FIFA 08 had remained on the top spot of the Chart Track UK ladder ever since it dethroned Halo 3 (for the week ending October 6). Now, the football mogul is finally kicked right out of the top spot by... drumroll, please... another football game. Sega's Football Manager 2008 for the PC and Mac OS X platforms has debuted at #1 for the week ending October 20.

Former king FIFA 08 (PS3, PS2, PSP, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, and DS) landed not so far away at the second spot, which is followed by two new entrants in the UK charts. The Orange Box (Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) from Valve and Electronic Arts takes the third spot, while the Nintendo DS' The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass clocks in at fourth place. Halo 3 caps the top five spots.

1. Football Manager 2008
2. FIFA 08
3. The Orange Box
4. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
5. Halo 3
6. Project Gotham Racing 4
7. Ratatouille
8. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
9. Resistance: Fall of Man
10. Crash of the Titans

Yes, it seems that Europeans do love their football. Heck, the sports simulation title is even scheduled to hit the PSP sometime this Christmas in the form of Football Manager Handheld 2008. Anyone wanna place their bets as early as now that the PSP version will eventually claim the top spot once it gets released?

Llamasoft founder Jeff Minter revealed on his personal blog that he is currently re-designing GridRunner++ to be released on Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. The developer is not at all new to this especially with the recent appearance and relative success of Space Giraffe on XBLA.

GridRunner++ originally appeared on the official Llamasoft website as a shareware. It was then ported to Mac OS X and to a portable Java applet. The game is actually a scrolling shooter carrying the signature of Minter with its psychedelic visuals and references to sheep. Minter discussed:

I already have it running modified for the different aspect ratio and working off the x360 pad as opposed to the mouse, and I'm changing and extending the gameplay. It'll be a much more involved game than the PC-only predecessor.

I'm getting all the gameplay working first then I'll overhaul the graphics. We'll likely go for algo generated 3D shapes rather than the hand-drawn sprites of the PC original.

The planned modifications, we have to admit, got some of us excited here at QJ.NET and we can't wait to see GridRunner++ in its brilliant Xbox 360 iteration.

Headplay is probably every couch potato's dream. Imagine a TV. Now imagine being able to take it anywhere and everywhere you go (except perhaps in the shower), and being able to watch movies or play games on it anytime you want. That's the concept for the new "Personal Cinema System" device, Headplay.

Headplay is a head-mounted device; basically, a TV you wear on your head. You can connect it to your gaming consoles, your DVD Player, your iPod, your PC, and maybe your Betamax player if it hasn't choked on dust yet. If it has a video out function, Headplay can most probably display it. You can also plug in a memory stick and Headplay can run the media files - movies, videos, and images - with its own built-in player.

Once you're behind the lenses of Headplay it's pretty easy to just relax and go dead to the world around you. It's nothing but you and the screen, with the stereo sounds blocking off everything else. It's like your own movie screen inside your living room.

To read the complete review of Headplay - what it is, what it does, how it plays on Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Nintendo' Wii on it - click on the link for the full article.

Following the announcement of *takes a deep breath* Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (boy, that's a mouthful) heading to the Xbox Live Arcade, Hothead Games and Penny Arcade just launched the official website for their upcoming episodic title.

The website will give the fans of Gabe and Tycho some game-related content and news. You can even view some trailers, screenshots, and fact sheets about the game. The website will also be used to launch the individual episodes in the series once they become available for purchased download.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One is scheduled to roll out later this year for the PC, Mac OS X, Linux, and Xbox 360 platforms.

Click the Read link below to check out the official Rain-Slick site!

There seems to be confusion with regards to publishing rights on id Software's upcoming Rage (PC, Mac OS X, PS3, Xbox 360). id Software's mainstay publisher is Activision, and many have assumed that they (Activision) will be the ones to release the game, especially its console versions.

It turns out though that the publishing rights still haven't been determined. Shacknews was able to get a hold of Tom Hollensend of id during the QuakeCon. He clarified that no deals have been signed yet between id and Activision. Now, despite this, a non-existent deal doesn't directly and automatically mean that Activision won't publish it. There still is the chance.

We're just hoping that they settle things already so that, finally, we get to even more footage of the game as it goes through development.

 

Connect360">NullRiver Software released a new version of Connect360, tagged as Connect360 v3.0. Before we discuss the changelog for this new version, let's first take a look at what Connect360 is about.

Connect360 is an application that bridges the Mac to the Xbox 360 by allowing music playbacks and photo viewing on Microsoft's next-gen console. In previous versions, Connect360 has worked on the internet radio broadcast capabilities, as well as iPod libraries access on the Xbox 360. Apart from that, they also made the application compatible with Xbox's Spring dashboard update, and required Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.

On to what's in store for us in this new version:

• Choose where your videos are stored
• Support for H.264 and MPEG4 videos in MOV and MP4 containers
• Support for iTunes Podcasts in the above formats
• Bug fixes

If you're interested to get Connect360 v3.0, we suggest you follow our Read link below. As for the registration of your own Connect360 copy, you better prepare US$ 20 for it.

...right off the box! Kudos to curious Randy of Randy's Rants and Grant of Joystiq. After grabbing the newly-released game and controller bundle of Guitar Hero II, they simply plugged it into their Windows machines. And that's right: Windows recognized the controller perfectly.

It's really nothing new, but since Microsoft has been providing Xbox 360 controller ports to use your wireless Xbox 360 controllers on Windows, this controller just screams Plug n' Play.

Playing Frets on Fire, a free clone of Guitar Hero, Grant found that it even works great, after a little controller configuration. Window Vista may have a little bit of a frame rate problem with the game, but if you could step up to official Vista drivers, it should run fine.

Mac OS X is a slightly different story, as Grant claims the controller isn't recognized as an HID-compliant device, with GamePad Companion or the open source Xbox 360 driver.

Additionally, the OS X version of Frets on Fire couldn't be run successfully. So we could extend this post to the Apple blog hoping to catch the eyes of practicing porters and see if they could do anything about it.

Watch out though, butcher99 tried plugging his controller onto the USB port of his Windows Vista machine and Logitech devices, which could include ultra-sensitive G5 laser mice and G15 macro keyboards, to stop working. It's another compatibility problem that Microsoft doesn't have any solution for, except perhaps keeping the controller plugged into your Xbox 360.

Like Randy, we're anxious to know what the homebrew community can spruce up for this interesting little development. Photo courtesy of Randy.

Yes, we know that news on Penny Arcade's upcoming game, On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness isn't exactly "breaking" since the site for the comic itself has been periodically giving hints about the game. After all, the developer, Hothead Games, made a press release announcing the game around August last year. However, what we have right here, is still worth posting.

Behold, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness:

Yeah, it's a game trailer. What'ya expect? Oh, and before you folks go, Fruit F*cker for the win! Yes, the crass exclamation was obligatory.

The game is made for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. A version for next-generation consoles is said to follow. It will be available by digital download, delivered in episodic format (as if the Episode One bit didn't make it that obvious) with new installments to be released upon the Kitchen ware starved masses several times a year.

Penny Arcade is one of the most popular web-comics on the web. They've expanded to everything from creating gaming-related charity like Child's Play, to Penny Arcade Expo event. PAX 2006 is underway and the first announcement to come out of it is that there is a Penny Arcade game in the works! It's being developed by Hothead Games which is based in Vancouver BC, Canada - a hotspot for game development.

The first game will go through digital distribution for PC users as well as those running the Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. However, the game after that will be developed for next generation systems! Exactly which ones they'll be for has not been decided and divulged, but they're coming! Maybe we'll see one based on VGCats or Ctrl-Alt-Del soon as well?

Connect360 is an application from Nullriver Software that allows Mac users to play back music or even view digital photos on an Xbox 360. The previous version of Connect360 allowed users to stream live Internet radio broadcasts and access to iPod libraries.

The latest version of Connect360 v2.4 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later and the Xbox 360's network connection. New features and changes made to this new version are the following:

• fixed compatibility with Xbox's spring dashboard update
• fixed song sorting by track number in albums
• fixed networking issues in several configurations
• fixed AppleScript-related crash and several other crashes
  

You can download Connect360 v2.4 by following the link for a free trial, but if you want to register your copy of the application and own it for good, you'll have to buy it for $15 from Nullriver Software.

Download [Connect360 v2.4]