Yes, we realise that this is probably the most puerile low we’ve ever sunk to, but let’s just say this was born of a comment made in the office while a certain person was playing said game. Said person then suggested that we post a blog, said blogger complained that people might see it as a cynical traffic exercise, certain person agreed, but then offered that people might at least laugh at it. Said blogger thought that if they were laughing it was probably because what they got was what they were expecting, but doubted that anyone laughed who expected to see boobs. Oh well, the world keeps on turning.

They’re probably not even tits. They’re probably just sparrows or something.

Insomniac Games has revealed that its first major new IP for years will be bucking the trend of Sony exclusivity and making its way to the Xbox 360. While there are first-party studios that hinge their success on one specific console, there have always been others, though dedicated to the cause, that never sign on the dotted line. Microsoft’s relationship with Bungie is indicative of a studio relationship where the studio remained independent, despite a close working relationship. Similarly, on the Sony side, Insomniac Games has been instrumental in making sure the PlayStation brand is a success.

Successful series such as Spyro or Ratchet & Clank created colourful characters and platforming fun that lead into the more serious Resistance FPS games, but what has Insomniac in store for its first foray into 360 territory? Well, for those that have spent their gaming lives with a 360 pad glued to their hands, Insomniac has been keen to point out its core tenets of humour, exotic and explosive weapons, and immersive storytelling. You can usually add stunning locations and scenery to that list too, and currently, Overstrike’s lovely CGI trailer has been living up to that promise.

But, why wouldn’t it? Look past the glossy theatrics and on paper Overstrike is hitting a pretty perfect balance between action-adventure gameplay and four-player co-op; a feature of this generation of gaming that has been depressingly under used. The game focuses on four characters: team leader Brooks is cocky and to the point, best friend and black guy Jacob The ‘Pacifist’ is anything but, Maya is the stealthy femme fatale and there’s Isabel, shooting from the hip for women’s rights. It’s obvious that subtlty and avoiding clichés are at the bottom of Insomniac’s to-do list, but where most characters this banale would be the death knell of a third-person action game, in Overstrike, its humour and fun shine through regardless.

There’s little reason to doubt Insomniac’s history from an artistic or technical point of view, but where Overstrike will succeed or fail is how well its four characters and co-op gameplay can be implemented alongside its narrative.

Capcom recently posted sales projections for a handful of its forthcoming titles, estimating a global total of 1.5 million sales for Dragon’s Dogma.

Some were a little shocked by this, given that just a couple of months ago Dragon’s Dogma producer Hideaki Itsuno reportedly said he thought it could sell 10 million.

But he didn’t. He said he wanted it to. As far as actual expectations go, he was confident of Dragon’s Dogma selling over 1 million in Japan, which would probably amount to about 2 million worldwide.

So it’s not that big a drop. Arguably not really a drop at all.

But it’s still too high.

For Dragon’s Dogma to sell as much as 1.5 million worldwide it would need at least one of the following two things:

a) For there to be a buzz about it.

b) For it to be really good.

It has neither.

If you’re a hardcore game, in particular if you’re a Capcom fan, and you spend a lot of time on the internet then you might be under the impression that Dragon’s Dogma is a pretty big deal. But the rest of the world doesn’t think so.

Running a quick comparison between Dragon’s Dogma, Dark Souls and Kingdoms Of Amalur on Google Insights shows that it’s getting searched for way less than either of those two comparable titles.

A lack of pre-release buzz needn’t be the end of the world, though. Good games can come out of nowhere, selling well on the back of positive reviews and strong word-of-mouth.

But Dragon’s Dogma’s not going to get that either.

It’s not going to review as well as either Dark Souls or Kingdoms Of Amalur – I gave it a 6/10 in X360 – and simply isn’t good enough to generate much word of mouth

Dark Souls has managed 1.5 million global sales so far and Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning 1.1 million. So I’d be surprised if Dragon’s Dogma manages 1 million worldwide, never mind in Japan.

Even if the Resident Evil 6 demo boosts its sales significantly, expect to see the pre-owned section of your local game emporium bursting with copies of Dragon’s Dogma within a week or two of release.

X360 magazine’s latest issue boasts an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Spec Ops: The Line, one of the most genuinely mature shooters we’ve ever played. Not to mention shocking and controversial.

GTA V’s release date is another controversial topic but we’ve got a definitive answer from an industry insider who spoke exclusively to us. Find out how we can be so sure it’s coming in October 2012 inside the mag.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Assassin’s Creed III also get major coverage this issue, along with the likes of Gears Of War 4, Metal Gear Solid 5, Half-Life 3, Crysis 3, Resident Evil 6 and a great many more awesome Xbox 360 games.

And the print version of the magazine, as always, comes packaged with a free DVD and free book, this month The Achievement Whore Handbook Volume 1, the perfect gift for anyone prepared to game on the dark side in return for a bigger Gamerscore.

X360 issue 85 is available now at all good newsagents and from the Imagine Shop. Digital versions are also available through the iTunes Newstand app and through Zinio.

Hello. My name’s Chris and I’m a Minecraft addict.

I must admit, I didn’t know a great deal about the game before I finally started playing it last Wednesday. I knew people had used it to create working analogue computers, 1:1 scale replicas of the Starship Enterprise, and a whole host of other time-consuming but neverthless impressive feats of construction, but I knew little about the underlying mechanics. I wasn’t completely aware of how it all held together, or what lay behind the creation aspect of the game.

When it was released on Xbox I thought that, being a games journalist, it was my responsibility to finally give the game a go and see what all the fuss was about. After all, it’s getting to the point that being in this profession and not having played Minecraft is tantamount to not having played Tetris.

So, I started a game and played the tutorial (and thank goodness they created one to make the 360 version more accessible or I likely would have given up a lot sooner). I jumped into the game proper and created a small hut with a bed to protect myself from the monsters outside, and slept through the first night. The next in-game day I tried, and failed, to create a moat, and then attempted to boil an egg using a furnace, to which I experienced similarly negative results.

I turned off the game, not really sure what it wanted from me, and went to bed.

The next day in work I could think of only one thing. My hut needs a balcony. The thought swirled around in my brain continuously; somehow this goal seemed more important than any other throughout that day, and the minute I got home I booted up Minecraft and created a rather shoddy looking balcony atop my wooden house. I stepped back and admired my work, but something wasn’t right. Wood’s not good enough, I thought. Maybe I should make the house out of stone? So off I went, burrowing deep into the earth in search of enough to cobblestone to heat into solid stone using my furnace.

Once that task was complete and my hut resembled more of a fort, I realised I wanted a second level. I wanted a pool. I wanted pool lights. All of this was going to take time, dedication and whole lot of mining.

I’ve been obsessed with the game since. My house/fort/castle/ultra-mansion currently stands atop four broad pillars, above a large body of water that keeps any nighttime nasties at bay (there are pool lights too, of course). It has a not-at-all-shoddy balcony, a glass roof, and a beautiful sea view. Nearby is a small hut which houses the entrance to my mine, which I have turned into a veritable rabbit warren of winding tunnels that it’s perhaps to easy to get lost in. My flatmates have watched in dismay as I’ve endlessy hacked away at stone looking for iron ore. Why? “Because I’m making a ROLLER COASTER” I yell at them like some frenzied OCD sufferer, before turning back to the screen and drilling yet another burrow deep into the earth.

I am obsessed. Even now I’m thinking about what new additions I can add to my creation. How can I make it bigger? Safer? More exciting? More interesting to potential visitors to my world? I played it until 1.30am last night.

I think the reason for this is that, like Tetris, Minecraft bores right into your subconcious. It plays on our desire to create, build and share by allowing us to do so in extremely simple fashion. Well, ostensibly simple. Placing blocks atop of other block is easy enough, but it’s the effort that goes into finding those materials – the mining and crafting and smelting – that makes everything that little bit tougher; it ensures you’re always so close to your goal but never able to fully achieve it until you’ve put in just a few more hours, then a few more, then more still. Suddenly you realise it’s 1.30am and you’ve got work the next day.

I wonder how long it will hold my attention? How much further can I go before I realise whatever I create is ultimately useless to me in the real world? I’m really not sure, all I know is right now I’m obsessed by something that’s seemingly so simple, yet in reality is deviously complex, and is ever demanding just a few more minutes of my time.

This isn’t to say I haven’t experienced problems with the game. Being that I’m completely new to Minecraft – and I’m only just experiencing not only the game itself but also the meta game that exists beyond it in countless YouTube videos and Wiki pages – I can’t tell whether or not some of the things that are occurring are by design or are in fact related to bugs in the code. Monsters still often wander my world during the day, for example, and I had to abandon my first creation as it flat out refused to allow me to place water in the moat I had carved out around it (and I’m pretty certain I did everything necessary to ensure that it could hold it).

But despite these niggles, I’d still have to say that right now Minecraft feels like one of the finest games I’ve played on XBLA, perhaps on Xbox as a whole. I haven’t seen enough of the game to fully understand the big picture yet, but I already know that it’s far greater than the sum of the parts I have.

The main complaint is that Coco’s video makes gamers look like boob-obsessed idiots. Now, I’d have to at least agree that Coco seems a little out of place with Ghost Recon’s usually pretty serious tone and yeah, it’s maybe not a great idea on Ubisoft’s part.

But I don’t think the video itself really sheds gamers in that bad of a light – it’s the sexism and hatred underlying many of the complaints that really makes some of us look like socially backward assholes.

I’m looking at an article right now that professes to object to the ‘sexism’ of the video, calling it an insult to female gamers, then immediately ‘backs up’ its claim by pointing out that most comments on GameTrailers regarding the video have been negative and that Coco is ‘absolutely revolting’.

You know, Coco isn’t exactly my type either, but I’m not going to let that ruin a game for me, nor am I going take it out on her by publicly insulting her in the weakest, most pathetic way a man knows how – picking on her perceived level of attractiveness.

If I did that, I’d be a… an effing asshole (sorry, I’m not really allowed to swear much on here).

I’m not gonna link to or name the article in question because it’s not fair to single it out. I browsed those GameTrailers comments. This high horse, hateful attitude is prevalent.

AND ANOTHER THING…

If you really think your view of women is so enlightened, you arrogant, elitist… eff-holes, then watch the video properly. I can tell you were looking at Coco’s tits and ass (as you feigned aloof disgust) when she was shooting those guns, because if you were looking at her face, her hands, her arms and her overall stance when she was doing it, you’d have noticed at least one pretty effing good reason why she’s in Team Ghost…

She can handle real guns an effing eff-ton better than you can, you wussy little shut-in keyboard warrior.

All this “Dat girl dunt know nuttin bout da games” bullshit is pathetic and embarrassing. Open your mind up a little, just an effing little, and you might realise she’s talking about guns and does know what she’s talking about.

Like Ice-T woulda married a girl that couldn’t operate a submachine gun… jeez!

By the way, I’ll retract the Z-list comment if Ice-T himself is the final member of Team Ghost.

When Robert Bowling, creative strategist on the Modern Warfare franchise, announced that he was to leave Infinity Ward earlier this year the internet immediately cried foul play. Turns out he just wanted to forge ahead with his own business venture Robotoki – a new developer that will prize narrative storytelling and the fostering of creative talent above all else.

What was it like being the ‘face’ of the Modern Warfare franchise for so long? What are you going to miss about the role?

Being the most public facing and accessible member of the Call of Duty franchise for the last 7 years taught me a lot about the value of being connected to your userbase. It was always important to me, from a development perspective, to have transparency and direct access with your userbase, and when you’re userbase is over 30 million people globally, it allowed me a unique advantage of learning a lot about how varied your userbase can become in the type of experience they’re looking for. This knowledge has shaped a lot of how we approach game design with Robotoki and how players will be able to shape their own experience in our first IP.

Robotoki’s cross-platform approach to game development seems like a break from tradition…

Our design philosophy is all about creating a platform-agnostic universe that creates experiences specific to each player’s device. This is why we approach the universe first, experiences second, and game mechanics last. That’s not an order of quality but an order of process. It’s about making sure how you experience the characters, stories, and experiences within the game universe are specific to the device you’re playing on, not an after-thought, while also allowing your contributions on each, whether you’re playing on tablet, console, or PC, to have influence on your overall character progression and the state of the universe as a whole.

Many developers would argue that game mechanics are the most important element to focus on, rather than narrative. Why do you consider creating the universe first the most important part of the process?

Designing a universe first allows you creative freedom on how your players experience your gameplay mechanics, and allows you to tailor the experience per device. It has no impact on the quality of the game mechanics, there is no denying you have to nail those, otherwise the experience is ruined. It’s about ensuring that the game mechanics fit within the universe, and more importantly, the device the player is engaging the universe from.

What makes a great shooter mechanic (smooth, fast, and tight controls) on consoles and PC is not the same as on the tablet. Therefore, if you start with purely the mechanic in mind, you’re just making a great shooter. We think games have evolved beyond that, and that an interesting universe is made up of more than just a great shooter, but a variety of player styles that engage the world, characters, and universe in a variety of ways, and through a variety of devices. This thought process requires you to design from the top down, looking at the different strengths and weaknesses each player style, genre preference, skill set, and device interfaces can impact and change the overall state of the game universe and world.

For example, when I’m at home, sitting in front of a monitor or on my couch with a console, I want a more immersive, cinematic experience when I’m engaging this universe. However, when I leave the house and I’m on a tablet; I still want to engage the world, my character, continue my progress. This mobile experience should allow that, but in a way that is unique to the console and PC experience, it doesn’t need to mimic the first person experience nor does it even need to be within the same genre. However, the contributions and actions I take, can still impact and affect my world, character, story, and experience on console and PC in a meaningful way.

It feels like you have set up Robotoki as an alternative to the norm in game development. Do you think it’s necessary to break from tradition in order to survive as a business?

Absolutely. Our philosophy at Robotoki is ‘Team First, Everything Else Second’. I feel strongly that great games can only be made by great teams and great teams are made up of happy people. This happiness comes from being emotionally and intellectually invested in the projects you’re creating and the studio you’re helping build.

This is why we take the focus off the product and on the team, because if you make a great team, that is fulfilled emotionally, you’ll create a great game.

I think it is essential as an industry that we acknowledge this on a unanimous level because we’re are falling severely behind with our partners in film and music in recognising the value of creative talent to the success of our business. Creative talent and especially creative teams are not interchangeable parts that can work the same in every machine; they’re organic and fluid and the quality of their creations is impacted by emotion, and personality, and environment. At Robotoki, we are focused on crafting that environment and nurturing that development. This is why we encourage all of our employees to ignore their job description, to allow it to be their launching off point, rather than their confines.

So how will Robotoki’s team dynamics work differently?

We’re focused on creative freedom and investment in every project from an emotional and intellectual level. When you work on a project, especially the same franchise for many years. You create two lists in your head. On one hand, you have the characters, stories, and experiences that fit within the universe you’re creating. On the other hand, you have the characters, stories, and experiences that simply don’t fit for one reason or another. Over time, one of these lists will outweigh the other and when this happens you’ll become frustrated and resentful at your current project, because it’s not allowing to follow your creative need to express these other experiences because “they don’t fit”.

As a studio, we encourage the freedom to explore that other list. It’s about baking in development time and budget that allows for that exploration outside the feature list and priority list. While there will be times that whatever you create may not fit into the main project on hand, there will be bits and pieces, little nuggets of those creations that can be fed back into the existing universe and enhance it, innovate it, take it in new directions. If not, //that’s okay//, because you can be laying the foundation for an amazing new universe and amazing new experiences that you may not have never initially designed for.

You can read the full interview with Robert Bowling in issue 86 of X360, out 13 June. You can buy it through the Imagine Shop, on iTunes, or through Zinio.

Related content on X360:

• Robert Bowling leaving after MW3 – why it’s no surprise
• MW3: Elite Premium or Content Collections?
• MW3 Callsigns – Top 10 Titles in Modern Warfare 3

The new Assassin’s Creed III trailer has been released following Ubisoft’s Unite To Unlock marketing stunt. It feature tree-based navigation, some of the American Revolution’s battlefields, Connor’s combat abilities, and even one rather nifty Bourne Ultimatum-esque jumping through a window. Colour us interested.

Borderlands 2 is an impressive game. There are four classes, 12 skill trees, and several bajillion guns to choose between (something like that, anyway). The potential for variety is huge; so huge in fact that Gearbox tells us it’ss still discovering new combinations of powers and loot so powerful they could potentially break the game.

“The hardcore players who are really looking for it…they’re going to find really interesting combinations of gear that go so well with what their character’s skills are doing that they’re going to reach ridiculous levels of power that we still haven’t even found yet,” says Borderlands 2′s creative director, Paul Hellquist. “Every now and then we might find a bug that’s so insane from the combination of skills and gear that it just makes us laugh and we have to figure out what to do with it.

“Sometimes we’ll just think ‘Fuck it. Y’know what? That’s really awesome: you have to find two legendary items, and be at the highest level or whatever, so enjoy! [laughs]”

Hellquist also revealed a little more about Zer0, telling us that the new character will remain rather mysterious throughout the game. “Part of what we want of Zer0 is that mystery, and that’s an important part of his allure. It’s not nearly as interesting to find out that Boba Fett is the clone of some guy who’s all ‘Awww I’m sad dad died [laughs]. He’s not nearly as cool as when you didn’t know who the fuck he was.”

Borderlands 2 is due out in the UK on September 21.

Related links on X360:

• BioShock Infinite, Syndicate and the Darkness II : Our Favourite Shooters With More Than Just Guns
• Aliens Colonial Marines–The Best Aliens Game Yet?
• Aliens: Colonial Marines: 12 minute gameplay video

5 – Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty

Oh, well done Spark Unlimited. You teased us for months with a genuinely good concept and then made a game which was worse than our younger brother’s version of Pac-Man. It was made with marbles…

In future, remember that actually injecting a sense of enjoyment into a game is what’s needed. Not just trying to get by with the fact Germany won WWII. Come on!

4 – Stormrise

What the hell was this? The camera never stayed still, there wasn’t really any strategy and it was more or less broken. And it was called Stormrise! Who comes up with these ideas, and why are we forced to be subjected to them?

The Creative Assembly didn’t even finish a planned second patch for the game because nobody bought it. Stormrise was not successful.

3 – Hour Of Victory

Do you remember when The Simpsons introduced Poochie to the Itchy & Scratchy show? If not, here’s a transcript of how it all went down (damn YouTube…)

MEYERS: The rest of you writers start thinking up a name for this funky dog; I dunno, something along the line of say… Poochie, only more proactive.

KRUSTY: Yeah!

Meyers, Krusty and the network executive leave.

OAKLEY: So, Poochie okay with everybody?

That is how Hour Of Victory was created…

2 – Bionicle Heroes

Why? Boom:

1 – Fuzion Frenzy 2

Bill Gates may have loved the original, but we bet our last dollar that he never played this heap of garbage. Mini-games that don’t work, a commentator that spouts more crap than what comes out of most people’s asses and unskippable cutscenes.

We would rather eat our own faces than ever have to play through this rubbish ever again. And that’s a fact…