Rez is all the rage at the moment (as it should be) and the 1UP show has a fantastic look at it. If you're still teetering on the edge of whether or not to get the game, look no further than this montage.

It also includes a few pieces from a chat with Mizuguchi while he plays his own game.

Gamespot's Don Francis has also reviewed the game, giving it an 8.5/10. Read their review here.

Watch the 1upshow by going to the link below:

Source: 1UP Show

The odd inclusion of both The Bullwinkle Show and Rocky and Bullwinkle on the OFLC and ESRB databases has been solved - the game has officially been changed to Rocky and Bullwinkle, according to Zen Studios.

After requesting some clarification, Managing Director Zsolt Kigyossy set things straight:

"Two reasons. 1) We are focusing more on the teen-mature audience, who knows Rocky and Bullwinkle, and understand the humor of our retro / party game title, and 2) Everybody demanded Rocky be in the title!"

Rez impressions have been making their way into a couple of podcasts this week - Both the 1UP Yours Podcast and the Player One Podcast have nothing but glowing praise for the game.

This weeks 1up Yours Podcast:

"How do we add a new show member when he's not even here? MAGIC. Before the fabled fourth chair is finally filled by the vacationing Shawn Elliott, Jeff Green gets it all nice and warm. The boys talk about Lost Odyssey, Universe at War, the joy of being manchildren, and how Valve is showing a little initiative with Steamworks. You know, just a little."

Download here (52.7MB) - Length: 1:53:22 or join the RSS Feed.

This weeks Player One Podcast:

"Step back in time nearly 15 years to a time when, if you believed the hype, the number of bits your system had mattered. And for Atari, it was the only card they had to play against industry bigwigs Sega, Sony and Nintendo. Certainly the software wasn't doing the talking... The worst "major" video game console ever made? We think so.

Also this week: Rez HD, PixelJunk Monsters, Burnout Paradise (PS3), One Piece Unlimited Adventure and Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice."

Download here or join the RSS Feed.

Indie game developer Ska Software have released some new images of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai via their blog. Their blog also discusses what they're trying to do with Cooperative play!

Check them out by clicking here.

X360A.org has updated with a ton of new achievement lists for upcoming XBLA games. For those of you addicted to achievements, you may want to steer clear from Triggerheart, it might kill you with frustration. Play Poker Smash this week instead, it might help your Poker hand too!

Rocketmen: Axis of Evil Achievements
Commanders: Attack! Achievements
Triggerheart Exelcia Achievements
Poker Smash Achievements

Source: Xbox360Achievements.org

Poker Smash has been officially announced as coming this week, so Gametrailers have uploaded some new videos of the game. Looks like the guy doing these has a pretty damn good hand at it too.

Poker Smash - Bomb Flip Gameplay HD
Poker Smash - Many Multipliers Gameplay HD
Poker Smash - Challenge Gameplay HD
Poker Smash - Tile Flipping Gameplay HD
Poker Smash - Chip Stacking Gameplay HD

Along with this weeks game, Stainless Games will be adding a new update to the game released.. well a year ago!

The Xbox LIVE Arcade classic "Crystal Quest" will receive a free gameplay update this week. Developer Stainless Games has added a fresh twist to the puzzle action by incorporating a score multiplier. This update will make the game slicker and faster than before and opens up the possibility of even higher scores!

The score multiplier increases every time gamers pick up a crystal, but failing to pick up a crystal or getting zapped negates the multiplier. To keep a level playing field, old Leaderboards will be retired after the update, but will still be viewable for posterity's sake. The update also includes improvements to downloadable content, which is part of Stainless Games' ongoing commitment to constantly improve the player experience.

Rumor blogs seem to be the 'thing' at the moment. After the 'Surfer Girl' blog showed up on the scene, similar ones have followed suit.

Surfer girl is a simple blog that viewers can check here. Claiming to be an insider, he or she has made many comments which have later shown to be true, as well as leaking some BETA pictures of Resistance 2 and other games.

Currently some of her copycats have thrown out a bunch of XBLA rumors to circle around. Take them with a grain of salt, but we'll see in the long run if they end up being true.

Skaterboy claims:

- "Vigilante 8 Arcade is still coming to XBLA later this year." Vigilante 8 was a Car Combat game for the Nintendo 64 and Playstation, with the sequel also making it to Dreamcast. A game like Vigilante 8 would certainly fill the void against Sony's Twisted Metal games. We haven't heard a peep out of Luxoflux - the original developers, since 2006, so who knows what they're up to.

Indiana Dunes proposes:

- "Nick Burton and the Rare team that brought you Jetpac for XBLA are currently working on a fresh HD update to Lunar Jetman." Lunar Jetman was the sequel to JetPac. With a very similar graphical style (check the wikipedia page). Since it uses similar graphical design it would be very easy to make an upgraded version of it - but whether or not Microsoft would allow it is another story.

- "ReVolt coming to XBLA late 2008/early 2009" Originally published by Acclaim, ReVolt was a remote control car racing game for the Playstation, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast. ReVolt and many other Acclaim licenses were bought in 2006 by Throwback Entertainment, and supposedly a Next Gen version was on the cards. Hopefully it'll show up - ReVolt was one of the better Acclaim titles to come out in their last few years.

- "Geometry Wars "2" will be for both XBLA and PSN, published by Activision" With Geometry Wars Waves already a part of PGR4 and Galaxies essentially pushing the title to it's very limits, this seems.. almost unnecessary. Sierra did publish Galaxies, and they are a part of Actiblizzion, and now so is Bizarre, so it may be on the cards. We do know how much Activision loves their sequels! Maybe they should do a Wiz 'N Liz remake?

Another website, Xbox Evolved had this to say about Goldeneye 007:

- "One of our sources has revealed to us a few screen shots of the upcoming game, and the icon that you see for the game’s info in the dashboard is that of the PDZ Joanna Dark for placeholder purposes, but the games title is not Goldeneye 007; it is instead “Bean Project”." So maybe 007 will be coming out way, but changed to be Perfect Dark instead of James Bond. It could happen, but I'm sure more people would like Bond than Joanna.

All nice rumors with a chance of being true, but until they're announced or show up on a ratings website, don't worry about them.

Poker Smash is now up on the Xbox Live Arcade! Go grab it!

Poker Smash
Developer: Void Star Creations, LLC
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Genre: Card and Board
Xbox 360 Exclusive
Price: 800 Microsoft Points

Xbox.com Splash Page
Official NeoGAF Thread

TeamXbox have also reviewed the game early, check it out by clicking here.

Source: Major Nelson, Team Xbox

Namco's Mr. Driller has shown itself up on the OFLC rating website for the XBLA! A few weeks ago it also showed up on the German USK rating site, now we have a second confirmation!

Mr. Driller Online should be the second non-emulated production by Namco Bandai on the XBLA, and the first title since Pac-Man CE. And Pac-Man CE was fantastic, so this should be on everyones radar too.

On the ESRB front, Boku Sudoku and Assault Heroes 2 have also been rated.

Source: OFLC Mr. Driller Rating, ESRB Website

The Dallas Business Journal added a new story that has caught 3D Realms a little off guard - not realizing that the writer would reprint everything they told him. Ah the difference between print and internet media.

In the article, it's confirmed that Duke Nukem 3D will be coming to the XBLA. 3D Realms retraction later on didn't hit on the XBLA announcement, only the date of Duke Nukem Forever, so we may consider this the Unofficial Announcement of the game.

Now bring on Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II on XBLA!!

Source: 'Duke Nukem Forever' release possible in 2008, coming to home consoles by DBJ

Sonic 3. Sonic & Knuckles. Combine to become Sonic 3 & Knuckles!

Back in early 1994 Sega pushed out their flagship mascot in quite a hurry, ending up with essentially half a game. Sega then had a thought: "Can we make people pay one game for double the price?” The answer was yes, the product was Sonic & Knuckles, and we damn well enjoyed it.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles could be called the pinnacle of the Sonic series - it was the last true 2D Sonic game made by Sonic Team. The graphics got bumped up a notch, the music pushing the poor old FM chip was pushed to its limits, and the levels were gargantuan. Each level could be played by 3 different characters each have their own abilities and routes they take. Separately Sonic 3 had 6 levels, Sonic & Knuckles having 7, put them all together and you have a hefty package.

Sonic's classic shield system was upgraded - you now had Bubble, Fire and Electric shields which gave Sonic’ additional abilities such as making him impervious to flame or grab all the rings close to him. Players can now use Tails to fly around the level and find secret entrances, and Knuckles can glide and climb around every surface.


What makes S&K special was the absurd cartridge - it had a flip top where you would plug in another cart. Instead of just playing through the levels just in S&K, you could plug in Sonic 3 and play the game as it was meant to - Knuckles could be play in Sonic 3 levels and find brand new routes, and play as Tails in S&K, and you could collect the Chaos and Super Emeralds and become Hyper Sonic. This was the way the game was meant to be.

But what can Sega do about this for the XBLA? S3&K been re-released several times before it on all platforms, you can go and buy Sonic Mega Collection for the Xbox and it'll work just fine on your 360, so why even bother?

According to Major Nelson's Top selling XBLA games of 2007, the original Sonic the Hedgehog sold incredibly well on the XBLA through Backbone Entertainment's Sega Vintage collection. Sega could do the simple thing and release both Sonic 3 and S&K separately, like the have with Sonic 3 already on the Wii Virtual Console. Sega should be smarter than that for the XBLA service.


The original Sonic sold to those who haven't played the original in a long time. Those who never ended up buying the Sonic Mega Collections or the Gems Collections or the giant variety of versions released over the years. That's absolutely fine, but what Sega and Backbone Entertainment should consider is this - How do you appeal to both the casual Sonic player, and the hard core Sonic player?

Make the definitive version.


There are a huge amount of old Sonic fans out there who already bought the original game, then Sonic Jam on the Saturn, then the Mega Collection last generation. I'm one of those people - I have no need to buy XBLA versions unless I want some measly Achievement points (which have not been up to scratch in the Sega Vintage collections as a whole. What sort of person is going to play through Ecco 3 times?), so what could be done for minimal effort, and maximum gain?

The big addition - Time Attack modes Fans have forever been trying to get the fastest times in each level of the Mega drive games. Having Leaderboards for EVERY act with EVERY character (since some are altered between each) would be a way to prove this outside of emulation. Additional ones like “fastest overall time in game” would be great as well – with the time taken in Time Attack mode or in normal play compiled together to determine the ultimate Sonic player. Score is useless in Sonic 3 anyhow – there are glitches allowing players to accumulate large amount of points in Launch Base Zone. It’s be broken day one.

Vintage Collections are purely ROMs attached to a front end, but this isn't hard to implement. They've done this before - using save states, reading the memory state to determine the timer and if the level has 'finished'. It's the same way they make achievements work!


Currently the Sonic XBLA titles have only got one single player Leaderboard - the score. Score in Sonic was purely a remnant of the days of the Arcade; it only mattered to the player getting lives and continues.

Another addition could be ability to play a through a level select mode as well, outside of Time Attack. In this mode you could also have options like turning Super Sonic on, turning Debug modes on and whatnot, but by turning them on disables achievements until the game is reset. This mode could be a set as unlockable - unlock each level once it's completed with a character, unlock Super Sonic once you get him in Single player. Something to achieve outside of achievements!

A feature which isn't all that important, but would be a blast is Online Cooperative mode. In the game, the second player can take over Tails and help Sonic along the way by flying around and picking him up. You can play fine with just local play, but having a friend online help you on your quest, even if it's just in level select mode, would be a bit of fun for those who want to just piss-fart around.

And finally, remove all of those damn softening filters!


Back in September I was able to contact one of the producers over at Foundation 9 about this very subject - I expressed my thoughts on the current crop of Sega vintage games, and gave my own ideas what I'd like to see for Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It was passed on to those in charge of the emulation side, whether it was taken into consideration or thrown in the bin is unknown! Maybe whining and complaining will help things get done.

The chance of some sort of version of Sonic 3 showing up is quite high, whether or not it's both together is up in the air - hopefully Sega and Backbone will do the right thing and at the very least put the game together, but additional effort means it costs more - they could do the best thing, or the cheap thing. Considering some of Sega’s last choices, it may just be the latter.

Thanks to Green Gibbon! and The Green Hill Zone for the images

It appears that Poker Smash has a case of "Love it, Hate it" syndrome - the scores are all across the board. I suppose it's all up to how much you can think on your feet (and like Poker).

- Team Xbox review written by David Chapman - 9/10
- Eurogamer.net review written by Tom Branwell - 6/10
- Xbox 360 @ IGN.com review written by Ryan Geddes - 7.5/10
- 1UP.com review written by David Ellis - 10/10

Gamespot have also uploaded a late review for Undertow:

- Gamespot written by David Todd - 6.5/10

A Small indie development team going by the name of Little Boy Games, have announced on their website that they will be releasing an exclusive XBLA title in 2008:

"Stay tuned for the launch of our first game, "Go! Go! Break Steady" an exclusive Xbox LIVE Arcade Title. Go! Go! Break Steady" is planned for release in 2008. Please stay tuned for the official game annoucement."

Two reports have come out suggesting that next week will have two game released, both assumed to sell for 800 MS Points each.

Firstly, Sierra.com's website has updated its page for their Advance Wars-esque game Commanders: Attack of the Genos, citing that the game will be released on February 13th - This Wednesday. The game was originally rated as simply "Commander: Attack!", so hopefully they won't run into any troubles with the title change.

Secondly, Metanet's forum added a post a week ago claiming to have a "Launch Party Event" for the XBLA version of the game on the 13th as well! What's a launch party without something to launch on the same day?

Check out both sources below. We should have confirmation on Monday!

Source: Sierra.com's C:AOTG page, Metanet's N+ Forum, Props to Shard on NeoGAF!

The second Arcade Tron game is officially coming out next week!

"Discs of Tron is considered an arcade classic as it mesmerized fans who wanted an entertaining and challenging experience derived from the innovative film," said Craig Relyea, senior vice president of global marketing, Disney Interactive Studios. "The game's release on Xbox LIVE Arcade enables multiple generations to play the addictive game in both its original form from 25 years ago and an enhanced mode with upgraded graphics and sound."

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1. Rez HD (New release)
2. Chessmaster Live (New release)
3. Metal Slug 3 (-2)
4. UNO (-1)
5. Bomberman LIVE
6. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (+1)
7. TMNT 1989 Arcade (+1)
8. Worms (-2)
9. Marble Blast Ultra (not on top 10 last week)
10. Arkadian Warriors (not on top 10 last week)

The above arcade list is based on full versions purchased.

Both MBU and Arkadian Warriors were not on last weeks chart and Boogie Bunnies has fallen off the list completely. Rez HD debuted very well, will be interesting to see how long it stays in the top ten.

Source: Major Nelson, Sean on NeoGAF

Xbox360Fanboy.com have gotten an exclusive look at Gamecock's upcoming game of Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball with a look at another team - Robots! The Robots team also have a home ground - a bizarre, Tron-esque level.

Check it out here.

Source: Xbox 360 Fanboy