Step right up ladies and gents and see the wondrous new content available on Xbox Live for the amazing, astounding Guitar Hero II! We’ve got three incredible packs available at the low, low price of 500 points. That’s a mere $6.25 in real-world money, and what does your hard-earned cash get you? Three whole songs with all-new bass or rhythm tracks added to each one, specifically with the wonders of multiplayer in mind. Each song was culled from the original Guitar Hero for your hard-rocking enjoyment.

Hucksterism aside, a little math shows that the new downloadable content actually costs more than the songs in the standalone game. That’s right, a game in a huge box with a peripheral is cheaper on a per-song basis than downloadable content. $90 divided by 74 songs is $1.22 each, and while that values the non-licensed tracks equivalently with the fully licensed material, Trogdor and Deathklok alone make averaging it out mathematically logical.

For those who got rid of the original PS2 Guitar Hero in anticipation of downloading the songs from the Live marketplace, this is what you get-

Pack 1: Bark at the Moon, Hey You, Ace of Spades

Pack 2: Killer Queen, Take it Off, Frankenstein

Pack 3: Higher Ground, Infected, Stellar

Geez, it seems like Game Informer is breakin’ all kinds of earth-shattering news these days. Last month it was tons of details on the Xbox 360 Elite, but this month something actually interesting graces the cover of the mag. So much for print journalism dying!

Somehow, GI has come to the table with all sorts of details about the only game I care about these days - Grand Theft Auto IV. So, without further delay, here are some bullet points on what you need to know:

1) The protagonist’s name is Niko Bellic, a man of Eastern Eurpoean descent
2) An all-new, fully realized Liberty City is indeed the setting, made up of four complete boroughs
3) These boroughs are: Broker (resembling Brooklyn), Algonquin (representing Manhattan), Dukes (nee Queens), and Bohan (tha Bronx). No word yet if models of Shea Stadium or Yankee Stadium are going to be included, but we can only hope.
4) There’s a fifth area called Alderney, which is a fictional chunk of New Jersey.
5) The story revolves around Niko coming to Liberty City to help out his struggling brother Roman. The storyline reportedly is significantly more open and user-controlled than past games; evidently it can go down in more than one way.
6) No planes!
7) There will be online multiplayer, although no details of that mode’s gameplay has emerged. One thing is for sure, it will not be an MMO-style model.

All of this info leads me to believe that IV may just live up to the hype. As a huge fan of the series, I personally can’t wait.

Single-player gaming FTW!

Just about a month from now on May 16th, the ridiculously-awaited Halo 3 public beta (yes, it’s just a freakin’ beta test) becomes reality. Those of us who own Crackdown have got our ticket in, and even though I’m far from the biggest fan of the franchise, it will be interesting to check out what all the hullabaloo is about.

As it is, I refuse to play any online games with people I don’t know, and it won’t change for a moment with this game. Hell, Halo 2 is the reason I stopped playing Xbox Live in the first place. The user community in the game was - and continues to be - simply appalling. So I’ll frag with the fellas on my rather small Friends list, which I keep that way for a reason. I don’t like most people.

I completely blow at the game anyway, so after a few nights of getting slaughtered by my buddies I’ll probably retreat back to the friendly confines of MLB 2K7, NHL 2K7, and Crackdown (since I’ve barely scratched the surface with that one). Just like Gears of War, I can’t really get into the whole uber-serious world of Xbox Live shooters…it’s all too much.

Microsoft today announced that the Spring 2007 Xbox Live update will include the launch of the new Windows Live Messenger service. Starting May 7, you’ll now be able to be constantly interrupted by just about everyone you know at any moment in time.

Trying to beat that last boss in Gears? Now your real boss can ask you where those TPS Reports are. 5 minutes away from winning the Stanley Cup? Too bad your girlfriend will then demand you talk to her that moment about that weird rash her ferret’s having.

Sure, there may be times when this service is convenient, but is this really the direction that gamers want to go? Next up we’ll be hearing that Microsoft will be releasing a motion-sensing controller, rendering people like me who don’t always want to be gyrating wildly when playing a game obsolete. Oh, the humanity…

What’s better yet is the new-fangled controller that will be coming this summer, complete with a text-messenger-style keyboard attached at the bottom. It looks like the 360 controller ate, but couldn’t finish, a Treo. Yikes.

Convergence may be the word that the industry keeps repeating to itself these days, but sometimes I think people just want to play some games to get the hell away from the demands that the world places on them. Seems to me that all we’re doing now is making it even tougher to get a little play time.

Anyway, the full and official news is here. Enjoy.

Marked for release at the end of June, Southpeak Interactive have released six high resolution screenshots of the upcoming massive off and online RPG, Two Worlds. Resembling a cross between Oblivion and Gothic 3, this Xbox 360/PC adventure lets players build up their character however they want, reshaping the world with a wide variety of fighting styles and magical power, to decide the fate of two worlds.