By Joel Barish There's room enough for everybody THQ's Saint's Row is one of the Xbox 360 games we're really looking forward to this fall. There's just something exhilarating about breaking the law gang-style and trying to take over a city while earning respect points and moolah. Sure, some people are saying "GTA rip!" but we say the more the merrier, as long as they deliver. Gamespot says that it does, saying that "Overall it looks like THQ has put together a solid, nice-looking, and entertaining game." Firing Squad recently interviewed lead designer Chris Stockman and and asked about the GTA influence on the game. FiringSquad: We have seen open ended crime action games before. How hard was it to develop a game that was different than those that came before? Chris Stockman: It's hard to deny the affect that the GTA series has had on our industry. We don't shy away from the fact that Saint's Row shares elements with them. But it is possible to improve upon some of the complaints the GTA series has received over the years. Stuff like targeting systems, no multiplayer, too linear of a story, lack of player creation, etc. We identified these key areas and focused on improving them.

By Nathan Bronfman I have an obsession with Kate Moss People might expect the gang here at Xbox Today to be obsessed with the Xbox 360, and they would be correct. And secretly, one would think that Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer would have an obsession with the upcoming PS3. But what one wouldn't expect is for him to come out and freely admit it. In an interview with Wall Street Journal, that's just what happened. Sure, he was somewhat facetious, but that slip has got Freudian written all over it. From Next Generation: When talking up the box office sales of Sony's Da Vinci Code movie, Stringer said, "It also beat Xbox 3 in Europe in its second weekend," at which point WSJ tech columnist Walt Mossberg corrected, "You mean X-Men 3." Laughing, Stringer retorted, "There's an obsession!"

By Nathan Bronfman I have an obsession with Brian De Palma You would expect the gang here at Xbox Today to be obsessed with the Xbox 360, and you would be correct. And secretly, one would think that Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer would have an obsession with the upcoming PS3. But what one wouldn't expect is for him to come out and freely admit it. In an interview with Wall Street Journal, that's just what happened. Sure, he was somewhat facetious, but that slip has got Freudian written all over it. From Next Generation: When talking up the box office sales of Sony's Da Vinci Code movie, Stringer said, "It also beat Xbox 3 in Europe in its second weekend," at which point WSJ tech columnist Walt Mossberg corrected, "You mean X-Men 3." Laughing, Stringer retorted, "There's an obsession!"

By Craig Schwartz Pac-Man fever killed my uncle in '81 There's nothing that brings me back to 1980 quicker than hearing the opening theme of Pac-Man. Sure, I wasn't born yet, but from what I'm told it really was quite addictive back then. I've played it in various incarnations since, and after around fifteen minutes, I get bored and go play Call Of Duty 2 on my 360. But hey, Pac-Man back is back in the spotlight via Xbox 360 Live. And even though it's not going to use the 360's power like the Oblivions of the world, Gamespot seems to think it's pretty darn okay. From Gamespot: The first thing you need to know about the Xbox Live Arcade version of Pac-Man is that it's essentially a port of the original arcade game. Pac-Man does take advantage of some of the Xbox 360 console's online features, but in terms of gameplay, your 400 Microsoft Points are going to get you the same pellet-popping, ghost-chasing, maze-navigating action that made the 1980 arcade game the most successful coin-operated game in history. We're reluctant to say that this game is identical to the arcade original just yet, but we can tell you that aside from the modern-day Pac-Man images that border the gameplay area, we've yet to find a single difference.

By Joel Barish That's a Halo big number We always suspected that there were a lot of games of Halo 2 being played; we shudder to think how many games were logged just by the staff here at Xbox Today. Please don't tell our significant others. But when the gang at Bungie announced that they've reached a cool half-billion Halo 2 games played, that actually made us stop in our tracks. A half billion. You'd think with those kind of numbers they'd want to port it over to the Xbox 360, but they've got no plans to do so. Instead, they're going full steam ahead on Halo 3. Not that we mind playing Halo 2 on our 360s in the meantime, naturally. Here's the official word from Bungie: We've surpassed lots of cool numbers in the past, including numbers of total players, hours played and all that stuff, but we thought we'd note that at as of around noon today, a half-billion games of Halo 2 have been played on Xbox Live. That's a lot of games.