Midnight has created a group for the Hushed Casket at MyGamerCard.net. MGC has some amazing stats on gamerscores in general. With the THX group, we'll be able to keep tabs on what THX'ers are playing and their gamerscore progress.

For instance, you can sort our group by game. So, you can see who has the highest score in Geometry Wars, Guitar Hero II, or Gears of War. GG.

I'll add a link to this site to the menu soon so that you can check back later.

Something new and exciting is happening to the way you experience games. On February 12, Xbox® is teaming up with Old Spice to bring you Xbox Rewards and the Old Spice Experience Challenge.

Xbox Rewards offers casual and hardcore gamers alike the chance to earn actual rewards for doing what they enjoy—playing games, earning achievements, and having fun. Xbox Rewards is a free program, but in order to register you will need to have a valid Windows Live™ ID with your Xbox Live® gamercard linked.

The program is launching in the U.S. only, and you must be 13 years or older to participate.

Microsoft has issued some new guidelines that are sure to impact us soon. The good news is that we can earn more Gamescore points per game. The bad news is that the game developers can control WHEN they make all the Gamerscore points available and 1000-1250 total points might not be available on the retail disc. From Microsoft:

1. All regular disc-based games MUST have 1,000 Gamerscore in the base game. This means that any consumer who buys a retail game will have the opportunity to unlock the full 1,000 Gamerscore without having to pay for any add-on content. Note that a publisher may decide to deliver a portion of this Gamerscore via add-on content, but the add-on content will always be free to the consumer.

2. Game publishers will have the option to deliver another 250 incremental Gamerscore on top of the 1,000 via add-on content from Marketplace. This add-on content could be either free or paid. So if you complete a game and earn the full 1,000 GS, you could by getting new add-on content earn up to a total of 1,250 points from a game.

3. Xbox Live Arcade games will operate in similar fashion, but given the size of these titles they will allow you to earn up to 200 Gamerscore from every game and up to another 50 points from add-on content.

“A perfect example of this is the recent release of Crackdown, which has delivered 900 Gamerscore today on the retail game disc. The remaining Gamerscore in Crackdown will be made available, for free, via a future content update. A number of the title's future Achievements will likely be based on some of the amazing feats executed through the streets of Pacific City, as well as the exciting additional content that Realtime Worlds currently has up its sleeve.” – MS’s Gamerscore blog

That sounded weird at first. So, I reverted back to guideline #1 and TFA. It looks like you are guaranteed the opportunity to unlock 1000 Gamerscore points on all retail games without having to pay extra. But, the 1000 Gamerscore points don’t have to be available on the disc. They just have to be offered for free at a later time via downloaded add-ons from the Marketplace. So, Crackdown will have 100 Gamerscore points hanging out there as a free add-on made available after the release.