Is that headline a bit critical of Band Hero? No. Is that headline very critical of Band Hero? Absolutely.

The demo for Band Hero hit the Xbox Live Marketplace a few hours ago, and though it’s getting rather mixed impressions, through and through, Band Hero is a family game, with family songs, targeted at a family market. Of course, with artists such as Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and Jesse McCartney heading up the set list, you didn’t need me to tell you that.

But that’s not to say the setlist is a stinker; In fact, I really like it. Obvious mainstream appeal aside, songs like “Black Horse And Cherry Tree”, “Let’s Dance”, and “Kung-Fu Fighting” make me want to at least give the game a try, when it comes out Nov. 3rd. If this seems like your type of thing, or you’re just looking to quench your music game, button-mashing thirst, hit up XBLM and download the 3-song demo now.

We here at Ripten enjoy games quite a bit. (Well, some of us. The jury’s still out on that shifty Naylor character.) In fact, one of our highest-rated games of 2007 was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. All things considered, you can see why we’re really excited for Infinity Ward & Activision’s latest foray into the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 2, and this trailer does nothing to satiate our hunger.

The trailer, titled Infamy, is the newest trailer for Modern Warfare 2, and it’s amazing. No spoilers, but there’s a rather large reveal at the end of the trailer, and I have no doubt that it’s making a lot of people excited. Maybe this is just me, but does this trailer make anyone else wish that there was a Call of Duty movie? Yes?

Good.

Shacknews reports that with the release of Modern Warfare 2, a 250Gb Xobox 360 bundle will become available. The hard drive is the biggest available on the 360, and the box itself will feature a “limited edition” paint job.

This news comes straight from an Activision event that I bet you wish you were at. The multiplayer portion of the game was shown and played by attendees, who now must be quite smug. I hate to make predictions, but I reckon this game will sell more than 8 copies in its first day. In fact, I’m willing to put money on it. You can even quote me on it. As for the bundle, well, at $400, it’s pretty steep. I think most Call of Duty fans already own a 360, or at least another platform to play it on.

With the recent $100 price cut to the 120 GB Xbox 360 Elite, it looks like Microsoft might have a more superior console taking its place. The above ad was discovered from a South African retailer, BT Games, showing a “Super Elite” Xbox 360 with a 250 GB hard drive and two wireless controllers. XboxGaming.co.za is reporting that they have spoken to Comztek, a South African Xbox distributor, and they have indeed confirmed that they will be getting the “Super Elite” Xbox 360 bundled with a copy of Forza 3 and two wireless controllers for R4,999 ($644).

None of this has been confirmed by Microsoft, but it hasn’t been denied either. I guess we’ll just have to wait for an official announcement, but if had to put a bet on it, I’d say the “Super Elite” Xbox 360 is more than likely real and we should see it in stores within the next few months.

According to Kotaku, via the above pic from a Meijer catalogue due on August 30, the Elite version of the Xbox 360 is set to drop in price a whole $100, to $299.

Well, what does this do to the Xbox 360 Pro? Looks like the Pro version is being phased out and will eventually be completely taken off the market. That will leave only two versions of the Xbox 360 to choose from: the hard drive-less Arcade and the 120GB HDD Elite. According to the catalogue, this is set to take place in just a matter of weeks.

No confirmation from Microsoft yet, but if they don’t announce it this week, you can bet they will next week at Gamescom.

If your one of the unlucky gamers who missed out on any of these three great games, well, your luck is about to turn around. Capcom is repackaging three of their Xbox 360 platinum hits into one huge, cheap-ass bundle. Exciting, I know.

You’ll be getting Dead Rising, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition and Devil May Cry 4 all in one box! And the best thing about the package is that it’s dirt cheap. Yep, just $39.99 for all three games. Now at about $13.33 for each game, you can’t beat that.

Capcom is calling it the Platinum Hits Triple Pack, set to hit the Xbox 360 in September. If you missed any of the games, now is your chance to get all three in a great deal. Thanks Capcom!

It’s August 11 folks and that means the Xbox Live New Xbox Experience summer update is now up and running for everyone to download. I’m actually downloading it right now as I’m typing this, so I’ll be able to enjoy all the new perks like Games on Demand, the Avatar Marketplace, new updates to Netflix and more in just a few moments. Oh, I think it just finished downloading. Time to check it out, holla!

Fancy owning an Xbox 360 signed by the former Empress of Alaska? Simply head here and snap it up before someone else does! You could probably afford it with the loose cash hanging around in your PayPal account. It’s yours for just over a million dollars.

Oh, wait. Seventy-five bucks for shipping to the UK? No sale. Get it signed by McCain and I’ll think about it.
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So for the past week & a half, we’ve been holding a contest over on Twitter to give away an Xbox 360 andBut  a copy of Sacred 2. Plenty of you entered, but to my dismay, only one of you guys can win. I wish I could give everyone that entered an Xbox 360, but if I could do that, I probably wouldn’t be writing for Ripten, and I’d probably have a trail of cops behind me trying to recorder the 100-odd Xboxes that suddenly went missing from my local game store. But enough of my rambling, the winner of the Sacred 2/Xbox 360 contest is…

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The console versions of Sacred 2 came out about two months ago, and while it’s recieved pretty decent reviews, a lot of people haven’t played it, or just didn’t have the chance to. Maybe you couldn’t afford the game’s $60 price tag. That’s understandable. Maybe you just don’t have a console to play it on. That’s also understandable, too. But we here at Ripten aim to remedy both of those situations, by giving away an Xbox 360, a copy of Sacred 2, and some swag for it!

Hit the jump to see how you can get your hands on this prize.

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For those of you out there who never picked up the full version of Battlefield 1943, the demo timer has been reset, giving players another 30 minutes to enjoy the slam-bang action. For Xbox 360 users, the server issues seemed to be fixed now, so if you couldn’t get into a game before, you should be able to now.

Gamers Digest

As an African-American male in today’s society, it absolutely pains me to see racism become so pervasive in video games. Sure, I’ll shoot the black zombies in Resident Evil 5, and I’ll absolutely love doing it, but behind these hazel brown eyes, a little black man (with a tiny hat, even) inside me cries- which is why it’s absolutely APPALLING to see Left 4 Dead 2 follow RE5’s pattern and include some black zombies.

Despicable!
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DICE is currently performing maintenance on the soldier profiles in the recently released Battlefield 1943, so you may have noticed that your stats have been reset. Not to worry, my friends, as this is temporary. Read more…

Destructoid reports that the full XBLA release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 will happen on none other than July 29, 2009. The PSN release is not known at this point, although it is likely to be a very similar date. The game is also set to be sold at a price of 1200 MS Funbux™, and likely a similar price on the PSN but in actual Dollars/Pounds/Euros/Yen/Your currency.

I remember seeing this game in the shops when I was a kid. At the time, I wanted to buy it because it had Marvel characters in it. Now, I want to buy MvC2 because it has Capcom characters in it. Time changes things, especially the relative coolness of Ryu in my mind.

Yes, you read that right. There is another set of multiplayer maps coming out for Halo 3, no joke. When ODST launches this fall, it will come packed with a Halo 3 multiplayer map disk complete with three new maps.

And if you’re thinking the picture above looks a lot like “Midship” from Halo 2, well you’re right because it’s a remake called “Heretic” included in the new map pack along with “Citadel” and “Longshore”. Hit the jump for a look at the other two maps coming out with ODST this fall. Read more…

1 vs 100, the new Xbox Live online game show for the 360, will feature prizes of Xbox Live Arcade games and Microsoft Points beginning this week. Starting July 10 at 7 p.m. PST, Xbox Live Gold Members will have the chance to win up to 10,000 MP in every round played in 1 vs 100. Read more…

My favorite part of this is that they kept all of their postal reciepts. You need to be diligent with your finances, even if you’re a filthy criminal!

It’s surprising how many games there are that actually use microphones on the Xbox 360: Guitar Hero Metallica, Rock Band 2, Disney Sing It: High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Lips and The Beatles: Rock Band. This fall, Microsoft is poised to release a new wireless microphone that’s compatible with all of those games, and presumably more.

Although I have no use for a microphone myself, I’m sure someone loves the look of it and wants to rock out cordless. If you’re willing to spend $49.99 on the microphone, you should look forward to it hitting store shelves this fall.

Unlock the what in the what now? Folks who pre-order the sequel to Assassin’s Creed will get the chance to explore the Palazzo Medici, a famous palace in Italy. I think that’s lame. Read more…

No, silly. That’s not happening in this lifetime.

I joke all the time about Crysis running on a cell phone, but the guys at TechCrunch have managed to do so- or at least make it look like its so. Rather than running Crysis right through the phone, TechCrunch ran the game on a PC then streamed it to OTOY, a mobile streaming server, which then redirected it to the Omnia. Pretty cool, I think.

While the guy demoing the software in the video is controlling the game with an Xbox 360 controller, the controller’s actually connceted to the PC. Don’t get any ideas about Crysis coming to consoles, now.

But it’s gonna happen eventually.