Last week IGN got the chance to play Popcap's Xbox Live Arcade version of Peggle, and were able to check out the brand new multiplayer modes exclusive to this version.

"]One] multiplayer mode is an Xbox Live one that can be played with up to four players. Start a game with less and CPU players will hop in to play with you. Here, each player gets their own board and play happens simultaneously. Each round has a time limit to shoot (adjustable in the pre-game lobby) and at the end of each round you get a summary of how many points each player scored and who is currently in the lead. At any time, you can hit the Y button to watch the other boards or watch replays of recent shots, though you'll have to watch out for that shot timer running out."

The other mode - Duel Mode, can be played on a single system. Many couples who play games casually play Peggle together - this is the perfect addition to the game. I also noticed a colorblind mode as well. I don't know if this was in the original Peggle, but its a godsend for those who love puzzle games but can't see what they're meant to do. Through the many podcasts I listen to it sounds like half of the gaming press are colorblind on the offset.

Check out the rest of the preview and a couple new videos below.

Source: IGN.com - Peggle XBLA Preview.

The WiiWare service in Japan, much like its Virtual Console brethren, is wildly different to what the Americas and Europe have. In terms of content they'll always have a ton of strange and weird new titles that will never make it over to those of us who speak English. Games like the bubble wrap simulator, and several shogi and solitaire titles.

It now seems to some of them will be making their way over after a long break. The Australian classification website has rated Lonpos for WiiWare. Lonpos is a logic puzzle title using the board of the same name, in which you must fit several colored shapes into a block. It was released in Japan the day the WiiWare service started.

Lonpos is also known for it having a ridiculous amount of overpriced downloadable content. While the initial game is 1000 Wii Points, additional content of 25 puzzles could be bought for an extra 500 Wii Points. Problem is, there are 9 of these packs, making the complete game 5400 Wii Points with all the content.

Whether or not they will follow this strategy for the English version of the game is unknown - but I certainly hope they don't. The game was also said to have fairly clunky controls as well, so hopefully something has changed.

Source: OFLC - Lonpos rating

For people like me who live in Australia or any European country, we know the frustration that comes up every Thursday, waiting for our PlayStation Store update, and seeing that something that North America has isn't there. NovaStrike has only just come out in Europe after being available in America for four months beforehand, and despite Capcom titles being available everywhere on Xbox Live Arcade and America for PSN on the same day, the European PSN release have always been delayed by several weeks.

The reasoning behind this was that games had to be sent in for final testing to each part of SCE - America, Japan and Europe, so they're not working to release on the exact same day as each other.

Other reasons include independent studios not being able to afford a complete release from the start - the previously mentioned NovaStrike had to wait for some cash flow from the American release before they could send it into Europe for testing there. Microsoft on the other hand, has all XBLA testing done in America for all regions, allowing support day and date for most countries.

Which is why Sony appears to be rectifying the situation - Game Daily are reporting that Sony is changing things up, allowing developers to submit their games though a single website for PSN titles.

Along with this they have also announced that it will now be far easier to self publish on PSN, saying that "Developers no longer need a publisher to distribute games on PlayStation Portable and PlayStation", while before it's been quite difficult to get your own game on there. This is more than likely a response to Microsoft's XNA initiative.

Either way, it's all good for PlayStation Network users. Now companies who have been stuck in either WiiWare or were lucky enough to get on Xbox Live Arcade. Welcome to the least limiting platform for downloadable games.

Source: Game Daily - Casual Connect: Sony On Developing for an Open PS2 Platform

Art Style: ROTOHEX

Wii Points: 600 Wii Points
Game Type: Puzzle
Control Type: Wii Remote
Players: 1-2
Publisher: Nintendo

"Use colored triangular panels to create a vibrant mosaic of stained glass in Art Style: ROTOHEX. As triangles fall from the top of the screen, rotate them to group six panels of the same color and create a matching hexagon, or HEX. Once the HEX has been formed, it will disappear, allowing the existing panels to shift and more panels to fill the playing field.

"A clear-cut goal and two different styles of intuitive controls allow you to focus solely on the game play-which is vital, as the playing field will be full of panels before you know it. With multiple modes (unlock more as you progress further in SOLO mode), special item panels at your disposal, and the ability to play cooperatively or competitively with a friend, there will always be another HEX to create."

Strong Bad Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands

Wii Points: 1,000 Wii Points
Game Type: Adventure
Control Type: Wii Remote
Players: 1
Publisher: Telltale Games
Unique Features: WiiConnect24

"Rock and roll! Hurting for cash, Strong Bad sets out to dominate the “Battle Royale of the Bands.” Can he rule the stage and win the big prize? Or will he be drowned out by the competition? Find out in this high-voltage episode."

It appears that Rotohex is very much like Dialhex from the Japanese Bit Generation titles, and this week we've got the third Strong Bad episode as well. We're half way through the series now - keep it going!

Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

"Join Mr. Foxworthy's class and play the Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? trivia game where every question is based on the grade school curriculum and the answers are elementary. Step up to the podium and put your smarts on the line with over 6,000 grade school questions in 21 subjects. Outwit, outplay and just plain cheat your way to the one million dollar grand prize. Collect extra credit to unlock achievements. Prove once and for all that you are indeed smarter than a 5th grader."

This game will be available for 1200 Microsoft Points. There is a good chance this won't get released outside of the United States, which is a shame.

Click here for the official Xbox.com splash page.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2

"The madcap Penny Arcade experience continues in Episode Two of the RPG-adventure game series Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness! Jump right in with a fresh character and new customization options or carry over your look and stats from Episode One. Plus, there are more puzzles, areas to explore, levels to gain, and new difficulty settings to make the journey more insane than ever before.

"Rejoin Gabe and Tycho to go crazy with a whole new episode, moving ever closer to solve the mystery in the heart of New Arcadia. Your hoe awaits!"

Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 2 will be released for 1200 Microsoft Points worldwide.

Click here for the official Xbox.com page.

Marble Blast Ultra downloadable content

The long awaited Marble Blast Ultra downloadable content is here. Spotted here some time ago it appears that the expansions will add more multiplayer content, such as new modes, as well as an additional 50 points to the achievements.

Click here for more information about this expansion.

Click here for the official Xbox.com splash page.

Last week we got the chance to talk wit Joju Games, the company behind Mart Racer for WiiWare on what working with the service has been like for an independent developer, and if the implementation of online play has been at all difficult - as it is something that tends to be missing from many WiiWare titles.

This week's Xbox Live Arcade releases include Penny Arcade Episode 2 and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, and WiiWare has just debuted Strong Bad Episode 3 and Art Style: Rotohex. This week's PlayStation Network titles are unknown, but last week they got the excellent Prince of Persia Classic and the first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures.

Xbox Live Arcade

Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 2, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? And Marble Blast Ultra DLC Available This Week On XBLA
This week is the first time we've had double 1200 Microsoft Point titles. 5th Grader actually looks a whole lot better than other downloadable quiz titles, but probably won't get released outside of America. Some long awaited Marble Blast Ultra DLC debuts too.

Zombies!!! And Wings Of War Coming To XBLA And PSN In 2009
Big Rooster are working hard on bringing two strategy board games to the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, both of which are growingly increasingly popular on the board game circuit. Turn based dogfighting and zombie killing? Sounds like a blast.

Xbox Live Primetime Delayed Until Spring In America
The New Xbox Experience coming on November 19 won't have everything originally announced for it - the Primetime service, allowing people to play games like 1v100, will not be available at launch.

PlayStation Network

EU PSN Store Update - NoveStrike And Prince Of Persia Classic
Europe finally get the chance to play third-party indie PSN title NovaStrike, while Prince of Persia makes its way from the XBLA to the PSN.

NA PSN Store Update - The P's Have It
Penny Arcade Episode 1 and Prince of Persia Classic highlight this week's releases on the PlayStation Network. Some notable updates to High Velocity Bowling also top up this week's debuts.

Sony "Adapting A Global Approval System" For The PlayStation Network?
Europeans are getting sick of having to wait weeks upon weeks for unnecessarily delayed content for the PlayStation Network. According to new media reports, it seems Sony is determined to rectify the situation.

WiiWare

GamerBytes Interview - Joju Games On Mart Racer And WiiWare Development
We sit down to talk with Joju Games about their upcoming WiiWare title. What's it like working on WiiWare? Was it easy to implement online play? What is Mart Racer? All the answers are here.

NA WiiWare Update - Art Style: Rotohex and Strong Bad: Episode 3
The third Art Style game has been released in the US, a new simple rotating puzzle game called Rotohex. Strong Bad Episode 3 continues the monthly episodic release for the series, too. Nice to see Nintendo following an actual release plan - now where are the Art Style games in Europe?

EU WiiWare Update - Building Up And Breaking Down
Europe now gets the chance to play Tetris Party along with the rest of the world - rejoice! They also get The Incredible Maze from last week's U.S. debut, and Home Sweet Home, an interesting title which allows you to design your home. A game that came out in Europe first? Do my eyes deceive me?

The largely overlooked arcade game GTI Club + has got itself a release date for the PlayStation Network.

Konami have given the game the firm date of November 4th, and this appears to be the European release date. Ported by Sumo Digital, GTI Club + will feature a ton of new multiplayer modes, and a graphical upgrade. It will be available for 9.99 GBP, or $15 USD.

Eurogamer also got their hands on a preview a few weeks detailing some of the new modes. You can read it below.

Source: Eurogamer - GTI Club + Hands On

The November update for the Xbox 360 is coming up fast, just a few weeks to go before it all goes live. On that same day some crazy amount of titles will be released for the new Xbox Live Community Games section. But what are these games? What can we look forward to in the XNA space?

Over the next few weeks I'll have a look through some up and coming XNA titles which look promising. If you are developing an XNA title, even if it's far from completion, contact us and we may showcase the title here.

Here's a look at some XNA-related titles that are either very early in development or might come to XNA Community Games soon:

The Unfinished Swan

It's a simple concept - you're stuck in a maze and must find your way out. Here's the kicker - you're in a world filled with nothing but black and white, and you have nothing but the other colour to help you through, splashing paintballs everywhere to find your way out.

It's a very neat concept, and since its being made in XNA, we're hoping it should come out for XNA Community Games when it's released in March 2009.

Click here for more about this game.

Blow

Currently in this year's Dream Build Play competition, Blow comes from vector2games and the Flook brothers, who won last year's competition with Blazing Birds. Effectively, it's a simplified version of The Incredible Machine or bridge builder games like World of Goo or Elefunk. You need to place fans around the environment in order for a 'King' bubble to fly around and collect the rest of the bubbles.

In just a few days the Dream-Build-Play '08 winners will be revealed. Will this be one of them?

Check out more on the game here.

JellyCar

JellyCar was part of the Community Games testing phase earlier this year. It's a bizarre physics simulation where you're a little car driving around the landscape to the exit. It's all very basic looking, but that's kind of the charm of this little title. Ever play Elasto Mania? It's kind of like that.

Right now it's actually freely available for iPhone and PC, but due to Microsoft's current pricing schemes, they cannot have a free title in the XNA Community Games space. Chances are this will be released for 200 Microsoft Points.

Check out more about JellyCar here.

The future of XNA community games is looking pretty bright. Bring it on!

The latest update on the ESRB website brings a new game to our attention - Tiki Towers from RealNetworks.

No idea what the game is, but it appears to be a brand new title from the company. The other RealNetworks game in the works is Boingz from developer NinjaBee. What could this game be, and who is behind it?

Source: ESRB.com

Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

Developer: Blitz Game Studios
Publisher: THQ
Genre: Game Shows
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: United States Only

Click here for the official Xbox.com splash page.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2

Developer: Hothead Games
Publisher: Microsoft
Genre: Role Playing Games
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points
Availability: Everywhere but Korea

Click here for the official Xbox.com page.

Marble Blast Ultra - Marble It Up DLC

Refresh your Marble Blast Ultra palate for FREE with this brand new multiplayer level! BONUS: Includes one new achievement for your marble blasting pleasure.

Joystiq, much like a lot of the press, got the chance to install the New Xbox Experience, and they've uploaded a ton of new videos detailing all the new features that are available.

One such ability is the chance to check out the Community games. Right now we cannot access them, but they can, with three games currently available: Culture, Net Rumble 3.0, and Netters.

We've seen Culture before in the XNA demo program, and the fellow previewing the update couldn't figure out what Netters was (giant online board of letters?), but Net Rumble 3.0 looks fairly interesting - a simple Subspace multiplayer games allowing up to 16 players.

The most interesting bit was that Net Rumble 3.0 is available for only 50 Microsoft points. That's 62 American cents. Originally Microsoft announced that games could cost 200 (which is what Culture costs here), 400 or 800 in the XNA community. Perhaps this has now changed to reflect the kinds of games that may become available?

There is an XNA event in the next day or so. Let's hope we learn more then.

Much like Joystiq, the MTV Multiplayer blog has also had the chance to check out the New Xbox Experience dashboard update, but they also noticed something missing.

Apparently the XBLA auto-download option has been removed in the new update. The auto-download option allowed those who don't necessarily follow the download schedule of Xbox Live Arcade games to have all the latest game demos downloaded automatically to your system.

While many may not have used this option, it seems very peculiar that they've removed an option. There is a saying in the sales industry: "nobody asks to not have something." Why it was necessary to remove it doesn't really make any sense to me.

Usually, it wouldn't be a huge problem, but considering the poor job of reminding people on releases that Microsoft has done recently, I would suggest they throw it back in there.

Source: MTV Multiplayer Blog - New Xbox Experience Currently Missing My Second Favorite Dashboard Feature

If you've been following us for the past few days, the XNA games have been a fairly big topic. Today, Microsoft have announced the winners of their Dream-Build-Play competition.

The four winners will divvy up $70,000 in prizes, and also win the opportunity to receive an invitation to release their games on Xbox Live Arcade -- though many may now choose to stay on Xbox Live Community Games, since it's so close to release.

Below is each title that won a piece of the prize, along with a video showing them off. They all look very interesting and very different to anything else on Xbox Live Arcade. Continue reading for the full list.

1st Place: CarneyVale - Team Gambit
Prize: $40,000

"CarneyVale: Showtime is a vertical ragdoll platform game. In the game, you play as Slinky, a circus acrobat trying to rise up the ranks by performing acrobatic tricks and death-defying stunts through increasingly complex arenas. Chia even built-in a circus map editor for players to create their own obstacles to overcome, bringing user-generated content to a new a level."

This week on the German USK rating board three new titles have popped up, all being created by Creat Studios who are currently busy on the new Tony Hawk title for the Nintendo DS.

The three titles are Magic Ball, Cuboid and Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom. While we don't know nothing concrete on the games, Magic Ball could very well be a PlayStation 3 revision of Alawar Entertainment's Magic Ball series, effectively an Arkanoid clone with a twist.

Nothing could be found about Cuboid, but Mahjong Tales is fairly self explanatory. We should be hearing more about these titles soon.

Source: USK - Creat Studios

PixelJunk Monsters

PixelJunk Monsters has updated with the new Trophy challenge. This mode can only be done in single player, and has you completing levels with new objectives. This should add hours of new gameplay for those that have already mastered the game. The hidden Trophies can be completed in any game mode: just achieve the task.

Check out all the new PSN Trophies here.

SIREN: Blood Curse Halloween 1-week sale (from 10/30 - 11/6)

Full downloadable game for $29.99, or chapter bundles for $10.99/each.

In the latest Developer Diary over at the Gamerscore blog, Microsoft have revealed that there are 5 previously released Xbox Live Arcade titles that will update to integrate Avatars alongside the 'New Xbox Experience' update on November 19th.

The original Uno will have an update where your Avatars will now take place of your Gamertag, and will give your Avatars custom animations. This is quite interesting, as I would have expected them to make it an exclusive feature of the upcoming Uno Rush.

Bomberman Live! will update with your avatars now showing up in the game lobby, the endgame screen, as well as icons at the top of the screen, where your Bomberman head used to be. Unfortunately you cannot use your Avatar head as a mask, like in Bomberman Blast on WiiWare.

Hardwood Hearts and Hardwood Spades will update with your Avatars watching you play, taking the place of where your icons used to be. Lastly, Small Arms will also update - however, what it will do is currently unknown.

There is also one other Xbox Live Arcade title that will support Avatars robustly when it gets released - A Kingdom For Keflings will allow you to control your Avatar on screen instead of the other giants in the game.

What other games would you like to have the ability to use your Avatars? GripShift could be kind of cool if you could slap your Avatar in the driving seat. Golf: Tee It Up seems ripe for it too.