The first gameplay footage from the Gears of War 2 campaign was revealed this week, and for the past couple of days, Microsoft has been shoving more materials down our throat. It may sound like a lot, but in fact it's just a bunch of uber-high-res screenshots issued yesterday, and today they re-released the Gears of War 2 'assault' trailer, but without Cliff Bleszinski's commentary. In case you can't make out anything during the intense non-stop action, here's what the trailer is all about, in CliffyB's own words:

"The Locust are back, and they're meaner than ever. And they brought with them a force that can essentially sink entire cities; and it's not just a little emergence hole, it's an entire city going down at once. So humanity's back is against the wall, and we need to strike back against these guys. So the way that we do that is by taking these trucks called Derricks, and we tow these devices called Grind Lifts into Locust-occupied cities. The COG guys get in the Grind Lifts, they barrel down into the depths of the underground, and they fight back against these bad guys."

Both the trailer and the screenshots below are taken from the same level, called "Assault" (the third chapter), from the first act in the single-player campaign.

Price cut rumors are always welcome, particularly when they come true. And for this one, we'll only have to wait a few more days to find out if it's bogus or not. According to this fresh TechRadar story which already spread all over the webs, the price of the Xbox 360 will be cut by €50 on 14 March in Europe. They say the reduction will apply to all Xbox 360 SKUs, and that they confirmed the story with "numerous UK retailers" - none of which agreed to go on record, though.

"This effectively means that the cost of the Xbox 360 Elite system on Amazon will be in the region of £240 (ed. - €313) and the basic Arcade system (without a hard drive) will cost in the region of £150 (ed. - €195)", TechRadar predicts.

Indeed, that would put the price of the lower-spec Xbox 360 Arcade bundle below that of a Wii console. But the numbers are still wildly fluctuating - from £150 on TechRadar, to £170 on MCV, and down to £140 for the Arcade bundle (from what MCV seems to have seen back on TechRadar... weird). Only time - and Microsoft - will tell what's the right price.

I'm pissing in the wind, just pissing in the wind, what a wonderful feeling, my e-peen is happy again... Just when we thought we had finally gotten away from all those silly "make / don't make that [X game sequel]", "close / don't close that [Y studio]" petitions... something new comes along. A boycott, no less! A boycott against the holy mother of monopolistic corporations - Microsoft - and all the developers and publishers jumping the Games for Windows Live bandwagon. Sort of a PC Gaming Axis, to combat the evil (?!) PC Gaming Alliance, and gas all the new-age untermenschen who don't agree that online PC gaming should be free. Sieg Heil!

As much as we cherish our fragging memories from the good old LAN parties with Doom 2 and Quake, we no longer live in the '90s, nor does the rest of the gaming world. Well, except for a select few, like the ones mentioned above - with their inspiring futile Boycott Games for Windows - Live initiative. Do they have a point? Sure. Should the Windows Live [gold] service be free? Sure. Should Halo 2 be natively playable on Windows XP? Sure. Should lolis be legal? Sure. But hey - there's not much we can do about any of these, no matter how many clicks we give. And God knows we keep clicking for lolis like madmen!

Did Hironobu Sakaguchi's classic Final Fantasy game get any sequels?... A few, yeah. Is Blue Dragon getting a sequel?... You bet! What about Lost Odyssey?... I don't see why not. Microsoft Japan seem to be happy with the game's 100,000+ sales there so far, and Lost Odyssey is also enjoying a lukewarm success over on this part of the world. It's only been out in North America for a couple of weeks, and releasing in Europe tomorrow, so it's still too early to tell exactly how well the game is doing on a woldwide scale.

But don't take it from us. Take it from the H&E Head of Microsoft Japan, what's-his-name, interviewed by Nikkei (loose Google translation, via AllRPG). He's the one claiming they're happy with the game sales in the territory, and he also says that the Lost Odyssey series will grow in time. Meaning one or more sequels are coming. Hardly shocking, but still nice to get an "official hint" on this.

An interesting interview with Microsoft’s John Schappert is up on Eurogamer. Quite interesting. Amongst others, the corporate official mentions that their little X360 baby sold pretty good in all these years, topping no less than 18 million units. While I do not know if this includes re-stockings caused by the dreaded Ring of Death, Microsoft is happy. Hell, its employees must have reached a simultaneous mass orgasm. To sum things up, here is a little digest of the interview, which can be found here:

Eurogamer: Yo.
John Schappert: HI GUSY

Eurogamer: Soo…. 16%.
John Schappert: Yep.

Eurogamer: How many folks risked their savings to get a glimpse of the shiny ringy thing?
John Schappert: 18 millions, lol.

Eurogamer: kk.
John Schappert: kkthxbai.

The horror... the horror... Microsoft sure got off to an embarrassing start at GDC 2008, where one of their Xbox 360 consoles was viciously killed by the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" - as witnessed and filmed by a BBC technology editor haunting the conference halls in search for victims.

"On Microsoft's own stand at the show one of the demo consoles has a rather familiar problem - the red ring of death. There's no way of knowing if this particular console was manufactured before or after Microsoft identified the problems with the machines. But at the very least it's embarrassing for the company that its own stock of demo machines are still susceptible to the problem."

Ironically, this is happening just several days after Microsoft desperately tried to combat that report about its consoles failing at a rate of 16%. Well, good luck with that now!

Someone is getting either pissed off, or really afraid by the sudden “console” invasion. PC gamers are no longer safe in their apartments, cats and dogs alike are beginning to sense the terror of not being able to randomly press our keyboard buttons exactly in the middle of a raid... More and more producers and publishers are greedily eyeing the console environment, which, let’s face it, has its advantages. Like not having to daily invest millions of yen into new hardware.

That’s why some of the big names in the gaming industry, especially in the PC department (like Microsoft, Nvidia, AMD), decided to announce a strategic alliance at the upcoming Game Developers Conference. This seemingly desperate PC Gaming Alliance is meant to promote our good old hunk of wires, conductors and processors as a TRUE gaming platform. In the face of annihilation. In the presence of a God.

Ah well, best of luck to them. As long as World of Warcraft stays on the PC, they are safe with me.

The poor thing has been rumoured as dying for too long, so Microsoft's Shane Kim finally took pity on it - and its potential fans - by confirming the cancellation of Cryptic Studios' Marvel Comics MMO, in an interview with MTV Multiplayer.

"I'll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO. It was an amicable decision... It's just something that we felt that, for us and for them, it would be better if we ended development. Which is disappointing, because that had a lot of promise. But sometimes you have to make these decisions."

In other words, the game sucked fireballs. Besides, you'd have to be insane to launch another MMO game in the next five-to-ten years. With WoW still going strong, what's the point? (yes, I'm gossiping about you, Conan!)