Crackdown has been out for a good couple of years now, but it wasn't until now that a title update has been released to address the issue of game installation to the hard drive. It's a tad bit late, but we say it's better late than never.

Crackdown wasn't such a success after all. This was the revelation given out by Realtime Worlds boss, Dave Jones. Despite all the grand  posturing about how awesome the game was, in actuality, they only sold enough to break even.

Crackdown was a surprising, if not a sleeper hit for the Xbox 360. Not only did it offer an awesome sandbox city to play in, but some awesome physics mechanics to go along with it as well. Plus, you get to throw cars. Now, no other than Shane Kim himself is saying that there might just be a sequel to the game in the near future. Check it out in the full article.

With the London Games Festival well underway, The British Academy for Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) concluded its British Academy Video Game Awards night leaving Nintendo with complete bragging rights for one full year. Nintendo's Wii Sports held up against all competition in six categories and was crowned king in Casual, Gameplay, Innovation, Multiplayer, Sports, and Strategy and Simulation.

Microsoft's Crackdown took three titles home, while SCEE's God of War 2 and Capcom's Okami snagged two apiece. The Best Game Award went to 2K Games' BioShock, while on user-voted front, the PC World Gamers Award went to SEGA's Football Manager 2007. Sims creator Will Wright was inducted to the Academy Fellowship, where he joins the likes of Steven Spielberg and Charlie Chaplin.

The full list of winners begins at the full article!

Buy: [ Wii Sports ]
Buy: [ Crackdown ]
Buy: [ BioShock (Games for Windows), (Xbox 360) ]
Buy: [ Football Manager 2007 (PC) ]

Wondering how our contenders are doing as they face off for this year's British Academy Video Game Awards (BAFTA)? While the final tallies have yet to be cast, we have received that five games appear to be pulling ahead at the polls. Leading this group is Wii Sports by Nintendo, with seven nominations already under its belt. The other five titles following closely behind all have five individual nominations each:

• Crackdown (Xbox 360; Realtime Worlds, Microsoft Game Studios)
• Gears of War (Xbox 360; Epic Games, Microsoft Game Studios)
• God of War 2 (PS2; SCE Santa Monica Studio, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe)
• Okami (PS2; Clover, Capcom)
  

These titles are currently the top of the 52 contenders we're looking at for the BAFTA's 13 categories. Check back again as we near end of this UK event, and see who will truly come out on top.

Those who have been keeping up with the Xbox Live charts will find that quite a few things have changed. The rapid drop of Crackdown to the ninth spot in the list marks one of these in addition to the fact that the Shadowrun demo has joined the top ten at slot number five.

One thing that didn't change though is current leader Gears of War, which doesn't seem to want to relinquish its number one slot (Halo 3 may change that though).  Meanwhile, the most downloaded XBLA title is Prince of Persia, beating out Pac-Man C.E. for the number one slot. Band of Bugs debuts in the charts at number 3.

Be sure to take these numbers into account when deciding your next purchase because nothing is worse than heading online to find that there's no one to play against. Anyway, here are the top five games in XBL, XBLA, and Original XBL.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles

1. Gears of War
2. Forza Motorsport 2
3. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
4. Guitar Hero II
5. Shadowrun Demo

Top Arcade Titles

1. Prince of Persia
2. Pac-Man C.E.
3. Band of Bugs
4. UNO
5. TMNT 1989 Arcade

Original Xbox Top Live Games

1. Halo 2
2. Battlefield 2: MC
3. Star Wars: Battlefront 2
4. Counter-Strike
5. Madden NFL 07

If you're an avid online multiplayer gamer and need some help deciding what game to purchase the next time you head out, be sure to check out the complete list in the full article.

Independent Game Developer RealTime Worlds (RTW), the people behind Crackdown, has signed a deal with Dare to be Digital 2007 and is now a key sponsor for the event. Dare to be Digital is a games design competition for students held annually in the UK.

RTW will be providing both financial and logistic support by providing source persons and speakers for the duration of the 10-week competition. In addition, RTW will be showing some exclusive "behind-the-scenes" footage from Crackdown at Dare ProtoPlay where competitors will feature their entries.

Here's what RTW CEO and creative director David Jones had to say regarding the event:

Talent is a key factor behind the success of every game, and Dare to be Digital makes a big contribution to spotting and developing high quality talent for the industry each year. I have been closely involved with Dare to be Digital’s organisers, Abertay University, for many years, advising them on course structure, lecturing to students, and benefiting from already having had many Dare graduates join RTW over the years.

I am delighted to take that involvement and commitment to another level through this sponsorship and through becoming a Patron of Dare. We are employing 150 people at our Dundee office and would like to expand to near 200 by end of this year. Partnering with Dare will help attract more talent to our production hub in Dundee. We also have plans to work with Dare on our international expansion.

This event, which began in 1999, has grown and become one of the premier game developer competitions for students in the UK. So far, 12 teams have already committed to joining the event and are heading to Dundee, Belfast and Guildford in early June. Be sure to keep checking back here for more news on this competition.

 Major Nelson has given another update on Xbox Live traffic. It shows the top live title, arcade titles, and even from the original live for the Xbox. While some people would just brush this off as another update, you have to note these numbers when deciding which next game to pick up if you're planning on going online.

Gears of War is still on top for the Xbox 360 heap with Crackdown at second and Halo 3 Beta at third. We were really expecting Halo 3 to be on top, but we guess it'll move up in the coming weeks. For the top arcade games, we have Double Dragon at first, Soltrio Solitaire at second and Rush'n Attack at third. No surprise that Double Dragon hit the top of the charts in this one. (I mean even we've been playing it more often than not)

Here's the list of the games that were most played for the May 21 week. Note that the numbers are based on all the unique users connected to Xbox Live full versions of games purchased over Xbox Live Arcade.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (UU’s)

1. Gears of War
2. Crackdown
3. Halo 3 Beta

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)

1. Double Dragon
2. Soltrio Solitaire
3. Rush'n Attack

Original Xbox Top Live Games

1. Halo 2
2. Battlefield 2: MC
3. Counter-Strike

The complete lists can be found after the Jump.

 

The highly anticipated Public Beta Test of Halo 3 lit the Mancannon too early as so many gamers simultaneously attempted to download the beta version via RealTime World's Crackdown. Many sites who covered the timely setback speculated that the Beta would be delayed for another 24 hours.

But the issue has already been addressed by the Live team at Microsoft, and they've already pinpointed the problem. An update by Bungie has mentioned that Microsoft is already testing out the final stages of a patch, which is speculated to be available as a patch grabbable only through Crackdown.

Bungie pegged an ETA for the patch release at around three to six hours after the patch tests fine, but that was at around 5:22 a.m. PDT, so we have yet to hear of any update regarding the patch.

As a reminder to those who already have the Halo 3 Beta: the problem doesn't affect you, so this patch wouldn't matter anyhow.

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UPDATE: No, seriously. Bungie and Microsoft have come up with a solution that appears to fix the problem instantly. But a new problem has risen: seeing as everyone else will be downloading the patch, too, Bungie warns it could take up to four hours just to squeeze the fix through and apply it to Crackdown.

So to make up for all the inconvenience this has and will cause you (for the next few hours or so), Bungie has announced that they will extend the duration of the Halo 3 Beta to June 10 (as opposed to June 6) at 11:59 PDT. If you happened to lose a day's worth of gaming today, Bungie is offering a "kiss and make up" solution with four more days of Beta testing fun.

Major Nelson has announced that the downloadable content packs for Crackdown are now available for download on Xbox Live. That's both the free "Free-For-All" pack and the premium "Getting Busy" bonus pack, the latter of which is available for 800 Microsoft Points. Both downloadable content packs are not available in Japan, Germany and Portugal.

A word of warning to those who download the packs, though. Reports of games getting reset (as in all your hard work so far goes "poof!") because of the DLC packs have been running rampant around the internet. Crackdown developer RealTime Worlds has acknowledged that they are aware of the situation and are currently working on a fix or, barring that, a workaround.

Keep checking back here for more updates on the issue.