Microsoft has released their Game Studio Express for download. You can now create games for Windows (and in the future, Xbox 360) using their new XNA framework.

Being released in one week, September 5th. Loved the first season.

Looks like Florida will be feeling the effects pretty soon.

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Correct answer: No!

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Over 20 minutes of Zelda footage:

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I've heard this movie summed up in the phrase, “It's so bad, it's good.” There is not much I can really add, but I 100% agree. Do not go for the story, do not go for the characters (except for Samuel), go for the *********** snakes on the *********** plane. I'm not sure if it was made as a comedy, but I laughed almost all the way through. There were a few women screaming at the snakes, but I thought they looked too CG. Funny CG snakes! Go watch, you will like, just keep your expectations low.

It seems that Microsoft will be allowing any man, woman and child to create games for Windows and the 360. Just that you have to pay a subscription fee if you want to be able to run your creation on your Xbox, go figure. Am I interested? Sure. But I don't want to pay a couple yearly subscriptions before my project gets off the ground. Maybe I will stick to Windows development for now.

Press release.

This is a First Person Shooter built on the Doom 3 engine with a few gameplay twists. First of all, there are portals throughout the game allowing movement around the levels which could have been done by any ol' door. There are also gravity pads similar to Metroid Prime that allow you to... run up walls.

While the game is great for a play through, these new features were more for show. This game could have easily been pulled off without portals, which makes this a Doom/Quake clone (not that it is a bad thing). Instead of aiming at enemies on ledges above you, they are actually walking on the ceiling or walls. Graphics are similar to what you see in Doom 3/Quake 4, but in the later levels there are a few specific areas with framerate issues. I also fell through the floor fighting the final boss, did not die, was stuck inside a rock and had to restart from a save game.

Gameplay is what you expect from a FPS. The weapons are all new with some similarities with common weapons, but none really feel like it packs a wallop. The story begins when some aliens capture you girlfriend and you have to rescue her. The dialog before these events, and the good voice acting forces you to actually care about her. So there is reason to run to the end of the level! I haven't played the multiplayer but from what I hear it is Quake style deathmatch with crazy levels. Not my cup of tea. I finished the single player game in a day, so it automatically makes this a recommended rental.

Firstly, this review is based solely on the single player game. It does seem like a long time since the last Mario sidescroller. The series seemed to have migrated into the world of 3D like almost every other franchise. What keeps the series fresh is what seem to be a constant evolution of gameplay such as the water pack in Super Mario Sunshine and the wacky gravity in Super Mario Galaxy. So, what's the groundbreaking feature in this one? Giant Mario and tiny Mario. Both of which don't play a huge part in the game after all. Being giant Mario means you can run through the level without getting hurt while destroying any obstacles in the way. This powerup thankfully does not last that long which would completely ruin the already questionable game difficulty.

Tiny Mario can get in tiny places and small pipes, I ignored these powerups since it turned Mario into a weakling. I played through this game somewhere between 3 and 4 hours, and what was most disappointing was the final boss. Yes you know who, but it a battle which is very similar to the classic game. It was nothing like Super Mario World, with Bowser zooming around in pseudo 3D. For a single player game, you won't be getting much, but for $35 it is not a very big hit to the wallet. I've heard good things about the multiplayer so I will give that the benefit of the doubt. The gameplay is tried and true, just don't expect a new experience and there could have been more levels or a larger variety of them. With that, anyone that enjoys sidescrollers should give it a go.

The Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays started off with 5 games for the summer. Frogger, Cloning Clyde, Galaga, Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting and Pac-Man. I didn't even consider Frogger, Galaga or Pac-Man for purchase because they are just remakes of old arcade games with no multiplayer (Frogger has some hacked together co-op and versus modes).

I really wanted to like Street Fighter. It was a game I played for years and years for the Super Nintendo. I just realized how old this version was after downloading the trial version, it just didn't live up after all those years. The later releases are much improved and it just doesn't compare.

The new kid on the block, Cloning Clyde. It is a side scrolling platformer with online co-op and versus. I haven't played completely through the trial, but was certainly not impressed by the end of the first mission. It felt slow so far, and maybe someday I will go back and play some of the later levels. This is probably the game that would have me break down and bought my second arcade game (first was Uno). The problem: Price. It is about the same prices I got for Perfect Dark 0, 800 points which come out to about $12.50.

I have a feeling that my next purchase will be Contra (at 400 points), or some other unannounced game that is simple, fun, and cheap.

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Look at what happens when a fighter gets rough with the ref. Wow.

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I've seen numerous people state that the PlayStation 3 will fail if Blu-ray does. But why? The only advantage using a successful format that I could think of is that people would be able to buy a PS3 and also use it as a movie player. But is this a big issue for people? Would someone really refuse to buy a game machine because it doesn't play HD movies? The Nintendo DS is doing fine with a proprietary format without movie playback.

Worst case scenario. Blu-ray loses to some other format (HD-DVD?).Will all the PS3s suddenly stop working? No. Would Sony be unable to make game discs in the future? No. But they still have all that extra space for the ton of high def cut scenes RPG (role playing game) makers like to put in games.

The reason why the PS1 won its generation was exclusive games like Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy. PS2 did the same with Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy. This generation Sony has to get another exclusive monster hit like Grand Theft while still having a wide variety of games for everyone. Something I thought the Xbox lacked. With the way the 360 has been selling in Japan (home of dozens of game makers) Sony may still have a good chance of winning this war.

Note: Even though Nintendo's Wii may revolutionize games, I doubt it has a chance of being the highest selling platform. Anything may happen, but being second or third in a big market like this can still be extremely profitable.

When did slowdown become lag? I remember before online gaming in games like Gradius on the NES the game would start running slower if there were too many characters on the screen. That was probably cause by the sprite limitation of the machine, but this was considered slowdown.

At the beginning of the internet game era, games which were made for local area networks (LANs) like Warcraft 2, Doom, Descent and Duke Nukem 3D quickly became the addiction of gamers with the use of Kali. Kali emulated the IPX protocol over TCP/IP. This was also done most recently to play Xbox, Gamecube, PS2, and PSP games online.

Why is this relevant? These games were not design for the higher latency of the internet, and a high ping would cause the whole game to slow down. Framerate and movement would slow to a crawl if your ping went over a threshold, and this was highly dependent on the game that was being played.

With programmers being more experienced in writing online games, the relationship between connection lag and framerate seems to have been broken (finally). So connection lag during a game of Counter Strike: Source or even the older Diablo 2 cause the other players/bots/npcs to stop moving, teleport around or move a very odd way. In Battlefield 2, if you start losing packets, the vehicles/players close by continue their current movement until the connection resumes. This seems to be their prediction algorithm, move a until in from position x in direction y at speed z until their next position update.

Unfortunately, a low framerate is still considered lag. So there is actually no way of distinguishing connection lag and framerate issues when the word is used. Why is this important? It's not.

My expectations were low for this game. It got a 6.4 from Gamespot.com. One of their complaints was its similarities with last gen's (Xbox, PS2) version. If the game is fun, I don't really care about the other versions.

I'll get straight to the point. Was this game fun? Yes. Would I buy it? No. Is it worth a rental? Definitely.

This is an action game set in the 'Wild Wild West' era. You play a cowboy seeking revenge for the death of your (no spoilers here). So the story is fairly generic, but which game's isn't? There are about 3 types of missions. Kill/destroy someone/something, defend someone/something and escape from capture. What I find good about this game is that none of these feel thrown in. You wont be saying, “Oh no, not another <type> mission.” Along the way there are some story twists (again not going to spoil) which keeps you interested. The story moves along using in game cut scenes which I personally prefer over the type of storytelling in Half Life 2 which never takes control from the user.

Control is good. They are pretty forgiving with auto-aiming and you are giving easy tasks to learn the gameplay mechanics. Death is never frustrating, since the game will start you back fairly close to your mishap. In addition to the main mission, there are numerous side quests which give you stat boosts and cash to purchase new weapons.

You wont be getting any next gen graphics with this title. This is an Xbox game upgraded with better textures and models. The framerate seems to be pretty solid though. If you are looking for a weekend rental, don't get discouraged by the look. You will have a good 6 hours with this title.

This video shows a race between an F1 racer, Modena, and Fiat. The slower cars are given a head start, shows how much faster those race cars are.

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