I wrote this for the site I work on, but someone posted before me, so I' ll share this with you guys instead.

Microsoft' s Xbox 360 Games Tour is coming to a town near you! The tour, which will take in six cities, will give gamers the opportuinty to try out some of the great games out for the console this winter, as well as some accessories.

Games that will be playable during the tour include Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Call of Duty 3, Viva Pinata, Sonic the Hedgehog, Need for Speed: Carbon, FIFA 07 and Pro Evolution Soccer 6. You' ll also have the chance to try out the new Wireless Headset, Wireless Racing Wheel and, for those who haven' t already, the Live Vision Camera.

There will also be a special, behind-closed-doors, multi-player playtest of the hugely anticipated Gears of War*.

An event not to be missed! The tour kicks off in Manchester** before moving onto Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Southampton and finally London. The dates and location are as follows:
City - Dates - Location
Manchester - 20, 21, 22, 23 & 24 October - Trafford Centre**
Newcastle - 26, 27, 28 & 29 October - Metro Centre
Birmingham - 3, 4 & 5 November - The Bullring
Sheffield - 11 & 12 November - Meadowhall
Southampton - 25 & 26 November - West Quays
London - 2 & 3 December - Lakeside

Keep checking Xbox.com for up-to-date information on the tour.

* Gears of War playtest strictly for over-18' s only. You may be required to prove your age, so please bring photographic ID. A driving license, passport, or Proof of Age card will be accepted.
** Gears of War not available in Manchester.

I may go into Manchester tomorrow to check out CoD3.

I' ll be able to go to the Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield events. Tiz will obviously go to the London and/or Birmingham, though i' m surprised that the Northern cities get far more dates...

Not the cities north of the border though

Yeah, it should say ENGLAND tour rather than UK tour.

It comes to London AFTER GoW comes out, and it' s in a place called Lakeside....

....
...

Where is that?!

On the flipside to this, did anyone know about that Gears of War competition?

Where you had to design a GoW " NightMare" then post it to Microsoft and win the
chance to be flown(sp?) to Epic Studios for your design??

It started on October the 6th, and finishes tomorrow... I can' t believe I missed it.

That' s what I get for not checking The Official X-box site frequently... ARGH!!!

Probably would have won as well.

To be fair it says tour of england on the site - I' ll just blame Marink for getting my hopes up

*Hangs head in shame*

Anywhooo, I will likely go to either Birmingham or London. Not sure yet, though.

By the way, nice avatar Majik.

ORIGINAL: Marink

*Hangs head in shame*

Anywhooo, I will likely go to either Birmingham or London. Not sure yet, though.

By the way, nice avatar Majik.

Hahaha, thanks buddy

I can' t believe Gears isn' t at the Trafford Centre though. I' m going there on Monday to play CoD3 and erm, ...Viva Pinata... I' ll likely take pictures!

Ok, so i went to the Trafford Centre last night as i said i would, primarily to play CoD3. Oh how pissed i was to find that it wasn' t there!

On the website it claims that Gears wouldn' t be available at Manchester but i found that several other games were missing too. I spoke at length to the event staff (who don' t work for Microsoft, they work for a promotions company) who explained that due to size constraints at the location, some games had to be left out. What i wasn' t impressed with was that while they did have Lego Star Wars II, NBA Live 07, and Disneys Cars, they had left out Crackdown and CoD3. The two games i wanted to check out.

The event staff while polite enough but they didn' t really know what they were talking about. I was told that Playstation 3 was delayed until next November and that Microsoft had sold 17 million 360' s already. Not cool! They were basically blagging their way through the questions asked by other podgoers (hehe!) and there was an obvious lack of training.

After turning up to play CoD3 and being annoyed by it' s absence i consoled myself and played some Rainbow Six: Vegas instead as i haven' t been able to download the demo from XBLM yet and won' t be able to do so until Saturday. I was impressed to say the least. It' s like GRAW on tactical steroids and i was blown away by the visuals, framerate (which was solid) and gameplay. The controls will take a little getting used to as they don' t quite flow at first, but i spent an hour playing it and managed to get to grips with the change from GRAW.

I played Viva Pinata which is actually really cool. I might not buy it, but i' m definitely considering it more now than i was previously.

Superman Returns is dreadful. That' s obviously a no brainer for most people, but after watching some trailers and seeing some impressive enough screens, i thought that at the very least i might rent it. I won' t be doing that now as it' s REALLY bad! It looks like an Xbox game and plays horribly.

Erago wasn' t on the list but was there anyway and it' s the most pathetic 360 game i' ve seen yet. It looks like a PS2 game running in 720p. The character modelling, texture detail and gameplay mechanics are all uber-sub-par and so it' s another game i will not even consider playing.

I played the retail version of Sonic and it' s better than the demo but the camera issue hasn' t been resolved. I played a couple of levels with Silver and Shadow and it' s a must buy for me. It' s no Sonic Adventure but it' s cooler than any Sonic game since the Dreamcast killer app.

Need for Speed: Carbon is utter trash. How it can manage to look, handle and have a worse framerate than Most wanted it beyond me. No daylight and more of an Underground feel make this a game to avoid like the plague!

I played PES6 and Fifa 2007 and i was surprised to see that Fifa 2007 stomps all over PES6. Pro Evo offers more of the same with a higher resolution while Fifa looks born again. Fifa bleeds quality and everything has been completely overhalled and so when it' s released on Friday i' ll be picking it up.

There were a couple of Live Arcade games available but i didn' t bother to play any of them and a couple of other titles that i didn' t recognise/bother with and i didn' t see the wireless headset or the vision camera anywhere.

They did not show the best of what 360 offers and so i don' t see quite what the point of the tour is, although it WAS really busy and the guys in GAME (owned by EB Games) claim that their 360 sales are up 170% because of the event.

Personally i wasn' t impressed, but i will be going to the Sheffield event on the 11th and 12th to take part in the Gears multiplayer tournament. What i did discover is that play time with Gears (solo) and CoD3 will be limited to 15 minutes per person. That sucks but i guess it' s kind of understandable.

I think the tour will be responsible for a large number of 360 sales but for me it was pretty useless. I didn' t get to play what was advertised and the staff were full of shit, even if the girls were really hot. The only reason to bother going to one of the other events is to play Gears (which will be playable by over 18' s only)...

If i was to have chosen the games for the tour i would have gone for; Lost Planet, GRAW, DoA4, CoD3, Gears, Viva Pinata, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Crackdown, PES6, Fifa 2007, Sonic, Fight Night, Burnout, Moto GP etc... rather than shit like Eragon.



Photo' s of the pods...

You know we will have to kill you when you get to play GoW before us!

ORIGINAL: Vx Chemical

You know we will have to kill you when you get to play GoW before us!

I' ll be sure to have my chainsaw ready!

Nice commentry on the event Majik thanks!

I played the retail version of Sonic and it' s better than the demo but the camera issue hasn' t been resolved. I played a couple of levels with Silver and Shadow and it' s a must buy for me. It' s no Sonic Adventure but it' s cooler than any Sonic game since the Dreamcast killer app.

That was alll I heard from your post, the rest was bla, bla, blah, blah, blaaahh.

I played PES6 and Fifa 2007 and i was surprised to see that Fifa 2007 stomps all over PES6. Pro Evo offers more of the same with a higher resolution while Fifa looks born again. Fifa bleeds quality and everything has been completely overhalled and so when it' s released on Friday i' ll be picking it up.

I' ve been saying it, been saying it all along that this time Konami has become too
complacent, and Fifa 2007 is now head and shoulders above Pro 6, the ease of
play, the realism, the character modelling, the ball physics, it' s the closest
thing to real football I have played yet. I know I will definitely be picking up
Fifa 2007 and not Pro 6.

Nice commentary work there Majik. Be sure to cover more events, and you
should have if not already, updated the dra6onassemblage website now with
your findings.

I' ll go check.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Nice commentary work there Majik. Be sure to cover more events, and you
should have if not already, updated the dra6onassemblage website now with
your findings.

I' ll go check.

Once again it' s dead in the water. As soon as a get busy i cease the less important things, one of those is the blog. Lucy being back means i have way less time to bother with things like that...

As for other events, i' m going to the Sheffield event for certain and i' m hoping to go to the Newcastle dates, or at least one of them but i' m busy for the next 2 weeks so i' ll struggle to free up enough time to get there (even though it isn' t far).

I asked (the guy running the tour) if i could photograph the setup yesterday after i spotted the mall security watching me and was given the go ahead but i wasn' t allowed to take any closeups of the pods or screens for some reason. The initial resolution of the images was 2816 x 2212 and so i re-sized them to 50%, and i' m hoping to video the Sheffield Gears multiplayer tournament but in seriously doubt they' ll let me...

I know this doesn' t fit in with the topic but Mass X finally talked me into buying my Xbox 360 so I got it on Monday. Just Cause is a good game! Okay bye!

I' ve been saying it, been saying it all along that this time Konami has become too complacent, and Fifa 2007 is now head and shoulders above Pro 6, the ease of
play, the realism, the character modelling, the ball physics, it' s the closest
thing to real football I have played yet. I know I will definitely be picking up
Fifa 2007 and not Pro 6.

You will burn for that

I think Fifa have been complacent ever since Isspro set foot in this world. Its only now after about 6 years of being beaten by Pro that Fifa have completely remade their engine and have started competing againist Pro evo rather that relying on Licensed names.

Up until now Pro Evo has been the no1 football series on the market and Fifa has sucked. Now Fifa is the better game.

while they did have Lego Star Wars II, NBA Live 07, and Disneys Cars, they had left out Crackdown and CoD3.

Okay, so they shunted out CoD3 and Crackdown for basketball and whimsical animated racing games? What' s with that?

I played the retail version of Sonic and it' s better than the demo but the camera issue hasn' t been resolved. I played a couple of levels with Silver and Shadow and it' s a must buy for me. It' s no Sonic Adventure but it' s cooler than any Sonic game since the Dreamcast killer app.

So the jittery controls are no more?