GUG Gaming News: Thursday, April 12

IGN: NASCAR 08 Preview

NASCAR 08 will feature 22 authentic tracks. We saw a few highlights, like the remodeled Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the bus stop at Watkins Glenn and the pagoda at Indy. Visually, it's early, but NASCAR is looking hot thanks to a blistering frame-rate, Days of Thunder smoke effects and dynamic lighting. You'll see day-to-night transitions, and moving from shade-to-sunlight will make it more difficult to see, like coming out of a long tunnel. Still, the textures are rough but we expect NASCAR 08 to be ready, at least visually, by release.

IGN: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 Preview

While a successful GamerNet could revolutionize online play, the new Photo Face feature is the next logical evolution of the character creator, known in Tiger as Game Face. The idea isn't new: take a picture of yourself and upload it on a character model. While we've seen this before with mixed results in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, Tiger 08 takes it to an entirely new level. First you import a front and side photo from the Xbox Live Vision Camera, the Sony Eye Toy or a picture on your PC. Next you simply match up a number of markers with key points on your face, like eyes, nose, lips, ears and chin (a template shows you exactly where to put the points). Finally, hit go and Tiger 08 starts building a brand new character head (rather than wrapping a photo texture around a blank face as in Rainbow Six).

"Tiger has easily the greatest player creator in sports," Taramykin says. "But that came out in 2004. It's time for an overhaul."

Electronic Arts opens Live Arcade website

With Boom Boom Rocket available now and Wing Commander Arena on the way, EA has thrown its proverbial hat into the Xbox Live Arcade ring. It looks like EA is planning to be in for the long haul, as the company has launched an official site dedicated to Xbox Live Arcade projects. Right now, the only games spotlighted are Boom Boom Rocket and Wing Commander Arena, though there are two vacant spots left. So, expect at least two more titles from EA to land on the Arcade. The site also hosts forums and allows users to sign up for email ~~spam~~ updates. Each game also has its own mini-site with requisite videos and (surprisingly low res) screenshots. Hit the "read" link to check it out.

Sprung: First (official) look at the Xbox 360 Spring Dashboard Update! | Tina Wood | Channel 10

You might have heard some buzz ;) about a little thing called the spring dashboard update for Xbox 360! You know I had to run right over to see what we'll be getting the week of May 7th. We show you how Windows Live integration lets you IM your gamer buddies from games, from your cellphone, or from work (poor you), and we give you an up-close look at the new Xbox 360 keypad.

Beyond Windows Live Messenger, the Spring Update for Xbox 360 includes hundreds of new features and enhancements including:

A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list.
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 on Xbox Live.
Updates to Xbox Live Arcade allow owners to quickly 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. Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
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.

Halo 3 Will Put Xbox 360 Further Ahead of PS3

Halo 3 and Shadowrun are looking to put the Xbox 360 out in front of the Playstation 3 even further.

read more | digg story

Crysis VS Real life 2

"Some new crysis vs real life pictures, see if you can tell"

Finally some hard numbers in the format war

Nothing new here, but it is good to see some hard numbers in the format war. The most reassuring aspect of these numbers is the fact that they once again mirror our previous indexes like Amazon. Casino Royal (IMDb 7.9/10) is still the king in the next-gen battle and although there are few other titles for both sides that do well, many aren't selling that great. We'll put our money on the fact that many are still choosing to rent older titles, rather than buy them, effectively hedging their bets. The other interesting point to note is that, titles that are available for both formats and released on the same day, sell more copies on Blu-ray than HD DVD. For example during the week ending March 18th 2007, The Departed (IMDb 8.4/10) on Blu-ray sold 3,057 copies vs 1,287 on HD DVD and while some like to blame the overall lead Blu-ray has on the fact that Blu-ray has more titles available, this disagrees. This is fun and all, but as long as Warner can sell 4,344 copies of The Departed instead of only 3,057, there is still no end in sight to the format war.

360 HD DVD doesn't play by AACS's rules

"The DRM enforcing AACS has officially gone into a tizzy. The hacking communities of Xboxhacker and Doom9 came together and found a way to view Volume IDs for any HD DVD played in the Xbox 360 HD DVD player add on. This of course allows any disc to be played, bypassing any AACS authentication and even playing Volume IDs that the AACS previously revoked. Ultimately, the 360's HD DVD player is pretty much the easiest way to bypass DRM and is an integral part of 'backing up' your HD DVDs. It'll be interesting to see how the AACS combats this new hack (which makes last week's effort a wash), will they revoke the entire lot of Xbox 360 HD DVD players or will they force a simple firmware update? Be afraid HD fans, this is when DRM enforcement gets scary."

Original Price of Persia on XBLA?

"These ratings boards just can't keep their mouths shut it seems, as yet another XBLA title has been uncovered. This time it's Prince of Persia Classic. According to the German Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (USK) ratings board, the game was tested yesterday. The original Prince of Persia is a legitimate classic that would jive just fine with Xbox Live Arcade, providing plenty of platforming challenges and decent combat. Of course, if you own Sands of Time then you can already play the original Prince of Persia hidden within the game. Then again, that won't net you any achievements. "

Major Nelson on GHII DLC, Halo 3, Sony

Before the NYC Guitar Hero II event with Gene Simmons got into full swing, Joystiq got the chance to sit down with Larry Hryb (AKA Major Nelson) and talk about all things Xbox. Speaking about the highly priced Guitar Hero II downloadable songs, Major Nelson states that it's not analogous to iTunes. In other words, the interactivity, the licensing, and the testing all go into creating a price for the new tracks. Furthermore, since the tracks are on a new platform, all the contracts have to be renegotiated. Of course, Red Octane wants to make some money as well. When asked about the bundling issue -- i.e. "I have to buy two crappy songs to get the one I like" -- Major Nelson says that bundling was probably done to bring the cost down. By working on three songs at once, rather than individual songs, Red Octane could conceivably cut down on development costs, thus reducing the price to consumers. In other words, individual songs would likely be even more expensive.

Major Nelson also discusses the upcoming Halo 3 beta, the competition from Sony, the Spring Update, and the Wii. Hit the "read" link for the full interview.

Current Wii shortages see no immediate end in sight

In the third episode of Game Theory, Nintendo VP of marketing and corporate affairs Perrin Kaplan spoke with the podcast, clarifying Nintendo's current situation regarding supply and demand for the Wii. According to her statements, Nintendo is currently at "absolute maximum production" and is doing everything possible to reach their target numbers, which have so far surpassed production numbers of the majority of their competitors, as well as the production numbers of previous Nintendo systems.

"[W]hat that really says is that the demand continues to be extremely high," she added. 'People are being really diligent about working with the retailers to locate one, but we're really cognizant of the fact that a lot of fans are not able to get their hands on one yet. And we're asking them to be patient and for them to know we're working on this as fast as we can."

Demo: Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia

"Name: Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia Demo
Price: Free
Availability: Gold members in all Xbox Live regions
Dash Details: Experience frantic cooperative game play in Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, an UnrealEngine3 powered top-down shooter. Four players can team up on one Xbox 360 to slash, shoot, and drive through a menagerie of monsters in the campaign mode, or take battle onto Xbox Live for networked cooperative play. Coming in Spring 2007.
Size: 434.6 MB (Approx.)"

Poll Results: Will you use 360 instant messaging?

"Will you use 360 instant messaging?

Votes
Yes, I love smileys :) 51% 890
No, my fingers are for gaming 17% 297
Why IM when you can voice chat? 23% 405
Only if this means 360 finally gets WoW 9% 166

1,758 votes total
Poll results are subject to error. Pollhost does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

12.4.07