I took advantage of the Boxing Day shopping frenzy over the weekend and picked up an XBox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle at a discount that was hard to ignore. This is a purchase I had been deeply considering since my life-altering experience with Gears of War 2’s Horde mode. My familiarity with the console was mostly limited to some time with it shortly after launch, so I’ve been relatively out of touch with what has been released for the console since then. I was also a bit disappointed at the lack of hardware upgrades: the Elite is still hoarding the 120 GB hard drive, and there is still no Wi-Fi out of the box even after three years. Though I guess I should be thankful that the power supply hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Since getting back into gaming this past summer, I’ve tried to keep myself aware of the titles capturing the most buzz on all of the next generation consoles. Over the past few days I familiarized myself with the new XBox dashboard and downloaded a grab-bag of demos: the critically acclaimed and a few others that I was interested in. I’m still looking for a good RPG other than the obvious selections of Mass Effect, Fable 2, or Fallout 3. Feel free to add any other recommendations in the comments; this is my second leap into the console world since the Gamecube in 2003.

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After an extended absence, I’m posting at GameSetWatch again. Writing about Abuse had me looking back to the early 1990s and the excessive number of platforming titles released by Apogee and Epic MegaGames, so I decided to put together a brief history of the trend. While I only touched upon Jazz Jackrabbit 2, I expect to be revisiting the game in its own column, as I still believe it is one of the finest 2D platformers ever made.

An American Express commercial featuring tennis player Andy Roddick versus the blocky paddle from Pong has recently been airing more frequently in support of the upcoming Rogers Cup here in Toronto. I figured it was another sign of the commoditization of video games, but I found the Stop Pong URL tagged at the end of the commercial made it a lot more interesting. The game lets you play as Roddick using the simple Pong-style gameplay in either a 2D or 3D mode. For the purpose it serves it’s actually a decent looking distraction.

I hate commercials, but I have to give American Express credit for tapping into the trendiest internet meme at the moment. The mashup mixes real life action and a piece of video game history, creating a pretty surreal display. The commercial is also mixing two different sports. However, the “Roddick vs. Pong” game that adds an extended “interactive” element to the commercial is probably the biggest accomplishment, because they could have left it at the commercial itself. Instead, they understand that structuring a passive advertisement around a video game is easily transferrable to the form that inspired it, while lengthening the exposure of their brand.

Recently, there have been more complaints lodged against the game criticism community by developers. Apparently these so-called “journalists” don’t finish games before assessing their quality.

I am about to describe a game after exactly eight minutes of playing it. Because that’s all I was allowed in the time-locked demo of Alien Shooter 2. Though I did have some help from the official site:

This is the unique alloy of arcade action and RPG elements which combines well-established world of classical games and unmatched dynamics of the first part.

Have you ever asked someone a simple question, and in response received an answer that goes into so much terrible detail that the question itself becomes irrelevant to the entire conversation? Sometimes a developer has to know when to leave things alone. In the case of Alien Shooter 2, Sigma Team couldn’t stop talking.

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After I wrote last week’s post for The Cultural Gutter, I was given a link to an interview at Gamasutra that had been published a week prior. The interview was with Clint Manny, vice president of sales and marketing at GameWorks. The arcade chain was recently acquired by the Sega-Sammy Group, who has big plans to boost GameWorks’ market share – and rebuild the U.S. arcade scene while they’re at it.

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