We're slowly getting the site back up and running, and as a show of faith to the busy gamer community we're going to try reinstating Free Stuff Friday (which, as far as we know, we originated!).

However, we're going to have fewer drawings - just once a month for now, which does give you plenty of time to enter and help spread the word about what we're doing.

This month, we're featuring two A-list games:

• Red Dead Redemption for Xbox 360 puts you into the Old West, Rockstar Games-style. Lots of shoot-'em-up missions and a deep multiplayer mode!
• ModNation Racers for PS3 comes with a full single-player campaign, online play and the option to create your own tracks and karts. It's a family friendly title, but with enough depth and craftsmanship to engage a grown-up gamer.

If you're wondering what we've been up to: We're working on another Busy Gamer Podcast and, as you may have seen, we've launched forums and a new format for the site that is both community driven and issue oriented. Have something to say that's interesting or useful to your fellow busy gamers? There's a good chance we'll use it in a post!

Here's how to enter and boost your odds one or both prizes (up to 4 chances to win!):

1. Enter a comment here, as usual. That's all you really NEED to do. BE SURE TO SAY WHICH PRIZE(S) YOU ARE PLAYING FOR.
2. Tweet the following on Twitter: Win Red Dead Redemption and ModNation Racers at BusyGamerNews.com, now community sourced! RT + Enter here: http://bit.ly/wnXkAx #bgnfsf
3. Review (or re-review) our Busy Gamer Podcast on iTunes.
4. Review (or re-review) the Best of Busy Gamer Podcast on iTunes. This is a short audio highlights feed with our reviews, audio tours and other timeless bits!

If you do 2, 3 and/or 4, you do need to let us know your Twitter/iTunes name(s) in your comment so we can find, verify and include your bonus entries in the drawing and match them up to contact you if one of them wins.

If we can't confirm the bonus entry and easily tell who you are on Twitter and/or iTunes, the bonus entry is disqualified. If you tweet vigorously (more than 5 times a day on average), include the direct link to your tweet and don't delete it!

You DO have to enter a comment here and follow the other rules to be eligible:

]]> http://www.busygamernews.com/2012/02/free_stuff_friday_-_red_dead_r.html http://www.busygamernews.com/2012/02/free_stuff_friday_-_red_dead_r.html Free Stuff Friday PS2/PS3 Xbox/Xbox 360 Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:04:32 -0800 Busy gamers often play late at night to unwind when they're already pretty tired, so picking up a punishing game or even one that requires too much focus to learn can be a short-lived experience.

On Twitter, OnyxPrimal shared his late night frustration with Dark Souls, regarded as one of the most unapologetically difficult games of the past year:

A few minutes later, this came through:

That made me smile. Peggle is actually a great game, both relaxing and challenging as we've reported, but it's a 180-degree flip from Dark Souls.

So, what do you think about game difficulty:

• Are we less up for punishing games as we get older?
• Is state of mind a factor? (e.g., being well rested vs. burning the dwindling midnight oil)
• Is it that we already have enough stress in our lives, or that maybe we no longer convert game stress into enjoyment?

I've actually been blocked by an influential community manager for suggesting that there is no shame in lowering a game's difficulty if you still enjoy the experience - so clearly this is a divisive issue. Perhaps together we can shed some light on this game dynamic.

Personally, I've vowed to skip games that are designed only for people with "teh mad skillz" and don't consider gamers who have smaller blocks of time to devote to their passion, so Dark Souls and its precursor, Demon Souls, aren't even on my radar. Am I missing out, or playing smart with my time?

Shortly after posting this, I read this tweet by Ben Kuchera, former Ars Technica game reporter (now with Penny Arcade):

When even a successful game reviewer says it's OK to drop difficulty to enjoy a game, I feel like there is hope we can evolve past this dismissive attitude toward gamers who play for reasons other than to prove something.

Another Penny Arcadian, Mike Fehlauer, responded in agreement:

We'll do what we can, but you can help by showing support: Comment on news items and review, suggest topics and provide your own insights in our beta forums, help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter - whatever you can manage. If we feel the community's backing, we'll restore more site features as we can. This is a lot of work, and we do it for free - mostly because we love the people in our community and want to help grow respect for busy gamers among game makers and marketers.

That said, here is the complete list of games due for release this week for PC/Mac, portables and consoles (plus some recent releases that slipped out last week):

• Android: All Out War, Angry Birds Seasons update, Anomaly: Warzone Earth HD, BlockWorld 2D, Caps, The Chicken Bandit, Counter-Strike Portable, Dance Central 2 Dance Cam, Dino Picker, Dungeon Crawlers, Escape, GBikes, The Goolalies, Half Breed, A Long Way Home, Marble Droid, Naught, NFL Flick Kicker, Osmos, Paranormal Agency (Kindle Fire), Reckless Racing 2, Rift Mobile, Robo Revenge, Rusted Warfare, Shadowgun: The Leftover, Sonic 4 Episode I, Sparky vs. Glutters, Stand O' Food 3 (Kindle Fire), Steam Mobile (closed beta), SupaSupaCross and Supermarket Mania 2 (Kindle Fire)
• 3DS: Mutant Mudds (eShop) and Pro Evolution Soccer 2012
• DS: Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish (DSiWare) and Lola's Alphabet Train (DSiWare)
• iPhone/iPad: Ant Raid, Ash II: Shadows, Baseball Superstars 2012, The Brutal Spy, Dance Central 2 Dance Cam, Epoch update, Fantasy Chronicle, Fingle, Greedy Penguins, Hank Hazard, Ice Rage update, Jazz: Trump's Journey, LostWinds update, NFL Flick Kicker, One Epic Game, Order Up!! To Go, Paper Monsters, Puzzlejuice, Rage HD update, Reckless Racing 2, RoboHero, Small Street, Smash Cops, Soul Calibur, Star Warfare: Alien Invasion, Steam Mobile (closed beta), Time of Heroes, Triple Town and Tiny Invaders update
• Mac: Bioshock 2
• PC: Bookworm Wordy Wonder Bundle, House of 1,000 Doors: Family Secrets and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
• PS3: Final Fantasy XIII-2, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, NeverDead, Puddle (Store) and Soul Calibur V
• PS2: None
• PSP: Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact (Store)
• Wii: Newton vs. The Horde (WiiWare)
• Windows Phone 7: Airplanes, Bug Village, Bye Bye Brain: App-ocalypse, Cartridge, Dreadnoughts Defense, Galactic Overlord, King of the Sea, Permutile 2, Rune Legend, Spider Jack and Z0MB1ES on teh ph0ne
• Xbox 360: Final Fantasy XIII-2, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, NeverDead, Rhythm Party (Arcade) and Soul Calibur V

All that changed with the iPhone - and now Android and Windows Phones have become equally facile with touchscreens and games optimized for on-the-go play.

Pocket Legends is a great little RPG for Busy Gamers like us. Not a game but I really enjoy Air Playit - streams audio & video to mobile devices while running on your PC by Wi-Fi.

We can't get to every game, and Pocket Legends is one that flew under our radar - though it looks good and we will definitely give it a closer look. It's a free to play MMO available for Chrome, Android and iOS, though the developers want you to buy in-game currency with real money to support them while saving yourself time and getting rare items.

Air Playit is also free and available for PC/Mac, Android and iOS, though you frequently have to update the app and/or server software running on your computer, which can be a nuisance. It does offer the ability to convert and store a local copy of the movie or TV show on your device, which is a good way to stash your grown-up fare where the kids won't easily find it on your mobile device.

UltimoRey added his thoughts on the Kindle Fire, an Android-based tablet we've been eyeing with some interest ourselves:

When i got my Kindle Fire, one of the first things I did was look for free games on Amazon's app store. One thing you need to know is I have never been a touch gamer. Yeah, I played Angry Birds, but that's about it.

I was pleasantly surprised by Castle of Shadows. It's a streamlined Castlevania-like game. You run around with a giant sword killing enemies and using magic. The game uses a conventional game-pad style, with an attack button, a jump button and the dpad. It has a generic lost love story and music for the genre. BGN positives: lots of save points, relatively easy, and of course it's on the go.

As part of the Amazon App Store, they have a free app everyday. I have gotten some fun games off of it, like: Where's My Water?, Monopoly, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots Edition, Majhong Solitaire, Airport Mania. If you have an Android and an Amazon account, it's a must to sign up for. You can also sign up for their Twitter (@amazonappstore) to be told the daily free app.

So, what are your favorite mobile games and apps? Let us know, and we'll update this post to highlight the gems you've discovered. Be sure to specific the platform!

I love that Ico just drops you into the world with no big explanations, tutorials, blinking arrows on screen. It's all for you to figure out
— Jeff Green (@Greenspeak) January 16, 2012

Feels like a lost art in game design: letting users figure stuff out, not babying them thru, letting the game explain itself.
— Jeff Green (@Greenspeak) January 16, 2012

Are there other games that get this right? The Elder Scrolls series is peppered with these moments of discovery, but it's burdened with complex controls and systems that require a lot of effort to master. Casual games are usually easy to figure out, but typically lack the depth to deliver these types of enjoyable epiphanies.

Where do you find the right balance?

As part of our news coverage, we'll share important topics raised by our community wherever we find them. You're free to raise them on our forums, but we'll also cull the best of our Twitter feeds and other news sources to compile what we hope will become a meaningful tapestry of viewpoints.

We kicked this off with our Game of the Year thread (which is still open, if you want to add to it), and we continue it today with an article shared by an active community member:

I made another blog post. This is about Dungeons of Dredmor. "Congratulations! You have died!" http://wp.me/pnB3p-F
— electric_goldfish (@e_goldfish) January 14, 2012

If you don't know her, electric_goldfish is a graphic designer and avid gamer based in Tampa Bay. Her blog post is a great read on the game Dungeons of Dredmor, which is unlike most RPGs in that when your character dies, it's dead forever. Dying is so frequent that she has taken to naming her characters Gnat "as that's the life span."

This immediately reminded me of Steel Battalion. If you missed it, this was a mech game on the original Xbox where if you didn't eject from your dying machine using a switch under a plastic cover, the game would delete your save file! (If you did survive, you still needed enough money to repair or buy a new mech.) We enjoyed the game up to the point where it exceeded our skill level and then felt a bit cheated - though we still have the giant 40-button controller in a place of honor in our living room.

Dredmor is a $5 indie game on Steam, a far cry from the $200 that Steel Battalion set us back, and it seems to have made this dynamic a bit more fun.

What do you think? Can busy gamers enjoy punishing games? Do you love or recoil from the "Nintendo Hard feeling" that electric_goldfish enjoys? At least this game gives you the option to control your destiny, as she points out in her review:

In my 34th year, I find I just don’t have time to devote to games that I used to. However, Dredmor is busy gamer friendly. You can save at any point and play for as long as you survive. (this may be much longer or shorter than you had intended). You can turn off perma-death so you can load your saves, and there’s an option to turn on smaller dungeons for a quicker game with the same experience.

Too busy to devote 12+ hours a day to your gaming habit? Here's a review that's sensitive to your needs: Short and focused on just the things that a busy gamer like you really needs to know.

Reviewed On: Xbox 360. Also available for Mac, PC and PS3.

In a Nutshell: A first-person shooter/puzzler with some of the best writing in videogames. Picking up after the events of the first Portal (originally part of Valve's Orange Box collection and now available as a standalone game), which you should play before this one if at all possible - if only so that you experience the magic of testing with GLaDOS firsthand. The sequel is actually more accessible, while adding much greater depth courtesy of new elements with which to solve some truly vexing (though never too difficult) puzzles. And solving these puzzles gives you such a natural high that the biggest risk is that you won't want to put it down, and you'll be more than a little sad (though ultimately satisfied) when it's over. Fortunately, there's a co-op mode that doesn't extend the main story, but can prolong the overall experience while encouraging you to be social and share the game with friends.

Learning Curve: If you beat the first Portal, you'll have no problem picking this up. Setting it down will be the hard part! If you're new to shooters, don't worry: The game designers are experts at teaching you the controls as you go, so you'll soon being doing science like the pros.

The Save Game: Save anywhere. What more could a busy gamer ask for?!

Family Factor: As with the original, there's some blood and a few adult situations. There's a heartless human named Cave Johnson who rants a bit about burning down the homes of enemies and such. But nothing too bad. In fact, the 10+ rating is probably more aggressive than you need to be. We let our 8-year-old watch us play the main story and he even participated in some of the co-op missions - and though he wasn't very much help in solving the levels, fun was had.

Buy, Rent or Skip? This one's a keeper. Buy it unless you absolutely hated the first one or first-person shooters make you excessively seasick.

On a Personal Note: We absolutely adored the original Portal's fresh take on storytelling with an innovative new puzzle dynamic and an antagonist whose vicious taunts and teases were so fulfilling we couldn't help but crave more. So we pre-ordered Portal 2 months in advance and began consuming it the same day it arrived. We immediately fell in love with the oafish Wheatley, a new robot companion whose smart British accent is paired with some of the stupidest dialogue ever written (get a sample in our audio review).

And once we each beat the well-paced main story, there was more. Part of the game's draw is the inventive co-op mode, which puts you in the metal boots of a duo of mechanical test chamber junkies -so there's not even any blood when they get hurt!

There were many games we loved in 2011, but Portal 2 was the most polished, the most enjoyable and the only title that we agreed deserved to be our pick for Game of the Year. If you missed out on it, you should look into remedying that now. You monster.

Game of the Year Runners-up: GrrlGotGame and I have very different tastes in games, so picking a Game of the Year that satisfies both of us can be a challenge, especially this year when I was leaning toward RPGs like Bastion and Skyrim and she was hot for zombie bashers.

Here are the games that were our very close runners-up, all worthy of a look:

GrrlGotGame: Alice: Madness Returns, Bejeweled 3, Dead Island and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

Gamewatcher: Bastion, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Jetpack Joyride and L.A. Noire

Your Busy Gamer Community Picks

More Busy Gamer Reviews:

• Fallout New Vegas [GOTY 2010]
• Dead Island
• Resident Evil 4
• Jetpack Joyride
• Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
• Bastion
• Alice: Madness Returns
• Bejeweled 3
• L.A. Noire
• You Don't Know Jack
• Kinectimals
• Fable III
• Dead Rising 2
• Guide to kids and adult games

Busy Gamer Audio Reviews and Features (MP3):

• Portal 2
• Fallout New Vegas
• Alice: Madness Returns
• Dead Rising 2
• Dead Island teaser trailer music review
• Bastion
• L.A. Noire
• You Don't Know Jack
• Kinectimals
• Costume Quest
• Pinball FX 2
• Comic Jumper
• Alan Wake
• More audio reviews and features from the Best of Busy Gamer Podcast

This is also our first community-sourced post culled from the new Forums. We hope to do more of these, but for now we'll kick it off with this excellent pick from sharks2k:

I have to go with Saints Row The Third. It's a surprisingly fun game. Good game play. A sense of humor (even if it is often silly or juvenile). It's not too hard on normal. Relatively easy achievements (I got 1000/1000). Lots of customization, or just use defaults. Different voices lead to different dialogue often. The choices you make (albeit only 3 or 4 times) affect the bonuses, items, scenarios you find.

Busy gamer points: It can be played for any amount of time. As many saves as you want. Difficulty can be changed any time. Just make sure kids are out.

goodbyetonight offers her favorite:

I haven't played too many of the games released in 2011 yet unfortunately, but my pick would have to be Dead Space 2. The first was one of my favorite games ever and the second somehow managed to exceed it. Better gameplay, better characterization (especially giving Isaac a voice) and a ton of creepy and epic moments.

James adds this perspective:

I'd be lying to myself if I didn't say Skyrim, but 2011 was a great year for games and I didn't have enough time/money to get some of the AAA titles of last year (Dark Souls, Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3, Skyward Sword and plenty others) so my opinion might be skewed. Of what I did play however, Skyrim was definitely the best!

loocas is on the fence:

I honestly can't choose.

Dragon Age 2 for its ambition; it took guts to focus the story on just the characters the way they did, limited to one major locale and largely ignoring the Blight going on in the rest of the world. It took guts to tell the mage/templar story, with its sharp overtones. And it paid off, despite the game's cut corners.

Portal 2 for its perfection. It's so delightful, yet deep and meaningful, and feels like a Pixar movie. Might be one of the most genuinely funny games ever. The gameplay felt appropriately challenging; not as tough as Portal 1 and very welcoming to less experienced gamers.

We found more picks stuck in the approval queue! Alvarox offers a pair of unexpected choices:

If playing a game for a long time is any indication of it's brilliance then Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is my game of the year hands down, as my daughter loves to play co-op. As for me, I would pick Resident Evil 4 HD. Again (sighs, played it on GC, PS2, Wii and now XBOX 360, still not tired of it).

Have a Game of the Year pick? Post it to the forums! Give good reasons and we'll continue to add highlights here. Include your Twitter name if you want a link to your Twitter profile.

This just the beginning. We plan to start community-sourcing articles. What this means is that we want you to contribute the news that interests you, and we'll post the most helpful and interesting entries to the main news feed with full attribution. This way, with your help, we hope to provide more regular updates even when our work projects go into overdrive. This will also greatly expand the base of news and feature article topics to support a wider range of gaming interests.

It makes sense: Busy gamers helping busy gamers. Despite our hectic schedules and personal obligations, we all have stuff that we track to the degree possible. Alone, it doesn't amount to much. Even when you work at it as hard as we do, the past 8 years of Busy Gamer News coverage is a patchwork of things that we stumbled across and thought enough to share with our fellow gamers. Together, we can assemble a much bigger patchwork, perhaps something never seen before, and maybe even influence game design in a positive way.

To start things off, we have a News that Matters to You section where you can post whatever news tidbits you find interesting enough to share. There are also platform specific forums, a Tips and Tricks section where we'll compile everyone's favorite techniques in games such as Skyrim and Skylanders. The best collections of tips will ideally become comprehensive articles, and we'll gladly credit your contributions.

The forums are still in beta as we're still figuring out how to configure them and integrate them into the site. As of now, anyone who registers as a member should be able to create a topic, though it will still need to be moderated before it appears. You should be able to comment on an existing topic and see the response post right away.

We're still working the kinks out, so if you see any issues or have any suggestions on how to improve things, please let us know! Here's to hoping we can all make a difference in the lives of our fellow busy gamers!

Back in the late '90s before we even conceived of Busy Gamer News, GrrlGotGame and I wrote a TV pilot set in the wild and woolly world of Internet startups. We were inspired by both our own experiences and deep ensemble comedies like The Larry Sanders Show to write something with more weight than your classic joke-a-minute sitcom. We envisioned cameos in each episode by famous (at least to geeks like us) folks in the technology scene. Mainly, we wanted to see people like us reflected in the pop culture - which, even today, happens rarely and then usually warped far beyond reality.

Alas, before we could shop our story around, the Internet bubble popped and we realized it would be a futile endeavor to try to get it made.

Fast-forward about a dozen years. A chance comment from a colleague convinced us to dust off the script and update it to take place in the videogame industry, where we've worked off and on for many years now. The situations had to be adapted a little, but the characters fit remarkably well - truth be told, a bit better than in the original! We put some work into tieing the threads together so they really meshed, registered the copyright with the Library of Congress and then entered the contest. If by some miracle it wins, we might actually get the show produced - but that seems a long shot (we should hear in February one way or the other).

But rather than just file it away again, we thought: Why not share it? Some of our friends have published novels, essays and even plays on Amazon's Kindle store. Perhaps others will connect with the story and, even if it never gets made into a TV show, they can experience the concept and perhaps inspire us to write more of the series. We have a lot of ideas on where this could go, if you're interested enough to coax it out of us.

We priced Click to Play at the cheapest Amazon offers - $1. We even enrolled it in the lending library program, so if you have an actual Kindle device (sorry, mobile apps won't work) plus Amazon Prime, you can read it all for free for the first 90 days (and we'll get a little money for that too). We don't anticipate we'll make much off of our screenplay, certainly not enough to cover all of our time invested in researching, writing, updating and formatting for Kindle (that last part was actually much harder than you'd expect!). But if we entertain you with our take on modern geek culture and what it feels like to work in the game industry (sometimes), it will be worth it.

If we see enough positive and constructive feedback, we'll see if we can bring Episode 2 to life. So at least read the first two sample scenes and, if you like what you see - let us know!

It's always seemed to make sense to generate content for the site through the busy gamer filter, and we hope to continue to do that. But we've also built quite the community of busy gamers, and - while we know you already have a lot on your plate - we hope you can contribute from time to time on the topics that you are most passionate about. If enough people pitch in, we could achieve something truly useful and - who knows - maybe even amazing.

That's the vision. Over the next few weeks, we plan to upgrade the site and build it into a place where you can contribute and discuss the gaming news that's most important to you. We'll pick up the cream of the crop, both from the site and via Twitter, and post it to the news feed with added context when needed.

If you have ideas about what Busy Gamer News should become, feel free to contribute! We want this to be something you'd want to visit briefly every day and contribute to as often as you can, say once or twice a week. Would Facebook login intergration help? We can't promise we can deliver this Day 1, but we're thinking it would be a real time saver so it's probably worth investigating.

What are your favorite site content features? We think we'll have to retire the downloadable content roundups. As much as we liked staying on top of the various DLC releases, all three of the console makers have made it near impossible to keep up with. They deliver spotty announcements and create console feeds that are time-consuming to track. And while we did add value by correcting their mistakes whenever we found them (which was shockingly often!), this type of news just doesn't get the kind of traffic that justifies the amount of work it requires.

Anyway, let us know what you want from Busy Gamer News, and we'll do our best to deliver.

We can't talk too much about our work projects, but one of the things that's sucked away the time is freelance writing. MSN hired us to do a series of slideshows and articles for the holidays and their end-of-year roundups. The one that's probably the most interesting to you is the The Guide to Gaming With Your Kids. Sure, you probably know all of this stuff - but it's a good resource to share with the non-gaming moms and dads in your social circles. So many parents still miss the opportunity to bond with their kids over videogames, and you could be the one to help them down this path. I'm really proud of how it came out (just don't blame me for the goofy pictures!). I really hope it helps a lot of parents find common ground with their kids and, potentially, enjoy games for themselves.

Happy holidays - we hope to see you back here in early 2012!

So, after 8 years of nearly constant coverage, we're taking a couple of weeks off. First for work projects, and then for us. Like an overused gaming portable that hasn't been plugged in for some time, we need to recharge our batteries.

Expect us back around the end of November, and you can watch our tweets (Gamewatcher and GrrlGotGame) for news in the meantime. We'll post what we can when we're not too exhausted! If we don't respond right away, don't take it personally - we're working, sleeping or, heck, we might even play a game or two before resuming our Busy Gamer reviews and reporting duties.

If you find value in what we do, here are a few things you might consider while we're dark:

• Post a comment. Any show of support or even interaction on this site helps keep us going. Say what you think about what we're doing, add your thoughts to a review or article, or just introduce yourself! We'll watch for comments and approve them as quickly as we can. If you miss a favorite feature (like how we try to track and make sense of all of the various console DLC), say so. Your encouragement keeps us going.
• Listen to our podcasts. We work hard on the Busy Gamer Podcast, and many segments in our 'Best of' feed are timeless and entertaining. Give them a try and share them with friends who might be interested.
• Donate. We've only received a handful of contributions, and none in the past several months. We've never been profitable, and that's not why we do what we do. But it means a lot when our community steps up even a little. It shows you place value on all of the hard work that we do. There's a link right there on our home page - give it a click and show your love for a niche gaming community that's growing and we hope will someday have a voice alongside the core gamers, who dominate our hobby and often attempt to drown out or downplay our interest in it.

Most of all, continue to have fun gaming! Don't be discouraged from your passion and let us know what you're enjoying...

• Android: Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Atari's Greatest Hits, Boulder Dash: The Collection update, Burn The Rope: Worlds, Highborn: Chapter 2, Inc, Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 (Xperia Play), Sim City Deluxe, Space Station: Frontier, Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles update and SuperRope
• 3DS: Chevrolet Camara: Wild Ride, Cooking Mama 4: Kitchen Magic, DreamWorks Super Star Kartz, Nano Assault, Need for Speed: The Run and Shinobi
• DS: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Bejeweled 3, Beyblade: Metal Masters, DreamWorks Super Star Kartz, Escape Trick: Convenience Store (DSiWare), Fossil Fighters: Champions, Imagine: Fashion Designer, Play & Learn Chinese (DSiWare), Ram Racing and Victorious
• iPhone/iPad: Asteroids Gunner, Blueprint 3D, Chocohero, Corpse Granny, Elder Sign: Omens, Epoch, Flick Home Run!, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots update, Gangstar Rio: City of Saints, Inc, Junk Jack, Ninja Throw and Rocket Riot
• Mac: None
• PC: Dungeons and Dragons Classic Anthology (with Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment and The Temple of Elemental Evil), Dungeons and Dragons: Neverwinter Nights - The Complete Collection, Need for Speed: The Run and Saints Row: The Third
• PS3: Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Bejeweled 3 (with Zuma and Feeding Frenzy 2), BurgerTime: World Tour (PlayStation Store), Carnival Island (Move), DreamWorks Super Star Kartz, Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtre Legend, EyePet and Friends (Move), Hollywood Squares (PlayStation Store), Jurassic Park (PlayStation Store), L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition, LittleBigPlanet 2 Special Edition Move Bundle, Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest (Move), Need for Speed: The Run, Plants Vs. Zombies, Rayman Origins, Saints Row: The Third, uDraw Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat, uDraw Pictionary: Ultimate Edition, uDraw Studio: Instant Artist (with uDraw tablet) and Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3
• PS2: Pro Evolution Soccer 2012
• PSP: Pro Evolution Soccer 2012
• Wii: Abba: You Can Dance, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, DreamWorks Super Star Kartz, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics, Need for Speed: The Run, Pro Evolution Soccer 2012, Ram Racing, Rayman Origins, uDraw Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat, uDraw Disney Princess: Enchanting Storybooks and uDraw Studio: Instant Artist (with uDraw tablet), uDraw Spongebob Squigglepants (with uDraw tablet) and Zumba Fitness 2
• Windows Phone 7: Buka, Escape Velocity, Evac, Mafia Pizza Car, Memory Cube, Nasty Nutz, Plex, Radiant, Survivalcraft and Totemo
• Xbox 360: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Kinect), Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Bejeweled 3 (with Bejeweled Blitz Live), Halo Anniversary, Jurassic Park, Kinect Disneyland Adventures (Kinect), Kung Fu High Impact (Kinect), L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition, Need for Speed: The Run, Rayman Origins, Saints Row: The Third, uDraw Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat, uDraw Pictionary: Ultimate Edition, uDraw Studio: Instant Artist (with uDraw tablet), Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Victorious: Time to Shine (Kinect) and Yoostar on MTV (Kinect)

• WiiWare: Step Up! ($8)
• WiiWare demos: None
• Wii Virtual Console: None
• 3DS eShop: Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive! ($7)
• 3DS Video App: The Legend of Zelda: Ballad of the Goddess
• DSiWare (also available for 3DS): Bloons TD ($5) and Castle Conqueror: Heroes ($5)
• Rock Band 3 Country Mega Pack ($20, offered in smaller bundles for $5.50 to $11, or $2-3 each) with "Ride" by Trace Adkins, "Crazy Town" by Jason Aldean, "Man of Me" by Gary Allan, "Sideways"  by Dierks Bentley, "Rain Is a Good Thing" by Luke Bryan, "Giddy On Up" by Laura Bell Bundy, "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash, "That's How Country Boys Roll" by Billy Currington, "Mama Tried"  by Merle Haggard, "Perfect Day" by Lady Antebellum, "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" by Reba McEntire, "Backwoods" by Justin Moore, "Summer Nights" by Rascal Flatts, "Alright" by Darius Rucker, "TWANG" by George Strait, "Settlin'" by Sugarland, "Party for Two" by Shania Twain with Billy Currington, "Kiss a Girl" by Keith Urban, "Awful, Beautiful Life" by Darryl Worley, "Single White Female" by Chely Wright and "Intentional Heartache" by Dwight Yoakam
• DS Demos (via Wii's Nintendo Channel): Repeats Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking, Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects, Brain Age, Brain Age 2, Crafting Mama, Crosswords DS, Dragon Ball: Origins 2, Flash Focus, Fossil Fighters: Champions, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Ivy the Kiwi?, Kirby Mass Attack, Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir, Okamiden, Personal Trainer: Math, Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs, Rhythm Heaven, Rooms DS, Sonic Colors and Women's Murder Club: Games of Passion
• Game Videos (via Wii Nintendo Channel): Bloons TD, Castle Conqueror: Heroes, Just Dance Kids 2, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Monopoly Collection, Pet Zombies, Rayman Origins, Step Up!, Super Mario 3D Land, Wipeout 2 and The Legend of Zelda Symphony

Whether you're on the old or new 360 dashboard today, here's what you'll find that's new this week on Xbox Live Marketplace:

• Arcade: Fusion: Genesis ($10)
• The Black-Eyed Peas Experience ($3) "Bebot"
• Call of Duty Elite (free; $50 for premium features including all Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 DLC)
• Dead Rising 2: Off The Record Firefighter Skills Pack ($2) and Gamebreaker Pack ($5)
• Tropico 4 Junta ($5)
• Just Dance 3 ($3 each) "Satisfaction (Isak Original Extended)" by Benny Benassi, "Jin Go Lo Ba" by Fatboy Slim, "Cosmic Girl" by Jamiroquai, "Jump in the Line" by The Sunlight Shakers
• Rock Band 3 Country Mega Pack ($20, offered in smaller bundles for $5.50 to $11, or $2-3 each) with "Ride" by Trace Adkins, "Crazy Town" by Jason Aldean, "Man of Me" by Gary Allan, "Sideways"  by Dierks Bentley, "Rain Is a Good Thing" by Luke Bryan, "Giddy On Up" by Laura Bell Bundy, "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash, "That's How Country Boys Roll" by Billy Currington, "Mama Tried"  by Merle Haggard, "Perfect Day" by Lady Antebellum, "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" by Reba McEntire, "Backwoods" by Justin Moore, "Summer Nights" by Rascal Flatts, "Alright" by Darius Rucker, "TWANG" by George Strait, "Settlin'" by Sugarland, "Party for Two" by Shania Twain with Billy Currington, "Kiss a Girl" by Keith Urban, "Awful, Beautiful Life" by Darryl Worley, "Single White Female" by Chely Wright and "Intentional Heartache" by Dwight Yoakam plus Rock Band Network tracks ($1-3 each) "The Fractal Reason" by Active Knowledge, "Faux King Christ" by Atheist, "Frankenstein Teaser Trailer" by Richard Campbell, "The Cascade Effect" by Chaotrope, "The Answer" and "Life or Death" by Fallen Angel, "Inversion" by Halcyon Way, "Haunting the Dead" by Lockdown, "The Consequences" by Mystakin, "Boy" and "Can You Tell" by Ra Ra Riot, "Heavy Weather - The Storm ov The Undead" by Rainbowdragoneyes and "Let It Ride" by Spinning Chain
• Games on Demand: Fight Night Companion ($30), Monster Jam: Path of Destruction ($40) and Ninety-Nine Nights II ($30)
• Demos: Happy Feet Two, Let's Cheer (Kinect), Rayman Origins, Yoostar on MTV (Kinect) plus all Xbox Live Arcade, Game Room, Indie games and Rock Band Network tracks
• Indie Games (usually $1-10 each): 3D PixelArt Studio, Bobby, CastleMiner Z, Claustrophobia, Distortion King, Flowrider, Growing Pains, Iron Core, Master of Influence, Pumpkin Smasher, RE: Get to School on Time, Robot Platformer 2, Snake 2, StarCatcher, You're All Diseased and Zombusters
• Game Videos: Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Call of Duty: Elite, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, DarkStar One, Devil May Cry, Dragon's Dogma, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Guardian Heroes, Happy Wars, Joe Danger: Special Edition, Jurassic Park, Kinect Sports: Season Two, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, MotionSports Adrenaline, NBA 2K12, Puss in Boots, Rocksmith, Saints Row: The Third, SpongeBob's Surf & Skate Roadtrip, Syndicate, UFC: Undisputed 3, Warp and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012
• Themes (free to $3 each): Saints Row: The Third, Jeep and Lincoln
• Pictures (free to $2 each; some may enter you in sweepstakes): Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Half-Minute Hero, Max Payne 3, Hyundai, Jeep and Lincoln
• Avatar Items (usually priced $1-5 each): Just Dance 3 and Metal Gear Solid