According to multiple rumours floating around on the internet, Microsoft may be introducing a new level of mebership to the Xbox Live.
The new mebership will be called V.I.P and will be one up from Gold. The new membership is rumoured to include:
Better Connectivity
Online Storage for content
New Matchmaking options
V.I.P Users able to send free invitations to silver members
We have no idea how much this is going to cost or if any of this information is true, hopefully we’ll find out more at this years E3.
In my opinion this is only going to make Xbox Live better, I would be more than happy to shell out a little extra money to have V.I.P status. I’m sure there will be a little bit of a retaliation from certain n00bs of the Xbox live community, but I see this as a possible improvement on the service. Only time will tell!
Halo wars has been developed by Ensemble Studios, who are also developers of the classic Age Of Empires games. Ensemble have a very high place in many gamers hearts and it’s unfortunate that Halo Wars is their last game due to the studio being shut down. With this being the first Halo game that’s not a first person shooter or a Halo game not being developed by Bungie, Ensemble have been put under a lot of pressure to create something special. Have they pulled it off?
Just for a laugh myself and Mark96 thought it would be funny to pay tribute to long serving team member xTOMOx, by changing out avatars to match his. You can see the results of this in the image above.
You may have heard that the ESRB leaked a few of the Guiat Hero: Metallica songs. But now Metallica have gone one better and revealed the full tracklist on the band’s website
Title update 2 for Gears Of War 2 has finally arrived addressing a number of issues with the online multiplayer. The patch seems to have fixed a huge amount of glitches and exploits which is going to make the online experience much more enjoyable again. The glitches were really starting to piss me off and I stopped playing for a while, but now I hope to play more with the arrival of this latest update.
Epic has released this list of the problems that have been addressed in Title Update 2:
I today discovered a charming little independent game called ‘Crayon Physics Deluxe’, it’s made by Kloonigames and recently won the grand prize of the Independent Games Fesitval 2008, beating the extremely popular World Of Goo!
The game features a variety of different puzzles ranging from a bit too easy to very challenging, the concpet of the game is that you draw objects with your crayon to move the ball to collect the star.
I recorded myself playing the second island in the game to give you a general idea of what the game is all about
I seriously reccomend giving this game a purchase, it’s relaxing and really fun to play, great for unwinding after a long day
You can purchase the game or download the demo HERE
Nintendo have today revealed a patent that was filed back in June 2008 for their interesting new gameplay system code-named ‘Kind Code’
The system is aimed at casual gamers who loose interest in a game and switch off before completion, therefore not getting the end of the story. The system will allow gamers to skip through certain parts of a game by instead viewing a pre-recorded playthrough by one of the developers, then jump back into the action whenever they see fit. The new system will also allow gamers to bring up video hints and tips whenever they’re stuck.
In a game the new play system will be broken up into 3 options:
Game: Which allows gamers to play the game normally and bring up video hints when stuck
Digest: Allows gamers to watch a pre-recorded play through and jump into the action on scenes currently being shown
Scene: Allows the player to skip to a specific scene of the game to play, similar to what we saw in Alone In The Dark
This patent is intended to allow casual gamers (n00bs) to experience the benefits of the story without actually having to play the game, basically turning it into a DVD
In my opinion this completely defeats the object of a game, you play a game for gameplay, achievement and the fun of playing a game, this patent will just end up turning ‘games’ into interactive cut-scenes removing all elements of the game!
I’m not impressed, this is taking casual gaming to the extreme, i’m not sure what to think! Only time will tell what effect this has on gaming!
The team blog hasn’t been updated in a while. The last post was October 30th, the last week before the clusterfuck of games were released. From Novemeber 7th up until December we’ve had 3-4 titles being released every week, all games that have been higly anticipated. This is the main reason that there hasn’t been much in the way of updates, we’ve simply spent all of our spare time playing these new releases.
But it’s getting to the stage now when games are being released at a much slower pace, giving everyone a chance to rest and play the christmas releases. So now updates should be more frequent because more spare time will be invested into the blog.
We’ve done no clan matches, there is no major news, updates or anything like that. We’ve just been doing what we do best.. Playing games!
However you will notice that we have a new banner! Avatars were introduced in the lastest dashboard update, making the old gamercards redundant. Thefore we thought it would be best to change the banner to include our avatars! If you’re confused by whos avatar is whos here’s a breakdown:
(From left to right)Erdal6, LCDking, Rikoshay, Mark96, xTOMOx
Last night I was lucky enough to get a chance to play the new Guitar Hero: World Tour live on stage as part of the London Games Festival.
So the night before, I was quite happy just sitting on my PC checking up on gaming news, when a friend IM’d on MSN telling me about this Guitar Hero World Tour tournament taking place in London. The prize was a copy of the game and guitar plus tickets to the launch event on Nov 6th which had a free bar! After much discussion we managed to form a band and we attended the event!
Me sporting the ‘Slash’ hair!
We arrived at The Rigg, London South Bank University Student Union, signed up, and chose to play The Middle by Jimmy Eat World. We got a chance to have a practice run, but we weren’t allowed to play the song we had chosen to use in the competition. So we chose Beat It by Michael Jackson.
I was on guitar and chose to do it on expert. I used the brand new World Tour guitar, which at first, was very strange to use. It was obviously new because the buttons were very stiff and I had to press down on them with a lot of force, and I found the strum bar very difficult to get used to. The new guitar’s strum bar has a ‘bobble’ on the end which makes sure your fingers don’t slide off. Problem is, I always slide my fingers off the strum bar, I find it helps me keep rhythm easier. The strum bar also seems to have some sort of silencer and you don’t really feel the bar clicking when you strum, but I got over all this half way into the song. Unfortunately I didn’t use the new touch sensitive slider because I wasn’t familiar with it, although looking back I really should have given it a try in the practice run. All together though the guitar feels very nice, it’s quite heavy and is a lot fun to use, and the new star power button near the strum bar is very accessible and great to use.
The Barrel Rolls!
So our time came to perform, unfortunately we got chosen to go up first which may have affected our performance slightly. We discovered that the competition was being judged on the percentage of notes hit, so we decided to go one difficulty below our normal level, so that we felt comfortable. So I was on Hard Guitar, Chelsey was on Hard Bass, Dave was on Medium Vocals, and Richard was on Medium Drums! Together we formed the first toy band of the night.. THE BARREL ROLLS
You can see how we performed in this video:
Up on stage, playing with plastic guitars, in front of an audience, was the most surreal experience ever. I’m used to playing GH at home, on my own, or occasionally at a party, but this took things to the extreme. It was awesome!
We came off stage and it went over the the three judges, who scored us 7, 7, and 6 out of 10. These were definately not the worst scores of the night, but we deserved a lot better. As the night went on, one of the judges pulled us aside and apologized for the scores, he explained that because we were first of the night he didn’t know what to expect and therefore gave us the mediocre scores.
After the judging we were then approached by a member of the press and he asked us to to a video interview. We obviously agreed, wrapped our arms around each other and started answering his question. Which ranged from ‘Do you play real instruments’ and ‘Can you see this kind of event taking off in the future’.
The night went on and we watched as people played the game on stage and then get grilled by the judges. We had a few drinks and really enjoyed the night. Until a band called ‘Imperial 9000′ took to the stage and blew everyone away. They were showboating and didn’t miss a note on expert difficulty! It was then revealed that they were representing the UK in some sort of tournament. They completely demolished our chances of winning. They obviously already had the game, they were hitting notes without looking at the screens and the guitarist was using the touch slider like it was no big deal and it had been there all his life!
It was no surprise that at the end of the night Imperial 9000 won, but we did all get a Guitar Hero t-shirt each which made up for it!
It was a fantastic night and a once-in-a-life-time experience. The most fun i’ve had in a long time!
Welcome to the Piercing Bullets Official Team site!
This is the place where you will find news and other information about the Piercing Bullets.
Take a look around by clicking on the links in the navigation bar at the top of the page.
Nintendo have today revealed a patent that was filed back in June 2008 for their interesting new gameplay system code-named ‘Kind Code’
