Xbox 360 Previews

For the last several hours Microsoft has been holding my hand and walking me through a series of demos, the first of which was their entirely redesigned dashboard. The dash is barely recognizable, retaining just a few references to the initial design. I've described the biggest new features below.

-A quick launch selector which is accessed through the guide (by pressing that big green

It may feel like World War II games have been done to death, but City Interactive hopes to breathe new life into the crowded space of games covering the conflict between the Allies and the Axis by capturing the essence of what makes flying fun – and for creative director Jakub Majewski, that means making Combat Wings: The Great Battles of World War II more like Wing Commander…

The slow motion, bullet-time thing went through a purple patch after the original Max Payne in 2001 but it quickly turned into a brown, rotting, stinky patch. Publishers fell over themselves in an effort to sign the next dual-wielding, sideways diving, gravity defying shooter – from John Woo’s Stranglehold to the under-rated Total Overdose. While it was fun for a bit, people became weary of the tired gameplay and all of a sudden the trend died out quicker than disco.

Fast forward ten years and we’re sat in Rockstar’s office watching Max Payne’s third outing and we can already sense the inevitable clones trying to match the slick skills on show.

Whether you’re ready or not, the next Xbox 360 dashboard update is almost here - on Tuesday, your console interface will look very, very different. Will you love or hate the new layout? Find out right now...

Near 200 national teams. All the stadiums, carnival atmosphere and glamour of the world’s biggest sporting event. A refined, sexier version of the most sophisticated footie engine ever. Yup, it’s safe to say EA’s latest World Cup game is shaping up to be pretty tasty. We got hands-on with the game recently and can confidently state its set to become this generation’s finest footie title yet.

10 minutes into being shown 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand by developer Swordfish Studios (who thankfully had nothing to do with the terrible Bulletproof) we got the strangest feeling that this self-proclaimed 'long awaited' sequel might actually be, well, a pretty decent arcade shooter.