When my latest Xbox 360 broke and I had to call my old friends at 1-800-4MYXBOX, the first thing I heard was a recorded message explaining that if your Xbox was banned, they wouldn't be able to help you. This was well before any other recorded spiel, so they must have been getting a lot of calls. You can't very well shut down online access for a million Xboxes without getting some angry calls.

Legal system to the rescue! A Midwestern law firm is rustling up disgruntled bannees for a class action suit and they've got the asterisks, quote marks, and inferences to back their case.

Although modification of Xbox consoles is *arguably* against the terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft "conveniently" timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game. This "convenient" timing may have resulted in more Xbox Live subscription revenues for Microsoft than it would have generated had these Xbox console bans taken place at some time before the release of Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Additionally, sales of both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (published by Activision) and Halo 3: ODST (published by Microsoft Game Studios) would likely have been greatly diminished had the Xbox console ban occurred prior to the release of these games.

(Thanks Inc Gamers!)

I know what you're probably thinking: "Solium What-um?"

Solium Infernum is the latest from the indie developer of Armageddon Empires, a brilliant turn-based game about conquering the post-apocalypse using a custom built deck of cards. It's available for download for $30. But Solium Infernum is about creating a custom-built archfiend to rule hell by hook, crook, diplomacy, magic, conquest, and/or subterfuge. It'll be out within the week. And unlike Armageddon Empires, it's built for multiplayer games. But first, to give you a sense for how it plays, how about a few game diary entries?

After the jump, I'll tell you how I (pictured) intend to the seize the Palace of Gluttony.

So you've just started playing Assassin's Creed II and you can't figure out why Ezio is leaping off the wall instead of up the wall. Or maybe you're trying to stroll through the streets of Florence, casually picking pockets for extra loot, when you instead grapple some poor unsuspecting noblewoman and wrestle her to the ground without so much as a "pardon me, ma'am". Maybe you just wanted to smack that annoying troubadour in the mouth, and you instead shoved an eight inch steel blade through his neck. Oops! Oh, for fun! The unexpected joys of being an Assassin's Creed n00b!

After the jump, I'll offer a few pointers for clutzes and n00bs of the Italian Renaissance.

As you know if you're a teenage girl, the new Twilight movie opens tomorrow. Even if you're not a teenage girl, you've probably seen the trailer. It's potent stuff. It very nearly made me gay.

Similarly potent is the Sims 3 version of the trailer (pictured). It's also potent stuff. It very nearly made coffee come out my nose.

The way it used to work was that a videogame developer would have a videogame journalist [sic] out to the studio. They'd show him a bunch of canned demos. They'd answer questions. They might let him play a little bit. They'd all sit down to lunch. They'd then leave it up to to the journalist to write an enthusiastic article.

But with the Internet, game developers can go straight to you, without us pesky writers getting in the way. Sometimes, you just get a lot of hype. But other times, you get valuable first-hand insight into the development process that guys like me simply can't give you after an afternoon's visit.

A case in point is Blizzard's slick write up of the evolution of one of the early levels in Starcraft II. It's well written, informative, and attractively laid out like a magazine article. It details the evolution of one of the early missions, when the player is still learning the game. A colony called Agria has been overrun by zerg, and the player is tasked with evacuating the colonists.

One of the earliest versions of The Evacuation of Agria required the player to clear out colonists from several different locations on the map, which proved to be a problem. Frantically moving around, abandoning previously built defenses, and keeping an eye on all of the different evacuation routes turned out to be too frustrating and stressful for such an early map, and it distracted from the intended "zerg invasion" feel of the mission. Another version featured colonists marching toward their destination on foot, but the developers decided this didn't quite fit. After all, no one in their right mind would go for a walk during a zerg invasion, especially if they were unarmed.

If you've played Dragon Age, you know things didn't go so well at Ostagar. It was sort of like the Alamo meets Benedict Arnold meets a Youtube clip of a skateboarder racking his groin on a staircase railing. But with orcs.

Now Bioware will send you back with new downloadable content for Dragon Age. If you asked "do we get to win this time, sir?", then I want you in my party. Here's the official word:

Return to Ostagar, BioWare's next thread in the Dragon Age: Origins tapestry, summons players to a new quest in which they will return to the fateful battleground in Ostagar where the Grey Wardens were nearly wiped out. Players will discover King Cailan's top-secret political agenda and go behind enemy lines to revisit a place that many feared had been lost to history.

Capcom today announced a spurt of new stuff for Resident Evil 5, to be dribbled out this February and March as downloadable content and a boxed "gold edition". A new episode will be set in the castle seen only in flashbacks, where Sheva will be replaced by the considerably less interesting Jill Valentine, minus her weird bird costume. There will, however, be new costumes for Chris and Sheva. And new characters and weapon loadouts for Mercenaries mode. However, there is no word of any of this being available for the PC.

What's more, it seems that Capcom has reneged on their promise to even complete the PC release of Resident Evil 5. When the game was released for console systems, Capcom charged players five dollar to unlock a competitive mode called "Versus". This was available as soon as the game was released. But despite telling players Versus mode would either be included with the PC release or available for download shortly thereafter, it seems Capcom has changed its mind. I've just been told there are currently no plans to release Versus mode for the PC.

I wouldn't normally mind missing out on being charged five bucks to unlock a feature, but the real bummer in this situation is that Versus mode is a fantastic way to play Resident Evil 5. If you've tried Mercenaries mode, you're only getting about a quarter of the game's multiplayer awesomeness. I couldn't care less if Capcom doesn't give the PC version whatever upcoming B-side material they're releasing next year. But I do wish they'd at least complete the PC release by doing whatever it takes to unlock or restore one of Resident Evil 5's best features.

Most of the audio in Modern Warfare 2 is flawless. There's not a lot to take issue with. I don't even mind following the Arbiter into battle. But what I can't abide is Hans Zimmer's score. Not the music per se. It alternates between appropriately bombastic and weirdly moody, and it's harmless enough. Except for the fact that I cannot turn it off, or even adjust the level. Hans Zimmer will accompany me throughout Modern Warfare 2, whether I like it or not, commenting on the action the entire time. He's like a chatty wingman you cannot mute or even turn down. And considering he can't have come cheap, Infinity Ward decided to make him mandatory.

Where it intrudes the most is during the excellent Special Ops missions on a LAN. The unholy racket of twin Zimmer, often out of sync, during these stylish varied missions is overbearing and unnecessary. Infinity Ward thought we might not want to play their disgusting terrorist mission, so they patched in an option to skip it. But they couldn't conceive we wouldn't want to hear their expensive score?

Just Cause 2 looked great at E3. It was as if the developers had made a valiant first attempt with Just Cause 1 and now they were figuring out how to make it into a great game. For instance, one of the most important elements of an open-world game is that you need some cool way to get around. Take the assortment of cars with unique driving models in Grand Theft Auto IV, the crazy jump-flying in Prototype, Ezio's amazingly animated dexterity in Assassin's Creed II, and the customizable Druid Plow in Brutal Legend. Just Cause 2's unlikely proposal? A redeployable parachute and a grappling hook that can not only attach to anything, but that can also attach any two things to each other. Let your imagination chew on that for a moment.

Or check out the screenshots for a few examples.

Gallery: Is there anywhere Just Cause 2 can't go? See for yourself. (10 images)   view full gallery

If you were among the people responsible for the disaster (of a) film 2012 making $65 million dollars this weekend, you might have noticed John Cusack's character's son had a handheld gaming system. As the family heads out for a camping trip, the sullen boy busies himself with a PSP. There's no telling what he's playing, or if he's maybe just using it to watch his Spiderman 2 UMD. But you can clearly see it's a PSP.

So why a PSP and not a Nintendo DS? If you guessed it's because 2012 is a Columbia Pictures release, and Columbia Pictures is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment which is a subsidiary of Sony, go to the head of the Product Placement 101 class! As for how a Bentley gets such a prominent role in the film, well, that's just plain ol' money changing hands.

If there's any company that has failed at online frippery more often than Electronic Arts, it would have to be Ubisoft. But the difference is that Ubisoft doesn't seem to try quite so hard as Electronic Arts. That's why Ubisoft doesn't have a Sims Online, a Motor City Online, and a long list of games pre-dating 2007 that no longer work online.

But in the tradition of not trying very hard, Ubisoft has released Assassin's Creed II with support for something called Uplay. I have no idea idea how you're supposed to say that out loud. "Oo-play"? "Ewe-play"? "Uh-play"? No matter, since I still have no idea how to say "Ubisoft" out loud either. Here's the skinny on Uplay:

Uplay is Ubisoft's online destination where gamers are at the center of a connected gaming universe that has been developed around four primary services: Uplay Win, Uplay Help, Uplay Share and Uplay Shop. The Uplay Beta is launching with Uplay Win.

No. It's not neat. It's terrible. It's like a dungeon that wasn't good enough to make it into the full game. It's timed jumping puzzles with terrible camera angles. After ten tries at the same jump in this stupid thing, I was bound and determined to suffer through the entire thing to find out what reward awaited me at the end of this shoddy ordeal.

For my troubles, I got a few thousand flora and bits of doled out text detailing Ezio Auditore's ancestory. The disappointing thing is that the story is actually pretty cool. It seems that -- spoiler! -- Ezio's forefather was a commoner trained by Dante. The Dante. Who was an Assassin! However, the Templars murdered Dante and sent pirates after Ezio's forefather. The pirates raped and murdered his wife and left him for dead. So he drained Dante's bank account, assumed a new identity, and founded the villa that becomes Ezio's stronghold.

It's a nice twist that the Auditore family isn't actually noble, but was an invention of an ancient equivalent of the witness protection program, funded by proceeds from the Divina Commedia. I also liked the explanation for why the villa was founded in Florence and not Venice: being near the sea reminded Ezio's forefather of his wife's murder at the hands of the pirates.

There. Now you don't have to play through that terrible dungeon and you can spend your Upoints on more throwing knives!

Dirty disc errors on the Xbox 360 haven't been that uncommon for me. Normally, I try again and they go away. I've occasionally lost a little progress in a game, but it's nothing to get (too) worked up over. So when that happened during a pivotal scene in Assassin's Creed II, I just gritted my teeth, took a deep breath, and tried again.

The same thing. And again. And again.

After the jump, I'll tell you what I've been doing all day instead of updating Fidgit.

I'm not really a Star Trek fan in the true sense of the word. I wouldn't know a dilithium crystal from a dribble, although I'm pretty sure dilithium crystals aren't the fuzzie cute things that breed incessantly. Instead, I'm just one of those fashionable late-comers who thought, 'Hey, that latest movie was pretty good! So I'm totally up for boldy going into a Star Trek online RPG!'

Along with the recently announced Feburary 2nd, 2010 release date, developer Cryptic and publisher Atari have also put out a whole mess of sexy screenshots of space action, along with some "umm, okay" screenshots of planetside action. I'm particularly eager to find out who wins the battle between the giant six-sided die and the old-fashioned Cylon Basestar (pictured).

Gallery: Star Trek Online is looking pretty sexy for an MMO (12 images)   view full gallery

It's no surprise that the above video has happened. As soon as Activision announced Modern Warfare 2 wouldn't allow the dedicated servers that clans and mod-makers rely on, plenty of enterprising PC gamers committed themselves to changing that. Now you can see the results less than a week after the game's release. And the beauty of it all is that creators claim it still plugs directly into Activision's supposedly secure IWnet service.

The PSP has two modes of connectivity. Ad hoc is a local connection with someone in the same room. Infrastructure mode is an internet connection to anywhere in the world. So when Sony announced a system called "Ad Hoc Party" that lets PSPs connect via ad hoc mode over a Playstation 3's internet connection, it didn't seem like a big deal. The PSP already has infrastructure mode, thankyouverymuch.

But Capcom was quick to point out this is good news for fans of the Monster Hunter series, a set of challenging combat/crafting games that only work via ad hoc mode.

For all you Monster Hunters out there, this is amazing news, as you'll finally be able to take the 4 player co-op of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite on your PSP online through the PSN with your PlayStation 3. With adhocParty, you'll be able to go online with your friends, communicate via text or voice, and much more.

I can't be the only guy who cares about stuff like knowing exactly what time an online game will go live so I can start playing already! For instance, I can tell you that Xbox Live updates tend to go live between 2am and 3am on the day it's schedules. On Steam, stuff goes live whenever someone rolls out of bed, has a shower, watches a little Oprah, swings by Pete's Coffee on the way to work, checks his email, browses the auction house, and then remembers to flip whatever switch at Valve has to be switched before I can play whatever game I'm waiting on. Steam's update schedule is rarely more precise than the 24-hour span of the release date.

Well, that's not going to wash with a big release like Left 4 Dead 2. So Valve has clarified that the game will go live at midnight tonight, East Coast time. Meaning those of us in the rest of the country will technically be able to start playing on November 16th instead of the scheduled release date of November 17th. Ha ha, take that, New York!

Amazon.com did some fancy math to figure out which American city bought the most copies per capita of Modern Warfare 2 to be delivered on the game's release date. They list here the top forty cities to "answer the Call of Duty on day one". The winner is Independence, Missouri (pictured). It's also, coincidentally, the city with the most jingoistic name.

There's a little someone to threaten everyone's wallet this week. Particularly dire is Assassin's Creed II, which is every bit as good as the first game, but with a much heartier actual game built around it. But it's also got a lot of great incidentals. I've happily whittled away several hours on the collectibles system, which shows that Ubisoft was listening when we complained about the stupid Templar flags in the first game. In fact, sometimes in Assassin's Creed II, I feel less like an assassin and more like a tourist collecting Renaissance art and admiring the Italian architecture. I'm talking gameplay, mind you. Crackdown and Saints Row style gameplay. Because Renaissance art and architecture aren't the sorts of things I'm normally into. You'll see what I mean when you start playing. Which you should. This is one of the year's best games.

If you've played the demo and followed the previews, you have a pretty good sense for how much of a wallet threat Left 4 Dead 2 poses. Did you like the first Left 4 Dead? Do you want new creatures attacking new characters in new places and being splattered with new weapons during new game modes? Well, then consider yourself fifty bucks poorer this week.

If you want something with less blood, there's Super Mario Bros. Wii with its fancy new multiplayer and co-op modes and the PSP version of Little Big Planet. Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues is supposedly all new Indiana Jones sequences set to Legos, even though the previous game covered the first three movies. But now you can play your favorite scenes from the Crystal Skull movie. Such as Shia LaBoeuf swinging with the monkeys. I hope those adorable gophers will make an appearance.

If you've got $120 burning a hole in your pocket and room in your living room for another Activision peripheral, you might consider Tony Hawk: Ride, abbreviated as THRIDE, which makes me think of someone with a speech impediment at best and babies with birth defects at worst. That's a pretty terrible thing to say, I know. I'm sure Tony Hawk: Ride won't be that bad.

On the downloadable front this week, your wallet should be wary of another insidious match-3 RPG called Gyromancer from Popcap and Square-Enix, two companies who know RPGs and match-3's, respectively.

Although I'm a huge fan of the Ratchet & Clank games, I've been a bit disappointed in the last few releases. It almost seemed like Insomniac was coasting. Which isn't terrible. Frankly, I'd rather have a Ratchet & Clank game coasting than a Jak & Daxter, Spyro, or even Mario game at full throttle. But it wasn't until I started playing Crack in Time that I really appreciated what I'd been missing.

Insomniac is back in rare form this time around. They've created the finest platformer of this generation, assuming by "platformer" you can also include what is arguably a shooter. Furthermore, I'd say this is the best looking Playstation 3 game you can play. It's full of moments where I just had to stop and smile and marvel and sigh a little affectionate sigh. I'd even go so far as to say this is probably the best Ratchet & Clank of them all.

After the jump, let me tell you what you'll find here that you won't find in any other Ratchet & Clank.

Tower defense games are a dime a dozen, give or take up to $20, so it's always nice to find one with a twist. Therefore, I present to you Comet Crash, a downloadable tower defense game available for the Playstation 3. The developers call it a "tower offense" game, which pretty much captures the twist. In addition to spending resources to build up defenses that stave off waves of attackers, you also invest in your own waves of attackers to take out the guy on the other side of the map sending attackers over to you. It's particularly good for multiplayer games for up to four folks on the same screen.

A new update -- free! -- includes a harder difficulty level (as if!), more multiplayer options, and more places to fight. From the announcement:

* 'Expert' difficulty setting for seasoned Comet Crash players. You'll see a surge in enemy attacks that will put your skills to the test.
* 4 new Resurgence levels-one unlocked at the end of each comet during the Campaign. Resurgence levels may require completely new strategies. Beware...no hints!
* 4 new Battle maps to mix up your games a bit.
* Battle timer setting. After the timer runs out, all mobile units generate at 8x the normal rate which should bring games to an exciting finish!
* Thorium setting to tweak available resources in Battle mode.