The Shadowrun beta has ended. EnragedGnome wrote that it ended a few hours earlier than expected over on SR.thx.com. That was odd, I guess. I know one user in Germany actually couldn't play early this afternoon because the time has already come for that timezone.

I agree with what Gnome said. It was great to be a part of the development process. FASA listened to what we had to say and actually changed the game based on our feedback. I was fortunate to be in the beta when just several dozen players were playing it outside of the Microsoft campus. FASA has named bots after some of the testers. They gave Crackdown out before the game was released. They are handing out a lot of swag for the testers. (They even flew some people out to Microsoft to play the game). It was a good ride and FASA was very cool throughout the whole process.

More importantly, I found a new shooter that had a lot of replay value even if we had limited options and just two maps. I played the same two maps with XBOX-quality graphics and limited weapons, magic, and tech for many hours each week. I thought the gameplay was so good that I would play the same bare version of the game.

I wish more of you could have played it.

Will THX like this game? I hope so. A demo will be made available sometime around the launch date (unknown). I'll definitely keep lobbying for you guys to buy the game.

I think if everyone gave it a try, they would like it. Shadowrun is a shooter that allows you to play your game on your build in your way. Like to play slow and snipe? Then build your character that way. Like to be sneaky and fast? Then build your character that way. Like to play a supporting role? Then play that way. Just select your race and select your upgrades. There are some older testers (some have grandkids) in the beta that are quite good at Shadowrun. They may not be the best shot. But they are good at the game.

I think Shadowrun could easily bring back the LAN on Live feel. I even feel that this game would be great on LAN. After all, the party system is based on an improved version of the HALO 2 party system. Actually, the game itself has deep, dark Bungie roots.

Oculus, jayWHY, and Gnome will vouch for the game. They'll be ordering it for one of their platforms.

What do I have planned? I'll be buying the game for PC (and likely 360 if THX adopts and we have LANs). I'm going to play it a lot*. I've actually got dedicated SR servers already lined up. I only expect to play Shadowrun and HALO 2 (PC) for the rest of the year. I'll likely try another game or two (like Quake Wars and UT3).

I'm also going to try to hold a Shadowrun LAN at my house (or in the brewery?**) after the game is released. Some of the top beta testers live within a few hours of here. Also, other beta testers have said they would attend. Maybe in fact some testers will come. Ideally, I'd like to get a FASA representative out here, too. Working on it. More on that later.

So, yeah. The beta is over. Good news for me is that HALO 2 (PC) comes out next Tuesday. I'll be taking the day off of work for that one.

* That said, I haven't played the PC version of the game. If I feel that FASA has tweaked the keyboard and mouse too much, I likely won't play the game on PC. Cross-platform play is dangerous. A lot of balancing has gone into the gameplay to slow down the keyboard and mouse players. If I'm a lot better on 360, I'll play on 360. However, since I feel constrained with a controller surely I'll like it on PC better even if the aiming reticle has been skewed and some graphics effects made exclusive to the console.

** Got to work that one out. Good rock if it does. Uber cool space for LAN party.

Update: It's actually a M6G. says Frankie.

Update: Looks like we could be sorely disappointed. "Pistol info is wrong in one regard. Not scoped in H3. Ninjas have been assigned." source - thanks jay

HALO3.com has been updated with some new information. Among the new content is a listing of weapons. The first one listed? The M6D.

Unfortunately, we get no performance information. However, they do mention the 2x scope.

The Call of Duty series is fast forwarding from WWII to modern times. CoD4 will put you in battle with terrorists in the Middle East. Check out the video for more details. Other than the details, very little is known about the title.

Infinity Ward is making the game. They've setup a teaser site at http://www.charlieoscardelta.com.

The hi-def version of that trailer can be found here at gametrailers.com. The trailer we revealed during Saturday's NFL draft.

What are your thoughts on this? Why switch from a WWII setting? Why go to the Middle East where, well, we are still losing a lot of American lives?

"Politics aside, it'd be a hell of a lot more fun to play as an insurgent." - Slashdot user.

If you want to see what the new Bioshock 360 Dashboard theme looks like instead of having to buy it first, here's some screencaps:

After eating dinner Christina and I wandered into the nearby Gamestop and picked up the GHII demo. We took turns playing Cherry Pie and were hooked. We tried to buy it from them but they didn't have any more. We had them call two other stores nearby with no luck. Finally, after visiting four stores I found it in WalMart. Apparently it's sold out everywhere. The guy at the WM counter said "Finally found one, huh?" Not having told him of my journey, I replied, "Uh..yeah, finally. I can't believe you guys have three." "Three?" he replied. "We had twelve this morning. You're very lucky."

Yes I am.

Rocking out to Danzig is about the most fun I've had gaming. If you're a fan of rock and roll as well as gaming then this is a game for you. I'm working through it on easy right now, which is pretty easy. However, it's insane fun. I'll have fun going through it again on each subsequent difficult, I'm sure. Danzig, Warrant, Ozzy, Alice in Chains, and Guns and Roses are the most fun for me right now. I look forward to downloading Motorhead and Edgar Winter when I finish the standard songs.

I'm able to 5-star most of them on easy on my first try, although I have had to play a few of them twice. Medium is tougher, though. It brings in more chords plus an extra button. I hope my pinky finger is up for a workout. GHII FTW!

HDD transfer and Elite hands-on video from Major Nelson: Stream

From joystiq

While we're going through the manual that came with the Hard-Drive Transfer Kit, we though we'd share some pics of the little devil. It connects to the underside of the Xbox 360 hard drive and to the console via USB. This kit did not come with the Xbox 360 Elite. Microsoft anticipates most customers purchasing the Elite will be new customers; however, if you're upgrading, they'll provide a free Hard-Drive transfer kit redeemable at Xbox.com. While that's working (estimated time: 42 minutes), here's some info from the process:

It was good to see some old (is long-time a better word?) THX'ers join up to the HALO 2 action last night. We've been having 6-8 regulars each night since the two new HALO maps came out.

If you've got old or new XBOX hardware and have some time, come join up or post a thread to coordinate a playing time.

Don't have time to play? Just join up to the party, say you're going to go watch LOST, and don't come back.

GG's all.

Larry Hyrb describes his first experience with Halo 2 PC and its integration into the Windows Live and Xbox Live architecture. He reminds me that there will be achievements for Halo 2 PC players. Us folk playing H2 on original xboxen will never be able to earn them. :( It looks like Windows Live is going to integrate PC and console gamers like never before. Click "read more" to view the text of the article.

From majornelson.com

Video of the new Zanzibar has been leaked all over the internets. Here is the loving from gamevideos.com:

Sup THX??? Anyone else been playing HALO 3 lately. I think it's a lot of fun. I've been beta testing it and Halo wars for sometime now. I can't wait until you guys get to play it. Maybe we can LAN again sometime. I've gotten better at my sniping. Got my Elite the other day. 250 gb hard drive is awesome with IPTV from Comcast. I'm going to UAH now. I'm going to be a engineer for secret government agency in the US.

Edit:

Joystiq walks up through the video:

From XBOX360fanboy:

# Matchmaking Menus New veto system implemented.
# Military ranks are used and the use of XP points help to determine a player's skill level.
# Three types of matches: Ranked, Social and Custom.

General Multiplayer
# Spiffy new spawn animation we call the "blue grid sweep".
# Spawn with an Assault Rifle and two frag grenades
# Map is called Last Resort and is a re-creation of Zanzibar, but on crack.
# Every HUD notification (deaths, awards, weapon pickups) pops up very bubbly-like.
# Air lifts are included in multiplayer.
# Teammate's letter/code identifier expands when near, revealing their gamertag.

Weapon Information
# Weapons featured: Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, Plasma Pistol, SMG, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Spiker and Spartan Laser.
# The Sniper Rifle's radar features a bright green picture in picture scope.

Equipment Information
# Equipment items featured: Bubble Shield and Power Drainer
# Equipment item listed under grenades on HUD.
# First equipment item is picked up by walking over it, no button pressing needed.
# Bubble Shield is a cone type device that doesn't move, can be entered by any person, but no weapon can penetrate it.

Vehicle Information
# The Warthog, Ghost and Mongoose are shown. Both the Warthog and Mongoose are demoed.
# Hold the "RB" to get into a vehicle.

I've been getting into liquid cooling lately as I'm building my new gaming PC. I came across this piece of hardware that I had not heard about. Koolance sells the liquid cooling kit on their website for $289 and it is available in white or black. If you've already got a pump and radiator, you can get the kit for around $100.

As a geek, this is just cool. Why would I have one? For no good reason, I guess. I mean, are there any utilities out there for over-clocking your XBOX 360? Perhaps this would greatly reduce the fan noise in the 360, however, it may be offset by the radiator in the cooling kit.

Still, this is a very cool add-on for the XBOX 360. I believe before I would add liquid cooling to my 360, I would add a glass window and some UV lights. Hmm...

I saw a buddy on my list playing the new C&C3 demo. Indeed it was released this morning. After the 1GB download hit my demos folder, I gave it a try. Words to describe my first session:

Deep, complex, strategy, cool, fun.

I got my butt kicked by some girl (I could tell because there's XBOX Live vision support while playing). Apparently, I've got a lot to learn. I'm going to play the demo a bit more (especially when the Shadowrun demo ends). I might make a purchase (for the PC version).

Neowin.net said: The demo for Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars has been released to Xbox Live Marketplace for you to download and (hopefully) enjoy. The demo clocks in at 1 GB exactly, and includes two singleplayer maps, and one multiplayer map with Xbox Live Vision camera support.

C&C3 on Xbox 360 comes with a console specific control scheme that will hopefully be intuitive and easy to use, two console only multiplayer modes (Capture the Flag and Siege) and of course the Xbox Live Vision camera support we are hearing so much about. Nothing like seeing the ugly mug of the weirdo 13 year old kid who just owned you. Brings back memories of late night Counter-Strike play sessions. Yikes.

So go forth my friends, download the demo and enjoy. Remember, the retail release of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars will be on May 10th.

Remember those picture based adventure games that simulated a 3d environment, only they were just 2d pictures that were loaded when you clicked on a certain part of the screen? I spent countless hours playing a couple of them and IGN has listed a top 10 of some of them here. I am sad they didn't include 'The Journeyman Project'. Looking at the dates I would have been 12-13 years old when playing that game... wow it doesn't seem that long ago. I can still remember some of the plot twists and scenes like it was yesterday. The version I played was the first version on the Mac that didn't have any of the performance updates the later versions got. So what that amounted to was clicking on a section of the screen (or keyboard, I can't remember which) and waiting about 8-10 seconds for the next image to be loaded so you can move. Still, the game was fantastic, and had a cool feeling to it.

From Elizabeth at The Cult of Rapture

Yes, you read that correctly. It started with an online petition from a fan on the 2K forums, imploring us to make a BioShock limited edition. 19,692 signatures later, I opened up a poll on the Cult of Rapture asking BioShock devotees what they would like to see in the box.

Now I ask you, what would you like ON the box?

Kind of reminded me of E3 announcements with the crowd cheering and all.

Whoa, cool. Marvel is making a comic book based on HALO. The price will be $3.99. It will be in stores on 2007-07-18. See the first cover:

Update: Having trouble downloading the maps? Read this post by Bungie.

The Halo 2 ‘Blastacular Map Pack’ is now available for download over Xbox Live. This pack is US $4.00, and it contains two maps: Tombstone and Desolation.

Since this is original Xbox content, it’s worth pointing out the following:

• You can not purchase these maps with MS points because all original Xbox games have no idea what points are. Therefore, you must have a valid credit card associated with your account in order to purchase the map pack. Please read this article which will show you how to make the changes to your account to add a credit card. All set there, but getting an error when downloading? this may help.
• Don't have a credit card? Head down to your local Visa gift card retailer (like a supermarket) and charge one up with just enough to cover the purchase.
• The maps are original Xbox content..so when you purchase them, they are tied the console they are purchased on. You can not go to another box and re-download them for free.

According to Frankie, the H2 playlists will be updated shortly to include the new mapage.

I recently made a detour to the magazine section of Barnes and Noble while waiting for a table at a restaurant. I picked up a magazine called "Play" that featured a Bioshock preview as its cover story which contained an interview with a Bioshock developer. The following is the information I gleaned.

Bioshock is not a traditional first person shooter. Yeah, everybody says that about their FPS, but 2k Games is for real when it says that Bioshock bends and blends the genre in ways that I don't think have yet been realized. Given my total understanding of the interview, Bioshock will be a decision-based thriller that uses FPS elements to battle baddies while featuring heavy RPG elements and creating only the minimal necessary linearity in order to advance the main plot.

(and Bungie has many more special effects, weapons, and interactive objects waiting for us to discover in the game. Saving the best for last?)

Reading a news post by Wu got me thinking. What is happening to HALO? Is it changing into a game that is too big for our gaming preferences? Do you welcome these additions?

HALO 3 is going to allow the gamer to interact with the environment like never before. HALO 3 will feature deployable technology. We will be able to move and position gravity lifts around the map. We can use Bubble Shields to create temporary walls or roll them down a hill. Like our AI Marines are able to do in campaign, we can setup stationary turrets wherever we like. Game hosts will be able to tweak physical settings in the map like the force of gravity. We are getting new vehicles. The man cannon can catapult just about anything around the map. And there are plenty of new weapons like the Spiker Grenade, Land Mine, Spartan Laser, and a new Assault Rifle. And I also forgot about the stationary mortar cannons.

When we started playing HALO, it was about spawning with an Assault Rifle, bouncing across Blood Gulch, and trying to capture a flag. Later it became about 3-shot kills on Wizard, Hang 'Em High, and Rat Race - a style that made HALO the most competitive console shooter.

With these new additions, can HALO remain the competitive platform that it has been for so long? Or will these new additions limit what a hardcore killer can do?

In HALO 2, we had to be aware of the Energy Sword, the “n00b Combo”, health system replaced with a shield system, no fall damage, no client-side force effects (e.g., Warthogs didn't bounce through the air after being grenaded) and Dual Wielding weapons. That drastically changed how the game was played. All of those new factors, specifically the “n00b combo” were big turnoffs for many THX’ers. To this day, most of us would rather play HALO 1 than HALO 2.

Now it seems that HALO 3 is pushing the envelope of interactive gameplay.

With all of these new interactive and game-changing objects, it seems to me that HALO 3 is becoming a slow Unreal Tournament. I can’t help but imagine this game is turning into a big team battle fest. I've said for a while that HALO 3 appears to be getting CoD3'd. Perhaps it is getting UT3'd?

Do you think that HALO 3 is getting too complex? Or does the new level of interactivity translate to “more fun”?

Update: 720p video download from TeamXBOX.com (link)

BUNGIEMICROSOFT have announced the date for the HALO 3 beta. Invitees, Rule of Three winners, and Crackdowners will be able to play the H3 beta starting on May 16th on 7AM CST. The beta will last only 3 weeks. It will end on June 6.

Three weeks for the beta? Disappointed?

Maps shipping with the beta include Snowbound, High Ground, and Valhalla - all new to Halo 3. We'll also get to use the Mongoose ATV, the new AR, Brute Spiker, Spike Grenades, and the Spartan Laser.

Gotta love the free market. I was on a quest to find Halo PC tonight. I eventually found it at CompUSA, but I was on the lookout for anything strange that I haven't seen before. At Circuit City I found some interesting 360 data transfer devices:

Update: Major Nelson confirms this device is coming in Summer 07.

Earlier today Gamespot ran an article on this new adapter coming to the XBOX 360 controller. Engadget ran with the story. During that time, the Gamespot article has been pulled. The images from the article:

* The redesigned Achievement notification pop-up (toast) will show the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value. You’ll see this information the moment you earn an achievement. No more popping open the guide and interrupting your gameplay. (screenshot)
* Enhanced family settings features for Xbox LIVE communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
* A new Xbox LIVE Marketplace blade lets Xbox LIVE members access the content they seek - whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States) - from one place.
* Updates to Xbox LIVE Arcade allow owners to see which Xbox LIVE Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox LIVE members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. The Tell a Friend capabilities have been expanded as well.
* A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox LIVE Arcade games.
* New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
* Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.

The GRAW 2 PC multiplayer beta signups are supposed to be coming in early April sometime (This month). I'm not sure what regions are going to be allowed into the beta, but I would hope with such a large market in the US, some might get in. The announcement comes off of their UK website here: http://ghostrecon.uk.ubi.com/

GRAW 2 for the 360 has some of the best graphics I've seen in a game, the controls take some getting used to, but for the PC I suspect a predictable control scheme. The beta will showcase a new map 'CALAVERA' that is only available on the PC version of the game.

Acc