about Nintendo possibly using the name Wii just to draw some press attention, I'd just like to point out that the official Nintendo website still refers to the console as the Revolution on the front page navigation bars. With something as easy to change as that, you'd have to wonder why it wasn't done to reflect the new name. Of course, speculation that Nintendo isn't going to name the console Wii is generating just as much press, so anything is possible at this point. We can speculate until the sun goes down and beyond, but I think the truth will only be known when Nintendo formally introduces the console at E3.
---------------------------------------------------------

Possible Gamecube price drop?
Gamespot is reporting that an EB Games employee has informed them their store has received promotional material for the May 3rd - May 23rd marketing period advertising a "New Low Price" for the Nintendo Gamecube. While the area the new price would be reflected in is blank, it's certainly a good indicator that EB is at least considering a drop in the price on the 'Cube. The employee did point out that the note included with the signage stated it was being sent out so stores could be prepared if Nintendo drops the price of the Gamecube, so there is a possibility that nothing will change. It should also be noted that the same employee told Gamespot that stores received the same type of kit just before the Playstation 2 price drop announcement.

So what does it all mean? My guess is with the 360 already on the market, and the Playstation 3 and Wii just around the corner, Nintendo may be looking to give the Gamecube a final push or Gamestop/EB may be deciding it's time to start clearing out their inventory of Gamecube consoles. Ultimately, my guess is we'll see the Gamecube drop to a retail price of $79.99 come E3.

New Rise of Legends demo available
Second Rise of Legends demo now available!

Good as their word, Big Huge has released a second demo of their upcoming RTS game Rise of Legends. I'm still in the download queue over at Fileplanet, so I haven't seen if it runs a bit smoother than the early beta demo. Hopefully they've added the ability to zoom out a little further than you could in the last demo.
--------------------------

4/29/06
I just finished my first game with the new build of the demo. While the zoom out maximum is pretty much the same, the demo has a much tighter feel to it and moved along at a much faster pace. Definitely an improvement from demo #1.

4/30/06
The more I play this new demo, the more I'm liking Rise of Legends. The "Battle for the Core" map allows a much better zoom out than the previous maps, and the sheer variety of unique units makes it appear that every map is going to need it's own strategy. Bottom line? while I'd like to see the game handle huge numbers of units better and the AI still seems a bit "off" when your units are defending an area on their own, Rise of Legends is starting to look like a worthy successor to Rise of Nations once again.

BIZARRE CREATIONS ANNOUNCES PGR3 LEADERBOARDS TO BE RESET
Bizarre Creations announced that because of the changes made to the ranking system in the "World Tournament" patch, they have reset all Project Gotham Racing 3 online leaderboards as of this morning. From things I had read recently, it had seemed a lot of people had stopped racing competitively in PGR3 for fear of losing their standing because of the way rank is now calculated. According to Bizarre it should only take a few races for people to wind up back in their correct skill classes.
--------------------------------

Now I wasn't big on racing in PGR3 online against strangers, so this really doesn't affect me much, but I'd like to hear news from people who do race on Live often and how wiping the leaderboards has affected them and if it's done anything to rectify the problem created by the Tournament patch where no one was willing to enter ranked races.

Major Nelson tells readers how to make their own 360 Dashboard blade backgrounds
In his daily blog, Xbox Live's Major Nelson told readers how to make their own background images for the blades in their Xbox 360 dashboards. While regular users are limited to only having the same image for all blades, it still is pretty neat. From MN's blog.

----------------------------------------
"I just loaded one of the water ballon pictures as my Xbox 360 dashboard background, and it looks pretty good, so I thought I'd go through the steps of you can to do it:

All you need to do is download the hi rez version of this photo, then put it on a USB memory stick. Pop it into your Xbox 360, and sign in with your profile. Once you sign in, go to the Media Blade, then to Pictures. Go to Portable Device (this is your USB memory stick) scroll to find the photo (you'll see a thumbnail) and when you have the photo highlighted, press X. That will make the photo your background on all blades as seen below. (You can not make a different image for each blade, only developers can do that with themes.) " - Major Nelson
-------------------------------------------

Pretty nifty indeed. I haven't tried to add one yet, but rest assured, once I finish tonight's site updates, I'll be trying to find one that suits my style just right.