The New Xbox Live Experience - Now Available For Download On Your Xbox 360

The New Xbox Live Experience (aka NXE) is now available to download from Xbox live, and ive just downloaded it and installed it myself and it looks absolutely fantastic. Gone has the old tabs and side bars, here comes a new feature that looks very stylish and is rather simple to use.

To start off with the NXE is supposed to automatically download an install as soon as you connect to xbox live (if you do not go online with your xbox 360, you will be able to download NXE from the official xbox website in a few months time), however it does not. To enable your xbox 360 to download the new NXE dashboard you first have to put in a new game, for example gears of war 2, once it starts loading it will disconnect your from xbox live and bring up a message saying "A New XBOX Dashboard update is available, do you wish to proceed", if you accept it will start downloading the NXE installer, however if you DECLINE then you will be signed out from xbox live and you will play the game as normal offline.

The NXE download takes around 10 - 20 minutes, depending on your broadband connection and will automatically install, once installed it will ask you to accept the new "terms of agreements", once you accept the fun begins.

Before you start playing any games, or browsing through the NXE Interface you first have to sign in (again) with the gamer profile of your choice (in my case Emo185), afterwards it will ask you to choose an avatar, once youve choosen one you can then edit it such as changing its clothes, hairstyle, skin colour etc - in a sense a High Definition version to Nintendo's Mii's, except the 360 avatars are alot more enjoyable to watch and have alot more detail. Once youve created your Avatar you will be asked to save and then you will be moved to the main NXE interface.

At the moment im still getting to grips with the NXE system however as i said before the new system is very stylish and looks great compared to the original Dashboard, and loads up more faster aswell. From the main NXE menu you move up and down to choose your destination type, such as "Your Xbox", "Game Marketplace" and "Video Marketplace", moving left and right shows you the game inside your console, games played, achievements and towards the end is your HD-DVD Drive (if installed) and settings menu.

The option of Installing games to your hard drive is true, however not all games are supported at this moment in time, however newer games are "install ready" as i just tested with Gears Of War 2, which took around 10 minutes to install to the hard drive, however you still need the disc to boot the game up.

If you havent Installed the NXE Dashboard yet, then heres a quick guide on how to do it:

1) Turn On Xbox 360 & Connect To Xbox Live

2) Insert a new game, such as Gears Of War 2, Call Of Duty: World At War (etc..)

3) Once the game boots up a "Dashboard Update" message will appear, ACCEPT it and it will start downloading the NXE Installer

4) Once the dashboard update has applied, the xbox will reboot and start the installation process for the new NXE dashboard.

5) Follow on-screen instructions, then create your avatar

Simple enough procedure to do, anyway if you havent got time to install the new NXE Dashboard now, then here some pictures of it below:

Fifa 09 Un-expectedly arrives onto N-Gage Platform And My Impressions From The Trial Version

Fifa 09 un-expectedly arrives onto the N-Gage platform this afternoon (or this mourning, depending which country your from) and even though its another "small download sized" N-Gage game, the game itself does feature a fair amount to offer.

To start off with the game costs £8 for a Full License, typical for a 3rd party EA Game, as usual trial for 1 day costs £1.50 or for a week it costs £4. The game itself is only 4mb when installed, and even the download size is 4mb, so its a very small game.

The contents of the game however are not small, as usual you get your quick friendly match, so you can get straight into the action, you also get career modes, challenge modes and a new create a team mode - however since ive only got the trial i can not test this new mode, but the others will play similar to fifa 08.

Fifa 09's graphical design seems alot more fluent, brighter and crisp than the original Fifa 08, plus the menu layout system is alot better, as before you select (for example) help menu, it will show you the options available, so you dont have to keep entering and exiting menu's to find the tournament or information your looking for.

Either way football games are not usually my thing, i prefer shooters, however Fifa 09 does seem like it can attract a fair amount of attention from footie fans and standard gamers alike. Definately a game to download onto your device. Happy Gaming!

Guitar Hero World Tour - Band Pack Impressions

Its not everyday that you get a huge box through the post and when this happens you know its a special day. Last friday i recieved Guitar Hero World Tour Band Pack Edition (plus free wired bass guitar as i pre-ordered) through the post (courier to be exact) and even though the package costs £150 (which seems alot) you do get alot of plastic, as well as other bits for your money, and ill show you why now.

As you may have guessed the "Band Pack" Includes:

* Wireless Gibson Guitar (Black with Wooden Finish and Touch Pad Buttons)
* Wireless Drum Kit (With Symbols and moveable Foot pedal)
* Microphone
* Drum sticks
* The Game

If you pre-ordered the Band Pack (like i did) you would have also got a Wired Xplorer Guitar (the same one that came with Guitar Hero 2 on Xbox 360 2 years ago). Even though the Explorer Guitar is wired, it still does have its uses, like connecting it to a PC to use on PC Version of Guitar Hero (or home made versions).

As you may know Guitar Hero World Tour costs £150, which is £20 more than the Rock Band - Band Package, however the guitar and drum kit feel alot more stronger and have more weight to them, making them feel even more realistic than ever. The game disc also boasts around (if not more) than 83 tracks, which are all master / original recordings and not re-masters or covers which does add abit of "retro" feel to some older songs, but its all good fun. Like before tracks can be purchased from Xbox Live Marketplace or PSN Store, however like Rock Band you can also use the "in-game" music store to buy , download and play songs without having to leave the game itself.

One of the newer features is the recording studio, its a little complicated to get used to but it can be interesting, i also tried out GH Tunes. GH Tunes is basically a collection of user generated content that you can download and play, the track i download was the original Banjo Kazooie Theme and it sounded exactly like it - so its all good fun.


The Hardware:

The Guitar:

The Guitar is very similar to previous Guitar Hero Games, its still a gibson branded guitar , it still has the same buttons except its a different colour, looks more rock-star-ish, and it has the new "touch fret buttons" in the middle of the neck of the guitar. These buttons are used in certain parts of the game (mainly fast solo parts) where all you need to do is touch the pad with the corisponding colour. However if you do not have the new guitar you can just simply touch the correct colour fret button (at the top of guitar) at the same time it appears on screen, the cool bit about these sections is that you dont strum you just hit the note - similar to a hammer on or a pull of.

In my opinion this new guitar feels around the same weight as the Xplorer guitar that came with Guitar Hero 2 and the fret buttons at the top of the guitar seem wider apart than normal, but overall the experience of playing some sweet tunes is great and alot of fun!

You may already be aware of this but all previous Guitar Hero Guitars work with Rock Band and this new Guitar Hero World Tour games, so if you already own a guitar you can play the game with no problems.

The Drum Kit:

Before i started playing Guitar Hero on the PS2 i used to be a drummer, was once in a drummer (as well as a back-up drummer) for a local school band - so ive always thought about playing drums on a game ever since the Guitar Hero franchise took off, well that dream came true with Rock Band, but was later shattered due to its clumsy reaction times, dodgey equipment and unrealisitc button layouts, so does this new Drum kit fair any better?

Well when i was putting the drum kit together everything felt awesome, nice and strong, and stands up without wobbling, as soon as i connected the symbol pads on i knew that this was going to be fun, as it actually looked like a proper drum kit. I started off with training and so far everything seemed ok and it felt more natural compared to rock bands drum kit, but then when i jumped to easy i noticed that my yellow cymbol pad wasn't responding as fast (or as good) as the orange cymbol, it still worked just not as good - so im a little disapointed with it, however it terms of how it feels, compared to the real thing its ALOT better than EA's Rock Band Drum kit - mainly because of the cymbols allow. For anyone starting out playing on the drum kits take all the training levels before doing a song, it does help get used to the controls and dont be annoyed if you miss a few notes to begin with.

Another thing id like to mention is that the Guitar Hero Drum Kit does infact work with Rock Band, and yet again it feels better and more natural, of course you wont use the "Orange Cymbol" but you use the rest as normal and it feels alot more natural and better than the original Rock Band Drumkit, Im guessing this drum kit will also work with the upcoming Rock Band 2 game, as Rock Band 2 is mainly a "track update" with new tracks but same graphics.

The Microphone:

The Microphone is exactly the same as the Rock Band microphone (or any other stage microphone) - its black, looks very realistic, its heavy and its fun to sing down, the only difference between the Rock Band microhpone and this is that it says Guitar Hero - other than that its the same thing.

Another difference, while playing the game, is that instead of screaming down the microhpone to activate star power (like you did in Rock Band), all you have to do now is clap on the microphone to activate it, i tried it using the Rock Band microhpone and i only got it to work once (however my Rock Band Microphone is abit dodgey), but its alot easier (and less annyoing) to clap rather than scream.

Speaking of being the same you can use your ROCK BAND microphone on Guitar Hero World tour (or vice versa) so in a sense both games (and controllers) are both interchangable, which is awesome unlike singstar where you have to buy the proper singstar microphones.

Anyway to sum up the Guitar Hero World Tour band pack package may seem expensive at £150, HOWEVER since you can use these nice comfatable controllers on other guitar hero and rock band games it isnt such a bad buy, because this equipment will last for a fair amount of time and it will save alot of money (in buying equipment for both set of games). So i say if your planning on getting into the Guitar Hero / Rock Band franchise, by the Guitar Hero Band Pack (which includes the game), then buy the Rock Band game on its own - lot easier and alot more fun.

To finish off heres a few pictures of me unboxing the guitar hero band pack, enjoy:

Yamake Short Film

Yamake is due for release soon, im guessing either november or december and yet the main objective of the game is still unknown, apart from that is a puzzle user-generated content game which done poorly can turn out bad.

Either way the developers of the game are still going to keep us puzzled about the game and have recently released this 4 minute short film of some of the Yamake characters in action (so to speak). Check it out below:


Yamake Shortfilm from Yamake on Vimeo.

Mega Monsters Announced For N-Gage Platform

One is still rolling high in the charts, Yamake is expected soon and a dozen games were announced at the Nokia Games Summit Last month in rome, well now another new game has been announced called "Mega Monsters".

Officially this was announced 3 days ago but i havent had much time to write up about it.

Anyway "MEGA MONSTERS" is a first party N-Gage game, meaning its been developed and published by Nokia Publishing and not only that the game is being made down under in austraila, and judging from the screen captures ive seen so far the game itself looks as bright.

Heres a quotation from the official press release:

"Mega Monsters features rich 3D graphics with a fully destructible environment where players can destroy anything in their path. While on the rampage, players must ensure their Mega Monster destroys selected targets and can pick up dozens of special items, including clothing and other items, to add character to their creature. Each Mega Monster develops its abilities, powers and appearance as it progresses through different missions, and can also gain new powers by hooking up with other Mega Monsters”

So the N-Gage gets another new game, but will it be any good? we will have to wait and see, however from my "early thoughts" it looks like a mobile clone of the retro arcade game RAMPAGE, anyway Enjoy!

Introducing "Dance Fabulous" N-Gage Trailer

Last Month at the Nokia Games Summit, a handful of N-Gage games were announced, Dance Fabulous being one of them, and now the trailer has arrived onto the official N-Gage Youtube page.

After hearing the name "Dance Fabulous" alot of us at the N-Gage Arena were a little worried as it didnt sound interesting us at all, but then again most of us are guys, however we then relised this might be a way to turn girls into gamers - which is fair enough, eventually we saw (the guys) saw potential in Dance Fabulous and now some of us are starting to look forward to it.

As you may have guessed, Dance Fabulous is in fact a Dancing game, however what you do is create and personalise your own little cartoon avatar and then dance to midi songs pre-installed on the game. To make this game Unique (and interesting to some of us guys) is the feature of being able to use your own songs (that are stored on your phone) to dance to - so you can still listen to your favourite tunes, while having a quick dance - so listening has now become active and fun.

Well the first trailer for "Dance Fabulous" has been put onto the official N-Gage Youtube page, so check it out and enjoy:

Gears Of War 2 Released Today!

At Midnight this morning (or last night) saw the released of the highly anticipated Gears Of War 2, and to celebrate the release of it Gamestation, and im guessing GAME aswell, opened up at midnight to sell copies of the game (aswell as anything else they could sell you).

The Stores were open for a limited amount of time and ONLY people who had pre-ordered the game were allowed to come in first.

The photo above was taken at around 11:30pm and i was 2nd in the queue, however at around 11.50pm, the queue reached 2 shops down with around 30 people, which is quite a good turnout, however it wasn't as long as the queue for Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV.

So i queued for around 30 minutes before i got my game (luckily it wasnt cold), and yet its now 12 hours after the event and i still havent played on it! So im not going to give my impressions on it, but i know its going to be good.

The prices of the game have gone down in gamestation, Gears Of War standard is £37.99, or £49.99 if you wanted it with locusut "headshot" figure, which is rather cool. The limited edition version is now £44.99, instead of £49.99, and for £59.99 you can get it with the loucust headshot figure (which is the one i bought). The final price reduction is the Golden Lancer, now theres only 5,000 of these being made for the UK and another 5,000 for the USA (yet theres looks better). The Lancer on its own its £69.99, however you can buy it for £74.99 with the standard Gears Of War game or £79.99 with the limited edition version of the game. The original price was £129.99 - so its a HUGE price drop.

As i mentioned i got the "Limited Edition" Version of the game with the Loucust Headshot figure, The game itselfcomes in a box, but once opened up the game is in a Steelbook DVD case and the whole package looks awesome, espically compared to other "limited edition" boxes. The figure is highly detailed aswell. Ive posted pictures of these below:

Gears Of War 2 Standard (Front And Back):

























Gears Of War 2: Limited Edition (Front, Back & Opened):



































































Loucust "Headshot" Figure & COG Tags:

Gears Of War 2 - Launch Trailer!

Gears Of War 2 is set to be released this friday (or thursday night at midnight) and to get are mouths watering with anticipation Epic Games and Microsoft have released a new trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace, they have also released a mini interview and gameplay trailer with some of the cast of the games.

The Launch trailer is basically a collection of different fights and scenes (new and old) thrown together with "key" moments and as usual the trailer ends with a BIG cliffhanger, when i mean BIG, i mean HUGE!

The High Definition "launch" Trailer is available on Xbox Live Marketplace now and its only 37mb, id also suggest downloading the other video which is around 232mb, but im not going to say anything about that unless it spoils it.

The Launch trailer has been available on the internet (such as youtube) for a week now - but i just saw it and was BLOWN away at how awesome it looked, if this trailer does not get you excited about Gears Of War 2, then nothing will!

160GB PS3 Arrives in UK!

The Latest version of Sony's Playstation 3 has finally arrived in the UK (aswell as europe) - Welcome the 160GB PS3!

The History of Sony's PS3's back catalogue is that Back in March 2007, Sony released its 60GB, which features backwards compatiblity (if thats what you called it) and a card reader a few months later sony released the 40GB PS3, which was basically similar to an Xbox 360 Pro (20GB Version), just double the storage. However the 40GB did not have backwards compatability with PS2 Games or a Card reader. Most recently released was the 80GB PS3, this was released as people were complaining they didnt have enough storage for their downloaded games, this 80GB Console was also used to counter-act Xbox 360's recent 60GB Console.

Now with Xbox 360's Elite being a 120GB HDD, Sony decided to release the 160GB PS3, which will couter-attack the 360's massive 120GB HDD. However in a sense this is all pointless as if you read the manual it tells you that you can install a bigger hard drive into the PS3 and its legal.

Anyway the new 160GB is exactly the same as the 40GB and 80GB Console's, it has no backwards compatiblity with PS2 Games, however it does play PS1 Games. It does not feature a SD Card reader and only comes with 2 USB Ports. The new 160GB PS3 Does come with a Dualshock 3 pad and vouchers (for a limited time) to download games off the playstation store (which include: Gran Turismo Prologue, The Last Guy, Super Stardust HD , Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty).

The Package itself costs £339.99, however the price of the 4 games included makes it a real bargin, because if you were going to buy them games off the playstation store it would cost you around £40, so in a sense your still only paying around £299.99 for the console itself and getting a larger hard drive.

For more information on the 160GB Playstation 3, check it out over at gameplay.