I've been a bit behind on this lately - here are a list of the latest achievements leaks for Xbox Live Arcade titles!

Shotest Shogi Achievements

Rocketbowl Achievements

1942: Joint Strike Achievements

Samurai Shodown II Achievements

Braid Achievements

Galaga Legions Achievements

Castle Crashers Achievements

Zombie Wranglers Achievements (requires registration, in french)

Professional sheep enthusiast and creator of games that involve camels Jeff Minter has popped up onto his livejournal to share a little sneak peak at his upcoming game - 'Gridrunner+++' for Xbox Live Arcade.

Besides the above images, two more were also posted. You can check them out here!

Thanks to rmk for updating me!

It's WiiWare week this week for Europe, and we get some.. interesting candidates.

For one, Europe is the first to get 'Pirates: Key Of Dreams' for 1,000 Wii Points. An isometric game where you pilot your Pirate Ship around, blasting other enemies about! You also get 'SPOGS Racing'... probably best not to talk about it. Australia doesn't get it though, so they're safe!

Continue reading for the press release.

Metanet have announced that the first of 3 expansion packs for their hit game 'N+' will be coming out this week!

Levelpack #1 features 150 new singleplayer maps of "easier" difficulty -- including a map in which we publicly apologize for 14-4 "Master Control" -- which are designed for those people who like the game but prefer the slightly more laid-back levels you tend to find at the start of each episode/column. Things still get fairly hard by the end though. So not easy, but easier.

There are also 50 new co-op maps, which are (we think) much improved over the co-op levels that came with the game, mostly due to us having months more time to play co-op and figure out what works. These are quite definitely NOT easy -- make sure to sit out of punching range, especially when playing 08-4 "the friendship tester". You've been warned!

The pack will cost 200 Points. The second one will also - the third will be free!

If you're quick to get it - Metanet are also holding a competition - guess the 8 level names NOT used in the upcoming pack! You'll win yourself a copy of the game, a notebook pack and a copy of the OXM Magazine with new exclusive gamer pics!

Source: N+ Level Pack Contesque: Part the First

Namco have announced 'Namco Museum: Arcade Hits' for the Xbox 360. While a retail title, much like the 'XBLA Unplugged' and 'PopCap Arcade Volume 1' it includes separate Xbox Live Arcade titles for people to enjoy.

Unlike those titles - this will include MORE games as well!

Namco Museum: Arcade Hits features hit games from NAMCO BANDAI Games' Xbox LIVE® Arcade library including Ms. Pac-Man®, Galaga®, Dig Dug®, Pac-Man® Championship Edition™ and Mr. Driller® Online.

Each Xbox LIVE enabled game features unique online leaderboards and artwork mimicking their original arcade cabinets. Post your high score online to see where you rank against the rest of the world.

In addition to the Xbox LIVE Arcade titles, Namco Museum: Arcade Hits features over 20 additional favorites. Play through newly arranged versions of Dig Dug, Pac-Man and Galaga never before seen on a home console, as well as arcade perfect renditions of Motos®, Pole Position®, Rolling Thunder®, and Galaga® '88, just to name a few.

It will be interesting to see how this will expand the achievement list. The 5 games included would mean 1,000 Gamerscore Points - will the others also include achievements as well? Will we ever see more of an expansion of Xbox Live Arcade classics and not just new renditions? Will there be Leaderboards for each?

It's nice that they've included Mr. Driller Online at least. Maybe now people can play online against each other!

It appears that the European and North American stores are getting much closer together. With the supposed release of Strong Bad next week in North America, I hope we see it in Europe as well on Friday.

This week brings you 'Pirates: The Key Of Dreams' for 1,000 Wii Points on WiiWare, and for Virtual Console you get 'Super Fantasy Zone' for 800 Points, and 'Gley Lancer' also for 800 Points.

Continue reading for the full press release.

A whole lot of content being released this week - the urban puzzle-rhythm game 'Go! Go! Break Steady', the widescreen top-down shooter '1942: Joint Strike', the 'Puzzle Quest' expansion 'Puzzle Quest: Revenge of the Plague Lord' stand an 'N+' expansion with 150 new single player levels and 50 Coop levels!

Go! Go! Break Steady

"Go! Go! Break Steady" features an original style combining rhythmic beat-matching with match-3 style puzzle game play. Choose your character and then make them dance to the beat while solving increasingly challenging puzzles. This addictive game features a unique visual style, multiplayer versus and cooperative local and multiplayer action via Xbox LIVE, and 20 different songs in a variety of genres for your character to break dance to.

Developed by Little Boy Games, Inc. and published by Microsoft, "Go! Go! Break Steady" will be available worldwide for 800 Microsoft Points and is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.

Click here for more screenshots of 'Go! Go! Break Steady'!

Click here for the Xbox.com splash page!

1942: Joint Strike

“1942: Joint Strike” imagines a parallel world reminiscent of our own WWII era, where pilots take to the skies with stylized aircraft carriers and devastating weaponry! Inspired by the popular 80's arcade series, “1942: Joint Strike” combines classic top-down vertical shooting with updated 3D HD graphics. Take on massive waves of incoming enemies while dodging explosions and missiles! Face off with huge enemy bosses in death-defying dogfights. Recruit a wing man locally or online to pull off new “Joint Strike” attacks, combining the powers of both aircraft in one explosive barrage. With new weapons and power-ups in your arsenal, prepare to rejoin the battle!

Developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by Capcom, “1942: Joint Strike” will be available worldwide for 800 Microsoft Points and is rated E10+ for Everyone 10+ by the ESRB.

Click here for more images of '1942: Joint Strike'!

Click here for the Xbox.com splash page!

Puzzle Quest: Revenge of the Plague Lord

As predicted, the recent price drop on the Xbox Live Arcade version of Infinite Interactive and D3's Puzzle Quest has paved the way for the release of the game's first expansion pack, coming to the Xbox 360 service on July 23rd.

The pack, titled Revenge of the Plague Lord was first announced in March, and will add four new professions to the original four: Bard, Rogue, Ranger and Warlock, as well as a new 'Southern Map' with over 25 new quests.

The pack will also contain new monsters and bosses, more than 50 new spells and 40 new items, expand the game's level cap to 60, and offer three new Achievements.

The Revenge of the Plague Lord expansion will be released, thus far, exclusively to the Xbox Live Arcade version of the game, and will be priced at 700 Microsoft Points (about $8).

After a seemingly long time, the ESRB website has finally updates with a bunch of new ratings. 'Mega Man 9' has been rated for all systems, 'PixelJunk Eden' has been rated for the PlayStation Network, 'World Of Goo' for WiiWare, and finally 'Splatterhouse 2' and 'Sonic for the Master System' for the Virtual Console.

The new, unannounced game mentioned is 'Minesweeper Flags' - it looks like the classic Windows game is coming to Xbox Live Arcade!

'Minesweeper Flags' is actually a game on the MSN Zone, but I don't believe it's made by Tikgames themselves. They've already made Texas Hold'em on XBLA, and are currently working on the unannounced but well known Domino Master. If it's a direct copy and paste of the MSN version is unknown. It'll be interesting to see if this will be shown before its released.

Source: ESRB Website

From Capcom Unity's Street Fighter blog, it appears that the Beta for 'Street Fighter II HD Remix' On Xbox Live Arcade will have several bugs fixed:

"Just wanted to drop everyone a line that we're working on a patch and it will have several fixes for the open beta. I'll be dropping details shortly, but the overall experience in the beta will be vastly improved."

Source: Jimmy Rey - Fix For Beta Is Coming

'The Last Guy', coming to the Japanese PSN soon, has you play 'the last guy' - the final human alive from a zombie invasion!

The game consists of using maps, courtesy of Google, to create the top-down levels you play in. You must attract as many Zombies as possible, and then head for the safe zone, where they will be counted and added to your score.

Sound very intriguing. Hopefully it gets released stateside asap.

I've been a little behind on the review wrap up posts. Time to start them back up!

Official Xbox Magazine UK Review by Gillen McAllister - 9.0 / 10

Team Xbox Review by Dale Nardozzi - 8.5 / 10

GamePro Arcade Review by Terry Terrones - Fun Factor: 4.25

Xbox360 @ IGN.com Review by Hilary Goldstein - 8.1 / 10

Official Xbox Magazine US Review by - Matt Cabral - 8.0 / 10

Eurogamer Review by Dan Whitehead - 8.0 / 10

GameSpot Review by Justin Calvert - 8.0 / 10

1UP.com Review by Tom Chick - B-

Good reviews all around, really. After all - it is 'Soulcalibur', one of the greatest fighting games of all time. The only problem is just how cheaply done is seems. the title screen isn't integrated into the Xbox 360 like it should. It's just about as 'cheap' as you can get, except for the whole actually being able to emulate a Sega Dreamcast thing.

IGN have got themselves the first video of NinjaBee's next Xbox Live Arcade title 'A Kingdom Of Keflings', as well as an interview with the developers.

IGN: We haven't heard anything about A Kingdom for Keflings yet. What's the main objective in the game? How do you "win" the game? Steve Taylor: The objective is to build a Kingdom for the Keflings that live in a little valley. Officially, you "win" the game when you build a castle! There's actually a bit more you can do after the castle in terms of customizing your kingdom, but that's the official goal (and, naturally, it earns you the big Achievement).

Source: IGN.com - A Kingdom for Keflings Revealed

1942: Joint Strike

Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Coin-Op Classics
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Everywhere

Click here for more images of '1942: Joint Strike'!

Click here for the Xbox.com splash page!

Click here for the official NeoGAF forum topic!

Go! Go! Break Steady

Developer: Little Boy Games
Publisher: Microsoft
Genre: Action
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: Everywhere

Click here for more screenshots of 'Go! Go! Break Steady'!

Click here for the Xbox.com splash page!

Click here for the official NeoGAF forum topic!

Unveiled in a previous ESRB rating watch, 'Big Kahuna Party' has been officially announced for WiiWare from Reflexive Entertainment.

Featuring both cooperative and competitive play for 2-4 players, in addition to single-player mode, Big Kahuna Party takes players on an exciting adventure through underwater reefs, captivating players as they discover new and exotic fish and explore all 99 levels. Each level has been carefully conceived to create an oceanic holiday for players as they match up sea-themed objects, and unlock 26 beautifully rendered and stunningly life-like fish.

With new intuitive Wii-specific controls, players can swap tiles faster and more fluidly than ever before using either just the Wii Remote™, or with both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk™. That speed will come in handy in the multiplayer modes, where the underwater matching madness can get intense.

"When we made the Big Kahuna games on the PC, we added a feature that allowed players to play together using multiple mice, and in the office it was a smash hit," said Lee Cooper, Producer of Big Kahuna Party. "Unfortunately, as most people don't have multiple mice connected to their computer, not enough people have gotten to experience the frantic fun of multiplayer Big Kahuna. For WiiWare, we've made multiplayer the focus. People can still enjoy the game by themselves, but after playing multiplayer we expect you'll only use single-player to brush up on your skills for your next competitive game night with friends."

Interesting idea. Currently there is no release date, but as mentioned it has been rated by the ESRB. Continue reading for the entire press release, and click here for more images!

The board game 'Ticket To Ride' has had many different map variations available to board players - Mystery Train, USA 1910, Märklin and more. Next week Xbox Live Arcade users will get a chance to play the European expansion!

From the craggy hillsides of Edinburgh to the sunlit docks of Constantinople, Ticket to Ride: Europe takes players on another exciting train adventure. In addition to the new map, it offers brand new strategic gameplay elements including tunnels, ferries and train stations.

For those who haven’t had a chance to try Ticket to Ride on XBLA, it challenges players to plan cross-country rail routes across North America and now Europe, visiting all the city stops in-between. Although the game can be learned in under five minutes, players face strategic and tactical decisions that vary with every turn. The game supports play with up to five people on Xbox Live or four people on the same console and supports the Xbox LIVE Arcade Vision Camera for hours of family-friendly fun.

The press release also states that "The company’s next title is due out in early fall", though a platform was not stated. Their website suggests that they're working on publishing WiiWare titles as well as Xbox Live Arcade.

Announced some time ago, Strange Flavour have finally released a video of 'Airburst Extreme' for the Xbox Live Arcade!

Developed by Strange Flavour, who previously worked on 'TotemBall' and 'Spyglass Board Games', as well as being published by Freeverse, who did 'Marathon Durandal', 'Airburst' in essence is the next step up from the classic 'Warlords' arcade title, with a ton of new gameplay mechanics and modes.

You play as one of the Airbursters, sitting upon a pile of balloons with only a paddle between you and death. Unlike 'Warlords', you are not stuck in a corner - instead you are able to move freely around to try and avoid the bouncing ball destroying your balloons.

The game also includes a ton of different modes, including a fun looking 'Footie' mode, and a Puzzle mode where you must hit a specific colour balloon on your shot.

Looks like a lot of fun - certainly better than the 'Warlords' outing on Xbox Live Arcade. It's apparently up on Partnernet right now too, so it shouldn't be too long until the release.

What is with the bumpy release dates lately? First it was 'Double D Dodgeball' release last week, then 'Shred Nebula', and now 'Geometry Wars 2' is bumped up an extra week!

According to Team Xbox, Geometry Wars will now no longer be released on August 6th. Instead, it will be released next week - July 30th! It will be available for 800 Microsoft Points.

Source: Team Xbox - New Release Date for Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2

PS3Fanboy was able to get in touch with Hothead games about their current 'Penny Arcade' episodic games. Initially they said that they would want it to be released on every platform, but that the Torque Game Engine didn't work correctly on the PS3.

Well that seems to have changed - the game will now be coming to the PlayStation Network! Hothead CEO Vlad Ceraldi told PS3 Fanboy:

All good things take time and we are very excited to be debuting our first PS3 title and look forward to bringing more games to this platform in the future

Great to know. Multi console content is a win-win situation. When it will come out is currently unknown.

Source: PS3 Fanboy - Penny Arcade Adventures also coming to PS3 this Fall

Japanese gaming website Dengeki was able to get a hold of Mr. Ben Judd - overlord of the 'Bionic Commando' games, and talk about the upcoming Rearmed version.

If you want to give it a read in half-gibberish, click here for the google translated version.

But right at the end though is this - 'Bionic Commando Rearmed' is coming out next week - July 30th for Xbox Live Arcade and 31st for the PlayStation Network, for the price of 800 Microsoft Points or 1,200 Yen on PSN.

It's already been established that 'Geometry Wars 2' will be released next week for XBLA and 'PixelJunk Eden' will be for the PlayStation Network, so it's already got some huge content coming for both systems.

No game before has ever been released specifically for the Japanese audience on the Xbox Live Arcade before a North American release. The PlayStation Network did get 'Commando 3' a week before XBLA did, but it was released for neither system in Japan.

Currently there has been no comment from Capcom USA themselves. Either way, the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network are in for a huge 'fall' release list. I just bought another 3,000 Microsoft Points myself. Poor wallet!

Source: Dengeki Online - Bionic Commando Interview

The XNA initiative from Microsoft has been a long time coming. After the brief demo early this year, Microsoft have been somewhat silent on the subject.

Now at Gamefest, they've opened the doors a bit more, speaking about how everything will work within the creators club structure.

What has been announced is that, at this current time, the community games will not be free. You are limited two 3 pricing structures - 200, 400 and 800 points. How this will work out for those developers is unknown - some games really aren't games or applications - almost like simple demos to see how something can work. One approved game is called "Circles" - essentially a screen saver for your Xbox.

Another interesting tidbit - courtesy of this IGN report, is that the creators will initially get 70% of the revenue made by their creations - however, if a game gets popular, their cut will decrease and Microsoft will then promote your game on front pages. However, this is only a temporary measure - if they go lower again, it will go back to the 70% mark.

1UP.com's own Garnett Lee had a fantastic interview on the subject, speaking to Microsoft's Chris Satchell about how everything will go down.

Read the entire interview here.

Right now you can check out all the XNA games which have all been 'approved' here.

Can't wait for this to finally come to fruition. It would be nice to see some more 'applications', or concepts more akin to some of the PlayStation Network title 'flOw'.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that the previous Windows Live 'experience', which required a PC player to pay for matchmaking or if they wanted to play against an Xbox Live player in Shadowrun, will now become free.

1UP.com's Shawn Elliot was able to have a chat with Games for Windows Head Kevin Unangst about the changes, and also brought up whether the 'Windows Arcade', which was previously announced with the original unveiling of Windows Live, is still on track for PC.

1UP: Are you announcing plans to promote Live Arcade on Windows?

KU: No specifics, no details on plans to deliver a Live Arcade, other than -- I think our first focus is on, how do we extend that game experience with additional game content, with trailers, with demos, we aren't detailing what the catalog may look like, what the selection of games is, we aren't ruling any type of content out, either. Of course, when we open a store, we're going to have some things in that store for free, some things that people will buy, and there may be a mix of all types of content. That's certainly our goal. As we get closer to the release of that Marketplace along with the fall release of Games for Windows Live, you'll hear more from us on both the games and the types of content that will be featured on the service.

1UP: And when will that be?

KU: That'll come this fall. We don't have a specific date that we've announced other than fall of 2008.

Many games like 'Geometry Wars', 'Happy Tree Friends', and others have already made their Xbox and PC debuts. Bringing them together (and making the bloody things work under XP) would be a great idea.

Source: 1up.com - Games for Windows Head Kevin Unangst Explains Move to Free Live

A big store update for PlayStation owners this week - two new games, plus the demo of a game coming out next week!

'SIREN: Blood Curse' is now available from the PlayStation Store in both Europe and America. In America it will cost you $39.99 for the total package, or buy the 3 episodes separately for $14.99 each.

In Europe the game is a little different. They split it up into 4 separate episodes instead. You can buy the whole thing for £19.99 (€29.99) or each episode for £6.99 (€9.99). Oddly, not a release in Australia. Why not?

America also gets this weeks other game release - '1942: Joint Strike' for $9.99. Strangely no demo, and even stranger - no release in Europe yet. Clearly it's done, why does SCEE screw around releases so much?

America also only got the 'PixelJunk Eden' demo, while Europe got an 'Echocrome' demo. If you're in Europe and want to check out the demo, simply make a new tag set in that region and download away!

Yet again, Japan is getting far too many PSOne classics for its own good, releasing 'Chocobo stallion', 'Grille logic', 'Arkanoid returns', 'Yamasa Digi Selection DX' and 'Dice de chocobo'. Step it up, Sony America!

Capcom released this new video for 'Bionic Commando: Rearmed' just yesterday, giving viewers a behind the scenes look at how GRIN went on creating the new version of the classic NES title.

Part 2 should be coming soon. There was also talk yesterday that the game might be coming out next week. Apparently this has changed. Right now it just looks like 'Geometry Wars 2' and 'PixelJunk Eden' will be.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced that an episodic game for 'Watchmen' - the upcoming film based on the fantastic graphic novel by Alan Moore, will be coming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation Network in 2009.

“We’re bringing the Watchmen universe to gamers in a distinct episodic game revealing action and combat for a great overall experience for fans,” said Samantha Ryan, Senior Vice President, Production and Development, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “The filmmakers have been extremely helpful in developing the high-quality game story and we are working to match the outstanding visual style of the film.”

The videogame based on WATCHMEN will go beyond the film and delve into the characters, rivalries and challenges in a mature action-brawler. The game provides gamers with visceral superhero combat as urban vigilantes Rorschach and Nite Owl.

It will be interesting to see just how this ends up. Zach Snyder's previous film '300' only had a game released for the PSP, and now 'Watchmen' will be an episodic downloadable title. Interesting choices, to say the least. Could this be one of the better licensed games for XBLA and PSN? It also says it's a brawler - yet only two characters are playable?

It's a little early to speculate. The game is being developed by Deadline Games, who are currently developing 'Faith and a .45' - a "1930's Gears Of War" which looks pretty interesting. The 1UP.com preview of the title is certainly promising. Hopefully we'll see some actual assets soon.

Source: GamesPress

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1 Golf: Tee It Up!
2 SOULCALIBUR
3 UNO
4 DOOM
5 Worms
6 Schizoid
7 N+
8 Geometry Wars Evolved
9 Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3
10 Coffeetime Crosswords

Unfortunately we didn't get a Top 10 list for last week on Major Nelson's blog due to E3, so watching the trends is a little difficult this week.

What we can see is that 'Golf: Tee It Up' is blazing up the charts, being on the top of the charts for what we can assume was the second week in a row. 'Soulcalibur' is also selling incredibly well also.

'Schizoid' is holding tough - staying as the 6th bought game of the week. 'Geometry Wars' also got a bit of a boost, most likely because of the news of the sequel coming out next week.

With the buzz of E3 and the complete screw up that was "What's coming out this week" for Xbox Live Arcade, the 3 titles - 'Coffeetime Crosswords', 'Double D Dodgeball' and 'Live Draft Tracker' did quite terribly with only one of them barely getting into the Top 10.

Source: Major Nelson

Three new videos of 'Geometry Wars 2' were released today, showing off three of the modes available in the game.

The video above is for the 'Deadline' gametype. Continue reading for the 'Evolved [Classic]' and 'Waves [PGR4]' game videos. All show off 4P multiplayer as well. Good luck seeing whatever the hell you're doing.

Right now on the North American PSN Store you can grab 5 different older titles for half price. These titles include:

- PAIN
- PixelJunk Monsters
- High Velocity Bowling
- High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition
- Rocketmen: Axis of Evil

These as well as the newly released 'Elefunk' will cost you only $5US. The sale will end on the 31st. I highly suggest 'PixelJunk Monsters' if you haven't already grabbed it.

During E3 2008, Kotaku had a chat with Sega of America's Simon Jeffery about their current releases on Xbox Live Arcade - games like Sonic, Golden Axe and the like. From the discussion came a few interesting tidbits:

- Getting System 16, Model 2 and 3 games on Xbox Live Arcade is very difficult since it's difficult to find the source code. They generally don't like working based on 'ROM' files much like the internet does and then emulating them, though that's how it works with Genesis games nowadays.

- Currently for a classic game to get onto Xbox Live Arcade, it must have "Updated Graphics". Much like how the SEGA Classics have horrible blur filters on them or how 'Double Dragon' kind of redrew the character art and ends up looking awful. It is a requirement. What they have found is that everyone ends up turning them all off anyhow.

While I can imagine Microsoft want companies to put in a little more effort into their arcade releases compared to throwing out every game they possibly can, for classic arcade titles it's really not worth the effort at all, in my opinion. Blurring things up just looks ugly.

Thankfully some games like Wonderboy, Virtual On or Virtua Fighter 2 have had complete remakes on the PS2 recently in their SEGA 2600 collections. I'd love to see them make their way onto the Xbox Live Arcade, complete with online multiplayer.

Source: Kotaku: Sega Can't Find The Source Code For Your Favorite Old School Arcade Games [E308]