While doing a demo of the “New Xbox Experience,” Microsoft’s John Schappert announced that the new Xbox 360 dashboard will be releasing globaly on November 19. Last Updated: October 9, 2008

I just happened to be one of those lucky journalists and I have come back with exclusive inside information, hands-on impressions with both the single and multiplayer as well as an in-depth look at a map-editor that is going to change the way that things are done in these parts.... Here is a table of contents: Far Cry 2 - What can we expect - page 1 Interview with Far Cry 2 developers - page 2 Single Player Hands-on Preview - page 3 Multiplayer Hands-on Preview - page 3 Map Editor Impressions - page 4 Far Cry 2 - What can we expect Throughout the presentations and interviews, we were able to get a lot of dirt on the developers thoughts behind Far Cry 2 as well as the reasons behind many of their decisions.... This quickly made them realise that the focus for Far Cry 2 would be on humans and that there was no need to continue with the story of the first game but instead focus on the core gameplay elements that fans enjoyed so much.... While the original Far Cry was almost a take on "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and Crysis took a look at the ideas behind "The War of the Worlds", Far Cry 2 looks has taken it's influences from stories that have more of a personal effect on the characters rather than an external source.... LP Pharand and Clint Hocking talk to Lazygamer.co.za When I heard that I had some time with the developers, I instantly realised that I wanted to ask them a few questions about their decision with selecting Africa as their setting.... The developers have done all that they can to keep the players immersed in the game by introducing concepts such as little to no hud as well as always keeping the player in the eyes of his character and never pulling it out for cutscenes or animations.... A: Far Cry 2's map editor only uses elements already in the game and most of the creations are created procedurally, meaning that gamers will only be downloading the settings onto their systems and nothing external so there are absolutely no issues whatsoever.... LP also added that with so many ideas being put in the game they were given more time to realise what worked and what didn't, saying that they had to stop being stubborn and just realise that some elements weren't working and had to change or be removed. The in-game map was an idea brought in later on that incurred a lot of expenses but Clint pushed hard for it and in the end Ubisoft allowed it and it seems to make all the difference in the end so the end product is now much more of a game than it would have been had it been released earlier in the year. Hands-on with Far Cry 2's Single Player Campaign I was given the opportunity to spend an hour in Far Cry 2's campaign mode all by myself as well as have a walkthrough of the game with Clint Hocking and LP Pharand at rAge.... Besides the Maleria you will be put through quite a lot of hell as the healing system in the game shows off some very disturbing first person animations that will have you relocating joints, pulling bullets out of your legs with a pair of pliers and removing pieces of shrapnel from various areas of your body, with the total number of different animations coming to a massive forty nine.... This being a game with over 80 hours of gameplay, it will have to keep us wondering whether it will keep it's flair to the end or just become repetitive and annoying once the technical wonders lose their novelty so keep an eye out for our final review.... 6 Xbox 360 consoles were hooked up and ready to go so that we could all have a good go at destroying each other with as many weapons as possible, add to that the fact that the developers joined us and it was something that was not to be missed. We happily played away for most of the day on Saturday and late into the night and I am proud to report that of the 3 games that I joined in that had the developers playing, I came out on top in two of them and lost the third by only one point to Clint Hocking.... Through the use of the map editor, gamers can look forward to an unlimited amount of user created maps to play and the developers themselves have already said that they can see that gamers are going to be doing crazy things with the tools like recreating their favorite maps from other games.

I didn’t expect it but I was hoping it would happen, however it seems that Sony has once again dashed the hopes and dreams of millions of gamers around the world. Or more precisely they have announced that they won’t be cutting the price of it’s black behemoth this holiday season. Patrick Seybold, Director of Corporate Communications for Sony America …

  Resident Evil 5 ‘TGS 2008 Play God’ trailer A mysterious figure emerges. Jill Valentine shows up in a surprising twist. The executioner looks awesome. Is that Wesker? Just watch the video. [Ed: Yes SIR] Last Updated: October 9, 2008

Yes he finally did it… The person who has entered every single competition since this site started has finally won one and I actually think this is also the first time that he didn’t enter as many times as possible. Madeline and Nelio both managed to send in over 40 entries to the competition but unbelievably neither of them came …

I never actually got to play the original Viva Piñata and because of the praise that the original got I was very excited to get my hands on the game second time around. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really know what to expect. I mean, how can one really enjoy building a garden and trying to entice paper-mache …

[No this isn’t the big article we were planning for 8am.. that has been rescheduled now for high noon.. it just seemed more appropriate] Pretty isn’t it…. This is one of the new premium PS3 themes that have just been announced by Sony.  Sony has up until now only been giving out free themes but to be fair you can’t …

Can you believe it, it’s Thursday and I nearly forgot about Zero Punctuation. I blame Nick for this, I have spent all morning hassling him to finish up his huge article that needed to go live this morning.. Oh wait, you don’t know which article I am talking about… well if it is before 8am then make sure you come …