XBox Gaming Blog

Halloween at Microsoft

Lots of us brought our kids, our nieces and nephews, our parents, and in some cases, our inner child to Microsoft to load up on chocolate.  I think my kids all ended up with several pounds of good-old American chocolate, enough to keep them in a sugar high (or post-sugar coma) until Christmas. 

Happy Halloween! 

Viva Piñata for Windows Coming Next Week

The Games for Windows version of Viva Piñata is on its way to manufacturing, and will begin appearing in stores in the U.S. on November 6, followed by Europe beginning Nov 16, and January 18 in Japan. You just can’t have enough Piñata goodness, and having it installed on kid’s computer means my daughter will have a shot at building her garden without fighting with yher brother over the Xbox.  And having it installed on my laptop means I’m just a few flutterscotches away from another Achievement, even when I’m in an important meeting, uh, taking notes…

Viva Piñata will be available for both Windows XP and Windows Vista, and because it’s officially a “Games for Windows” title, it offers easy installation, reliability standards, and support for key features of Windows Vista like the Games Explorer and Parental Controls.  And because it supports ”Games for Windows-LIVE,” you can contact other gamers to lend a hand or trade items, and it has 1,000 Gamerscore points.

The Windows version was developed by Climax Group.  For more information, go to VivaPinata.com, or GamesForWindows.com.  And for more tips, tricks, and news, check out one the premier community site, PinataIsland.info.

New This Week in Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace (US)

If you’re stuck at home handing out candy to the kids trick-or-treating, there are a bunch of scaaaary movies coming to an Xbox near you.  Have you seen Howling VII, Bad Girls From Mars, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Lawnmower Man, Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Toxic Avenger, or Toxic Avenger 4: Citizen Toxic, Heavyweights. 

There are more for those who want something a little cheerier: License to Wed, A Dirty Shame, Blood Sport IV: The Dark Kumite, Curse of Alcatraz, Kickboxer 3, Kickboxer 4, Kickboxer 5: Redemption, Lil’ Pimp, The Nun, P3K: Pinochio 3000, Cannibal! The Musical, Tromeo & Juliet, Heavyweights. 

And because of Tony’s constant requests, the team decided to add Shopgirl, Tony’s all-time favorite.  Relationships don’t always fit like a glove.

No TV premieres this week.  For more information, you can always check out Xbox.com’s TV and Movies section.  

Gamerscore Blogcast - 036 - Arcade SKU, GH3 and Giving

A podcast so interesting - that it took an entire week to edit it.

We had a rough week, so it’s another podcast with heavy banter - hopefully you’ve been enjoying the banter - regardless let us know what you think!

Also - we have outros on our podcasts - just sayin’.

MP3 File: 11.5 MB, 34 minutes

Remember that these podcasts are available via the RSS feed, or the iTunes feed as well.

This week John, Tony, and Chris talk about:

• Intro/Outro Music - Phylum Sinter
• Question of the Week - If you could be any canned grocery item, which would it be? (Can you tell John made that one up?)
• New Games This Week (360 and Games for Windows)
• Box Labels/Information
• 360 Arcade SKU - SURPRISE!
• New York Arcade “Launch”
• Los Angeles Para Los Ninos Event
• Guitar Hero 3 House Parties
• Email us Questions/Comments

NVIDIA GeForce LAN 4 coming to Alameda, California

Okay, I know you’re out there. Those of you who love to tweak, mod, and overclock your PCs until you can use it to heat your house in the winter by playing a round of World in Conflict. Well, if you live near the San Francisco Bay Area, NVIDIA is hosting a LAN party where you can show off your skillz and your rig.

Here are the deets:

• NVIDIA® and Electronic Arts invite gamers to celebrate PC gaming at GeForce LAN 4, featuring Crysis and Team Fortress 2, November 16th – 18th in Alameda, California. More than 800 gamers and visitors are expected to attend the action-packed weekend event.


• Registration is now open for 450 Bring-Your-Own-Computer (BYOC) LAN gamers to sign up. Gamers will be able to play Crysis and Team Fortress 2 in multiplayer tournaments on the PC, as well as have chances to win great prizes.


• GeForce LAN 4 will feature the year’s most highly anticipated games running on the latest graphics cards from NVIDIA. Leading game developers will show off their latest games, and entertainment will also be provided.


• The event will be held at the Area 51 Event Center, 2301 Monarch Street, Bldg 24, in Alameda, Calif. For venue info go to: http://www.area51-eventcenter.com/


• REGISTRATION: Seats are limited! Register today at: http://geforcelan4.nvidia.com/. You must be 18 years or older to register or attend the event.


• GeForce LAN 4 will benefit Get Well Gamers (which provides hospitalized children with video games) and the Alameda County Food Bank. If you would like to make a donation, please bring non-perishable foods and games from 1989 and later to the event. For more info, go to Alameda County Community Food Bank (http://www.accfb.org/ ) and Get Well Gamers (http://www.get-well-gamers.org ).

Get your rig and get down there!

Halloween Blog Banner by 360Style.net

Special thanks to our good friend Chris Erickson, aka Avid X, over at 360Style.net.  Avid X put together a special Halloween version of the blog banner, very stylish.  If you look closely, you can see that the monster is actually Chris Paladino.  It would have been even cooler if they had done some image manipulation, but I like it the way it is too. 

360Style.net always has the latest Wallpapers and Avatars, plus they have updated news, active forums, and the team does a great job with their 360StyleCast podcast and videos.  Check it out if you haven’t already! 

Happy Halloween!

Viva Pinata: Party Animals Out Today

Happy Tuesday!

Viva Pinata: Party Animals hits stores today for an MSRP of $49.99.

From the media alert:

In the game, players star as their favorite candy-filled Piñata from the popular Saturday morning animated series including Franklin Fizzlybear, Hudson Horstachio, Paulie Pretztail, Fergy Fudgehog, and more as they compete for fame and fortune in more than 50 distinct mini-games and races across Piñata Island. “Viva Piñata: Party Animals” features Xbox LIVE and local multi-player contests, like Burps Ahoy!, where colorful Piñatas send burp fueled sailboats across Lake Piñata! Nothing gets a hungry Piñata’s candiosity up like a sweet, yummy caramel apple! Players bob their way through Caramel Apple Gobble taking big bites out of the fruit, chewing it up as fast as they can to be the first one done. Or they can squeal with delight as they tackle Blown Away – a game of hot potato unlike any other – where they trick their pals into being the one left holding an exploding jack o’ lantern.

For more information, go to www.vivapinata.com.

LIVE Arcade This Week

Happy Monday!

“Mutant Storm Empire” launches this Wednesday on Xbox Live Arcade. Snipped from the media alert:

Just in time for Halloween, “Mutant Storm Empire” is packed with sci-fi action as players crush gangs of robots, smash swarms of UFOs and demolish massive enemy bosses. “Mutant Storm Empire,” the latest shooter from PomPom games and the sequel to “Mutant Storm Reloaded,” features 16 unique levels spread over four richly detailed and varied worlds. The game offers a seamless experience where players move from room to room without having to enter a loading screen, in addition to offline co-op and multiplayer LIVE support for two people.

“Mutant Storm Empire” will be available worldwide for 800 Microsoft Points Wednesday, October 31, 2007, at 9 a.m. GMT (2 a.m. PDT).

Gears of War Pumpkin Carving Challenge

Gears of War for Windows ships on Tuesday November 6th in the US, but just because it arrives after Halloween doesn’t mean you can’t get into the mood now!

You may have seen the Pumpkin Templates on Xbox.com, but those aren’t the only choices for you to use when carving your pumpkin this Halloween.

You can turn just about any photo into a Pumpkin stencil by making it black and white, and adjusting the contrast/brightness to highlight the lights and darks.  There are some pretty good tutorials over at Photoshop Tips, and Home Logic Halloween.

In the spirit of Halloween, we have provided a few images (top) to make stencils out of (we gave you a head start on the bottom) in hopes that we can see some cool Gears of War themed pumpkins.

We have a few incentives to give out to folks who do a great job on the Gears of War Pumpkin carvings, maybe I can find a home for some copies of the game, or some posters.

The far right image (Faceoff - Locust vs. Marcus) is pretty difficult, we’ll try and cook up something special for people who can pull that one off sucessfully.

Bonus points if you use a Chainsaw to carve your pumpkin…

I feel compelled to ask people to please be safe when carving your pumpkins - fingers, toes, and actual blood will not impress the judges…

Much…

Windows Experience Space - October 2007

One of the great benefits of working for Microsoft is the opportunity we have to work with people in other parts of the organization. The Games for Windows team worked very closely with the folks running Windows client PR this past week, as we participated in an event that showcased not only great consumer uses for new services launching for Windows Live and Windows Vista in the coming months, but were also able to talk about the great things we’re doing to make gaming easier, safer, and more fun.

Now, if that sounds like marketing speak, you have to forgive me. I’ve just spent the last three days in New York City talking to press about the Games for Windows brand, what we’re doing with Games for Windows – LIVE, and showing some screenshots of DirectX 10. Why, you ask? Because we’re still telling the story about how we’re making things easier with the Games for Windows brand. That when consumers see that brand, they should know that a game has conformed to certain technical requirements that mean the game will support Windows Vista, will support parental controls, widescreen, 64-bit operating systems, and won’t do screwy things like overwrite new video drivers with old ones. Sure, a lot of you hardcore gamers know how to deal with the trials and tribulations of the install process and the 12 steps it can take to get a game installed on your system, but we talked about how our brand makes things easier for all gamers, especially those who might otherwise be too intimidated to pop in that World in Conflict disc.

The Windows team had some great stuff to show as well. I sat through several demos of the new Windows Live services, like Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live OneCare. And what I saw was pretty cool – you can download the beta of these Windows Live programs from here – you should check them out, especially if you are like most folks and have a lot of photos to manage. With Windows Live Photo Gallery (which replaces Windows Vista’s built-in Photo Gallery), you can create panoramas by quickly and easily stitching together photos. You can publish directly to the web thorough Microsoft Live Spaces or even Flickr, and with the new Photo Mail option in Windows Live Mail, sending pictures to friends and family has never been easier.

Sorry – slipping back into the “marketing-speak” again. Just check the software out for yourself, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s free, after all, and final versions of this “Beta” software will be available in the very near future.

Pictures from the event, as well as the cocktail reception held on Wednesday evening, are available on the Gamerscore Blog Flickr page (published to Flickr via Windows Live Photo Gallery, thank you very much). You can’t really tell from the pictures, but we also showed World in Conflict on Toshiba x205 DirectX 10-enabled laptop computers, and Gears of War and Viva Pinata on Dell XPS 720 desktops.

The Windows team did an amazing job putting the whole event together. You can see some of the hardware that we showcased here. Also, be sure to check out the video of Craig Cincotta taking viewers through a virtual tour of the hardware on display.

It was a great event – but we’re very glad to be coming home!