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Catan

Legendary board game Catan arrives on Xbox LIVE Arcade

Brush up on your plans for expansion and hone your trading strategies because Catan is coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 this Wednesday, May 2 at 0900 GMT (2:00 a.m. Pacific).
Catan from Big Huge Games is the Xbox LIVE Arcade edition of the legendary multiplayer board game Settlers of Catan. With over 10 million units sold, Settlers of Catan is one of the most popular board games to hail from Europe, and has been translated into twenty-five languages from the original German.

Catan for Xbox LIVE Arcade puts players in the role of colonists on a newly discovered island, where they vie for control of valuable territory and resources through strategy and trading. The game can be learned in just minutes, but will challenge players of all skill levels, even the experts!

Klaus Teuber, creator of the original Settlers of Catan board game, had this to say about the collaboration with Big Huge Games: “I had no doubts that Brian Reynolds would do a great job, and the first version of the game exceeded my highest expectations. The AI is so clever that I even lost several games in a row! Hands down, this game for the Xbox LIVE Arcade is an amazing achievement.”

Catan will be available worldwide for 800 Microsoft Points and is rated E for Everyone.

Game Features

• Learn As You Play tutorial, making the game instantly accessible even to players who have never played Settlers of Catan before All New 3D “Living World” Board
• Play against any combination of 13 historical personalities such as Alexander, Cleopatra and Tokugawa, which provide a range of play styles and difficulty levels that will test players’ wits and strategy
• Fans of the board game will enjoy the inclusion of popular house rules like Friendly Robber and Friendly Resources Multiplayer gameplay over Xbox LIVE for up to 4 players
• The ability to taunt opponents with engaging animations and use emotes to compliment (or belittle!) the opposition over Xbox LIVE Voice Chat enabled
• Earn up to 12 Achievements and 200 Gamerscore points

More information is available at http://www.xbox.com/games/livearcade and http://www.catanlive.com.

  
Arthropods Attack! Centipede and Millipede Invade Xbox LIVE ArcadeTwo of Atari’s best loved coin-op classics, Centipede and Millipede, will be available for download on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 beginning Wednesday, May 2 at 0900 GMT (2:00 a.m. Pacific).

The classic version of Centipede challenges gamers to defend their villages against an onslaught of centipedes, spiders, army ants and more. Xbox LIVE Arcade gamers will also have access to an Evolved version which features pre-rendered, high definition graphics, special effects like motion blur, trails and particle-based explosions that make this classic as enjoyable today as it was in the arcade decades ago.

In Millipede, the primary challenge is to obliterate chains of arthropods that creep down from the top of the screen. Scattered mushrooms are the gamers’ main tool to shoot, destroy and redirect the menacing millipedes. Millipede also offers up Xbox LIVE Arcade gamers an Evolved version of this coin-op classic.

Centipede and Millipede will be available worldwide as a joint download for 400 Microsoft Points and are rated E for Everyone.

Game Features

• Two games in one! Enjoy both classic and evolved versions of both Centipede and Millipede
• Dolby Digital surround sound
• Earn up to 12 Achievements and 200 Gamerscore points

More information is available at http://www.xbox.com/games/livearcade.

The Xbox 360 Elite will hit retail shelves this weekend in North America for a great estimated retail price of $479.99 (U.S.)

Those who purchase Xbox 360 Elite will get:

• Xbox 360 Elite console - premium black finish & HDMI output
• Xbox 360 120GB hard drive (black). The hard drive is sold separately in the original Xbox 360 chill color for an estimated retail price of $179.99 (U.S.).
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller (black). Sold separately for an estimated retail price of $49.99 (U.S.).
• Xbox 360 headset (black).
• Xbox 360 HDMI cable.
• Xbox LIVE Silver Membership.
• One-month subscription to Xbox LIVE Gold.

The following accessories for the Xbox 360 Elite console will only be sold separately:

• Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit. Complete with a charging cable and a black rechargeable battery pack, the Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit allows gamers to recharge their Xbox 360 Wireless Controller without interrupting their gameplay. it is sold separately for an estimated retail price of $19.99 (U.S.).
• Xbox 360 rechargeable battery (black). The rechargeable battery pack provides more than 25 hours of gameplay per charge. It is sold separately for an estimated retail price of $11.99 (U.S.).

For existing Xbox 360 owners looking for greater storage capacity, the 120GB hard drive will also be sold as a stand-alone accessory for a suggested retail price of $179.99 (U.S.).

Coordinating Xbox 360 Elite accessories, such as the black Xbox 360 wireless controller, Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit and the Xbox 360 rechargeable battery, will be available separately as well.

More information is available at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/xbox360elite/default.htm.

More photos here

Well reading around various sites and forums it looks like this downloadable content is finally live and available.  (Except in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan).  I would love to know what the hold up was.  Go rock out as 4 new heroes for 500 points, or 4 new villians if you prefer also for 500 points.  Or if you like to play both sides of the fence (or just an achievement junkie) get both for 800 points.

Mr & Mrs Achievement are ramping up their first tournament starting Friday!  They are giving away 1,600 MS points to each member of the winning team. (6,400 total).  So all you Gears of Wars players head on over and see what you can do.

Head on over to 360gl for more info

About the game:
In the year 2013 demons have risen on earth creating mass destruction.  You are a gun carrying, magic casting witch by the name of Alicia, and mankinds only hope.  You have various guns and upgrades at your disposal as well as a variety of (sometimes extremely destructive) magical abilities.

 Read the full review

Just browsing around, and still wondering about these download packs.  I mean has anything ever been delayed this long after given a release date?  I am no expert by any means so perhaps other download contents have been delayed, but this seems to be an abnormal amount of time.  Especially since there was a release date, there was a released trailor, the game title changed on Xbox.com and the achievements for the pack are all ready in place I just assumed everything was going as planned.  The list goes on, anyway enough of my ranting I was checking out Gamerscoreblog, and saw a post from yesterday with another video of in game footage.  This a video of a couple of microsoft guys playing the new download packs and they say it will be available “soon”

here is a video trailer for the other arcade release for 4/25

here is a video for one of tomorrows Live Arcade Releases

An update to the XNA Studio was released today officially titled XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh.

The most significant new feature is the addition of XNA Packager, a utility which will allow users to build and share game binaries for both Windows and Xbox 360. Users can now easily package and share their games for Windows and Xbox 360 without having to share their project source code. The sharing of Xbox 360 games requires a subscription to the XNA Creators Club, which is available via Xbox LIVE Marketplace for $49 (U.S.) for a four-month subscription, or $99 (U.S.) for an annual subscription.

Additional features included in the XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Refresh include:

• Official XNA Game Studio Express compatibility with Windows Vista
• Support for 3D audio using XACT
• Support for fonts in the XNA Framework
• Various other product enhancements and performance tuning

The free update and a full feature list can be downloaded at http://msdn.com/xna and http://creators.xna.com.

Episode number 42 of XBLRadio is out, I have a small spot on it interviewed about 3FS.  Everyone go tell ZaaM how good his english is, so he can join the fun of podcast interviews

Check out the show, the guys over at XBLRadio are great community guys that offer a variety of video and audio podcasts.  I personally subscribe to all the podcasts that they offer and listen to them as soon as they are released.