Check out this excellent Gears of War themed Xbox 360 hack, as featured today on Technabob. This one was put together by intrepid modder DFW Monkie, and was built up using layers and layers of bondo, the lovely stuff known as P38 in the UK which people use to bodge up the holes in their rusty old cars. This is a much better use for the stuff if you ask me.

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Here’s an awesome MAME project that goes beyond the usual arcade cabinet format. It’s a custom-built TARDIS enclosure holding a computer running Win2k and lots of old arcade games. The look and feel of the control console is actually based on the one in the ‘real’ TARDIS, as well.

Finally, just to top it all off, the cabinet is signed by none other than Sylvester McCoy, the guy who played the 7th incarnation of the good Doctor. Does this get any better?

Check out the official site here, with pictures of the build progress and entertaining commentary.

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Hawty McBloggy has found some excellent, and rather disturbing, screenshots from Halo 3 showing that the Master Chief enjoys  ‘getting jiggy wid it’ just like the rest of us…

Check out the full gallery and her excellent commentary here…

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Rumors have surfaced today on 4 different Japanese gaming sites surrounding the price of Microsoft’s upcoming XBLA games announced as part their ‘Summer of Arcade‘ promotion.  According to the articles the prices will break down like this:-

• Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 -  800 points ($10/£7/€9.50)
• Braid -  1200 points ($15/£10/€14)
• Galaga Legions -  800 points ($10/£7/€9.50)
• Castle Crashers -  1800 points ($22.50/£15/€21)

While the first 3 are OK, I draw the line at 1800 points for Castle Crashers, which is unfortunate as I was really looking forward to that one.  If these prices are correct then it will make it the single most expensive game released for Live Arcade to date, more than Lumines!, Bankshot Billiards, Puzzle Quest and Penny Arcade which used to hold the record at 1600 points.

My real problem with it is this, is any game that you do not have a physical copy of (i.e. disc, box, artwork, etc.) really worth that kind of money?  I picked up a brand new copy of Stuntman: Ignition on the 360 for less than that, and I’m pretty sure it’s a bigger game than this will be.  Is MS just trying to fleece us for more cash because of the hype surrounding Castle Crashers? Or have the mega delays in the games development caused the price increase?

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Update

Microsoft have been in touch with Shacknews, announcing that the prices for Castle Crashers and Braid are, in fact, wrong. The real prices will be announced the Monday before each game is released. Phew!

Another Update

It seems that the pricing for Braid that MS said was wrong is in fact correct, it will cost 1200msp and will be released this Wednesday…  Hopefully that Castle Crashers price is still wrong though!  I’m wondering if it was a typo and somebody slapped a 1 in front of the 800msp cost?  As 1800 does not follow Microsoft’s policy of all the arcade games costing multiples of 400msp.

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So, I went home at lunchtime and downloaded today’s XBLA release: Geometry Wars 2. This is the game that has had us at TTB frothing at the mouth ever since it was announced, as the trip-tastic geometric arcade shooter is one of our firm favourites. But is it worth it?

Well, I played baout the first 15 minutes of it, trying out the new Deadline and King modes. Deadline, as the name kind of implies, is a timed game where the player has a deadline to score the highest score possible. In this case, it’s 3 minutes. It’s old-skool, frantic Geometry Wars fun, with the new enemies, a bizarre thingy that you can reflect your shots off of (getting 75 in one game earns an achievement), and some new-and-improved graphics.

As with the other modes, it also features geoms, the collectables also featured in the recent DS version of the game (Geometry Wars Galaxies), which extend the multiplier for higher scores.

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Check out this 5-minute gameplay video of DICE’s eagerly anticipated parkour shooter Mirror’s Edge. It features the level we’ve seen before in the game’s advertising, but this time it carries on, giving us more of a glimpse of what the game is all about.

It’s off-screen (from E3, in fact) so the quality isn’t great, but hopefully it gives you the idea.

Microsoft have announced that it will be the ‘Summer of Arcade’ on XBox Live this August, with 5 top notch titles announced for launch over the next 5 weeks.  The games are:-

• July 30: “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2” – The latest version of the wildly popular retro shooter offers screen-melting intensity and insane new features, including six action-packed gameplay modes, new enemies, scoring strategies and a diverse list of exciting Achievements. “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2” is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB and will be available at 800 Microsoft Points.
• August 6: “Braid” – From acclaimed developer Jonathan Blow, “Braid” is a mind-bending and artistic puzzle-platformer where the player manipulates the flow of time in strange and unusual ways. “Braid”is rated E10+ for Everyone 10+ by the ESRB.
• August 13: “Bionic Commando: Rearmed” – The classic 8-bit side-scroller reports back for duty in a stunning remake, complete with all-new HD graphics and features that put 2D gaming back on the map! “Bionic Commando: Rearmed” is rated M for Mature by the ESRB
• August 20: “Galaga Legions” – The legend lives on with “Galaga Legions,” a reimagining of the classic arcade shooter. Featuring table-turning game dynamics and updated graphics, the game was created by the team behind the bestselling “PAC-MAN Championship Edition” from Namco Bandai Games. “Galaga Legions” is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.
• August 27: “Castle Crashers” – Award-winning studio The Behemoth brings red hot arcade adventure to Xbox LIVE Arcade with “Castle Crashers,” featuring hand-drawn characters and an array of weapons to choose from as you defend your kingdom and save the princess. “Castle Crashers” is rated T for Teen by the ESRB.

And so the legendary Castle Crashers will finally be released in 5 weeks!  I’ll be getting that one for sure, Alien Hominid was excellent and hopefully ‘The Behemoth’ have done even better with this one…

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Way back in the deepest, darkest depths of 1992, Sensible Software (those of Sensible Soccer fame) released Mega-lo-Mania for the Amiga, Atari ST, Megadrive, SNES and PC.  In a nutshell, Mega-lo-Mania is a RTS-God game, casting you as one of four gods battling for supremacy of the world, which is achieved by destroying them over 10 epoch’s (era’s in time) ranging from 9500BC all the way to 2001AD.  Each epoch has it’s own visual style and set of offensive and defensive weapons, and is cleared when you have claimed all 3 islands on the level.  This was easily one of the most accessible and addictive god games released for home video game consoles in the early 90’s, especially when compared to Powermonger!

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So I was reading about Cuil, the new search engine created by some ex-Google engineers, and I thought I’d do a test search for the term “Team Teabag”. Here’s the top match that came up – and yes, it does link to our site.

Is Cuil suggesting a new line of work that perhaps TTB should get into? Looks like a bit of an epic fail to me, especially as the other results seem to have random descriptions and images associated with them. A shame really, as this looks like it could be an interesting project and they’ve gone and made a bad first impression on me.

Also, “Cuil” reminds me of the French word for “leather” – “cuir”.

…Which is pronounced “queer”.

Myself and OX are big fans of everything music and Nintendo DS related, so naturally we’re eagerly anticipating Korg’s upcoming DS-10 synth for the handheld. Well, here’s a little video I found of the much-anticipated game device thingy in action…

…Bet you weren’t expecting that.

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