Xbox 360

The Force Unleashed 2 Demo Hits Xbox Live and PSN

You still have a little while to wait before you can get your hands on the full copy of The Force Unleashed 2, but the good folks over at Lucasarts decided to stoke the fire a little bit by dropping a playable demo of the game onto Xbox Live and PSN a few weeks early.

That’s right, now you can experience the force like never before. Tighter controls and targeting, explosive environments in which to showcase ridiculously over the top Jedi abilities… What more could you ask for?

The Great Debate: Taliban or no Taliban?

Hello and welcome to the new Xbox 360 feature (derived from the mind of Josh Margolis) called The Great Debate. This feature will be a recurring feature that will happen whenever we think a good news topic has popped up that we would all like to discuss a bit. During the great debate, I (Jay Malone) will type out the people that are discussing the current topic at hand’s opinions and what they say and then put it in front of your eyes to read.

This week it is more of a great agreement as myself, Josh Margolis, and Tristan Wong cuddle around a fire, sip hot chocolate, and talk about the Taliban. In it, Josh makes racist Taliban noises, I don’t say much, and Tristan is not a fan of Men of Valor. Join us as we discuss, agree, and debate about the Taliban and the reasons the Armed Forces are against it.

Layoffs for Raven Software

It’s never fun to report on layoffs, especially when the layoffs are taking place within a company such as Raven. Raven is responsible for games such as Singularity, X-Men: Origins, and Wolfenstein. None of which were particularly “incredible” but were pretty fun in their own little way.

It’s being reported (by Kotaku) that Raven has been hit with layoffs, with around 40 people being let go. The guys that also brought us Quake 4 was reported to have been currently working on DLC for Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s been apparent before that Activision doesn’t have much hope in Raven so the layoffs come as no surprise, but very disappointing.

The sad fact is, Raven Software will probably only make DLC for bigger games. A poor decision by Activision in my mind.

Def Jam Rapstar Review

I’ve enjoyed Rock Band games before, they’ve been a blast to play with other people, but never did they fully sink their fangs into me. I was never that guy that bought the latest DLC weekly and would play constantly. The fact of the matter is, I don’t like the bands that they feature in their games. I’m not a big rock music fan in the first place. I am a huge rap fan, though. Particularly the older rap such as “Just a Friend,” “Juicy,” “It Was a Good Day,” etc. Because of this, when I laid my eyes on Def Jam Rapstar, it looked like pure gold.

The biggest complaint anyone will have about Def Jam is that it’s censored. They’ll occasionally throw out an uncensored word but it’s a rarity and when you’re singing rap songs, this is a problem. It’s confusing to be singing a song that normally curses in a certain section to only have them replace it with words like “dang” or “butt.” Seriously, just say ass. It’s not that bad. I understand not putting the racial words in it, that makes sense, but keep normal curse words as some songs are built around those words and without, it breaks the flow of the song. Which not only makes the song you know and love sound a bit awkward, it can mess you up and leave you stumbling trying to get your singing back on track again.

Mega Man – “You Got…A Comic Book!”

Mega Man will be starring in his own comic book series spring 2011, thanks to Archie Comics. This will not be Archie Comics’ first video game-based title, as the company has been publishing a comic series based on Sonic The Hedgehog since 1993, which is still going strong today at over 200 issues.

Archie Comics has promised to stay true to the spirit of the Mega Man series and also hope to eventually explore the storylines of Mega Man spin-off titles such as Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero and Mega Man Legends. According to Archie Comics, the Mega Man comic series will focus on Rock, the peaceful robot boy thrust into the role of Mega Man in order to oppose the forces of Dr. Wily.

The Return of X-Men Arcade

In the early 90’s beat-em ups weren’t a rare commodity, nor were they especially memorable. There was one game; however, that took our quarters long after we got tired with those other titles and that title was X-men Arcade. This machine was the real deal when it came to arcade hardware, with some models featuring 6 person simultaneous gameplay. The game, which was based on the television pilot for the 90’s show, features six of the most famous X-men in all their glory (with the exception of the god awful Dazzler) and is considered one of the greatest arcade games ever.

Origins: Fallout

Fallout: New Vegas releases later this month and though it may seem similar to Fallout 3, it’s actually a very big deal for the series. Despite the blockbuster success of Fallout 3, the series has endured a bumpier road than one might expect. Though New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment may be a new name to the series, the studio is actually composed of members of the original Fallout team and New Vegas is the first chance they have had to return to their series in over a decade. To get a better grasp on this, let’s get in the Wayback Machine and head back to where Fallout began, the magical year of 1997…