My 360 Demos, They Don't Exist
April 04, 2008

Just to show that I'm an equal opportunity bitcher I wanted to bring up the fact that the 360 hasn't had any demos released for it in a long time. I actually went back to see if Two Worlds was as bad as I remembered the demo to be, and found out that I was right. I've even contemplated purchasing a few of the Xbox Originals just for some new downloadable content. Alas, I am cheap and won't fork over my money that easily.

Imagine my surprise when I checked Xbox Live last night before going to bed. There it was, a shiny new jewel of a demo. To make matters better, it was a demo for a game that I was actually interested in - Army of Two. Damn right, I started downloading that mofo faster than Babbles sits in James' chair.

I got home today eager to try it out to see if it was as cool as the footage would lead me to believe. I was left with two take-away points; A) EA wants you to create an account and B) it's unfortunately a multiplayer only demo. I was completely baffled by point A since I already have a Live GOLD account and really don't want to sign up for yet another service to play on top of the service that's supposed to let me play play games over it. Point B was simply irritating, because I want my first experience with a game to be at my own pace enjoying and savoring things.

Oh well. There's a busy weekend ahead, what with Code Camp happening on Caturday.

A Week with the 360
October 11, 2007

Very much like like a week or so with the Wii, I'm still really enjoying my new 360. So much so that Emily's began hating my purchase, since she is frequently forced off of the television so that I can play some Geometry Wars or Gears of War. Anyway... what are the points?

Plus

• The 360 controller is the greatest controller known to me. Everything works flawlessly, and it just feels right in my hands. The sensitivity is a perfect balance between spinning around aimlessly and moving like molasses. Additionally, the fact that the controller is wireless is quite a nice change - allowing me to actually sit in my couch to play games.
• The games, oh the games. Unlike the Wii, which sports a mere two serious titles (Zelda and Metroid Prime), the 360 has a complete library that will keep me busy for far longer than Babbles and Emily would like. Right now I've got about 15 games queued up in my "do want" list.
• XBLA is freaking awesome. Unlike Nintendo's Virtual Console, there's real, new, and meaty content available through this platform. Geometry Wars and Boom Boom Rocket are two of my most interesting titles at the moment. Couple that with the retro availabilities of games like Doom and Street Fighter (all redone and fixed up, of course - unlike Virtual Console) and you've got a recipe for money spending. Falling better than Virtual Console though, $25 will get you about three good games (Geometry Wars, Boom Boom and Doom here).
• Xbox Live itself is pretty nifty. It's been forever since I've played videogames on the great Internets and it definitely shows. I took Doom online with a trial Gold account and was getting schooled by 12 year olds in no time. Of course, unlike Chris' experiences with Halo, I actually managed to have a good time with someone who was willing to go easy and actually "play" the game. The voice-chat is definitely a nice way to communicate in game, letting you converse while playing the game instead of having to stop to type.
• XBL lets you download demos. I know that I shouldn't be impressed, but I am. It's freaking awesome to see that there's a new Conan game coming out and be able to tell my 360 "fetch me that demo" and then come back a few hours later to play said demo. Awesome possum.
• It's a media center. It doesn't just play games or DVDs, it lets you stream music and videos from your PC. You'll have to setup media sharing and convert video files to WMV but it's completely worth it to be able to watch Zetsubou Sensei without having to hook my laptop up to the TV. A very nice bonus.

Minus

• It's loud. When you're playing a 360 DVD-based game it sounds like a freaking airplane. Seriously. As far as I've seen, with Gears of War the DVD spins the entire time that the game is running - so get used to it. It's a constant noise, though so it drowns out.
• The games are expensive. A new game can set you back as much as $60. However, given inflation and the production values of modern games I really don't have that much of a problem with paying that much for good content.
• Emily gets to watch less TV as I'm always playing the 360.
• Media sharing was a major pain in the ass to setup. Seriously, from an IT professional this was one of the most terrible and painful setups that I've ever gone through. It took me almost an hour of googling to realize that Media Sharing won't share media across a network - for instance. I'll setup Sun Solaris over this in an instant.

Summary

So, as of now I'm incredibly thrilled with this awesome purchase. There's tons of stuff to do with it, there's tons of great games for it and it's just plain a lot of fun. I'll stand the noise and I'm already past getting the media sharing setup, so until I get a Red Ring it looks like this will end up being a much better purchase than the Wii with its two games. Double plus points!

Holy Busy Batman!
October 09, 2007

These last few days have been incredibly impossibly busy for me. In between the new 360, school and this last weekend's D&D session which got me home around 01:30A on a Sunday - I'm totally beat. Hopefully I'll make some new postings this evening, but even that's suspect since I've disassembled my office and am using my poor neglected laptop to type this up. Oi.

Oh, I did get the 360 to talk to Windows Media Player too. 'Tis quite nice to finally have decent music access in the living room.

Waaay Too Much Geometry Wars
October 02, 2007

I purchased my first Xbox Live Golden Coins last night. It was quite an ordeal telling Microsoft about my credit card which ended up bringing me out to a totally different looking 1999-era Microsoft site for setting it up. Once all was said and done I was able to add 2,000 MS Bucks to my account for around $25. Not too bad since it'll buy me at least three XBLA games. I've already purchased Geometry Wars which I played obsessively last night. I hit 193,000 points but alas, Citescape was down by the time I did so that never got recorded. Bummer. Hopefully they'll be up tonight so that I can get some new XBLA games or demos.

I'll probably be settling down for some Doom tonight, since it's got a nice campaign, and then deciding between Boom Boom Rocket or maybe Sonic. Everybody loves Sonic, right? I tried getting ahold of Chris via the service last night, but he was engrossed in Halo 3. I have a feeling that in order to ever see him I will have to get ahold of a copy. I just wonder how newb-rific I will appear on teh great Halowebs.

All-in-all I'm loving the fact that the 360 actually uses the Internets to communicate with people. There's no convoluted codes to exchange with people, all of the games seem to interact in at least some way, and XBLA just plain rocks. Oh yes... the wireless 360 controller is oh so nice. Om noms.

Seriously Considering a 360
September 29, 2007

Much to Emily's dismay, I am now seriously considering picking myself up a tasty little Xbox 360 sometime soon. I managed to snag another contract job which has definitely padded out my "happy Jordan fun-time" savings to the point where I can aaaaalmost afford to get one without using any un-budgeted resources. I'm still a little on the fence though, as I am with any big purchase.

I mean, the $350 for a Pro system is quite a few tasty burgers from Val's. Though on the other hand, being able to bypass all the PC gaming ass-hattery that's going on lately is quite a nice bonus. Coupled with actual online functionality within games and the presence of many great looking titles I'm really tempted. I'm definitely wanting for some Gears of War, Eternal Sonata, Geometry Wars, Halo 3, Mass Effect, Forza and Doom action. Not to mention when Hellgate finally comes out (if it comes out) for the 360.

Of course, I would take Draz's advice and buy it from Best Buy. Why? When the sales-droid begins "Would you like to buy the $20 extended warran"-yes. Why yes, I would like to buy your extended warranty. Although, I am sure that the droids are instructed NOT to offer the warranty for 360s now-a-days.

Then comes the next question... when to buy? I mean, Kotaku has info on a new bundle that might be coming and including the updated-not-sucky SKUs. But, do I really want to wait until around Christmas? I think not. I want to get some Gears of War and Geometry Wars action going now dammit.

So, summary... maybe. I still needs some convincin'.

Update: Looks like I won't be getting any Halo 3 action for awhile.

Halo Revisited and How I'm Starting to like Console FPSs
September 21, 2007

To placate Chris and his insatiable Halo love, I have began replaying Halo with my newly acquired 360 controller. On top of playing BioShock through with my new 360 controller I've also been giving Lost Planet and Overlord a try with my new-fangled device... and I have to say that I'm loving it. I think that it boils down to having the ability to control my walking speed with an analog system in addition to having more intuitive "movement" controls. Aiming still gets a bit hairy, but I've only been playing with the controller for a month or so now. Yes Andy, I can do more than spin around in a circle now.

Now, on to the topic that has probably caused Ryoseth to start poking pins into a voodoo-me - Halo. At this point I'm a little bit further in the game then when I had originally played it, and I have to say that the 360 controller makes a huge amount of difference. Without it the game feels sluggish and slow, but when using the controller everything feels fluid and the gameplay is actually fairly fun. One might even say... it's action packed.

With today's brash of thoughtful shooters and no-holds barred controller-throwing fests it's nice to revisit a world where you can charge into a fight without thought or real planning. Everything plays out perfectly and each "section" of the map ends up being an interesting and dynamic battle that's sure to entertain. My favorite parts are charging into a room to find some inattentive guards who suddenly have a sticky-grenade pinned to their backs. Brilliant, I say, that's flavor and excitement.

I'm hesitant to talk about Halo's storyline at this point. I'm only as far as the Silent Cartographer, so I really don't have much to say there... but the storyline thus far isn't that interesting. Basically, ship blows up, you blow shit up, you rescue some doodz, you try to find picture to lead you to more shit to blow up. That's what I've gotten so far. Perhaps there is more to come, and I will keep going since the action is quite a bit more entertaining.

I'll say that the 360 controller definitely brings the PC port up above the suck-fest that it was with the mouse and keyboard. Thus far there's a pretty mediocre storyline, but the actual gameplay is pretty awesome w/ the 360 controller. Contrast that with BioShock's awesome story and mediocre gameplay... hmm... maybe some day we'll get a combination of the two. So, to recap... I'm finding the gameplay to be a lot of fun and the storyline sort of "meh". Chris tells me that this picks up soon, which I'm excited for - but the gameplay w/ the 360 controller is enough to carry the game for me.

Anyway, at this point I'm almost capping my "emergency savings" point and am starting to save for more... interesting purchases. With my newfound love of the 360 controller itself, I'm beginning to get more and more interested in some of the other games that the 360 has to offer. Gears of War definitely ranks up there as well as Crackdown. Trusty Bell has me intrigued from an RPG standpoint and I am a sucker for Geometry Wars. Heck, even Ikaruga and Rez are coming for XBLA soon.

Oh, and multiplayer gaming is something that I haven't tasted outside of a LAN party in... well, we'll just say that it's been too long. Xbox Live definitely presents me with some interest and I'm sure that Chris and Tony would love to bring me to an educational distillery of the Halo variety. Something tells me that Emily would be a hard-sell though...