Public Service Announcement: REMINDER - NEW XBOX REVEAL TONIGHT AT 6PM (GMT)

I hope this isn't news to anyone, but Microsoft are going to be revealing their new Xbox 360 follow-up tonight at 6pm at a huge press conference in Seattle. There will be no shortage of streams on the internet at twitch.tv and at most of the various bigger game websites (Giantbomb will be my site of choice), and it's also being streamed on the Xbox Dashboard. I won't waste any space here talking about the rumoured features and announcements, but what I will say, is that it's best to get ready early. Get prepared for around 5:30pm, find a site you like that has a nice stable stream and set up camp. So often you wait until event time and then struggle to find a stream that runs well for you and before you know it you're 15 minutes behind and you've missed some important stuff. Treat it like the massive occasion it is and get there early. Thus concludes your friendly reminder. It's a big day folks so just sit back and enjoy it, we really don't get many of these!

Xbox Press Conference On May 21st, Early Rumours Are In

Microsoft have announced that on May 21st, they will be revealing the future of the Xbox brand. At a press conference to be streamed online, on American television and through the Xbox Dashboard. The earliest rumours suggest a November launch and 2 pricing models, 1 a £300+ version and 1 a £100 version if you also sign up for 2 years worth of Xbox Live. It will allegedly play blu-rays and its rumoured "always online" functionality won't be as bad as everybody is making out. Either way, get excited for May 21st!

Mark it on your calendars!

'Skyrim: Legendary Edition' Coming Out On June 7th

If you've held off on buying skyrim for 2 years, then not only do you have the patience of a saint, but also it's your lucky day! A mere month-and-a-half from now you'll be able to buy Skyrim complete with every patch, every extra and every piece of DLC included for a mere £40. One of the best games ever made, and well worth double that price based purely on value for money, this is a must-get if you didn't catch the game the first time. If you're worried that Bethesda will just go ahead and put out more content for the game after you get it, no worries there, because they've stop work on the game to create whatever their next project is. A complete package, and soon to be at a bargain price. Just get it, alright?

Can't wait to buy this sucker for myself!

Americans, Order Pizza From Your Xbox!

Coming today to an Xbox near you, a new app that will let you order from Pizza Hut straight from your Xbox's Dashboard! No word yet whether the app will roll out to other parts of the world, but unsurprisingly, the American market is the first to see it in action. I know there aren't enough ways to order pizzas nowadays, so we wait with baited breath for news of its imminent UK arrival, lest we all starve to death!

Actually, now you mention it, for some reason I could well go for a pizza right now...

'Batman: Arkham Origins' Is A Thing That's Happening... On October 25th

Yep, a new Batman game is well on its way, and is being handled by a different studio than the previous 2. Taking place before the previous 2 Arkham games, but not an origin story for either Batman or Arkham Asylum (confusingly, considering the name). The game will tell the story of 1 night in Gotham in which 8 of the world's best assassin's all come to town to try and kill Batman. The game will feature such bad guys as Black Mask, The Penguin and Deathstroke and will take place in, for the first time, a Gotham city filled with citygoers going about their business. It all sounds pretty cool, but the real clincher is the game's director, Eric Holmes, whose previous game credits include the dumb but ace Incredible Hulk: Ultimate destruction. The kind of pedigree you want behind your open world superhero game. There are a handful of screenshots for the game that have been released via Game Informer, so have a look at the gallery below for what I think are the best ones.

The Cancelled 'Star Wars 1313' Was Going To Be About Boba Fett. My Tears However, Have Not Been Cancelled.

As you know by now, LucasArts has closed down. The production company responsible for the majority of the games you've ever seen with anything 'Star Wars' in the title and also, famously, some of the classic adventure games (Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion etc). One of the most prominent (and promising) titles the company had in production was Star Wars 1313, set between the prequel trilogy and episodes IV-VI and taking place on Coruscant (the city planet), the game was going to follow a set of smugglers, though the 2 main characters' mission was always a little unclear. Well, it turns out, one of those smugglers was going to be Boba Fett, with the game most likely serving as an origin story of the bounty hunter we come to know him as. As a Star Wars fan pretty much from birth, I feel pretty comfortable telling you that writing that sentence almost gave me an erection.

The thought of a Boba Fett origin story, set in the game LucasArts were creating is mind blowing to me. The tech alone had people salivating, and the fact that the game wasn't going to be able to feature any 'force' at all was a truly exciting thought. You add to that mix it being the birth of Boba Fett the bounty hunter and... I think... Yep, there's that erection. I live in hope that this will somehow come to fruition some day, but I fear we will never see what is easily one of the best pitches for anything I've ever heard. I'm genuinely a sad little boy right now. Take a look at the trailer below, and remind yourself that "Here's what you coulda won!"

The Final Fantasy Series Reaches Number 3 In Classic FM's Hall Of Fame 2013

Every year Classic FM (a well known classical focused radio station here in the UK) holds its annual Hall Of Fame voting. Listeners can vote for 3 songs/soundtracks they like and the votes get tabulated to create the top 300. Last year, video games did quite well in the chart, with Dragonborn (from Skyrim) and Aerith's Theme (from Final Fantasy VII) making the list, the latter even breaking the top 20! This year, 3 video game soundtracks made the top 300 (individual tracks getting clumped together as soundtracks from series now), with 2 of them being in the top 5!

Grant Kirkhope's score for Viva Piñata came in at number 174, a tremendous achievement considering this score wasn't even really mentioned during the online "Get Video Games into the Classic FM Hall of Fame" Facebook campaign. It just sort of appeared in the top 300 out of nowhere, and is a much deserved entry and dash of recognition for Grant Kirkhope. More startlingly, breaking into the top 5 were the Elder Scrolls series (embodied by playing Dragonborn from the Skyrim OST) at number 5 in the chart, and the Final Fantasy series (represented by Aerith's Theme from FFVII) in at a remarkable number 3.

Hopefully this will give video game music more of a platform to show its quality, 2 entries in the top 5 is almost unbelievable, and that should show people that this is an art form that we can be proud of. Listen to Aerith's Theme below and revel in Nobuo Uematsu's excellent composing work. Congratulations Nobuo.

Double Fine Release Trailer For Their Kickstarter Funded Adventure Game... And It Looks Magical

An art style shouldn't be enough to get you excited, but my goodness does this thing look great. It almost looks a little bit like cut up paper (ala South Park) but the way it all moves looks great! Not much idea what the game is about yet, though the game's titles: Broken Age, suggests some kind of time interaction mechanic. In a year where Cloud Atlas has come out, I'm hoping the "Broken Age" concept doesn;t ape that too heavily, this being Double Fine though it's sure to be interesting in its own right, besides, what do you care, you already own it!

17-Minute Battlefield 4 Trailer Released

I can't remember the last time I saw a bad trailer for a Battlefield game, their brand of gameplay with its huge maps and high player counts lends itself very well to impressive, cinematic trailers and this one is no exception! This trailer depicts 17 minutes from the single player portion of the game and features the things we've come to expect from Battlefield, like destructible environments, tactics and massive levels, but also shows off some fairly cool set piece moments, plus what looks like the ability to tag enmies in single player as well as multiplayer. The whole thing is very pretty, so I'd advise turning it up to HD, sitting back, and just enjoying it.

Saints Row 4 Is A Thing That's Happening - Trailer Released

If you were worried at the next Saints Row toning it down, then maybe watch this trailer as the head of the Saints has been elected President of the United States and must fight off an alien invasion. Yeah. This is happening.