Deadliest Catch coming to Xbox 360

Sig, Edgar and Norman Hansen, the three brothers whose dangerous crab fishing adventures are the centerpiece of Discovery Chanel’s “Deadliest Catch”, are banking on the show’s phenomenal success as they move to bring the real-life television show to videogame form with Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm.

The project began in October 2005 when the Hansen brothers teamed up with developer Liquid Dragon Studios to begin putting the game together. Now, with newcomer publisher Greenwave onboard (no pun intended), Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm is set for release in April of this year.

Whether the game will be a hit or not remains to be seen, but to their credit, both the Hansens and the team at Liquid Dragon have gone to great lengths to bring realism to the game with four real Bering Sea harbors and 34,000 miles of real Bering Sea coastline created from the United States Geological Survey along with “the best wave effects in a video game to date”.

The official game announcement video, hosted by Captain Sig Hansen himself, can be viewed at www.discovery.com/deadliestcatch and new videos, featuring Captains and crewmembers from the show, are promised to arrive every Tuesday until game launch.

I’ve included a few screenshots from the game below.

Any thoughts or comments?

Spotlight on Community – 360Voice.com

For the first entry in the “Spotlight on Community” series, I present to you 360Voice.com.

While the website drew initial attention from its unique and humorous “Give your Xbox its own blog” features, 360Voice.com has grown into one of the most comprehensive statistic-tracking websites in existence.

Members get their own personal page which includes their Xbox 360’s blog entries, a list of their most played games, world leaderboard standings, earned badges and more. Links within these lists lead you to even more refined statistics, giving you a finely detailed picture of your gaming prowess.

Ever wonder what happened to the Old Spice Experience Challenges that first appeared on Xbox.com? 360Voice.com has got ‘em. Members can join a challenge or start their own with winners receiving prizes from Microsoft Points cards to Best Buy gift cards and more.

What I find to be just as impressive as everything listed above is the fact that the three administrators of 360Voice.com all have full-time day jobs while managing the website in their spare time. That, my friends, is community dedication!

I highly recommend you check out their site. Membership is free and the resources they provide are outstanding!

Major League Baseball 2K8 producer interview links

I was planning on participating in a conference call with 2K Sports’ Ben Brinkman, producer of this year’s Major League Baseball 2K8, but unforseen circumstances prevented me from dialing in and subsequently writing up the interview.

However, fellow MVP WitchKing9 over at 2OpGaming.com has posted the entire audio from the conference call along with his own written coverage so I encourage you to head over to his site and check it out!

*UPDATE: 2K Sports announced today (2/28) that the game has officially gone gold and will hit retail shelves as scheduled on March 4th.*

Xbox LIVE Arcade Awards presented

After tallying the more than 26,000 votes cast, the winners of the inaugural Xbox LIVE Arcade Awards were announced today by Microsoft during a private developer reception at GDC.

And the winners are:

* Best Overall Arcade Game: Bomberman Live (Hudson Entertainment)
* Best Classic Game: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami Digital Entertainment)
* Best Original Game: Pac-Man: Championship Edition (NAMCO BANDAI Games)
* Best Family-Friendly Game: Pac-Man: Championship Edition (NAMCO BANDAI Games)
* Best Competitive Multiplayer Game: Bomberman Live (Hudson Entertainment)
* Best Cooperative Multiplayer Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Ubisoft Entertainment)
* Best-Selling Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Ubisoft Entertainment)
* Most-Played Game: Worms (Team17 Software Limited)
* Highest-Rated Game: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami Digital Entertainment)
* Xbox LIVE Arcade Staff Choice: Pac-Man: Championship Edition (NAMCO BANDAI Games)

NOTE: The finalists in each award category were chosen by a panel of select industry journalists, and the winners for the first six categories were determined by popular vote, with the final four categories decided by sales and gameplay data, Metacritic score or staff vote.

Become a professional gamer

How would you like to become a professional gamer? If you think you have what it takes to compete at the professional level then pay attention:

The Championship Gaming Series will be holding the 2008 North American Combine and Draft on March 8-9 at the South by Southwest ScreenBurn Arcade in Austin, Texas. General Managers from CGS pro teams San Francisco Optx, Los Angeles Complexity, Dallas Venom, New York 3D, Carolina Core and world champion Chicago Chimera will be on hand to evaluate players and award contracts as CGS professional gamers for the 2008 season.

Some of the official game titles that players will be competing in are: Counter-Strike: Source (PC), FIFA 08 (PC), Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360) and Forza 2 (Xbox 360).

Anyone interested in competing at the Combine must reserve a space by registering online at http://thecgs.com/index.php?s=events&d=registration&id=1. However, if you would like to attend as a spectator only, the event is free and open to the public with no registration required.

WHERE:
South by Southwest ScreenBurn Arcade
Austin Convention Center
500 East Cesar Chavez Street
Austin, TX 78701
Exhibit Hall 4 – First Level
WHEN:
Combine: Saturday, March 8 – 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Combine: Sunday, March 9 – 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Draft: Sunday, March 9 – 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Spotlight on Community

There’s no question that the biggest factor separating Xbox 360 from the other 2 major consoles is the community that surrounds it. From Microsoft and the Xbox.com forums to the remarkable fansites that exist, the Xbox community offers up countless ways for fans to share their thoughts and, in essence, their passion for gaming.

Beginning this week, I will be highlighting some of the best community-oriented sites that I’ve come across in my travels. My hope is to introduce you to some outstanding websites which you may not have known about, while also acknowledging the great people who have dedicated so much of their time to help bring the gaming community together.

You know you’re a terrible gamer when…

Not too long ago, my kids asked me if I wanted to join them for some NFL Tour. They were looking to have all three of us on the same team to see what we could do. Unfortunately, we discovered that the game limits the number of human players to two on a team. That’s when things got interesting…

Each one of them wanted to play solo, so the argument began as to who was going to get dad. I did, of course, chose to ignore the fact that they were trying to pawn me off onto each other as though I was more of a burden than an asset.

It was then decided that each would take a turn with me as their teammate beginning with my youngest (8). Being on the same team, however, didn’t mean that I was entitled to participate as my son continuously threw the ball to everyone on the team except me. On the few occasions that he did decide to use me, I failed to catch most of his passes (due to my not expecting to get the ball). While he didn’t criticize me out loud, the under-his-breath mumbles were hard to miss. We lost the game 35-14.

My oldest son (12) chose the same basic strategy of avoiding his teammate-father, the only difference being that when I screwed up a play, he had no problem berating me for my lack of skills. The two of us went on to lose 42-0.

Strangely enough, I haven’t gotten an invitation for a rematch. I’m sure they just haven’t gotten around to it yet…

New Guitar Hero title coming this June

Ok, I know I said I was no longer going to be posting gaming news here on the blog, but I thought this was interesting so I made an exception.

Activision has just announced that they will be releasing Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, a brand new full version of the game centered around rock icon Aerosmith, this June.

The game will let players rock alongside lead singer Steven Tyler and drummer Joey Kramer as they take on the role of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford along with bassist Tom Hamilton to experience the band’s rise from relative unknowns to rock legends.

To help promote this new collaboration, Activision will be releasing Aerosmith’s “Dream On” as a free download for Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock from February 16-18 on Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

I’ll get some more details on this, along with some media from the game, later today on XE.

Win a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Activision is currently holding the Guitar Hero Fan Appreciation Giveaway where fans can enter to win a trip to New York City for this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The winner will receive two tickets to the ceremony, round-trip airfare to New York City, hotel accommodations, ground transportation and $500 in spending cash!

However, this contest ends TONIGHT at 11:59 PDT so you need to enter NOW!

All the details on how to enter, as well as contest rules and info can be found at http://www.guitarhero.com/forums/8/forum_topics/48186.

Good luck!

XE is temporarily down

I noticed yesterday that our website was not available, which I attributed to one of those minor issues that pop up now and again just to keep things interesting. I was sort of right…

After speaking with Ross, I learned that the server host was doing some maintenance on their end and something went wrong. They’re currently working on resolving the issues and have managed to get some of their other customers back up and running. We’re in line for service so I’ll post when things are functioning again.

*UPDATE: We’re back online!

More stuff to win!

Starting today, Microsoft and Void Star Creations are giving U.S. and Canadian gamers a chance to win some pretty cool prizes in the Poker Smash Play & Win Sweepstakes.

All you have to do is download either the demo or full version of today’s Arcade Wednesday release Poker Smash between now and 11:59 p.m. PST on Wednesday, February 13 and you’ll be automatically entered to win.

The Grand Prize winner will walk away with a brand new Xbox Elite console while four additional winners will be chosen to receive Microsoft Points cards.

For more information on the sweepstakes, visit www.xbox.com/pokersmash.

Pre-game what?

Ok. Here in the rabid household, the chili is on the stove, the ribs are cooking along with the wings and I’m watching the pre-game show on Fox. At least, I thought I was watching pre-game…

Paula Abdul, Ryan Seacrest…WTF??

The world really is going to hell in a handbasket.

Go Pats