Microsoft is aware of the issues that players are experiencing with the title update to “Ninja Gaiden II” and are currently working to resolve them with Tecmo/Team NINJA. Please stay tuned for a new update. We thank you for your patience!

There is currently no ETA for a new update. Their suggestion for the meantime? Clear your cache and play the game offline. Doing so will remove all game updates and disable the mission mode DLC, but you'll be able to complete the main game without locking up while we wait for further updates. Hit the jump for cache clearing instructions.

To clear cache:

- Go to the system blade and then select memory.

- Press Y on the HD symbol and then press X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X. Once you do this, a message will appear saying: Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices? Select yes.

A relatively simple fix for the issue, and really your only choice if you wish to complete the game before a new patch.

There'll be no satisfying conclusion... but maybe, together, we can take down the whole system. Or, er, change a few minds.

What Game Is This? Part #7 [Xbox World 360 Blog - Thanks Andrew and Ryan!]

"I just figured, why waste all that time? Why make everyone sit through an insufferable halftime show again?" said Petty, who is very excited about the game between the Giants and Patriots. "Instead, I'm just going to bitch DragonForce on 'expert,' which should be enough show for everyone."

Petty to just play Guitar Hero III for Super Bowl halftime [Serious Sports News Network]

The server team has been working on this all weekend, and will be working through the night. They're upgrading all server hardware as well as dedicated an individual database to each functionality to improve performance and handle the traffic hitting the servers.

Update: PSN Matchmaking [Infinity Ward Forums]

So, if you live near a K-Mart and can get there before the word spreads and Bioware makes them yank it of the shelf, you could be playing Mass Effect this afternoon. A check at my local K-mart saw me leave empty handed, but who knows, you may get lucky.

CAGs Score Mass Effect Early at Kmart [CheapAssGamer]

Hey, Marky Mark. (Alright, got that out of the way early.)

Anyway, just wanted to shoot you a line saying I agree with most of what you said. I've said it in the past, people from sites I can't stand...have said it in the past, and we'll all say it in the future: gaming reviews are just not done correctly.

Unfortunately, I've yet to be able to find a reasonable and realistic answer for this. The fact of the matter is, reviews on most sites not pulling in the moneyz like IGN and GameSpot are driven by what publishers send out for review. They don't want you to experiment on a score (trust me, I found that out the hard way when I tried to do an entire review in a back-and-forth chat between me and a writer...).

The biggest problem, though, is just the gaming press and readers in general. If you review games and aren't a Top 3 or 4 site, no one will care unless you're on Metacritic or GameRankings. Unfortunately, to
get on those you need to follow the tired and cliched rules; 7ish = average, 10 = perfect, etc. I've tried to switch to 1 = game blows, 5 = it's okay, 10 = it's a lot of fun type model a few months back, but
guess what? Sites that keep reviews pulled me off until I "fixed it"

Until GameSpot or IGN radically changes how THEY review shit (and I don't mean 'hey let's add pretty pictures and only score in .5 increments!') no one will accept changes made on other sites, because
if the big ones don't do it, it doesn't count. How many people who read 1Up actually pay attention to their scoring system? You STILL see a ton of "OMG a 5!? A 5?! It's not a bad gaem!" posts.

/rant...

Brendon Lindsey
Editor-in-Chief
GamerNode.com

The courts were presented testimony that after setting the fire, Matthew Stringer stood calmly across the street with his arms folded as the house went up in flames. As is the case with many such incidents, the only explanation for this sort of behavior is that something inside the child was broken. I just tend to get a bit miffed when the headline in the local paper calls the boy the Xbox Arsonist, though I suppose astrologists weren't too happy with the Zodiac Killer either.

The boy will be held for a minimum of ten years before the possibility of release is considered.

Teenage Xbox arsonist detained for murder [Yorkshire Post]

As of last night I have officially had nine Xbox 360s die on me, which means when I get this replacement, I will be on my eleventh Xbox 360 (counting debugs and retails).

Over the weekend we had a little neighborhood party at my house and in the midst of it I decided to show off Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360. We played it for a bit, maybe 30 minutes and then I went to turn the 360 off and turn the music back on. When I pressed the power button on my Xbox 360 Elite it started making sounds like a blender. This lasted about 10 seconds and then it powered off. I found the news a little bizarre, but didn't think anything of it until Sunday night.

Last night I found a bit of free time on my hands and went down to the 360 to finally check out Vampire Rain (which should totally be better than Chocolate Rain). I turned the 360 on and popped the disc in. The console made a whirring noise for a second and that was it, just sat their displaying the Xbox 360 menu. I hopped over to the game blade and down to the place where it should say "Play Game". No dice. It just had an option to open the DVD tray. I tried a different game. I tried a DVD, No luck.

Then I hopped onto the Xbox 360 forums and discovered I had just become a member of the broken DVD player club. So that's eight dead because of a Red Ring and one dead because of a bad DVD player. Microsoft really needs to get their shit together. As I pointed out to Peter Moore back when they announced the new warranty for the 360, warranty or no, customers are still going to be annoyed if their new or relatively new consoles keep dying. It's an inconvenience and certainly shakes confidence.

Thank you for taking part in the SNK VS CAPCOM: CARD FIGHTERS DS exchange program. Enclosed is your replacement cartridge plus a special gift. We appreciate your continued support and apologize for the inconvenience.

Also, be on the lookout for our next Playstation 2 title FATAL FURY BATTLE ARCHIVES VOL 1 arriving in stores the first week of August.

Translation: Sorry about not being able to play the game for two months because we f***ed it up. Thank you for letting us replace it for you. Mighty nice of you. Buy our new game. It could possibly work.

There are times to advertise your product and times where you should just quietly apologize and move along. This was definitely the latter. Nice job on the free pack of cards no one wanted though!

Thanks to Chris for providing the photo.

If you missed our previous posts on Drawn To Life, it's a sidescrolling adventure that also affords the player the opportunity to literally draw his or her own character. Character creation is robust, but easy to design. The included simple MS Paint-like interface used to pencil, fill and color your avatar couldn't be easier.

That's not all, there are multiple things throughout the title that you'll draw... well, you'll be given the opportunity to draw. From weapons to accessories to usable objects, the simple, pixel-based image editor lets you design how you want aspects of the world to appear.

However, those drawings, whether carefully detailed or crude, seem to have absolutely no impact on how the game plays. Appearances seem only skin deep. Being presented with an outlined version of a platform, a cloud, a boulder, or wildlife that will act as transport are simply drawn for decoration. Crafting a customized sword is just as effective as scribbling within the weapon's parameter. While that may satisfy some, it left me wanting, wishing for the title to be given more time to up the impact of the unique drawing tech.

Sure, you can save multiple heroes, share your creations over wi-fi, making Drawn To Life a personalized adventure. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling the game was a fascinating tech demo attached to a run of the mill 2D platformer. I also couldn't help look forward to whatever the developer, Fifth Cell, has planned for the sequel.

There's no question the game is easy on the eyes. It may spawn a real following for those looking to express their pixel manipulating talents. With plenty of unlockable character templates and in-game tunes, replayability and content aren't lacking.

The game still has time to progress before its September release, and admittedly, I didn't actually get to control the game as it was still early, but those looking for a more customized platforming experience may be slightly disappointed. Michael McWhertor

While waiting six weeks, shipping your bad cart back and then waiting for replacement certainly isn't an ideal solution, at least they are taking steps to remedy the issue. So very glad I waited on this one. Michael Fahey

I'm sure a lot of you noticed that Kotaku wasn't quite itself over the last 12 hours, but never fear, we are back and stronger than ever. The reason for the outage was due to Gawker moving all it's many sites to a brand spanking new server. Unfortunately, the intertubes take a little while to catch up on these things, hence the extended down time. Thanks to everyone who emailed in their concerns and complaints, but as you can see, everything is back to normal. Well, as normal as anything ever is around here...

We now return you to our regularly scheduled articles, rants and nonsensical ridiculousness. Kent Brockman

For those of you unlucky enough to have purchased Bubble Bobble revolution for the DS last year are well aware buy now that you bought a defective product. The missing boss on Level 30 prevented players from being able to progress any further in the game and left a bad taste in many gamer's mouths.

But, it seems that Codemasters is trying to make up for this gaffe by not only sending everyone who purchased the truncated version a new game, but they are also throwing in a free copy of the universally panned Rainbow Islands Revolution. I'm not too sure this actually makes up for producing a defective product, but I suppose they had to do something with that warehouse full of Rainbow Island games. I'm so glad they were able to find another way to foist that piece of crap onto a group of poor unsuspecting gamers. Flynn De Marco

Bubble Trouble Results In Free Game [Press The Buttons]

Last week, a Kotaku reader sent in his picture of a copy of Crackdown that he purchased at his local Comp USA nearly a week before the game is supposed to hit the streets. This sort of thing seems to happen a lot at retailers where video games are not the main focus, probably because they have so much other product to deal with, that things like launch dates get lost in the mix. So obviously I raised an eyebrow upon receiving this email from Kotakuite, Baukie.

I strolled into my fav game store and I was dumbfounded to see Crackdown in the cabinet and I asked the gent behind the counter if I could have 2 copies and he obliged. The store name rhymes with DB lames.

Very strange considering that anyone who works at DB Lames should know the importance of keeping street dates if they want to keep their jobs. I thought that was the sort of thing that was drilled into employee's heads from day one. Has anyone else experienced broken street dates at an actual dedicated game retailer? And if you are someone who works at one of these establishments, how does such an obvious gaffe get overlooked when the risks of fining and firing are so high? Flynn De Marco

Ok, so it's a little late in coming seeing as the initial reports of Wii injuries to hearth and home have died down. At this point, people have learned to use their remotes responsibly with the wrist strap and not flail around like a spastic monkey on crack. Still it gets points for being really well done and actually looking like it could be a real commercial. Nintendo, take note, this could be your next big ad campaign! Flynn De Marco

We've been talking up the new Call of Duty 3 map pack for quite awhile now, and today it is finally available for purchase via Live Marketplace. So what do you get with your $10 worth of MS points?

5 non-functional new maps.

Gamers everywhere have downloaded the Valor map pack only to find that the maps are not available for selection at all. 850MB of data that seems to do absolutely nothing at all. Needless to say the Xbox.com CoD 3 forums are chock full of pissed off people, calling for boycotts, lawsuits, and public burnings of those responsible. Many of them mention how they hated the game in the first place, and spending $10 on the broken pack for the game they hate makes them hate it more. Makes perfect sense to me.

An official response has been posted on the forums promising that Treyarch and Microsoft are working hard to fix the problem, and that the new maps should be fixed in a day or two. A day or two too late for many fed-up fans. Michael Fahey

Xbox 360 Call of Duty 3 Forums
New Call Of Duty 3 Maps Do Not Work [2old2play - Thanks Jay!]

Looks like Nintendo, while a bit slow to react, is taking the classy way out of their flimsy Wii strap fiasco.

After staying mum on the issue since launch, the publisher finally admitted they had an issue to the Associated Press and then announced that they are replacing Wii straps for those who would like the peace of mind of knowing that when they play Wii Sports they won't be caving in the front of their $3,000 plasma screen.

The AP reports that the company announced today that they are "recalling" 3.2 million straps for the Wii.

According to the Nintendo site, if you have an original version of the strap you need to complete a form. Once the replacement strap has shipped you will receive an email from the company. They say on the site they expect to start shipping the straps by Dec. 21 and it will take five to nine days for delivery.

I'd love to take credit for this, but since the announcement came about an hour after my call for free replacements, I suspect it was already in the works.

Once more major kudos to Nintendo for handling this properly. I think everyone could learn from how they deal with hardware issues. Brian Crecente

Strap Replacement Form

Wii Remote Wrist Strap Replacement Request Form

Nintendo is offering to replace the original version of the wrist straps for the Wii Remote with a newer version. Because Wii consoles shipped starting in early December already utilized the newer version of the strap, you will need to determine which version of the strap you have before ordering a replacement. To view the difference between the original and the new version of the strap, please click here.

If you have an original version of the strap, please complete the form below to get a replacement (also, to ensure you continue to have a fun & safe experience, please read our Safety Information for Playing Wii by clicking here).

Once your replacement wrist strap has shipped, you will receive a confirmation email from Nintendo. We expect to begin shipping replacement straps around December 21st. It will take 5 to 9 days for delivery depending on your location. Please do not contact Nintendo regarding your replacement wrist strap until after that time period has passed.

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your interest in our products.

The reporter does another typical "in depth" mainstream media story on the game industry and offers other people's differing opinions on whether or not you should only use tiny motions to control your Wii or get your ass of the couch and wave your arms wildly like a total spaz. Chiropractor, Karen Ericson, says get your lazy bones up and use the full range of motion, while Bloggers Chris Grant and James Wiley (from that other game blog) warn against the dangers of overzealous playing. Grant and Wiley then go on to get their asses kicked by the intrepid reporter in a round of Wii boxing. Said reporter seems very pleased with himself after the punch fest is over and his opponents lie bleeding and motionless on the floor.

Watching this leaves me with one burning question. Doesn't CNN have an editor in their company? (hmm, why does that phrase sound familiar?) "The hard pite might be keeping a grip on it" ? "Full rain of motion"? This is CNN, people, not some sort of blog where no one pays attention to the massive amounts spelling mistakes... Flynn De Marco

Granted, this sweaty-palmed guy shouldn't be swinging the remote quite so hard, but hell it's just a sign of how immersive the games for the Wii are. One more time, for the record: Nintendo, fix your remote straps. Brian Crecente

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

I know we've reported about this before, but it doesn't quite hit home until it happens to you.

This morning a gaggle of children had set up residence in my lounge to play some Wii. About ten minutes into Wii Sports play I heard a distressingly loud thump followed by even more frightening silence.

Chugging downstairs I found a circle of children staring at me with wide eyes and open mouths. On the floor lay a Wii remote, on one of the child's wrists a broken Wii strap.

They were, they tell me, playing baseball. Fortunately, the airborne remote slapped into a wall and not my $3,000 plasma screen.

For now, I am no longer letting the kids play Wii. If I have to decide between a happy half-dozen children and a working Plasma the TV wins every time.

Until Nintendo gets around to fixing the exceedingly flimsy piece of string holding the strap to the Wii, I'm not going to be letting anyone play Wii Sports anywhere near my TV.

I'm hoping someone, anyone, steps up and comes out with a much sturdier, perhaps metal, cord for the strap. Brian Crecente

Where to start? Deep breaths... MGS Gackt poster, MGS telephone cards, MGS business cards, Kojima Productions recruitment card, MGS Calorie Mate postcard, MGS Zippo, MGS GameCube, MGS t-shirt, trading cards, MGS bag, MGS cigarette case, MGS tapestry, MGS bandana, MGS Fossil wristwatch, MGS Famitsu dog tag and MGS wine. In one fell swoop, Japan-based seller "phyhod000" is dumping eBaying the biggest single Metal Gear collection we've seen. It's as though somebody woke up one day and decided they really, really hated Hideo Kojima. Brian Ashcraft

Loads Of Metal Gear [GameSetWatch]

I managed, by misapplying my fist to a stud tucked away in a bedroom wall, to snap a bone in my right hand over the weekend. More specifically, my hand was turned slightly too much to the left when, in a fit of teenage rage brought on by the incessant stupidity of Windows XP's repair console, I punched a wall, really hard. It didn't hurt immediately, but a few minutes later, when I felt two bones in my hand crunching together I looked down to see that the pinkie knuckle on my right hand was almost completely pushed in. That's when I decided to drive myself to the ER in my stick shift. A few X-rays and no pain medicine later a doctor told me I had broken the fifth metacarpal in my right hand. The best part was how she told me, bustling into the room about midnight and saying, "You did it babe, it's broken." I felt like handing out cigars.. with my left hand.

I get casted later today, but I've already confirmed that I can still hold a controller and play by using my left hand and three of the fingers on my right. Typing is going to be a little more of a chore, but it's not like I've ever been typo free.

For those of you wall-punchers out there reading this, and you know who you are, I'd suggest taking up loud cursing. Being forced to wear a cast on your hand for something as stupid as punching a wall is sort of like wearing a giant "I'm an idiot" sign around your neck. Brian Crecente

Oh, we're tempted to link this episode of Broken Pixels, 1UP's "Three drunk guys and a crappy game" humor show. It does, after all, have Kotaku's own grumpy, disheveled, eunuch-voiced Luke Smith, dead-center. And I love Luke, as one night under the surreal stars of Leipzig will attest.

But as much as wrapping Luke Smith around yourself is like sleeping next to passion's fire wrapped in a gigantic shaved bear skin, we have to be honest: Seanbaby's first appearance is better. He's playing Bible Adventures, a game the crappiness of which he's gotten pretty acceptable mileage out of in his career.

I dunno, it makes me sad — I wish the Kotaku editors weren't, on average, 3,000 miles apart. We're only drunk gamers in transcontinental sympathy. Florian Eckhardt

We've been getting reports of Dead Rising sucking the brains out of 360's since the demo went live, but it's only gotten worse since the actual game release.

Recently, a person claiming to work at a major publisher that oversees a large number of 360s (presumably units used for testing and development) stated that failure rates in his studio were as high as 30-50%. That's insane.

GameDaily.biz reports today that Microsoft has gotten wind of this and is vigorously shaking their heads.

Yesterday we were tipped off by an employee of a major publisher who claimed that the Xbox 360 failure rate—at least within his studio—has been much higher than Microsoft has stated failure rates to be (around 3-5%). The employee suggested that the failure rates were actually as high as 30-50% among the 300 or so consoles they received. He also noted that Capcom's Dead Rising seemed to be making the problem worse, with many of the consoles getting much hotter than usual.

Although our source wished to keep his company name out of it, the bigwigs at Microsoft apparently sniffed it out as an Electronic Arts employee. Responding to this employee's letter, a Microsoft representative told GameDaily BIZ, "We can confirm that the letter was neither endorsed nor approved by Electronic Arts. At this point we have no reason to believe that the claims made in the letter are based on factual data as opposed to being just an individual opinion."

Capcom disagrees that the game is stressing the 360's unduly, and the old adage goes that the plural of anecdote is not data, but with the volume of noise on the subject, you do have to wonder. I'll ask for an informal followup to our previous poll: have you, Kotaku readership, had problems with the Dead Rising/360 combo? Do tell. Eliza Gauger

MS Denies High Failure Rates [GameDaily.BIZ]

Chances are if you've ever owned or played a NES, you've experienced the blinking screen or have had trouble playing your games. The cause for all these problems is bad electrical connections between your game cartridges and the NES console caused by dirt, corrosion or broken copper contacts.

With a little patience, you can restore your NES and games to a like-new condition. This guide will help you disassemble your console and show you the areas you need to focus on when cleaning and reconditioning. No electronics skills are needed to follow this guide.

This article by a mysterious benefactor named Josh Boudreau is truly philanthropic, and will hopefully stay up forever. Step-by-step instructions, including photographs, that make it gloriously easy to get your cute little NES back in action.

And because this post is pretty short, I'll also tell you that this image is what I found when I Googled "Broken NES". He is apparently an electronic music dude. I tried to listen to his stuff but all his links were broken.

NES Console Repair [Kfoo.net, via Aeropause]

Joystiq has word from a source on the E3 showfloor that they've seen the Burning Crusade trailer. The new race? Looks to be The Broken.

The new Alliance race is ugly with grayish skin, and glowing eyes similar to the Forsaken. Its chin has two things like tentacles hanging down, one on either side, and it's humanoid and human-size. There's also a huge picture of Antonidas nearby.

What a great choice. We really like how the expansion is mixing up the good=pretty!/evil=fat and ugly! paradigm in WoW. The expansion already looks set to give WoW a viable virtual prostitution race and now Alliance gets a d rk race. We'll report when this is confirmed.

New Alliance Race WoW Rumours Start Early [Joystiq]

And slated for release on the PC in summer 2006. THQ and Revolution Software announced the fourth installment of the Broken Sword series, titled The Angel of Death, today. Players will reprise their roles as George Stobbart. Fans rejoice.

PR: THQ and Revolution Software Unveil Broken Sword: The Angel of Death [Press Release on Yahoo! Finance]

...of Xbox 360 coveters desperate to purchase the units online. Tons dudes are pinging us via email letting us know that they are having a horrific time getting through to the official site. In case you've forgotten amidst the sea of 360 news, CC was offering a limited number of pre-orders today. Let us know if you have any luck.