Halo 3 Recon Renamed: Halo 3: ODST

Personally, I have been anticipating this name change. The upcoming game will now be titled Halo 3: ODST. This, according to today’s press release from Microsoft. It’s a short one, so I’ll post the entire contents below.

The Halo project announced at Tokyo Game Show, “Halo 3: Recon”, has gone through a name change. This upcoming chapter in the “Halo” saga will be named “Halo 3: ODST”. We are incredibly excited to tell a thrilling new story from the Halo universe and bring the perspective of new characters to the forefront of the Human-Covenant struggle. “Halo 3: ODST’s” tale will focus on the legendary ODSTs or “Orbital Drop Shock Troopers” as they drop into the ruined city of New Mombasa, looking for clues behind the Covenant’s catastrophic attack on the city. We’ll be sharing more about “Halo 3: ODST” and the ODST characters in the near future – stay tuned for more information!

Video Games not feeling slumping economy (yet)

TechFlash wrote quite an interesting article about how the video game industry (particularly “casual games”) is not yet feeling the pinch of our current economic recession. Mainly slamming teens and young adults for not putting away savings and preparing for their future, the article suggests that this coming holiday season, when parents are forced to shell out $60 a copy for games, that might be the first time that the industry feels the effects of the closed wallets of the populous.

Still, the article received some positive feedback from developers in the casual games market. The people who make free web-browser based games or those inexpensive games you find on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network, like Popcap Games and Big Fish Games, are reporting that business is booming!

Playstation Network hitting the internet…

Hot on the heels of Nintendo talking about their community, Sony has sent out an email announcing their plans to bring the Playstation Network to Playstation.com. What does this mean for you? It’s hard to tell. They talk about interactivity, flexibility, and other buzzwords… but they don’t specifically say if they will provide access to the Playstation Store (like the “New Xbox Experience” allows you to add downloads to your queue for the next time you turn on your 360), or if there will be forums, or if you will have access to your friends lists and the ability to messages to other users. But it’s exciting to see companies putting forth the effort to make their platforms even mroe accessible. In the United States? Visit Playstation.com to merge your Playstation Undergound (Playstation.com) account with your PSN ID (login for your console user ID).