Hear that?  It's the silence of the Microsoft crew regarding this week's slate of XBLA goodness.  Gears of Wars 2 will do that to a PR team.  That said, there are some XBLA announcements worthy of our focus.

First, today is the day that all those that pre-ordered Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, myself included, can snap up the title and the pre-order bonus: a download code for the XBLA version of the original Banjo.  Those without a pre-order will have to wait two weeks and slap down 1200 MSP.

Second, if Banjo is not your thing, perhaps Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Feeding Frenzy, or Worms HD might interest you at their new Arcade Hits price points.  Each of those games has been dropped to the criminally low price of 400 MSP (or 5 of your US dollars).

And if that's not enough XBLA goodness for you, go buy this month's Official Xbox Magazine which has a demo for NinjaBee's A Kingdom for Keflings.  Though, perhaps being asked to purchase the full game over and over is just too much of a tease to handle.  Selecting that option just gives you an error.  Not that I tried.