Fall Dashboard Update revealed!

Written by Jim Squires

Tuesday, 13 November 2007 02:45

Barely squeaking into the fall season, Official Xbox Magazine is reporting that the 360's Fall Dashboard Update will be hitting on December 2nd. This years big change? Xbox games on XBLM! That's right kiddies -- as of December 2 you'll be able to download Halo, Fable, Indigo Prophecy, Crimson Skies, Burnout 3, and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. Each of these will run you a measly 1200 points, and considering the gold sticker that the first five of those titles deserve, I'd have to say that's an absolute steal. Especially Indigo Prophecy -- talk about a brilliant game that flew under everyone's radar (even though it really fell apart at the end.)

No word yet on how Microsoft expects us to cram these onto our already full 20 gig hard drives -- maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have found some way to whittle the sizes down to something manageable.

The other bit of news that some sources are reporting on is the addition of the Video Marketplace for Europe. That's great and all, but what about the promise Microsoft made to give it to those of us in the Great White North by the end of the year?

This story was broken by CVG, but they've since removed the story (probably due to a C&D, but who can really say?) so I'll let you all see what Joystiq has had to say about it. God bless the source train.

And to answer your question before you ask it, yes, lolcatz is still funny to us.

Comments (15) Add Comment

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written by Kevin Alexander, November 13, 2007

Indigo Prophecy was a great idea, but the "story" was so stupid I couldn't play for more than an hour. It's a shame because I LOVED the demo and must have played that a hundred times before the game came out.

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written by Jim Squires, November 13, 2007

Really? I dug everything about the game. Unfortunately the last third was a mess because they were forced to meet a release date that they just couldn't do. At 1200 points I say it's worth another look.

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written by Kevin Alexander, November 13, 2007

Oh, so when a cop witnesses my character do something that is easily pointing towards murder, he's always supposed to let me go?

I can't buy that, and I won't be taking another look at it. I'd rather play Fable again.

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written by Jim Squires, November 13, 2007

Dude -- we play games where space princes roll up garbage to turn them into stars. I'm pretty sure suspension of disbelief is well within your grasp.

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written by Xerxes3rd, November 13, 2007

Suspension of disbelief? WHAT? I thought Grand Theft Auto was a documentary was real. CURSES!

Getting Xbox1 games on XBLM is cool and all, but doesn't really seem worthy of a huge dashboard update, as it seems to me that most of the code to accomplish such a feat is already there (though, it may be more than we think). I was REALLY hoping to hear something about including DivX support on the 360.

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written by Xerxes3rd, November 13, 2007

Eh, so much for proofreading my post. Scratch that "was real" part.

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written by Kevin Alexander, November 13, 2007

Jim, I understand your point, but look at what you're comparing. Indigo prophecy presents itself in a more realistic world than Katamari Damacy. I'm all for suspension of disbelief but I can't excuse seemingly realistic characters for acting outside of a reasonable context. It's like a soldier finding Solid Snake and saying "you know, you seem like an alright guy, just go on ahead and do your thing".

Either way, it was enough to turn me off without any plans to go back. It was described by the developers as an interactive movie, when I don't like the movie that I'm interacting with there's no point in playing the game.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, November 13, 2007

Suspension of disbelief in a game like Katamari is totally different, I gotta agree with Kevin on that one.

When a game is presented as being something that takes place in our reality like Indigo, then certain rules are implied. Big things like gravity, light, walking etc as well as how human beings will act.

It's the same argument that applies to the uncanny valley.

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written by Jim Squires, November 13, 2007

I was just being disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable. smilies/tongue.gif

Honestly though, I don't remember the problem you speak of. As a matter of fact, the game ended pretty frequently when the wrong choices around cops were made. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong?

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written by Xav de Matos, November 13, 2007

A few things: This is a great idea, but someone (Sony or MIcrosoft) really needs to cut a deal with Sega and get Dreamcast games on their platform.

Also, if these downloadable versions come with Achievements... the world is over.

Finally, Indigo jumped the shark about an hour into it. Suspension of disbelief? Cirque du soleil'ing over helicopters during what was supposed to be a crime drama was a bullshit 'Matrix-style' ripoff.

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written by Muffin Man, November 13, 2007

That would be so totally awesome if the downloadable games came with achievements.

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written by bdwilcox, November 13, 2007

Ditto on the Dreamcast idea, but add in Saturn titles, too.

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written by Xerxes3rd, November 13, 2007

@Xav: I think they'd need to cut a deal with the publishers of the games in addition to Sega. After that, the emulation layer would probably be kinda expensive to build. But if they could pull it off, that would rock to the max!

Just read that the PS3 is getting DivX support... come on Microsoft, follow suit!

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written by Santos Gonzalez, November 13, 2007

@Muffin Man: You were reading my mind. That would be kick ass.

Indigo Prophecy is a great game but I agree the 3rd act was a big WTF. Still a great game.