Xbox 360 Games of the year 2007

In our opinion the Xbox 360 has been the console of year and with that in mind, we have put together our top five games of the year for 2007. If you are getting a Xbox 360 for Christmas, you should seriously look at these titles.

5. Half Life 2: Orange Box

Excellent value for money and plenty of hours gameplay, with Half Life 2 including Episode 1 and Episode 2, Portal and the amazing online Team Fortress 2.

Five brilliant games in one - its a must have on the 360

4. PGR4 - Project Gotham Racing 4

Whilst PGR3 was technically brilliant it was a bit too anal for a lot of gamers, the smallest error costing you the race and make the whole process frustrating. PGR4 comes back much stronger and puts the fun back into the series.

With a fantastic amount of cars to choose from, incredible graphics and fantastic gameplay, its a racers dream.

3. Halo 3

Truly fantastic - there isn't much you can say about this game. At first it feels familar and you wonder if it has moved on that much since Halo 2 but as you get further into the game you get blown away by the awesome graphics and sheer scale of the battles.

This must be one of those games that anyone who owns a Xbox 360 must have.

2. Call of Duty 4

Infinity Ward have come back with an absolute stormer with COD4 on the Xbox 360. The graphics are amazing, echoing the footage we are all used to watching on channels with Sky News. The game play is gripping and the multiplayer is best of class, hours and hours of fun. Only stayed off the no.1 spot cause the single player is just a little too short (but at least you'll complete it!)

1. BioShock

Some games don't live up to their hype which leaves a bad taste in your mouth. BioShock however delivers and delivers. Gripping from the offset this creepy FPS takes you to an amazing underwater world where you really can choose your destiny. The graphics are incredible, the story line is awesome and you just won't put this down. So good, you'll start again from the beginning and choose a different path!

No spoilers here but this one is an example of the sheer power of the Xbox 360 and happily the Gadgets, Gaming and Girls Blog winner of Xbox 360 Game of the Year. Enjoy it!

First Impressions of Xbox 360 Fall Update

Just a quick update to tell you about my first impressions of the Xbox 360 Fall Update released today, December 4 2007. So far I am impressed!

The update took only seconds to download and install, much faster than PS3 updates take on the same connection, and the Xbox 360 screen loaded up. It seemed to pause on here for longer than usual before saying I had signed in, then it took me to the Xbox Live tab and showed me signing into Xbox Live as normal.

Sticking with this tab you can now go into Inside Xbox which at present has one update from AceyBongos (awful name) explaining that updates will be due every Thursday. I guess they are going for a Blog appeal with weekly updates (unlike us who post at least once a day!). Apart from this no real changes to notice to this tab.

Going into Marketplace is where the real improvements have been made. "Spotlight" gives you the latest downloads, which you can navigate left and right throwing different sub lists, e.g. What's Hot, Top Demos, Top Arcade, etc. It much clearer to navigate.

Back to Marketplace you have "New Arrivals" which again you go left and right to see Games, Arcarde, Xbox Originals, etc.

Then you have "Games Store" which gives you an up and down list that features Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Originals, Game Demos, etc. Xbox Originals is a cool feature on this update, you click on it and makes the display black with green text and graphics in a like the original Xbox. Ah it makes you feel all retro and you almost miss it! There are 7 demo's showing in my region (UK) that include Halo, Crimson Skies, Fuzion Frenzy and Fable. All priced at 1200 credits and approx 2Gb downloads... download a few of these and you will wish you had the Elite or at least the 120Gb hard drive.

The last point I'll touch on for now cause I don't want to spoil all your surprises, is the Games tab. Now when you into "Games Library" you can click on My Games which allows you to flick left and right between All Games, Arcade, Demos, Recently Downloaded, etc. It is just a much better way of navigating and I'm really pleased they have done it like this.

I'm off to play but left me know your thoughts on the subject.

Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard

The guys from Gamerscoreblog walk you through the Xbox 360 Fall Update showing you all the new changes we can expect tomorrow, December 4.

The new update helps to keep you in touch with all that’s new on Xbox LIVE Marketplace – the Spotlight function points you to great new content and promos, while a New Arrivals area gives you easy access to all the freshest downloadable goodies on LIVE. Inside Xbox is another new feature that will keep you up to date with all the latest developments in the world of Xbox Live, and then there’s Xbox Originals. This exciting feature allows you to download a range of classic Xbox titles like Halo, Psychonauts and Burnout 3: Takedown and play them on your Xbox 360. Bring them on!

DivX Support on Xbox 360

Wow, some thought it would never happen but it shows what a bit of competition from the PS3 can do.

It has been announced today that Microsoft will be releasing MPEG-4 Part 2 video codec support as used in the popular DivX and Xvid codecs.

In simple terms this should allow you to play videos with an .avi extension, as long as they have been encoded in either the simple or enhanced simple profile.

These formats are popular on the internet as they maintain a good quality image whilst keeping the file size to a managable size.

This has been reported officially today by Microsoft and will be included in their Fall Update which will be released on December 4. I'll test and update you all then!