Category Archives: Xbox

Yay For Demos

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Nothing too exciting in WoW last night, just some more levelling (22 now), and clearing out Barrens quests. Plus yet another new skill, an 8 second multi-target fear effect that might help with more chaotic battles.

I also got around to trying some of the 360 demos that I’d missed while my system was in for repairs or that were just released recently. Looney Tunes Acme Arsenal was just too bland and simplistic a platformer for me, but I’m probably not exactly the target audience either. Need For Speed: ProStreet felt rather average; it didn’t push me away like the nighttime setting and drift races of the Carbon demo did, but it didn’t really grab me either. The handling felt a bit strange in the speed challenge, and the ‘grip race’ was just a plain old 2-lap circuit race, though the physics do seem improved a bit when it comes to weight transfer.

On the XBLA side, Mutant Storm Empire is getting good reviews, but the dual-stick-shooter isn’t really my thing, and I’ve got a few of those already. Exit looks like it has potential, though; it’s got Prince of Persia-esque controls and platforming, but a lot more environmental interaction and puzzling.

Rock You Later, Alligator

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After one more failed attempt to grab the GH3 bundle, I gave up and just placed an order online. It’ll take a bit longer since they’re still backordered, but at least now all I have to do is wait and it’ll eventually just show up.

I also tossed in a standalone copy of GH2, and the 360 version has some GH1 tracks available as DLC, for something like over 160 songs total. I’ll have a bit of catching up to do…

So Much For Real-Time Updates

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I thought I’d grab a copy of Guitar Hero 3 today, but it looks like it’ll be as hard to get as GH2 was when it first came out. I checked six places around the Sunridge area after work, but none of them had it in stock, instead reassuring me that they’d have more copies “in a week or two.”

It was particularly frustrating because the Future Shop site showed it as being in stock, so I placed an order for it for in-store pickup as soon as I got to work, and I was supposed to get an email within three hours telling me it’s ready to be picked up. Seven hours later I finally got a response, telling me that my order was cancelled because they were out of stock. Even though their site still said they had some. It’s supposedly updated every hour, so if it was correct, I could have popped down over lunch and picked one up instead. Ugh.

Oh well, I can wait. People are still playing the previous GH games a lot, so the multiplayer community isn’t going to disappear after a week like it does in so many other games. So, instead, I bought a few other things I’d been meaning to get: the PS2->PS3 memory card adapter, Ratchet & Clank Future, The Witcher, and Hellgate: London. After all that transferring, organization, and installation, I didn’t have much time left for actual playing, though.

The memory card reader worked well enough for my 8MB card, but wouldn’t recognize the 32MB card at all. Not too surprising since it’s an unofficial third-party card, and Sony’s only ever officially supported 8MB cards, but it’s still disappointing. I just had to fire up the old PS2 and copy saves from the 32MB card to the 8MB in passes, which was made more annoying by the lack of a card format function, so every save had to be individually deleted to free up more space after each pass. Oh well, it’s a one-time thing, at least. I also got to try the system backup function on the PS3 afterwards, which is something I wish my 360 had.

Hellgate: London is a bit of a risk since the initial reviews are a bit mixed. The gameplay is supposed to be solid, but it’s a bit buggy at the moment, and the choice to make some fundamental features exclusive to the paid subscription players is a bit controversial. Even without having actually played it yet, the installer’s already annoying me — it asked for the registration key twice in a row, on completely different types of screens, for some reason, and then wouldn’t run until a Vista hotfix was installed. Here’s hoping that the gameplay really is great…

I was surprised to find The Witcher at the store at all, since it’s a lesser known title that isn’t even showing up in a lot of online stores here. It’s also a bit controversial since the North American release has been censored a bit, removing some nudity on playing cards that you can collect. It wasn’t really worth importing just for that though. And I’m sure there’ll be a fan patch to ‘fix’ it before too long…

It’s Certainly Not Barren Of Quests

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WoW tonight was spent pretty much just finishing off various minor quests in the Barrens. There’s still plenty of them to go though, as I’ve only really been doing the ones near Crossroads. I’m finally starting to find tin and silver deposits, so mining and blacksmithing are progressing pretty well, at least. And I hit level 18, but none of the skills at that level are particularly exciting. 20 will be the big one.

I let the 360 run some endurance races in Forza 2 with an AI driver just as a stress test, and it seems to be holding up well enough. With the PS3 having moved in, I’ll need to rearrange my gaming area a bit, though. The old PS2 was thin and flat, whereas all of the new systems are…not. And I’d like to give the 360 a bit more ventilation space — it had plenty before, but just in case…

And speaking of Forza 2, one of the first things I did with the returned 360 was buy the Twin Ring Motegi track, but it turns out that it doesn’t add any career races that use it, which is disappointing. It’ll really only be usable in arcade mode and multiplayer.

Surprise!

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In a completely unexpected turn, I just got my replacement 360 back today, a mere week and a half after sending the broken one in. The previous return took over four weeks to complete.

It’s another older refurb though (the serial numbers were so close I didn’t even realize it had changed on the support page), not a new one like I’d hoped, so I’m still wary. My last one was also a refurb with the new heatsink, and fat lot of good that did…

I’m Not Dead Yet

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There hasn’t been much to report, as I haven’t had much time for games lately aside from a Picross DS puzzle or two here and there (on level 9 Free Mode now). I at least got the shipping box for the 360, so it’s on its way and hopefully the replacement won’t take too long.

Otherwise, I’ve just been keeping up with the regular old news and chit-chat. Beautiful Katamari is out now, but the reaction seems to be a bit mixed. A common complaint that comes up is that this version seems to be a lot harder than the previous two, doesn’t really add much new, and is fairly short for its new higher price point. There are some more levels on the way as DLC, but they’re not available in North America yet. I might pass on this one after all.

A Familiar Scene

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My supposedly-fixed 360 has been red-ringed for three days now, so it’s time to finally put it to rest. The service web site wouldn’t let me start a new repair request, since it still seems to be stuck on the ‘returning to customer’ phase of the last repair, so I had to call this one in. Fortunately I didn’t get one of the Indian call centres, so it went fairly smoothly.

They offered one of four different games as compensation for having to do a second repair, but…I actually already have all of them (PGR3, Kameo, Viva Pinata, and an XBLA compilation). Oh well, maybe I can give away a second copy of VP.

And unfortunately this is horrible timing as the holidays approach, as it means I’ll miss the launches of a huge number of games I’m interested in: Guitar Hero 3, Ace Combat 6, Beautiful Katamari, Call of Duty 4, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, The Simpsons Game, and potentially Assassin’s Creed. But if I’m lucky, it’ll be just in time for Mass Effect…

I Wish My 360 Had Half A Life

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Well, I was going to play with Halo 3’s theater mode mode to get a screenshot of the Ghost collision I mentioned before, but my 360 has decided that tonight is a red ring night. Maybe it’ll be more cooperative tomorrow…

I fired up HL2:Ep2 (finally) instead, but didn’t get very far into it. About the only notable thing so far is encountering the new Hunter enemy, though I didn’t get to fight it. The Vortigaunt model has been completely redone, so they don’t look quite so bad next to the rest of the NPCs anymore.

The other big thing that’s new with Ep2 and the rest of the Orange Box is the introduction of ‘achievements’ to Steam, similar to the 360’s but without the point values. Trying to get achievements gives you a bit of extra challenge, extends the game a bit, and of course, lets you prove your bragging about your ‘leet skillz.’ It’s already changing how I approach Ep2 as I now first try to kill enemies with the gravity gun instead of conventional weapons, in order to try for the “kill 30 enemies with thrown objects” achievement.

I Didn’t Shoot You In The Back, It Was…Um…Him.

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HL2:Ep2 got stood up again in favor of an impromptu Halo 3 co-op session. Alyx is going to be so mad at me…

The co-op mode in Halo 3 is a ton of fun though, since you’re a stronger force, you don’t have to worry about checkpoint respawns as much, you can cover multiple vehicle roles (when you’re not running each other over), provide covering fire for each other, etc. Or accidentally crash into each other trying to jump Ghosts over the same ramp at the same time. ;) (I’m going to have to find that in the replay theatre…)

The only downside is that since you’re much stronger, the campaign speeds by that much quicker, making it feel even shorter. Rooms that I might have spent 10 minutes carefully clearing by myself can be blazed through in a couple minutes when you’ve got three people. Oh well, there’s still some more skulls to hunt down…

I finally got to play with the vehicles, but I’m not too impressed by the new ones so far, though I’m sure there are more that I haven’t seen or tried yet. The Ghost, my old standby from H2, is still great but less frequently available, and I still don’t like driving the Warthogs.

Otherwise, things went by in too much of a blur for anything else memorable to stand out. The other downside of co-op is that you’re not always the hero, so occasionally someone else gets all the glory while you were standing there admiring the texture on a rock. :) At some point down the road I’m going to have to replay it again by myself just so that it deliberately takes longer and I can focus on it battle by battle.