Posted via Major Nelson’s blog is a large round-up of incoming deals and marketplace goodies, some of which look more or less  promising. Hydrophobia, particularly, is an XBLA title that caught my eye and has since held it for quite sometime now. Hydrophobia is a survival adventure game developed by Dark Energy Digital featuring a female heroine, Kate Wilson, defending her ocean vessel utopia from Malthusian terrorists during the Great Population Flood. Just FYI, It’s already made a name for itself and has received multiple awards, including Best Downloadable Game from GameTrailers at E3 2010. According Rob Hewson, it’s all about player versus environment interaction and, well, the imagery featuring Dark Engery Digital’s “HydroEngine” is fairly impressive. Ooh, just look at the pretty, flowing water. Check out the entire list of updates scheduled to hit the Marketplace in the coming weeks.

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Receiving many complaints about the Xbox 360’s infamous D-Pad (especially for fighting games), the folks at Microsoft have finally decided to do something about it. There have been rumors about a “rotating” D-Pad revolving around the internet, but today Microsoft has confirmed their new (and shiny) controller, along with its “transforming” D-Pad. Take a look below to see a video of it, brought to you by none other than Major Nelson.

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I’ve always liked Microsoft’s Xbox Live Service. Ever since I got it years ago when Star Wars: Battlefront I realized what kind of service I was paying for and didn’t mind it at all. Then the Xbox 360 came out and it got even better with cross game chat, party chat and a sleek interface. As time has gone by Microsoft has changed their interface, for better or for worse, and have added new features while maintaining a set price. That’s at least until November 1^st. Officially announced on Major Nelson’s Blog, on that date Xbox Live will cost more for members in Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and the United States (the only people who are willing to pay for a subscription).

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In lieu of a very PS3-critical announcement via Gamescon, one would think that Microsoft would be a very jealous and bitter ex-lover of Bioware and their Mass Effect franchise—what with their previous choice to see each other exclusively and all. Whelp, not exactly. “Xbox 360 remains the best place to experience the Mass Effect franchise,” a Microsoft Representative seemed very matter-of-fact about declaring to IGN. So, you’re probably thinking, “How am I supposed to enjoy Mass Effect 2 if I’ve never played Mass Effect?” Good question, Aguado.

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PC gamers, sometimes it just seems like you haven’t any luck.  After missing out on Fable II, the announcement that its sequel would not be a 360-exclusive was welcome news.  However, today, Microsoft admitted that the PC version of Fable III is no longer on the same schedule as the console game.

Originally scheduled to release together on October 26, Microsoft said only that “The console and PC versions are now on different schedules as we’re focusing on building experiences optimized for each platform.”  No new PC release date was given, although the company promises “news soon.”

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Are you one of the many who can’t wait till Fable III is released? Do you still need that Fable fix? Well you’re in luck, because today Microsoft and Lionhead Studios have launched the new Fable III Villager Maker, giving you the ability to tweak your creation’s hair, background, clothing, accent, and more, the Villager Maker allows more than 2,000 different villager variations. The Villager Maker is available to everyone at Fable III’s website, but people who pre-order Fable III will get exclusive bonuses – which includes bringing your creation to life in your Fable III game.

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DLC in games is hit or miss with a lot of people. If it attempts to expand the story and lore of the game, it more often than not succeeds at drawing in those who were face-to-screen for hours with the game the first time around. Alan Wake’s upcoming DLC release (July 27) “The Signal” is something I can easily label right now a “hit.” It successfully expands the story past the ending of the game, provides solid gameplay time, and actually intensifies any feeling of craving that light for shelter or just wondering if you will ever escape Bright Falls. In The Signal, Bright Falls manages to up the ante and gets a whole lot crazier. This place has been doomed from the start.

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Announced yesterday at Comic Con in San Diego, Microsoft will be releasing a Limited Edition Halo: Reach Xbox 360 bundle. This bundle will be available on September 14^th when the game releases and features the new Xbox 360 Slim console with a silver Reach design. The bundle will include two specially designed wireless controllers along with the standard edition of Halo: Reach. It does cost $100 more coming in at $399 for the bundle. Check out the new screens of the bundle and an unboxing video released by Bungie that also showcases the Legendary Edition.

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After last week’s E3 press conference where Microsoft seemingly spent the majority of it showing off Kinect (formally named Project Natal) it was a bit of a shock that they didn’t give us a price for it.  However a week later,  Kinect has shown up on Microsoft’s website available for pre-order for $149.99. This confirms the listings that appeared last week on Aamazon.com, Best Buy and GameStop.

There is a note on the website saying that Kinect is covered by Microsoft’s “Pre-Order Price Guarantee” meaning if the price changes people who pre-order it would pay the lowest price but I doubt this price will change before launch date. Those who haven’t seen Kinect, it is Microsoft’s attempt at a motion control peripheral but unlike the PlayStation Move or Wii it does not require any controllers. Everything is voice or gesture based and it is all picked up by the Kinect device that will plug right into your Xbox 360. 15 titles have already been confirmed for launch but you should expect most of those titles to be geared towards the casual audience. Kinect is slated for a November 4^th release date.

Those of you who missed our live tweetage of the Microsoft Press Conference, here’s a recap of Tigresa’s live tweet stream from the event! Free ESPN, Project Natal (now dubbed Kinect) details and games, a little Fable III action and a newly revealed Xbox 360 title from Crytek!

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Earlier today, USA Today reported that Microsoft’s Project Natal is now known as Kinect. Kinect will be Microsoft’s answer the Playstation Move and Nintendo Wii and will be bringing their own set of motion-controlled games within the year. The USA Today article mentioned that the Xbox 360 controller can be intimidating to some, and thus Kinect will be targeted at a more casual demographic.

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Last week renowned PS3 developer Insomniac announced that they would be making games for the Xbox 360.  Not long before that Bungie, notorious for their Xbox exclusivity, announced a deal with Activision that would see them publishing on multiple platforms.  The list of exclusive developers seems to get shorter every day.  Is this a problem?  Will we lose quality if these hotshot studios start going cross-platform?  Would Uncharted 2 have been as good on multiple systems?  Would Red Dead Redemption be even better had it been exclusive?  How does having to program for multiple systems hurt a game’s development cycle?  Are the often double sales figures going to make everything multiplatform eventually?  What about Nintendo?  Can we even argue that their games would be that much better on a more impressive system?  What do you think?

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The Halo: Reach multiplayer beta became the biggest online console beta test on record coming in at 2.7 million players taking part in the beta. This is more than triple the size of the Halo 3 beta. Over 13 million games were played and players logged a combined 16 million hours during the two week beta period. It didn’t hurt that everyone who purchased ODST automatically got into the beta and I’m sure almost everyone who bought that game cashed in on the opportunity. With this many games played Bungie has gotten an enormous amount of user feedback and hopes to use that to refine the game which is set to release on September 14^th.

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Lionhead Studios very slowly allows information to trickle down the well to fans about their upcoming Fable III. While time cannot yet yell just how many promises Mr. Molyneux while actually adhere to with this latest installment in the Fable franchise, the team can promise a sweet Collector’s Edition package of the game that I’ve already mentally pre-ordered. The CE will be priced at $79.99 while the standard edition will retail for the standard $59.99 and will also be available on PC.

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Alan Wake most certainly places its narrative on the table as the focal point of this thriller (read: not horror, stop calling it that!) experience, but the whole package itself is just so soundly put together from the environments, to the solid voice work, to the angry farm combines. The minor deterrents that took away from my experience might be variable bits of mileage, i.e. many cliche story points from previously experiencing a couple of Stephen King works, so read on to find out if this Xbox 360 exclusive is worth your dime.

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