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Call of Duty 2 Maps Hit Live, June 29

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: First Person Shooters, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace,

Community manager at Infinity Ward FourZeroTwo announced that the upcoming Invasion Map Pack for Call of Duty 2 will be available on June 29, via the Xbox Live Marketplace. Initially expected to be out in July, gamers will get access to the content a couple of days early at a slightly cheaper price. The initial announcement of the map pack had the price listed at 900 Marketplace points; instead, the five new multi-player maps will debut at 800 points, about $10.

According to FourZeroTwo, the new map pack will include the following locations:

Antoville, France (Crossroads);
St. Louet, France (Newvillers);
Amaye sur Seulles, France (Normandy);
Alam Halfa, Egypt (Decoytown);
Rostov, Russia (Harbor)

The new content should be a welcome addition for those gamers looking for new multiplayer challenges, and at the lowered price point, should be a little more economical than some of the download-able content for other games.

Red Steel Control Scheme Being Overhauled

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, First Person Shooters, Nintendo, Reviews, Wii,

Red Steel for Wii Screenshot Red Steel is one of those games that Nintendo fans really really want to see succeed. The idea of a first-person game alternately utilizing the Wii to do gun-shootin’ and sword-swingin’ sounded like a dream come true. Unfortunately that dream was shattered (or at least slightly cracked) when E3 rolled around. Red Steel proved to be perhaps the poorest showing in Nintendo’s wildly popular Wii booth, mainly due to a flawed control scheme that made gunplay somewhat jittery and (more importantly) didn’t actually simulate your sword-strokes during onscreen saber battles.

Well blessed be Ubisoft - the company has actually taken the criticism to heart. TheGameFeed.com has reported that Ubisoft recently told the French press they will be making “significant changes” to the game-play before the game hits shelves, presumably sometime around November. Here’s hoping that it will be much closer to the free-form sword swinging we were all hoping for!

A Look At GRAW Chapter 2 Downloadable Content

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, First Person Shooters, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,

Long time Gear Live and Playfeed reader David Roth (aka munkyxtc) was an early purchaser of the GRAW Chapter 2 downloadable content from the Xbox Live Marketplace. After playing with the various new additions to the game, he sent us his thoughts:

The long awaited release of Chapter 2 co-op campaigns and map pack has hit the marketplace with a steep price tag of 1200 Microsoft Points ($15US). Deciding to be an earlier adopter of this download proved to be quite an adventure. I started to download the 725MB update at 4:30PM EST yesterday, after making it through the downloading process to 84% (Mind you it took 5 hrs to get to this point) MS servers decided to start dropping connections which resulted in the content being corrupted, so back to the drawing board I went. I immediately started the download back up and everything was going great until I decided to waste my time playing Bankshot Billiards to pass the time - BUT WAIT, there is apparently a download for this game which automatically kicks you off Xbox live before asking if you want to download it or just quit the game to save you from being disconnected. Again, my downloadable content was corrupted. By this time I was completely frustrated and decided to just set it and forget it overnight. After crawling out of bed this morning I fired up GRAW and was prompted for a mandatory title updated, which I gladly installed.

Click to continue reading A Look At GRAW Chapter 2 Downloadable Content

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Prey Demo PC Out, Xbox 360 Delayed

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, Xbox 360,

3D Realms has released the Prey demo, and the file is available from a number of sources listed on the 3D Realms website. Prey has had a long and convoluted development history, but the latest incarnation, using the Doom 3 engine and being developed by Human Head Studios now has a demo available. Early feedback seems to indicate that the download is worth the wait (in both download time, and development time). The file weighs in at around 449 megabytes, so its time to crank up the bandwidth. Unfortunately, the Xbox 360 version of the demo has been held up temporarily, while Microsoft completes their final QA sign off, but every indication is that this process should only take a day or so. The demo features the first five single player levels, and two death-match maps, so it should keep gamers occupied for at least a little bit.

PC System Requirements after the jump.

Click to continue reading Prey Demo PC Out, Xbox 360 Delayed

Bungie Fanatic Builds Ultimate Halo Room

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, First Person Shooters, Xbox 360,

Bungie.net reports on very dedicated Halo fan Namloco’s “ultimate Halo room.” The room contains a ton of Halo memorabilia, a lot of it collected from eBay, but the thing that ties the room together is really the mural dominating the walls of the room. Proving his dedication to the temple of Bungie, he had the artwork for the cover of Edge Magazine transferred, larger than life, into his gaming den. The mural was copied from the original art by 4 artists, at a cost of approximately $2,000. Namloco isn’t finished yet, saying to Bungie, “No way am I done. I left a wall to the right of the Chief to expand. Maybe a life size gun rack in the pelican so visitors may have their weapon of choice on hand.”

Being A Professional Gamer At Age 8

Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Xbox, Xbox 360,

Victor De Leon Pro Gamer Victor De Leon is living the dream at 8 years old. Victor is better known as Lil Poison, a Major League Gamer who plays to win in Halo. Victor picked up the controller from his father at the age of 2 when “Dad” found that a controller makes a fine pacifier. Victor has already competed in several tournaments and has also earned enough playing video games to ensure his college education is fully funded. Victor’s parents have done a great job by adding some balance to his life. He does homework before gaming, puts in some physical activity at his grandparent’s swimming pool and caps off the evening with some team gaming for 2 hours. Let’s hope getting into the gaming spotlight at such a young age doesn’t disenfranchise Lil Poison. I don’t want to see a VH1 special in 15 years about child gamers and where they are now!

Quake Wars Pre-Order Details Announced

Posted by Matt Haselton Categories: Action, First Person Shooters, PC, Release Dates,

While the release date for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars remains “sometime 2006,” Activison has announced that some retailers will begin accepting pre-orders at the end of July. The cost of reserving a copy wasn’t mentioned, but some of the perks were; most notably, players will be able to call dibs on their favorite username before the game’s official launch. There’s also the promise of receiving “advanced strategies and gameplay tactics,” though it’s doubtful such information will remain exclusive for any longer than it takes to copy-and-paste into a public forum.

New Frontlines Fuel Of War Trailer

Posted by Josh Smith Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Trailers, Xbox 360,

Kaos Studios, the company developing Frontline Fuel of War, has made available the trailer which was shown at E3. Fuel of War is a FPS set for release in the Fall of 2007 and is being published by THQ. The game will be available on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Judging from early screen shots it looks impressive.

Game Overview:

Set in a fictional near future based upon the headlines of today, FFOW brings players into the world’s next great war. As society succumbs to a worldwide energy crisis, a new global depression takes hold. Amidst this gritty backdrop two superpower alliances emerge. Join the battle on the frontlines of tomorrow as the Western Coalition (U.S./E.U.) or the Red Star Alliance (Russia/China).

Sadly the release date of 2007 underscores the shortage of next gen games available for play this summer or even this year.

Bungie Announces Podcast

Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Internet, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,

Bungie In their weekly update, Bungie, creators of Halo, have announced that they will be starting a podcast. They promise that it will be “Bungie-fied” and chock full of interviews with individuals close to the Halo 3 process. Also in this weeks update are more cries from the Land of the Banned and a new Mister Chief. More quality video game podcasts are always welcome. Do any readers have a video game podcast recommendation? Don’t forget to check out The Bleeding Edge, a technology podcast on our sister site Gear Live.

More Halo 2 Vista Details

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, Xbox Live,

Bungie.net released some more details about how Halo 2 will interact with Windows Vista, from project lead Jo Clowes. Microsoft confirms that Halo 2 will support their new Live Anywhere service, but still will not allow cross-platform play between Xbox and PC users. However, Live Anywhere users on Vista will be able to view people on their Friends lists on Xbox Live. Microsoft offers other improvements in the Live experience on Vista, aligning the game more along the lines of what gamers expect from PC-based gaming. These improvements include the ability to set up dedicated servers, and to define custom online game configurations.

In terms of content, it was confirmed that all the original content from the Xbox version of Halo 2 would be present in the Vista version, plus gamers will get a map editor, and potentially a few new maps. Further, with integration into Windows Vista’s game browser UI will allow management of dedicated servers and favorite game types. It was also mentioned that once Live Anywhere launches for mobile users, friends list and achievements can be accessed, but there are no plans for a mobile Halo 2. While the new gaming features in Windows Vista are interesting, one has to wonder if releasing Halo 2 after 2+ years will really drive the adoption of the Live Anywhere platform. Still, the Xbox game is still dominating the Live charts after all this time, so the game’s popularity could continue while gamers wait for the release of Windows Vista.

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