On this weeks 1UP Show, it appears that everyone is addicted to the new 'Geometry Wars 2' for Xbox Live Arcade. Check it out above!

Along with the preview for 'Ratchet & Clank : Quest For Booty', GameSpot's On The Spot show also previewed NinjaBees next title - 'A Kingdom For Keflings' - a non-confrontational town building simulator of sorts.

Check the video out above.

I haven't done one of these in a while - usually podcasts have just a quick mention of downloadable games, but this week there have been a couple of podcasts who talk almost nothing but downloadable games!

On this weeks 1UP Yours podcast discusses the upcoming weeks of the Xbox Live Arcade, as well as the future of the XBLA, PlayStation Network and WiiWare moving forward.

08/01/2008 | 1UP Yours - Podcast

Garnett, Shane, Andrew, John and Philip gather to discuss Soul Calibur IV, Geometry Wars 2, Mortal Kombat vs. DC, the past, present, and future of downloadable games, and this week in gaming news.

Download the podcast here or join the RSS feed.

On this weeks Player One Podcast - with missing the last weeks episode (first time in the series, for shame) they have an abundance of games to discuss. Go! Go! Break Steady, PixelJunk Eden, 1942, Geometry Wars and more.

Sun, 3 August 2008 | POP Ep.93: Summer of Tangents

It's an episode full of tangents. Somewhere in between we talk about Soul Calibur IV, Geometry Wars Evolved 2, Go! Go! Break Steady, 1942: Joint Strike, NASCAR 09, Final Fantasy IV DS, Final Fantasy II, Hot Shots Golf Open Tee 2, Disgaea Afternoon of Darkness, PixelJunk Eden and PixelJunk Monsters.

Download the podcast here or join the RSS feed.

Sad news folks - id games have confirmed to Eurogamer that 'Quake Arena' for the Xbox Live Arcade has been canned in favor of the upcoming Quake Live project for PC.

Initially being worked on by Pi Studios out in Texas, the game was meant to be a straight up port of the original Quake III Arena and Team Arena packs to the XBLA for huge multiplayer fraggin' fun. However id had 3 separate projects based on the same idea - Quake XBLA, Quake Live, a free browser based version of Quake Arena, as well as a Quake Arena DS port.

John Carmack told Eurogamer that "right now the publishers aren't all that interested in a multiplayer-focused game on there". Which is kind of interesting, considered that the best sellers all tend to have some sort of online play in it.

Right now Pi Studios are working with Raven Software with the upcoming Next-gen 'Wolfenstein' title. One might also be suspicious that the game was canned because id and Activision, outside of Wolfenstein, have split apart - now with id working with EA for the release of their titles. That may have also caused the canning of the game.

It's a shame too - I was a huge fan of Quake Arena on the PC back in 1999. I played it far too much. Whether Quake Live can pull me away from Team Fortress 2 (Nearing 100 hours of Engineer play alone...) is unknown at this time.

I'd still love to see more classic Id titles for Xbox Live Arcade. If 'Portal' cab make it on, surely a lovely port of 'Quake 2', 'Quake 1', or a 'Commander Keen' collection would do very nicely.

Source: Eurogamer: Next-gen Quake Arena game shelved

The Australian classification website has just updated with a whopper of a scoop - 'R-Type Dimensions' is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade!

From what we can gather, the game is being published by Microsoft themselves, and not title creators Irem, who recently released R-Type Tactics to the PSP. The game is being developed by Tozai Inc, who are also currently working on the fantastic looking 'Lode Runner' for Xbox Live Arcade.

Will it be a new version of R-Type, or a variation of a previous title? It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Surprising how the Xbox 360 has become the platform of choice for these kinds of games.

Also rated this week were 'A Kingdom for Keflings' as well as the first of anything about 'Penny Arcade Episode 2', which we should see more about at PAX.

Source: OFLC - R-Type Dimensions (Game)

GamePro Arcade Review by Terry Terrones - Fun Factor: 4.5 / 5

Xbox360 @ IGN.com Review by Nate Ahearn - 8.2 / 10

Team Xbox Review by David Chapman - 7.4 / 10

Eurogamer Review by Dan Whitehead - 7.0 / 10

Official Xbox Magazine US Review by Ryan McCaffrey - 6.5 / 10

1UP.com Review by Andrew Hayward - C-

Generally, 'Golf: Tee It Up' has gotten some pretty good reviews. After all, it certainly is one of the best looking XBLA titles to date - sans perhaps the characters style. You would have thought they should have waited just that little bit longer to get Avatar support in there. Who knows - they might even do that. House Marque has been incredibly good at playing to their base with update and expansions to 'Super Stardust HD'.

Speculation aside, for a $10 Golf game it's really got everything you need. Nice graphics, good ol' 3-click golf gameplay. It's certainly been doing well in in the sales too.

My only problem is that the online requires all players to stay online throughout the whole match. I've seen some people quit before the game finishes, and it's kicked everyone out. Not fair.

Despite showing it off all over the place last week - 'A Kingdom for Keflings' has been officially 'announced' for Xbox Live Aracde via press release by NinjaBee.

A Kingdom for Keflings puts players in the shoes of a giant who has the ability to design and construct an intricate city for the local Keflings. Each giant starts out with a small handful (literally!) of helpful Keflings who follow the giant's every command. These Keflings can be trained to become lumberjacks, miners, transporters, sheep shearers, scholars, and various other professions as they help build the kingdom from the ground up.

"We wanted to make a city building game where the player is more personally involved instead of controlling an abstract floating hand," said Steve Taylor, President of NinjaBee. "A Kingdom for Keflings transports the player to a world they create and allows them to relax, enjoy the world and create a strategy that works for them."

You can check out all the new screenshots here. Continue reading for the full press release.

This week North America gets to have a shot at 'Wild West Guns' to add to their WiiWare library. This game is similar to the skeet shooting mode in Wii Play, so if you're up for some more of that, give it a go - it'll cost you 1,000 Wii Points.

Along with the since WiiWare release are two Virtual Console titles - 'Sonic The Hedgehog' for the Master System for 500 Wii Points, and 'Splatterhouse 2' for the SEGA Genesis for 800 Wii Points.

I wonder if the US will finally see Sonic 2 and Chaos for the Master System. They never came out - only the Game Gear versions did.

We now know that the critically acclaimed "Braid" will be the only Xbox Live Arcade title available this week.

From acclaimed independent developer Jonathan Blow, “Braid” is an artful puzzle-platformer where challenging, yet accessible puzzles are solved by manipulating time. From your house in the city, journey to a series of worlds solving puzzles that will help you rescue an abducted princess. Time behaves differently in each world, and every puzzle shows you something different about the world. The time behaviors include rewinding, independent time streams, time that is tied to space, parallel realities, time dilation, and perhaps more.

Developed by Number None, Inc., and published by Microsoft, “Braid” will be available for 1200 Microsoft Points worldwide and is rated E 10+ for Everyone over the age of 10 by the ESRB.

Over at Gamasutra Christian Nutt was lucky enough to get a hold of Mega Man 9 Producer Hironobu Takeshita about just what it's like to essentially create a NES title.

You talked about how people were trying to graphically exceed the capabilities of the Famicom, but what about the temptation to exceed some other capabilities, such as flicker, slowdown, sprite limits, and stuff like that? Was it really hard to get people to stay within the confines of what they could have done, if this had come out after Mega Man 6 in 1993?

HT: Yeah, there were some things, like you couldn't have more than three enemies on the screen at once, so we had to make sure that that's how it stayed in our game. In the part with the dragon with the flame, [there should be] flickering, and whatnot.

In the options of this game, you can adjust that, unlike the old games. We purposely put some of those old-school bugs into this game, so it does recreate that feel.

Check out the entire interview below.

Source: Gamasutra - He Is 8-Bit: Capcom's Hironobu Takeshita Speaks

THQ have officially announced Are Your Smarter Than a 5th Grader for the Xbox Live Arcade, which popped up on the ESRB website as a rating a week or so ago.

The game looks like it's based on the PC version of the game - but has had a graphical overhaul. Good thing too, as the PC version is quite ugly.

It is surprising that the game does not support the use of Avatars - I'm guessing it would be too late for that kind of big change to the game. Shame, really.

The game will include over 6,000 grade school questions, 21 different subjects, and include local and online play. Check out more screenshots below.

Source: Team Xbox - Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Coming to XBLA

Hudson have opened the website for their upcoming WiiWare pinball title Alien Crush Returns - apparently it's scheduled for August!

The game will contain a story mode as well as an arcade mode - Story mode has 6 different tables, while Arcade mode specifically uses 3. The additional 3 in Story are probably boss tables.

The game will contain several special pinballs you can use, several different play styles, all which allow you to "tilt" the board by shaking the Wii remote a little.

The game will only cost 800 Points - just 8 dollars, a couple of dollars less than most WiiWare titles, much like Star Soldier R. They will also allow you to download new tables later down the line!

It looks like Hudson are handling this incredibly well. The game will also include Online Multiplayer and ranking options! How many other games allow that? Very, very few.

Source: Japanese Alien Crush Returns page

GamePro Arcade Review by Andrew Ramsey - Fun factor: 2.5 / 5

Eurogamer.net review by Dan Whitehead - 3.0 / 10

IGN.com review by Ryan Geddes - 3.5 / 10

That's a consecutive 'no' to this game, pretty much. Reading the reviews as well as the official Xbox.com forums, it's just plain not fun. It could be fun for those who love crosswords - but the control scheme is incredibly awkward, and ends up being quite tedious.

Maybe you should wait for Merv Griffin's Crosswords in 2009.

Strongbad's Cool Game For Attractive People has finally got a release date in North America - it will be released on WiiWare and PC on August 11th.

"Homestar Ruiner" is the first of 5 episodes for the series. Telltale games are hoping to release a new episode every month up to December. Hopefully Nintendo will cooperate, as they've previously been known to do whatever they bloody want

Strong Bad episodes on WiiWare will cost 1000 Wii Points each. WiiWare availability for Europe, Australia and New Zealand will follow shortly.

Source: Kotaku.com - Holy Crap! Strong Bad Coming Next Week

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1 Geometry Wars Evolved² (NEW)
2 1942: Joint Strike (-1)
3 UNO (-1)
4 SOULCALIBUR (--)
5 N+ (--)
6 Golf: Tee It Up! (-3)
7 DOOM (-1)
8 Marble Blast Ultra (--)
9 Worms (V)
10 Texas Hold 'em (V)

It's absolutely no surprise that Geometry Wars Evolved² is at the top of the list this week. With some incredibly strong sales - the leader boards are already up to 40,000 people.

Everything is roughly the same except one - Golf: Tee It Up made a little bit of a tumble this week from 3rd to 6th, while Soulcalibur and 1942 stay essentially the same.

Braid

Developer: Number None Inc.
Publisher: Microsoft
Genre: Platform / Puzzle
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Worldwide

Click here for screenshots of Braid

Check out the Xbox.com splash page here

Click here for the official NeoGAF forum topic

As well as Braid this week, new downloadable content for Ticket To Ride and Marathon: Durandal also came out. I'm a little late saying this, so I'm making up for it now.

Content: Ticket To Ride Europe Expansion
Price: 600 Microsoft Points
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions
Dash Text: [ESRB: E (Everyone)] Ticket to Ride Europe™ will include a new map (Europe) as well as add new gameplay elements to the base game.

Content: Marathon Durandal Net Map Packs

Expand your Multiplayer Experience - The Total Carnage Netmap Pack (400 points) and The Jjaro Netmap Pack (250 points) are available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. These new packs combined add 24 new Multiplayer levels, as well as 3 new achievements worth 50 gamerscore.

The maps are composed of the best multiplayer levels from Marathon and Marathon: Infinity; and introduce the Jjaro texture set to Marathon: Durandal.

GamePro review by Andrew Gori - Fun Factor 4.5 / 10

IGN.com review by Ryan Clements - 7.2 / 10

GameSpot review by Brian Fishman - 6.5 / 10

Eurogamer.net review by Dan Whitehead - 6 / 10

Gaming-Age review by Dustin Chadwell - C

1UP.com review by Anthony Gallegos - C-

From the sounds of it Fatal Inertia EX isn't a bad game per say, it's just seemingly average. Its main problem is that its direct competitor - Wipeout HD, just looks like it will eat this game for breakfast.

Certainly good enough for a stop gap for those wanting more while they wait. It's the same with racing games in general - everyone gets into a specific game. Look at the Xbox 360 games of last year - Forza 2 won out over PGR4, Need For Speed, and any other racing game. Wipeout will be the same.

But again, this game has a lot of features - they're certainly trying hard, filling the game with a ton of maps, a ton of vehicles, modes and more. $30US will probably go a long way.

CrunchTime Games have been working on their Xbox Live Arcade title Shred Nebula for quite some time now. It's officially completed and now just waiting for release - which should be very soon after the "Summer of XBLA" promotion.

Team Xbox was able to get their hands on the game and preview the near-final version of the game:

But as far as gameplay goes, what exactly is Shred Nebula? It’s not a Geometry Wars clone, if that’s what’s worrying you, nor is it an updated Asteroids, though both of those games seem like clear influences. Shred Nebula wants to be much more complex than either of those games, giving you things shields you can trigger, weapons that upgrade and enemies that are more complex than just shapes – both visually and mentally.

Check out the preview below, along with a bunch of new screenshots.

Source: Team Xbox - Shred Nebula Preview

Sister site Gamasutra has been looking at the just-released Xbox Live Arcade title Braid for some time - it certainly has been in the making for several years now.

It certainly hasn't been easy for creator Jonathan Blow - but you can take the wayback machine with Gamasutra and the game's artist, David Hellman, as they look at how the art style and representation has changed since he was brought on board to help create the game's visual style.

Source: Gamasutra: The Art Of Braid: Creating A Visual Identity For An Unusual Game

The past few weeks have been quite difficult for Wipeout HD. The game has been delayed a tad because it failed some necessary seizure tests. Now PS3 Fanboy have gotten their grubby hands on a near final build.

Yes, the game runs at a silky smooth 60fps. Yes, the texture work is fantastic. However, the technical achievements shouldn't overlook the game's great sense of style. While many of these tracks will familiar to PSP owners, they come to life with a brand new level of detail that the handheld simply couldn't pull off. There are all sorts of visual treats scattered across the tracks, and in your ship's HUD as well. The newly redesigned HUD is more dynamic than ever, distorting from nearby attacks, shaking during collisions, etc. Entering first-person mode will increase the sensation of really being in a supersonic vehicle even further.

Still no release date or pricing scheme set up just yet. It will be interesting to see just what they plan for it, since the game is made up of old level designs, but at the same time is completely revamped.

Source: PS3 Fanboy - hands-on: WipEout HD

While SOCOM Confrontation got its release date a week or two ago, the prices were still up in the air.

But now Kotaku has now been able to confirm that the PSN download version of the game will cost $39.99US.

The game will also be available on Blu-Ray disc in two different SKUs - You can get just the game for the same cost as the download version - $39.99US, which also includes some behind the scenes videos of the title, or you can get a version with a headset for $59.99US.

Seems quite expensive - but it is on par with the price of Warhawk, but even that felt overly expensive. I'd still prefer a $29.99 price point at maximum, or at least some incentive to download it compared to buy it in a store. Ah well.

Source: Kotaku - SOCOM: Confrontation Priced, Dated

The final part of the Making of Bionic Commando Rearmed series. This episode goes through just how similar-yet-different the game is compared to the original Bionic Commando title. Check it out above.

Team Xbox has exposed two previously unseen Xbox Live Arcade titles - Crazy Mouse from Ultizen Games, and Domino Master from Tikgames.

Crazy Mouse had previously been announced, however no images were ever made available - or acknowledgment of what kind of game it was. We now know that it's a maze game similar to Pac-Man or more so Pac-Mania, but with a twist:

There are numerous variations in Crazy Mouse, however, that set it apart from Pac-Man. Here you can also pick up items, such as a boomerang to daze your opponent for a few seconds (or you, if you don’t throw carefully). You can also push the A Button while you’re running to do a little sprint—but be careful, because if you hit a wall or object at too high a speed, you’ll become dazed and lose some of your food gatherings.

Read the entire preview, as well as more screenshots, here. You can also have an early look at the achievements as well.

Domino Master was never announced beforehand, but was found out by the good old rating websites some time ago. It features several different modes, skins, and is essentially classic Domino play.

The five modes are Standard, where the players need to remove their dominoes from the board until one person has cleared out their tile tray; All 5’s, which has players scoring by having the end dominoes on the board divisible by 5; All 3’s, which similarly gives scores for making a move to have the end dominoes total a multiple of 3; Bergen, which is a variation requiring players to clear dominoes and gives points when the end tiles have a number match; and Mexican Train, the interesting mode that has you attempting to create a run of tiles by matching the end numbers one after the other until the tile tray is cleared. The latter mode is perhaps the most fun, due to its dynamic gameplay and its fit as a good multiplayer contest.

You can check out the whole preview as well as screenshots here. They also have an achievement list. Team Xbox also essentially confirms Minesweeper Flags as being in development by Tikgames.

Not content with being part of the Summer of Arcade, Fable II Pub games will also be coming out this month - On August 13th.

Fans eager for a head start will have the opportunity to test their luck in the Xbox LIVE Arcade title developed exclusively for “Fable II,” available on Aug. 13; those who pre-order a copy of “Fable II” at participating retailers will be given free access to download the “Fable II” Pub Games, or they can be downloaded without pre-order via Xbox LIVE for 800 Microsoft points.

The high-stakes casino-style pub games, titled “Fortune’s Tower,” “Keystone” and “Spinnerbox” will offer players the opportunity to start earning a bounty of gold and treasures to fund their adventures in “Fable II,” ahead of the title’s release on Oct. 24.

Bionic Commando is also coming out next week. I wonder just how many people will get into Pub Games with everything else around. It's certainly up for some boosts closer to the release of Fable II.

GameSpot's On The Spot Show has a gaggle of brand new video previews this week - a look at a whole bunch of Capcom games such as Mega Man 9, Flock, Age Of Booty, as well as CrunchTime Game's upcoming Shred Nebula. Check out the whole show in the video at the top.

During the video, Crunchtime games finally announce a release date for Shred Nebula - look out for it on September 3rd.

Besides the new episode of QORE for North American viewers - nobody gets nothing today! Well, the PSN store gets the final part of the making of Bionic Commando Rearmed and a translated The Last Guy Video, but nothing more than that.

Next week is Bionic Commando week - except maybe for Europe, as the Bionic Commando site claims that the European PSN version is still "TBC" for a date. All previous Capcom titles have, for no particular reason, been released a week later or even more for Europe. What a pain!

Continue reading for the full download list this week, thanks to Tanod on NeoGAF.

[Matt Matthews of Curmudgeon Gamer wishes to inform those without Sony's new Qore initiative to just what exactly 'Qore' is. With each episode, he will kindly educate the GamerBytes masses.]

Qore's Wikipedia definition: "A subscription-based interactive online magazine for the PlayStation Network. Currently only available in North America, the service offers high definition videos, interviews and behind the scenes footage pertaining to upcoming and recently released PlayStation games. It also offers exclusive access to game demos and betas."

Summary: The August episode of Qore does not raise the bar for Sony's interactive video program. On the other hand, Resistance 2 beta!

Qore Episode 03 features four games about which I knew little to nothing: DC Universe Online, LEGO Batman, Baja: Edge of Control, and NBA 08: The Inside. Each of these gets two short video segments showing various bits of gameplay and some mostly facile discussion with developers and designers.

I have skipped all DC Universe Online information that's shown up in my RSS reader, but this first Qore segment gave me a satisfactory introduction. Veronica Belmont, the sprightly hostess of Qore, starts out with two reasonably pointed questions: what lessons has SOE learned from its checkered past and what is the proposed subscription model? SOE studio creative director, Chris Cao, mostly dodges these questions, but I appreciate that the Qore team bothered to ask.

When Belmont sits down with creative director, Jens Andersen, things get a bit more interesting. Anyone considering an MMO set in the DC Universe has to wonder just what the gameplay will be like, and Andersen explains what SOE has in mind. Apparently the player will create a superhero and then interact not as an apprentice or sidekick to DC superheroes but rather as an equal.