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It's been no secret that original Xbox games and systems have been the vestigial limb holding back much wanted XBL features including raising the limit on our friends list to over 100 or mobile tie-ins, and on April 15 Live access for all of them comes to an end. Even those Xbox Originals downloaded to the 360 or played via backwards compatibility will be cut off from online play, so we'd suggest getting those last few rounds of Halo 2 in now or at least look into an alternative solution like XBConnect. Affected users should keep an eye on their inbox, Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten has promised "details and opportunities" to come for you as partners in this process -- we're figuring a coupon or two or an extended XBL subscription as the lights are turned out is the least they can do. For the rest of us already living in the future? The timing of this announcement mere days before the X10 event in San Francisco February 11 can't be coincidental, we should find out what comes next by then.

So first I'm going to show you some neat desktop apps that might make your Facebook experience more streamlined, and certainly more enjoyable. The Facebook website is pretty slow at the best of times, so moving to desktop apps can significantly speed things up. In some cases -- such as uploading lots of photos -- a desktop app might also be the only decent solution. Let's get going! Continue reading 5 desktop apps that'll make swift work of FaceVille -- er, Facebook!

Tower Defense is one of the most popular genres in the wide world of Time Wasters. The premise of any TD game is building an array of towers to blow up waves of baddies before they make it to your base. Upgrading and adapting towers as the enemies get stronger and faster is the only way to survive. Two main styles of Tower Defense dominate the landscape: the first has your enemies following a set path, so you have a basic idea of where to set up your defensive perimeter. The second is more free-form, with the waves of creeps taking a less predictable path across the screen. In these games, you have to set up your own maze of towers to direct the flow of enemy traffic. This selection of 10 Tower Defense Time Wasters includes both set-path and mazing games, as well as a few with novel twists in gameplay, like tower combos and enemies that can only be hit by specific weapons. WARNING: TD games are insanely addictive. I can't count the number of hours I spent testing all of these out. I hope you get as much fun out of them as I did, DLS readers! When Penguins Attack This one's kind of a novelty, but I think killer penguins make any game more fun. I gave this game a positive review last year, and I thought it was worth mentioning one more time. Your enemies here are, obviously, penguins. They don't follow a set path, so you can build your own maze and force them to take a longer path across the screen. Penguins doesn't offer a huge number of tower types, but there are several different maps with varying terrain to keep gameplay fresh. Defender: Hold the Holy Pig Defender: Hold the Holy Pig is a heavily elemental-based tower defense game, which means you'll need to balance your towers amongst several different elements to take out different enemy types. Upgrades go to level 5, and your best tower is the tough-to-get Ultimate Tower, which hits all enemy types. Periodic boss waves add to the challenge. I can't figure out where the Holy Pig comes in, though ... Continue reading The top 10 fun, free Tower Defense games - Time Wasters

The top 10 fun, free Tower Defense games - Time Wasters originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Peel yourself off the floor (like Flickr user B. Rosen above), Download Squad readers! It's time to usher in 2010! Over the past twelve months we've shown you plenty of great tools to improve your productivity. We like to keep things in balance, though, so there were also plenty of awesome Time Wasters posted to keep your stress levels in check. Although in hindsight there were several which probably stressed some of you out even more... so... sorry about that. Still, there's no better way to kick off the new year than with a big ol' helping of button-mashing, bad guy-blasting, puzzle-solving fun. Without further ado, it's time to take the jump and enjoy ten of our favorite Time Wasters from 2009! Continue reading 10 favorite Time Wasters from 2009 to kick off your 2010 gaming!