"We are delighted to add three of our finest titles to the Classics range, adding to the exceptional entertainment offering available on the Xbox 360 at outstanding prices," said David Gosen Vice President of Marketing, Xbox Europe. "As we see more and more families looking to save money by staying in, Xbox 360 continues to offer high-quality home entertainment at fantastic value and consumers are clearly recognising this as we sail past 8 million console sales in Europe."

No word yet on when or if the price drop, to £19.99 in the UK, will be coming to North America or other regions. But I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't' see an announcement soon.

Bizarre finished with PGR4 content [CVG]

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:

Free Challenge Pack (Free) "Download the new Free PGR 4 Challenge Pack from Bizarre, and you'll drive the hydrogen-powered 2007 Peugeot Flux, winner of the 2007 Peugeot International Design Competition. Plus, you'll get two new game modes-one of them the player-requested Tourist Mode, which lets you tool around any city in the game checking out sights with your friends. Or play Free Roam Cat and Mouse, where a slow mouse vehicle must avoid enemy cats. And you add another 7 achievements. Get more racing fun for the best price-free!"

Premium Challenge Pack (400 points)
"The Premium PGR 4 Challenge Pack from Bizarre, available for 400 Microsoft(r) Points, gives you seven new cars-the 2008 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible Concept, 2007 Volkswagen Golf GTI W12-650, 2007 Peugeot Flux, 1987 BMW M3 E30 DTM, 2007 Ferrari 430 Scuderia, 2008 Honda S2000 CR, and 2008 Callaway C16 Speedster. You get three new bikes-the 2007 Yamaha YZF-R1, 1995 Aprilia RS 250, and 1998 Aprilia RSV 1000 Tuono R."

"Plus, new World Challenge Arcade Mode gives you 20 arcade events in 3 themed chapters, including 5 events that can only be done on platinum. In Tourist Mode, get a free ride with friends around any game city. In Free Roam Cat and Mouse, a slow mouse vehicle runs from enemy cats. Ten new achievements fill out the pack."

It is innovative, it is new, and it is far removed from the more traditional methods we have been using. I believe that is what we need if we are to reverse the number of Scots families suffering the tragedy of a loved one being lost.

Xbox games tackle drink driving [bbc]

Domino's Pizza Delivers Twelve Days of Xbox Prizes

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Domino's Pizza (NYSE:DPZ) and Xbox(R) are teaming up this holiday season to deliver the "XII Days of Xbox." Every day, beginning Dec. 1 through Dec. 12, customers who place their order online at www.dominos.com will instantly receive Xbox prizes, and some entrants will win Xbox 360(R) consoles.

Every order placed online during the "XII Days of Xbox" will receive a gift with purchase -a 48-hour trial of Xbox LIVE(R) Gold, Xbox's premier online multiplayer gaming and entertainment service that lets players connect their gaming consoles to the Internet and play games online. Best of all, every day during the "XII Days of Xbox," 10 lucky customers will win an Xbox 360 gaming console and a Project Gotham Racing(R) 4 video game.

"We're giving our customers some of the hottest gifts this season along with a hot, delicious meal when they place their order online," said Ken Calwell, Domino's Pizza chief marketing officer. "We're delivering the convenience of online ordering and pairing it with the excitement of instantly getting great prizes from Xbox."

Customers can order online Dec. 1 through Dec. 12 for more chances to play. Once an order is placed, a pop-up window will appear to confirm the order and announce instantly what prize will be received and if the customer has won the Xbox 360 console and Project Gotham Racing 4 video game. Prizes will be shipped within two days of winning to arrive in time for the holidays. Customers can visit www.dominos.com for automatic entry into the "XII Days of Xbox and for the official "XII Days of Xbox" contest rules. No purchase necessary to enter or win. Void where prohibited. Must be at least 13 years of age to enter. Contest ends Dec. 12, 2007.

Russ Swift, UK's top stunt driver, was hired by Microsoft to burn a good luck message with skid marks onto the parking lot of Battersea Power Station for Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton.

Swift created the Project Gotham Racing 4 stunt with a sports car, a motorcycle and three sets of tires. The end result: a 50-foot Go Lewis, meant to cheer Hamilton on for this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Hit the jump for the full press release and unfortunate Freudian Slip.

LONDON WISHES 'GOOD LUCK' TO LEWIS HAMILTON WITH GIANT MESSAGE MADE OF CAR SKID MARKS

October 18th 2007: Battersea Power Station was engulfed with engine noise and screeching tyre smoke this morning, as a special message of good luck was embezzled onto the ground for Lewis Hamilton ahead of this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix, which could see him walk away as Formula One World Champion.

As these pictures show, the message was created entirely by the skid marks of a sports car and a motorbike, using blistering wheelspins and breakneck handbrake turns to lay rubber onto the tarmac to produce the words 'Go Lewis!' in giant 50-foot lettering.

And while bemused onlookers assumed the stunt was related to the filming of the new Batman movie, currently taking place at the iconic Battersea landmark, it was in fact nothing to do with the the caped hero of Gotham City - but a very different type of Gotham. The message was created for the launch of the biggest racing game yet on the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®, 'Project Gotham Racing 4™' (Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Games Studio), a high-adrenalin arcade racing title which rewards players with death-defying slides and sideways driving. The concept of 'Skid Art' is also the theme of the Project Gotham Racing 4 TV advertisement currently being aired.

Driving the Caterham sports car in the pictures was the UK's top stunt driver, Russ Swift, who got through three sets of tyres to create the image.

Xbox wishes Lewis Hamilton the very best of luck in Brazil this weekend!

The other demo, which I simply cannot be bothered to type out again, comes in at a more trim 584.87 MB, but thumbs its figurative nose at anyone not in Canada and the U.S. Sorry, rest of the world. You're going to have to settle for PGR4.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
Control Link with your stylus as he sets sail for a new adventure in this follow up to Wind Waker.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC)
Take out the Strogg online.

NBA Live 08 (X360, PS3, PS2, WII, PSP)
The latest NBA game from EA.

NBA 2K8 (X360, PS3, PS2)
Ever notice these things always come in pairs?

Project Gotham Racing 4 (X360)
PGR returns for a fourth round of racing action.

RACE 07 - The WTCC Game (PC)
A racing game for the PC. See, I told you they come in pairs.

MLB Power Pros (WII, PS2)
Little big headed people playing baseball imported from Japan.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (X360, PC, PS2, WII, PSP, DS)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Crash of the Titans (X360, PS2, WII, DS)
Crash Bandicoot spins his way on to the 360 and a possible new career.

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (PSP)
Gabe Logan comes out the other side of a Dark Mirror and finds his own Shadow.

Hour of Victory (PC)
World War II gets another workout in this FPS.

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (X360)
We like the cars, the cars that go boom.

The Chosen - Well of Souls (PC)
Defeat the evil wizard and his hordes of monsters. The classics never die.

The truth is a cold, kittenless void, isn't it?

Project Gotham Racing 4 is less than a month away so Microsoft decided that now would be a good time to ship out a batch of new screenshots all taken with the game's Photo Mode. Hey, did you realize you can view pics captured in Photo Mode in 3D by using a standard pair of red and blue glasses and turning on the 3D glasses cheat? I had no clue.

New batches of PGR4 screens are expected every Thursday until the game's release, we're told.

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.

The game is currently undated for North America, but Eurogamer reports that it'll ship on September 4th. Something tells me that the Bizarre team will make sure the game is ready to go before PGR4 goes gold. Or green. Or whatever.

Given that the game's weather effects are wowing gamers with their fidelity and realism, plus the fact that they've managed to squeeze motorcycle races into Project Gotham Racing 4, it seems likely they've got another hit on their hands.

"We're not letting go 'til it's done" - PGR4 developer [Eurogamer]

Compared to PGR3, 4 has twice the number of locations, improved graphics, and of course, bikes. The focus is on "you" being the star, so you customize your character's profile with stuff like your country so that you can participate in regional competitions online. Each region then goes on to send their best to world competitions, which will crown a world champion PGR player in the end. Pretty neat.

The environmental effects are definitely something to notice. There's rain, snow, ice, and even puddles on the ground, all affecting your driving. The snow and rain change your car's exterior to a have a "rain" effect, but the real interesting view is the cockpit view. When you're inside the car, you can see the water go up the windshield and around the side windows. Looks quite realistic, and should spice up the cockpit view enough that you'll want to be inside even with the decreased visibility.

As for bikes, the developers are trying to make them as "Project Gotham" as possible. Which is to say, more arcadey and less realistic in the effort to keep things fun. You can bump and grind into other bikes and cars, but if you go too hard or ram into a wall at the wrong angle you'll fall off and have to get back on.

You can play your career mode on either a bike or a car, and most races will have at least one bike to give everything a nice mix. So bikes are definitely in there in a big way. We asked how the racing wheel will work on bikes (it works fine on cars), but the PR referee chimed in and said they didn't have anything to say about that at this time.

Other cool things are volumetric fog—which you can actually get up and over in parts of levels—the presence of arcade mode like in PGR2, party and team races in online modes, regional championships, Gotham on Demand (a YouTube-like system to share and view video recordings of races), and "left of center" achievements.

Oh, and there isn't going to be a Geometry Wars Galaxies in this game, but there is going to be something along those lines.

The Peugeot Design Contest recently wrapped up and the judges selected that beauty above for inclusion in Project Gotham Racing 4.

Here's a word from the designer of the Flux:

The name Flux was inspired by the continuous change and flow of our daily lives during work and play. The shape also represents this flow with transitions through hard and smooth lines, between straight and curved all of which are characteristics of Peugeot. A relatively small car (3500cm long by 1650cm wide), it runs on a slim hydrogen power plant hidden in the back along with the tank mounted under the front bonnet. The hood and side body panels are made from plastic, polyurethane for the seats and aluminium for the mechanical parts. The main components such as the chassis and head protection are metal.

Made up of simple body work (basic intersected volumes) the car is easily produced and accessible to everyone but most of all, it's fun to drive.

Digital Displacement points out that it probably didn't hurt that the concept car comes with an Xbox 360 built into the dash. Brian Crecente

Winner of the Pug in PGR4 Contest [Digital Displacement]

Voodoo Extreme points out that Bizarre Creations has updated their site to talk briefly about Geometry Wars for the PC, Boom Boom Rocket and Project Gotham Racing 4.

The internal team we have here at Bizarre are pretty familiar with the routine now; everybody knows their place and is really getting on with it at a speedy rate. We've seen a couple of excellent new technologies make their way into the game... of course you'll hear more about these in due time.

Oh, and just to clarify: the X06 trailer wasn't gameplay. It wasn't representative of what we've got planned for the style or locations in the game itself. You won't see outer space racing or anything like that! We have changed our design emphasis slightly from previous titles though... I think we're going to surprise a few people with PGR4!

Dammit, and I had my hopes set on space racing. Brian Crecente

PGR 4 Update [Voodoo Extreme]

What. A. Surprise. Bizarre Creations is making Project Gotham Racing 4 according to of all people, car manufacturer Peugeot's website. It is currently running a concept car design competion, stating:

The winning concept car will be included by Microsoft in the Project Gotham Racing 4 game, exclusively on Xbox 360 that will be released towards the end of 2007 or first half of 2008.

The previous title was a hit on the Xbox 360, and this latest incarnation will most likely be as well. Expect obvious follow-ups like PGR 5 and PGR 6. Guess the real news bit here is that viral marketing now includes using an European car company to "leak" game info. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Peugot] via Games Industry