All about My Xbox 360

Reading the title you can tell that I am once again late to the party, that is if you consider and craptastic game a party.  Surfing the Sarcastic Gamer forums I came across a post by Lono, he found a deal on GameFly where you could buy Alone in the Dark for next to nothing.  Since there's an expected patch, it might be worth it.  Seeing as I love survival horror games I figured it couldn't be that bad, so I ponied up the three dollars and change for Alone in the Dark.  Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare that it was the worst three dollars I've ever spent.

Where do I even begin with this game?  To be honest I've only just begun playing the game because because it's really that bad, it's right on the cusp on unplayable.  So let's start with the good, the graphics.  There's really not much to say here except for the game has some really great graphics, but unless you have a decent HDtv I don't know that you'd even enjoy this.  One my one older model HDtv the game is ridiculously too dark, not that it's still not too dark on other, but I can't imagine what it must looking like on an sdtv.  You know in the menu how you can adjust brightness?  Lots of developers are nice enough to put something in there so that when you can see or just see something in the settings you're at the perfect brightness for their game, at least how they intended it to be.  Alone in the Dark, as any good survival horror game should, has this feature with three logos or pictures or whatever you want to call them.  When you can just see all three you're good to go, well on my tv even at the brightest setting I can only see two.  Now use your brain to figure out how that could effect the gameplay, because that's exactly what happens.

Controls...seriously guys?  I guess designers and game testers must get so used to the shit controls of a game that they stop even noticing it.  If you're looking to experience a complete lack of maneuverability you might be better off stealing a sixteen wheeler, it would be much more enjoyable and it would control better.  I guess clunky is the best way to describe it, it's a chore to just move around the game navigating around obstacles such as rubble can even be a pain.  The switching between first and third person makes even less sense.  In first person you move faster, can turn better, and have much better control of your camera.  Staying in first person can really help you not want to rip your hair out except for the times when the game decides it's time to force you into third person for no apparent reason.  The list really goes on an on, even the button configuration blows.  One really funny thing is some of the jumps.  There will be large gaps you have to jump across, it doesn't look like you can jump that far and when you jump it's very obvious you'll come up short, luckily the game flips to a cut scene and you're magically flying through the air.  COMEDY!!!

The story itself sucks, it's generic, doesn't suck you in and is poorly written.  I've seen a lot of critcism of the voice acting and oddly I'll defend that.  There's no big name actors in this game, which makes sense because this game must have had a $3million budget at best, but the actors themselves aren't bad.  It's the stupid story and horribly written script that ruins it.  You know how 12 year old boys love to curse for no reason and sometimes you're not even sure they're doing it right?   That's this game.  Now if you don't know what I'm talking about then I 'm sorry because that's the perfect comparison so I'm done with this topic.

In addition to spending time with AITD last night I played the new free arcade game Dash of Destruction.  I feel like there's a joke out there that I'm just not in on with this one.  This game is free because it's a marketing ploy for Doritos, plain and simple.  It sucks and should be a flash game on their website where you can earn coupons or something.  There is no reason to play this game EVER.  I guess Ninja Bee wasn't happy with the new level of FAIL they achieved with Band of Bugs and wanted to up the anti.  Well congrats fellas, YOU DID IT!!!

Obviously that title doesn't refer to the Japanese market, though I'll admit that my inner fanboy would love to see that. Or maybe it's just the fact that it would make sense considering what the Xbox 360 has done this generation in terms of games and content, to be honest they’ve done a lot right. I'm of course referring to the fact that the Xbox 360 has outsold the OG Xbox (that stands for Original Generation Xbox, get used to that term) reaching over 25 million units sold worldwide.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that sales are better this time around, but it's still something to celebrate. Especially when you keep in mind the hardware woes that continue to plague the console, it's almost amazing. All of the backlash against the console boils down to internet hype, not that the story is just hype, but that seems to be where it's getting the most attention. Overall I'm actually glad to see this happen, it just plain makes sense.

Ending off the last generation I was much more of an Xbox player, but even as recently as a year ago I was still playing my PS2. It was Halo and Live that should be attributed to my switch but the death of my beloved OG Xbox was swift and fast. The console itself still works, but there's no reason to even have it. I own two Xbox 360's, a PS2 and a Wii. The OG Xbox's role as dvd player was short-lived, so now it just collects dust. The only reason I have it is because of the extensive case modding I did to the thing. So where will the 360 wind up? With reports that we could see a new iteration of the Xbox as early as 2010 (2009 for the unveil by some speculators) one has to wonder.

Will the 360 be abandoned by Microsoft and third party developers as quickly as the OG Xbox? What will that mean for the success of the 360 and the brand moving forward? The first console was a hardware powerhouse with some good games, the second can seemingly do it all and sports an impressive library of AAA titles, if a third comes too quickly and the second is cast aside it could be horrible for Microsoft. Hopefully that console, which I call X Cubed, won't be rushed and have the hardware failures, but will gamers really care? The 360 is impressive and if the stream of games continues I'm not sure that people will jump to a new generation. On the other hand if Sony jumps out of the gate first, which they won't, they could make up some ground. Most likely Nintendo will swoop in a continue riding off of the success of the Wii with the first console release of a generation Z console (I don’t know what to call it, so I went with Z).

So while I must praise Microsoft for their accomplishments, the struggle is far from over and will likely be a continually uphill battle. I'd assume they understand that but the arrogance that they've notoriously shown at times needs to continue to be kept in check. So by all means Microsoft, have a slice of that cake they're passing around the office to celebrate your accomplishments, but as soon as you're done eating get back to work. You've far from won this battle and it doesn't look like Sony or Nintendo is going anywhere, especially Nintendo as they're hugely successful right now.

PS-I still hate my Wii

News via Xbox360fanboy

Most recently I've been playing Mirror's Edge, although that is all about to change with the weekend gaming schedule always being hectic. This is one of those games that I think peaked a lot of people's interest but overall was met with a "wait and see" attitude. While it's no secret that there are mixed reviews for this game I find it to be a great gaming experience for multiple reasons.

First off you have look at the overall experience of game play. We've seen first person games that aren't necessarily shooters before but none quite like Mirror’s Edge. It’s the acrobatic elements and overall fast paced game play that set this game apart from anything even resembling competition.

While the first person perspective may cause problems in terms of spacing and positioning, especially when one extra foot really does matter, this is something that can be overcome. It’s the ever-present learning curve that some gamers seem to despise, in fact a lot of the complaints I read about the game are a result of just that. Sometimes when you play a game you won’t have the controls mastered within 30 minutes, gamers need to accept that. With some practice you become quite good at navigating your character and if you think outside the box you’ll be amazed with the movements you can perform. There are even achievements for string together movement combinations, just attempting to get these will help you to better understand the ways Faith can move.

The story in Mirror’s Edge is an interesting thing to analyze. In the game you play as a runner, Faith, who is attempting to essentially save all other runner and her police officer sister all while uncovering and defeating a massive conspiracy. There’s a bit more depth to it but not much, and to be honest it’s a fairly standard video game plot. While the story is simplistic I don’t think the game requires much more. After all it is the game play that’s the draw here, but if you need that emotional connection to your character in a game you’ll be hard pressed to make one with Mirror’s Edge. Interestingly enough this game would actually make a great movie. The plot is basic but could easily be expanded, there’s a lot of action and could be amazing that respect. If they threw in a love interest or at least more development of another character it would be something I could watch. Just don’t tell Uwe Bowl I said that.

From a more technical perspective the game still holds old. Game play is overall very smooth and fluid, though I’m not ready to give Dice and standing ovation for this since anything else would be incredibly broken. The combat works fairly well once you get the hang of using it and the best way to defeat or disarm enemies, although just running past them is often easiest. Even though it’s not meant to be a shooter you can acquire guns, which makes certain parts of the game a little easier, but the aiming is terrible. I often wonder if this is intentional as the developer must have had the resources to implement at least a decent aiming scheme. The character models are just plain horrible but luckily that trend doesn’t carry over to the beautiful environments of the game. I’ve had some issues with brightness settings of the game but I attribute that more to my television than anything else.

If you’re a person who requires that a game have multiplayer in order to buy it I wouldn’t count Mirror’s Edge out quite yet. While the game is single player only there is a lot of replay value in it. Like other games you can of course work your back through the story doing things differently or adjusting the difficulty to gain achievements, but it’s more than that. There’s “Time Trial Mode” and “Speed Run Mode”. Speed Run is just individually replaying each chapter while trying to meet a benchmarked time. You’ll get 10 points added to your gamerscore for beating the time but once you’ve done that you may find yourself done with the game mode. Of course there are world leaderboards and friends lists to contend with but unless you’ve got a group of at least ten competing you won’t be too drawn into that. Time Trial mode is smaller sections of maps in which you have to reach various checkpoints. There’s a large replay factor with this mode. You can try to beat various times set by the dev to earn a star rating for each trial as well as leaderboards. The best part is you can essentially race friends by downloading their fastest run, a red “ghost” will even appear on your screen for you to race. The best part about these ghosts is you can download anyone’s ghosts to see how they achieved their unattainable times. So unless you get lonely and really need company there’s as much value to the game play as most games that have a worthwhile multiplayer aspect.

So that’s the game, want a rating? 8/10 but this is a game where whatever score it gets is sure to cause controversy.

The New Xbox Experience is officially out and ready for the public to beging downloading. Naturally many people assume that I got in early on that but of course I did not. Free things and special entry into early updates and betas was never something I really got. I haven't had a chance yet to check it out but I did download it this morning before I left for work. I figured that a lot of people downloaded it as soon as it was available and even more will be doing so this afternoon and evening. Morning seemed like the best time to try and get in on this, surprisingly it was a very quick update considering all the changes and additions they're making.

So for right now I have ZERO impressions to offer, well maybe one but that's not quite fair. I already have in my head what I think about the update as well but I'll reserve judgement until I've actually tried it out. Maybe I'll register a Netflix account today if I get some down time during work. Otherwise there might actually be something here to read tomorrow, AGAIN!!!