If you love a good Xbox Live Arcade game, chances are you’ve played Sierra Online and Wanako Games’ creation, Assault Heroes.

Lucky for you, Assault Heroes 2 is being released next week on XBLA! With “Twice the Action, Twice the Combat”, how could you not be excited? However, it gets better. If you know you’re going to play Assault Heroes 2, why not prepare yourself to win 20,000 Microsoft Points? That’s a LOT of Marketplace content!

If you’re already have an MGC account, you’re 1/3rd of the way there! Just visit the Assault Heroes 2 Play & Win Sweepstakes page, read over the rules, and click the button to confirm you’re in for fun. When AH2 is released on May 14th, you’ll have over two weeks to enjoy the intense combat by yourself, or with a friend on Xbox Live. You will be able to enter your GamerTag at any point during the Sweepstakes to get in on the fun!

Fifteen runners-up will receive 4,000 Microsoft Point Cards, so even if you can’t pad your balance with 20K, you can be sure you’ll be stocked for future Sierra releases.

Since MSP Cards are region-encoded, it’s unfortunate that these will only work in the USA. You are ultimately responsible if any Prizes are not redeemable in your area.

Looking forward to seeing you on Assault Heroes 2, releasing May 14th on the Xbox Live Arcade!

Now that the Unlock The Achievement Charity Event and Contest has come to a close, it’s time to talk about where they were… Did anyone find all of them?

In your post, tell me how many you found on MGC, and one of the locations you found them. I’ll update my post with that location, and if there are any missing by the end of the day, I’ll fill it in.

1) View the MGC Profiles of 6 Xbox MVPs (Thanks, AlphaSignal!)
2) Hiding among the games of the LIVETracker (Thanks, Bad Bear Bogie!)
3) Viewing the ‘Flash’ section after Generating your GamerCard (Thanks, madgreatgrandpa!)
4) At the end of the games listed on the XBLA Genre Leaderboard (Thanks, Astrus Darksun!)
5) Appeared on a page of the ‘Lonely’ GamerPictures equal to the time (i.e. page 1 - 12)

Looks like Xbox.com has been having some issues serving up much of their GamerCard content (GamerCards themselves as well as GamerPics) this weekend. Since MGC relies so heavily on their GamerPicture server for our GamerPic Scout, this was making the pages look awfully bare.

I’ve just spent the past few hours creating and implementing a system to catch when Xbox.com rejects a tile request, and will then attempt to fill it in with an internal MGC Tileserver, which has been working beautifully. The only thing it can’t quite catch is when a request is taking too long; sometimes a connection to Xbox.com will hold things up and prevent it from happening. Still looking into ways to force a timeout and load the MGC Tile after a few seconds…

Just a quick note that MGC Tile server is not serviceable outside of MGC; Please don’t link to them on your blogs or other pages.

In any case, this is just one of the multitude of things that goes on during weekends, and seemed useful enough to share considering how troubled Microsoft’s site is at the moment. Let me know if you have any problems with it, or if you happen to be a javascript guru, any suggestions on forcing image load timeouts.

So you’re at work, or your Xbox is currently being resurrected, and you’ve got the Achievement Twitch ™ … what to do?
Use your time online to earn a different kind of Achievement, that’s what!

Launched on the 21st, Unlock The Achievement brings the thrill of hunting to your browser. 42 participating sites (including MGC!) have 5 ‘Achievements’ hidden among the various words and pictures of their pages, in varying difficulties.

Even though I’m just now posting about it doesn’t mean that there aren’t Achievements to find… Should I give hints?
Alright, just one — Get to know your Xbox MVPs! They are your biggest Community Advocates, recognized for their contributions and participation to the Community at large. Not just for website owners, many of the over 40 MVPs simply contribute to other online environments, giving strong, logical opinions and promoting positive interaction within the Community.

Fellow MVP DeaconBlade 360 posted 6 Myths of Being an Xbox MVP, if you’re interested in the subject.

As the week goes on, perhaps I’ll drop a few more hints on you poor unachieving souls. However, simply knowing MGC and paying attention should grab you most of them in short order. Good luck!

P.S. - Don’t be lame. What’s ‘lame’? Posting exact locations of Achievements is lame.

Hidden Path makes a debut on the XBLA with Wits & Wagers, the newest board game translation to hit the service.

	Go For Broke Bet all chips on one answer.	5
	Small Favors A correct bet on the lower than all bet.	20
	Best Bet Three correct bets in a single game.	25
	House Party Play with three friends on one Xbox 360 console.	5
	Block Party Play with five people in one game.	20

Continue Reading… »

For those who don’t live in Germany, the full title of this game is ‘Alarm for Cobra 11 - Crash Time’, which seems to be part of a German television series. Not entirely sure if this is getting full worldwide release, but apparently it will feature tanks!

	‘Beginner’s Luck’ - Easy Solve the case ‘Beginner’s Luck’ on Easy level	10
	‘Beginner’s Luck’ - Normal Solve the case ‘Beginner’s Luck’ on Normal level	20
	‘Beginner’s Luck’ - Hard Solve the case ‘Beginner’s Luck’ on Hard level	30
	‘Murder at km 109′ - Easy Solve the case ‘Murder at km 109′ on Easy level	10
	‘Murder at km 109′ - Normal Solve the case ‘Murder at km 109′ on Normal level	20

Continue Reading… »

Just a heads up to all you procrastinators - today is the last day you can enter our Battlestar Galactica Season Premiere Play & Win Sweepstakes *catches breath*..

Remember, this is available to everyone (13 and over) worldwide (yes, literally! Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and South America - you’re all welcome!), and only requires you to play Battlestar Galactica over a two-week period.

Every 5 minutes, we’ll check the Presence status of everyone registered for the event (check those Privacy settings!). Those that are playing BSG will be shown on the Tracker that will be displayed on the BSG Sweepstakes page.
Each hour, we’ll randomly select which one of these times count as a sweepstakes entry. Note that while we will display people who are idle or in the main menu, you must be playing to earn entries - no slacking!

By the way, if you’ve signed up to MGC for this event, make sure to go back to the Sweepstakes page and verify that you’re entered. If you see a button that says “Enter My GamerTag”, you are not yet entered, and must confirm that you agree to the rules and submit your GamerTag using that button.

Good luck to all of our entrants, and I look forward to seeing lots of Frak’ing.. er… fragging over the next two weeks!

Nice use of Co-op! I had fun with the first one, definitely looking forward to this.

	Moby Dick Single Player: Destroy the Mecha Orca.	10
	Hot-wired Single Player: Capture all 3 hijackable vehicles at least once.	10
	Pyromaniac Single Player: Burn 50% of infantry in any Zone: Medium or Hard difficulty in one session.	10
	Ice Cold Single Player: Freeze 50% of infantry in any Zone: Medium or Hard difficulty in one session.	10
	Assault Flags Single Player: Collect all of the Flags scattered throughout the game.	10

Continue Reading… »

Lots of 10-something’s happening this month! Even with some of the large-score cheaters having their accounts wiped, MGC users are still racking up the points, clearing a collective 10 Billion GamerScore earlier this week.

Next milestone is 2 million GamerTags, which you can see is not too far behind. Congrats to everyone!

Another board game being worked into XBLA! I say keep ‘em comin’!

	Pack Mule Play at least one Number 10 card and win the game.	5
	Investor Play 3 investment cards in one expedition, win the round with 150 or more points, and win the game.	20
	Adventurer Win 20 single player games in Normal or Hard difficulty.	10
	Great Adventurer Win 20 times in 1vs.1 online matches.	10
	Expedition Win 20 times in 2vs.2 online matches.	15

Continue Reading… »

Creating and running MyGamerCard.net has been a wild experience filled with many learning opportunities with an equal amount of hair-pulling ones. Nearly every month brings some sort of ‘OMG’ moment in terms of what the Community has helped us accomplish.

For the month of March, that ‘OMG’ moment is in the form of a number. That number is 10,000,000. Since March 1st, MGC has served over 10 Million GamerCards, per day, to the Xbox Community, worldwide. That’s over 200 Million just in the first 20 days of the month, and an estimated 300+ Million by month’s end.
Three-Hundred … with six more zeroes!

This isn’t a flex-fest for MGC, but a solid tale of the success of the Community. It’s because of you that not only MGC is so strong in the Community, but the reason the Community is so strong and successful.

The Community is successful because of the validated efforts of Microsoft and other Xbox developers to make more information open and ‘out there’ on sites like MGC, 360Voice, the various Halo 3 stat sites, as well as the community portals for Rock Band and Guitar Hero, for when you’re not in front of your Xbox. This, in turn, makes it important for new games to embrace the community - often making for much better games.

The best part is that our GamerCard servers are only at about half-capacity right now. So be sure to tell your Xbox friends about MGC and put your GamerCard everywhere you can! I know you guys and girls like numbers, so I’m working on getting together some February stats, but we’re talking 3GB of logs per day, so it might take some time.

Thanks for supporting MGC and the Xbox Community. Let’s push for 500 Million monthly!

Let’s raise some free hype for Sega’s “Iron Man”, shall we? Do you think the devs did well with the Achievements, or are they a little old and rusty?

	Sidekick Complete all missions on Easy difficulty (or harder)	75
	Hero Complete all missions on Normal difficulty (or harder)	75
	Super Hero Complete all missions on Formidable difficulty	75
	Disarmed Destroy stockpiled Stark weapons in the Escape mission	25

Continue Reading… »

I’m not sure if that’s how it’s pronounced, but it certainly is fun to say.
Oh, and this is yet another Egyptian-themed puzzle. Not that that’s a bad thing.

	Magician Make a match with each color available during the single player game.	10
	Gatherer Catch all power-ups spawned during a single player non-bonus round.	10
	Drummer Make ten consecutive matches during a single player non-bonus round.	15
	Shaman Collapse a group of 20 or more blocks during a single player non-bonus round.	15
	Guardian Create a single collapse with 3 or more colors during a single player non-bonus round.	15
	Eagle Catch one of each power-up type during a single player non-bonus round.	15
	Defender Collect 10 hearts during a single player non-bonus round.	20
	Warrior Collapse a group of 40 or more blocks during a single player non-bonus round.	20
	Treasurer Earn ten million points during a single player game.	20
	Scribe Play a perfect level during a single player non-bonus round.	20
	Sun King Collapse a group of 60 or more blocks during a single player non-bonus round.	20
	Pacal Complete the single player game.	20

[All Pre-release Achievements are subject to change]

So can you do wireframe in HD?

	Private Destroy a Super Tank Classic game - Normal difficulty	5
	Specialist Destroy a Tank by piloting a Missile Multiplayer game - Ranked match	5
	Maniac Score 50000 Classic game - Throttle Monkey mode	10
	Corporal Score 100000 Classic game - Normal difficulty	10
	Sergeant Win a game Multiplayer game - Ranked match	10
	Ensign Destroy 10 Saucers Evolved game - Normal difficulty	15
	Lieutenant Have 5 lives in hand Evolved game - Normal difficulty	15
	Commander Get a 5-frag killing spree Multiplayer game - Ranked match	20
	Captain Destroy 10 missiles in 1 game Classic game - Normal difficulty	25
	Major Win a game without dying Multiplayer game - Ranked match	25
	Colonel Have three enemies in play at once Evolved game - Normal difficulty	30
	General Score 1000000 Classic game - Normal difficulty	30

[All Pre-release Achievements are subject to change]

I must admit I’ve never played this game, but it looks intriguing….

	Amateur Yankee Driller Complete the America Stage [500m].	5
	Pro Mummy Driller Complete the Egypt Stage [1,000m].	10
	King of Moscow Drillers Complete the Russia Stage [3,000m].	15
	God of Arctic Drillers Dig 5,000m in the North Pole Stage.	25
	Brainy Quest Genius Complete 10 consecutive Quests.	20
	Lifesaving Air Maestro Obtain 50 Air Capsules.	5
	Tireless Block Destroyer Drill 5,000 Blocks.	15
	Continuous Chain Linker Chain 30 Blocks in a row.	25
	Fighting Battle Warrior Win 10 consecutive Solo Battles.	15
	Friendly Tag Champion Win 10 consecutive Tag Battles.	15
	Supreme Point Master Beat the opposing team in Tag Battle by 200,000 points.	20
	Infinite Drilling Conqueror Win 20 consecutive Solo and Tag Battles.	30

[All Pre-release Achievements are subject to change]