This week gamers, you get to experience the amazingness that is Marathon on Xbox 360. As a longtime Mac fanboy, I grew up playing Marathon while my PC brethren cut their teeth on Doom and Quake. Now, finally, the masses will experience the game that, in my opinion, made Bungie, and is the precursor to Halo. And we all know, without Halo, the Xbox may have never gotten off of its feet.

Also arriving this Wednesday, is Spyglass Board Games. This game compilation offers Chess, Checkers, Reversi and Mancala to play locally or on Live, with support for the Live Vision camera. While it’s unfortunate that this type of game compilation won’t come close to Clubhouse Games on GBA in terms of choices, it’s the first taste of Xbox Live chess that I’ve long desired. It will be interesting to see how this offering, where Chess is simply an included title, compares to the dedicated Chessmaster which will be released on 360 later this year.

The Bomberman series has existed in some form or another since 1983, gracing several different consoles in many different incarnations. The lastest release is Bomberman Live, an Xbox Live Arcade title for the Xbox 360. At 800 Microsoft Points (about $10) this game offers great multiplayer action, and is well worth the price in my opinion.

Bomberman Live is at it’s core follows the standard Bomberman formula. It does away with any type of story or mission based objectives, leaving just a handful of game types. The normal mode is a deathmatch, where you place bombs around the board to try to blow up your opponents. By picking up powerups you can place more bombs, and they can make a larger explosion. Up to 8 characters will be on the screen at once (up to 4 can be controlled by humans in a local game, all 8 can be humans on Xbox Live) making the game a fast-paced frenzy to get the powerups and destroy the opponents.

There is some level of customization available, with options to allow vanquished opponents to toss in bombs from the sidelines, or to have a sudden death finale where blocks fall around the perimeter of the board, shrinking it until somebody is finally declared the winner. There are also a few alternative game modes, including paint bomb (where you try to paint the most squares your color using bombs) or zombie, which is a version of paint bomb where you can’t actually die.

Over several hours of playing the game, we usually stuck with the normal mode. There are several maps, with each area having it’s own special features. The futuristic level has teleportation squares, while the jungle level has quicksand that stops your movement for a few seconds. This helps keep the game relatively fresh. Also, my girlfriend and I were very surprised that, even after playing for a while the music remained catchy.

There are numerous costumes that are unlocked by picking up special items that randomly appear within games. You can then adjust the look of your bomberman, although the selection is pretty basic. One of my favorite things is the achievement “The Good, The Bad, and the Bombed” where you must get a frag on an Xbox Live game while wearing the full cowboy costume.. only the person you frag must also have that costume on.

Overall Bomberman Live is a great experience on the Xbox, and is especially good when you play against other humans, either locally or over Live. Hopefully Hudson will provide some new levels, new costumes and perhaps even new game modes to help expand this winning formula.

Major Nelson announced that the demo for the long anticipated (at least by me) game Ace Combat 6 is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace! Go forth and play, and let me know how it is (because I can’t check it out until I’m home from work)!

In a surprise to most of us, Microsoft announced a special edition of the Xbox 360, the Halo 3 edition. The system is a Premium (20 GB) system with a Halo 3 inspired paint scheme. It includes a matching wireless controller and play-and-charge kit. The console looks great, but I cannot figure out why they would do this with a 20GB drive and not make this an Elite.

Gamerscore Blog has a listing of the holiday games lineup for Xbox 360, and it’s a strong list. There are sure-fire hits such as Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero III and Madden 08, but the Ace Combat series, Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect make this holiday lineup a killer.

• “Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation” (NAMCO BANDAI Games).
• “Assassin’s Creed” (Ubisoft).
• “Beautiful Katamari” (NAMCO BANDAI Games).
• “BioShock” (2K Games).
• “Blue Dragon” (Mistwalker/Artoon Co. Ltd.).
• “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” (Activision).
• “Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE™ 2” (Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.).
• “Grand Theft Auto IV” (Rockstar Games).
• “Guitar Hero III™: Legends of Rock” (RedOctane/Activision).
• “Halo 3” (Bungie Studios).
• “Madden NFL 08” (Electronic Arts Inc.).
• “Mass Effect” (BioWare Corp.).
• “Naruto: Rise of a Ninja” (Ubisoft).
• “Project Gotham Racing 4” (Bizarre Creations Ltd.).
• “Rock Band” (MTV Games).
• “Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action” (Screenlife Games/WXP).
• “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction” (Ubisoft).
• “Virtua Fighter™ 5” (SEGA).
• “Viva Piñata^®: Party Animals” (Krome Studios Pty. Ltd.).

The epic precursor series that eventually led us to Halo, Bungie’s Marathon has been confirmed for Xbox Live Arcade! We mentioned this possibility a few weeks ago, but Microsoft has confirmed it in an E3 video reel, according to Xbox360Fanboy. Prepare for yellow alien blood splatter!

It’s a rare late night (1:15AM EST) update here at Xbox Topic, but it’s E3 time and sometimes these types of posts are necessary. Such as to announce that Sonic the Hedgehog and Golden Axe are currently available for download on XBLA, a few hours earlier than normal arcade releases.

Plus Peter Moore has announced that a new Resident Evil 5 trailer will be available on marketplace on July 26th!

In other news, the Ace Combat demo will be available this week, and the NCAA Football 08 demo is available now!

Whew! Lots of stuff to explore, so fire up your 360’s and get to it!

Well, in a move that was a long time coming, Microsoft has finally fessed up to an “unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles” and will extend the warranty to 3 years from the date of purchase.  This is a needed sign of goodwill, as an estimated 30% of the consoles are suffering the red ring of death, meaning it must be shipped back to Microsoft for repairs.  This should help instill confidence in consumers who fear buying a 360 because of their track record.

Microsoft is going to take a hit financially for this, but they can’t afford not to do this.  And they really need to get those smaller process processors in production, to reduce the incredible heat issues that appear to be the root cause of the breakdowns.

According to Siliconera, who reference this Japanese article on Dengeki, a demo of the upcoming RPG Blue Dragon will be available for 3 weeks, starting on July 20th! This highly anticipated game, developed by the creator of Final Fantasy, has been a sleeper hit in Japan, and takes the world by storm later this summer.

If you grew up with an Atari joystick in your hand, you are well aware of the Missile Command franchise. If you’ve seen the movie Terminator 2, you’ll notice that even John Connor plays him some Missile Command. This game is a classic, and is now available with updated high-res graphics on Xbox Live Arcade. I’ll have impressions here soon.

FYI - I blame my lack of updates to my DS and a certain Nintendo franchise that captures your soul as you catch ‘em all. But don’t worry, I’m not ready to start DS Topic just yet