Star Wars: Republic Commando Review

OK, so I just finished SW:RC and I thought I'd post a little "review" of the game. Older timers will note that I treid this before, but I just couldn't keep up with the new releases. I actually play the games, all the way through, before I publish a review. That takes time.

Singleplayer
The SP experiance was great. I think it's probably the best Star Wars action ever. You really feel like your part of a large-grand scale battle.

Heres an imporant note: RC is a differant kind of SW game. There is no crawl at the begining. There is actual bands playing the soundtrack. You never feel like your fighting the entire batte of Geonosis or something, but instead, that you are a part of a small team, working together to accomplish some task, that, while small, will help the Republic win the battle.

Towards the end, the game gets a little repitive, but the ending is top-notch.

Graphics
There is nothing spectacular here, but they don't hold the game back by any means.I really like the effects they used your helmet, with things like rain, smoke and blood getting stuck there and using a virtual wiper to clear it off.

Multiplayer
The game does ooffer some classic FPS games, like Deathmatch, Team DM, CTF and Assualt (Bring your falg into enemy's base), but it never feels like they really ment it. Sure, it's there, but there nothing special in it. The Live play lags and it's hard to get into a good game. The splitscreen is cool...but becuase there are no sit-out times after you die...it's rather hard to play CTF or Assualt, becuase the enemy just respawns right in front of the flag.

Overall
RC isn't a bad game, there just not a whole lot to justify a purchuse at it's current price of $49.99. I would either rent it over the weekend and just beat the SP, or wait a couple of months and get it when the price goes down. While it is a nice prelude to Epsiode III, only serious, hardcore SW will buy it for that. Others should consider the game as a solid FPS worthy of about $10.
Rent It

Halo 2.5 Not May be, Now Definatly, a Reality

As I said before, Halo 2.5 looks like it will be coming. Today, in a special WWW Update, all was reveiled. In my mind, heres what it means:

• A total of nine maps are being made for Halo 2.
• The first two will be free to XBL people, available in April.
• Two additional maps will come out on the same day, in April, but will cost 4.99
• Then, in June, a disc will be made available, that will include all nine maps, all XBL updates, and some special movie things.
• On that same day, the other five maps will be available to Download, for $11.99, over XBL
• At some point in late summer (think September) all Maps will be free to DL over Xbox Live.

Bungie also said they will deal with the pemium issue, in that not everyone will have the maps and that could potentialy destroy matchmaking, by creating a special playlist for the premium maps.

Another playlis- 2 Vs. 2, was also reveiled as in the making.

For pics, the offical press release, more legal stuff, and ome more issues, visit Bungie.com

In my mind... I think summer is a tad bit late, but April seems fine. This plan actually sounds reasonably smart to me.

Halo 2.5 May Be a Reality

All signs point to a Halo 2.5.

-Bungie has statewd week after week it wants non-Live members to get the maps
-EBgames has it on its listing
-Korea has it listed on www.xbox.com

So, it really looks like this Friday, that's what Bungie is going to announce. The question is: when the hell will it come out? Some are thinking a summer 2005 release...thats wayyyy to far off in my book. I'd like to see an early May at the earliest.

The other question is: will Xbox Live members get something special? I really hope it's not just the maps for free latter on in the year. Because most of us will have alreadly bought them.

So, maybe this is a good thing....but it definatly has the potential to really piss me off.

TSS No More

Here is a perfect example of what coroporate America can do.

Act I
TechTV is created. The world is good. The Screen Savers is at its heyday with both Leo and Pat.

Act II
Leo quits/is fired (still not really sure what happen) TSS gets worse and worse.

Act III
With TechTV at its end, G4 swoops in and buys it out. Looks good at first.

Act IV
Set moved to LA. Pat quites. Show is getting more mainstream. Looks bad.

Act V
By now, TSS and Access Hollywood are the same thing. We've got things like "Band Fridays" and "Sponsered by..." and it's now just G4, not G4techTV

Act VI
TSS is canceled. It's replaced by Attack of the Show!

I thought that G4 would mean a good thing for TechTV. I thought it would mean less reruns. But no. G4 just took the TechTV veiwer audiance, not the network. The only remaining show is now X-Play...and I bet that will go soon to.

What happened to the good shows, like Call for Help, Tech Live and that Martin Sargent show? Even the good G4 shows are gone now, like that Areana. They seem to be replaced by Judgement Day's from 2002 and reruns of "Icons".

I now officaly hate G4. I probably will still watch AOTS, but I canceled my TSS season pass, and did not renew it with AOTS. I just don't think I can handle 5 hours a week of reruned slashdot news a week.

I'm Still Not Dead

I know the posts have been few and far between the last two weeks. There are two, wait, three reasons for this.

Reason One: I had finals last week. Finals=No time at all, with a side of big headache.

Reason Two: I was hooked one Republic Commando.

Reason Three: No one really cares. Except me.

But, now, I',m free and will make up for it. I promise. I really do.

The Highest Score

OXM gave SC:CT a 9.9. Thats really, really, REALLY high. Halo 2 only got a 9.7, so by comparison, CT is about .2 better than Halo2. If you trust OXM, that is.

That does make Splinter Cell the highest rated series on the Xbox, receiving scores of 9.6, 9.5 and now 9.9, all respectivly.

I'll wait for the Big Three's to come in before I dub it better than Halo 2...but I've alreadly preordered it...so I do hope it's good.

GDC- The Mostly Bad Key

J gave a nice keynote speech today at GDC. MajorNelson was nice enough to put out the thing in a nice MP3 and .wav file format for us all to hear.

However, nothing "huge" was reveild. But some "bad" things were.

Games seem to be changing from "How do we do this new" to "how do I make the most money off of this". I know it's bussiness and they have to eat too, but I think they are starting to lose the creativity in favor of corpral settings.

Jay's highlight was the new XBL features. One of them bing renewed support for PDLC. Really, thats all there was. Hello, we alreadly have this. They just want to make it smaller, like only one car, or one tire. I geuss this is the reaction fro the XBL Arcade deal...what a reversal.

Other highlightes were more universal connections...it seems that all Xenon (Jay did use this term...so now, little annoying kids that feel the need to correct all the differant terms like Xbox 2, Xenon or Xbox 360....eat it) games will have a univeral dashboard to play custom music and access freinds. All this seems so, 2002-ish. That was cool back then...but now, gamers have more important things they want...like better online infustracture, more patches, and new ways to play online.

I was majorly disappointed with the speech. He speaks of the HD Era. Thats cool. I don't have an HDTV...but I geuss 1,000 of attendes do now.

I hope E3 goes better...something jsut seems old about Xenon...where was anything new? Maybe it's because,as a gamer, I care more about actual games than avatars and freind's lsit. Their cool...but it comes down to the quality of the actual games, not all the extras, when I stand at Circuit City. In a lot of ways...Xenon looks less "hardcore" and more "universal". If thats the case, it's a sad, sad day.

Before the Storm

The Xbox keynote is tomorrow. MN is over there, blogging away about everything over at his personal blog, www.majornelson.com .

Wha I expect to happen is a lot of hints, teasers, little screen shots, if you will, of the Xbox Next's power. I don't expect anything close to a full reveil, more like a cinematic teaser of whats sure to come at E3.

XNA, as it is a developer's tool, and this is GDC (Developers, remember), will take a big chunck of the future of Xbox and gaming in general. I have a feeling we are going to get a lot of "in general"s tomorrow.

Also, I think universal encorporation-like a media center-will take the primary focus of the entire conferance. The next-gen (Now thats Next Gen III) will do more than play games...at least I geuss thats what the population wants.

I probably won't blog the results...as I'm sure all the others will do a better, quicker job of that. I might give my reaction, f anything big happens.

I Hate This, Wk 2

This week really only deals with men. Spefically, the Men's Bathroom.

Why do guys not like to flush the damn things? It's so gross to walk into a sall-or worse, a urnel-and see the yellow stuff still in there. Why can't you take the extra, what, two seconds and flush the thing? No, instead you leave it there for me to deal with. It's enough to make me puke. But it's also so obvious...you walk out, I walk in. I KNOW it was you.One of these days I'm going to walk out and make you flush it with your mouth.

I know it's gross becuase there are the sick ones out there who gvet a kick by peeing on the handel...but just wash your hands. You shoudl anyway.

I hate all who can't flush the John.

Star Wars Tuesday on Wednesday

Yesterday...two big things happened in the wolrd of SW.

One, LucasArts finally came through and delivered the SW:BF DLC, entitled Jabba's Palace. The map is nice, big but not too big. It probably won't be enough to bring me back to the game now, but it is nice to see a developer who does what they say they will.

Two, the SW:ROTS trailer was officaly confirmed by Lucas. It will air first on FOX's The O.C on March 10, then on the website for the stupid idiots who pay for HyperSpace, then with the movie Robots the next day, and finally open to the public on March 14.

I geuss I will have to set my Tivo for the OC on 3/10. I'll just fast-foward through all the teenage wanna-be drama...

Eat that EA!

Even though EA ius now kinda part of UbiSoft, the French company is still fighting with the evil giant.

UBI, this years winner for worst developer for their work with SC:PT online play, has annouced their plans for a future golf game to feature world-champion (insert name I dont remeber here). This will compete with Tiger Woods and EA's golf game.

In the end, its still golf, an dits still boring no matter if the title is down the side or in a circle.
The big question is: will Tiger be in UBI's game?

Annoucing: This week in my FBBL

Baseball season is upon us. EA has released their crap, the brids are startinbg to throw their crap, and the pitchers are ready to throw theirs. With that, Fantasy BaseBall is coming.

I particpate in the CBS sportsline one with a bunch of freinds. I want to do a blog about what happens there.

Should I:

a) Post it here as another "weekly" thing (So far, we have weekend audio, what I hate this week, and someother shit)

b) Create a new Blog...which would give the millions who read this another source for my BS

Again, email me at stardrummer@gmail.com fr what you think. But I really know that noone here could crae less.

HaHa Fooled 'ya!

I didn't go anywher this weekend. So send me the hatemail! At least I would get some mail. God. No one reads this AT ALL!

Instead, I stayed home, played Halo2 for like 4 hours, my clan got banned becuase they are all dicks and kept quiting the games just becase we were losing, played with some modem hackers, left, sent feedback. Hopew I don't get banned becuase I did nothing wrong. I just simply played. While everyone else around me was cheating, I did not. I hope they can tell.

Next week is the GDC up in San Fransico...where the gays get their chance to play Halo2 without looking like real men. Major is heading up there to do a few "podcasts" from there, should be worth cheeking out.

TSS looks pretty normal this week...overal this week is going to be pretty dull...save maybe a Chem test for me (But I love or at least am good at chem so its actually fun, in a sick, but odd way. But, come on, taking a test you know you are acing is always fun, right? Now, a Trig test, thats a whole differant world) I am getting paid $140 on Monday so I'll probably pick up Snowblind and Street Fighter 2...both look interesting...maybe SW:RC but it got bad reveiws. Maybe I'll just rent that one. I think I still have my february coupon for Hollywood video...let me tell you about these things. I bought my PS2 from them (only place I could find it, literaly). It came with a years worth of coupons for anything at Hollywood. No other renting requird. Just plain free stuff. Anyway, you get one a month, and you can only use them in that month. It seems like I'm always forgewtting though to actually use the damn things. So, I get a free game in February, June, August and November...thats whats left over from last year. If I don't remeber it this time, they are trash. Which, in a way they alreadly are since my Hollywood never has anything but old crap in stock...I usually rent from Gamerfly or Blockbuster or netflix...yes, I have accoutants at all three...I also have a SuperSatr accoutnant...they really suck. I go there to get old PS1 and N64 games...they STILL rent them, but the cool thing is they still work. I hate how you rent a game, get home, and realize it won't work.

Anyway, thats this week, and this is officaly the longest post Ive ever written (for the trivia buffs out there...there was the 9/11 list but I didn't write that, I justr Ctrl C, CtrlV-ed it.)

As the Major says...goodnight, have fun, and play fair!

Weekend Audio Post?

I have a good location this week. Your going to like it. Cheek in around 9 PM on Sunday.

Anyone else can post audio for me as well, just cheek below for the previous post, or e-mail me with any questions.

I'd also like to do a quick, 5 minute inteveiw with someone. E-mail me to set it up. Winner will recive... ah, a free Gmail accoutant?

I Hate This, Wk 1

Fridays are too postivite. I will brin them down with a weekly (or sorta-weekly) series of I Hate This.

I hate gum. Its ugly, its disgusting, and it has no real purpose. You look disgusting when you sit there, chomping away like a cow. Then, people throw it on the gorund, place it under a table, smack it, streach it, blow it, or take it out and "play" with it.

It's just so gross. I even hate that smell gum gives off when people first stick in their mouths, and the little sliver balls people leave behind.

Is it not gross to walk aorund, stepping on old gum that was once in some weird, strange, disgusting mouth? Is it not the worst thing in the world to see tht red string on you foot going back for like a foot to a wad of gum?

I hate gum. And I hate people when they chew it. So, stop it alreadly!

A "Tree" of Info From BWWU

Yes, a tree. Frankie told us this week that yes, the DLC will have trees in them. Notice I said them. Why? I quote: "I like one for graphics, the other for gameplay." That means at least TWO maps are coming in the wave of DLC. One will look good, one will play good.

He also said a bunch of other crap. Oh, and the "red wins ties" thing is going to be "100% fixed".

This Week's (Or Today's) Top News

Lotta news came out today in almost every sector I'm interested in.

• New screenshots of Destroy All Humans! This game looks really fun. Found at teamxbox.com
• MechAssualt 2 now Unlimited: Two exclusive maps released to the public. Some reaction to this from the TX forums:

lnin0
LAME! You should change that headline - very misleading. It should have read "MechAssualt 2 LE content released as free DLC to the 1% of the public that managed not to get the LE disc."I didn't even know you could buy a non-LE version of this game as everyplace I looked when it came out only sold the LE. I go and get all excited thinking there are some new maps out there only to find out NO - there is nothing new out there.

• Apple releases four new iPods...well, variations of their old ones. Among them, a 30 GB iPod Photo for $350
• SW:ROTS Trailer to debut on March 11 with "Robots". Hypersapce members can get it a few days early on March 8. Can someone please put up a "mirror"?
• The Army Game "America's Army: Rise of a Solider" set for a summer 2005 release on Xbox and Ps2. Hope it's not too realistic.
• Intel will publish new Star Wars themed controls. No, I still won't buy a Thrid Party. Even if Vader tells me to.
• TeamXbox gives Republic Commando an 8.3/10. Not that great. Even BattleFront scored higher than that.
• Bungie's Weekly What's What update gae us another one-word DLC hint: aquaduct. They siad DLC was still "on its way", but it looks like a patch, which they describe as being "huge", will come out first. Maybe by my B-day (3/31) I'll get some new maps. Maybe.

So I Have No Friends

I geuss no one decided to do an Audio MobCast for me... :( Oh well. In their defense, I thinlk they were going off to Six Flags, and it has rained here since Thursday. They probablyjust didn't go (or so I tell myself). Or they didn't want to get their cell wet. Yeah, thats probably it, right?

Also, MajorNelson over at www.majornelson.com is running contests to win cool new Xbox Live Headsets. They look comfy enough, a lot better then the mass produced stuff we have now. I'm going to try to win one!

Free Gmail Today, Today's News

First to click on the link below gets a free gmail accotant:
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/d-2-xbox577@hotmail.com-8a2c098e61c68f4ef0165ec3e945cb71ff8e742e

Also a gave some freinds the blog number, so I think they will do he Weekly Update (#3)

Also Remeber VGN? Did you start listening to this great podcast? Well...this Tuesday I'll be on the Guest Extension program. Look for it to pop up on their site sometime this week (VGN LINK)

Post Audio For Me!

Heres the info so that anyone, anywher, can do a MobCast for me!

STEP ONE: Call 1-(661) 716-blog (May be long distance)
STEP TWO: Enter in Primary phone number: 9097906478
Enter in Passcode: 33333, then #

Record after the chimy sound!