Lets start this off with some good news on a freebie: Game|Life reports that the first ever release of a high-definition episode of South Park will hit Xbox Live Marketplace. Starting Tuesday March 6, the Season 8 classic “Good Times With Weapons” will be available to Gold members for no cost for 2 weeks. Those without Xbox 360 or Live can still get the episode: On March 20 Best Buy is giving an HD-DVD for free with the purchase of any Xbox HD DVD player or a 360.

Personally, I grabbed Alien Hominid and Ms Pac-Man on Live Arcade this week. Alien Hominid is about the hardest game I’ve ever played on XBLA, and includes a boss event I cannot pass because I have no idea what to shoot. Ms Pac-Man I cleared all 200 Achievement points in under 2 hours. Go figure. Worms HD finally drops next week for another 800 points ($10), but I’ll pass until I actually finish Alien Hominid.

Tekken finally made it to the North American Playstation Network. Which is pretty good if you have a 1080p TV, don’t own the PS2 or the PSP versions. Nah, its budget priced and worth your dollar to get it in the prettiest format available. I understand you can buy Jin a new hat in this one. The much hyped Warhawk sequel from Sony has been downgraded from a full game to a Multiplayer-only download title. Well at least they won’t charge you an arm and a leg for it now.

The best game on the download circuit this week has to go to the best game ever made, The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Nearly a decade after release, its still got the highest rating of any game released before or since. $10 is a hefty sum on Wii‘s Virtual Console, but considering how vast the game is, its a bargain. Nintendo obviously knows how awesome this is, as its been released on the GameCube twice, but if you missed those or (god forbid) the N64 original, now is the time.

Splinter taught them to be Ninja Teens, Ubisoft turned them into a Prince of Persia knock-off.
Nah, I’m not going to slam this completely, because the ninja action combined with some wall jumping looks totally natural for this franchise, especially given what we’ve seen from the two trailers. Ubisoft couldn’t do worse than Konami, who turned in from pretty forgettable PS2 games based on the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle animated series.

But if new games don’t float your boat, how about an olde one? 360 Style got a hold of some screen shots of the original 1989 TMNT game for Xbox Live Arcade thats floating around on Partnernet(a developer only version of Xbox Live). It looks legit, and if there is 4-player online co-op I’ll fork over whatever asking price they have. A fairly straight forward button masher, I have to wonder what will be used for achievements…

Finally, the ESRB has rated the original NES game for play on the Wii Virtual Console.

Update: InsideGamer.nl has video of the Xbox Live game in action!

Instead of simply porting over Unreal Championship 2004 on the PC, Epic Games (you know them from “Gears of War”) decided to take a different approach to the next Xbox iteration of its Xbox FPS fragfest. From Doom’s chainsaw to Halo’s energy sword, melee combat has always been a part of FPS combat. This time however, hand-to-hand combat skills are just as important as your l33t sniper skills. Shooting at your opponent isn’t enough, now you have to learn how to pull off combos, reflect shots, and use special attacks just like in a fighting game. There are several characters to choose from, each with different abilities and techniques. Along with the standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag modes, there is also the new nali slaughter mode, in which you have to kill more Nali creatures than your opponent. Single player modes include tournament ladders for each character, challenge mode, and the story based “Rites of Ascension”, which tells the story of Anubis, one of the game’s characters. Of course, you can also take the game on Xbox Live as well, and you can even grab the free downloadable content (including new characters and arenas) while you’re at it.

The breakout release on the download circuit this week has to go to Playstation Network’s “fl0w”

Fl0w comes from Jenova Chen, the lead behind the highly creative PC game Cloud. It looks like a mash up between Katamari Damacy and Geometry Wars. You control a small organism in a vast expanse of water, and can gobble up those smaller than you, but avoid anything bigger. Naturally, with everything you eat, your microscopic character grows and you’ll be able to take on larger organisms.

Wii Virtual Console gets one of my all time favorites this week with Donkey Kong Country. I mentioned to fellow Powet Army solider Phil Bond that this game is every bit as good as Super Mario World, and I stand by that. Going in for a few levels of Co-op and then beating that giant beaver, all the platforming fun came rushing back. This was truly a special game that resides somewhere between the retro cool of the NES days and the less favorably remembered 32-bit revolution. Back when this came out, the Playstation and Saturn hype machines were getting ready to roar, then Rare and Nintendo dropped a Super NES game that looked better than anything on a CD based system! Sure it wasn’t 3D, but 3D was pretty much a disaster until Mario 64 came along, so this remains one of the great 2D games from the days when 2D was starting to fade.

Xbox Live is taking the shaft 2 weeks in a row now. Wednesday used to be the day to grab new Live Arcade games, but the most notable release to Marketplace recently has been the Borat dashboard theme and picture pack (I’ve taken Azamat as my avatar!). Team 17 hopes to have Worms ready soon, but have been frustrated by Microsoft’s constant delays. THQ announced they’re releasing in a box, much to our surprise. Tetris Evolution better be budget priced, because theres no reason that the world’s most popular puzzle game wouldn’t fit Live Arcade’s standards. An even though I own many other versions of Tetris (in arms reach, I have no less than 5 copies ready to go), I’ll probably buy this Xbox 360 version too.

This enterprising youtuber pretty much sums up whats most fun about Crackdown. The sandbox genre needed some new blood, and the next gen horsepower combined with your abilities to lift and detonate anything in the gameworld are just what the doctor ordered.

You start out in a boring room, where you can grab one of four vehicles provided by your supercop garage. After a senselessly long drive in a tunnel, you land on a street corner in the middle of a firefight between gang members and police. I took this first oppurtunity to kill everything that moved, and it was much more satisfying than in GTA because the aiming system actually kinda works. It’s not great, but I’ll get back to that. Getting back in my car, I drove up the road and find that pretty much everywhere I go there’s gangs, so there’s lots of enemies to kill. I wasted no time finding alternate ways of dealing with this problem by running gangs over, tossing random items at them, using explosives. The visuals are much better than screen shots and even videos give them credit for. It’s a very vibrant world and the hint of cartoonyness keeps me from getting too serious and screwing around. I’m sure theres a target I had to kill here, but I spent all my time driving around, trying to scale buildings, and using whatever I had laying around to maul criminals and civilians.

I was never a fan of GTA. I didn’t think it played well, didn’t think it looked good, and the sandbox options were pretty much limited to driving and murder. Crackdown offers exploration and explosives, which are much more my bag.

The demo is currently on Xbox Live Marketplace, and according to Major Nelson, its already more popular than most full Xbox 360 games.

The next gen is fully underway now and the one thing all 3 major players have in common is that they want you do download games. With content being added on a weekly basis, there’s a lot to cover…

Playstation Network
We’re still waiting for Tekken 5 to hit the US, even if it’s already available in Hong Kong and plenty of folks have set up dummy accounts to get it. fl0w is due in february, and looks like it may be the breakout hit Sony’s been waiting for. In the meantime you can always play Gran Turismo HD, though Major Nelson thinks it looks suspiciously like PGR3. The PS Network has a huge potential with the ability to download games to play on a PSP, but the very low numbers of available games keep even ecstatic supporters from being able to invest too heavily.
Full List of PS3 Network games

Wii Virtual Console
With just over 2 months in the market, they’ve got the strongest lineup, if not the most original. Last week saw the release of Legend Of Zelda III: A Link To The Past, and this coming monday we’ve got Mario Kart 64 and the Sega Genesis classic Comix Zone. Hopefully you didn’t blow your Wii Points on Urban Champion. Not suprisingly, Japan is getting quite a few more games than we are for now. This will hopefully even out as the year goes on.
List of Virtual Console titles

Xbox Live Arcade
While not in the game market as long as the competition, Microsoft has a huge lead on classic and original titles available for download. Must buys include Geometry Wars and Marble Blast Ultra, with enhanced arcade titles like Contra, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Street Fighter II. The classic titles aren’t nearly as varied as those found on Wii’s Virtual Console, but online leaderboards and multiplayer keep you from getting bored. The ability to demo any game is also helpful since Microsoft’s point system is designed specifically to trick you into thinking you are spending less money than you are. This past week saw the release of Heavy Weapon, which I played for 40 minutes on the demo before having to take a break. It appears the only benefit to buying the game is to get the achievement points and only play. Forthcoming games include Alien Hominid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and a game based on MEGAFORCE. I’m not kidding. Megaforce.
List Of Xbox Live Arcade titles

Actually its several weeks of Halo, but who’s counting?

Edge Magazine takes a look Inside Bungie which yeilds this shocking quote:

“We miscalculated, we screwed up, we came down to the wire and we just lost all of that. So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that. It kills me to think of it. Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right. It’s astounding to me. I f*cking cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it. And that’s why I know Halo 3 is going to be so much better.”

That sounds like a typical post you might find at Neo GAF or from some blogger, but thats technical lead Chris Butcher. Me personally, I like Halo 2, but if they’ve got a higher goal they can reach with 3, I’m ready for it.

Bungie.net, between weekly updates that reveal nothing more than that they ARE still testing the game, has released fact sheets on the new and improved MA5C Assault Rifle, and the just plain new Mongoose.

The calls have started to come in to those registered for the Halo 3 Beta. Folk who dropped their info at Halo 3.com are getting emails with their invitation information. We all heard about the Crackdown method as well. Players who punch in three hours of Halo 2 multiplayer between Feb 1st and 3rd can also register for an invitation.

But if all else fails, JOIN THE ARMY! While taking a much needed break from dodging roadside bombs in Iraq, soldiers got to cool off by dodging roadside bombs in the new Halo 3 maps.

The #1 reason people were still buying Playstation 2 this fall is coming to Xbox 360. Guitar Hero II will sport a classy white guitar based on the Gibson Explorer and will likely feature online functionality like song downloads (starting with the entire original Guitar Hero song list). Theres a press photo on the left of the box and guitar as well as the sticker sheet.

This much we know. But at CES yesterday, Kotaku’s Micheal McWhertor not only played it, but found out some of the new songs. Team Xbox also dig up some info. from those 2 links I’ve culled 8 of the 10 new songs:

“Surrender” – Cheap Trick {Correction: Reader Matthew points out that this track is already in the PS2 version of the game.}
“Billion Dollar Babies” -Alice Cooper
“Dead!”- My Chemical Romance
“Hush” – Deep Purple
“Life Wasted” – Pearl Jam
“Rock N Roll Hoochie Koo” – Rick Derringer
“Possum Kingdom” – Toadies
“Salvation” – Rancid

Those worried that GHII had a little too much metal can rest easy and this is a generous helping of classic and modern rock.
While I understand that online co-op is impossible, online leaderboards is going to inspire some really dedicated players in ways YouTube can’t provide. And I’ll happily shell out for some, if not all of the original Guitar Hero tracks, especially if they’re enhanced for GHII’s co-op multiplayer.

Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360 is slated for a March release in North America and Europe.