Quick & Efficient Update

November has been crazy with games coming out left and right. Add on the fact that we've been lazy and busy with updates so there's a lot to write about. Here we go:

Halo3: Wraps up the story with campaign. AI has improved to the point where you don't have to drive! Given the option to play with up to three other friends on live to run through the campaign, if you're trying to beat legendary, go with the friends they don't walk into your line of fire... as much hopefully. True to Bungie's style there are lots of extra things to do like find skulls and hidden terminals throughout the campaign to keep you exploring the levels after you've run through them to find all the hidden content. If you're stuck and admit you cheat a little here and there, there's a gazillion youtube videos on how to find everything. To keep the replay value of campaign even higher you can run through each level with different settings from the skulls turned on and even arcade style point scoring. As you don't get points for assisting it can make for some hetic kill jacking between friends. Definitely gives the game a different feel and spin.

Multiplayer is a more of the Bungie matchmaking we've come to expect as the standard for gaming in an online party with xbox live. It really is the standard that most of us have come to expect other games to meet. More on that later. You just sign in, invite your friends you want to play with and choose a type of matchmaking list. The list isn't super diverse as a lot of the gametypes in the game aren't in a matchmaking list.... yet. Lets hope Bungie updates and rotates lists frequently enough to keep people interested. Overall if you enjoy a shooter, or have ever liked a Halo. Give it a go. Strong Buy


Guitar Hero 3: New wireless guitar is pretty sweet. Its heavier, wireless, the neck comes out for transport and it all runs on two AA batteries. The guitar overall has more of the PS2 guitar hero II feel. The buttons aren't as clicky and there's two ways attach the strap to the guitar. I like this guitar a lot more because the Explorer guitar was X shaped and would get uncomfortable during longer periods of play.
The game itself is a more polished high def version of the game. The animation has been cleaned up a bit and the HUD has been modernized to fit the current music. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the audience, the window to hit the notes has been expanded to the point where I've though I've missed notes and still gotten by as if i nailed it. Definitely is more forgiving to the new player and its much easier to hit the streaks of notes but the timing is a bit different to the hardcore Guitar Hero 2 faithful. Going back and forth between the games is not recommended unless you're rather quick at adjusting as GHIII can destroy you GHII timing.

Verdict: If you truly loved GHI or GHII you'll enjoy GHIII. If you're wondering what the craze is, get the game and join the millions who love emulating a rock star. If you actually play guitar or a musical instrument and wonder what the point is, give it a try maybe you'll like it maybe you'll still hate it. Lastly the reason people play this instead of actually learning guitar is similar to the reason people shoot people in a video game and don't actually go out and shoot people with guns in real life. There's also no significant learning curve, you can rock out within minutes, try that with a real instrument.

Orange Box: Best investment for your 60 dollars out there. Gives you a chance to play through the whole half life 2 story and the newest part of the story. Half Life 2 is an amazing game and for anyone who hasn't played it on PC this is a great chance to see the story first hand on your 360. Besides that there's a game called Portal included. It's wickedly entertaining and provides a thinking game with skillful manipulation of the character. The game is also rather humorous and makes it difficult to put down unless you get frustrated with some of the later puzzles. Team Fortress 2 had some teething pains and updates have been issued to tone down certain play styles like bunny hopping ( jumping around the map instead of running around like a normal soldier) and the online matchmaking hopefully has improved. Unfortunately if you're used to Halo style matchmaking where it is rather effortless games that rely on an xbox setting up and hosting a match can become infuriating as games stop in the middle if the host leaves and the game doesn't automatically find someone in that game to host the rest of the game. It is also difficult to find games that are open because by the time you actually manage to join the game has either started or isn't available. It is a uniquely balanced game with very amusing classes and hilarious animated characters.

Verdict: Strong Buy. So many games for the price of one! Long play value.


Call of Duty 4
Where to begin. I have mixed feelings about this great game. Campaign is short but great if you don't play it on the harder settings. Call of duty uses its traditional if you cross this line it'll trigger the next event style. It flows nicely if you play it on the normal difficulty and play with that attitude. If like me, you're more of I'll hang back and defensively kill everyone before moving forward ala any of the rainbow games, on the higher difficult settings the enemies don't really stop coming, there's an endless supply. If you truly want to enjoy the Call of Duty 4 story, play it on normal and push forward ALWAYS and you'll get the game the developers intended. Overall the campaign is relatively short but is done well. Where the game excels (for the most part) is in multiplayer.

In multiplayer there is a system similar to halo3 where you rank up in the game by earning experience points and get military rankings for each level. Along with that system there's challenges to meet which along with ranking up enables you to unlock new guns and attachments and abilities called Perks. Some of you newer players might complain that its unfair that the better players get the better guns/weapons/skills. How are you supposed to fight them on an equal playing ground. That is somewhat alleviated by the fact that once you kill someone you can always take their customized gun and the game balances parties somewhat. It is a rather ingenious way to make players want to keep playing to unlock everything. There are lots of weapons, attachments, perks and challenges to meet. This game will be competing with Halo3 for the sheer number of hours gamers will spend on Xbox Live. The only major shortcomings i have with the game are: The party system is still harder to use than Bungie's. In order to coordinate with friends i like being able to see how they're doing in a game so i have an idea of the time it'll take till they're finished a game and can join my party. This is a feature in halo3, not cod4. Parties are frequently broken up or people are dropped at the start of a game destroying your party. Who wants to wait 20 mins for those who made it to finish their game before trying again. After games finish sometimes parties are broken again. If the party leader tries to leave a game right after it finishes his party doesn't come with him. He has to reinvite everyone. COD4 is a relatively new game so its also experienced and still experiencing some Xbox Live growing pains. Sometimes I can't log onto Xbox live with the game even though i can sign on with other games. Infinity Ward is aware of the problem and they have been trying to work out the problems with Xbox Live. Lastly the host issue. COD runs similar to Team Fortress in that one Xbox is the host of the game. If that host quits.. game over. It would be nice if the game could automatically find the next best host and let the remaining 11 players finish the game. Also gamers leave the game regularly and the teams are balanced because matchmaking automatically sticks people onto the understaffed team.

Verdict: If you like shooters with a compelling story BUY! COD4 and Halo3 will both be played online for a long long time. Serious replayability.



Super Mario Galaxy:
If you own a Wii, buy this game. It will be a staple game for the Wii. It uses the Wii's control scheme well, it doesn't feel gimmicky. The actions and button presses/shakes match and make sense. It's classic Mario 64 with a very clean framerate and shows what the Wii can do graphically given the time and attention necessary to do it. The game so far is more of the standard Mario fare, kidnapped princess; go save her; fight Bowser. Added to the game are some new mechanics such as shooting from planetoid to planetoid and running around them. Warning for those who nauseate quickly and haven't really tried the 3d gaming aspect. It can be a bit disorienting the first few minutes you play trying to get around or chase objects in a 3d perspective especially if you're running to the southern part of the planet and end up running upside down. After your brain adjusts to the game camera's view of Mario it truly is an entertaining and fun game.

Verdict: Strong Buy.

Upcoming games to look at: Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect

upcoming reviews

There's been a lack of updates but posts on Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero 3, Super Mario Galaxies, and Orange Box are to come... whenever we get around to it.

Obligatory Halo 3 Post

As Xbox 360 gamers, Falcon and I have definitely been playing our fair share of Halo3 but with the plethora of media coverage and reviews there was no rush to get our opinions out there. As a long standing Bungie and Halo fan, like the majority of 360 gamers I was excited for Halo3 and participated in the Halo3 beta. I got my copy of Halo 3 a little after midnight at my local Gamestop although being wary of the madness I first tried to go to my Walmart thinking that perhaps getting a copy at Gamestop without preordering might be difficult. That was my first mistake. Even though Walmart had a national campaign claiming they'd have Halo3 checkout lanes and there would be midnight openings for Walmarts that normally close before midnight with my local Walmart being listed on their website as a place that would be hosting a midnight selling of the game, they lied. I arrived at midnight with no one in line and a closed store. Peering inside I politely gestured to the workers inside to find out what was going out. Eventually they sent out their manager who was extremely unfriendly and replied we don't do that shit here in response to my question of the Halo midnight madness. For a company that claims to be trying to improve how customers view them and one that is trying to become a bigger player in the electronics market, my branch is certainly failing at it. I ended up driving to the gamestop at my closest mall where I must admit Gamestop did everything correctly. They had security set up at the mall entrance at the doors telling customers to come on in. After making my way through the mall to gamestop, a fully staffed (about 8 employees) ushered the customers into line to pickup preorders or to get regular versions of the game. It was painless and in 5 minutes I was driving home to get my playtime in. For all that i dislike about gamestop and how you get mocked for not preordering games, the marketing engine that is microsoft ensured that preordering was not necessary unless you wanted the limited edition of the game at midnight.

Halo 3 single player impressions: The story is concluded, slightly predictable story line, nothing spectacular graphically, slight hiccups with loading at some points (my dvd drive in my xbox maybe degrading that might be the xbox's fault). The campaign is competant and well polished but after playing a game like Gears of War it falls short in comparison of graphics but then again Halo isn't known for its graphics but rather more so for its gameplay. There are plenty of weapons, vehicles and equipment to tinker with. The levels are more massive but plays more linearly. In Halo 1 you could take on tasks in any order on certain levels but Halo3 guides you along showing point markers if it feels you're taking to long in figuring out where to go.

Where Halo 3 really shines is in multiplayer. You can play the campaign with up to three friends over Xbox live with a new meta game mode where you can be scored based on kills and how stylish you are. Gernade sticks and headshots get you more points and you're penalized for deaths. It definitely gives the campaign run through an arcade feel and is a welcome addition.

In matchmaking, everything is similar to halo2's great matchmaking updated for the 360. Games are found using the matchmaking system and even newbies to the 360 will be able to find games rather quickly. There is no hosting system like that of typical PC games and after playing games like Rainbow Six Vegas and Team Fortress 2 I am glad that I don't have to spend 30 minutes trying to find a good game online.

New in halo 3 are the forge and the theater. Forge allows players to tinker with maps by altering placement of items, weapons, equipment and the like. Spawn times can be changed and items moved to different locations. In forge a certain amount of money is allowed per map and each item you want to add to the map has a cost. To place items the player goes from the typical viewpoint to that of the monitor and is able to pick up any objects and players. It is also possible to have team matches in forge with monitors providing support to players by dropping objects and lifting vehicles and teamates to other parts of the map.

Theater allows you to view saved games and films from any players persepctive or from a free floating monitor's point of view. You can finally see how you died or how the other team stole the flag from right under you. Unfortunately the rewind isn't a true rewind but more of a chapter skip so it takes some time to film the perfect clip but the potential for machima and films are endless.

In conclusion Halo 3 is definitely the game that will be played on Xbox live the most for the foreseeable future. Bungie and microsoft have the ability to tinker with the playlists and hopefully they will be tweaked and new maps will be released. Matchmaking isn't perfect as certain game types aren't in lists even though they can be played in custom games. There is a definite shortage of oddball, 2 flag ctf, zombies and king of the hill. Bungie has since fixed a bug where almost every other game of team slayer was shotty snipers but certain maps are still played a majority of the time. I really hope that new maps will come without a ridiculous charge but deep down inside i know that the odds of new maps coming out for free are slim. Here's to hoping and perhaps we'll see you online in matchmaking.

New Apple Wireless Keyboard

So Apple has released a new wireless keyboard and I must admit the tiny footprint and stylish aluminum and new keys make it very attractive. Attractive enough that as a Windows XP user I'd still use it to clear up the clutter on my desk. With a dual monitor setup and small sized Bose speakers, my keyboard takes up most of my desk space when i want to study a textbook or do some reading while using my computer. While the new wireless keyboard takes away the number pad, the space gains may be worth it if you find yourself hardly using the number pad anyways. The keyboard functions on blue tooth and the battery housing serves double duty to provide the keyboard slight elevation as well. My camera's battery is not charged so I will put up pictures of the setup at a later date. Overall it functions well under XP but the alternate media functions only work with a Mac. If there are driver updates in the future this keyboard will be the ultimate media center keyboard, small enough to type in your lap with ease while maintaining proper spacing for those with fatter fingers. The option key functions as the alt key while the command/apple key is the windows key on a windows machine. Syncing the keyboard required going to my bluetooth menu in windows and powering on the keyboard. I had no problems using a passkey although others in forums seem to be having problems, I'm not sure if its legitimate or them not being familiar with bluetooth devices. I only wish that the keyboard came with a bluetooth dongle but that's not a big deal as you can easily get one if your computer doesn't already have bluetooth.

If anyone finds new XP drivers to enable the multimedia buttons please let me know.

Verdict: Well built and aesthetically pleasing. For anyone looking for a wireless keyboard with a tiny footprint without the extra keys on an extended keyboard. Multimedia buttons do not work in XP. Slightly pricey at $79 so definitely a splurge if you already have a wireless keyboard. Does not come with bluetooth adapter.

Gears of War Hidden Fronts finally free

No time for a long post just wanted to remind everyone that Gears of War's Hidden Fronts map pack is now free. For everyone like me who dislikes paying for new maps be it in Halo2 or any other game rejoice! Perhaps now I'll play a little more Gears of War when i get a chance. I'm more excited for Metroid Prime 3 and Halo 3 obviously.

Shadowrun update

The 2nd Shadowrun update is now available for 360 users with Vista's update on the way. Major changes include a sped up matchmaking as well as some information when it is finding connections. There is a significant decrease in the amount of time it takes to find a game. Sadly there are no new maps or gameplay updates. I am still experiencing a good amount of lost connections or hosts leaving the party and not being able to reconnect. The update claims that parties will be split less but I haven't tested it yet.

I hope that maps come along soon for this game as I enjoy it, but for a game to be multi player based with no single player campaign if gamers aren't interested this game will be quickly forgotten.

Lets hope there's some additional content on the way.