GamesBloggo - Your source on game news! January 2009

Egosoft has announced that an update for X3: Terran Conflict is now available. Besides a number of fixes, this update, version 1.2, also introduces a completely new game mission, in which players will fill the role of an inspector that evaluates asteroids and potential clients.

Here are the details:

* A full new mission that allows players to select and evaluate asteroids
* Mouse control enabled for the external view
* Several upgrades on the user interface
* When a target is lost, the closest enemy will become the new target automatically.
* Fleet management enhanced

The update can be downloaded from the main loading game screen or directly from the official site.

Microsoft has announced that the new advertising campaign entitled “Live Your moment” has already started in the USA and it will arrive in Europe next week. The campaign promises to be the biggest of the XBox history and it’ll be aimed at the casual users, “true people that enjoy gaming and share the experience with friends and family”. The new campaing should offer a bigger exposure to XBox’s new pricing cuts, and it’s not related to the New XBox Experience, as it would have been expected.

Blizzard’s co-founder, Frank Pearce, who’s currently engaged in the StarCraft Ii development, has told VideoGaming247 the company’s intention in keeping a correct game balance when it comes to potential new players and the “hardcore” fans.

“We certainly want to be able to expose the franchise to new players,”, says Pearce. “But yeah, we have to balance that against serving the existing, passionate StarCraft community. One of our goals is always to make games that are really accessible - easy to learn, difficult to master, right? So, a pretty easy learning curve, but a lot of components to the game as far as strategies go that can really help someone that wants to be an expert player and distinguish themselves from the average player.”

In fact, that’s a very important point to be aware of, since Starcraft is still one of the most popular competitive RTS (if not the most famous), and changing the line followed by the game and its fans for so many years might be indeed risky.

Microsoft has confirmed that the XBox 360 will have a reduction in prices on September 19th.

“Xbox 360 has now sold over 20 million consoles worldwide and due to its unprecedented success, we are now able to pass on the rewards of that success to the consumer with a new retail pricing from £129.99”, said Neil Thompson, Senior Regional Director, Microsoft UK. “With more games, more entertainment with Xbox LIVE and now even more value, we are looking forward to welcoming more customers into the leading Next Generation console, Xbox 360.”

The new prices should be of €179, 60Gb Pros to €239 and Elites to €299.