First-person shooters are all the rage these days. You know it’s pretty much big business when the majority of the games released, are centered around not even seeing your character model for most of the game. That’s all fine and dandy, but what do you do if you’re trying to step into that arena, with no proven track record? Do you rehash mechanics that have already been established? Or take another route?

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In the case of Poland-based City Interactive, you take another path entirely. Their first Xbox 360 game titled Sniper: Ghost Warrior, is revolved wholly around the mechanics of sniping, and was conceived from watching television. “With all-new programming airing nationally on the History Channel and the Military Channel regarding the traing of snipers and their missions, interest in the art of sniping has never been greater,” says Vice President of Sales Lisa Rivera. Sniper: Ghost Warrior will place you in the shoes of a rebel who is trying to take down a corrupt military government, one headshot at a time.

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If the proposed gameplay concept turns out to be promising, it will more than make up for the run-of-the-mill story premise. Sniper: Ghost Warrior will be available sometime in 2011. Until then see if these pictures tickle your fancy.

The current situation with the United States economy is brutal. If you’re looking for work, chances are you aren’t holding your breath wondering where and if you will ever be employed again. It’s times like these that being able to do something a little off the beaten path pays off, something like electrical engineering.

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If that’s something that you spent god-only-knows how much money to pursue by way of a college education, Microsoft could be your next employer. A recent job listing says the company is looking to hire a staff of individuals to design a new Xbox 360 motherboard. Per the listing it says, “The responsibilities of this position are focused on specifying, designing (schematic capture, PCB layout, BOM, cost analysis), implementing and verifying the mother-board and other various sub-system boards that make up the Xbox 360 product line.” Being a Communications major, that didn’t really make a lick of sense to me. If it does to you, beyond just knowing the jargon, then you should probably send them your resume.

That was fast! Yesterday we posted news about Bodycount, the new FPS shooter from the developers of Black. There wasn’t too many details about the game or how it would play, and today – there’s still not a lot of information on the game. But we now have a little bit more info on it than yesterday.

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What Stuart Black and his development team intend to do with Bodycount is do away with the “whack-a-mole mechanicis” of modern day shooters. Black is taken the same mechanics that he used in Black (freaky right?) also known as “shredding tech” and employing them in this new FPS.

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Our shredding tech enables us to create a different kind of gameplay, where players and AI can’t hide behind indestructible cover,” he says. “Here the environment is constantly changing as the game world is shot to hell; it’s going to be a huge amount of fun.”

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This is the first new Codemasters FPS IP since Turning Point: The Fall of Liberty. And we all know how that one turned out. Here’s hoping that Bodycount fares a little better. If the hype from executive producer Tom Gillo stating, “From the jaw-dropping devastation caused by firing into enemies or shredding the world around you in a hail of bullets, Bodycount will crystalize that moment of pulling the trigger into an exhilarating sensory overload of action,” is any indication of what to expect. Well…we’ll just have to wait and see. I mean Black was a good game, but Turning Point: Fall of Liberty? Not so much.

In light of all the news that has been surrounding Infinity Ward and Activision, there hasn’t been anything to really qualify as “good” news for either party. Robert Bowling looks to remedy that as he reveals just how many unique players have put Modern Warfare 2 through its paces.

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Posting live and direct from his Twitter account, Bowling says, “…annnd we JUST hit 25 MILLION unique players on Modern Warfare 2. Insanity!” He also alludes to some news on the DLC being available this week.

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Bowling also states that most of those 25 million MW 2 players are gaming on the Xbox 360, with the PS3 coming in at a “close 2nd”.

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This news makes it all the more interesting, disheartening, curious, or all-of-the-above about the recent drama between Activision and ex-Infinity Ward bosses. From an outsider looking in, I’m sure of one thing though; that being that there is definitely money involved.

One of the universal gripes about Mass Effect was while it was an overall solid intergalatic gaming experience, the Mako driving segments weren’t really enjoyable. With Mass Effect 2 BioWare scraped the exploration via vehicle segment all together. But with the release of the Firewalker DLC, vehicular exploration and combat is making its way back into the game.

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GameTrailers sat down with BioWare and revealed that in the upcoming DLC, players will be able to pilot a vehicle called the Hammerhead. It’s a hovercraft that has some really big guns, and looks like a blast (no pun intended) to play. BioWare reps said that there are new missions designed to take advantage of the vehicle, and there were some clips shown of the thing in action.

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Personally I didn’t mind the Mako segements in ME 1, once you got the hang of it anyway. The only thing that kind of wore on my nerves was just traveling some of the planets emptiness to get to that one bunker in the middle of nowhere, or do some salvaging. But seeing the Hammerhead in action, is just full of awesome, and it looks like I’ll be staying up super late to download the new content once its available. See the Hammerhead in action for yourself in this video:

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While Betheseda’s Fallout: New Vegas is a couple seasons away, and the little details that are known should be enough to get fans ripe with anticipation. Nothing takes it up a couple notches, like actually showing off what the game will look like.

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And now thanks to the magic of the internet, we do. Take a look of the pics for Fallout: New Vegas right here. If you’re a fan of the Fallout serious, seeing some baddies about to get whacked with a hockey stick, or a Super Mutant rocking a wig and heart-shaped glasses should be enough to get your motor running. Or at the very least, get you a little interested in the next post-apocalyptic moral quest.

If you like shooting and blowing things up chances are you were a fan of Criterion Games’ Black, back in 2006. The game was one of the few super hyped games to actually not be half bad, but while it was an acclaimed critical success, it wasn’t quite the money making giant that games such as Halo 2 and the slew of World War rehashes that were also available on the market.

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OXM recently by-way of an leakaccident, revealed that Bodycount is the new game from the developers of Black. The game will be published by Codemasters and will feature key members of the Black development team, notably Stuart Black. Nothing else has been revealed about the game except for the fact that it is being billed as the “ultimate shooter”. Yeah like we haven’t all heard that one before. Zing!

If you’ve ever purchased a previously owned hard drive, or any hard drive that wasn’t in the 120GB range, then you know first hand how much of a setback it often is when transferring your game data. Place a call to Microsoft and wait for a customer service rep? Check. Explain to said rep that you need a data transfer cable and then play waiting game? Double check. What’s even more loopy is the fact that you used to be able to get the kits for free. And then Microsoft realized they could make some extra coin charging you for it, and they started selling the cables for $12.

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With the phasing out of the 20GB hard drives, it seems a lot of people are upgrading their storage hardware. So now The House of Gates has decided that it would be a good idea, to not only charge you more for the Data Migration Kits, but to also sell them at retail. For the price of $14.99 and a trip to your local Microsoft Store, you can be the proud owner of Data Migration Kit.

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There’s been no word yet on if the cables will hit regular retail stores, but I’d bet they will make their way to those venues eventually.

Everybody likes a good bargain, and when it comes to console deals, bundles are the way to go. If you’re in need of a new Xbox 360 and looking for a deal, then you may want to head over to your local retailer and check out the new Xbox 360 bundles that will soon be available.

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Starting on March 9, Microsoft will be unleashing two Xbox 360 bundles. One will come packaged with Halo 3: ODST, and the other will be contain Forza Motorsport III. Both will retail for $299.99, so if you’ve been holding off on purchasing a 360, one of those bundles might be persuade you to drop some cash.

When Microsoft first unveiled their 250GB hard drives, they were supposed to only be featured with systems. Chances are if you wanted one you had to pony up the cash for one of their bundled systems. That appears to be going the way of the dinosaur as GameStop has 250GB HDD’s listed as being available for $130, starting March 23.

Microsoft hasn’t said anything officially, while GameStop has said that the listing for the product “is not an error.”

Man $130 for 250GB’s of digital space? I already have 120GB, but there’s always room for more space!

While Portal 2 will be the feature story of Game Informer this month, you don’t have to wait until you get a hard copy of the game to find out some of its details. Thanks to a description of the game placed on the GameStop product page, we now know a couple of things about what new features Portal 2 will incorporate.

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The newest feature that Portal 2 will implement is the coopperative campaign mode, which will have a unique story. In addition to the new characters, GlaDOS will also be returning to the game.

You knew it was going to happen. Somebody, somewhere was going to get their hands on both versions of Final Fantasy XIII and run a side-by-side comparison. Digital Foundry managed to get their impressions of both versions running parallel first, and it looks as if they feel the 360 version doesn’t stack up against the PS3’s version.

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Digital Foundry says that at its core both versions of FF XIII are identical. They even claim that some of the cinematic sequences are much better than they were expecting. But overall they feel that the game “isn’t anywere near as impressive as it is on the Playstation 3.”

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According to them its Square’s fault no blame going to the hardware tech of the 360. They believe that some of the games poor performance is due to the “amateurish” encoding of Square Enix, pointing to the 1GB of storage space left unused on two out of three of the games discs. Digital Foundry believes that unused space could’ve been used to imporve on the visuals of some of the games cutscenes.

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One thing they believe the 360 version does have over the PS3 version, is a smoother framerate. Check out their in-depth analysis here.

According to a letter sent by Marc Whitten today, a new code of conduct update will allow the use of sexual ‘alignment’ keywords in gamertags and profiles. Here’s the full letter:

Dear Xbox LIVE members,

Marc Whitman.

How thoughtful of them.

A new developer diary has surfaced for the upcoming game, Brink. As this is the third diary, Senior Game Designer Ed Stern will explain Brinks environment, and how it will ‘communicate the game’s narrative.’ Sounds interesting, no?

You can check it out here.

You knew it was going to happen. Somebody, somewhere was going to get their hands on both versions of Final Fantasy XIII and run a side-by-side comparison. Digital Foundry managed to get their impressions of both versions running parallel first, and it looks as if they feel the 360 version doesn’t stack up against the PS3’s version.

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Digital Foundry says that at its core both versions of FF XIII are identical. They even claim that some of the cinematic sequences are much better than they were expecting. But overall they feel that the game “isn’t anywere near as impressive as it is on the Playstation 3.”

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According to them its Square’s fault no blame going to the hardware tech of the 360. They believe that some of the games poor performance is due to the “amateurish” encoding of Square Enix, pointing to the 1GB of storage space left unused on two out of three of the games discs. Digital Foundry believes that unused space could’ve been used to imporve on the visuals of some of the games cutscenes.

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One thing they believe the 360 version does have over the PS3 version, is a smoother framerate. Check out their in-depth analysis here.