Whether or not you have been online in the last few weeks, whether or not you are even a gold or silver member of Microsoft’s XBL service, you will be able to download a free XBLA game. The details of what game are still under wraps, but Microsoft promises to make these details available soon.

While it would be awesome for them to allow the user to choose the game, I fear that we will have to suffer through something that is only so-so. My guess is that we’ll either get something that is over a year old (Catan, anyone?), or that we’ll get some new XBLA game that was never going to do that well to begin with. Hell though, at least they are doing something.

Chufmoney

[via 1up]

Xbox.com has recently had a face lift. If you’ve never visited the site before, you will not notice anything exceptionally special and will probably think that the site is solely an ad delivery system. Which, uh, it is. But those who use Xbox.com to check messages and see who is on-line will enjoy a few simple updates. The home screen is still mainly for advertising with a few game shout outs. But type in your gamertag information at the upper right and you are taken to your gamertag home page. Once here, you’ll probably have no reason to go to another portion of the sight. The tabs now have translucent drop downs. It makes the movement on the site very quick and less cumbersome. The Xbox Live Marketplace information is still hard to find, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would Microsoft make if difficult to find out what movies are coming out and when? And why do they stagger their release? I’m ranting, sorry. The messaging system for Xbox live on the website is still good and bad. It is not as user friendly as I’d like and I’m not sure why audio can’t be heard from the site. If a friend leaves you a voice message, you have to log on through you Xbox 360 to hear it. I’m sure it has something to do with some technical mumbo-jumbo that is beyond me. But it would be nice. The best thing about this minor update is that the site is cleaner, a bit easier to navigate, and is more focused around your gamertag. Hopefully updates like this will continue, with more direct links and interactions between specific games. Hey, we pay $50 bucks a year for something, right?

JaySlacks

After an incredibly frustrating time of trying to get some multiplayer Catan on, Aegies and myself finally succeeded in playing a two on two (we two and dos computadoras). Catan is every bit as good as you have heard.
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Our favorite publisher of quirky weird shit like Earth Defense Force has just announced our next great Live Arcade obsession, and go figure, it’s the same as our current DS obsession: Puzzle Quest. And it’s adding the one thing we wish it had that it doesn’t already, which is online multiplayer. The images in the Kotaku story aren’t from the game, as there’s a timer on the bottom and no skulls on the board, so that part isn’t worrying me yet. And it’s such a simple game that’s already amazing (and shrunk down to XBLA size to boot) that I don’t see what they could screw up, knock on wood. But let this story be a message to you that we really like, and recommend, Puzzle Quest, whether you buy it for your PSP or your DS, or now, if you wait to buy it on the XBLA. My warrior will red jewel all of your asses.

-Aegies