Hmm? Mmm… Brains…

Just when you thought game publishers were just stuck to the usual oh-we-just-need-to-ship-DLC-for-the-latest-title-in-the-series mode, Valve has launched The Sacrifice DLC that wraps up the outcome of the original first four survivors from L4D. It appears that, rather than merely tacking on yet another DLC to L4D2, Valve has released the DLC for both the first and second games in the series, thus allowing fans of either or both the opportunity to choose which way they prefer to experience the action.

Of course, if you as an avid L4D player choose to go with the L4D2 version of the DLC, you will get to experience the fun of the original cast of characters with the updated weapons from L4D2. So choose wisely, Patient Gamers.

N.B.

And yes, contrary to popular belief, the Xbox LIVE service already has The Sacrifice DLC ready for purchase (560 MS points) and download now.

The shocking news about Borderlands… What could it be? A two-fer? A three-fer? Whoa!

The Legend

Sure, there was some “talk” (some jibber, some jabber, and even some gibberish) about the continuing saga that is Borderlands… And while the fanboys ‘n fangirls have been gushing over the mere possibility that another DLC would show up, well… let’s face it, Borderlands is one of those cutesy phenomena that just won’t– and shouldn’t– quit.

The News

But a couple of weeks ago, the official news that Borderlands would finally be getting its fourth DLC was realized, and gamers have been feverishly trying to level up in time for its September 28, 2010 release.

Of  course, others (including Yours Truly) have already reached the maximum achievements, so that glorious achievement count for the game hangs proudly in the virtual Xbox LIVE profile gallery…

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

But, of course, the folks at Gearbox aren’t through with teasing us. The next big bit o’ news is that they’re releasing an update that includes an across-the-board character level increase to 69. This should come out just in time for the DLC release, or even a bit before.

And it’s free.

Oh Yeah, Just One More Thing…

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what the Borderlands escapade is all about, or you are just kicking yourself in the head for not having jumped onto the bandwagon earlier when everybody else was joining in: you’re in luck, because the new GOTY version of the game, including all of the DLC’s, is scheduled to be released in October 2010.

There’s even a rumor of at least one additional “map” to be included in the package…

Earlier today, the long-awaited third DLC for the popular Borderlands game made its way to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for download. For many people, this is quite a surprise, given that there had been no formal drop date previously divulged. Nevertheless, this is a welcome release, and it evidently builds upon the successes from the main game and its two previous DLC’s.

The new expansion’s plot builds upon the notion of the increasing presence of the Crimson Lance and the presumable reassertion by the Atlas Corporation over their claim to Pandora, thereby opposing the Dahl Corporation’s current occupation and management of the planet. The main game had the players running afoul of several Atlas-backed Crimson Lancer squads, and now there is a major invasion force coming to Pandora. An ex-Lancer Siren character (NPC), Athena, is trying to escape the clutches of her former Lancer assassins and figured that by joining the other characters on-world, her odds of survival would be better. So, now the players will have to crush-kill-destroy the seemingly overwhelming forces of the Crimson Lance and Atlas… and who is this “General Knoxx” and his secret armory, anyway?

In many ways, this looks like it forms the third part of a trilogy representing the post-Vault era: there are a lot of references to characters and events from the main game and the previous two DLC’s. However, the first two DLC’s seem to act more as standalone expansions, with virtually no references toward each other. So, does this symbolize the completion of the Borderlands story, once and for all? Or is Borderlands II getting vetted through the approval process? Only time, and the fanbase, will tell…

N.B.

Other related Javamancy posts (in reverse chronological order):

• Borderlands: What We Have Learned from the Achievements
• Borderlands: Raising the Roof, and Achievements
• General Knoxx on Twitter?

Even more related content, from Javamancy mini (in reverse chronological order):

• Borderlands: The Monster and the Racer
• Borderlands: A Lot More Driving
• The Secret Armory of General Knoxx… Not So Secret Anymore
• Knock, Knock… Who’s There? General Knoxx…

Just when you thought you’d be left wondering the ol’ wuzzup with General Knoxx, there’s more information on the new Xbox achievements to be racked up in the forthcoming third DLC for Borderlands.

Oddly enough, I personally discovered this while running a simple comparison against a fellow XBL’er earlier today.

I’m guessing that other people may have also stumbled upon these achievements while doing something similar while logged into their Xbox LIVE accounts.

At any rate, on to the achievements:

• Making a Monster
  • 10 points
  • Build the New Car: Monster
• Athena, Out
  • 25 points
  • Rescue Athena
• Depot Demolition
  • 25 points
  • Destroy the Lance Depot
• Vincible
  • 50 points
  • Kill Crawmerax the Invincible
• Sneaky Little Buggers
  • 25 points
  • Kill each of the loot midgets
• Speed Kills
  • 25 points
  • Destroy a Lancer while in a Racer
• Ding! Overleveled
  • 15 points
  • Reach Level 51
• Ding! Overleveled to 11
  • 40 points
  • Reach Level 61
• Completionist
  • 25 points
  • Complete all missions in Secret Armory
• (Secret)
  • unknown points – maybe 10?
  • (dunno… yet)

Cool beans, eh?

Did Treyarch jump the gun?

Not satisfied to let Call of Duty: World at War fade into the long, dark quiet of obscurity (well, that’s an exaggeration, given the intense love a lot of gamers have shown toward the title!) while Infinity Ward turns up the heat on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the announcement for Map Pack 3 came yesterday.

More multiplayer maps, more zombied fun, a few more custom weapons, and more Achievements with additional Achievement Points!

If you haven’t logged into Xbox LIVE yet, you should give it a shot and fire up your copy of CoD:WaW: you will receive the game update, which includes the new menu configuration that allows for better access to the zombie maps (and clearly shows the teaser, grayed-out entry for the new zombie map from Map Pack 3).

There’s even a new HD video available of the new zombie map, available from the Call of Duty site and on Xbox LIVE.

Well, it has been a bit more than just “a few days” since we last mentioned the upcoming arrival of Halo 3′s Mythic Map Pack, the one that allows for all of those extra Achievements (with attendant Achievement Points!) and new amounts of of multiplayer hilarity…

Fortunately, the Mythic Map Pack is now available, from Xbox LIVE Game Marketplace, for 800 MS Points.

The excitement for Xbox 360 gamers that has been building about the expected Mythic Map Pack for Halo 3 culminated  with an announcement seen on Xbox LIVE that the map pack will be released shortly: first, as a bonus for the people buying Bungie’s Halo Wars Limited Edition on March 3, 2009, and then a few days later, as a Xbox LIVE DLC.

So now, while you’re waiting for the Halo 3 ODST to show up, you can be marshaling your armies around in Halo Wars and taking a few breathers with the new maps from the Mythic Map Pack… and racking up more Achievement Points.

“Wow! Blatant commercials!”

Well, deep down, you knew it was going to happen eventually.

Given the success of Microsoft’s [MSFT] Xbox 360 and its Xbox LIVE service, as well as the apparent success of the NXE, it was inevitable that eventually, somebody over at Microsoft and the Xbox LIVE group (most likely in marketing or advertising, ‘natch) would realize that putting commercials directly into the NXE Dashboard would make a lot of sense.

But how to make it something that gamers would actually want to watch? Hmm… How about use a lot of humor and a more aggressive brand enforcement? Sounds good!

I suspect the Nike’s [NKE] Kobe Bryant “Ankle Insurance Co.” commercial will be quite popular due to the humor factor, and it is certainly an effective way to send up a targeted ad campaign to a curious gamer demographic. Although, to be fair, the hardcore 24 x 7 gamer is probably not spending much time playing basketball or going outside and wearing Nike basketball shoes. Nevertheless, given the widespread Xbox LIVE coverage worldwide, having a large captive audience to expose to such advertising is fantastic.

Hopefully, to maintain a decent applicability edge factor, the advertisers will continue to provide relevant ads in this exciting venue. The ability to opt-in to view the commercials gives the gamers the much-desired choice to engage with the ads (or not), which is something that many TV audiences have clamored for.

“Steve, do you know if Xbox Originals games give achievement points?”

Alas, gentle readers, the answer is unequivocally no.

Several of you have pinged me earlier this evening asking me about this, because Larry Hryb posted about this week’s Holiday Deal of the Week being the original Halo game.

I’m actually surprised that the question isn’t asked more often, but if you’ve been a stalwart Xbox fan and owner, you may have tried to pop in one of your Xbox titles into your Xbox 360 console to see if there was any improvement in, say, the gameplay, or maybe the graphics… and certainly you rummaged around the Dashboard to see if any achievement points popped up for your game.

And, of course, you didn’t see any.

So, you may have thought, “Well, Microsoft [MSFT] may have tweaked the Xbox Originals to have achievement points…” After all, if they went through the trouble of adjusting the games, in some cases rebuilding them extensively (although doubtfully from scratch), there’s got to be some incentive to owners of the actual original physical discs to purchasing the games all over again.

From 2007, Larry Hryb (Major Nelson, ‘natch) answers the question in his blog. And the answer is NO.

N.B.

This Xbox Original downloadable formulation of Halo requires at least 2 GB of Xbox 360 hard disk space. Be careful, folks: check your ’6!