IGN – The last remaining Xbox Live members playing Halo 2 has now reached zero.

According to the updated post on Bungie’s official forums, the last Halo 2 players that managed to continue playing the original Xbox game online have all signed off. Xbox Live member ‘Apache N4SIR’ was the last remaining player left signed in before being kicked off late last night.

Microsoft shut down the original Xbox Live service on April 15, however, a group of Halo 2 players managed to continue playing the game past the date as long as they remained connected. The size of the group dwindled over the weeks as players were met with disconnection issues, overheating Xbox consoles, or just general fatigue. The cause to keep one of the most popular online shooters of all-time alive lasted nearly one month past its expiration date.

Microsoft originally praised the group, offering the remaining few access to the Halo: Reach beta. “We wish them the best in their battle against time,” the company said.

IGN – This morning we received new information on the next installment in the Assassin’s Creed series title Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. This is in addition to the tease website that we reported on  yesterday which revealed an assortment of new weapons including a throat-slitting switch blade.

According to a fact sheet released by Ubisoft the game will feature an over 15 hour single-player campaign set in the city of Rome. Here Ezio will “Recruit and train promising young Assassins. Deploy them across the city as you see fit, or call upon them to aid you in your quests.”

Some of the returning characters include Leonardo Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Caterina Sforza. There will also be new and returning gadgets including poison darts, double blades, guns, parachutes, and a new take on the flying machine.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of information is the addition of character classes, each with their own skills and weapons. Click on the image above to see more screens including a look at the cast of characters that will be joining Ezio in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.

April 26, 2010 – Microsoft will be releasing a live-action short entitled “Birth of a Spartan” Tuesday evening at 9 PM Pacific. Directed by Noam Murro, the video is said to offer a glimpse into one of the darkest secrets of the Halo universe as it outlines the transformation of Carter 259 – the leader of Noble Team — from a normal person to a Spartan. The video will, be broadcast on several UK and US TV networks, be shown in movie theaters across North America, and will be available right here on IGN.com.

Xbox360.ign.com – April 12, 2010 – Microsoft has changed the point increments members could buy on Xbox Live.

Previously, points were being sold in increments of 500, but the company has dialed it back to batches of 400 points, making it a bit easier to purchase titles online. Microsoft says this change was introduced after listening to feedback from the community.

“Beginning April 7, 2010, people in the U.S. are able to purchase Microsoft Points in increments of 400 on Xbox LIVE,” the spokesperson said. “We made this changes based on feedback from the Xbox LIVE community, and are confident they’ll be happy with these new offerings.”

Microsoft said this change only affects those in U.S. territories.

Guildford, UK – March 22, 2010 – Leading video game developer BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today revealed an all-new playable character to the Mass Effect™ 2 universe, a master thief named Kasumi. Coming this April in North America and Europe, the Kasumi – Stolen Memory PDLC pack will introduce Kasumi Goto, the galaxy’s most enigmatic and cunning master thief. In addition to being able to recruit Kasumi in all new missions, players will be able to utilize her special skills as a member of Commander Shepard’s squad throughout the entire game. The Kasumi – Stolen Memory PDLC pack will be available for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system at a cost of 560 Microsoft points, and on PC for 560 BioWare points.

“Mass Effect 2 is BioWare’s highest Metacritic game to date, and we are excited to be able to expand that experience by introducing another engaging new character in Kasumi,” said Aaryn Flynn, Studio General Manager of BioWare Edmonton. “Kasumi – Stolen Memory is a testament to our promise to continue to provide fans with new, compelling, high quality post-launch content.”

Cerberus has procured the service of Kasumi Goto, the galaxy’s most enigmatic master thief. In return for her help, Kasumi has asked for Commander Shepard’s help on a dangerous heist to infiltrate the vault of a deadly master criminal named Donovan Hock. Players must gain Kasumi’s loyalty on the planet Bekenstein, where Hock is throwing a party for some of the galaxy’s richest and most deranged criminal minds. The mission: recover data of great importance to Kasumi, and to the galaxy at large. In addition to this new mission, players will also receive a new research upgrade, one new weapon, and a new achievement in this PDLC pack. Prior to the launch of Kasumi in April, also being released on March 23 through the Cerberus Network is the Firewalker DLC pack, which includes five heart-pounding missions taking place on five uncharted worlds. Players will be able to explore planets and engage in combat in the new Hammerhead hover-tank.

Troedsson was eager to let everyone know just how popular the multiplayer game has become in just a few short weeks. In the 24 hours prior to our discussion, 4 million game hours had been logged in the multiplayer game — and that is not counting time spent sitting in lobbies. To date, over 10 billion points have been won in the multiplayer game and 40 million weapon and gear items have been unlocked.

That popularity hasn’t come without its share of problems, however. Server issues have plagued the launch of Bad Company 2, as they did with the launch of Battlefield 1943 last summer. Troedsson told IGN that it wasn’t a matter of underestimating the popularity — at least not this time.

“1943, we were very surprised over the amount of people that actually liked the game and purchased it. It was an experiment for us. It was the first time that we did an arcade game, it was the first time that we did a game of that kind of price range. In this case, we did a lot of our homework. We had a PC beta, we had a PS3 beta, a 360 demo and these kinds of things coming out. In the end, there’s been so much interest in the multiplayer that even though we had the server capacity for it — the actual server slots so to say — we have had other systems in the background actually break down. The case that we had in 1943 that it was mostly due to the game service collapsing, that hasn’t always been the case here. It’s more about other systems that can’t always keep up with it. That’s why we’re still here in the office. We’re very, very dedicated to fixing the problems as soon as they come up and I want to reassure people that we are on this and we are fixing the problems one after another.”

I spoke with Troedsson at length about the single-player campaign and the evolution Bad Company has gone through for this latest sequel. “In Bad Company 1, we worked really, really hard just to get the innovation in there. It was the first game [in which] we really launched Battlefield on consoles, on PS3 and 360, and that took a lot of our time just getting the destruction and everything in there… When we started building Bad Company 2, we tried to do it the other way around. We looked at the innovation we had and we tried to figure out how we can make the most out of this without breaking our backs trying to invent the wheel all over.”

That included making changes in the name of accessibility and storytelling mechanics. “Battlefield has always gone a little bit our own way, but at the same time we also talk a lot about accessibility here. We wanted to reach as many people as possible with this product, and that’s one of the reasons we added single-player to this in the first place. We wanted to invite more people into the Battlefield universe. We also felt that a couple of the game mechanics that we had in Bad Company 1, like the stab yourself in the heart to get health back, were a bit too complex mechanics-wise. We felt that it’s better to follow the industry standard and use more common systems.”

“The guys that built it, the single-player guys, they had a very strong idea that they wanted to create something that is more in line with what a movie does. It should be easier to follow, there should be a clear dramatic curve that makes you feel like you have highs and lows and these kinds of things… They wanted to incorporate a lot of these classic elements that we think are needed to create an interesting story.”

If you’ve made it through to the end of Bad Company 2, you may have found that the ending left room open for much, much more. I asked Troedsson if this would come in a Bad Company 3 title, or if we could expect it to be in the form of a downloadable add-on. “We haven’t planned any DLC that comes with the actual story itself, but we won’t rule it out. The good thing about having a post-launch campaign that we have — that we plan to take care of the product for a long time — is that we can be reactive to what people think. But obviously, creating single-player missions is a much bigger thing than creating additional multiplayer maps.”

The team at DICE is “definitely” committed to supporting Bad Company 2 for what they describe as a long time. This naturally led to a conversation about the pros and cons of doing downloadable map packs at a price, versus the Bad Company 2 VIP program where those that purchase the game new automatically get certain pieces of downloadable content for free. “I would dare say we have a lot of opinion based on the fact that we’ve been making multiplayer games for so long. Already in 1942 and Battlefield 2 we had a lot of different booster packs. One of the very clear lessons that we learned from that is that the more booster packs people have to pay for, all you do is actually segment the community. If you don’t have this map, you can’t play with me. If I don’t have that map, I can’t play with you. Team play is very important for us… this is something that we felt that it is probably better to give away a lot of the maps for free, and then perhaps we can have some more paid DLC in the future that is not focusing on that.”

Of course, those that buy the game used or happen to borrow it from a friend will have to buy into the VIP program at a substantial cost. I asked Troedsson if he worried some of the more casual gamers would feel left out or taken advantage of if they came into that situation blindly. “We hope they would like the game so much they would invest in the code.”

The talk turned next to the specific work DICE did to make the PC version stand out, and whether we would ever see machinima tools similar to what is found in Uncharted 2 or Halo 3. “The PC crowd is a crowd that we feel very special about, because this is where Battlefield was born. We’re going to take a look at the whole product both on PC and the console, but perhaps even more on PC because we can do more stuff there and see what tools we can release. I agree with you that any kind of movie-making tool is very powerful, but it’s also quite a lot of intricate work to get that to function with the engine. I won’t promise anything, but it’s on the plate for looking into.”

“The PC crowd is definitely more tech-savvy and have more clear ideas on how they want multiplayer to work — server browser being one of them, they don’t want to just be matchmaked in the background. When we talked about this, there were a lot of people worried in production that we would just create a port of the 360 version and have it running on PC. I hope people now agree that we haven’t done that. We spent a lot of time working on the UI, the menu, all of these kinds of things, to get it to attract more of the clear PC crowd that we have. Definitely, it takes more effort but it’s worth it in the end.”

Back in December, the head of EA John Riccitiello, hailed Bad Company 2 as the best chance the publisher had to take back the first-person shooter genre from Activision. DICE sees it more as a healthy competition between talented developers. “We as a studio in little Sweden up in northern Europe, we are pretty competitive about it. We always want to make the best game possible and the way that we usually do that is we look at the best selling or the highest quality, or we look at the other competitors that are doing really well and we say, ‘Let’s beat them.’ It gives us something to chase after, of course we see it as a healthy competition because we have a lot of respect for the other game companies that are making great games out there. It’s about doing all you can to create the best product.”

And on the fact that both Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2 will be getting map pack updates on the same day, March 30? “It’s a complete coincidence!” Troedsson exclaimed with a laugh.

The post-apocalyptic scenario has been done to death but Metro 2033’s particular version still manages to stand out thanks to a fascinating backstory. It takes place in a post-nuclear war Moscow which has been turned into a frozen wasteland. The survivors live deep underground, cleverly using subway stations and air-raid shelters as societal hubs. The network of tracks act as improvised roads, facilitating trade and communication between the otherwise isolated ‘metros.’ The nuclear war which charred the surface has also birthed several different breeds of mutant creatures, which pose a significant threat, but most interestingly, it has also given a renewed vigor to the Nazi and Communist parties. That last idea is the one I found most fascinating, since it makes a lot of sense that in times of trouble, people would fall back on strong political or religious ideologies to give them a measure of order amidst the chaos.

I just wish Metro 2033 had done a better job of explaining and exploring these themes, especially because the distinctly Russian perspective is so different from the ‘Western’ viewpoint that I’m intimately familiar with. But instead of taking the time to properly introduce you to the world and acclimate you to all the ins-and-outs, the developers throw you into the deep-end without anything resembling a life-preserver. Nothing is explained in any real detail — why are there Nazis in Moscow; what is the nature of the mutant threat — so I never fully understood the world, what my place in it was, and what my actions were doing to affect the status quo. Compounding all this is the presence of a supernatural or possibly extraterrestrial element which is inarticulately woven into the storyline. The main character experiences odd hallucinations that seem to be hinting at something, but what those strange figures hiding in the blinding light want or represent is an utter mystery that is never explained. You also hear whispers of the ‘Dark Ones,’ who are set up as the main threat, but they never rear their heads nor do they ever play a significant part in the action.

The lack of narrative continuity also afflicts the actual gameplay, which, again, is fairly standard FPS fare except for the unique twists afforded by the nuclear winter setting. There are some inventive touches like the ubiquitous gas masks — standard gear for venturing outside into the wasteland — and ‘dirty’ homemade bullets, which are used as ammo, versus ‘pristine’ military grade bullets, which are used as currency. Both concepts are in keeping with the overall fiction of the world but questionable design decisions break the continuity apart. For instance, you need to keep a supply of air filters on hand in order to venture outside, and the gas masks can get damaged in battle, to the point that they can crack and let in poisonous air; that, along with the presumed scarcity of ammo, should have lent a fair bit of tension to your battles.

But because everyone has a gas mask, it’s far too easy to find a replacement should yours get damaged. Also, the developers did a bad job doling out filters: most times, I was literally carrying a Home Depot’s worth in my pockets, so the threat of running out rarely loomed. Ammunition is also ridiculously plentiful, as every soldier whose bodies you loot for ammo carries enough to make Rambo jealous. You would think raw materials would be rare in an underground society living off the dregs of a nuclear blasted wasteland, but not only were such premium items abundant, I would often see piles of bullet casings and spent filters — two things that would be extremely valuable in such a setting — sitting on the ground.

These cracks in the game’s fiction really cut into my ability to just sit back and enjoy myself. The custom built 4A-engine does a terrific job of bringing this desolate and sad world to life, and the developers made an admirable attempt to build the gameplay around the narrative. But Metro 2033’s strength lies in the ideas which underpin its action — without them, it’s just another gritty first-person shooter with some interesting tweaks built in — and it’s unfortunate that the rich source material didn’t mesh with the actual gameplay to form a cohesive whole. It’s also a shame that the book isn’t available in an English translation yet because I think the best way to experience Metro 2033 the game is to read Metro 2033 the novel first. That way, you won’t feel so detached from the world, and you can fill in the narrative holes with the knowledge gleaned from the book. But if you do choose to let the game be your first introduction to the world of Metro 2033 then you’ll no doubt feel like I felt: a little lost, a little confused, and a little disappointed.

PROS: The world is interesting and has some fascinating ideas serving as building blocks; it definitely makes you want to read the novel.
CONS: It’s a rather lackluster introduction to a universe that obviously has something worthwhile to say. Some obvious design flaws scuttle the gameplay as well.

Preliminary day one sales are in for Final Fantasy XIII, and with around 290,000 units sold on PS3 and 160,000 units sold on Xbox360 it looks like the title is a success. With recent reports of 5 million units shipped worldwide, that likely breaks down to two million in Japan and around 1.5 million in each of the Americas and Other Regions (Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australia).

A day one figure of 450,000 should increase by around 40-50% by the end of the week meaning that around 45% of the initial shipment would have sold through in week one, with the rest of the shipment likely to last through to the end of April. The game launches in other regions on Friday and VGChartz expects a similar figure of around 500,000 units to be sold in the first couple of days with the PS3 version leading by at least 2:1.

The last Final Fantasy title to be released on home consoles was Final Fantasy XII on PS2 which sold 570,000 units in the Americas and 420,000 units in Other Regions in week one. Based on the day one info we have for XIII in the Americas and expectations for the remainder of the week, final sales should come in at around 15-20% higher overall, but around 20-25% less if you just compare the PS3 version alone. This opens up an interesting debate as to whether the 360 version took sales from the PS3 version or added sales overall to the game – personally I’d suggest an element of both!

On the hardware front, both consoles saw small boosts yesterday – slightly more on Xbox360 due to the exclusive and heavily advertised Final Fantasy XIII Elite Bundle and don’t forget that both consoles are still coming down from the strong Battlefield sales last week and also anticipation for God of War III this coming week (in the case of PS3) so hardware boosts and declines are hard to attribute to just one game in a month as busy as this.

Keep checking back as VGChartz will bring you final week one sales next week and can update this article with day one figures for Other Regions tomorrow.