True to its word, Lucasarts has unveiled a short demo portraying some of those neat Force powers in the latest addition to the Star Wars video game franchise with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

The game showed off its powerful game engine during the recent 2008 CES. You can check out some of the neat new features that you can expect to see in the game after reading the full article.

Now we know many gaming sites have re-iterated and argued this point over and over again - that the story concepts and the driving of the story are just as important as the quality of the visuals. But given Ars Technica's technical nature and prowess over technology, it's amazing they've been able to put their point across so vividly with a game everyone could relate to.

 

Well, just about everyone in gaming of course. Valve's Half-Life 2 was the first of the games they cited in their multi-part investigation, whose story was written by Mark Laidlaw. The incredible effort and time placed into the "written" content of the game reflects immediately in the opening sequence.

We don't know about you, however, but Half-Life 2 still isn't a keeper in this blogger's books if it comes to gauging art. In fact, aside from the opening sequence, there's very little dialogue or "written" content that is memorable in the game. Even after playing the game over 10 times.

You can hop right into the article by Ben Kuchera over at Ars Technica via the "Read" link below. Currently, the article spurred another heated discussion about graphics and visuals versus game design and storylines over at digg.com">Digg, but if you'd like top place your two-cents right here, feel free to do so.

Two separate sources (not to mention comments in Major Nelson's blog) are throwing their hands up in frustration. Ben Kuchera of ars technica (cited here) and Jay of the FNG-Spot blog (cited by Ben) both found that their premium - paid-for - Xbox Live content (e.g., Live Arcade games) redownloaded into the Xbox 360 Elite are locked without online authentication. Meaning you have to be connected to Xbox Live as the profile that bought them to actually play these content.

No offline Arcade. That's the killer.

The warning about that had indeed been given by Microsoft before: Jay mentions a Major Nelson post; we have Kotaku's announcement. What makes this story more uncomfortable - besides the entire DRM-locking of the content - is that Customer Service, whom Ben called, proved of little help.

That call advised the ars writer "that the only way to get the games working is to get my free data migration cable." This is where Ben cites Jay citing the Major and his commenters: data migration doesn't help: you still have to be logged on to Xbox Live as the purchasing profile. Somehow Customer Service didn't get the memo.

Implication: request for DRM license-transferring and reauthentication solution from Microsoft. Probability...

Opposable Thumbs' Ben Kuchera informs that he ran into this rumor regarding the ability to move data from your existing 360 to the supposed black upgraded Xbox 360. Kuchera quotes:

I work for a large game distributor. MS disclosed this SKU to us a few weeks ago—definitely not a fake story. Price, features, color are all correct. MS has told us that the data will be transferred via some sort of cable that will be included with the unit. The cable will also be included w/ the 120GB drive that will be sold separately (price TBD).

Please don't cite me, but this is all accurate info.

While he can't reveal his sources, and while he doubt that this is a sure thing, Kuchera does note that this makes sense. After all, Microsoft needs to convince people that the upgrade is worth it. The ability to transfer all of your data on your old Xbox 360 to your new one does sound promising.

If you've got the spare money, and you really want that spangly new black console, you could upgrade, transfer, and then recoup the costs by selling off your old Xbox 360. Makes sense right? Well, what about you folks? Assuming that the black Xbox 360 isn't a big April fools gag, what features do you think the newly "confirmed" (ah the trouble with April Issues of magazines) black Xbox 360 should include to warrant an instant upgrade?

 

Ben Kuchera likes to vote with his dollar, and with that, he prefers to keep the monopoly of gaming shops away from becoming "Only EBGameStop." It's why he prefers not to go into an EB Games or GameStop anytime soon. However, how do you deal with items exclusively up for sale only in a specific store chain?

That's the question he asks himself and others when it comes to gaming. In fact, it's already been happening with some titles, such as Chulip, Tenchu, and The Settlers:

Chulip—an offbeat game involving kissing—has been released in the US to the cheers of fans of quirky games. The only problem is that EBGameStop is going to be the only place to buy it. Strategy gamers will be annoyed to hear that The Settlers for the DS will also be an EBGameStop exclusive.

Sure, keeping games to yourself is sound business practice, but it's not particularly wonderful on the consumer end, and it also puts some strain on the backs of other game shops. The one thing Kuchera asks, and that we're hoping never happens, is this: Wouldn't you hate it if your favorite game was only available in one kind of store, which you never really were a fan of?

  

Wii's Virtual Console (VC) and 360's Live Arcade are a major chunk of what nostalgic gamers like about next gen. It's having to play ports of classic games delivered straight to your console. The thing is, some of the classics were not really as faithful to the originals as most gamers had hoped.

Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica spotted some nots on some classics. For the Wii's VC, Mario Kart 64 lacks the emulation of the memory pack slot that enables best times to be recorded. Kid Icarus' sound and graphics are great but lacks the original cheat codes from our youth (PAKING PAKING PAKING PAKING). Starfox 64 came with a rumble pack, unfortunately, Nintendo has announced that rumble in VC titles won't be supported.

From the Xbox Live Arcade, some people noted that Frogger seemed to be off. The increased difficulty and updated graphics just don't feel the same. Contra fans remember the classic cheat code to get 30 lives. The problem is, the download isn't the NES version - it's the arcade version.

Kuchera also notes that the D-Pad is a bit inappropriate for some games, unlike the multiple controllers supported by the Wii. Anyway, some would have different reactions to this but the point is - it was a good idea to have classic games make a comeback on next gen consoles. Notice anything off in your classic downloads? Some would just like to be reminded of their childhood.

During Ars Technica's recent interview with Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg and Scott Henson, it has become apparent that despite being a full year older than its competitors, the Xbox 360 may actually still have a definite edge. And so we introduce to you, ANA.

ANA is not a part of the MS staff, but is instead the scaling chip which can be found inside the Xbox 360. According to Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera, this may just be the Xbox's secret weapon in one-upping its seemingly more powerful competitor, the PS3 which doesn't have its own internal hardware scaler.

Playing a game at the wrong resolution has long been a problem for a lot of gamers, especially for those who own older HDTVs which are unable to go up to 1080p or 1080i, and thus end up scaling everything down to a mere 480p instead. According to Kuchera, this may just be the biggest challenge which the PS3 faces at the moment.

Meanwhile, MS' Greenberg noted that adding ANA into the box "was a critical design decision; we wanted the 360 to be high-definition, not just 1080p or some other standard". Because of this move, Xbox owners who also own HDTVs are able to enjoy their games the way that they were meant to be enjoyed, which is in glorious high-definition.

Want to know more about ANA, how it works and how it holds against the competition? Then just click on the "Read" link below.

Whinings about the Prey demo delay subsided when the demo finally arrived on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Although we may have begun to see the calm after the storm, there's another cause for irritation as pointed out by Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica. Some people might have missed this little piece of info. An IGN report mentions that the PC version of Prey has been capped at a smooth 60 FPS (frames per second), while the Xbox 360 version will run at a steady 30 FPS.

In video games, frame rates of 25 to 30 FPS are considered minimally acceptable. Of course, game enthusiasts are divided when it comes to frame rate issue. To some gamers, games with extremely high frame rates "feel" better and smoother compared to games with lower frame rates. But it's also important to know that some games apply a limit on the frame rate because an average 17-inch monitor can only reach 85 Hz, which means performance reached by a game over 85 FPS is discarded.

The question remains, is 30 the best FPS the Xbox 360 can offer? If this is so, then we're probably better off picking up the PC version of Prey.

If you've ever had your XBox freeze on you after a couple of minutes playing a game, then you're very much familiar with what the three red lights are. Found around the power button of your console, it spells doom or General Hardware Failure when these start to blink.

Ben Kuchera had the same type of problem and suspected that it's because of an overheating issue. He opened up his 360 and found that he's right, his GPU is indeed heating up. So what he did is that he replaced the thermal interface material with some Arctic Silver. So far, this fix has worked fine with his 360. If you're having the same trouble with your console, just follow these instructions from Ben and you're well on your way to defeat the three red lights of death.

WARNING: If you're not familiar or knowledgeable in fixing computers, handling sensitive hardware and working with basic tools, please consider other options before doing anything to your console.

Materials:

1. A thin hex head L-shaped wrench OR a probe tool of some sort.
2. 1 T-8 Torx screwdriver
3. 1 T-10 Torx screwdriver
4. Plastic scraper tool or pocket knife
5. Arctic Silver or other brand high quality heat sink paste
6. 1 Brillo steel wool pad
7. Cleaning supplies

Instructions:

• Open your XBox 360. Get the motherboard out of the metal cage and remove the heatsinks from both the CPU and the GPU.
• Scrape off the thermal pad from both the aluminum GPU heatsink and the copper CPU heatsink using the Brillo steal woolpad.
• Clean the remaining thermal paste from the GPU and CPU. After cleaning it, apply a minimal amount of your own thermal paste. Just enough to cover the entire die.
• Finally, reinstall the heatsinks and put your XBox 360 back together.