If you were wondering what the specifications and requirements were for all of the armor mods, you’re in luck. If you look online, you will find many, many different opinions on what is and is not true. Here is the real deal. Much thanks for Halo 3 Planet and Halopedia which allowed me to verify all of the specs with their awesome page. Not included are the default armor sets.

SPARTAN ARMOR PERMUTATIONS:

Helmets

• Mark VI: Default Unlocked
• CQB: Default Unlocked
• EVA: Complete Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• EOD: Complete Campaign on Legendary
• Hayabusa: Collect all skulls
• Security: Get 1000 gamerscore in Halo 3.
• Scout: Complete “Used Car Salesman” Achievement
• ODST: Complete “Spartan Graduate” Achievement
• Mark V: Complete “UNSC Spartan” Achievement
• Rogue: Complete “Spartan Officer” Achievement
• Recon: Bungie Employees only and select players
• Flaming Helmet: Bungie Employees only

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Simpsons games have developed a pattern in the history of video games. That pattern is overall sucking. How can a franchise that is the longest running sitcom in the 50 year history of television been so inept at making even a playable video game? The next gen version of the Simpsons promises to deliver a gaming experience we have all longed for. The demo allows you to play as Bart and Homer, though you find that Homer is pretty much useless in this level. You battle the Lard Lad mascot, which is brought to life by the two aliens that show up every Halloween. Lard Lad is hell bent on destroying the city but there seems to be no time limit in which to stop him. Without spoiling the gameplay, you have to use Bart to damage the robot/mascot and bring him down. The commentary is done by our favorite newscaster Kent Brockman which actually is pretty cool. His Kent-isms are hilarious and there is plenty of them. The gameplay might take some getting used to. You seem to pick up life along the way, though I don’t know how. I kept killing the Krusty dolls that chased me around. There are plenty of things to pick up such as pickups which are only obtainable with the correct character. The game promises to deliver 16 missions that allow you to play as all 5 family members each with specific abilities as well as 170 NPC’s you can interact with. There should be plenty of Simpsons dogma for the many hardcore fans that are out there. The jury is still out on this one, but expect a full review once Gamefly delivers the game to my doorstep.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Conan punch a camel in the face when he was hammered. Great stuff. This demo… not so sure about that. The game does not hide from what it is, a very brutal, violent hack and slash. There are some very cool combos and hacking limbs off is fun as hell. Yet, there are some glaring issues and the camera is a huge problem. You cannot move the camera at all, at least from the level you play in the demo. This means that the background environments are going to bland as hell because you can barely see them. You basically have no idea where you are going until you get there. To not have a 360 degree camera angle at this point makes no sense. Especially when you have to deal with enemies in the same plane. The demo is short, ten minutes max if you know where to go. This game could be fun, maybe when you can obtain enough rubies or ruples or whatever the currency is. I like the ability to pick up almost anything and wing it at someone. Could be a fun rental, but as of right now. buying this game before some reviews come out might be a sixty dollar mistake.

After just over 5 months, my Xbox 360 Elite has kicked the bucket. I get disk read errors on every disk I put in the tray, whether it’s a game, movie, or audio disk. Good times.

This marks my 6th Xbox 360 to die since launch day. Yes, my 6th. F’ing ridiculous.

I know some people are going to jump all over this in comments saying I treat it badly or whatever, but that is far from the case. My Xbox 360 has it’s own shelf in the entertainment center, with full ventilation from the front and rear. The power brick also sits on the shelf fully ventilated. The console is never moved when playing (in fact, it’s only moved a tiny bit once a week to dust). The console is kept perfectly clean, as are my other systems. I haven’t had any problems with my PS3 (save long install times) or my Wii. Never had problems with my PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube before that.

I guess I’ll be making a trip to Best Buy this afternoon to get this thing swapped out. Maybe #7 will be a lot luckier than the first 6 consoles I’ve gone through. At least I didn’t get the red ring of death again this time.

There’s a new demo up on the Xbox Live Marketplace for PGR4. Major Nelson reports that the demo in all regions for once.

Race three exotic cars and two beauteous bikes through the streets of Macau and a snow laden Nürburgring. Includes an exclusive Nürburgring Snow Challenge and unique PGR Arcade Events.

The demo should give you a good feel for the game and decide if you want to pick this one up. I’m still on the fence, especially with the bikes. With all the other amazing games this Holiday season and me getting married, I highly doubt I’ll have time for PGR4. Maybe I’ll pick it up around Christmas.

Anyway, the demo weighs in at 1.27GB, so make sure you have some free space on your HDD.

Conan is coming to consoles and you get a chance to play through a few levels. The game 100+ fighting moves and combinations as Conan decimates his foes using a variety of deadly weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and even his surrounding environment. This could be a decent button masher with some intense violence or just another mediocre Xbox 360 release. We will see.

The demo for Xbox 360 is available now and the PS3 version this Thursday, Oct 11.

This grenade stick is almost as cool as the one we saw last week. I hope we get more crazy videos like this from readers.

The new guitars for Guitar Hero III have an important new feature: they come apart for easy storage. The necks of the guitars are removable. Pretty cool. The Wii guitar also has another feature: the Wiimote is embedded in the guitar.

Check out the video for how it works. I’m guessing the Xbox 360 and Wii won’t need that dongle like the PS3 does.

Microsoft sent out a press release today to let us know that new Xbox 360 bundles are coming for the Holiday season. Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance will be packed in with all Pro and Elite consoles. Sorry Core buyers, no love for you. And no love for the Halo 3 Special Edition either.

This is a pretty good bundle for those looking to pick up a 360 (or replace a broken one).

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If you grabbed a copy of Knocked Up on HD-DVD and are having troubles with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and getting this disc to even load, you’re not the only one. I spent a good hour tonight trying to get this disc to play, including a return trip to Best Buy because I thought I got a crap disc. I finally found a solution over at AVS Forum. The people over there are amazing.

1. Go to the System blade
2. Go down and select Memory
3. Go down and Select HD Player (NOT Hard Drive)
4. Go down to the bottom entry. More than likely, it will be the largest entry in the list. When the cookie is fully downloaded, it will be 11 MB in size. When I checked for the cookie, it was 1MB in size (at the time i stopped the download). [for me, it was the first in the list, but I deleted all entries in the HD-DVD drive]
5. When you have found the entry, DELETE IT.
6. Retry starting the movie and wait for the loading screen. When you see it, you will know you have succeeded.

Once you do that, the disc should load up fine and come to a loading screen where it will sit for about 10 minutes. Do NOT hit Cancel, because that will just mess up the cookie download, which will bring you back to the same point of the disc not playing.

Seriously, if either of the HD disc formats wants to win the format war, they need to stop making things so damn complicated for the average user.