If you find yourself in the mood to pay to watch G4's gamer-oriented line of television programming, you can now scratch that puzzling itch on the Xbox Live Marketplace, where several of the network's original television programs have been made available for download. These programs include Attack of the Show, snowboard documentary series The Block, and animated comedy series Code Monkeys (which includes a free sneak preview of the show's second season).

Oddly enough, X-Play is not one of the shows featured on Microsoft's service, despite the fact that the daily half-hour Sess-fest is one of the highest rated programs on the network. A shame, too -- we would actually dish out some Microsoft buckz to avoid wading through the countless reruns of Fastlane, Cops, Cheaters, and other "gamer-oriented" programs to watch the oft-renamed program. Alas, we must continue to suffer the seemingly limitless douchebaggery of Joey Greco.

In last year's onslaught of groundbreaking, AAA titles, there was a a good chance for smaller gems to get lost in the shuffle -- case in point: Overlord. With wallets tightened in preparation of the year's later blockbuster releases, not many people shelled out the cash to pick up this clever Pikmin-esque treat, and our hopes for the previously announced trio of downloadable expansions for the game faded as the winter months passed.

However, just as surreptitiously as the game hit American store shelves, the three Overlord DLC packs recently crept onto Xbox Live Marketplace. For 800 MS Points you can grab the "Raising Hell" expansion, which adds some new levels and challenges to the single player campaign. The "Challenge Pack" goes for 400 MS Points, and adds 7 new multiplayer maps and a new campaign difficulty. And, for the low, low price of free, you can download a split-screen multiplayer mode to enjoy with a good friend, or better yet, your most trusted minion.

Lara Croft's superb re-quel, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, has finally clambered onto the Xbox Live Marketplace after being unearthed in June and delayed from an initial September release. If you missed it on the PlayStation 2, the PSP, the PC or even the Xbox 360 (in ancient disc format), now's your chance to relive the iconic grave robber's best adventure in the form of two downloadable chunks. The catch, of course, is that it functions as Tomb Raider: Legend DLC and will require you to have that disc handy.

Each half of the game will set you back roughly 1.5GB in bandwidth and 1,200 MS Points ($15) -- in combination, that puts it on par with the PS2 version and $10 beneath the disc-based Xbox 360 version. If this still isn't the opportune moment to explore Lara's treasure-laden crevices, you still have the hands-on Wii version to try out (it's out in the UK too this December).

That headline is probably the nicest way to say that it won't be smooth sailing when Xbox Originals drops with the 360's Fall dashboard update. Microsoft has set aside a little page to discuss the "known issues" of the service, which will allow users to download and play Xbox 1 games on their Xbox 360s. The issues range from minor framerate drops, to graphical and sound glitches, to un-supported resolutions, but most problems differ from title to title.

Universally, all Xbox Original titles will present with some choppyness during publisher logos as the games are cached into memory. Additional content like demos and trailers in games are unsupported by the service, and selecting them in an Xbox Originals title (such as Fable, Crimson Skies, and Fuzion Frenzy), will crash the system and require a restart of the console.

Issues like these make the entire service seem a lot less elegant, particularly with options in games that players will have to know not to select. Still, these things are bound to happen when a company tries to force-feed last-gen software to next-gen hardware. Users will be able to choose whether or not the slightly-less-than-perfect Xbox Originals will be worth the 1200 Microsoft Points each come December 4.

Disney may be a Blu-ray exclusive supporter, but that doesn't mean Xbox 360 owners won't be able to enjoy Disney movies in high definition. Microsoft has just announced that Disney will be providing downloadable HD movies to the Xbox Live Marketplace. Even more surprising ... it'll happen tonight. Get your hard drives ready to download!

Tomorrow is Bungie Day for the Halo 3 developer, as they've celebrated every July 7 in recent memory. Since it will be 2007 (i.e. 7/7/07, or triple 7s), there is some "extra special content" coming to Xbox Live Marketplace, according to the developer's website, in addition to new content on Bungie.net itself.

As to what the goodies will be, exactly, Bungie isn't saying -- "don't get too excited, it's not Halo 3," said the newsbrief. We're predicting gamertag pictures, themes, and the like, of either Halo, Marathon or their long-running joke Pimps at Sea.

Regardless of what the content is, there's only a small window of opportunity, as the mysterious content will only be available from 5:00 am ET until 3:00 am on Sunday.

[Via X3F]

Microsoft is reemploying their Bringing it Home campaign for this year's Min-E3. The campaign has previously been seen during last year's E3 and their X06 event in Barcelona, Spain.

As part of Bringing it Home, a barrage of content will be made available via Xbox Live, including their July 10 press conference, game trailers, themes, gamer pictures, demos and other video updates. Some of the games mentioned include Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Blue Dragon and Project Gotham Racing 4. A partial list (expect surprises from the show) is available after the break.

[Via X3F]

Eidos UK has officially announced Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the Xbox 360, confirming almost all of the theories originating from the ESRB listing we unearthed earlier this month. We say "almost," because one of said theories had the game being distributed via antiquated catapult. That's clearly and unfortunately not the case, as Anniversary will initially arrive on the Xbox 360 as a set of four downloadable episodes incorporated into Tomb Raider: Legend. The publisher notes that this marks the first occasion of a full game being serialized on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

As suggested in the earlier article, the episodes should be split across the various locales Lara Croft explores and inevitably desecrates in the Crystal Dynamics remake of the 1996 original. Lady Croft's manor will be offered as a free download, while the complete set of episodes will cost 2400 MS Points -- $30 and on par with the cost of the already released PC and PS2 versions.

Eidos promises to release Episode 1 and Episode 2 in September, with the final two episodes following "shortly afterwards." Those bemoaning the fact that they've since traded in Tomb Raider: Legend (understandable!) or never bothered to pick it up (unacceptable!) can wait for a retail version of Anniversary to be released on Xbox 360 "later in the year."

In a politely worded e-mail, Microsoft has announced that seriously simmy sequel, Forza Motorsport 2, has at last gone gold. Having hit Ctrl+S for the final time, the team at Turn 10 Studios has sent the finished code off to the disc pressers, shortly before collapsing into a nearby and distinctly unhygienic pool of blood, sweat and oil.

A demo of Forza 2 is currently available on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the full game can be expected to arrive on 29 May. UK retailers currently list a June 8th release date for those that enjoy driving on the wrong side of the road.

[Via Microsoft press release]

While the internet continues to decimate conventional demarcations like "countries" or "continents," content owners still find themselves funneled into separate geographical compartments. As an Xbox Live user, you are encouraged to keep your arms, legs and credit cards on the inside at all times, lest you cause some sort of international incident. The Xbox 360's Spring (that's Autumn for those on the other half of the planet!) dashboard update will further enforce this by restricting downloads based on the location of your console.

As Microsoft's John Porcaro explains it on the Gamerscore Blog, "if you have set up an account that does not match the country where you are located, you will find that these new security measures will only allow you to purchase and download content that is licensed in the country where you are located." Frequently, said country will not go by the name of "America," as the wealth of content available to US subscribers utterly dwarfs that found in other regions, including Europe. There's a reason people are taking their Xbox Live accounts on international trips.

While this primarily concerns content such as television shows and movies (which often hit Xbox Live before they've even been advertised in other countries), the decision to "strengthen the territory controls" seems exclusionary when more effort could be made to spread the content on a supposedly global network. The spider's web of licensing and regulation within television makes the delay and segregation somewhat understandable, but the possibility of Xbox Live Arcade games becoming similarly entangled is worrisome. Gamers in countries where the Xbox 360 has launched sans "official" Live support are already being foiled in their attempts just to purchase MS points. Your plastic's no good -- oh, except when it comes time to renew that Gold subscription. Then those borders fall down like dominoes.

Containing four new maps and a strong allusion to bulletproof codpieces, the "Hidden Fronts" map pack for testosterone explosion simulator, Gears of War, is now available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. In exchange for 800 MS points ($10), you'll receive approximately 230 megabytes of data that will automagically congeal on your hard drive and form beautiful, post-apocalyptic environments.

Those less intent on wiping out the Locust horde can wait until September 3rd for the maps to become free of charge.

After popping up in a scanned page of Official Xbox Magazine, the Forza 2 demo has been given the official and unrelentingly green light by the Microsoft pit crew. The Redmond giant tells Eurogamer that further details regarding the demo, including its time of arrival on the Xbox Live Marketplace "will be confirmed in the coming weeks."

As if sensing the impatience surrounding Forza 2's May release, Microsoft also doled out another list of cars set to be featured in the final product. Though you might better judge them after the break, we feel confident in confirming them all to be fast, shiny and the sort of expensive that demands the use of words like "ludicrously," "disgustingly," "outrageously" and "quite."

The second multiplayer map pack for Capcom's frigid Xbox 360 shooter, Lost Planet, has been scheduled to arrive on the Live Marketplace this Friday, April 6. The two maps contained therein are "Hive Complex," a thankfully hygienic mine with bridges and tunnels scattered across a mountainside, and "Trial Point," a modern office complex featuring "a photorealistic backdrop of a busy city center." Capcom's community website holds video footage of the maps, both of which look graphically splendid (if you're into that sort of thing).

The asking price is 400 MS points, or 5 of your nigh incomprehensible American "bucks".

New game modes and multiplayer maps comprise the first downloadable content pack for Ubisoft's first-person terrorist foiler, Rainbow Six: Vegas. Eurogamer reports that the Player's Pack Red Edition should find its way onto the Xbox Live Marketplace before the end of March. Of the two new gameplay modes, Assassination sounds like it could provide for some tense moments. One team must protect and escort a fragile and likely paranoid VIP to an extraction point, while the opposing team attempts to make said very important person a very dead one instead.

Total Conquest, on the other hand, is closer to King of the Hill, except with royalty being ordained by three seperate radar installations. As for the added multiplayer maps, two are altered versions of existing levels, namely Border Town and Killhouse, and three are brand new. These include "Doscala Restaurant," "Marshalling Yard" and the extraordinarily descriptive "Roof," which is actually a coffee factory crawling with terrorists and, you know, brewing up trouble. (OOF!)

Ubisoft has not yet appended a price tag to the content, but our expectations are set between 800 points ($10) and 1200 points ($15). Player's Pack Red Edition is currently exclusive to the Xbox 360 version of Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Speaking to Game Informer, Epic's Mark Rein sounded confident that user-created content would be distributed to Unreal Tournament 3 console players via PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. Rein explained that the reason for delaying confirmation of UT3 on 360 was tied to this issue, as Epic was unsure that Microsoft's strict certification process would allow for user mods on the console. Rein admitted that "it's still a bit of an open issue," but added that "we've had some pretty clear indications that we'll be able to [bring mods to Xbox 360]."

It's unclear how mods would be created and distributed for console use. On Xbox 360, given potential leverage earned by Gears of War's success, perhaps Epic could smuggle mods through XNA. More likely, Epic would convert select user-created mods for the PC version and distribute them via Xbox Live Marketplace (as a courtesy, we would hope). On PS3, there seem to be more "open" possibilities, but the process could be equally simplified.

[Via 1UP]