In a discussion thread over at the VG Chartz website, user ckmlb just posted that the recent Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) issue rated BioShock (PC, Xbox 360) with a perfect score of 10/10. Well, that isn't altogether that surprising since PC Gamer crowned the same game with a 95% score.

Now with OXM's 10/10 gracing 2K Games' FPS-RPG title, the UK magazine backs up their rating with the following reasons:

• Inconceivably great plot
• Tough, scary combat
• Perfect location design
• Stunning soundtrack and audio effects
• Endless variety of weaponry

To compare that 10/10 score, cmlkb points out that Halo and Halo 2 got 9.5/10 and 9.7/10 respectively. Kind of puts things in perspective doesn't it? Well, regardless, August 21 is just around the corner - if you can't wait, the demo just might show itself soon -  and at that time, everyone else can get their grubby hand on Big Daddy himself. Will OXM's 10/10 hold out?

 

The E3 Media & Business Summit has more than passed us by now, but belated updates still keep pouring in at the aftermath, and gamers on their ol' trusty personal computer aren't left out of the aftershock. During E3 2007, Microsoft Game for Windows' Chris Early and Kevin Unangst didn't let up from their constant campaign for Windows Vista and the new PC gaming initiative, telling Gamasutra how Games for Windows (GfW) raises the "Quality Bar" for PC games.

"Games that carry the Games for Windows branding go through a process where we actually look through and test the games on roughly 25 different areas," said Unangst. Included into those 25 different "areas" are compatibility with the Xbox 360 controller, widescreen support, Windows Vista Games Explorer compatibility, and an easy install mode.

In a nutshell, of course, the GfW initiative actually has a team of testers run any PC game through certain categories, of which Halo 2 for Vista and Shadowrun have likely passed. Whether or not PC gamers would agree is still up for question, since Vista's online multiplayer issues, including some on basic casual games, have beat back many gamers in the PC community with outrageous feedback.

Looking for some hardcore gaming competition? If you are, then you might want to check out the Army Gaming Championships. This U.S. Army-sponsored event is one of the world's largest online video game competitions, and entrants stand to win their share of US$ 200,000 in cash and prizes.

The qualifiers for the Army Gaming Championships begin on July 4, so you might want to hustle if you're looking to join the competition. Those interested can sign up on the event's official website, which you can access via the "Read" link below. Finally, here's a list of titles that gamers can compete in:

• America's Army
• Battlefield 2142
• Call of Duty 2
• Call of Duty 3
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
• Counter-Strike: Source
• Gears of War
• Halo 2
• Resistance: Fall of Man
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

 

For those who are planning to pick up both Halo 2 and Shadowrun, or even just Halo 2 for Vista. Circuit City is running a sweet deal where you can get Shadowrun for free if you buy a copy of Halo 2 for Vista. Yup, you're getting two games for the price of one. Halo 2 for Vista is going for US$ 39.99 which is pretty good if you don't have a copy of it already for your Xbox or just want to play it on your PC (Keyboard + Mouse = pwnage).

Both games are playable over Microsoft's Games for Windows Live service where you can play against players on the Xbox 360. Halo 2 is about Master Chief fighting against ... why bother, you probably know this by now. Shadowrun however, is an online based game where you go head-to-head against other players using magic and some heavy ordinance to take out your opposition. Counter-Strike fans might want to check this out since both games have similar gameplay.

That said, click on our read link to head straight to Best Buy to view their promo. Be sure to keep checking back here for the latest deals and bargains for your PC.

Hot off the press wire, it's just been announced that Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia (PC and Xbox 360) finally got the smiley-face stamp of the Games for Windows marketing campaign. The seal, mind you, isn't something trivial. Not all games get the Games for Windows certification.

Now, Artificial Studios and SouthPeak Interactive's Monster Madness joins the ranks of other hard-hitting games (both already-released and TBA-clocked) like Halo 2 Vista, LotRO: Shadows of Angmar, Supreme Commander, Alan Wake, and LEGO Star Wars II.

Titles that get the Games for Windows certification are those that meet the standards of Microsoft, as well as guaranteeing the game's compatibility with a range of hardware configurations.

National Purchase Diary or NPD has released the top ten bestselling games for the week of June 2 and the results may surprise you. While the market research firm has had its share of criticisms from other industry analysts, a lot of people still turn to them for the latest sales figures.

The top two slots were claimed by World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade respectively. It seems that no amount of Wife/Girlfriend/Parent aggro can stop this juggernaut.

Furthermore, casual gamers have claimed the third slot with Sims 2 Seasons as it even outsold Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars which nabbed fourth and Halo 2 ending only on fifth place.

Check out the complete list to see if any of your favorite games managed to grab a slot.

Top Ten Games for the week of June 2:

1. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
2. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
3. The Sims 2 Seasons - Electronic Arts
4. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Electronic Arts
5. Halo 2 - Microsoft
6. The Sims 2 Celebration Stuff - Electronic Arts
7. Civilization IV - 2K Games
8. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
9. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows Of Angmar - Turbine/Midway
10. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 - Valve/Electronic Arts

With all the recent releases of video games, it appears that the established IPs are still dominating the charts. When will we be seeing more new IPs join the list? Be sure to keep checking back here for the latest development on QJ.NET.

 

Following a former report by Spong that Microsoft pushed back the release date of Bungie's Halo 2 for Windows Vista, it appears that the game won't be coming at May 25, 2007 for the UK after all. In fact, according to the official announcement by Microsoft, Halo 2 for Windows Vista will be available in the region by June 8, 2007. The previous report by Spong was confirmed by local retail chains GAME and Virgin.

Seeing as the U.S. version is also taking a beat back by Microsoft following another announcement that the game would be available by May 31 instead of May 22 (and May 8 prior to the first delay), the addressing of "other technical issues" and "improvements to the install experience" seems to be a bit more serious than we probably took at face value.

But wait, there's a Catch 22. According to GameSpot, it appears that some retail chains jumped the gun and shelved the three-year delayed game for the PC. Circuit City was reported to have sold the game to a GameSpot reporter. The copy even checks out as "shipping" and "available" at the chain's official website, reports GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair.

Now we can all point fingers and say that the retail's management probably didn't hear the official announcement by Microsoft, but let's take this into perspective: how come the game is already shipped if there are "supposedly" technical issues with the game?

Still, it looks like FASA Studios' Shadowrun will beat Hired Gun to the punch and become the first title ever available for Live for Windows Vista, following the title's two-day lead in shipping on May 29.

Playing high-end games like Halo 2 on your PC isn't as simple as popping in the disc, installing the game, and running it. A lot of times, you need to have the best hardware possible to run the application smoothly.

This can be quite tricky for the non-tech savvy crowd because of the ever-evolving specs of today's computers. Fortunately, there are people who care about guys like that.

A-Power has taken the liberty of custom-building the best possible system to run Halo 2 and making it available to the market. The machine is loaded with some pretty big specs, which will ensure that you can run pretty much everything currently on the market. What's more, even the case is customized to feed that Halo craving. These are the complete specs of their offered bundle:

• Processor: Intel Pentium CORE 2 DUO E6600 2.4GHz 4MB
• Memory: OCZ Gold XTC OCZ2G8002GK 2x1GB DDR2 800Mhz
• Mainboard: ASUS P5K Deluxe P35 Chipset DDR2 S/PDIF Out (Coaxial + Optical), DTS Connect & IEEE1394 Firewire
• Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S182F/BEBN Black 18x18 DL DVD Writer
• Hard Drive: Seagate 320GB 7200RPM SATA-II 16MB
• Video: eVGA E-GEFORCE 8600GTS 256M DDR3 PCI-E
• Audio: Realtek ALC883 6-channel (5.1) CODEC
• Network: Marvell 88E1116 PHY Gigabit LAN controller
• Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black 18.4" Ultimate Gamer Case
• Power: OCZ 700W GameXStream SLI Power Supply
• Keyboard: Microsoft Reclusa Gaming Keyboard
• Mouse: Microsoft Habu Gaming Mouse
• Included OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (Direct X 10 Supported!!)
• FREE GAME! Halo 2 PC Edition (Limited Quantity)
  

This hotrod starts selling on May 22. The price is still unrevealed, but it obviously won't come cheap. We'll keep you posted for more on this dream machine.

Halo 3 wasn't the only thing Bungie's been playing, it seems. Their story of the day is an interview with the people (rivals?) of FASA Studios about their shooter offering, Shadowrun. Seems like there's a bit of cross-pollinating going on between the two teams.

As well as a little smackdown. Lead designer John Howard invites the Halo community, through Bungie, to "Bring it."

And when you bring it, as the FASA devs describe it, Shadowrun will be a different animal compared to Halo multiplayer. Where Halo is focused on fair competition, Shadowrun is about social fragging, notes Bill Fulton: needs strong teamwork, "no visible skill (although we still matchmake according to player skill)," and players can play with the same team for succeeding matches.

And there's magic in the Shadowrun air. Literally. Bill says "if you try to play Shadowrun like it is Halo 2, you'll get yourself pwned. Hard. Shadowrun has more tactical choices than Halo 2 and other FPSs, so you have to learn to think in completely new way to use the magic & tech effectively."

About that cross-pollinating thing: the Halo engine actually was the basis for the prototype gameplay for Shadowrun, before they moved to FASA's proprietary Badger engine. Having Halo 2 around allowed the devs a feel for what they wanted from Shadowrun before Badger was ready for use. John used to be lead design for Halo as well as Shadowrun, and the FASA game's concept artist is also working on Halo 3 concept art. It is one big family that loves to "Bring it!" to the field.

Roughly a month ago, we reported that Halo 2 Vista was going to be sporting a new achievement system to appease the cravings of the more Gamerscore-conscious players among us. As an update to that teaser, we're reporting that we've picked up a comprehensive list of the said achievements possible in-game.

The achievements list will detail tasks you need to do in both multiplayer and single-player mode, and should give you guys something to plan ahead for before the game launches this mid-2007 for Windows Vista. Forewarned is fore-armed, all the more when you start competing on Live Anywhere. Read on for the list below.

• Cairo Station (30 GS) - Complete Cairo Station at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Outskirts (30 GS) - Complete Outskirts at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Metropolis (30 GS) - Complete Metropolis at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• The Arbiter (30 GS) - Complete The Arbiter at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Oracle (30 GS) - Complete The Oracle at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Delta Halo (30 GS) - Complete Delta Halo at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Regret (30 GS) - Complete Regret at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Sacred Icon (30 GS) - Complete Sacred Icon at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Quarantine Zone (30 GS) - Complete Quarantine Zone at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Gravemind (30 GS) - Complete Gravemind at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Uprising (30 GS) - Complete Uprising at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• High Charity (30 GS) - Complete High Charity at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• The Great Journey (30 GS) - Complete The Great Journey at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
• Warrior (100 GS) - Complete the game on Normal difficulty
• Hero (50 GS) - Complete the game on Heroic difficulty
• Legend (50 GS) - Complete the game on Legendary difficulty
• King of the Scarab (20 GS) - Acquire the Scarab gun on the Metropolis level, any difficulty
• Silent but Deadly (20 GS) - Kill 7 opponents from behind in a row without being spotted, any level, any difficulty

The complete Halo 2 achievement list is available at the Full Article.