The Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights demo for the Xbox 360 lets you play around with the career mode and buy one of 3 cars, a Mazda RX7, a 1969 Chevy Camaro SS or a Saleen S7, I chose the Saleen and tricked it out. This game tries hard to not let you forget that it is affiliated with HIN, there are mentions of it everywhere! The demo lets you play around with the different performance upgrades, vinyls and visual parts (hoods, scoop, spoilers, etc.) which is pretty interesting but their system is not even close to Forza, sorry guys.

The demo let’s you play on 1 race track against 6 opponents and once I tricked out my car it was no contest. The cars handle horribly, almost as if your car were on an ice rink. There is little to no control in corners and their is some damage physics so when you hit a wall it is noticeable, but I still was doing 165 mph with NOS afterwards. I pretty much bounced off of every wall and still won the race by a lot. The car models are not bad, but the graphics overall leave much to be desired.

There is an interesting aspect of the demo where you get DNA achievements based on different feats you perfomredduring the race, they are like skill points pretty much and will play out more in the full game. you can supposedly use your friends DNA to be part of your pit crew, I don’t know about you but I don’t want another man’s DNA anywhere near me.

The only thing worse than the bad gameplay is the horrible voice acting. The model they hired to act in this game as your guide should be shot on site. She tries to be hip and cool and it sounds very forced. From playing the demo I can’t recommend this game with a good conscience to anyone unless there are nude HIN videos hidden in the final game. Shame on THQ for putting this game out into the world.

No matter if you are an Xbox 360, PS3 or even a Wii fanboy I think we all have to tip our hats to the new generation of consoles and the power they bring to the table.

I recently heard about the requirements for the new John Woo game, Stranglehold on the PC and it’s borderline ridiculous requirements.

“The game will require at least 15 gigs of hard drive space, 2 gigs of ram and a Nvidia 7800 or higher / ATI x1300 or higher graphics card.”

That is a lot of machine required to play a FPS game on your computer, a buddy of mine recently ran into similar problems, but not as extreme, when he purchased Halo 2 and Shadowrun for the PC, he could not run Shadowrun on his rig. This is why PC gaming is a problem in my eyes, you have to constantly upgrade your computer just to keep up with the newest titles. Games are built for consoles and the only thing you have to worry about is upgrading to a different system every few years to stay with the curve of technology.

Each new console and handheld runs games with high quality graphics and you never have to be concerned about disk space or RAM, just buying the game and being able to get it unwrapped from it’s plastic straight jacket. Putting the problems of hardware aside (which PC systems are very prone to as well if not more if you factor in viruses) these consoles are designed to have you gaming with little to no effort or worries by the gamer, you have to respect the consoles and their pushing of one another to bring this technology further and faster every year.

As a huge fan of Starcraft I wonder what the requirements for the new Starcraft II game will be, at least for me if they are too exagerated Blizzard can count me out.

So it looks like Nintendo has decided to give it’s Wii users a new update that looks to spruce up a few different things on the console. Some facelifts were given to the general page, which include a digital clock and now you can see the current weather without having to actually go into the channel. Aside from prettiness Nintendo also re-designed the Wii Shopping channel to make it more user friendly and also is addressing the whole modding scene.

You will get a Mod Chip Warning!

To me the best part of the update is Nintendo thumbing their nose at all the modders out in the world. You will be greeted by this message “IMPORTANT: If you do not wish to accept this upgrade you can shut down your Wii console … If your Wii console has an unauthorized technical modification, this upgrade could cause inoperability of your console.” And of course by “may” you know they mean it will wreck your modded system, well played Reggie. Nintendo is not taking modding lightly and looks to be incorporating “fixes” to dissuade people form modding, don’t be surprised to see SONY and MS follow suit as well with their own “system updates”.

Here is the official list of all the different changes:
Hit the jump for more…

3 games to hit the Wii virtual console this week, Metroid, Street Fighter and Silent Buggers.

The original NES classic Metroid will have the old Samus jumping and rocketing creatures all day. Even though this game was made back in 1987 it still is held in the highest regards for 2D scrolling games and is a must have for any Wii owner, this may be the best game out for the Wii right now for 500 Wii points.

Everyone knows Street Fighter and it’s supreme upgraded version Turbo: Hyper Fighting Edition, this was the version that set this game apart from others and helped save the SNES. Put the game to all stars and have a heart racing fight that no one can keep track of, get your for 800 wii points this week.

Silent Debuggers is a first-person action adventure, released on Turbografx in 1991, the gaol is to kill small criminal factions, known as Bugs. As a Debugger you explore space and save the world and it can be yours for 600 Wii Points.

Who cares go get Metroid!

So as we close in on our 1 year birthday of Loot-Ninja we here felt it was time to upgrade the site feel a bit. We are re-arranging where our gamercards are located, this is just asthetic. But we are adding a most active contributor tracker, this will be used for future contests to see who our most active readers are in our comments section. We have also added in the 5 most popular articles for quick reference in case you missed one and would like to read them over. Last but not least we also have made our archive into a pull down system for easy reference for our readers. Well with all that being said, here it goes, let us know your thoughts. Peace.

Looks like after some additional testing the iPhone has more juice than Apple thought. It is boasting some serious talk time, internet time and standby time.

“Apple said the iPhone would provide up to eight hours of mobile phone talk time, or six hours of Internet use, compared with its previous expectation for five hours of talk time issued in January.

Apple said the top surface of the touch-screen phone, due to ship on June 29 and priced at about $500 to $600, has also been upgraded to optical-quality glass from plastic, making it more resistant to scratches.

Apple said its device can support seven hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback and more than 10 days of standby time.“

In a cell phone market that is super saturated right now, with everyone and their momma making a phone, battery life, reception and functions become king. If the iPhone can offer great functionality and superior battery life they may hit this market hard, if AT&T can give them some good tower coverage. Check out the whole article here.

I know Metal Slug Anthology is a bit of an old game for the Wii, but we recently got our hands on the SNK classics and decided to give it a whirl and a review.

Presentation and Graphics: The game does a good job of compiling the entire SNK lineup from Metal Slug 1 to Metal Slug 2, X, 3, 4, 5 and even Metal Slug 6. Graphically these are direct ports with no visual upgrades, which is disappointing. 2.5 of 5

Sound and Music: The music stays true to the franchise, but is nothing to write home about, explosions and gunfire are par for the course. 2 of 5

Gameplay: As a coop game this compilation shines, as a stand-alone it is decent. If you can find a buddy to play through the different games the time will go faster. My biggest frustration was trying to use the Wii Remote to play, it just feels awkward and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to use the bombs! 3 of 5

Hit the jump for more…

Just in case 60GB isn’t enough for you, and you don’t have the stones to upgrade the hard drive yourself (trust me, it’s insanely easy and doesn’t cost that much to get a 120GB 2.5″ HDD), you’ll now be in luck with Sony Computer Entertainment Korea confirming the 80GB model.

Not only do we have box shots showing the 80GB size, but now we have the official SCEK website showing the specs in a few places. According the the spec, the 80GB model will sell for KRW 518,000 (USD 557 / EUR 412 / GBP 232) and will hit the shops on June 16. Here’s the kicker: the 80GB model will be the only one available in South Korea as there are no plans to launch the 20GB or 60GB versions there.

Hit the jump for more…

Even though I said I wasn’t going to, I picked up a Xbox 360 Elite today. The black beast is better than I anticipated.

The first thing I noticed was the Elite is very quiet. Much more so than my older Premium console. This is when idle, playing movies (both standard DVD and HD-DVD), as well as playing games. It’s a treat to not have to hear the fans spinning like crazy. The new Hitachi drive helps too.

The HDMI video connection looks fantastic. There is a noticeable difference in colors and black level on my 50″ Samsung 1080p over component video. Don’t take this to mean the HDMI connection produces a much better picture… it’s a known thing with my model of HDTV that HDMI looks way better than component.

I’m waiting on my transfer cable, so I can’t comment on using the 120GB hard drive yet.

Overall, it’s the best 360 console I’ve had. Is it worth the upgrade for most users? I don’t think so. But if you’re looking to replace a broken console and you don’t have warranty, or you just want to pick up a 360 for the first time, definitely take a look at the Elite.

Sega had an official press release today in which they announced the launch of the expansion for Phantasy Star Universe on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS2. It was fairly broad, but two important things were announced:

1) The expansion entitled Ambitions of Illluminus will be a downladable content on Xbox Live similar to the Oblivion Expansion.

2) There will be a special community event available for US players starting May 25 entitled “Operation Firebreak”.

Hit the jump for the official Press Release from Sega.

Hit the jump for more…