Game Downloads

For this week’s Sessler’s Soapbox, Adam Sessler brings up an issue that’s old, but still unfortunately valid. That is, he, like many people, is fed up with the amount of racist and homophobic talk on Xbox Live. As he points out, the situation is just getting uglier all the time. Personally, I just mute the headset from the start as a default. Occasionally I’ll crank up the volume to see if there’s any sort of reasonable talk going on, and I’m usually disappointed…in humanity. Sessler also calls on anyone out there to explain why this sort of talk is necessary. You can check out how that’s going at the video’s website here.

Soul Bubbles Trailer 2Soul Bubbles is one of those bizarre games that has somehow peaked my interest. It probably has something to do with the fact that the strange premise actually looks fun, and the game looks like it could make clever use of the stylus controls for the DS. In this new trailer for the game, the developers basically run down some of the different abilities and obstacles you’ll encounter in the game. Your goal is to collect various “souls” in little bubbles, which you then guide to the exit by blowing them around. It’s like a combination of Loco Roco and Lost Winds, which should go over well with the DS crowd.

Yes, XBLA Hors D’oeurvres are back. If you’re not familiar with the concept, they’re a weekly feature where I play the latest Xbox Live Arcade game — in trial form — for no more than 10 minutes, and then summarize my impressions of the game based only upon that.

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the “Red Ring of Death” problems that have plagued millions of Xbox 360s and cost Microsoft billions of dollars in warranty repairs so far. But now, nearly a year after this whole thing came to light, we’re just now learning the source of the numerous hardware failures. As expected, the consoles’ overheating problems were all due to a cheap component. Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, revealed the exact source of the hardwar failures rather casually at the Design Automation Conference. It seems that, rather than use an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vendor to make the chipset, Microsoft decided to design the component on their own and have it manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The move was intended to save the company tens of millions of dollars, but instead…well, you know the rest of that story. To fix the problems for future hardware though, it looks like MS went back to using an ASIC vendor.

Emergent Game Technologies has announced the release of the Gamebryo 2.5 development tool. The engine has been used to create Bethesda’s Oblivion and is being used to develop Fallout 3 and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Gamebryo 2.5 features a redesigned core with the Emergent Terrain System, a new Geometry System and enhanced support for the Floodgate stream processing engine.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix TrailerThose of you struggling to figure out why you can’t yet play — hold on, give me a moment to inhale — the beta of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix should probably know that, while Commando 3 is out today, the HD beta doesn’t start until June 25th. If you buy Commando on the Xbox Live Arcade, you’re assured access to the beta, but you’ll find that the HD beta option in the Commando 3 menu will produce an error for the time being. Starting on June 25, you’ll be able to download the beta and play.