A feast of XBLA games may be headed to Xbox Live Marketplace soon, but that's not all there is. First up, there are a lot of festivities planned for the launch of Halo: Reach. Microsoft is dubbing September 14-20 "Invasion Week," and plenty of Halo goodies will be available "including new gear, exciting content, spectacular prizes and a chance to play with the creators of the game." Microsoft will also be offering opening up Xbox Live Gold features to Silver members from September 17-20. Finally, "all fans that jump online" can download a free "Invasion" theme. It's a bit unclear exactly what's meant by "jump online," whether it be players that play Halo: Reach or simply anyone that signs into Live. We've contacted Microsoft for clarification.

New Deals of the Week are headed down the pipeline as well, with Resident Evil 5 "avatar outfits and game add-ons" receiving as yet unspecified discounts next week. The week of September 13, several puzzle games will get the DoTW treatment. Bust-a-Move Live, Puzzle Chronicles and Tower Bloxx Deluxe are all being knocked from 800 MSP ($10) to 400 MSP ($5), while Gyromancer will drop from 1200 MSP ($15) to 800 MSP ($10).

If you still have money to spend after all that, some new Rock Band 3 Avatar items are now on Marketplace, as are two new Games on Demand, Bully: Scholarship Edition and Cabela's African Safari.

Xbox Live in September: Halo goodies, free Live Gold, cheap puzzle games originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Poor ol' Hideo Kojima has apparently been on the receiving end of a plethora of demands from his rabid fanbase, all crying out for the integration of some of the PS3's patched-in features into Metal Gear Solid 4. The idiosyncratic developer took time out of his busy schedule of eating bizarre-looking foodstuffs to respond by saying, "I wanted to make a 'Complete Version' with trophy support and 3D, but if I did that I wouldn't be able to work on a new game. I wonder if someone else would make it for me."

Well, gang -- any takers? It really shouldn't be too hard. Just drop a trophy in for completing each boss fight, one for beating the game on its hardest difficulty, and one for beating the game using only your wits and a pornographic magazine. Give them some clever names ("I Only Read It For The Articles," for instance), and baby, you're good to go.

Kojima wants a 'Complete' edition of MGS4, if someone else makes it originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Before you and the many thousands of other yous gets a chance to go hands-on with Killzone 3 this weekend at PAX Prime, Famitsu has a smattering of new images to hungrily dig through for new information. One thing solidly confirmed by these shots? Dusters. Hooded dusters, no less!

And hey, if you ask us, there's a severe underuse of dusters in the world of video games. Unfortunately for the gentleman above, he seems to have been socked in the face several moments before the image was taken, so his duster is fluttering through the air along with his torso. Hopefullyyou'll fare better this weekend at PAX!

Killzone 3 screenshots feature hoodies, pummeling originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Oh boy -- yes, this certainly seems like an announcement for an announcement, and you know how much we love those (not at all). But 2K Games' blog has posted that "something big is going to happen at the 2K Games booth" this weekend for PAX 2010, and it's got everyone riled up. If nothing else, just consider this a PSA that there will be a live stream starting tomorrow morning at 10AM PDT, in which we'll supposedly see "something big." An elephant? An Ubisoft Toronto game? Tom Hanks after a wish?

If it helps (it doesn't), Duke Nukem co-creator George Broussard has tweeted a link to a picture of pigs flying, which some folks have taken to mean that Duke Nukem For.. -- oh, never mind, we can't even bring ourselves to say its name. Let's just all wait patiently until the live stream starts tomorrow, and then we won't be disappointed when 2K announces that it has convinced President Christoph Hartmann to attend PAX in a silly gorilla suit.

2K Games to stream 'something big' from PAX tomorrow morning originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nearly nine years after the game's release on Nintendo's GameCube, an Easter Egg that unlocks a verbally abusive asshole mode in Wave Race: Blue Storm has been discovered. More »

Moving from game development to multidisciplinary writing, Irrational Games' Ken Levine and Shawn Elliott chat with Amazing Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis on the second episode of Irrational Interviews, released this week. Did you know that what became BioShock was heavily seeded by a trip Levine and his wife took to Rockefeller Center? You would've if you'd already listened to the episode! What're you waiting for, dummy?

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[Image credit: Pinguino]

Irrational interviews Marvel's Brian Michael Bendis on writing originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Monster Hunter brand is big in Japan. Big enough to support an adorable, gameplay changing spin-off in the form of MonHun Nikki: Poka Poka Ailu Mura. It's Japan's biggest game right now. More »

Nintendo announced the Japanese release date for Kirby's Epic Yarn -- October 14 -- and released a new trailer for the occasion. We've embedded it after the break, but we encourage you to go to Nintendo's site anyway, for the most charming video controls you'll ever, ever see.

Continue reading Thank Japan for this new Kirby's Epic Yarn trailer

Thank Japan for this new Kirby's Epic Yarn trailer originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Many sports gamers imagine backstories and outside-the-lines interactions for their created players. NBA 2K11's servicing that this year with "My Career," a narrative hub for the game's singleplayer career mode that offers a chance to create a public persona. More »

Ubisoft Europe managing director Alain Corre isn't one to parse words -- for instance, he told GamesIndustry.biz in a recent interview, "The games that are not triple-A are not profitable anymore. And that's changed in the last 18 months." He admitted that "we are still releasing some new franchises," citing Ruse as a calculated aberration. "It's a niche so we know the size of the market for real-time strategy games ... with niche games it's possible to have a hit more than in the triple-A space, especially in the fourth and fifth year of the console cycle."

To Corre, it's a question of investment risk. "To a certain extent it becomes less risky to invest more in a single game or franchise than spreading your investment between three or four games," he explained. "If those three or four games are not at the right quality level, you are sure to lose money. So the business model has changed and we're changing our way of making hardcore games." He said we might not see a new IP push from Ubisoft until the next generation of consoles, which he foresees to be "less than five years" from now.

Oddly, he doesn't bring up Ubisoft Toronto -- a studio headed by Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond -- that's said to be working on both "AAA-game" and new IP. Nor did he address the fate of the scantly brought up I Am Alive, supposedly coming out next spring. Based on Corre's statements, we've at least managed to come to the conclusion that Beyond Good & Evil 2 (not a new IP) should be getting a release date during this console cycle. That's ... something?

Ubisoft cautious over new IP, remains focused on established franchises originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.