The Club, Exactly One Harder Than Gears of War

It used to be a fight to push the most polygons or have the smartest AI. Now it's all about the bitchiest Xbox LIVE achievement. Many of you are probably familiar with the Gears of War achievement called 'Seriously,' which challenges gamers to stack up 10,000 kills during online ranked matches.

Now Bizarre Creations is taking the achievements game a step further in The Club. In an achievement aptly (and pointedly) named "No, Seriously," gamers are challenged to rack up 10,001 kills during online ranked matches. Low blow, Bizarre. And we love it. Let the impossible achievement arms race continue!

The Club one-ups GoW's Seriously achievement [Xbox360Fanboy via DigitalBattle]

"Looking at the room, I can tell that you.
Are the most beautiful girl in the...room.
(In the whole wide room).
And when you're on the street, depending on the street.
I bet you are definitely in the top 3.
Good lookin girls on the street.
(Depending on the streets)."

Celebrate Valentine's Day with new DLC from one of the top 3 racing games on Xbox 360. One's free, one will cost you. Here are the full details:

The Club Gameplay

I love the concept of a thinking shooter, a game that rewards for both thoughtful murderous mayhem and artful kills. I hope The Club lives up to my expectations.

The latest issue of EGM is hitting subscriber mailboxes now, giving them a proper first look at Street Fighter IV. But the mag's long-running Quartermann-collected rumors are pointing to a new game from Geometry Wars and Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations. Quartermann writes that Bizarre's new owner, Activision, may already have them hard at work on a new driving title, one set in the James Bond universe. The title could feature "a load of driving elements," something Bizarre knows a thing or two about.

Of course, it's Bond, so gadgetry and missile launching Aston Martins sound like a strong possibility. Bizarre sure knows shooting, too. With the twenty-second Bond picture scheduled for a 2008 release, we might hear more about this rumored project very soon.

Quatermann: Bizarre Working on James Bond [1UP]

With the lackluster releases this week, and considering the reviewers were a bit behind on this title, I figured, what the hell, let's do a Franken on Geometry Wars: Galaxies for the NIntendo DS. The promise of a pocketable version of one of the most addictive arcade titles in recent history alone would have been great. But since Galaxies DS provides a whole universe (OK, maybe just several galaxies worth) of entertainment, we have high expectations for this little portable.

So how was it? Hit the jump for our Frankenreview and find out: 5 muffin tops ready for ingestion.

The Rules of The Club

Even after reading a bit more about Bizarre Creations' The Club, I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the concept. Maybe it's the purposefully vague-therefore-hip name that's thrown my lame-therefore-specific head into a pile of misunderstanding. This clip, featuring the "rules" of The Club, does a lot to smooth out my melon. And I'm really interested in this kill combo system that looks absolutely as addictive as hell. We really need combo meters in our life HUD—but not for killing. Really.

Join The Club

Newsweek Explores Microsoft's Studio Break Ups

Bizarre Acquisition Phase One In Activision Global Domination

The buy out of Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations by Activision may just be the beginning of the second biggest third party publisher's plans to add to its collective. Activision Europe boss Joerg Trouvain says that the company isn't just interested in getting into the racing genre—some 10 percent of the market, they say—they're targeting growth... and more growth.

It just makes sense really. Everyone who's anyone has a dedicated racing game studio these days—Polyphony Digital, Turn 10, SEGA Racing Studio, Evolution, Criterion—so Activision was just filling in holes. Don't be too surprised to see more and more currently independent studios brought into the corporate fold; not the other way around.

Activision: 'Bizarre buy is just the beginning' [Develop]

Activision Makes Bizarre Acquisition

Martyn Chudley, Managing Director of Bizarre Creations, said, "Our goal at Bizarre Creations has always been to do all we can to nurture our creative and passionate teams, who excel at and enjoy what they do. Activision's independent studio model will continue giving us creative freedom to build exciting new brands."

Nothing Says Concept Car More Than Xbox 360 Dashboard

We were impressed with the innovative and the extreme car designs submitted; We hope that Mihai Panaitescu will be excited when he sees The Flux faithfully created on the Xbox 360.

Hmmm, this seems an interesting lesson in spin control.

On July 27, a Bizarre Creations staffer posted on their forums that the upcoming Project Gotham Racing 4 won't have day and night versions of their tracks in the game because "Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city."

Seems pretty straight forward, right? But when people sorta went quasi-ape-shit pointing out, rightfully so, that perhaps the medium (DVD) is holding back the game, Bizarre Creations cranked up their spin machine and issued a response under the befuddling headline "Wrong end of stick been grasped?"

PGR Used In PS3 Promotion... Again.

The Club Impressions