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In case you didn’t hear, XBLA’s first free-to-play game Happy Wars launched last Friday, and is absolutely worth checking out. If a free game is great, a free Halloween update can only make it better. The new Pumpkin map captures the spirit of the season, as the land is littered with scarecrows, gravestones, and jack-o-lanterns, all illuminated by a giant full moon. The new map can be played in single player training, multiplayer, and co-op modes. Study the battlefield in the screenshots below, then go off and fight in the update available now.

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While most of you will be aware of the release of XBLA’s first free to play game, Happy Wars, you might …
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Pumped for the World Series? When you’re not too busy watching the professionals play, Home Run Stars can make you an all-star hitter. Using the Kinect, have your avatar step up to the plate and play through League mode. Three unique stadiums await, each with their own variety of targets which will help you rack up big points. Compete with your friends online through the leaderboards or 2-player multiplayer. Besides being the next game to include Avatar Famestar, Home Run Stars will be the first XBLA game to have SmartGlass integration. The Duel mode lets two players play locally, one as the hitter and the other the pitcher, without the advantages of screen-peeking. Home Run Stars drops October 26.

Source: PlayXBLA

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Undead Labs loves guns. You can tell from their recent blog post that released a list of every gun usable in their upcoming State of Decay. After all, this can’t be a genuine zombie apocalypse survival simulation if you can’t even pack your favorite heat! Counting up the list of the available rifles, assault rifles, pistols, SMGs and shotguns, their current list totals at 87 guns ready to go with the genuine promise of more to come. See a gun missing that you must have at the end of the world? You could try tweeting to @undeadlabs…

Still no word on a release date yet, but keep coming back to XBLA Fans for details on that front as they emerge! In the meantime, you should check out our massive preview if you haven’t already.

Check the full story for the complete list of guns.

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All things considered, Mark of the Ninja was a pretty great stealth action game. It was chock-full of inventive, fun (if occasionally repetitive) …
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TopWare Interactive and developer Chasing Carrots have announced a new top-down racing game, Pressure. In the same vein as Micro Machines, TNT Racers, and many others, Pressure seeks to create a unique identity by setting the racing in a steampunk world. An evil guy has taken all the water and so you get in your go-kart and . . . you know what? Let’s just post the official synopsis.

The hero awakes to find the usually cool waters lake where he takes his morning bath completely dry and filled with cruel machines. The sinister Earl has drained the lake to be the site of his new Wellness Spa Temple. Thwarting his sinister plans and returning the valuable water to the citizens of the world is the main objective of the game… as well as destroying his countless, caltrop-laying minions.

No release date or pricing information was released, but we’re guessing it will set gamers back around 800 MSP given the game’s current competition. Short videos showcasing a few of the game’s action sequences, characters and vehicles can be found after the break.

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Cherry Pop Games’ Pool Nation was supposed to hit digital shelves last Wednesday, but due to unknown reasons it missed the initial release window. But the developer recently confirmed via Twitter that players can chalk up for their first shot on October 31, just two weeks from today. It will release for 800 MSP and features two player on-and-offline gameplay. Xbox.com hints that it may have downloadable content as well, but we haven’t heard anything of that sort. The listing also boasts that the game features “photo-realistic graphics” and “real-world physics.” We can’t speak for the physics, but we’re sold on the visuals. Hit the jump for more screenshots.

Source: @CherryPopGames via Joystiq

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This week sees two XBLA releases. Firstly Zombie Driver HD is released for 800 MSP, a game which sees players driving over hordes of zombies in a top-down world. …
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Microsoft has started gradually deploying its fall 2012 Xbox 360 dashboard update, according to Major Nelson. In order to “ensure a stable release,” the update will be doled out in waves, with 3 million Xbox 360 owners getting in on the first wave of updates. “Additional users” will receive the update at some point during the next couple of weeks. It isn’t completely clear at this point whether or not the interesting choice of words by the Xbox Live director of programming means all users will get the update within two weeks. He did, however, request that those who don’t get in on the update right away remain calm and “just keep checking back in.”

In any case, 360 owners can expect a multitude of new features and some tweaks to existing dashboard elements. Following is the full list of changes straight from Major Nelson’s blog:

• Refreshed Xbox 360 Dashboard. We’ve updated the UI with a few things, including an updated layout with more tiles, a combined TV & Movies channel and, in the US, a Sports destination.
• Internet Explorer for Xbox. With Internet Explorer on Xbox, you can easily find and view internet content on the biggest screen in the house, including HTML5 videos.
• Recommendations and Ratings. Recommendations will allow you to discover new favorites, generated based on a number of variables including the content you previously viewed, what your friends are consuming and what is most relevant and popular with our Xbox community. You can now rate content yourself and also see Rotten Tomatoes ratings.
• Pinning. Pinning lets you personalize the dashboard by saving your favorite movies, TV shows, games, music, videos and websites right to the home screen. It’s as easy as opening an app or a favorite movie and clicking “pin.”
• Xbox Video. Formerly called Zune Video Marketplace, Xbox Video offers hundreds of thousands of TV shows and movies for buying or renting in instant HD streaming.
  Recent. Previously called Quick Play, the Recent view gives you a list of movies, games, apps or other types of content that you most recently accessed on the console.
• Enhanced Search. The last Xbox LIVE update brought Bing voice search to Xbox so you could use voice to search for movies, TV shows, actors, directors and artists. This year we added genre search to the list, so now you can search for action, comedy, romance, drama or sci-fi. Bing voice search now includes results for video across the Web, including YouTube.
• International Expansion of Voice Search. We’ve expanded our Kinect voice search capabilities to 9 new countries – Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Ireland.

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If you enjoyed SEGA’s manic Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit, then you’ll be pleased to hear that some DLC is on the way. The first pack, dubbed Pimp …
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