Nintendo have confirmed that to ‘celebrate’ the 25th anniversary of their superstar Plumber Mario, they are to release a Wii version of the SNES classic game Super Mario All-Stars, also known as the Super Mario Collection in Japan.

Super Mario All-Stars was originally released way back in 1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and it is presumed that the four original games from the collection, namely Super Mario Bros, Mario 2, Mario 3 and Super Mario USA, will be included in the Wii version. The pack will also include a booklet containing materials that have never been published before and a history of Mario along with a music CD capturing 25 years of Mario tunes.

The 25th Anniversary Super Mario Collection Special Pack will retail at ¥2,500 (approximately $30) and is due for release on October 21st in Japan. Fingers crossed for a release worldwide in the future.

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Some may argue it’s a bad time to increase the price of the Xbox Live Gold subscription membership, while arguably it could be a good time to do so. With Kinect launching in November, it will surely increase the amount of subscriptions for Live, which would make it a good time to jack the prices up. While at the same time, it will make November an extremely expensive month, which may put people off buying Live immediately.

From November 1st, Microsoft will be increasing the price for Gold Membership in the US, Canada, Mexico and the UK. Prices for one month’s Live will rise from $7.99 to $8.99 in the US, $8.99 CAD to $9.99 CAD in Canada, while the UK will see the price go from £4.99 to £5.99. For a 3 month subscription, it seems only the US will see an increase, or at least only the US is listed in the new pricing. It will rise to $24.99 from $19.99. 12 month pricing will also be increased in the US, from $49.99 to $59.99. Mexico will also see a price rise from 499 Pesos to 599 Pesos.

It’s not all bad news though. For a limited time, current Xbox Gold members will be able to renew for another year, at a reduced cost of $39.99, saving $10 off the current price. So if you’re due for renewal then, or even if you’re not, this is one offer you might want to take up before the price hike.

Sources: Major Nelson |Xbox Live Price Lock

Microsoft Game Studios and Ruffian Games have announced that there will be both free and premium downloadable content available on the Xbox Live Marketplace soon for Xbox exclusive title Crackdown 2.

Entitled “Toy Box”, the DLC contains the following free downloadable content, which includes the Keys to the City mode which was featured as an expansion for the first Crackdown game:

Keys to the City: Made notorious in the first “Crackdown” expansion as the ultimate cheat mode, Keys to the City returns to “Crackdown 2” and puts an even bigger set of tools at your disposal, including God Mode, Infinite Ammo, Fly Cam, spawning of weapons, gadgets and more, the ability to freeze the time of day, and pushing all skills to the maximum to become faster, stronger and more lethal.

Level 6 Reward: Fans who reach Level 6 on all Agent skills will be rewarded with the new Thruster Ability. Thruster Ability is like having jetpacks for your boots, giving Agents built-in vertical propulsion to activate flying with the Wingsuit no matter where you are in the game.

Vehicle Tag*: Once you’re done taking down the Freaks and the Cell, join your friends for a thrilling new multiplayer mode where up to eight Agents can compete in these six arenas: Speed is the Quay, Industrial Action, Maim Street, Skid Row, Beachhead and The Sum of Human Knowledge.

Premium content is also going to be available and for 560 MS points you can purchase:

Two New Vehicles*: Access two new vehicles: the wall climbing aquatic mini-tank called the Agency ATV and the Squad Chopper, which allows four players to jump in and man their own weapon, including the proximity mine launcher, precision rocket launcher, twin machine guns and nose machine gun.

Five New Toys*: Whether you’re soaring to greater heights or orchestrating a massive explosion, get creative with the following new toys: The Mass Driver (turreted gravity bending weapon), Portable Launch Pads (allows Agents to create their own launch pad jumps), Stickler Grenade (bouncing grenade that sets off smaller explosive charges as it bounces), Thrusters (allow vertical thrust), and Mags on Characters (allow Mag Grenades to be attached to characters).

Two Avatar Awards: Deck your Agent in the latest gear. “Toy Box” offers two Avatar Awards to customize your Xbox LIVE Avatar with the Xbox Green Suit (must complete the Rocketeer Achievement) and Green Helmet.

10 New Achievements: Pacific City never sleeps and neither do the exploits. Industrious Agents will be rewarded with 10 new Achievements and 250 Gamerscore.

Eight Agent Suit Colors: Pick up eight new shades of in-game armor for your Agent.

*Players who have not purchased the premium “Toy Box” content will only have access to the new vehicles and gadgets during multiplayer games if a friend who has purchased the premium content joins. Downloading “Toy Box” is not required to continue engaging in other multiplayer gameplay modes with those who have downloaded it.

Full details of the achievement points and suit colors can be found on the official press release.

The highly anticipated Halo Reach is set to be released September 14th. That hasn’t stopped pirates from leaking the game earlier. Someone was able to acquire the game from the Microsoft servers and has shared it across the web, for others to download.

The game, distributed by Microsoft Game Studios was developed by Bungie Studies, like the previous games in the Halo franchise. As of yet, Bungie haven’t commented on the leak however, Microsoft have said they are “aggressively pursuing the violators”. They want to combat piracy and warn that, modding your console will void the warranty, as well as having the console banned from Xbox Live. This remains a top priority for Microsoft, who also want to make Xbox Live, more secure and safer for the 25 million Xbox Live users there are.

The guys at CVG have scoured the internet and found a handful of top deals for UK buyers of the 4GB Xbox 360. They found the cheapest of the deals at The Hut which offers the 4GB Arcade System for £139.93.  Argos and Amazon are  both offering the 360 S for £139.99. Play, Game, Gamestation are selling their 4GB Xbox 360′s for £149.99 which is a little disappointing considering the cheaper deals on offer.

For less than £140 an Xbox 360 S could be yours. If you can manage with 4GB of hard drive space that is. The full run down on prices around the web can be found on CVG.

Highly anticipated ‘post-apocalyptic’ FPS game RAGE has recieved it’s official release date from the games developer – iD – at Quakecon 2010 in Dallas, Texas.

“We’re going to have the biggest, coolest, most badass launch possible,”  Tim Willits – Rage Designer

In the US RAGE will be released on September 13th with release in Europe dated two days later on the 15th of September.

The game was demoed on stage at Quakecon by members of the RAGE team who showed off  the PlayStation 3,  Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game which has been built using the new Tech 5 engine by iD.

Tomorrow will mark the 30th Anniversary of the arcade game Pac-Man. In celebration, Google have changed their logo but, instead of the usual way they change the Google logo, to mark the Pac Man anniversary the logo is an “interactive doodle”, aka a playable logo. Yup that’s right, head over to Google.com and you can play Pac-Man from within the logo. The word Google makes up some of the walls you’d find in the traditional game. Senior user experience designer Marcin Wichary worked with Google doodler Ryan Germick to create the finished Google doodle. The game marks the first interactive doodle from the company and features 255 levels, with a 256th kill screen.

Despite being 30 years old and not as advanced as other games such as Halo, Call of Duty etc, it’s still very popular. Over the years, various versions of the game have been released, including Mrs Pac Man and even a Pac Man platformer. Today the game is also available on Apple’s iPhone and iPad amoung other devices. Initially the game was released in Japan by Namco Bandai but, was rejected by the US as the original name was Puck Man and the US were worried that the P “would chip off the cabinet and look like an F”.

I know it’s been a while since I last posted here (sorry) but, this blog post got my attention and I had to share it. A new site has launched allowing girls to sign up for gaming sessions with guys. Sounds fair enough at first, even an idea I’d thought of for GirlGamers but, GameCrush, requires the guys to buy credits to game with you. Each session, or as GameCrush call it a “PlayDate”, lasts for 10 minutes and costs 400 credits, with an option of tipping 100 credits at the end. For 500 points/10 minute session plus tip, will cost ‘players’ $8.25. The money doesn’t all go to the site, with 60% going to the girls.

Currently, Modern Warfare 2, Gears of War 2, GTA IV and Halo 3 are supported on the Xbox 360, or you can also play flash games, such as checkers, pool etc. Would any of you girls sign up for the service, or give it a miss altogether. While it sounds nice to get paid for gaming, I can’t help but feel that, many of the girls may end up with an Xbox Live stalker and no one wants that.

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If you’re in the mood to pick up some more games, check out Game online. All purchases between now and the 31st October will be entered into a competition for one winner per day to be picked, to win the whole basket for £5. There will be a draw each day. The winner will receive they’re whole basket for £5 no matter the value. The terms and conditions also don’t state if any product is excluded, meaning you could buy the console you’ve been looking to get now and have a chance of winning it for a fiver!

Or if you’re waiting till pay day, or don’t fancy purchasing anything you can still enter. You can send a postcard into Game, telling them what games you’d get, up to the value of £200 (there isn’t a maximum purchase price) and you’ll be entered into the daily draw.

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