Xbox Phishing: Last week an unhappy Xbox owner fell victim to a phishing attack and lost hundreds of dollars even after Microsoft assured her that the account was blocked. All the more reason to use pre-paid Xbox Gold cards and Microsoft points instead of storing your credit card details.

New Assassins Creed Revelations Maps: Ubisoft have announced that new multiplayer maps will be available from 24th January. These will include Jerusalem, Constantinople, Dyers and the Italian Renaissance maps from Brotherhood. 800 Microsoft points and whatever that equivalent is on PSN these days.

Lovefilm Price Drop: Now we’re not saying that Lovefilm are feeling threatened by the UK launch of Netflix, but they did drop the price of a Lovefilm subscription to £4.99 in an eerie coincidence yesterday. Key distinction – Lovefilm also offers video game rentals by post.

Play Reckoning: Ken Rolston’s Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will be at available for gamers to preview in London this week. We learned all sorts of juicy info in our interview with designer Will Miller last September. Play this Thursday 12th Jan, a full month before release at Gamerbase in Trocadero. Sign up through the EA Reckoning blog and see more on the skills in the video below.

Happy week-before-Christmas, all you lovely readers. We’ve been working with Microsoft recently, talking about the new dashboard content and we’re now part of the Xbox Live Ambassadors program, wooo! What does that mean? Basically, we still get to talk about whatever we want, however we want to but they’ll send us some nice content and sometimes link to us from their shiny new Ambassadors’ page on Xbox.com. They didn’t feature my write-up of the dashboard launch event from the other week. I can’t think why…

This week’s theme is TV. The new dashboard has introduced TV for the UK through your Xbox with Sky TV. You need to have either a Sky subscription or something called Sky Go Monthly Ticket, which is basically an ongoing monthly subscription to Sky instead of a contract. In other words, if you have Sky, you can watch Sky. If you don’t, you can get it without having to shell out for a box and dish installation. Or if you’re me, you now have a new and thoroughly pointless tab on your dashboard. Ah well.

Regardless, Microsoft have also given us a lovely bonus for you guys – a discount code to buy 3 months of Xbox Live at half price.

To get your half-price Xbox Gold:

1. Go to the Xbox.com More Than Games page and enter “Av3rgGm8r” in the box that looks like this:
   
2. It will change to say “Thanks! Click Here.” Click there.
   
3. You might be prompted to log in to Xbox.com or confirm your password. Do that.
4. Then you’ll be able to buy 3 months of Xbox Live Gold membership for £7.50. Hooray!
   

Have fun!

So, I don’t normally write about press events because really, who wants to read an article going “We went to this pub right? And they showed us the game and fed us some mini burgers and a drink and we played the game for a few hours, yeah?” ‘Course you don’t. You wanna know about the game.

Last Sunday, however, was so bizarre that I have to tell you about it. We were invited to a place called supperclub in London to learn about the new Xbox dashboard that launched this morning. The doors opened and we were greeted with a large dining hall lined with… beds. Seriously. Beds. Pillows and everything. Check out Nick’s panorama of supperclub.

Unorthodox, but okay. Let’s grab a drink from the bar and roll with it (figuratively speaking). First up – the excitingly-themed starter of “Coronation Street Hot Pot”. Buh? This turned out to be a mild Thai Green Curry with a pie-crust top. Interesting, to be sure. Bit runny maybe, but perfectly palatable. Is Thai Green Curry a big thing on Coronation Street? Enlighten me, readers. I have never knowingly watched the show.

Between courses we had… the entertainment. As we were enjoying our Thai Green Coronation Street, a woman came shimmying out of one of the side doors to music, wearing a leather and lace catsuit. Yup, leather and lace. Well, maybe pleather. I didn’t get close enough to find out. Why? Because this:

"Xbox Bing Power Tools Sexy"

This is the part of the dance where she took a hand-held power saw to the front of a guitar. To be fair, she wasn’t a bad dancer, in an ass-wiggling arm-waving kind of way. It was just… we weren’t entirely sure what part of the dashboard this was supposed to represent.

Pressing on, we had the old traditional PR meal – mini burgers. This familiar reprieve from the oddities was quickly broken by the appearance of a new performer. I call him Shower Curtain Man. He was a transvestite who came tottering out in a black ballgown and heels only to strip down to his pants, climb a large plastic sheet, spit some “blood” on it and dangle from the ceiling in a strange plasticated performance art version of aerial silk. The rubber ducky and sheet resembling floor tiles were a nice touch to let us know that he was doing a version of the shower scene from Psycho, but still… even though I’m no stranger to burlesque-style performances, the mind still boggles.

Again, the man was a talented performer and it obviously took a lot of strength to climb a sheet of plastic like that, but why? I’m guessing he was there to represent the new film and TV services coming to the dashboard – Lovefilm, 4 on Demand, blinkbox, Demand 5 and others.

Regardless, we pressed on to the third course built around an Olympic theme, as is unavoidable in London these days. It was macaroons. Lovely!

The green one in the middle? That one has a salsa filling. The blue? Prawn. Red? Guacamole. I’m all for experimental cookery but nooooo. Not like this. I fear that a chef somewhere heard that contrasting flavours were all the rage these days and decided to make them extreme. It did not work. This dish was probably a metaphor for the Sky Sports service with Sky Go. Beautiful on the outside but with a horrifying core. Hmm… can that really be what they meant?

Regardless, the final performance of the day was a nod to the ubiquitous presence of dubsteppers. Fortunately for you, I was holding my camera the wrong way round during that section of the performance so here’s just the latter part, gamepad mime and all.

But is the new Xbox Dashboard as innovative as the performances and meals? Well… not really. It’s nice in theory that you can control it with your voice in a Star Trek-esque “Computer!” sort of way. In practice, we find it doing random things when I call “Hey, where’s the Xbox controller” across the room. I do like the return to a horizontal menu system, I don’t like the fact that games are buried in the middle. I like even less the fact that the entire interface appears to be designed around the never-going-to-happen use case of “I turned on my Xbox and I don’t know what I want to do” over happens-every-day situations like “I want to play a game” or “I want to watch a film”.

From a user experience point of view, it’s a terrible design. But it’s great at showcasing the content they want us to see. I guess that’s the important thing, right?

Nintendo 3DS Console:

From the 12th Aug 2011 Nintendo are cutting the price of their 3DS console. Based on the announced price cut in Japan (from £196 to £118), we are looking at ~30% reduction in the UK retail price. As you can see from our Nintendo 3DS – Best Cheap Deals post the price in the UK does vary a lot, so we don’t know yet what price the 3DS is going to drop down to after this cut.

For the early adopters of the system, Nintendo is offering access to the loftily titled “Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Programme.” Members of this program will get to download 10 NES games and 10 Game boy and Game boy Advance games for free. The GBA games will be exclusive to the program members.

Note: You need to connect to the Nintendo eShop at least once before 23:59 on the 11th Aug 2011 in order to qualify for these free games.

NES games:

• Super Mario Bros
• Donkey Kong Jr
• Balloon Fight
• Ice Climber
• The Legend of Zelda
• Plus 5 unannounced games

Game Boy Advance games:

• Yoshi’s Island
• Super Mario Advance 3
• Mario Kart
• Super Circuit, Metroid
• Metroid Fusion
• WarioWare
• Inc.: Minigame Mania
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong
• Plus 2 unannounced games

48-hour SEGA iOS games sale:

SEGA have slashed the prices of their iPod/iPhone and iPad games for 48 hours. Either search for SEGA on the app store or click on this link to open up the SEGA app store page in iTunes.

SEGAs 48-hour iOS game sale

Mass Effect 2:

Until the 1st Aug 2011 there’s 50% off the following DLC packs for Mass Effect 2 on the Xbox 360. Price shown below is the sale price:

• Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker (280 MS Points)
• Mass Effect 2: Arrival – (400 MS Points)
• Mass Effect 2: Kasumi – Stolen Memory (280 MS Points)

Change your gamertag:

From the 2nd – 8th Aug, Microsoft are knocking 30% off the price to change your gamertag. During this period it will cost 560 MS Points to change it. I only wish Sony would offer this service on PSN.

Need For Speed: The Run:

Finishing off today’s news is the “Run to the hills” trailer showing one of the driving stages from the game without a single on-foot section in sight.

Summer of Arcade, which first began back in 2008, has evolved into a showcase of some of the very best the digital service has to offer. In past years the promotion has brought such classics as team-based fun frolic Castle Crashers, patience testing Trials HD, indie-darling Braid and the silently potent Limbo, among many others. Lets face it, what could be better then using my inaugural post on The Average Gamer as one that highlights the games that will have me (and hopefully you guys) running to the store to play lots of new games? Sorry new Call of Duty map-pack, you are going to have to wait a few weeks.

This year’s Summer of Arcade offerings are as follows: Toy Soldiers: Cold War, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, Fruit Ninja Kinect, Bastion and From Dust.

July 20th – Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Developer: Signal Studios
Price: 1200 MS Points

Nothing says ‘welcome to summer’ more than a bit of good old-fashioned war. A tower defense game for those who grew up with toy soldiers strewn across the floor (yes of course I will pick them up before bed time) and the Toy Story 1 VHS playing on a loop throughout the weekend. How anyone could not fall in love with its wonderfully nostalgic style and playful cold war setting is beyond me.

This is the latest installment in Signal Studio’s well-loved Toy Soldiers series, this time pitting you against the red menace. The game promises to bring intense and challenging gameplay to the mix – with the studio promising rebalanced weapons, more placement locations and an even bigger arsenal to take down the Red’s. Certainly won’t hear me complaining. You won’t be facing the pesky soviets alone mind, Cold War gives you the option of bringing a pal into the fray in either local or online co-op. Survival mode also options in a handful of mini-games that will have your friends competing for the number one spot on the leaderboards and really, the only question left unanswered at this stage is whether Signal Studios plan on dedicating a whole button on your controller to the war cry of “WOLVERINES!” I hope that they do, although this is of course why headsets were invented.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War looks like it’s kicking off the Summer of Arcade in style, see you on the frontline recruits – I’ll be the guy pretending to be Patrick Swayze, you can be Charlie Sheen (Go watch Red Dawn if you don’t know what I’m talking about)!

July 27th – Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Developer: Fuelcell
Price: 1200 MS Points

I had my eyes on this one for a long time, and who can blame me. This gorgeous 2D side scrolling adventure game gives you the chance to pilot a curiously quiet UFO through (as the name might suggest) an insanely twisted world. Expansive landscapes await as writhing enemies quickly bring an epic scale to the infectious visuals. World hazards and unique environments are, like last years Limbo, going to have people talking in a state of awe – but it’s the gameplay that will keep us playing Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet for months to come.

Part-exploration, in the same vein as classic-’find the item to progress’-Metroid, and other part skill-testing duck & weave combat. Boss’s tout glowing weak points, enemies are committed to your destruction and the way forward will never be without a carefully placed pipe or rock. Complex puzzles and controller gripping battles are promised, as is a robust 10-hour single player campaign, if that’s not enough for you there is also an option for four-player online co-op. Spoiled much? Seeing Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet in motion is a thing of corrupted grace and this debut game from Fuelcell (fronted by the mind of Michel Gagne) is easily my most anticipated of the lot. I have a strange desperation for side scrolling madness; I have a feeling this will bring it in ways I never thought possible.

August 3rd – Fruit Ninja Kinect
Developer: Halfbrick
Price: 800 MS Points

The hugely popular iPhone game Fruit Ninja is finally making its way over to Xbox Live in the form of Fruit Ninja Kinect. Supposedly utilising the immense power of Kinect to deliver an unprecedented level of fruit slicing precision, lets hope this is a little less Eye Toy and a little more Cooking Mama, ’cause we don’t want another Totemball on our hands now do we Microsoft? Fruit Ninja had you attempting to slice fruit in half as it flew across a chopping board, racking up points for your dexterity, accuracy and level of chopability (it’s totally a word).

The game ended if you missed three pieces of fruit, a difficulty that plagued even those of us with ninja fingers trained by the League of Shadows. Halfbrick have hopefully brought a bit of a rebalance into the mix, especially as your arms will now be the tools of choice instead of your index finger.

Kinect is in desperate need of cheaper pick up & play games, and hopefully Fruit Ninja Kinect is a sign of things to come. If developers can find a way to port more iPhone/iPad games over to the platform, then seeing games like Canabalt, Angry Birds and even some point and click adventures shouldn’t be too much of a long shot. Every year there is a ‘casual’ audience game within the line-up and this is 2011′s. It won’t be for everyone, but if you have a Kinect this should be on your list… besides, who doesn’t love flailing there arms around with the curtains open every so often?

August 10th – Bastion
Developer: Super Giant Games
Price: 1200 MS Points

A promising new title, Bastion has been sitting on the outskirts of my radar for well over a year now and if it delivers on it’s promises then it could be a very impressive debut game from Super Giant Games. This innovative action RPG looks like it could be the blend of narration, visuals and gameplay we’ve been waiting XBLA titles to deliver. Not only does Bastion boast a massive RPG scale story, but it also manages to give you the player your own personalized narration through the journey. It’s refreshing to feel like you are having your own legendary tale carved into stone, it needs to be seen and heard in action to be fully understood (and appreciated) but suffice to say it helps build a rather unique trip through an otherwise linear path.

The gameplay looks fluid and engaging enough, the things developers are managing to achieve with the XBLA becomes more impressive every year – I just didn’t expect it from bedroom developers like Super Giant. One look at a trailer and the visuals should have you laying down your MS points, 40 hand-painted environments that form and crumble around your feet, again, look incredibly impressive in motion. Saying that though, the trailers don’t give Bastion the justice it deserves. Set yourself up with some gameplay footage, be astounded and get ready to hire someone with a radio voice to follow you ‘round town narrating your weekly shop. Bastion may not only kick-ass, but it could be lifestyle changer as well.

August 17th – From Dust
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft
Price: 1200 MS Points

What started as an original concept from Eric Chahi, the mind behind Amiga classics Another World and Flashback, has evolved into this – a modern, yet minimalistic, god game for the downloadable era. Looking to pick up the pieces of the many failed attempts at god games on XBLA over the years, From Dust shifts the emphasis away from simple resource and/or people management and instead heaps focus onto nature – the face of the landscapes itself. The AI looks to be incredibly intuitive, with the villagers taking to building settlements and going on about their daily lives as they see fit… well, when they aren’t being terrorised by all manor of natural disasters and encounters. It’s your job to furiously shift, destroy and alter the earth, sands, waters and natural curiosities of the environment to protect your citizens from certain death as everything crumbles around them.

Ubisoft Montpellier is seemingly injecting a sharp difficulty curve into From Dust, so those of you sick of being hand held through your god games like I am, get ready for some serious sessions of concentration. It’s about time we got some innovation in this genre and Eric Chahi looks to be bringing his minimalistic-platforming experience to a whole new field and I can’t wait to see how this turns out. No word on whether or not you can trap your villagers in the middle of a sea of burning water until they offer up sacrifices of Microsoft points to release them from their fiery hell… you can always hope though.

As an added bonus we also been told that if you purchase all five Summer of Arcade titles Microsoft will give you a free copy of Crimson Alliance come September 7th. Apparently a fast-paced action RPG with a heavy emphasis on co-op, the last title Microsoft ‘gifted’ us was Undertow a few Christmas back, so I think I’ll reserve judgment on that one till then.

Right then, that’s it for Summer of Arcade 2011. Let us know what you will be buying from the bunch and what has you excited. Check back in with Average Gamer over the coming weeks for interviews with developers and reviews of the coming games.

Josh West is a gamer and comic-book fan. You can find him on Twitter as OrigamiKid and read his comic-book culture articles over at The Negative Zone

The following actions each earn 1 buddy token:

• Play 1 game in the beta
• Play 20+ hours of the Gears of War 3 beta
• Buy a 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription
• Play 100 hours of any Gears of War title, to date
• Buy Gears of War from Games on Demand, a Gears Avatar, or any of the Gears DLC

You can earn a maximum of 5 tokens. Microsoft will then email you any tokens you’ve earned on the 8th May 2011. At least you can now tell your Gears of War 3 loving friends there’s not much longer to wait.

Don’t forget, you’ve only got until the 4th May 2011 to earn these tokens. Check out what Weefz thought of the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta.

Gears of War 3 is due for release on the 20th Sep 2011 only on Xbox 360.

[Update: This may be EU only. We're waiting on confirmation.]

During the weekend Microsoft are hoping to set a Guinness World Record for the most people taking part in a 100m sprint….in Kinect Sports. The event takes place on Saturday 23rd April at 18:00 (BST), so if you are taking part, don’t be late. Don’t forget, you will need a copy of Kinect Sports and a Xbox 360 with Kinect to play it on.

You will also be able to compare your times against other professional athletes like Graeme Swann (England cricketer), Amy Williams (skeleton), Louis Smith (gymnastics) and Darius Knight (table tennis), none of which are 100m sprinters o.0

There’s also some prizes on offer during the weekend:

• Meet and train with WBA World super lightweight champion Amir Khan
• Pair of VIP Premier League tickets for a match of your choice during the 2011/2012 season
• Reebok trainers and clothing
• Microsoft Points
• Free Zune Passes

Hope to see you all online during the weekend and taking full advantage of Microsoft’s hospitality.

Update 26th Apr 2011: Yay, a new new Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous online 100m sprint with 10,539 participants was set over the weekend. Good job people!

Currently in development for the PlayStation network and Xbox LIVE, SEGA Rally online arcade is sounding very much like a greatest hits compilation of SEGA Rally as it’s been inspired by both SEGA Rally Revo and SEGA Rally 3:

We’ve blended our hit arcade racing series with the best elements from the console versions to bring our fans the SEGA Rally experience in compact, downloadable format,” said Haruki Satomi, Vice President of Digital Business at SEGA. “Whether they’re new to the SEGA Rally series or they’ve participated in countless races over the years, we’re confident everyone will enjoy the wide variety of features included in this fan favorite.

Features:

All in all this is fairly standard stuff for an online racer, with nothing really revolutionary in the feature list. However, it is a SEGA Rally game, so I’m hoping there will be a little bit of SEGA magic in there somewhere. Don’t forget SEGA is responsible for these driving classics:

Virtua Racing (1992):

Daytona USA (1994):

SEGA Rally Online Arcade will be available later on in 2011 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

[P.S. You've got some SEGA on your SEGA. - Ed]

You play a Zombie accountant that has to collect tax returns whilst not eating your co-workers (however dull they might be) in order to rise up the ranks to become a partner. You can run to the right with increasing speed and jump. Err, yeah, that’s about all you have left in terms of skills after Zombification. Oh, you can also eat BRRAAAIIIIINNNNSSSSSS!

Zombie Accountant is out now on Xbox LIVE Indie Games marketplace.

One more important date to note is the 31st Dec 2007. Why? Well, this is the date that Microsoft use to determine if you are making your first Xbox LIVE gold membership or marketplace purchase (see the rewards program terms and conditions). If you have bought a gold membership or any marketplace content since this date then you are not eligible for these rewards (total of 200 reward points)

So that’s Microsoft selling the benefits of the program to you. But, what are you likely to see in terms of rewards points in your account. Lets have a look, starting with my Xbox LIVE account.

My Xbox LIVE profile:

• Current membership: Xbox LIVE Gold – 14 months
• Xbox LIVE Gold Family pack: No
• Gold member since: Aug 2009
• Purchased Marketplace content since 31/12/2007: Yes
• Subscribe and use Sky: No

Microsoft rewards available to me:

• Subscribe and use Sky – 100 points
• Purchase selected Marketplace content – Points value varies
• Take a survey each month – Max 7 surveys before rewards program ends (140 points)

Well, I’m not going to subscribe to Sky any time soon, so my total benefits will be 140 reward points or 58% of some night vision goggles for my avatar. Also there is no information about the selected marketplace content at this time (not announced yet), so I cannot factor in these points. Another thing to note – reward points do expire. You need to use them by 30th June 2012.

If you are already a gold member of Xbox LIVE:

• Renew 12 month Xbox LIVE gold membership – 200 points
• Make your 1st purchase on Xbox LIVE marketplace – 100 points
• Complete 7 monthly surveys – 140 points

You are looking at 440 reward points. If you have a 1 or 3 month gold membership then you are going to only get 330 points (3 x 3 month renewal) or 310 points (7 x 1 months renewal). This is assuming that you’ve not bought anything on the marketplace since 31st Dec 2007!

If you are new to Xbox LIVE:

• Purchase 1st Xbox LIVE online gold membership (3 months) – 100 points
• Make your 1st purchase on Xbox LIVE marketplace – 100 points
• Renew 3 month Xbox LIVE gold membership – 30 points
• Renew 3 month Xbox LIVE gold membership – 30 points
• Complete 7 monthly surveys – 140 points

You are looking at 400 reward points.

However, this is not very cost efficient as the 3 x 3 month memberships (~ £44.97) will cost you much more than 14 month membership (12 months plus 2 months free) at £34.99. Purchasing a 14 month gold membership would only net you 100 points, as you can’t renew within in the 7 month lifetime of the rewards program.

Summary:

Don’t expect to see lots of reward points from this program, or none if you are under 18 years old. Yes, you get 400 points from the family pack but this costs £69.99 in the first place. The constraints that Microsoft have put in place limits the benefits to existing Xbox LIVE gold account holders, especially those that have bought anything from the marketplace in the past 3 years. Realistically, unless the selected marketplace content gives significant reward points per item, or there are lots of items to get reward points from you will be struggling to get more than 340 points added to your account.

However, if enough people fill in the monthly surveys, Microsoft will be reaping the rewards from all this lovely information about its Xbox LIVE users at a relatively minimal rewards points cost.