The ‘Arcade Hits’ section on Marketplace (where existing games get a price drop) has had a recent addition in the shape of Puzzle Quest which has been dropped to 800M$P from the frankly stupid price of 1200M$P.  This isn’t a totally selfless act from Microsoft though, as Puzzle Quest has also received a DLC expansion pack that’ll set you back 700M$P. 

The snappily-titled ‘Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Revenge of the Plague Lord’ expansion adds new achievements (three for fifty points), spells, enemies and raises the level cap, so fans of the original game are seemingly going to get a lot for their money even if the total outlay of 1900M$P (for early adopters) seems a bit much.

Another interesting piece of DLC is the latest Guitar Hero III song pack.  Whilst these things usually bore me to horrible tears, my interest is slightly stoked by this new ‘Virtuoso’ pack, featuring Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Buckethead.  It’ll set you back 500M$P (four quid to you, love) and will make an already horribly difficult game even harder.  Ouch.

There are no demos this week, unless you live in the States or Canada (although it’s just a demo of ‘Space Chimp’, so don’t bother moving or anything).  Bit of a shame really as I was hoping for some decent E3-related goodies rather than just the lukewarm demo of ‘Too Human’.

The ridiculously expensive Xbox Originals section has just had Jade Empire added to it for the standard price of 1200M$P (£11.20).  Pick up a cheap copy on eBay or something, if you’re interested.  In case you’re wondering, it’s an RPG with kung-fu fighty bits from back in 2005, and was made by Bioware who also brought us Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic.  The bad news is that it’s not as good as those games, but it’s still not bad,  even if the price is.

That’s all, Loves.  Catch you next week for the return of Soul Calibur and ‘miscellaneous’.

Richie Harkness – www.peoww.co.uk