Video of 20 Minute Farcry 2 Demo

[Dreamhack Media]

Ubisoft’s Farcry 2 is set to release this October and anticipation is high for the upcoming first-person shooter.

While this demo does feature one not so impressive moment, for the most part it does a good job of showing come core gameplay and gives us a look at some of the dynamic systems in the game, including enemy A.I. The graphics are hard to appreciate on the cam quality video (particularly on Youtube), but rest assured the game will look great.

Enjoy.

Leaked K-Mart Flyer Shows 360 Price Cut

[Team Xbox]

A “leaked” flyer from K-Mart has recently surfaced online that shows the Xbox 360 for a “new low price” of $299.99 USD. There is no indication on the flyer that said price is part of any sale or special bundle. And in fact, “new low price” would seem to suggest this to be a permanent price cut. As Team Xbox points out, the inclusive of Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution and Don King Presents Prizefighter seem to confirm this is a new ad. It should also be noted, however, that while this flyer is reportedly from K-Mart there is no distinguishing feature or logo that indicates any specific retailer.

Speculation on a price drop for the Premium Xbox 360 has been high over the past few months, with consumers wary of the high price tag on the 360 Elite, and less enthusiastic about the Arcade version of the system which doesn’t feature a harddrive out of the box. Now we’re left to wonder whether or not a price drop on the Premium configuration also signals price drops for the other two versions of the system. Could we possibly see a drop on the Arcade to $249, matching the Wii’s retail price tag? Or even the Elite going down to $399 matching the PS3 40GB model? Moreover, does Microsoft really need to drop the price and would it give them the advantage over Sony and Nintendo in overall bang-for-buck value?

We should find out whether or not these rumors are true and how they work out for Microsoft some time soon. Stay tuned.

Resident Evil 5 Only On 360?

With fans still waiting for the release date to hit for Resident Evil 5, and with the trailer hitting the E3 back in 2005 there are sources out there now that RE5 might just be an Xbox 360 exclusive. A GameStop listing shows that the title was to go on the 360 but having the PlayStation 3 in the dark. This is really hard to come by even try to believe because of the fact that RE5 was announced as a multi-platform title months and months ago. Come on, a least keep one side of the table clean. Capcom Senior Director of Communications Chris Kramer came back with this so called information that, “Resident Evil 5 is coming for PS3 and 360.” This story can also be found at www.kotaku.com Kotaku pointed out that online retailer Amazon had a similar hitch in the listing of the games, “the Xbox 360 version having a release date scheduled for October, but nothing for its PS3 counterpart.”We haven’t given either retailer any new information on the game, so it’s most likely hiccups in the system,” he said “The goal is for both products to ship simultaneously, as Devil May Cry 4 just did. It sounds a bit off the wall to us, but Microsoft has done an admirable job of securing exclusive content from Capcom in the past.”  Still I look back on this information and just smile as to the fact that sales of the Devil May Cry 4 on the PS3 in Japan sky rocket, it doesn’t seem to make much financial sense. Which even that the company has a main focus on multi-plat forming but still I’m going to keep my eyes on this story and see how it’s going to progress.

Xbox Live to Feature User Avatars This Holiday

[Joystiq]

In a never ending cold war of “feature jacking” Microsoft will be ripping a major facet of a competitor’s online service, an area where Microsoft’s Xbox Live has typically been at the forefront. According to a “trusted source” cited by Joystiq Xbox Live will roll out a new feature this holiday season (presumably as part of the oft touted Fall update) that will resemble, at least from first glance, Nintendo’s popular Mii user caricatures.

The leaked image, reportedly from an “online survey”, features cartoon-like characters complete with enlarged craniums and all. From the looks of it XBL users will be able to customize their virtual selves into any shape, size, or unusual costume choice they desire.

The implications of feature jacking aside, Microsoft has led the way in the console online gaming market for years now, and if there are one or two elements where they fall behind either Nintendo or Sony, the only logical option is to adapt, even if that means swallowing their pride and owning up to the fact that the other guy has a damn fine idea.

Call it ’stealing’ or ‘copying’ if you want, the fact is if someone pioneers quality features or content, it serves the gaming community as a whole if said advances are adopted throughout. We’ll see whether XBL’s Avatars stack up this holiday season.

Sessler’s Soapbox: Attention Bigots

I’ve always been a fan of Adam Sessler, all the way back to the original TechTV days (a few of you remember, I’m sure), and despite the persona of the ridiculous jester he puts on these days for G4’s X-Play, he remains of the more candid and uniquely insightful voices in gaming journalism. And quite frankly, he nails it on the head with this one.

We’ve all been subjected the overly audible idiocy of some prepubescent ignoramus once or twice on Xbox Live, and I’m pretty sure those of with a shred of human decency are as sick of it as Sessler is.

This is J. Peace.

[G4.com - Sessler's Soapbox]

The New Call of Duty

 

Call of Duty 5: World at War. Developed by Treyarch and published by Activision the game is due to be released towards the end of the year, most likely around Christmas time. Check Out this trailer of the gameplay which can be found on www.N4G.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You See The Ring Before Your 360 Dies

With this ring you are not going to see a little girl come out of your TV, crawling on all fours to kill you…no no! We are talking about the “Red Ring of Death” which all gamers of the 360 should know about now, if you had it or not! This “Red Ring” around the console’s power button signals that there is a hardware failure, which Microsoft admitted last year that all the 360’s had a shipped suffering from the design and was responsible for the flaw and problem. With this problem Microsoft increased its console warranty to three years as a result. That was six months ago and we still see the problem today as much as back then. According to www.techreport.com, “the failure rate for Xbox 360s is around 30%, and Microsoft is expecting a whopping one million failures this quarter alone.  Regarding the underlying cause for the high failure rate, the insider claims Microsoft skimped on the console’s design in order to beat Sony to the punch.” This not the first time that Microsoft did something like that to beat Sony or just to be caught up. When is Microsoft going to stop lying to us about what is coming out if its games or systems and when are they going to stop trying to see who has the bigger…well you know. What does this mean for Microsoft in the future? Which if they keep this up their future is right around the courier, keeping its hands in its pockets.