Unreal Tournament 3 has served as a console gamer's diplomat, successfully pulling mods long restricted to PCs to the PS3 and *fingers crossed* the Xbox 360. But past mods have been in small pieces, like Samus skins, more meant to customize the game than fundamentally exploit its robust engine.

Now the user-based developers behind Tactical Ops (a classic UT mod similar to CounterStrike) are talking about bringing Tactical Ops 3 to consoles. While the team doesn't think that the first release of TO3 will support the PS3 or Xbox 360 (due to issues like button mapping), they're confident in the possibility for future releases. And when console mods become the size of full games, we can't stand behind a waist-height object fast enough.

Huge Unreal Tournament III mod whets PS3 appetites [CVG]

It came straight from the horse's mouth. Well, almost. Famitsu reported that 5pb—a company working on LIVE ports of multiple titles, including some classic top-down shooters by Cave—is getting the cold shoulder from Microsoft. 5pb's Masaki Sakari explains:

Out initial plan was to port lots of good arcade titles to XBLA. We talked to IP holders of these titles, and persuaded them. We secured these licenses, and finally talked with Microsoft. There they rejected all of our proposals saying, 'We are going to cut down faithful arcade ports.' We felt so frustrated.

In case you missed it, "My Xbox" pages on Xbox.com have gotten a pretty drastic face-lift today. Click the jump to enlarge the side-by-side, but it's immediately apparent that the entire interface has been streamlined and condensed with more emphasis placed on horizontal space. Aside from the aesthetics, the biggest functional change is probably the achievement comparison, with one friend appearing on your main page at all times.

And apparently it's been "recoded to increase page performance." In other words, somewhere a Microsoft programmer is wincing from the still-fresh whip wounds and a marathon coding session, drinking a free orange soda to alleviate the pain.

My Xbox Update [Major Nelson]

I sat down with the developers of GameStrata today (that powerful game stats analysis site that we told you about a few weeks back). And while they didn't have any major announcements for me to break, they did enlighten me as to their gameplan for their coming—in their mind—years of success.

And I have to admit, their plan sounds pretty good. So hit the jump for their ideas on cloning Xbox achievements for PS3 users and a lot of other neat stuff.

Bioware today announced the first downloadable content pack for their Xbox 360 RPG Mass Effect.

The Bring Down the Sky downloadable content pack hits LIVE on March 10 at 2 a.m. PST, for 400 MS points ($5) and is the first in a series of planned downloadable content that expands the Mass Effect universe and continues the plot.

The pack will include an uncharted world that introduces the Batarians alien race. In the pack a Batarian extremist group has hijacked a mobile asteroid station in the Asgard system, setting it on a collision course with the nearby colony world of Terra Nova. Only Commander Shepard can save the millions of innocent civilians before the asteroid completes its deadly descent.

The developers say the pack will contain about an hour and a half of action and a new Achievement worth 50 Gamerscore points.

Hit the jump for a second shot from the pack.

For those who reside in Canada, Mexico and the Unites States, the Turok Xbox 360 demo is finally available on LIVE. Even through the rest of the world may have already decided that the game kinda blows, it's not for them to choose! Download it for youself and decide! It's a free country, and from what we understand of that designation, we can download demos for free. And, you know, not be charged for the full price of the game to try it out. Ain't America/Mexico and Canada great?

Demo: Turok (North America) [MajorNelson]

Most of you have probably heard of StripClubDJ, even if you don't remember why. His real name is Gary Dudley, and he's Xbox LIVE's top ranked player with 245,825 gamer points...who also happens to also be banned from the service. And, according to one of our tipsters, he's trying to sell the account, soliciting the sale in two separate messages:

John Schappert, Microsoft's vice president of Live, will be delivering a Game Developers Conference keynote next month about the future of the Xbox Live service, the GDC announced today.

A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community will touch on the 360's "in democratizing game development, vastly opening up the industry for developers of all sizes." Specifically, the session will discuss the talk about the console's strategy for the year and reveal "top developers' plans for the platform in 08." That's right, it sounds like we're going to get some news.

I hope Schappert will also talk a bit about what the Xbox Live Arcade has in store for us. I'd like to see more indie games coming to the platform and less retro remakes. I think Sony's done a great job of snagging some memorable niche titles, like flow and Everyday Shooter, and I know Microsoft can do the same.