Xbox 360

As a fan of the books and the movies, I've never been too excited about Harry Potter video games. But I have to admit The Half Blood Prince game seems to have improved since the days of the Gamecube's Sorcerer's Stone.

While the game still has all the familiar robot-esk characters and sub-par voice overs, the game developers seem to actually be learning from past mistakes and successes to give 360, PS3, Wii and others a game actually enjoyable.

It's important to realize that the majority of people that will be buying this game are already Harry Potter fans. They've read the books, watched the movies, and played every game previous. So an important buyer fact is that they already know the story. They know the dialog, they know the ending. They even know what will happen in the next book. (I know I do!) So making a game that simply follows the story is to some, repetitive. Half Blood Prince acknowledges that. HBP, while still highlighting on the story to give the game some stucture, focuses more on a free-roaming experience of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Which, in the words of Ron, is "brilliant."

Word on the street is that Xbox Live has plans to include ads on their dashboard before the end of 2009. Microsoft announced earlier this year that "Silverlight-powered media on Xbox will have the same appearance as ads seen on a Web browser. Think technology that competes with Flash, only supported by 6 million Silverlight developers worldwide who now have the option to tap a variety of Microsoft tools and technologies and develop marketing campaigns for Xbox," reads a report on Media Post.

While some see this announcement as an impending doom, others see it as a glimmer of hope. The assumption of some is with the addition of paying advertisers, the result will be free Xbox Live Gold access to all. Still others hope that the ad feature will, at the least, have a disable function so as not to ruin the $50 a year experience.

The ideas are plenty and the answers are few. The only thing we can do is hope Microsoft will be kind to us faithful subscribers and not shove endless amounts of ads down our throats.

Here at Genisys Gaming, we love action. There are the first person shooter games (Halo, Call of Duty, Half-life), there are the fighting games (Soul Calibur, Tekken, Mortal Combat), we have the RPGs (Final Fantasy, Fable, Morrowind), and so on. Let's face it, though. We want a game that is just as suspenseful as 'Die Hard' or maybe some nice Jackie Chan movies; movies that are filled with rooftop chases and scary jumps from building to clustered construction equipment. That's where Mirror's Edge comes in. EA's new game mixes first person shooting, tactical fighting, and basically Assassin's Creed style stunts. Mirror's Edge will release November 11 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

Eh, okay. You got me. Final Fantasy XI is on Xbox 360, but who wants to pay a monthly fee to play a game you can't really beat? However, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIII will be released for the 360 along with the PS3. That's awesome for us Xbox people, but what does this mean for those "hardcore" Final Fantasy fans? Well, it means a lot of angry hardcore Final Fantasy fans. According to gamegrep.com, these fans were upset with Square Enix's decision. One fan/GameFAQs member "seemed" to have committed suicide based on this. The "rumor" was that he posted a suicide note and hasn't been connected since. As for Sony, they have stated that they weren't surprised at Square Enix's choice, but were disappointed. A little history and info: If you really were a hardcore Final Fantasy fan, then you would already know and keep in mind that Sony/Playstation didn't make Final Fantasy the successful series it is today. The popularity started from when the first six games were on Nintendo consoles. Then Square moved to the Sony Playstation for Final Fantasy VII to XII. So six games on Nintendo, six games on Playstation. Should people still be mad that FFXIII will be on the 360? As long as they get it on PS3, I don't see a problem. It's not like Bungie decided to release Halo 4 on PS3 only. BTW, there is no Halo 4. And now for a video. Enjoy.

A few days ago, Bungie posted to their front page an article not only discussing the thrilling world of latency and accuracy dynamics of the Halo 3 Battle Rifle in comparison to the Halo 2 Battle Rifle, but also unveiled a new map that will be included in the next map pack. Seeing as how a lot of people enjoy playing Halo 3 around here, I figured you guys would be excited... Apparently the new map will be a remake of the popular Halo: Combat Evolved map, Chill Out. Dubbed Cold Storage, the announcement also came with 2 screenshots of the level, which are below (Also the large versions are ~1.5 Megs, so they'll take a little bit to load):

Cold Storage Screenshot 1 - Click for Large Version

Cold Storage Screenshot 2 - Click for Large Version Feel free to discuss the new map or reminisce the old map below....