naturally, this game isn't slated to come out until 2011... ugh... on the flipside, at least Halo Reach is only two months away — have a feeling i'll be playing lots of Halo once again. heh.

can't fucking wait.

i've watched this video at least a dozen times now, and just had to post it... first glimpse into the campaign of Halo Reach, and g'damn it looks fun as hell... only three more months or so until this is unleashed upon us all. muahaha.

It may not have a new name, but the Xbox 360 certainly has received quite a facelift on this the fifth anniversary of its unveiling. The new Xbox 360 (aka the "Xbox 360 250GB") makes up for its familiar name by offering a starkly refreshed and, in our eyes, significantly sexier design than its predecessor -- which honestly was quite the looker in its day. Despite only just being made official, we've already had time to unbox and play with one, a dizzyingly fast-paced unveil that might have left you with some questions about just what here is new and what here is old. Click on through, dear reader, and we'll tell you everything you need to know.

pretty nice write-up of the changes to the 360... i was kind of stoked to read that it's shipping to stores and should be available this friday, and am kind of fighting the temptation to just pick one up... and why would i think of doing such a thing? well, the 360 Elite i got back from Best Buy is definitely a refurbished one, and has some weird disk drive issues... i can't play Gears 2 or MW2, for instance, yet other games work just fine. go figure, i don't understand it.

only thing holding me back is all the bullshit with the original 360... feel like i should wait a bit before upgrading (again)... but we'll see... if i get a $100 gift card or something, maybe i'll just grab one.

this definitely has more of an Alienware PC case thing going on for it, and doesn't exactly say "family gaming" to me... but whatever... it's new, and hopefully they fixed all the g'damn hardware / engineering / design issues that they've had with the one we have now... if it's cool, quiet, and reliable then i'll be pretty damn happy... including wi-fi is nice, but i wonder why they didn't opt for the slot-loading dvd drives? wonder if it still sounds like a vacuum cleaner going off.

(hat tip: engadget)

Oh man! It turns out that Star Wars Kid was doing nothing less than predicting the future. The awesome future. Microsoft has demonstrated its Project Natal, which has been renamed Kinect and transformed into a motion-controller for the Xbox 360.

Kinect, which will be available in November, uses a camera and a microphone to turn a player's movements into in-game movements. In a demonstration at the E3 show in Los Angeles last night, Microsoft showed of the peripheral with a huge performance by Cirque du Soleil, which was, according to Twitter, impressive.

Even better was the demo of a new LucasArts Star Wars game, which lets the player control his on-screen avatar by acting as a Jedi, just like Star Wars Kid. The above clip, which managed to sneak out onto YouTube ahead of official video, shows the Kinect in action. It looks fantastic: to pull out your light-saber you just, well, pull out your light-saber. To throw a huge spaceship across the room you simply wave your hand as if you were controlling the Force.

holy.... shit.... just the thought of finally having a game where you can swing your arms around and use a lightsaber is enough to get me excited -- haven't really been down with this whole "project natal" thing that microsoft's been talking about all year, but if they come out with a new slick Star Wars game that's actually kickass? dude, i might have to break down and buy it.

i haven't picked up or played the game, even though i've heard good things about it... actually, there's not much as far as video games go that i'm all excited about... only game i can think of off the top of my head that i'm looking forward to is Crackdown 2, which comes out next month.

no idea when it's supposed to be coming out or anything, but hopefully it's later this year... should be fun.

guess it kind of worked out, cuz i just started the download and then got something to eat, and chilled out to watch jack bauer kick some more ass in "24" (another great episode lastnight)... then finally was able to sit down and play a couple rounds online.

graphics look great, and the overall gameplay is pretty crazy... feels like a lot more shit going on, what with the new "abilities" and loadouts -- i dig the jetpack and sprinting... being able to quickly select your spawn point was nice, and overall it just felt pretty frantic but in a good way.

my first two rounds sucked ass... i died alot, flew into a few walls, and couldn't seem to make the mental switch on the melee button being moved on my ass... oh, and getting assasinated from behind really is pretty humiliating — especially when you hear the jackass on the other side laughing his ass off.

hopefully the beta is around for awhile, because i definitely need some practice... haven't been playing halo much, and it shows. *chuckle*

can't fucking wait to get home and play.

so i went to Best Buy yesterday to exchange it, knowing that i'd bought the "protection plan" the last time around, only to have them tell me that they no longer can just give you a replacement 360 at the store but have to send it into microsoft — with the plan, you simply get a refurbished one quicker than waiting around for 4-6 weeks... so i dropped $80 on a protection plan that simply gets me a refurbished 360 in a week or two? ugh... wasn't too happy about that, and thought it kind of sucked ballsack to be honest.

i ended up grabbing an Arcade for $200 and will use that for the next week or two until i get my black elite back -- then i'll just pack it back up and return it to Best Buy and get my money back. bastards.

i'm not even sure anymore, but i think this will be either my third or fourth 360... unbelievable.