Final Score:

Mocap session - No
Wiggling wireframed scenery/models around in the editor - Yes
Voice recording session - Sorta (Music recording)

Prior - Documentaries On Making Games: We Care

Get - Halo 3 : Behind the Scenes [Bungie.net]

After a miscued announcement last week, Perfect Dark Zero now really does have four new multiplayer maps available for download on Ye Olde 360 Marketplace. Though it would seem that the entire point of the Microsoft Points micropayment system would be that each level could be purchased separately for 125 points, “GasPlant,” “Plaza,” “Rooftops,” and “Trench” are available only as a pack for 500 Microsoft Points (aka $6.25). Enjoy, suckers.

In about 3.5 hours, Live will start pushing the new dashboard to 360 users. The availability is staggered over four hours, so if you’re staying up late— well first of all, go to bed, and second of all, don’t panic if you don’t get any prompt right at 2AM Pacific.

There’s a lot of good improvements, like queueing multiple demos and other Marketplace goodies to download in the background (and pausing the download if you’re playing a multiplayer game), letting your custom music continue to play as a game loads (and pick up where it left off if the game overrides custom soundtracks). You know, stuff that actually takes advantage of the multi-processor architecture.

Then there’s the ones that really, really should have been there all along, like the audio player remembering its volume settings or the DVD player bookmarking where you left off when a disc is ejected.

Then there’s the scary ones like “Better support for Xbox 360 game disc recognition”.

Read - Dashboard Changelog [Xbox.com]

Sure, the Academy Award nominations predominantly go to the documentaries about how much it sucks to be a kid in Africa. Or an adult in Africa. And once the Africans figure out that not shooting each other and not hacking each other to pieces with machetes are the better ideas, you’re still going to have documentaries about how much it sucks to be an antelope or a fish in Africa— but this would make for a much more level playing field.

And hey, even then they may truly be better, more compelling movies than seeing successive layers of rendering added to a wireframe model of a blue alien warrior and his space motorcycle.

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