A Death, a Rebirth

My 360 died, much like the 360s of countless others. I guess the timing is "perfect" now that Microsoft issued a 3 year warranty for all 360s. I'm 99% positive that 99% of the first run Xbox 360s will die within the next few months. Glad I can beat the rush I suppose.

I'm worried my hard-drive will be completely dead and with its passing, my saves. If this is the case I may cry. I have a Master Agent on Crackdown. I have maxed out driving. You know how hard that shit is?

I turned the PC back on for the first time in countless months and was directed to a Battlefield 2 mod called Point of Existence. It has quite a few downloads on Fileshack so I'm hoping there's a strong community, as the quality of the work from their screenshots seems quite high and the scenario interesting. Plus I love Battlefield and there's never a bad time to get back into the game. Plus, one of the sides (the good guys!) is the modern German army. Those guys have a lot of awesome toys with which to blow shit up. The Germans always do.

(posted by grant at 7/26/2007)   (0) comments

Cooperative

Spent almost the entire weekend playing Rainbow Six with Shackers and Crackdown with my Achievement Arch-Nemesis. Crackdown is so incredibly fun and mostly well made. If they pumped out a sequel every 6 months I'd buy every single one of them. I still find the agility and explosions immensely enjoyable. It's like being Spiderman with a rocket launcher.

I'd really like to see Epic up the Gears sequel to four player co-op. If Rainbow Six can do it, Gears can do it. Bungie needs to do the same with Halo 3, which is reportedly happening. We'll see. Co-op adds more replay value to a game than any other feature. Multiplayer maps can get redundant (Attack & Defend on Calpyso Casino is ALL the public servers play for Rainbow Six) and single player can also get a tad boring. But killing AI with some friends? Always good.

(posted by grant at 7/16/2007)   (0) comments

Difficult Duty

I'm playing Call of Duty 2 again, but this time on the Xbox 360. It's such an incredibly good game, but now I'm playing it on Veteran, the hardest difficulty setting. Sweet lord it's hard. I think it's punishment for all the mean things I've said in the past few years. This fued over Xbox Live Achievements is going to kill me if I have to keep playing games like Call of Duty 2 on Veteran.

(posted by grant at 7/10/2007)   (0) comments

XBL Downloadable Content

Publishers really need to get their business straight regarding downloadable content. EA has made some pretty bad mistakes regarding the Madden tutorial videos and now Ubi Soft is jumping on the bandwagon. Their first Map Pack was released for $10. A bit steep, but the maps are good and I keep playing the game. Their recent Black Pack was released for free (though not at first) and now the Red Pack is free as well. What? If I knew it was going to be free a month and half later, I would have just saved the $10. At least Epic told players (like Bungie before them) that the new Gears maps will set you back a few bucks now, but will be free in the fall.

Bethesda did a great job with Oblivion (after the horse armor issue). $1.89 for a lot of new content -- that's a great deal, especially for those who love Oblivion. I'm actually not that opposed to buying new maps, especially for Rainbow Six when there are a dozen modes to play on them. I'd buy new tracks for Forza 2, or maybe even new cars. Content is really, really expensive and publishers should be compensated. But don't just screw the players. Downloadable content should be a good value to extend the life of the game and increase the player base -- not a way for the companies to cream their loyal customers.

For those of us used to getting free maps on our PC, well, forever, having to pay for every little thing on consoles is ridiculous. It may just be a PR issue -- publishers just need to explain themselves better, or at least market their products in a more convincing fashion.

(posted by grant at 7/05/2007)   (0) comments

One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall

Transformers was so goddamn awesome it hurts me to think I'm not watching it again at this very moment. Very few gripes and about a million things that made me happy. To describe my love of the movie accurately would probably result in an HR violation in most corporations.

For bad, I thought the Decepticons looked a little too spikey. Then again, they did look quite evil. Autobots looked perfect, so I guess it balances out. The classic Starscream and Megatron debate could have been extended and I wanted Bonecrusher and Prime to fight longer. Actually, all the fights between the robots could have been a bit longer and more focused on the robots. Then again, that CG (delicious, delicious CG) could not have been cheap to create.

What they got right? The kid was awesome, and he looked just like Spike from the cartoon (his name was Spike, right?) All of the robots sounded awesome, from voice to weapons to the classic transformation noise. The movie was full of tidbits from the 1986 movie, like the one used in this post's title and the CG was just incredible. This is probably the first movie since Jurassic Park where I saw the fake things on screen and honestly thought they looked real. Watching Star Wars Episodes 1-3 felt like I was watching a video game. The robots looked so real. All of the action was solid and the actors, while a bit corny (it is a summer blockbuster) did a great job.

I'm just rambling now.

Michael Bay nailed it -- I honestly couldn't ask for a better movie. There could have been so much wrong with this movie and frankly I'm just really satisfied. I love seeing a movie like this and the whole crowd just cheers from the awesomeness.

(posted by grant at 7/05/2007)   (0) comments

Busy Boy

I've neglected SZ for a few days. Work, vacation, eh.

Band of Bugs, released a few weeks back on Xbox Live Arcade is excellent. It is extremely simplified turn based strategy, yes, but I think this is a good thing. Games are quick and the mechanics are straightforward, making it much more accessible and easy to play for a short session. Plus they put a Ninja Bee in the game -- I mean, ninjas that are also bees just can't be a bad thing. Nice single player game, online multiplayer, and map editor make this well worth the $10. I need to check out Ninja Bee's other games (Cloning Clyde and Outpost Kaloki X).

The brother visited and we played 5 hours of paintball at Bay Area Paintball. Overall it was a good experience, but some things could be better. Firstly, their refs are all high school kids that jack around the entire time. I wish they'd actually do their job so that they could, you know, call the game. I also don't care for the regulars showing up with their machine guns. Paintball, at least for me, involves running around, diving behind cover, stuff like that. These guys perch in the back and snipe people with their jacked up guns. It's not fun and it's a bit more pain than I care for.

In one instance 3 of us took on 2 of them. I was shot before I even made it to the first bunker. My brother and friend were perched behind their respective bunkers. I kept yelling at them to move and advance, and they kept replying "fuck you". Needless to say we lost.

I took a break from Forza 2 and Rainbow Six to play the new Harry Potter (360 version). Overall it's a fun, mindless break from the more hardcore games. There's some really sloppy camera work and overall the pacing is incredibly slow, but it's also very simple and filled with some fun tedium. And the presentation is spot on, with pretty characters and all the voice acting from the movie. And Hogwarts is exactly (and somewhat tediously) re-created. If I were a young kid obsessed with Harry Potter, this game would be great. For $20 it is definitely worth my money.

That should be enough for now.

(posted by grant at 7/02/2007)   (0) comments