So now, just a few hours before the official launch of the NXE, Columbia Pictures (owned by Sony) has blocked all their streamable content on Netflix from being able to be viewed on the XBox 360. You can still view all their content on the Roku Player, your Windows or Mac, just not the 360. It seems that some licensing issue has materialized just mere hours before the launch.

This whole situation annoys me to no end, and wether it was intentional as some childish scheme to try and hurt the Microsoft launch of the NXE on the 360, or just simply bad timing – it looks awfully bad for Sony.

Here is some coverage on some other sites: Kotaku, Engadget, Destructoid, Aeropause, Joystiq, Kombo

Check out the video:

GamePro gives Assassin’s Creed: 5/5 (100%)
Game Informer scores Assassin’s Creed: 9.5/10 (95%)

A very solid start. More reviews should be available by the end of the weekend.

Here is the TV spot:

I have been playing through the CoD4 single player campaign on the XBOX 360 over the past few nights. The campaign on regular is a bit of the short side, roughly 6 hours or so, but it’s really hard count much against this game. The enemy AI on “regular” isn’t completely dumb, but they also tend to miss a whole lot at close range, while the friendly AI seems more accurate and helpful. At times the game feels very guided as the AI leads you ahead on missions.

There are two more difficult skill levels to choose from, “Hardened” and “Veteran.” While “regular” is fairly easy and you will probably end up getting wasted a dozen or two times or so, Veteran will straight up kick your ass. You better know what your objectives are, and how to complete them because the enemy AI is now extremely accurate. Don’t stray away into the open, or you will be head shotted. Your aim better be top notch and you need to expect the enemy to flank you from all sides. You will see enemy troops jump down from rooftops to try to come around open areas to flank you. Expect to spend an extra 3-6 hours going though the hardest mode.

Once you have completed the game you unlock the “Arcade” mode and the “cheats menu.” Play the arcade mode to get scored and see how you compare against your friends and the rest of the XBL community in the leader boards.

Then there’s the XBox Live side of the game. Anyone who has played the beta knows that this is the most solid online “Call of Duty” game ever made. It was probably not too difficult to improve on crap, so this is a huge leap forward for the series. While there are no achievements for the live portion of the game, Infinity Ward did a great job rewarding you for playing. You gain experience points for playing, and with experience points you unlock different weapons and abilities. You will unlock the ability to create your own class of soldier with what weapons you want to use, and which extra abilities you think you might need. Expect to spend a whole lot of time playing CoD4:MW online.

So with one of the most solid campaign modes on the 360, and an extremely solid multiplayer mode I score “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare”

9.6/10

Buy Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare from Amazon now for $59.99 or buy the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Collector’s Edition for $69.99, either is FREE SHIPPING with Super Saver Shipping.

The “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” review will be coming soon.

Leadership: Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE are leading the charge into the future of gaming and entertainment, bringing the best games, an active community and a growing catalogue of high definition entertainment to all members of the household.

More than 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles have sold across the 37 countries where it is currently available. Xbox LIVE is currently available in 25 countries across the globe.

According to U.S. NPD data, gamers have bought more software for the Xbox 360 (24.3 million units), than software for PS3 and Wii combined (19.8 million units).

Faster than expected, Xbox LIVE has eclipsed the 7 million member milestone and is on track to reach 10 million members by the end of June 2008. In fact, in the last year we’ve added a new Xbox LIVE member every 8 seconds.

Gaming: With the greatest lineup in the history of video games, Xbox 360 is hands down the best gaming console on the market.

There are more than 250 games available today on Xbox 360, including 86 Xbox LIVE Arcade games.

Xbox 360 is the next-gen console with the largest games attach rate at an astounding 6.3 games sold per Xbox 360 owner.

Xbox LIVE members have spent more than 3.2 billion hours playing games on Xbox LIVE with their friends around the world. That is equal to 137 million days or more than 376,000 years of gaming.

To date, Xbox 360 owners have unlocked more than 600 million Achievements. All of those unlocked Achievements have created a total combined Gamerscore of more than 14 billion.

There have been 2.5 billion game sessions hosted since the launch of Xbox 360, with more than 5.6 million hosted each day so far in 2007.

Xbox LIVE Arcade has been a huge hit on Xbox 360, with nearly 70% of all connected consoles downloading and playing Xbox LIVE Arcade titles.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace currently offers nearly 200 free trials and demos, giving owners more free playable content than any other console.

Entertainment: Xbox 360 is the center of digital entertainment in the living room, offering the best in high definition games, movies and television along with access to all your friends, digital music and pictures.

Xbox 360 continues to lead with the largest library of on-demand high-definition movies and television in the U.S. on-demand market. Twenty-nine movie studios and TV networks continue to provide a growing catalogue of premium high- and standard-definition entertainment content that to date totals 2,800 hours.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace is now the leading provider of on-demand high-definition content in the U.S., providing more than twice the number of hours as leading cable operators.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace is home to a growing catalogue of more than 9,000 pieces of individual gaming and entertainment content, downloadable at the click of a button.

There have been 290 million downloads of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Social Networking: Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE offer the largest, most active online community of friends, family and rivals worldwide.

Xbox LIVE is the largest social network in the living room with 2.6 million IM, text and voice messages sent over the service every day.

Since Xbox LIVE launched, 3.1 billion games sessions have been hosted on the service.

The average Xbox LIVE Gold subscriber has 23 friends on their Xbox LIVE friends list.

More than 1.2 billion cross-game invites have been sent since the launch of Xbox 360.

Xbox LIVE Top 10: Check out the list of the top 10 games played over Xbox LIVE, as well as the top 10 worldwide downloads for Xbox LIVE Arcade and Xbox LIVE Marketplace Demos since Xbox 360 launched in November, 2006.

The top 10 games played over Xbox LIVE worldwide:

1. Halo 2
2. Gears of War
3. Hexic HD
4. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
5. Call of Duty 3
6. Call of Duty 2
7. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3
8. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
9. Crackdown
10. PGR3

The top 10 Xbox LIVE Arcade downloads worldwide:

1. Aegis Wing
2. Uno
3. Texas Hold ‘em
4. Geometry Wars Retro Evolved
5. Bankshot Billiards 2
6. Street Fighter ‘II Hyper Fighting
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Classic Arcade
8. Worms
9. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
10. Contra

The top 10 Xbox LIVE Marketplace Demos downloads worldwide:

1. Crackdown
2. Lost Planet E3 2006
3. Dead Rising
4. BioShock
5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
6. Forza Motorsport 2
7. Sonic the Hedgehog
8. Saints Row
9. Superman Returns
10. Colin McRae: DIRT

Source: MSFT Press Release.

Four times in the middle of a live keynote they go into 4-5 minute commercials. What?!?! We missed 95% of the BioShock demo video, great job guys! How about no commercials when you are “covering” a live keynote event? But it gets worse! At the very end of the show, Microsoft/Bungie start showing off a kick ass Halo 3 video. Everyone has been waiting for this. It’s from the campaign.

Around the middle of the video, they cut from the live video feed into a camera shot of the huge screen that everyone attending the event is watching on. They start to pan out and some douche starts talking over the trailer. What the fuck!! You can hear someone telling him to shut up in the background.. and that’s it. They cut straight to a commercial, never showing the ending of the Halo 3 campaign trailer.

Holy shit! If I had known I would have watched online, or read a blog.

Don’t bother watching the G4 TV coverage of Nintendo’s and Sony’s keynotes on TV in the afternoon. Save yourself the frustration and watch online, or just read the blogs and wait for the videos to be released.

Hopefully next year someone more responsible will be able to cover this event. It’s quite obvious G4TV was not prepared. If your cable/satellite provider doesn’t offer G4TV, consider yourself lucky.

Update:

Here is the video – Watch as G4TV ruins the Halo 3 video:

Also, if you belong to Amazon Prime, you can have the console overnighted for 3.99 or 2-Day for free!

Good luck.

Here are some quotes:

Is anyone else on the same boat? I’m most pissed at the mines. The mines totally kill the warthog, which is one of the games major flagships.

Then the shield, takes all skill away from the game, are you -blam!- kidding me? Just a mistake waiting to happen

I agree with the OP. The mines take no skill and the bubble shield is cheap.

Click this link for more goodness.

How about we all wait to try the actual game before we whine about it and critique it. I feel for the Bungie team.

If you have Amazon Prime then you can have the game overnighted for just 3.99. That means that you should have the game the day its released, on April 3rd, as Amazon will usually ship the day before the release.

Pre-Order your copy of Guitar Hero II for XBOX 360 now!