Men Free Blog

A new Xbox Live Arcade release is upon us, brothers and sisters. This vile temptation goes by the name of Wits and Wagers and it tempts our youth to succumb to the terrible sin of gambling. True, the abomination may be disguised as a simple trivia game, but close inspection reveals that the only way to win is to bet on the winning answer. Truly it is an evil game, and one that you should spurn as you would spurn a rabid dog.

But seriously, folks, Wits and Wagers is a trivia game and it’s available now for 800 Microsoft points. Oh, and Scene-It owners take note: it features support for the Big Button controller. It also make rather … interesting use of the Vision camera. Go grab the trial version and see what you think.

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Lionhead community manager Sam Van Tilburgh must have been writhing from his recent wisdom teeth removal because he let it slip that something “big-ish” would be announced for Fable 2 next week.

“A lot is happening, if you are anxious to find out something new about Fable 2, I suggest you make sure you’ve got access to the internet, next week! Yes we are planning something (quite) big-ish.” Van Tilburgh wrote in an update on Lionhead’s community site.

While comments on the point theorize about possible features, we’d be happy for a release date confirmation.

[Thanks, mossman93]

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With the leaking of the Elizébet character earlier today, the list of leaked achievements mentioning her name got a bit more credible, but what about the rest of the names on the list? The last name on the list, Genshin, is in fact the game’s ultra-ninja counterpart for Ryu, and is the leader of the Black Spider clan, who have allied themselves with the fiends in an attempt to end the Hayabusa bloodline. Elizébet is the queen of the greate - … y’know this “story” stuff really doesn’t matter, just watch the videos (the second one is after the break and is a bit NSFW).

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The monthly Halo Wars update for April is up. Unfortunately, there isn’t much news concerning gameplay (sorry folks, no playable Covenant or Flood yet), but that won’t stop us from detailing what was there. What little info there was regarding gameplay centered around the cancellation of Ensemble’s internal tournament. The tournament is still coming, but the team decided to wait for a few more things to be implemented in the game. Said things are referred to as “really cool stuff” and should complete “the game’s full arsenal,” so the team thought it would be best to wait. Other tweaks are also being made to air vehicles which are apparently a little too effective for hit-and-runs. Oh, and Scorpion tanks, while resource-intensive and slow to build, are proving quite popular among the Ensemble staff (imagine that). The update also details a rather effective counter to an opponent that favors building Scorpions (hint: go Marines!).

The rest of the update focuses on the game’s music. Essentially, Music and Sound Director Stephen “Big Al” Rippy is currently walking a tightrope between making sure the game’s music holds true to the Halo universe while still being able to expand upon the work already established by Bungie’s Marty O’Donnell (who likes Rippy’s work, incidentally). For what it’s worth, Rippy says all of the music for Halo Wars is now in the can (assuming there are no more significant changes). Let’s hope that means we can get a closer look at the full game soon.

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When it comes to Fable 2, we will gladly gobble up every single morsel of information that Lionhead sees fit to give us. The latest entry of the Fable 2 developer blog doesn’t give us much, but something is always better than nothing, right? First, the sixth episode of the Lionhead video diary is now complete. It’s currently holed up at Microsoft, waiting to be uploaded to the Xbox Live Marketplace. When the video will actually release is still up in the air, though the word “soon” is mentioned.

Second, we have the brand new screenshot seen above. It is (if you haven’t guessed) an appropriately spooky graveyard. We can’t be sure, but we’d bet that it is likely filled with ghosts, zombies, or perhaps both.

Finally, Lionhead’s community manager, Sam, is having his wisdom teeth removed this week. Best of luck, Sam.

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We’ve known for some time that Ninja Gaiden 2 will be releasing on June the 3rd, but some of the game’s finer details have been a bit under wraps. In an article in Famitsu (kindly translated by folks over at the Ninja Fortress boards and reposted at NeoGAF) there is some more details on the game’s changes and tweaks. There’s tons of little tidbits, but some of the biggest ones are more revealing, like the fact that some gamers have beaten the game’s beta version in 15 hours (difficulty wasn’t mentioned.)

Other things of note include the fact that there are no longer armlets in the game, as Ryu more or less has those abilities inherently now, and the fact hat Ryu no longer carries around potions to heal. Healing items are now different sorts of powders (”‘This time, Ryu uses drugs to heal’ he said while laughing.”). And if you missed the xbox.com update, the Flame Wheels are now flaming birds that will circle you, attacking enemies who come too close. If you’re interested in reading a little more, just follow the read link.

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