Just an FYI to be careful. I have Halo 3 Limited Edition. When I first got the disc, it was scratch-free and secure in the case. I had been leaving my disc in the 360 drive and just firing it up when I wanted to play. Having finished the SP last night, I put it back in its case thinking I should be careful with it. When I fired it up today, the disc wouldn't read. I figured out that when I put the disc back last night, the disc got a crack in it from the tightness of the fit of the disc onto the case. This was a crack in the center of the disc outward about a centimeter or two into the disc data area.
Luckily, MS has the free replacement on the limited edition until 2/1/08. Unluckily, it will be a few weeks until I get my replacement. Probably right about when GH3 comes out.
Showing posts with label xbox 360. Show all posts
Showing posts with label xbox 360. Show all posts
Friday, October 5, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
T vs. M
As I briefly mentioned in my previous post, I stopped to get my queue number for Halo 3 on the way to the dojang. I had a t-shirt and my TKD pants on. I also had my 2 kids with me. Someone in line behind me said they went to the same dojang and we were in class together. I didn't remember them that well but they looked somewhat familiar. I'm really bad with names and faces. Anyway, the comment made to me was: "I didn't know you were a gamer. Are your kid's going to play it with you? Our kids do." I look around and their kids are playing one of the store display machines (Forza 2 I think) and they are younger than mine. Well, the game is rated M and that immediately rules it out for my kids. However, this begs the question: Why is Halo rated M yet the Call of Duty series rated T? Seems like a big disconnect to me. What is the ESRB thinking?
The CoD series is pretty realistic and pretty intense. The closest thing I can compare it to is the Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers type action. You also have human on human killing in CoD while in Halo you don't, at least not intentionally. Admittedly, in CoD, there isn't any blood that I can see while in Halo, there is "blood" (both alien and human) but not enough to really notice. To me, Halo seems somewhat "cartoony". We aren't talking about Gears of War or Bioshock type violence here either. There is also "mild language" but I've heard a lot worse in a PG-13 movie. None of the language is used by the main characters that I've heard so far.
My daughter (11) wants to play Halo. Mostly because some of her male friends play it and she wants to be part of the cool group. I honestly don't see any other connection to her normal interests (mostly Harry Potter) to this type of game. It may also be because I play it. This argument really doesn't fly with me though because she knows there are "adult activities" (i.e. I have a beer on occasion) that she just isn't allowed to do as a child. I generally refrain from playing any M rated game while the kids are awake. If they happen to be awake, I'll be playing the game while they are watching a movie or otherwise occupied away from the TV. Pause button on the ready if they happen to come into the room.
One of the conundrums is that other parents do let their kids of my daughter's age play the game. She sees it as a "They get to, why can't I?" argument. You can't really pull the "If they jump off a bridge, would you do it too?" argument with her. She sees right through that in a heartbeat. It usually ends up being a "Because I said so!" statement on my part. However, in reality, it's because we just do things differently. She doesn't like that logic.
The CoD series is pretty realistic and pretty intense. The closest thing I can compare it to is the Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers type action. You also have human on human killing in CoD while in Halo you don't, at least not intentionally. Admittedly, in CoD, there isn't any blood that I can see while in Halo, there is "blood" (both alien and human) but not enough to really notice. To me, Halo seems somewhat "cartoony". We aren't talking about Gears of War or Bioshock type violence here either. There is also "mild language" but I've heard a lot worse in a PG-13 movie. None of the language is used by the main characters that I've heard so far.
My daughter (11) wants to play Halo. Mostly because some of her male friends play it and she wants to be part of the cool group. I honestly don't see any other connection to her normal interests (mostly Harry Potter) to this type of game. It may also be because I play it. This argument really doesn't fly with me though because she knows there are "adult activities" (i.e. I have a beer on occasion) that she just isn't allowed to do as a child. I generally refrain from playing any M rated game while the kids are awake. If they happen to be awake, I'll be playing the game while they are watching a movie or otherwise occupied away from the TV. Pause button on the ready if they happen to come into the room.
One of the conundrums is that other parents do let their kids of my daughter's age play the game. She sees it as a "They get to, why can't I?" argument. You can't really pull the "If they jump off a bridge, would you do it too?" argument with her. She sees right through that in a heartbeat. It usually ends up being a "Because I said so!" statement on my part. However, in reality, it's because we just do things differently. She doesn't like that logic.
"You're going to do what?!"
Unless you live under a rock, you've heard about the big release of the next best thing since sliced bread at midnight last night. The advertising is all over the place, even on the conservative radio station I listen to for traffic updates as I travel from one end of town to the other.
To be honest, I'm not really a big Halo fan. I'm too old to keep up with all the younguns in multiplayer. I really like a good tactical action game vs. the run-n-gun style of Halo. However, one of my good gaming friends is slightly obsessed with the game, follows all the story lines, and is basically brainwashing....err....indoctrinating me into the whole coolness of it. Because of him, I ended up at a game store at midnight last night. My wife knew the game was coming but when I told her I was going to the midnight release event, she gave me that "who are you? and I can't admit I know you." look.
My game store did a really cool setup where if you showed up after 6:00, you could get a ticket number for a place in line and then just come back at midnight. I stopped by and picked up my number on the way to TKD practice and ended up with number 50. When I showed up at the store at 11:45, there were between 150 and 200 people in the parking lot. I wasn't the oldest one there by far but the majority of the people were younger than me. I didn't see very many kids though. It was a little freaky being at the store and hearing a crowd countdown starting a full 2 minutes before midnight.
While waiting through the evening, I would call my friend and see what he was up to. The store he went to (same chain) didn't do the number thing but I think he ended up better off. I think he was there about 10:30. The store is in a strip mall with a wings place. They had a hot-wings eating contest and he ended up winning it. His prize is one of those master chief in-store displays. He gets to pick it up in a couple weeks. He's really looking forward to surprising his son with it by plopping it in his room one night. I think if I did that, my kids would wake up screaming and be scarred for life.
My friend was 30th in line. We both made it back to our respective houses at about the same time. We put in the disk, fired it up and I immediately invited him to coop mode on the campaign. We were both up until 3:00 am. I made the mistake (more like just being hasty) and didn't change the default difficulty. We were breezing through the game pretty quickly. It's no secret that you will be seeing the flood in the game and that is the point we got to before I called it a night. He ended up staying up later. We're both jonesing for coffee today. We're going to get online again tonight and replay it from the beginning with a harder difficulty. We've also roped a couple of friends in to join us. 4 player coop is going to be a blast.
A couple notes to the casual gamer who might actually read this before they play:
1. When playing coop, definitely up the difficulty level.
2. The person who hosts coop is Master Chief. I expected to be able to choose who I was but the game auto-selects.
3. Look at the game controls again. Recently playing Bioshock...I try to jump with the Y button and end up swapping my weapons instead. Why can't companies be somewhat consistent with little things like this?
4. Read up on the new items that you can use with the X button. I found myself "deploying" things just to see what they did.
As far as early impressions, it's Halo....just graphically prettier and a little different. I had a blast playing coop. The story seems a little weaker through this one so far but I'll withhold judgment on that part until I'm done. It does expect you to have a good idea of what's going on already.
To be honest, I'm not really a big Halo fan. I'm too old to keep up with all the younguns in multiplayer. I really like a good tactical action game vs. the run-n-gun style of Halo. However, one of my good gaming friends is slightly obsessed with the game, follows all the story lines, and is basically brainwashing....err....indoctrinating me into the whole coolness of it. Because of him, I ended up at a game store at midnight last night. My wife knew the game was coming but when I told her I was going to the midnight release event, she gave me that "who are you? and I can't admit I know you." look.
My game store did a really cool setup where if you showed up after 6:00, you could get a ticket number for a place in line and then just come back at midnight. I stopped by and picked up my number on the way to TKD practice and ended up with number 50. When I showed up at the store at 11:45, there were between 150 and 200 people in the parking lot. I wasn't the oldest one there by far but the majority of the people were younger than me. I didn't see very many kids though. It was a little freaky being at the store and hearing a crowd countdown starting a full 2 minutes before midnight.
While waiting through the evening, I would call my friend and see what he was up to. The store he went to (same chain) didn't do the number thing but I think he ended up better off. I think he was there about 10:30. The store is in a strip mall with a wings place. They had a hot-wings eating contest and he ended up winning it. His prize is one of those master chief in-store displays. He gets to pick it up in a couple weeks. He's really looking forward to surprising his son with it by plopping it in his room one night. I think if I did that, my kids would wake up screaming and be scarred for life.
My friend was 30th in line. We both made it back to our respective houses at about the same time. We put in the disk, fired it up and I immediately invited him to coop mode on the campaign. We were both up until 3:00 am. I made the mistake (more like just being hasty) and didn't change the default difficulty. We were breezing through the game pretty quickly. It's no secret that you will be seeing the flood in the game and that is the point we got to before I called it a night. He ended up staying up later. We're both jonesing for coffee today. We're going to get online again tonight and replay it from the beginning with a harder difficulty. We've also roped a couple of friends in to join us. 4 player coop is going to be a blast.
A couple notes to the casual gamer who might actually read this before they play:
1. When playing coop, definitely up the difficulty level.
2. The person who hosts coop is Master Chief. I expected to be able to choose who I was but the game auto-selects.
3. Look at the game controls again. Recently playing Bioshock...I try to jump with the Y button and end up swapping my weapons instead. Why can't companies be somewhat consistent with little things like this?
4. Read up on the new items that you can use with the X button. I found myself "deploying" things just to see what they did.
As far as early impressions, it's Halo....just graphically prettier and a little different. I had a blast playing coop. The story seems a little weaker through this one so far but I'll withhold judgment on that part until I'm done. It does expect you to have a good idea of what's going on already.
Friday, September 14, 2007
bioshock - pass 1
I've played through the game once on normal (the medium difficulty). It's pretty much common knowledge there are at least 2 endings. I have all the 360 achievements except for playing through on Hard which you have to do from the beginning. I've started the "hard run" through the game. I would agree with the comments that I've seen that on at least normal mode it is a bit too easy, especially with the use of the vita-chambers.
All in all, I'd rate it as a good game bordering on great. That's more because of my own tastes though rather than lack of quality in the game. The highest selling point of the game is the immersive atmosphere it gives you. I'd chalk most of that up to the sound guys. I play in my home theater/family room and the sound is absolutely fantastic.
My favorite "games" of all time are the half-life series from Valve. I can't wait until Orange Box comes out in October. And yes, I'm getting the 360 version. It would be ideal if some of the mechanics from Bioshock ((i.e. varying abilities from Plasmids) that would give you variability in how you play the game were incorporated into the half-life game engine.
All in all, I'd rate it as a good game bordering on great. That's more because of my own tastes though rather than lack of quality in the game. The highest selling point of the game is the immersive atmosphere it gives you. I'd chalk most of that up to the sound guys. I play in my home theater/family room and the sound is absolutely fantastic.
My favorite "games" of all time are the half-life series from Valve. I can't wait until Orange Box comes out in October. And yes, I'm getting the 360 version. It would be ideal if some of the mechanics from Bioshock ((i.e. varying abilities from Plasmids) that would give you variability in how you play the game were incorporated into the half-life game engine.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Cool! I get to play with sticks!
As mentioned in a previous post, we had signed up for the 6 month basic program. This program does NOT include weapons training. Well, near the end of class one day, Master Lee didn't dismiss the basic program and said to go grab Eskrima sticks. There were only 4 of us from the basic program there that day and we just kinda looked at each other. My oldest daughter wasn't present but my youngest daughter looked at me with that wide-eyed "I get to play with sticks!" look that only a child can have. Master Lee picked up on it right away and made a quick decision to let us stay and try it. He said something along the lines of "Give us a taste". I'm sure it was a marketing decision in his mind as he would like us to sign up for the Black Belt Club.
Eskrima is not a part of Taekwondo. If you read the wiki entry, it is "a class of Filipino Martial Arts". There are a number of Eskrima patterns (for lack of a better word) that we are going to learn as we advance through the program. We pair up and then face each other. The "patterns" involves hitting each other's sticks with your sticks along with some feet movement. I've seen some of the upper belt classes incorporate kicks into the pattern as well. One of the ideas behind Eskrima is that the sticks (or other Eskrima weapons) are really just extensions of your body and if you didn't have the weapon, you could still defend yourself.
Human Weapon on the History Channel has had an entire episode devoted to this Martial Art. It's being broadcast this Friday. I have it setup to be TiVo'ed. If you happen to have an xbox 360, it's one of the TV shows you can download in HD. I'm sorely tempted to do that.
Eskrima is not a part of Taekwondo. If you read the wiki entry, it is "a class of Filipino Martial Arts". There are a number of Eskrima patterns (for lack of a better word) that we are going to learn as we advance through the program. We pair up and then face each other. The "patterns" involves hitting each other's sticks with your sticks along with some feet movement. I've seen some of the upper belt classes incorporate kicks into the pattern as well. One of the ideas behind Eskrima is that the sticks (or other Eskrima weapons) are really just extensions of your body and if you didn't have the weapon, you could still defend yourself.
Human Weapon on the History Channel has had an entire episode devoted to this Martial Art. It's being broadcast this Friday. I have it setup to be TiVo'ed. If you happen to have an xbox 360, it's one of the TV shows you can download in HD. I'm sorely tempted to do that.
Friday, September 7, 2007
bioshock - part deux
I'm about 3/4ths of the way through the game (by my estimate). It's gotten to the point where the spare cycles in my head are usually thinking about it. That's a sign of a good game in my book. The thing that really makes the game is the story elements. I'm at a point where I'm wondering what is going to happen next.
Most gamers know this but the same people made System Shock 2 which is considered a classic. I never played it but I'm wondering if I can find it cheap and go through it. I swear I had it at one point but I'm not sure where it is.
Making waves in the gaming circles I travel in is the new reviewer at Escapist Magazine. His review of Bioshock is hilarious but has spoilers. I've only listened to about 50% of his review. Note, his language is NSFW.
Most gamers know this but the same people made System Shock 2 which is considered a classic. I never played it but I'm wondering if I can find it cheap and go through it. I swear I had it at one point but I'm not sure where it is.
Making waves in the gaming circles I travel in is the new reviewer at Escapist Magazine. His review of Bioshock is hilarious but has spoilers. I've only listened to about 50% of his review. Note, his language is NSFW.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
bioshock...first impressions
I played through the game to the "level" after the demo. I've almost completed that level.
All in all, I wouldn't be raving about it like all the review sites are currently. It seems like another dark setting FPS. However, all the details are there. It also has some minor customizations of your "character" (but nothing like any RPG I've played) that will add a lot of replay value.
Overall, it's like the "fine wine" of FPS games. I'd highly recommend it if you like the single player mode of FPS games.
And yes....you can play the "good side" of the game. I won't reveal what that really is though.
All in all, I wouldn't be raving about it like all the review sites are currently. It seems like another dark setting FPS. However, all the details are there. It also has some minor customizations of your "character" (but nothing like any RPG I've played) that will add a lot of replay value.
Overall, it's like the "fine wine" of FPS games. I'd highly recommend it if you like the single player mode of FPS games.
And yes....you can play the "good side" of the game. I won't reveal what that really is though.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
bioshock
I've seen the ads for Bioshock and had decided to avoid the game because of the creepy little girl in it. I love my 2 little daughters and it just seemed wrong to have a little girl as a possible enemy in the game. Well, I couldn't avoid playing the demo when it came out. By this I mean I have no will power. What's up with the long summer gaming drought? It really makes it hard to resist something new and shiny when something finally comes out at the end of it. Back on track though...I ended up pre-ordering the game. I'm hoping its saving grace is that there is a way to not fight the little girls and save them instead. It comes out today and I'll pick it up on my way home tonight. I have TKD tonight as well which makes for a later night for everybody. I don't play the xbox until the family is in bed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
