This is a little bit of old news from earlier in the week regarding memory concerns around the New Xbox Experience (NXE), but it's an important bit, especially considering Microsoft's recent price drops so read on.

Over the last month or so there has been a bucketload of hoopla around NXE, the update to Xbox LIVE's UI, launching November 19th. It will bring with it a lot of new online functionality, but as all hardware users know, functionality gobbles up memory. Truth be told, gobble isn't the right word here. NXE only requires 128MB of free space on consoles, which is surprisingly light, but then again hard drive space has always been an issue with the 360. To their credit Microsoft was first to the market, but the 360 came in at the high end with a 20GB hard drive. Considering the amount of memory downloadable content soaks up and the fact that you can now get a Xbox Elite with a 120GB hard drive, 20GB sounds pretty chinche, much less anything lower than that. But the fact of the matter is that most people are still playing with a 20GB unit. Unless the hard drive fairy paid an over night visit, I still am. And with Microsoft price drops bringing the Core Arcade and Arcade Holiday console bundles down to under 0, there are a lot of people who are/will be playing with less than that. For these folks an extra 128MB might be a lot. So what is the solution? Thanks to big money MS, it's a freebie.

There's no going back to the old Xbox LIVE after Nov. 19th, so Microsoft has announced a program to ensure that all Xbox owners have enough memory by either giving owners a 512MB memory unit for free or cutting them a deal on a refurbished 20GB hard drive for . They've set up a memory upgrade page within Xbox.com's hardware support section where 360 owners can enter their 360 serial numbers or console ID to find out which options they are eligible for. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. A word to the wise though. If given the choice between the two, do yourself --or parents, if the 360 you bought or will buy this holiday season was/is for your kids, do them-- the favor of springing for the refurbished hard drive. New, they retail for about 0, so that's a HUGE savings. And take it from me, 20GB is totally doable and will be for a long time as long as old content is deleted from the drive. 512MB will barely cover game saves in the long run.

--Hobson's Choice

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The stereotype of the solitary, unsociable and outwardly uninterested gamer has been around since the beginning and it is both as true and false today as it ever was. What is new is that with the massive growth in gaming at all levels and demographics over the last several years, gaming is actually beginning to be seen in some quarters not only as something of a means of important, if indirect socialization, but possibly one of citizen-building as well.

The socialization aspects of this are simple enough to see by anyone who has played online or simply walked into a room where a multiplayer game was going on. Sure that's usually going to be a dudefest, but at least there is usually a dialog going on and in a general sense this is not unlike the socialization function once widely assigned to primary education. The case for citizen-building takes a little more focus to see though. Of course nobody is saying, and hopefully never will, that meaningful high school civics courses should be taught via a rousing game of Civilization or Sim City--well, maybe later--but according to a survey and analysis by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, some particular qualities of game play have a strong and consistent positive relationship to a range of civic outcomes of young people. Findings were based on a survey of 1,102 youth, ages 12-17 (presumably in the US). A few pertinent baseline findings included:

• "Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day. Game playing experiences are diverse, with the most popular games falling into the racing, puzzle, sports, action and adventure categories."
• "Game playing is also social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time and can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life."
• Although the "Quantity of game play is not strongly related to teens’ interest or engagement in civic and political activity," the "characteristics of game play and the contexts in which teens play games are strongly related to teens’ interest and engagement in civic and political activities."

So, moms, dads, girlfriends and boyfriends out there, does this mean that your kid/significant other may not end up living in the basement, uh playing games until he/she is approaching mid-life after all? The folks over at Pew Internet aren't ready to make that kind of claim, but what they are apparently saying is that with the overwhelming number of kids playing games on a regular basis, what they take away from the gaming they do could very well have an impact on the skills they develop for interacting with the segments and duties of society they will eventually face and/or seek out. The survey addresses a number of talking points that feed into this, but since it is an election year and civic duties are the focus of this post, here are a some particularly relevant results:

'Civic gaming experiences' are defined in the study as "a set of learning opportunities such as simulations of civic or political activities, helping others and debating ethical issues."

Decision making and their consequences are of course the linchpin of the modern gaming experience, both in single and multiplayer scenarios. Most of the time this is just seen as life or death in the game or whether your virtual neighbors in the lounges, chat rooms and on the fields of your MMO of choice see you as worth the time of day. It's nice to think that when consoles are allowed to cool down and computers to slip back into sleep mode that gamers may have improved more than gamer scores and levels achieved; they may actually have improved themselves and by way of that the world around them. There you go citizens. Now get to button-mashing!

See an overview of the survey and the link to the full analysis here.

--Hobson's Choice

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One of the things that has always bugged me, so to speak, about the 'computer magic' of Next-Gen video games is that for all the technical advances you are almost always stuck being the dominant species. Yeah, sounds weird. What else would you want to be? Well, uh, how about something other than that. A perfect and fairly recent example was Turok. I remember how excited I was when I was given a chance to interview game developers over at Propaganda Games in Vancouver, BC. A dino-boy since, well, I was a boy, the Jurassic and Cretaceous are in my blood. That said, you can just imagine my face when after getting whipped badly by their dev team in some crazy multiplayer matches I was heard to whimper over the taunting, "so, how do you switch to dino mode," only to be told that it was an all-human affair. All Human! Come on, everyone and their little sister is killing raptors with survival knives and there isn't an option to go reptilian? This is something that I hope can be remedied, if on a small scale, in Deadly Creatures. 

Scheduled to come out this holiday season on the Wii, Deadly Creatures places players in a southwest desert environment where they play as both a tarantula and a scorpion. Not exactly heavyweights, but for their size worthy of some respect. Here you will have to deal with a variety of desert creatures as well as some crotchety old humans who are up to no good out in the middle of nowhere. I know what it's like to make it at the top of the food chain. Let's see if I can survive a few rungs down.

Check out the developer's diary video for the game below:

--Hobson's Choice

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Video game geeks and their political brethren don't necessarily play together, but they can on ocassion cross-pollinate. With this in mind I have to commend the Harmonix crew for not taking themselves too seriously and correspondingly branching out to include Stephen Colbert--yes that Colbert--on the most recent DLC for Rock Band. I just pulled "Charlene (I'm Right Behind You)" down off Xbox LIVE and I assume that it's available on PSN as well. Here's a video of how it plays:

The funny thing--and I hope this is the joke-- unless players are fans of the 'Colbert Report' they might not get it. When you go to the Rock Band store the song pops up as only one of two free individual songs, so I'm sure there are plenty of cheap bastards out there going through their set lists right now and thinking to myself: "Why did I download this piece of crap? Man the 80s sucked and so do these guys!" Oh yeah it was free. Sure the song sucks, but so does your DLC habit. If that's not enough, how about this. I dare you to play through the song at expert level the first time around. Ah, not as easy as it looks now, eh. Anyway, Harmonix, EA, MTV...whoever, have made millions horking downloadable content over the last year or so, so it's nice to see that they are laughing about various things on their way to the bank. Could song pack be on the horizon? Now, that would suck.

For the benefit of the non-Colbert Nation, "Charlene" is more or less an ode to stalking and restraining orders, in kind of a John Waite kind of way and is part of a running gag on the show. The video below from the show pretty much sums it up. Take a gander:

--Hobson's Choice

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For those out there who haven't heard, John McCain has chosen a running mate for the presidential ticket in November, first term Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Palin may know little about US foreign policy, large scale economics or even exactly what the vice president's duties are, but there is one thing she does know: that polar bears are a threat to the nation. Well okay, maybe not the nation per say, but a threat to pumping oil in Alaska's Artic National Widlife Refuge, which she equates to energy independence and her national security credentials. Yes, I do believe that the deep end has been gone off and accordingly the soap box must be mounted.

Yes, yes, I know, very topical but what's this to do with video games? Well, I do love it when the button-mashing becomes relevant beyond gamer scores and trophy cabinets and this is one of those cases. Scotland-based software developer T-Enterprise has put together the flash game below playing off the image and reality of Governor Palin's connections to Big Oil, her views of the polar bear species as being a "liability" and of course her neo conservative hawkish image that is being played up for all its worth. Beyond exposing the web public at large to a person, who could be only a heartbeat away from the US presidency, the game is actually pretty fun and for me something of a godsend. Over the past week or so I've been wondering how to frame the governor in a video game context (a professional necessity). You would think that her ability and preference for stalking, dressing and consuming her own wild game would make her a shoe in for the Cabela series, but Polar Palin blows this assumption away.

One last bit or armchair political speculation. Research has shown that most of the casual gamers out there are women, a segment of the electorate that is forecasted to play a major role in the coming election. I wonder if Polar Palin is part of a strategy to reach this demographic and if so whether the Obama game could be far behind. Hmmmmm? I'll leave it to someone with more polling cred than myself to figure that one out or at least debate its value. I'm simply too busy right now. Consumed by the 'call to serve' my only concern now is how to help old Ursus maritimus blow up those oil rigs.

Click the play button below to play the game:

--Hobson's Choice

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If there's one truism in the world of gaming it's that entirely too many freebies go to the wrong people. That may be changing, but a well-balanced free lunch is a little way off yet.

This may sound a lot like sour grapes and since I'm about as far from the industry's teat as I've ever been, it probably is, but if you've ever known, dropped by the cubicle of, etc. anyone involved with the marketing of games you've experienced the layers of swag that blanket their lives. Yeah, it sucks to be them. That's why I was pretty excited to see a few high profile video game sponsored promotions out there available to the general public, most notably the two recent giveaways sponsored by EA's Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Yes, Joe-Average is finally cashing in on the gaming craze and surprisingly it's at the gas pump.

The initial giveaway was in LA a few weeks ago and pretty much went off without a hitch. Ah for Cali's wide open roadways and acceptance of all people, even those in camouflage volunteering to pump your gas. The second was today in the greater London area, but went over quite differently. For any who have never been to the UK here are two tidbits of info. Gas is VERY expensive and the roads are very narrow. That's a dangerous combo for a giveaway of this sort. Needless to say there were traffic jams galore and a lot of pissed commuters. In fact it was such a big deal (maybe it was just a slow news day) that local member of parliament Lynne Featherstone, felt compelled to chime in, saying:

"Whilst a lucky few might have got some free petrol, hundreds of local residents have faced misery on their daily journeys this morning."..."They deserve an apology for being the victims of such an ill-thought out media stunt."

The promo lasted 4 hours before police closed it down and only managed to give away £11,000 of £20,000 worth of gas they had budgeted. I'm not so sure that the stunt is going to sell any games across the pond, especially after all the bad press, but since I generally don't have anyplace to be in the mornings I'd love to see this come to my neighborhood. So, EA if you are listening why not give Seattle a try? I might even volunteer to wear the camo and squeeze out a few gallons of the stuff if I can get in line first.

Click here to check out a video of the London debacle care of the BBC.

--Hobson's Choice

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I pretty sure that I've never met anyone who had a bad thing to say about anything Star Wars, unless you include Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks and of course the choice of Hayden Christensen to play the adult Anakin Skywalker in the later movies. Okay, that doesn't make me sound too sure of that statement, but one thing I am confident is that I've never met anyone who knew everything there was to know about the Star Wars universe. That's probably because there is just too much in that galaxy 'far, far away' for one individual to intelligently consume, although I know that there are those who try. But with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed just over a week away, players and general fans can hope to see a lot of info on the history of George Lucas' brainchild coming out of the woodwork.

The word earlier this week was that The Force Unleashed, the book by Sean Williams was tops on the NY Times list of hardcover fiction titles. That's some pretty cross media coolness, but I'd like to think that the Force Unleashed is really about the game. Not knowing who had the idea first, that could just be wishful thinking. Anyway, there have been a buttload of Star Wars games over the years and if your Force Unleashed experience will be like mine, nearly all about the game, you might want to catch up on them all chronilogically. The latest Star War Retrospective video, linked to below, will do that for you. Although it won't take you all the way to Force Unleashed, it will get you mighty close. In addition there are many others in the series available on YouTube. Anyway, whether you are a gamer or not, if you haven't seen these they are pretty interesting stuff. Give the latest a look.

Click the image below to check out the video (please excuse the gametrailer.com ads):

--Hobson's Choice

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Anyone who has been paying attention over the last few months has heard the bevvy of bonehead excuses for senseless crimes that have been laid at the feet of Grand Theft Auto IV, or maybe you haven't.

Let's see, there was: The killing of a taxi driver in Thailand reported as being designed as a copy cat killing from the game, the kids in Georgia who reportedly told cops that they learned about molotov cocktails from playing GTA IV, the gang of thugs in the suburbs of NYC who blamed the game for their evening of bat and crowbar wielding in the neighborhood, etc., etc. But now for something entirely different. Truth be told, and this is no big secret, the GTA series is plenty violent. That's why it carries a M-rating and isn't for kids, especially ones who can't tell reality from fiction. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. I don't put the incidents noted above in that category, but I do toss in the recent report of an 11-year-old Illinois girl whose mom credits her daughter's exposure to GTA IV with the kid's quick thinking in saving her family after their car flipped several times on the highway and landed in a ditch, leaving everyone incapacitated but her. According to the girl's mother:

"She just knew, from playing 'Grand Theft Auto.' She saw on there that
when a car rolls over, it can blow up. She knew that could happen to
us,"..."She showed the kind of bravery and courage you don't expect from an
11-year-old,"..."She stayed composed. She sounded upset, but
she knew the things she had to get done to help her parents and her
siblings."

Wow life experience beyond achievements points and an increased gamer score from playing a game? Who knew, and along with that chalk up one positive Grand Theft Auto related news story to sit along side all the crazy negative ones. Only two questions remain. The first is why was an eleven-year-old girl allowed to play GTA IV? I'm pretty sure that we'll never get an answer to that one and equally sure that her family could care less at this point. The second is what game is she playing now?

--Hobson's Choice

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Seeing as I've a few of the faithful in my family who also like to noodle on the guitar, I've often wondered why these children have been abandoned in the video game wilderness. But eventually all those who hunger and thirst will be satisfied. Yes, Christian rock will have its day, but I've a feeling that it could be a short one. Witness here the second coming of Guitar Hero, hence forth to be known as Guitar Praise.

Guitar Praise is being made (it releases in September) by a company called DigitalPraise. It's a straight up GH knockoff, not unlike DigitalPraises knockoff of DDR, known as Dance Praise. True to their beliefs their stated mission is to:

"To glorify God through the development of software for children, teenagers and families that spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ while entertaining, enlightening and encouraging faith."

There's plenty of room for all in the rhythm genre and the Christian music industry is HUGE and for the most part a totally untapped revenue source in the video games market, so I'd have to say "get to rocking all you Creation-Festers." Looks like DigitalPraise beat Activision and Harmonix to the punch on this one, yet I would advise them though to look out for themselves if they do too well. See the legal action brought by RedOctane over Guitar Hero peripherals a good while ago. But like I said earlier, they have a DDR knockoff, so maybe they have all the bases covered. The game's features are below:

• Hit songs from popular Christian rock bands.
• Includes wireless USB guitar controller.
• Two guitars can be connected at the same time, so two guitarists can play together - either on the same track or one on lead, the other on bass.
• Players press the fret buttons and strum on the strum bar in time to the color-coded notes as they scroll onscreen.
• Offers over 50 songs with 4 levels of play per song - from easy to expert.  Beginners start slowly, but soon their fingers will be flying; - just like a real guitarist.
• Onscreen lyrics reflect Christian values.  Vocalists can sing their hearts out as their friends play the guitar.
• Record keeping lets players store high scores per song and unlock new songs in sets of six as they progress through the game and post their scores online.
• Players can also earn new guitars with richer sounds and different effects.
• Works on Windows and Mac computers.

As with all guitar games the song list is probably pretty important, but not being a fan of this particular music genre I can't tell how it stacks up, except that there's no Believer, Stryper, or even a little P.O.D. in the mix. They gotta get on that. Then again, the full title of the game is Guitar Praise Solid Rock. No doubt they are saving the Metal for the expansion.

So, in the end, What Would Jesus Do? Apparently he'd Rock! Good luck to you on this DigitalPraise, but when the nieces and nephews come over we are still going secular.

--Hobson's Choice

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In media related industries pretty much everything that's old will eventually be new again and video games are no exception. I know, "No Duh." Nintendo's Virtual Console, the PS3's backwards compatibility and of course Xbox's LIVE Arcade have made that oh so clear and I'd assume profitable on some levels, but Microsoft has apparently decided to take things a little further.

According to the Stinger Report (via a posting at Kotaku.com) there's a plan in the works to produce an upright arcade style version of the Xbox 360. Similar to the familiar demo kiosk model that you see all over the place, the new 'Arcade Station T2' model is being developed by arcade manufacturer Quasimoto Interactive and will be coin/credit-operated and feature a 26-inch high definition monitor, Xbox LIVE support (supposedly), Memory Unit functionality and licensed game software. The system uses handheld controllers for one or two player action, and is also network LAN capable for even greater multiplayer actionplay. I threw the 'supposedly' qualifier in above regarding LIVE support because I've seen this both confirmed and questioned in a few places online and regardless of capabilities, to use this functionality the physical spot where the unit sits is going to need a broadband connection. Maybe your corner dive will pony up for that, but I'm pretty sure mine won't. I'm still pushing for clean glasses and a periodic mopping of the floors. But in a perfect world how cool would it be to access your gamertag remotely without any security issues.

Games that the system could feature initially could include are Halo 3, FIFA 08, Assassins Creed and Devil May Cry 4. It also looks like the systems will work on a time based model, meaning that players won't be able to milk their quarters/credits. This part is a departure from the arcade feel and what we enjoy on our 360's at home and frankly blows, but what are you gonna do. Will this flashback take off? Time will tell. But say you are at the bar, the bowling alley, 7-Eleven, getting an oil change, whatever; would you drop in a few dollars to see what's happening on LIVE or jump into a quick game, especially if you could save your progress and get the usual achievments? Mmmmmm, could very well happen. The T2 are currently being tested in Asia and the UK, so if they do well we may be seeing these around the corner here at home.

--Hobson's Choice

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Fewer things are more indicative of geek chic than taking the day off when you know that the game you've been awaiting with baited breath is due to be delivered. Well, all you button mashers out there take note. The ante has been upped.

Yesterday your palies over here on the Amazon.com video games team announced that beginning with today's release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, select video games will be available for delivery on release date. That means that if you are a Tiger Woods fan instead of reading this right now you could be playing the game, without doing anything other than opening the door and picking up the box that the UPS dude just left you. Now, that's cool. No lines. No Waiting. No Fuss. According to Greg Hart, Vice President of Video Games and Software at Amazon.com:

"We are excited to delight Amazon customers by offering guaranteed release-date delivery of these new video game titles so that the games can arrive at their doors the first day they're available,"..."This means that thousands of gamers across the country can start playing the games they love on the day they're released without having to stand in long lines or stay up all night to do it."

A few things to note are that currently this applies only to select titles, the current short list of which are: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 which released today, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed releasing on Sept. 16, 2008, Fable 2 releasing on Oct. 21, 2008 and Gears of War 2 emerging on Nov. 7, 2008. That's a pretty nice batch to start out with. Customers can upgrade to this option for .98 and Amazon Prime members get the service for free. Yeah, Prime pretty much rules. Anyway, stay cool the way you are and feel free to take that extra day off if you can to get a head start on all the less dedicated players out there. Just know that the Amazon video games team is doing their best to even the odds.

--Hobson's Choice

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Although you would think that the days of getting a cheap "WoW" headline out of anything World of Warcraft related are long since past, that apparently is not the case, at least not when it comes to the ingenuity of dedicated players worried about the sedentary lifestyle their favorite pastime encourages.

Treadmills and World of Warcraft? If this isn't a WOW moment then I don't know what is. Check it out and please don't miss the fist bump at the end of the run. Sweet!

--Hobson's Choice

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I made up my mind a good eight years ago which party I wouldn't be voting for come November, but for any 360 fanboys out there who find themselves staring across the sea of delegates at one or both of the national party conventions that are or will be going on soon and are tempted to throw up their hands and work on their gamer score instead of taking part in Super Tuesday, here's a tidbit of information. You can now register to vote on Xbox LIVE. It will only take a few minutes; less time than it takes to download the new Force Unleashed demo. So, if you are not registered to vote, just do it and get it over with. Sorry, no achievement points here...

Political factoids abound in an election year, so I'm gonna lob another on top of the pile. According to Rock the Vote, if Xbox LIVE's 12 million userbase were a state, it would rank as the
nation's seventh-largest, with approximately 20 electoral votes. Of course there is no way that all those 12 million are of voting age. Regardless, Microsoft has been making its presence known at the Democratic National Convention over the last few days and will do the same at the RNC next week. They've surely been talking a lot about how family-friendly the 360 is, but they also want to remind the powers that be in both parties that Xbox LIVE could feasibly deliver several million new voters and that accordingly they should probably pay attention since the races have been close over the last few terms and the current one is shaping up to be no different. So, does this mean that between video montages displaying Obama and McCain's patriotism, family values and rolled up sleeve baby kissing prowess that it will be leaked that one prefers the 360 or PS3, or that the Wii is superior because it is the gaming system of the people? Oh God I hope not, but with millions of potential votes on the line who can say.

Don't forget to register to vote and follow through in November.

--Hobson's Choice

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Just a quickie here the day before the launch of Madden NFL 09. As noted in a post last week, Brett Farvre, poster boy for this latest release in the series, is now officially a New York Jet regardless of what the box indicates. And tomorrow being release day there's pretty much no way EA can get different cover art going, but that doesn't mean that they can't put a new face on their summer cash cow.

Last night while flipping the channels around I happened to see the commercial below for Madden 09 featuring Jaguars Mighty Might Maurice Jones-Drew. Although he does verbally toss Farvre aside and the Madden logo is altered to read "Madden NFL 09: The game adapts to you," it's hard to say if Maurice was the runner up for the original spot and this footage existed or whether this spot was thrown together in the last few weeks. Either way, it was interesting to see the ad right before the game's release.

--Hobson's Choice

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