Neowin.net

The Windows Product Team at Microsoft has sent invitations to beta test the PC Satisfaction Trial, a Web service that will be part of an upcoming customer research program.

"The intent of the trial will be to see how much more satisfied Windows customers are when they feel confident about the security of their PC and the safety of their data and personal information," the team wrote in an e-mail.

"We are looking for people with higher than average technical skill to install and use a pre-release version of the PC Satisfaction Trial service on internet-connected PCs running Windows XP in homes and small businesses."

Participants must be willing to report bugs, problems and suggestions to the development team throughout the three to four month beta program.

To apply for the PC Satisfaction Trial beta, users must login to BetaPlace using the pcsattrial Guest ID and complete a short survey.

View: Microsoft BetaPlace
View: Betanews Article
News source: Betanews
Update - On further investigation - it does not appear to work! We will look into it :)

Xbox features include:

• New monster: Mechagodzilla 3 (from the latest Godzilla® film release in Japan) joins the cast.
  
• New arenas: Vortaak Home World. The alien's home world, features new challenges like volcanoes, spaceship launchers, installation-protection missiles, and plenty of alien buildings to throw. Boxing Ring, the largest boxing ring in the world constructed for monster battles complete with ropes, bells and blimps.
  
• New Computer AI: One gamer can now play a four-player melee or team game against the Xbox Artificial Intelligence.
  
• Single-player Destruction Mode: Players can rip up a city -- all by themselves.
  
• Soundtrack support: Rip tunes to the Xbox hard drive and play your own tracks while you're fighting as your favorite giant monsters.
  
• Xbox Advantage Controls: The extra buttons on the Xbox make it easier to grab monsters and buildings. In addition, the Xbox features improved responsiveness, combos and collision detection.
  
• Better visuals: The unmatched graphical prowess of the Xbox hardware allows for better visuals treats, like reflection maps on buildings, true bump mapping, improved animations, smokestacks that emit smoke, better impact effects, specular highlights, bright high-resolution skies, improved lighting model, improved terrain, high resolution city selection movies and high resolution textures.
  
• Improved Speed: Solid frame-rate and faster loading times.
  Multiple Saved Games: Up to four players can save their progress on the Xbox hard drive.

In addition to the single-player Adventure Mode, the game includes four additional play styles: Versus Mode, a one on one epic battle royal; Destruction Mode, a timed challenge to see which player can destroy more of a city in a given amount of time; Survival Mode, the ultimate test of a player's skill, pitting him against monster after monster with the score based on the number of enemies defeated before losing a match; and Melee Mode, a one-to-four player points-based multiplayer slugfest.

The game features an epic sense of scope and scale, with 10 massive real-world and fantasy fighting arenas, including San Francisco, Tokyo and the notorious Monster Island, that are fully 3D and totally interactive. Players can pick up and throw buildings and landmarks like Big Ben, toss enemies into vast fuel tank farms and stomp on baseball stadiums. "Godzilla®: Destroy All Monsters Melee" also features additional hidden, unlockable areas only found on the Xbox(TM). Each city has been created with amazing attention to detail, including working traffic lights, blinking neon signs and moving cars, buses and tanker trucks.

More than 10 licensed monsters, each carefully modeled from the record-setting movie franchise, appear in the game including Godzilla 90's, Mechagodzilla, Megalon, Destoroyah, King Ghidorah, Mothra and many more. Each character is equipped with basic fighting maneuvers like kicks, punches, jumps, projectile attacks and blocks. For more hardcore fighting fans, "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee" includes a robust combo system and special attacks that are unique to each creature's abilities from the original movies. Power-ups are dropped into the arena by alien ships and hidden within city buildings, providing health and other enhanced abilities.