1P Start

You know the upcoming Mii rip-offs Microsoft is coming out with? Microsoft corporate vice president John Schappert has said that accessories for the avatars are likely in the future and that they probably will have a cost associated with them. Yes, that’s right you will have the ability to completely waste your money on clothes on your digital self. Seriously, if this happens and anyone reading this buys an outfit for their avatar, I will give you one free punch in the face for nothing.

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Hey cheap-asses, remember that the Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack is now free so don’t forget to download it as soon as you can. I’d love to tell you how great or bad they are because I am indeed a cheap ass. I would love to download the Heroic map pack today, but my XBox is still not back in my hands after it’s unfortunate bout of the red ring of suck.

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Well, not quite on its own, but it can at least be the catalyst for a new baby to make its way in to the world.

A couple have met over Xbox Live, fallen in love, married, and now had their first baby together.

I’m sure this kind of thing has happened in PC gaming before, and also virtual world games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, but I’ve never heard about it happening in quite the same way as this one occurred.

Stacy and Mike Figueroa met while playing Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown over the Xbox Live network. Hatred rather than love for each other was the first emotion to surface though, with the pair starting off as online enemies, in different factions of the game.

After months of shooting each other, they ended up becoming team-mates, and then a little after that, they fell in love.

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If you have not caught on, I have sort of a fetish for Tetris (seriously).

Well a couple of Tetris related happenings have come crossed my path recently, the first being something I hope to see you all in (then CRUSH YOU!).. a Tetris Splash Tournament being held on Xbox 360. This is the second one to be created and held just by other Tetris lovers on the official Xbox.com forums. User ‘cyno‘ has posted the information in a post here.

The long and short of it is, send him a PM that you would like to be in the tournament by March 12 (tomorrow) at 5:00pm. On the 14th, check the Tetris Splash forums and see the brackets.. easy enough? Well sign up and get to practicing! Want to see the best of the best from the last tournament, check this video below so you know what you are getting yourself into:

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Probably one of the most notable presentations at this years Game Developers Conference is Microsoft’s Keynote. Without Sony or Nintendo doing personal presentations themselves, this left Microsoft with a pretty easy “win” if you want to fuel the console wars fires. Though no “Free Xbox Live” was to be seen, some pretty damn big announcements have been made, including a surprise title coming out this year that had not been previously announced, read on for the quickest notes on the keynote ever:

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Last week saw Undertow given away free on Xbox Live Arcade to placate all those unfortunate souls affected by the service outages over the whole of the holiday season. Not a great game, but not bad for a free download.

However, this week sees a classic piece of video gaming goodness making it’s début on the Xbox Live Arcade, in the form of Chessmaster… no, just kidding, Rez is the big one, and Chessmaster is also being thrown in there to please the nerds.

Those of you who have never played Rez are in for a treat, and a bit of a mind fuck in to the bargain. Those of you who have never played Chessmaster have got lives, and good on you.

Rez, for the initiated, is a rhythm action and shooter game unlike any you may have previously experienced. You play a hacker who enters a computer network to try an reboot the AI at the centre of it. Think of a cross between Tron, and being a rave, and you’ll be maybe halfway there.

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In a kind of neat move on Microsoft’s part, they have made a set of Awards to recognize the great Xbox Live Arcade titles that have come out in the past year, and there really has been a lot of good ones after looking over the list. One game however, I notice got looked over. Luckily, when you vote, you can write in a game if it isn’t listed. Amazingly, “Tetris Splash” works in every single category, really, try it! See after the break for the categories, then click the vote now link to vote!

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Major Nelson has posted up the new list of the top played Xbox games (that are connected to Live of course). My favorite game of the moment, Call of Duty 4, holding the throne down over the game that disappointed me a bit, Halo 3. Amazing to see Gears of War still having that many people playing. Omega Five has quickly made it on the list, a new game of course, expect a review of that here on 1PStart very soon. I can’t believe it, UNO, staying in the top ten. Enough of my thoughts, here is the full list:

(NOTE: Don’t forget to download Undertow for free on Wednesday! Okay, now on to the list)

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Xbox Live users were pissed off in droves over the holiday season by the random, and inexplicable outages which hit the service for over a week.

Microsoft realised the levels of anger were going to hit them badly, so announced the give away of a free game to compensate everyone affected by the downtime.

Today, they revealed the game which all Xbox Live users will be able to download for free as a sweetener. The game is Undertow, an aquatic based shooter, which normally costs 800 Microsoft points.

It will be available to download completely free from Wednesday 23rd January 2008 until Sunday 28th January 2008. I can see that 5 day period crashing the servers yet again, but fingers crossed.

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Ladies and Gents it pains me to say my farewells to 1PStart. I’ve been here only a short time, though I’ve been at Xbox 360 Rally (another 451 site) for just under a year. I will miss you guys, though you’re probably throwing a party, chanting “he’s leaving! Huzzah! Huzzah!”. If you do miss me, though, you can find me at my new home BingeGamer.net.

It’s been fun, and I hope to see y’all around.

P.S.: Qbix — E-mail me, dude. I’m still gonna get your GTA IV to ya.

Well it appears that all of you who bitched and moaned about Xbox LIVE being up and down for a week are getting compensation from Microsoft. But, like I said earlier this week, you’re not getting a refund – rather, you’ll be getting a free Xbox LIVE Arcade game.

The game that will be given for free has yet to be announced, but you can be sure that it will be a throw-away title that nobody cares about. Probably Hexic 2… have fun with your Hexic.

So what was the cause of the outage to begin with? Xbox LIVE General Manager Marc Whitten wrote in a letter that Xbox LIVE experienced the largest sign-up of new members in its five-plus year history during this past holiday season, and this sudden surge may have been what KOed XBL.

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE

A staple in any gaming site, is a end of the year type list and/or holiday wish list. JW and yours truly have each picked the top three games for the main three consoles and some other categories for PSP, DS, Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console, and even finish our picks with the best console of 2007. To help with the ‘holiday list’ portion of this, I checked CheapAssGamer and Google for any good deals that will make sure you can save some cash in getting the… Top Ten Best Games Awards Holiday Picks of 2007! So lets get this going:

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Jeff Minter, creator of huge classics that I have no doubts no one has heard of, such as Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, and Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time (no, I made none of those titles up). His most recent endeavor, one that I had somewhat looked forward to, was the Xbox Live Arcade’s “Space Giraffe.”

It was a somewhat remake of Tempest which goes along with the beats. Now the game did not get raved reviews and it seems it didn’t sell well, at least not well enough for Minter, who recently posted on his Live Journal (I can’t believe people still use LJ):

jesus fucking christ

not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than ten to one, in one week.

OK, we get the message. All you want on that channel is remakes of old, shite arcade games and crap you vaguely remember playing on your Amiga.

We’ll shut up trying to do anything new then.

Sorry for even trying.

Wow, cry me a river. His game imo wasn’t terrible, not worthy of a purchase, but not complete crap, I have no doubts it has its audience (get the demo and try it for yourself). Either way, this is no way to go about dealing with bad/unexpected sales. If you have a game that has no advertisement and is confusing as all hell when you first try it competing with an already established classic title that anyone can easily pick up and play, do not compare your game.
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Jeff Minter, Space Giraffe, Frogger, XBLA, Xbox Live Arcade

If you haven’t heard, Ninjas and Pirates don’t much care for each other. This bitter blood fued has been raging since the beginning of recorded man. No one is sure as to why these two honor-bound social sects fight, but we do know where their next great battle will take place: On the fields of dodgeball. As part of Ninjafest over on G4 (a network that started as cool, declined to utter poo, and is rebuilding back up to cool once more), G4’s The Feed has an exclusive first look at some of the soon-to-be-familiar faces in the upcoming Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball.

My personal favorite is Hideki Miyamoto. An 80-year-old cyberninja with invisibility and a lightsaber? It’s like someone cross-bred Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness, not McGregor), Predator and the Ocripus guy from Ninja Warrior. That’s epic on so many levels.

Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball is being developed by the ultra cool cats at Blazing Lizard (will pharaoh cats be a team?), and will be available for download on Xbox LIVE Arcade in early 2008.

…but again, where are the lumberjacks?

[G4]

G4, Blazing Lizard, Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball

Blazing Lizard has revealed the third team that will be featured in their debut title, Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball, will in fact be zombies. Spooky. If you aren’t aware of what PvND is, I’ll summarize for you: Take the evernal struggle between the noble ninja and the scurvy-ridden pirate, and settle the long-standing fued on the fields of battle.

With dodgeballs.

And now, zombies. (I still want my lumberjack team, Stockman! You hear me?!)

Pictures and the press release after the break.

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