VGTribune

Microsoft has revealed today that Sonic Adventure will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade starting September 15th. Sonic Adventure is the first in a series of Sega Dreamcast titles that they plan to bring to Xbox Live Arcade with added features including Achievements, with one of those other titles being the popular Crazy Taxi.

Sonic Adventure will be released on XBLA on September 15th for 800 MS points. That’s right, $10 for the Dreamcast game that started it all. It’s a steal but let’s face it. The game will probably go unnoticed because all of you Xbots out there will be playing Halo Reach, which drops a day earlier on September 14th.

It appears that despite the massive “flop” of what Microsoft call the Avatars that we may well be seeing more of the little guys and gals. The official Xbox Magazine has been told that avatars will be redesigned for Kinect. Apparently it is due to the players perception of avatars not controlling very realistically when you are the controlling “kinecting” with them. As such the whole avatar system is having to be redesigned to make them more realistic. personally I don’t ever use the Avatars except to make them burp so unless they add more burp effects and stuff I’m not fussed. But what do you think? Please tell us in the comments!

Nick Burton, senior programmer at avatar creators Rare:

“They’ll become more realistic and will essentially be ‘Avatar 2.0′.

The proportions will be made more realistic because hand-eye co-ordination broke when using the old cartoony proportions – not in terms of hardware but rather, player perception.”

A video uploaded today by ‘PwnShop’ of the 360Junkies Forum shows evidence that Activision ‘might’ be charging a subscription for Call of Duty multiplayer access at some point in the future. The video in question shows a Microsoft Points based charge.

“I was trying to join a friend’s session on MW2 the other day and had this screen pop up. It clearly says at the top of this menu: “Modern Warfare 2 Membersh”, in which we can confidently assume that the last word is “Memberships”. If you’ll notice at the bottom is an option to “Add Microsoft Points”, clearly indicating that this was intended to be a menu for purchasing different levels of Membership, presumably memberships would have been offered in a variety of durations.”

With Xbox Live famously being a closed platform, what we are left wondering is what led Microsoft to allow Activision to implement this feature. (A certain CEO clearly got the Cheque Book out.)

At the end of the day what would you rather have. Call of Duty Subscriptions or Portal 2 with Steamworks support.

Title: “Crackdown 2”

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer: Ruffian Games

Console: Xbox 360

BBFC Rating: 15

Price: £39.99 (estimated retail price)

Availability: Europe - July 9, 2010

Crackdown 2 is the sequel to the original Crackdown where players went around as an overpowered agent and destroyed everything in sight within an open world. The storyline required players wanted to clear the city from the 3 different gangs and, as an obedient agent, that’s what you did. The main downside to the first game however was its repetitiveness and that after a few levels you could kick everything to death with ease. Does Crackdown 2 fix that? Read more to find out!

Read the rest of this entry »

The Crackdown 2 Beta is now available for download from the Xbox Live Marketplace, the demo features a 30 Minute time limit in which you can earn achievements which will awarded when you insert the full game. The demo also allows for 4 Player Co-Op in which accelerated agent levelling is also present.

Still looking for a copy? Crackdown 2 can still be Pre-Ordered via Amazon. Where you will receive a special pre-order bonus of a redeem code for exclusive agency suits in-game.

Microsoft has been pretty quiet on the 3D front considering that both Nintendo and Sony have been making much ado about their 3D efforts. However at the Westminster eForum, a conference focused around “web enabled television, 3D and future TV tech,” Blitz Game Studios co-founder Andrew Oliver said, ”Microsoft are going to be making an announcement about it at some point soon.”

Although Oliver didn’t specify E3 as the venue for said announcement, “soon” means E3 to anyone with their ear to the video game industry floor. Regardless, we’ve contacted Blitz Game Studios for a comment. We’ll find out early next week during wether or not Microsoft will be making any announcements about 3D.

Well, I don’t know what you guys think about Fallout: New Vegas but I myself am looking forward to it.  Just ignore the slightly irrating voice over and watch the footage above to see how awesome the latest hit from Bethesda is. Shame about it just being a rehash so far, but that’s what some of us wanted anyway so we can’t complain. VGTribune will be visiting Bethesda at E3 to find out more.

That’s one mighty specific rumor, but if Edge-Online’s source is right we’ll be getting a confirmation of all 3 claims during E3. Why should we trust Edge-Online’s source, you say? They claim that he or she is the same “trusted” source that slipped them some Gears of War 3 gameplay details before they were even announced.

“Microsoft expects to sell millions and millions of Natal units in its first year on the market so you can expect the software launch line-up to target non-traditional gamers,” our source said. “A major marketing campaign will also play a key role in attracting and educating the expanded audience about Xbox 360’s controller-free revolution.”

Just in case you’re planning on taking Tuesday, October 26 off from work to attend Project Natal’s launch, you might want to hold off until an official announcement is made as Edge-Online’s source says it might shift forwards or backwards by a few weeks.

The most anticipated game in Xbox history, and probably the history of modern gaming it’s self will launch worldwide this September.

Available exclusively for Xbox 360 and developed by Bungie, “Halo: Reach” drops players back into the iconic universe they love so they can experience the birth of the “Halo” legend. During the past 10 years, the “Halo” franchise has inspired multiple New York Times best-selling novels, comic books, action figures, apparel and more, and it has sold more than 34 million games worldwide to date.

“‘Halo: Reach’ is the culmination of a decade of ‘Halo,’ a franchise that has become a global entertainment and pop-culture touchstone,” said Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios at Microsoft Corp. “Just as ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ catalysed the success of the original Xbox to define a decade of entertainment, ‘Halo: Reach’ will push the boundaries for what’s possible in video games and help make 2010 the biggest year in Xbox history.”

[Source: Press Release]