Hey guys,

As you know, Dead Space 2 is coming out next week. We are super excited about it. So excited that I decided to go back and play through the Wii title Dead Space: Extraction to fill in any plot holes there may be before the second one comes out.

This is Dead Space: Extraction summed up super quick.

Also, as a special bonus, I’m happy to announce that we’ll be releasing achievement videos for Dead Space 2 starting TOMORROW! That’s right, we’ve gotten the go-ahead from the guys at Visceral to release some early content for you guys. I’ve been playing it a little bit now and I have to say, it is amazing.

See you tomorrow with an early peek!

Catch the disease!

Seems this month is the month that keeps on giving on XBox Live, as EA have announced 50% off a number of game add ons and arcade games. These offers are from now until January 24th. All the details should be on your XBox’s Dashboard, but here’s the quick summary:
Add Ons
Dragon Age: Origins

• Awakenings – Sale: 1200
• Wardens Keep – Sale: 280
• Return to Ostagar – Sale: 200
• The Darkspawn Chronicles – Sale: 200
• The Golems of Amgarrak – Sale: 200
• Witch Hunt – Sale: 280
• Leliana’s Song – Sale: 280


• Medal of Honor Hot Zone Pack – Sale: 400
• FIFA 11 Live Season All Leagues – Sale: 400
• Madden 11 Max Pack – Sale: 400
• Tiger 11 Favorites Course Pack – Sale: 800
• NCAA Football 11 Powerpack – Sale: 1200
• NHL 11 20th Anniv. Bauer Boost Pack – Sale: 280
• Fight Night Round 4 Champions Pack II – Sale: 400

Arcade Games

• Madden NFL Arcade – Sale: 400
• NHL 3 on 3 – Sale: 200
• RISK: Factions – Sale: 400
• MicroBot – Sale: 400
• Battleship (Hasbro FGN) – Sale: 400
• Scrabble (Hasbro FGN) – Sale: 400
• Boggle (Hasbro FGN) – Sale: 400
• DeathSpank – Sale: 600
• DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue – Sale: 600
• Battlefield 1943 – Sale: 600

And for this week’s XBL Deal of the Week, which will also end of the 24th, we have:
Plants vs. Zombies – Down from 1200 MSP to just 800 MSP

More Venetica you cry out? Sure thing! Here is “Plate Style.”

There are a few videos left in this game, keep an eye out!

defendthehouse has released Halo Reach Mythbusters, Episode 5 – fun things you might not have known! As always, some of these are just entertaining oddities, while others have major potential in Matchmaking. Go watch! (Thanks, ZayneH)(Louis Wu 18:30:22 UTC)

Ph1LzA let us know about a hockey variant… in Reach. You can watch a highlight video on YouTube – the map and gametype are included in the description. Looks like fun!(Louis Wu 18:17:36 UTC)

Such a Big Jerk let us know yesterday that HaloTracker’s weekly challenges were updated yesterday (as they are every Monday) – current challenges can be found on their Challenges page. These are definitely more esoteric than Bungie’s challenges! Go see what you can find. (While you’re there, check out their new Firefight stats – it’s the first site to give you an in-depth look at non-competitive playlists. xorth sent along his stats page link as an example – hit the Firefight tab for details.) (Louis Wu 18:15:16 UTC)

uberfoop compiled a bunch of skyjack clips into the first Skyjacktage I’ve ever seen. Since I usually croak when I try this, I found this fun. Go watch!(Louis Wu 18:13:31 UTC)

If you missed Chairleg Productions’ “Games as Art” machinima project on Halo Waypoint (we mentioned it a couple of weeks ago), it’s available on YouTube now. Definitely worth the time!(Louis Wu 18:12:33 UTC)

What the fudge!

Mario from VideoGamesLive passed along the awesome news that VGL will be debuting the live performance of music from Halo: Reach! You can find out more info on the VGL website, as well as a list of upcoming tour dates (I’m SO hitting that one in Orlando) and tickets. If you have a chance, definitely try and get out to see one of these shows!(GrimBrother One 15:24:48 UTC)

AHTV is back, baby. This year we’re gonna make it for good too, expect slowly but surely a regular occurrence of these fantastic broadcasts to continue throughout 2011. I’m excited to get back into the swing of things

So here’s how it goes, Thursday, January 20th,starting at at 10:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM GMT, I’m gonna take a crack at Dead Space on Impossible. (There may be a tentative lunch intermission happening, we’ll see, maybe evening a cooking special!)

Don’t worry if you can’t make it to the early start (I picked a day that I didn’t have work myself), I’ll be playing late into the night and having a grand ole time. Depending how far I get, we may continue Friday, January 21st,starting at at 3:30 PM PT / 5:30 PM ET / 10:30 PM GMT, so that’s possibly two days of AHTV goodness for you.

Where will all this magic happen, you ask? The AHTV page embedded in our site, or conversely, check out the Ustream page. If you want to view the video or accompanying chatroom in their own individual pop up windows, those links are for that.

Be there, or don’t regret it forever.

Hey, just in case you woke up this morning like I did and thought to yourself, “Man, I really just need today to contain something awesome and joy-surpassing”… Well, Hedgemony has your back. Or your eyes for that matter. Check out pages 12-24 of his current series of win -Halo: Special Projects Division.(GrimBrother One 14:58:34 UTC)

Congrats to METALADVENT for winning the Kinetic Typography contest. Truly awesome job. For winning, we’ll send all the new quote posters, each signed by the cast of Red vs. Blue.

Coming in 2nd was WREN_TALONFX followed by ROEAS29. They will get signed Tucker and Sarge posters respectively. Honorable Mentions to AJAXXX565 and RenderGuy.

Everyone did a great job. We could not believe how many good entries there were. It was not easy picking between them. Each contest continues to prove we have one of the most creative user bases on the net.