When the original Fable was released on the Xbox back in 2004, there were mixed reactions. On the one hand it under-delivered on everything Peter Molyneux had promised. It was so far short of the goal that it actually lead to Peter offering a public apology on his company’s official website. On the other hand? Despite not being the world we were promised, where our actions and the passage of time would have a true and lasting impact on everything we touched, Fable offered one of the best action-RPG experiences that we’d seen to date. No matter how far it fell short of the mark, Fable offered some amazingly addictive gameplay that easily ranks it in the top 5 games available for the original Xbox.

But what did they have in store for Fable II? Was it to be more of the same, or would Mr. Molyneux again shoot for the stars? And if he did, how close would he get before falling?

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2008 has been pretty quiet on the Microsoft front. Sure there are a few high profile titles announced, but not a hell of a lot of chatter. Now, thanks to BBPS alumni Xav De Matos, you can hop on over to the Microsoft Game Studios Yearbook 2008 on X3F and get status updates on all of this years projects being put out by Microsoft Game Studios.

I still say ‘08 is Sony’s year.

/flame war on.

If you live on The Continent (i.e. Europe), you get this splendid package:

Nice, huh? Well, if you happen to reside in The Colonies, you can look forward to this…

… utterly budget affair, of three discs stacked upon one cylinder and the fourth orphaned in a paper sleeve. It’s bad enough that Sakaguchi’s epic beast of a JRPG ships on four fracking discs (lawlz bluray) but come on, have they learned nothing from the whole Blue Dragon scratched discs thing?

I expect that if the fans make enough racket MS will offer some kind of recompense but, really, whomever ok’d this ought to be subjected to some waterboarding, since I hear it’s not torture anymore.

Major Nelson is reporting that Halo 3 DLC is coming December 11th, in the form of Heroic Map Pack, They are the following:

Standoff: The symmetrical valley of with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types.

Rat’s Nest: The vast, labyrinthine passages bring something completely new to the multiplayer experience: an indoor vehicle paradise. Strongly influenced by the Campaign mode, this map is ideal for big team battles.

Foundry: This is the ultimate Forge map. Players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, placing stairways, walls, bridges, and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map imaginable.

You get all three maps for the low price of 800 ($10.00) MS points. They are coming just in time for the holidays. Santa… Umm.. Santos is pleased.

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.

If you happen to live across the pond aka the United Kingdom. You can get your copy of Halo 3 early, that is if you are willing to pay £ 105.94 ($ 211.00). You would have to be pretty hard core or just plain crazy to pay that much for a game that comes out in about a week.

[Edit: Seems like the long arm of Microsoft got to them as Halo 3 is no longer for sale on their site]

[Stupid F*&ing Customer]

Bizarre Creations, the development geniuses behind the Dreamcast classic Fur Fighters*, dropped thorough details on its online blog for the locations found in Project Gotham Racing 4.

Although the locations have been kicking around for a while, the blog outlines the details and differences behind each track. The final track list, according to the site is:

1. Macau, China
2. Las Vegas, USA
3. London, England
4. St Petersburg, Russia
5. Tokyo, Japan
6. New York City, USA
7. Shanghai, China
8. Quebec, Canada
9. Nurburgring, Germany
10. Michelin Test Track

Although the list seems short, Bizarre has not released how many routes will be available in each location when the game ships this September.

*THEBBPS.com in no way thinks Fur Fighters is a classic - it blew… this is what we call sarcasm.

[NOTE: 10 BBPS Points to the first person who points out the IRONY we hid in this post! Here's a Hint!]

[Via Bizarre Creations]