Video Games Today

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Literally 30 minutes ago Microsoft started to pull the plug on Search Club Live, a popular freebie website that gives you prizes for playing games. No statement has been made by Microsoft, but all of the high level prizes such as the Xbox 360 and “Scene It?” have been pulled. Now, only small prizes remain, these include a Kitchen Timer, T-Shirts, etc.

The large amounts of removals may be because of the widespread LSC Cheating. The cheating involved people using “bots”, such as ICHC to do the games automatically. To try and stop this Microsoft put a 1,000 ticket limit per day. But the cheating persisted as many cheaters left the bots on to gain 1,000 points a day. With high level prizes, like an Xbox 360 Console, going for only 55,000 tickets you can see how easily it was for cheaters to get some serious prizes and/or money from selling these gifts.

LSC is still up and running, but all high level prizes are gone as of now. What is the future of LSC? We will have to wait and see!

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The Call of Duty: World at War Multiplayer Beta, previously only available to costumers who preordered the game, is now released to the public via the Xbox Live Marketplace. To find the game you can go under "New Arrivals", then "Game Demos" and it should be listed there. If it is not, go into the "Game Store" then find "Call of Duty: World at War" and there should be the Beta download in that folder. This Beta is multiplayer ONLY and is expected to be shut down next week after release of the full retail game.

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• Gears of War 2; Xbox 360
• Resistance 2; Playstation 3
  
• James Bond: Quantum of Solace; Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 3, Playstation 2
  
• Tom Clancy's EndWar; Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP
  
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm; Playstation 3
• Legendary; Xbox 360
• Secret Service; Xbox 360
• Valkyria Chronicles; Playstation 3
• Dragon Ball Z: Infinite World; Playstation 2
  

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As you can see, VGT has gotten a brand new look! Sory for any downtime during the update. Some things are still being fixed and touched up right now. If you find any bugs or problems make a comment on this post explaining it and we will do our best.

Thanks!
VGT Staff

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Tom Clancy's EndWar released in North America yesterday and hit my front door this morning. First Impressions of the game will be up shortly followed by a full length review in a few weeks. Busy season is officially started with Fable, Fallout, EndWar, and others released! Also coming this Sunday are my Gears of War 2 first impressions.

We are also giving away a FREE Copy of Gears of War 2 later this November, so if you cannot get your hands on a copy...dont worry! Stay tuned for more info on this giveaway.

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With only a short while left before the release of Valve's Left 4 Dead, they release a video showing the opening scene of the campaign mode. In Left 5 Dead you can play as any of the 4 characters in 4 player co-op. This is sure to be one of the best zombie survival games this year!

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Fallout 3, one of this year's Triple-A RPG's (Roleplaying Game) hit shelves this past Wednesday. The game places you in post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. The game begins with you being born "in Vault 101", an underground fallout shelter, where you can custom the appearance of your character to be. You then have segments of your childhood, at one year old and your first time walking. This fits great into the walking and movement tutorial. Then you eventually turn 10 years of age and receive your Pip-Boy 3000, which is basically a personal PDA device strapped onto your arm. At this segment you meet some of the people in the Vault like Butch, the Overseer, Amata, etc.

I am going to stop there with story details to avoid spoilers, needless to say you soon escape the vault. Note, this is just my first impressions not a review as I have not finished the game fully yet. The game controls handle well and the graphics look amazing on my HDTV. You should save before leaving the vault because the opening scene is one of the best scenes in recent video games. Stepping out from the vault, the first sunlight you ever see hits your eyes and you are blinded for a few moments before adjusting to the light and seeing the ruins of, what used to be, Washington D.C. Not only is the scene great, but once you realize, "Hey, I can go ANYWHERE I can see right now" you realize this is what "Triple-A Game" really means. From atop the hill you exit the vault from you can see famous buildings such as the Washington Monument and the Interstate Super Highway.

From there it is up to you. You can proceed with your Main Story and go to a town named "Megaton". Megaton is a city built around an atomic bomb that landed but never exploded. This transitions into what I will talk about next, the moral choices in the game. Many RPGs try to bring this into their games...but Fallout 3 really succeeds. You will soon face a hard decision in Megaton that will ultimately shape how you play the game. When you enter Megaton you can, and will, go to the local Saloon. You meet a Mr. Burke who wants help detonating the A-bomb in the city so wipe the town off the map. Now, you can agree to this and go through with it. Or you can run to the sheriff you met when you first entered Megaton. I choose to be the "goody-goody" during my first play through so I immediately run to the Sheriff. I tell him what happened and we heads to the Saloon. After telling Burke he is arrested and turns his back for a second, Burke pulls out his 10mm Silenced Pistol. This is another point in the game that sees how you react to what is happening. You can sit and let the Sheriff die, or you can kill Burke before he assassinates the Sheriff. This is what RPGs are supposed to be like, your decisions REALLY matter. This is not some Peter Molyneux "fake" moral decisions as seen in past Fable games.

I will stop there and leave you to think upon what RPG you will be picking up this holiday season. With the November rush of games this year, Fallout 3 really stands out well in the crowd.

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Major Nelson has informed the press that all emails to applicants for the New Xbox Experience Preview Program have been sent. So if you registered and filled out the survey, check your inbox and you will see an email from Microsoft telling you if you're in, or out!

I have been accepted in, my NXE impressions and screenshots will be up soon, as long as I dont have to sign a NDA.

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Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is the latest Brothers in Arms by Gearbox and Ubisoft. Brothers in Arms brings the same tactical shooter as it's predecessors. If you're looking for a Call of Duty or Halo "run and gun", pass this on your to buy list.

Brothers in arms puts you in the role of Staff Sergeant Matt Baker who is part of the 101st Airborne Division. You start off the game in a fast forward where you talk to a soldier who's face is not shown. The game goes into a short tutorial to show you the basics and necessities, such as suppressing fire and flanking maneuvers.

The game controls are solid and can be changed to different layouts such as "Call of Duty 4", "Halo 3", and "Rainbow 6" for people that want to use a familiar style. This game builds off of the cover system that Ubisoft uses in most of it's FPS games. You can take cover behind nearly everything, but things like wood will not hold up as well. The cracking effects on wood cover are great, the wood does not just spontaneously combust like many other games, it chips away until the enemy, or you, have destroyed it all.



One major issue with the cover system is the lack of blind fire. You must reveal yourself to the enemy to shoot. And this will often hurt your squad more than you. They will stand straight up in the middle of a fire fight and shoot at the enemy, just to see a bullet aimed at their head.

Hell's Highway has been significantly "dulled" down from previous Brothers in Arms, in terms of the micro management of your squads. Flanking is still useful, and needed in harder difficulties and battles, but you find that you could more easily flank the enemy yourself while your squads try to figure out the cover system.



The major down point of this game is the replay factor. When you start the game you have a choice of easy or medium difficulty, you must beat the game once to get the hard difficulty. This is a turn off to me. Why can't I play the game how I want to first time around. It seems like Gearbox is trying to juice as many hours of playtime out of you before you realize that this game gets old after the first play through. Another sign of this is the achievement list. Instead of having achievements for beating the game on the highest difficultly like in the Call of Duty series. Instead they throw in the series of achievements for amount of days played. Like play the game for 7 days, the for 30 days, etc. In addition to the "Remember September '44" in which you must wait until September 17th of next year to achieve.

Along with lack of single player replayability, the multiplayer falls far short of expectations of FPS games. The multiplayer only has one mode with release, and not plans of yet for more to be added via DLC or patch. The single mode is a form of Capture the Flag. The Brothers in Arms games are good and known for their strategic shooter genre, with micro managing squads. In the multiplayer, Gearbox tries to bring that but falls short. The mutltiplayer has assigned "Team Captains", "Assualt Team", etc. The problem is that the team doesnt have to listen to the Captain, and that makes the captain useless.

Overall, a solid game with some replay problems and lack of a stable multiplayer. This game will make the fans of the series a bit disappointed in it's dulled down nature, but for the casual shooter fan it is great.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway gets a:
B
Pass -- Rent -- Buy

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