360: First Thoughts

Putting the shortages and some console failures aside, heres my thoughts on Microsoft's new Xbox 360.

It rocks.

There realy is so much to say about it that by saying anything is limiting its pure power. But I'll try anyway.

The Guide is awsome...being able to access it no matter where you are is totally cool. The way it interacts between you, Live and the Internet is amazing. GamerScore is cool too, and provides a realistic back-up for trash-talking online.

The hardware itself is pretty nice. The controlers are sloids and easy to use for the mowst part. The HDD works fine...although it probably isn't being used as much as it should. The Play and Charge Kit (my current only accessory) works great, and really is a must have for all wireless controlers (it provides a warning as to when the battery will die...on screen!)

The graphics and games of course are the meat of the console...but words will not do either justice. You must play it to see what it is. If you didn't stand in line for 21 hours and wern't lucky enough to get one...than head to a kiosk now and set-up permant residence, or fly to Japan or Europe for their luanches (you still have time). There is no excuse not to be playing the 360.

I'm off to go finish Call of Duty 2 to higher my GamerScore! Have to break 1000 this weekend!

Xbox 360 Is Here

The era of next-gen gaming is here, and I am a part of it. After a long 21 hours outside of my local Best Buy...I managed to score the hottest gaming system in history. And yes, it is everything it is cracked out to be. The graphics are just something tobe hold. Currently, I have three 360 games--Call of Duty 2, Madden '06 and Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

I posted my GamerCard here before, and I will try to get it as a permanate feature of this blog via HTML. Stay tuned for more news and info as I get a second to tear myself away from the 360.

My GamerCard

EDIT: My GamerCard may now be seen on the right hand side.

Less than 24 Hours

Less than 24 hours before the US release of the Xbox 360...and I'm about to embark on a quest to find one. No, I did not pre-order one...and now I will seek one out using stealth, charm and smarts.

My first stop is Wal-Mart, who has about 150 available for sale at 12:01 tonight. I plan to head over there in about an hour and wait in line.

If I am not successful there, I shall head to Best Buy, which opens at 9 AM to get one there. If I run out of luck, Costco and Circuit City are next.

Expect audio updates here on the progress of my journey. It's gonna be a long day...

Unpacking Ritual

The guys over at Joystick have just completed most of their unpacking ritual of the Xbox 360. Definatly worth a look.

LINK

(P.S. Whats isnide the metal box????)

Happy 3rd B-day Xbox Live

Today also marks the 3rd Birthday of Xbox Live. The service was born on this day in 2002. Heres another round on me.

Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to XBOX LIVE...
Happy Birthday to you...

Happy 4th B-Day Xbox

A Big Happy B-day goes out to Xbox today...it turns 4 years old. It was born on this day in 2001.

Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to XBOX
Happy Birthday to you...

Train Releases New Single-"Cab"

Train released a new single from their upcoming album today on iTunes. It's Called "Cab" and I like it.

Today seems like Music Tuesday for some reason...with Bowling For Soup, Train, Green Day, Big and Rich and Harry Potter. Next week, it's DVD Tuseday, with Seinfeld (5 AND 6), Polar Express and others coming out. And a little console called Xbox 360 :)

360 Luanch Titles Revieled

The moment you've all been waiting for: the full and complete lineup for the Xbox 360 on launch day (11/22). The following titles will be available on OR BEFORE the Big Day:

Kameo™: Elements of Power™ (Microsoft Game Studios)Go on a journey full of magnificent exploration and innovative morph-into-monster action.

Perfect Dark Zero™ (Microsoft Game Studios)Plunge into a world of corporate espionage and conspiracy as perfect agent Joanna Dark.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (Microsoft Game Studios)Life begins at 170 mph with the ultimate roster of the hottest supercars in existence.

Call of Duty 2 (Activision)Experience the cinematic intensity and chaos of epic WWII battles in this Xbox 360 exclusive.

Need for Speed™ Most Wanted (Electronic Arts)Out-race rivals and evade coordinated police pursuits to become the most wanted street racer.

Peter Jackson's King Kong™ (Ubisoft)Battle for survival on Skull Island as Jack Driscoll and even play as the mighty Kong himself.

Madden NFL 06 (Electronic Arts)Get ready for the most incredibly lifelike and best looking football experience ever created.

GUN™ (Activision)Journey through the Wild West in an immersive story of betrayal, greed, and revenge.

Condemned: Criminal Origins™ (SEGA)Pursue serial killers lurking on the periphery of humanity through squalid urban environments.

NBA 2K6 (2K Sports)Create your own player and guide him through all of the facets of an elite NBA career.

Ridge Racer™ 6 (Namco)With more than 130 cars and 30 courses play all-new online modes, plus downloadable content.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (Activision)Enjoy unlimited skating and BMX biking in the vast wasteland of Los Angeles with no load times.

QUAKE™ 4 (Activision)Take the battle to the heart of the Strogg home planet as Earth's only hope for victory.

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 06 (Electronic Arts)Battle through five classic periods of golf with Tiger Woods and legends like Palmer and Nicklaus.

Amped 3 (2K Sports)Get ready for a fat helping of boarding culture and huge snowboxes loaded with killer gameplay.

FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup™ (Electronic Arts)With 72 teams and 1700 players, it's a soccer lover's dream as you advance to the World Cup.

NHL 2K6 (2K Sports)Hockey is back, so strap on your skates and take your favorite team to the Stanley Cup finals.

NBA Live 06 (Electronic Arts)Feel the emotion and intensity with freestyle superstars and more physical play

Battlefront 2 Review

TeamXbox: 9.0/10
IGN 7.0/10

Opening Thoughts
First, we all know I'm a huge SW fan, and we all know how much I've been looking foward to this game. I have alot of Star Wars experiance, and thus know a lot about every character. I have also played Battlefront 1 and know the way it works. Keep that in mind during the review.

Single Player
Let's get the boring part out of the way. Let it be known that battlefront 2 isn't meant for single player. Sure it has it, but that isn't going to justify a $50 purchase. There are a couple of game types: Galtic Conquest, Rise of the Empire, and Instant Action (no Historical Campaign this time around). Conquest plays out like a board game, where you take turns moving fleets and buying soilders and bonuses. When you run into an enemy, you fight, whereve that may be. Rise of the Empire plays like a mini-game, in that it has specific objectives and things that need to be accomplished within the battle. Instant Action is just the multiplayer game types versus an AI bot.
Score: 4/5

Controls
For some reason, this time the reload is not X, but down on the D Pad. They are totally customizable though, and the game plays perfectly no matter which way they are set to.
Score: 5/5

Sound
Perfect. But it should be, as this is Star Wars. The new songs from ROTS add a nice touch to the others. Sound effects and 5.1 are all there to boot.
Score: 5/5

Graphics
BF 2 isn't the greatest looking game ever, but it works well with what it's got. Some of the planets (Like Felucia) are not too easy to look at, but most of the characters look pretty good. Visually, not much has changed from the first one.
Score: 3.5/5

Gameplay
To put it simply, Battlefront 2 is fun to play- die hard fan or not. The improvemets only add to the game that was alreadly pretty good. The ability to be a Jedi or to fly in space are really great additions. Space battles, by the way, work like a game of Destruction, where you fly into the enemies base and do as much damage as possible. Heroes selection includes Han, Leia, Luke, Chewbacca, The Emperior, Vader, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Yoda, Mace Window, Boba and Jango Fett, Count Dooku, General Grevious and a few others.

The game works well with what it does. The new maops, which include Tantive IV, Felucia, Death Star, Jabba's Place (sort-of new), Dagobah, Mustafar, Utapa, and others provide great new battles. And the addition of new game modes like Hunt (kill the other species) and CTF (single and double) add even more variety to the game.

The only thing really wrong with BF 2 is that it is too easy, and thus becomes un-fun to play. That's where multiplayer comes in.
Score: 5/5

Multiplayer
BF 2 supports 4-player spiltscreen, 4-person-per-TV System Link and 32 player Live battles (4 players per TV as well). The actual experiance is quite fun, but is lagged with problems. In every type (even spiltscreen) the frame rater suffers as more action is added to the screen. The Live battles are still extra laggy, but are a tad bit better in Dediacted Servers. The new game types, like CTF, add some fun to the Multiplayer, but it's still basic Battlefront.

Don't get me wroung, I have had a great time with freinds on Battlefront 2, but there are sever techinical problems with it that should have been fixed.
Score: 3/5

Overall
Battlefront 2 is a great game, it just has some problems. Perhaps BF 3 will finally fix some of them.
Score: 4/5

Happy B-Day Halo 2!!

A year and 7 million copies latter, we stumble once agin on November 9. Ahh, remember what you were doing at this time last year. I was in the cold, waiting outside EB Games. Now, I'm waiting to wait outside EB Games for the 360 launch.

Bungie also just revield that both Halo and Halo 2 have been upgraded for the 360 to include 720p support and widescreen. They both look pretty nice.

Now, a round for Halo 2, on me...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to Halo 2...
Happy Bithday to you.

Why I Won't Buy Half Life 2

Heres the thing: I have no doubt in my mind that HL2 for the Xbox is going to be amazing. However, three things have happened over the last few months that have really pissed me off, and thus, I will not be purchusing this game next week. Here are my reasons, from least to greatest.

1. Valve suckered up to EA to realse Half Life. Why stoop down to their level!?! WHY!!
2. It's coming out on Xbox 1, when Xbox 360 will be out just a week latter. Hello! Bad marketing decision. I don't have any extra cash to spend this close to such a huge console release.
3. There is no Live. None at all. Not even Live aware. Not even a hint of connectivity. In this stage of gaming, that is, in my book, stupid and unforgivable. The last non-Live game I bought was Mercenaires. I don't want to break my streak.

Plus, I have played it before on PC. For now, I'll stick with Counter Strike on Xbox, one game Valve didn't mess up too much (although you think they'd release a single new DLC as a reward for it's success).

WWWU #2

Heres the update on The Lost Man for this week...

Coding contines, and I'm up to about 1000 lines of Java code so far. I probably will not be making any release this mo nth of anything becuase of this low amount (I thought it would be closer to 1500 by now).

So far, the story is pretty cool. I won't spoil anything, but heres some basics of the plot. Again, it's after New Mombasa and before the Cheif takes off to fight the Covies. You start off knowing nothing, and progrss in knowledge untill your true identity and purpose are revield.

Heres some real news: the Moon is in Halo:TLM. It was rumored to be in Halo 2, and it wasn't, so it seemed perfeclty natural for me to include that level in this game. And yes, it fits with the plot.

Weapon choices no include Plasma Riffle, Rocket Luancher, Sword, Battle Riffle, Fists, Brute Plasmas and a shotgun.

Your code/hint for the week is 1927. Enter it before you start and see what happens.

Tune in next week for some more info, a possible screen shot(s) and more info on when I will release the game.

Head up: You will need a JDK and a Java Program to run any pre-release downloads (anything released before June 11, 2006)

Happy Day Before Star Wars Day '05!!

...and Halloween to!

I'll be sure to post my first thoughts on the DVD and BF2 as soon as I get them and get home, which should be around 4 PM PST (damn school). Expect it to be a very cool day.

Have a fun night, be safe, and p-lay some special Halo-ween games (trick-or-treat is my fav)

Legal Issues My Ass

That's the biggest, lammmest, BS-ist thing I've ever heard. There are no "legal" issues stopping bpeople under 18 from setting up a gamercard!! I know, there aren't! If we could use the forums then, why not now? And why can we everywhere else?

MS you made a horrible, stupid decision. This seriously affectes my wanting of an Xbox 360...you just really DON'T care about who plays your games, do you?

Have fun with the new features and forums...I won't see them untill March (Which, oddly enough, is close to the PS3 launch...)

This Sucks

So, the new forums and MY Xbox are up...and so is another "bug" or idiotic MS idea. Apparently, I'm too young to registar. I have to go now, but I'll be back for sure latter to rant on the stupdidty of this.

Help Bungie "Fight the Flood"

The Bungie Charity auction to benift the victims of hurricane Katrina has started...go cheek it out. Help thousands of people get their lives back while scoring some very cool Halo orginals. Sounds pretty good to me.

LINK
http://nikon.bungie.org/bma/

Weekly Whats What Update #1

I'm going to start a weekly update feature to let you know how progress is going on my Halo RPG Project...here's update the first...

Work on H:TLM (a tentative title, likely to latter be changed) has begun, and I'm alreadly well into Version 1.0.03. The first two versions just didn't work out. They are still playable, and will in fact be included in the final package I release on June 15, 2005, but they are not what I want the game to be.

1.0.02 included a change to the code style basically, and had no outer effect to the user. I switched from using if-else and for loops to switch cases.

1.0.03 included several changes to the end user, including a new weapon system. In all other versions, weapons were added and dropped in the actual code, as in I would have one part for Room 1 with gun, and another for Room 1 without a gun. This just got too complicated when I intoduced other weapons, so I have switched to a code-based entry system that I like alot better.

That's where the cool part is. Each week in every update, I will be giving out a new code for a better use of a weapon. Weapons are not hard to get, but are harded to learn how to use well. I will be handing out a code a week, that will either boast a weapon or give you a special new one. The code will only be included for the week in which the update was included (In other words, next week, I will delete this one).

This week's code is 8841. it will give you better aim with all Human Weapons (Skill Level 2). This will be more clear when the game is released, but for now, write it down and save it for when the game is released. (Also note that these codes may only work with the finhsed version released in early January)

...And We're On

Just to report, Xbox.com and XBL are now up and running. Things have smoothed out since 4 AM when the service first went on. Originally, there were a few hiccups, but all is calm now.

Additionaly, MN just rported that the first Xbox 360 has been seen on Xbox Live. Swing over to his site and cheek out the historic photo.

I like the new layout of Xbox.com...colorful, short and simple, just the way an official site should be. What will be interesting-and what I think we all really waiting for-is how the new forums and My Live sections look.

First Chance to Play the 360

Looks like several retialers have got 360 kiosks up and running. Head on over to Wal-Mart or EB Games and cheek it out. I just wanna know how the controller feels.

LINK