A BBFC listing has revealed what content will be included on the Gears of War 2 bonus disc.

To prevent spoilers, head over to the BBFC website to check out the content yourself. Gears of War 2 was given an 18 age rating, and this with no cuts being made to any content on the disc.

Gears of War 2 will be released exclusively on the Xbox 360 on the 7th of November.

The three lucky winners in our Unreal Tournament III competition are Faranaaz Parker, Tina Kraemer and Mark Botha.

Congratulations and good luck in your quest to defeat the Necris!

If you didn’t get lucky this time, make sure you check out our review of UT III to see why you should add this game to your 360 collection.

Unreal Tournament III had a lot riding on its shoulders with the first person shooter’s debut on the Xbox 360. We were thrilled with it, from the sheer variety of modes, beautiful and varied maps to the 360 exclusive split screen mode.

The storyline is always of paramount importance in FPS games (tongue-in-cheek), and in this case the campaign sees the Necris threatening to destroy humanity, with only a few brave soldiers standing in the way. Although the cut-scenes are visually pleasing, the plot is really only there to scantily tie the missions together. They do a decent enough job but there’s no Oscar material here. Not that there should be either, while I do enjoy a good tale of humanity’s woe in their final hour of doom, a good FPS is really all about the action and that is something that is not lacking in this game.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Unreal Tournament III.

The Xbox 360 exclusive Too Human will be released on the 29th of August. Developed by Silicon Knights, Too Human tells the story of a cybernetic Norse god, Baldur, trying to protect humanity from machine armies.

The demo for the game proved to be popular on Xbox Live, with over 900 000 downloads recorded as at the end of July. If you are looking forward to the release of Too Human this Friday, check out this Q and A with the games lead designer Henry Sterchi to learn more about the length of the game, emphasis on RPG elements, the storyline and co-op mode as well as achievements and DLC.

Kudos to the Xbox Community Network for the interview.

Post continues, click to read more…

Halo Wars, the real-time strategy game based on the Halo franchise, is being released next year exclusively on the Xbox 360.

The game sees players controlling the armies of the UNSC warship ‘Spirit of Fire,’ using both new and familiar units to battle the alien coalition known as the Covenant.

Currently in development at Ensemble Studios, Halo Wars also allows players to command the alien forces in multiplayer skirmishes for up to six players.

For more Halo Wars goodness check out these screens in our previous coverage.

Earlier in the month we reported that The Xbox Lounge had been replaced by the new Gamer Lobby. With the first phase of the new website and name change under their belt, Gamer Lobby today announced that it is now a multiplatform site.

This means that whether you are an Xbox 360, PS3 or PC gamer, you can head over to Gamer Lobby to create or find a match.

Head over to Gamer Lobby to check out the new site and hook up with other gamers for the 360, PS3 or PC.

Castle Crashers is this week’s XBLA offering. If saving a princess, defending your kingdom and crashing castles sounds like a good time then download Castle Crashers for 1 200 Microsoft Points when it arrives on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow.

Developed by The Behemoth!, Castle Crashers allows up to four players to join in the castle crashing fun, either locally or over Xbox Live. Choose from over 20 unlockable characters and customize your hero with 40 weapons, unlocking combos and magical attacks as well as earning experience points (use to adjust your Strength, Magic, Defense and Agility) as you progress through the game.

Keep an eye out for companions which enhance your attributes, steal a boss’s pet by defeating him, dig them up or head to your local store to buy them. Each store has specific items to sell, so collect gold from killing your enemies, dig up treasures or open chests to discover weapons, items and character unlockables. The game also features an Arena mode where you can battle each other head-on with four unique modes.

Post continues, click to read more…

Lets get things straight from the start – Race Driver GRID isn’t a simulator in the same sense as Gran Turismo; a racing game recreated in it’s most scientific form. The weight shift of cars, the use of tyre grip and wear, the subtle variations that come from altering aerodynamics and gear ratios. Gran Turismo promotes the essence of driving like a gentleman in order to appreciate it fully – which is probably why creator Yamauchi managed to convince people over the years that damage is not essential to a racing franchise.

If you ever made an effort to watch any Motorsport on TV then you will know that this non-contact driving utopia doesn’t exist. What does make Motorsport exciting is that danger and fear that you might not take a corner correctly and hit into a wall of tires, misjudge a curb and spin out or that an opponent could spin out in front of you leaving you with little option but to squeeze your opponents out of the way to avoid contact. While Gran Turismo will pat you on the back for a faultless lap, there is arguably more satisfaction from surviving the rough and tumble of a close-fought race and nursing a battered car across the line against all odds.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Race Driver: GRID.

If you haven’t already bought it and you can wait for the 700meg download, you can go and grab the Soul Calibur IV demo on Xbox Live right now.

While it’s already been hailed as the greatest entry to the series and possibly the best fighter this year, you can go ahead and read our review to get a good idea of what you’ll be up against, should you decide to actually buy it. If that doesn’t convince you, that’s what demos are for!

After it was announced that Alone in the Dark for PS3 would offer improved features above and beyond its Xbox 360 counterpart, Eden, the developers of the game, have revealed that they will release a patch for the 360 version to bring it into line with the newer PS3 edition.

It seems that Eden have been receptive to the criticisms launched at the 360 version, as the fixes for the PS3 version cover improvements to the inventory system, camera system as well as improved controls for driving and walking. There aren’t any confirmations as to which of these improvements will make it into the 360 patch, though.

Alone in the Dark released earlier this year on the 360 to disappointing and average critical acclaim. Alone in the Dark for PS3 is set for a November release.

It appears the first-person, action-RPG game, in the works at Bethesda Softworks, finally has a date.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world in an alternate Washington D.C., Fallout 3 allows players to tackle problems in any way they choose, starting with the way they customise their character to the ability to destroy an entire town. Fallout 3 follows on from the niche but popular isometric Fallout RPGs of the 90’s, continuing in the fine tradition of the series’ humour and open-ended game play decisions.

Fallout 3 is up for release on the 31st of October in Europe and October 28th in the US, releasing on PC and Xbox 360.

Last week reports surfaced that Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, a large electronics store in Tokyo, had sold out of all the versions of the Xbox 360 console. Amazon of Japan was also sold out of two of the three versions of the 360. Clearly most retail outlets and Microsoft themselves did not anticipate the increased demand for the 360.

Microsoft of Japan has now announced that the Xbox 360 has sold out across Japan and that no new stock will be available until September.

This news comes after the 360 outsold the PS3 in the land of the rising sun last week, thanks largely to the release of Namco Bandai’s Tales of Vesperia. The hardware sales showed that the title was definitely a system seller, increasing Xbox 360 hardware sales from 5 359 units to 24 962 for the week ending the 10th of August.

Tales of Vesperia sold 108 328 copies in its opening week, earning the 360 a rare appearance in the Top 10 at number 4 as well as the title of biggest first week for an Xbox 360 game in Japan. Media Create data shows that the previous best first week of software for the Xbox 360 was Blue Dragon with 80 000.

The Microsoft Japan press release (translated by Kotaku) reads “We truly thank you for all your patronage in the past. Currently, the Xbox 360 is sold out, and retailers are unable to restock their supply. This is a result of our own sales targets being exceeded by the actual customer sales. We deeply apologize for this inconvenience to our customers, retailers and business partners.”

“Here at Microsoft, we are moving forward quickly with console production, and plan to ship the standard Xbox 360 model out this September. Furthermore, we will sequentially be shipping out the Elite and the Arcade models. We ask that you please patiently wait until the console is shipped.”

“We truly thank you for your patronage hereafter,” added the company before signing off as Microsoft Home and Entertainment HQ.

Xbox has sent us some 360 goodies to giveaway so listen up.

First prize is a Play and Charge Kit bundled with Ninja Gaiden II while scoring second place will earn you a copy of Vampire Rain as well as an Xbox cap and lanyard.

Head over to our competitions page, answer a simple question and voila you could be a winner!

Thanks Xbox!

Microsoft has announced that Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will be released across North America on the 14th of November.

Not only will the game be priced at a budget $39.99, but if you pre-order the game you will receive a code to download the original Banjo Kazooie for free from Xbox Live Arcade. Gamers will be able to use this code to download the Xbox Live Arcade title two weeks before its official launch, that is before the general public have a crack at it.

Microsoft’s Gamerscoreblog also revealed the “Stop ‘N’ Swop” feature - if you complete certain challenges in Nuts & Bolts, you can unlock extra content in the Arcade version which is scheduled to be released a couple of weeks after the retail game ships.

Although Banjo Kazooie has yet to be dated for XBLA, the press release seems to have revealed that it may be released on Xbox Live Arcade on the 26th of November, or thereabouts.

Nuts & Bolts will also include the Jiggoseum (previously known as the World of Sports) where players can compete in sports events using the contraptions they create.

Two or three hours into Ninja Gaiden II, you will come to a very important realisation. It’s the kind of realisation that one sometimes gets in a game; that ‘Aha!’ moment when some characteristic or design principle is suddenly made clear as daylight and your perceptions of said game are shifted, redefined and solidified. This particular moment in Ninja Gaiden II happens during a boss fight – one of the earliest in the game – and the realisation is this: you are not having fun.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Ninja Gaiden II.