You know about that Modern Warfare 2 demo/SNK Xbox Live Arcade glitch? You dont? Well, go google it (crazy how "google" is now a verb) because I can't be assed here to explain it.

Anyway the thing of it is, even once you get the full versions of the SNK games they're more like "Extended Demos." They're fully playable from start to finish but you dont receive any gamerpoints for them. If you care about this sort of thing it's somewhat of a bummer. You know, not getting any recognition for taking advantage of an exploit to get free games.

However, after playing Metal Slug XX's "Combat School" mode I was poking around the downloadable content menu. There I saw you can purchase KoF's Leona Heidern for 80 MSP. "Cool," I thought to myself "I have enough points for that." So I pressed "A" and downloaded the tiny file to my HD. Much to my surprise, instead of seeing "Leona downloaded" I read "Metal Slug XX Full Version Downloaded" instead. Exit out of the DLC menu, and I see a bunch of gamerpoint alerts popping up for things I had earned during previous playthroughs. Score. In addition was Leona, smack dab in the middle of the character select screen, mugging like an indifferent Alice to the rest Slug's "Brady Bunch."

So yeah. For the cost of four credits at your bowling alley's Neo Geo cab you can get the full game with achievements intact. While I'm not here to condone nor condemn everybody rushing over to their XBL dashboards to do this before all the Activision/SNK/XBox fingerpointing/litigation gets sorted out and it all gets fixed: all I will say is Metal Slug XX is pretty great. I already own the DS version of XX but am disappointed the XBL version doesn't have the swell "Game Over" screen with Morden's soldiers laughing at your dead ass. And hey SNK . . . at least we're paying SOMETHING for it. That should be of some consulation while you're firing whomever does quality control over there.

UPDATE: I just noticed while I am NOW getting achievement updates (which wasn't happening pre-Leona) and they ARE being added to my gamerscore the title still isn't showing up in my game library. Que Sera and all that.

UPDATE UPDATE: Went to boot it up this morning and I still have to launch it through MW2 to play the unlocked version. Wiggy.