The End is near! Well, EndWar is at least.

(Personal disclaimer: While I love EndWar and all that the game is, I would be remiss by not mentioning that I worked on it. That's right, look in the credits and you'll see yours truly as the Military Authenticity Advisor. Part of the reason I wanted to work on the game is in part due to the fact I knew it was gonna be great and I'd like to think I helped a little in making the finished product so good .had a little hand in that. However, I must exercise due diligence and come clean with the fact that I work on it when writing a review. I can't even tell you how stoked I was when my copies of the game, see below, arrived. Man, thank goodness I got that out of the way now back to blogging.)
Okay, so there are lots of games that try to put you in the role of a military Commander. None however have ever made it this easy! With Tom Clancy's EndWar the way you command your troops and move around the battlefield is by donning a headset and issuing voice commands just like real soldiers. The ease of which you command your forces guarantees that RTS games have made the leap from PC to their new console homes! Add in the stunning visuals, diverse environments and cinematic-like presentation and its like you're right in the thick of battle.
The game leaps you to a near future in which the world is fought over by three distinct factions. The story and factions are notional and based in a World War III-like future. The United States, Russia, and a European Union have each become superpowers. The US plans to send a military capability to space in order to lead the arms race. But terrorists swoop in and destroy the station before lift-off. This becomes the events that sets off global war. You pick up your desired faction and fight a number of battles around the globe based on their view. To keep you in the mind of global warfare you'll get updates from your commander and the media as to how the fight is going.

Although the game play and capability is similar across the factions the look (down to the finest deetail) of vehicles/aircraft, personnel and voices differ. Infantry comprises riflemen and engineers, tanks and artillery are your armored advantage; the sky is ruled by gunships and transports move troops around and give you an anti-air threat. The vantage point from each units camera is amazing! You'll see rounds zinging by, artillery impacts, burning hulks and even aircraft blown out of the sky.
Issuing commands to those units couldn't be simpler. You hold the trigger button and speak a preset command into the microphone. You can attack, bring reinforcements and switch camera views by voice alone and that unique control mechanism is the biggest draw of the game letting you closely follow and command your units into the fight. Allowing you concentrate on the battle and not on the buttons (that is SO a tagline).

The campaign takes you through a series of battles that help you save the world and there's online capability that lets you fight other budding Pattons or Rommels online. The game is slick, easy to control and most importantly FUN to play. No wonder it was named "Strategy Game of the Year" at E3!!! Run out and get your copy today. Now I've got to get back to controlling my armies, Dutch out.

Texting on my 360 controller? You better believe it.

I've been trying to get a post up about the keyboard attachment for the Xbox 360 controller for a while. I don't know about you guys but it seems that practically the only time I chat with friends is while I'm playing games and that damn on screen keyboard sucks!
Just snap on the texting keyboard and now you can chat on Xbox Live easily with dedicated keys for letters and characters (it has your standard QWERTY layout like we're all accustomed to on our phones and blackberrys). The buttons are backlit so when you have the lights down and you're getting your pants scared off by BioSchock you can still carry on a conversation. No worries about losing the headphone jack because there's one on the keyboard and it even comes with and extra headset. Which, to be honest was a big selling point for me since I broke my last one after a particularly bad round of Halo 3 multiplayer.

This won't just be for Xbox Live though, because Microsoft has added Windows Live Messenger so you can chat with anyone on Live Messenger so your not just stuck with chatting up your Xbox buddies. So great functionality, easy to use and it only costs $29.99? Now that's the perfect stocking stuffer!

Microsoft admits error and gives us something free?"

If you've been playing Xbox live lately (or just trying to log in last month) you'll have notice either a huge lag or that you couldn't log on at all. Well, after lots of complaints (yes I too complained, like I was gonna miss the chance to send an "I'm unhappy" e-mail to Microsoft) and bad press the folks at Microsoft decided to give its subscribers a free game for their trouble.

At Xbox.com the General Manager of Xbox Live-Marc Whitten posted a letter "thanking subscribers for their patience with the service" and went on to say "we’ve implemented several improvements to the service, to help ensure ongoing reliability and performance. As the popularity of Xbox LIVE expands, we’ll continue to closely monitor the service and make adjustments". Um, yeah! I would hope so. You guys tout Xbox (as a Microsoft product) as the best but essentially lock out your customers for over a month.

So for our troubles it was announced that Wednesday the 23rd of January at 2:00 a.m. PST through Sunday the 27th at 11:59 p.m. PST, we Xbox Live members will be able to download the full version of the Xbox Live Arcade game, "Undertow". The game is would normally cost us 800 points (read $10) so not too shabby. The game gorgeous. Its built on the the Unreal Engine 3 and offers a pretty good single player campaign while also providing an online mode that supports up to 16-players. The objective is to kill as many enemies as possible while staying alive the longest all while doing it underwater. If you already own "Undertow" you can contact Xbox Live in order to get a different game.

So mark your calendar and make sure you download your free game. And remember, if you ever have Xbox 360 or Xbox Live problems call 1-800-4-MYXBOX to register your complaint.

Who knew brutally killing people could be so damn pretty (and so much fun)?!

No, I'm not referring to going off the deep end at some holiday family gathering (although the thought may have crossed my mind) rather the hours of gameplay logged on Assassin's Creed (AC).
Rarely has a game "wow-ed" me but this game will visually blow your mind. Halo 3 might have had great framerate and gameplay but its got nothing on AC. Not only are the environments detailed and lush but from your "eagle-eye" perches (which just also happen to be places you can take gorgeous swan dive-like "leaps of faith") are EXPANSIVE. You can literally see for miles and miles as well as all the inhabitants milling about through that distance. Trust me, this is what was meant by next-gen gaming.
Oh yeah, there is actually a story going on here. You're a Crusade-era ninja in charge of taking out important targets. The story is compelling and once you find out how we get to this place in time you'll see that there's plenty of sequels left in this story. How many of these missions have I completed thus far in my 14+ hours of gameplay? A mere 2. I spend time just walking, running, building climbing, swan diving (never get tired of that) and riding my horse around the HUGE environment. Yeah, if you think riding a horse in Zelda is cool, wait 'til you ride around on this steed.

Not to mention I have a crush on two women involved in this game. Jade Raymond, the game's producer (who knew geeks could be so hot?!) and Kristen Bell who is one of two scientists in the game working with you (she makes me feel funny like when I used to climb the rope in gym class).

Okay, everyone knows I'm a cheap bastard and I never buy games at retail. But.....if you got gift cards or money for Christmas, or just just crappy presents or whatever...you HAVE to go and buy this game. You'll thank me, I promise.