XBox 360 Rally

Ah, the digital age. Soon, I won’t even have to stop playing games in order to go out to my mailbox for a new arrival from Gamefly. No, seriously, I don’t play games that much — I have a life, thank you — but Xbox Live is going to make it easier for us lazy gamers to get our crack, I mean, video game experiences.

Microsoft is slowly letting the cat out the bag about the upcoming Games on Demand service through Xbox Live. I try Microsoft’s press archive and nada. I guess the announcement came after the E3 all-press conference at a lunch for VIPs and the elite press corps. But I ran across an interview on Eurogamer with John Schappert, who is the exec in charge of Live, and he gives us a bit more detail as to what this whole on-demand service will be.

Shappert: “Right now the plan is to have classic titles. We’re talking about 30 titles at launch - I think we mentioned BioShock, Mass Effect, Sonic, Civilization Revolution. Some of these titles are great titles, but retail shelf space is at a premium, and not everything manages to stay at retail for as long as consumers would still like to buy it, and we generally think there’s a lot of legs left on the 360 - we think we’re only halfway through our cycle - so we want to pick up some of these older, great games you can’t buy at retail.” –Eurogamer

So, part of me is happy about this new service. It may be a nice way of picking up older titles (if you have yet to play them or don’t already own them). But my big question is how will the Xbox’s hard drive handle more than a few games? Maybe Microsoft could also offer some additional storage space, maybe on Xbox Live with some extra server space? I’m sure they will charge us for the off-site storage, but would it be cheaper than buying additional hard drive space? Maybe. I mean, I hope I don’t have to buy a new Xbox in order to accommodate full games on the darn thing.

And even though I am interested in the Games on Demand Xbox Live Service, I am really not sure how practical or useful it will be over time. Especially if I am strapped for memory, I may be inclined to delete a game or two, and if that were to be the case, perhaps I would be better off buying the disk for easy removal and easy “come back to later”.

Furthermore, this whole attitude that older games are not available to buy through retailers and thus that is the reason that the service will be offering only the older games is a little out of whack. There are plenty of copies of anything you would want out there, and I can guess those copies would be cheaper than a Microsoft product (call me crazy). But if you don’t like hunting down an older game, then perhaps the GOD (ha ha ha) service would be good for you. However, then there is the whole “how many older games and which ones would be offered” problem.

So, I guess, in conclusion (as if this were a coherent essay), the announced GOD for Xbox Live may be a good thing, or may be like the Netflix thing and rather redundant. We shall see…

Xbox, Microsoft, Xbox Live, Xbox 360, E3, games on demand, video games

The first scenario of Left 4 Dead was fun, I am happy to report. Unfortunately, after playing through all four scenarioss, I was happy to be done with it.

The story is simple enough, and I covered it in my first impressions review. Four players (you can either have three friends play with you or you can let the AI be your friends) have to work together to get the hell out of Dodge and take out as many of the “infected” as they can. There are four scenarios through which to play: No Mercy, Death Toll, Dead Air and Blood Harvest. No Mercy culminates in a roof-top rescue from the local hospital. Death Toll has the “survivors” finding their way to a rescue boat. Dead Air has a rescue military cargo plane, and Blood Harvest involved a military rescue at a farmhouse.

Do you see what they all have in common? That’s right. Every scenario is the exact same…maybe different settings are involved, but by the time you are playing through whichever scenario you choose to play last, you really start wishing that there were a larger plot. Personally, I would have liked it better if either the rescue scenario were longer and more harrowing in terms of length and efforts, and if the rescues were somehow interconnected. For example, after being rescued from the hospital, the next scenario could be what happens next. Instead Left 4 Dead just gives you your stats.

What I liked was the intuitive game controls. There is no button-mashing in this game. It’s more point and shoot. Your left stick controls your movement, the right stick controls your “head” vis a vis the camera view. Right trigger shoots, left trigger shoves the zombies away so you can shoot them more easily. Even if you are not “all-thumbs”, this game is easy to play. Even my boyfriend, who sucks as First Person Shooter games got the hang of this game fairly quickly.

There is not a whole lot of running around looking for stuff in Left 4 Dead, which is nice, but also a little frustrating. I mean, there are all of these little rooms everywhere with nothing in them, so what’s the point of me spending my valuable time looking in them. The only stuff to pick up are ammo, med packs, pain pills, and weapons. Although I did figure out that you can pick up the random gasoline and propane tanks that are here and there. At first, I couldn’t figure out what to do with them, but if you have it in you hand, you can throw the tanks. Once on the ground, you can then shoot them to either explode or create a fire wall (which eventually burns out).

The game is generous to the casual gamer. The “easy” level is just that. Easy. The BF had to play on that level, but he never plays these games, as he is happy to keep playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour or Madden over and over. I played the other levels, to see if there were big differences. “Normal” is the next step up from easy, and it’s not much harder. However, on “normal” and above, you can shoot your teammates, whereas the easy level warns you about hurting your cohorts rather than making them suffer. Once you hit the Advanced and Expert levels, you really do need to know your shit in FPS games. I made it through on Advanced (major diff: the zombies take more bullets to kill), but got a little frustrated (and bored) on Expert. Expert may be totally do-able with live friends, as you can plan out your attacks better. When you play with the AI teammates, you cannot coordinate their movements, which means that you are always on point, taking the most damage and dying, and then having to start the chapter over, and over.

Which brings me to a gripe about the game. You have to play through the whole 5 chapter scenario or you start over. I couldn’t figure out how to save the game during a scenario, so if you don’t have at least an hour and half to sit down and play, then you may want to play something else.

Also, I noticed that my dismemberment skills gleaned from Dead Space came in handy in taking out the zombies. Shooting them in the legs was an easy way to hobble them. Or you could just shoot them in the head, which is very gratifying in the way the heads explode. “Head shots” are one of the statistics at the end of the chapters that are ranked and given, so it is nice to see how many head shots you can get.

I just wish that the game gave you “crotch shot” stats…I rock in that category.

All in all, Left 4 Dead is fun, frivolous, and fast. But it does get old after you play through two scenarios…because you know exactly what the next two scenarios are going to throw at you. That said, if you are into playing it on Xbox Live, Left 4 Dead would be a great game to have around when you have your friends over, either in person or virtually. The co-op action on this game makes a big difference. And if you play online, you can play as the “infected” against the “survivors.”

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Yeah, that title only makes sense if you sing it to the tune of “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)“. And what’s the deal with that song anyway? A married couple each discover that the other wants to cheat because they are bored. It seems like such an upbeat song, but I just hope those two don’t have kids.

Whew, where was I? Oh, yeah, if you are a fan of flight combat games, you may want to get your ol’ 360 fired up around 5am EST/2am PST tonight/this morning (Feb. 11). The demo for Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is being released for Xbox Live Gold members. Those goldies, they get everything first…

Personally, I’m not into flight simulator games, but checking out a demo is always fun. And who knows, I might just like it enough to play the real thing when it comes out on March 6th. I doubt it, because there are like a million other games I’m sure I’d rather play, but you never know.

The demo is Xbox 360 exclusive…for one day. The HAWX demo is available on PSN February 12th.

The demo includes two missions. One’s a training mission, appropriately enough. The second involves shooting planes down over Rio de Janeiro. You can even play co-op for 4 people, if you happen to have three friends.

The full game will include 17 missions, and if you are not great at flight sims, you may be in luck. Supposedly, Tom Clancy’s HAWX has training-wheels for those that are not thumb-joystick-capable. Some guy who wrote a pre-review of HAWX last summer mentioned that the game is more combat-centric, rather than flight simulator-oriented, which could be good or bad depending on how you like your flying airplane games.

And to leave you on a “ah, precious” note today…

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Resident Evil 5’s demo came out exclusively on Xbox Live last week. I got my download on Friday, and didn’t get to playing it until Saturday. Well, I wasn’t the only one. Numbers came out and it seems that almost 2 million Xbox Live users downloaded the ultra-violent, yet ever-so-much fun demo for the long awaited RE5.

I have not played a Resident Evil on the Xbox yet, so it was a treat to test it out on a 360. The demo gives you little or no info — or maybe it did and I was too busy killing zombies to notice — as to who you are or what you are doing there, but you can figure it out if you know anything about the Resident Evil franchise.

Hey, what do you know, seems I’m playing a character that you may already know and love, Chris Redfield. I have a new partner, and she is a hottie-ass-kicking zombie slayer named Sheva Alomar. I read somewhere that when the creators first started showing betas of this game, it came to someone’s attention that Chris was killing a bunch of black people in Africa and maybe that wasn’t so cool in this current political climate (or any for that matter). So the solution was adding a black-ish female partner. And who says video games don’t strive for equality? I wonder if Sheva is earning the same as Chris.

I have only played the single player portion of the demo, as my boyfriend doesn’t like playing shooter games (something about running around and looking for hidden stuff annoys him, no matter how many zombies are involved — I think it’s because he just can’t get the hang of it and he has a short attention span for any games other than sports). There is a co-op option, which I am going to play as soon as I make a friend to play against.

There are two scenarios: Public Assembly and Shanty Town. In Public Assembly, you and Sheva are outside one of those African towns that looks like it could have been a stand-in during Black Hawk Down. Once you get in a seemingly safe building, you witness a public beheading of someone who doesn’t quite get the respect he needs in this town in which everyone is going cra-zay. This huge hooded executioner swings this huge, serrated axe, and then of course, someone spots you. Now, you have all these zombies coming at you.

I went to the Public Assembly first, and I didn’t last that long. I couldn’t get used to the switch up from A’s to X’s for picking up ammo. Also, you cannot pull your left trigger to aim without standing still or moving really, really slowly, so it’s hard to run and shoot, but then you only have so much ammo, so it wouldn’t do you much good to run around shooting up the place. It’s pretty hard, which of course, makes me love it even more (wink).

Shanty Town is more running around and killing these poor souls that have undergone the “change.” But I lasted longer, although I do think that the demo is totally designed to kick your ass rather quickly, so you don’t start grumbling about it being a short demo more than you suck. But hey, it’s just a taste, and you are definitely going to want more.

It looks amazing, just like RE4. It’s totally fun and addictive and I cannot wait for March 13th.

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So, I finally plugged in my internet connection to my Xbox. Not that I never have before, it’s just that my router is in the office and the HDTV is in the living room, and I don’t want a damn cord running through the entire house, and I haven’t got off my lazy butt to get a wireless adapter for my Xbox 360 because truthfully, I don’t go online that often with my Xbox.

Not often at all…

Which means that tonight was finally the night when I upgraded my dashboard on the ol’ 360 (among other things). I am sure that I haven’t spent enough time on it to see how awesomely awesome it is, but what is the big deal?

I think the whole Netflix thing is nice, and I imagine I will love it. As I mentioned before, I am not on Xbox Live all that much to make that a big draw for me, but then again, maybe it will be a good reason to log in more often. It does get tiring to have to hook up my laptop to the tv to watch something instantly on Netflix, but still, It’s not like it’s that hard. I’ll live.

Other than that, I am not big into keeping a bunch of pictures and music on yet another hard drive, so that option does nothing for me.

I do have a kickass avatar, but I don’t know when she’ll ever come into use. Don’t you just dig her warrior scar and black (I hope they are rubber) gloves? Unless I am missing something, I don’t think the avatars get to play in, say, Tomb Raider, so yeah, what’s the point. I like my little panda icon. Isn’t that enough?

I know I must sound like a troglodyte to some of you, but seriously, I like to play video games. I don’t care if someone else plays with me or not. So other than downloading stuff, I have little need for Xbox Live. And that’s too bad, because my dress is so cute.

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Aw, too bad that PS3 users will have to wait until next week (February 5th, I believe) to get a taste of the highly-anticipated and long-awaited (RE5’s maker, Capcom, announced the game back in 2005) Resident Evil 5. But starting today, Xbox Live Gold Members can download the demo. Xbox Silver members can start downloading it Thursday.

Ah, Resident Evil, a pinnacle in survival-horror. Here’s the pretty sweet trailer to the fifth installment in the series.

Purportedly, there are three levels in the demo, and for Gold members, there is also a 2 person co-op option. New characters, new weapons, new environments, but it is a sequel that takes place ten years after the first Resident Evil.

The biohazard threat has not ended. Just when it seemed that the menace of Resident Evil had been destroyed, along comes a new terror to send shivers down players’ spines. Returning hero Chris Redfield heads to Africa where the latest bioterrorism threat is literally transforming the people and animals of the city into mindless, maddened creatures. Take on the challenge of discovering the truth behind this evil plot. In Resident Evil 5, you will learn to fear the daylight as much as you have feared the shadows before. –Xbox website

I am not a gold member, even though I do have a free month or three months that I got in return for experiencing the heartbreak and boredom of the Red Ring of Death, but still, I don’t feel like upgrading my membership just for a demo that I can get in three days. Besides, I’m deep in the bowels of the USG Ishimura in Dead Space right now.

Resident Evil 5 is so highly-anticipated and such a big deal that a Resident Evil bundle for the Xbox 360 is being packaged for our consumptive pleasure.

Does that mean I have to trade in my Simpsons Xbox 360?

Resident Evil is set to hit stores in the US March 13. Japan gets it first.

Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil, video game, survival horror, Capcom, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Gold, Silver, PS3, demo, downloads

A demo version of Project Origin/F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin is coming next week on January 22. Xbox 360 users can download the free demo on Xbox Live.

First, they give you a taste and get you hooked, then they jack up the price.

FEAR 2: Project Origin will be released to the public for general consumption February 10th. Europe has to wait a few days for their fix.

Originally, he he, the name for the FEAR sequel was only going to be Project Origin (which was the name chosen in an online contest), but there was this merger see, and the name went with the merger. Thus the new name. But then someone, Warner Brothers who owns Monolith Productions, the creator of F2PO, thought better of going forward without the name of the original celebrated brand, I mean, name attached.

FEAR 2: Project Origin will follow the previous overall story of FEAR. There’s a vengeful, psychic little girl, there are things to shoot, there’s the mystery of it all. It’s survival-horror in a paranormal universe after a city is destroyed.

The character you play is a special forces guy named Beckett, and you are dropped off in the middle of the city thirty a half-hour before the first FEAR ends. You are sent into this city to arrest Genevieve Astride from FEAR.

The website gives some good teasing visuals, lots of blood and robots, but of course, it doesn’t really tell us too much. You can log on to Xbox Live next Thursday for your first taste.

FEAR, FEAR 2: Project Origin, Xbox, Xbox Live, Xbox 360, Warner Bros, Monolith

Before Sam Fisher became a homeless man, he was a superspy who could probably take Solid Snake in a one-on-one spyoff (Michael Ironside FTW). Now you’ll be able to play through one of Sam’s earlier adventures once again as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, along with Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, are now Xbox Originals.

Look, everyone has played Splinter Cell in the past. I’m confident in saying that. But I would be willing to bet that most of you haven’t played Metal Arms, and for that you should be kicked square in the pants. It’s one of the most underrated titles in the Xbox library, and well worth the 1,200 MS Points they’re asking for.

[Major Nelson]

(as written, by me, at 1PStart)

It’s no secret that this past week or so Xbox LIVE has been giving a lot of people issues. Whining and complaining has occurred on countless message boards, and I’m sure even a few tears have been shed by the overly zealous Halo 3 jackasses. Well, I address each and every one of you who feel they have been wronged by Microsoft, and demand compensation when I say…

Stop your bitching.

(more…)

Odds are if you’re reading this, you’re not on Xbox LIVE. Not because you’re a fan of the site, but rather because Xbox LIVE won’t let you log in. In fact, Xbox LIVE won’t let a lot of people log in. While Microsoft isn’t explaining what is wrong, when you check the Xbox LIVE Service Status you will see the image to the right acknowledging that there is a problem, and that Microsoft has people working on it right now.

Stoners, Insomniacs and Australians everywhere are heartbroken at the news of Xbox LIVE being offline, I’m sure. Not to fear though, the big M is usually quick to fix these problems.

[1PStart]

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE

Odds are if you’re playing Call of Duty 4, you’re not reading this. If you are, I commend you for your multitasking. Regardless, it has been announced that the fellas over at Infinity Ward are currently working on an update for CoD4 that is sure to make many a player happy.

A full list that I was more than happy to copy/paste from fourzerotwo himself can be found after the break, but some of the highlights of the upcoming update include host migration, kill cam for airstrikes and claymores, and the inclusion of the much talked about “N0M4D” control scheme.

(more…)

Hi, boys and girls. It’s just me, your friendly neighborhood JW, here to remind you all that we’re currently looking for people to replace us here at Xbox 360 Rally. All you have to do is go HERE, fill out the form, and wait to hear back. It’s really not that hard.

So, get to it already — so Paco and I can get to the NEW site!

Great news! Yesterday at 10am (PST) the Call of Duty Beta raised the cap for levels to a rank of 25.

So if you aren’t leveling up and taking on challenges, now is the pretty obvious time to get on it to get the extra weapons and crap (crap includes some cool perks and an upgraded weapon in each category.. read full details at FourZeroTwo’s page).
Bad news! Sunday the 30th (11:59pm) the Beta will be done

So what have we learned from this great experience? Fast action first person kicks ass. It may be an acquired taste for all you Halo gun battlers, but this Beta convinced me that this just could be the best way to have objective type games, everyone was very talkative, a big plus, I know you silent players are out there, but stick to deathmatch only games please. Anyways, it was fun, good job Infinity Ward.

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Call of Duty 4, COD4, Beta, Infinity Ward, FourZeroTwo, Good News, Bad News, First Person Shooter

As reported by 1PStart.com Call of Duty 4 has rightly not gone gold. I know myself and all my friends I have made through the Beta have strong opinions on some things, but overall, this is one fast action paced FPS. Battlefield 2 on steroids, quote me on that.

The infamous “fourzerotwo” who has been giving the CoD4 updates as of late, posted on this blog about the features that are still being tweaked, “We’re still testing Single Player and using beta feedback to fine tune the multiplayer experience via tweaks of spawn logic, optimizing netcode on the backend, tweaking matchmaking and game performance now that we see how it will handle with hundreds of thousands of players on at once. Keep in mind that we can tweak and use your feedback for the multiplayer portion of the game all the way to ship, and even after launch via Patches. So keep your beta feedback coming, it’s not going to waste simply because we’re putting the polishing details on Single Player. A lot of what we change in Multiplayer is able to be done on the backend here at the studio.”

It is also worth noting that he mentions that since the Beta has come out, there hasn’t been a Xbox Live Top Ten list posted, so there is no way to tell how just a Beta is comparing to other games (I can see this Beta being right up there with Bioshock this past week or so).
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Call of Duty 4 Beta, CoD4, Infinity Ward, Bioshock, Xbox Live Top Ten, FourZeroTwo

Ok, people, here’s the deal — Paco and I are on our way out. We’re taking over at 1PStart.com in an effort to restore it to it’s former glory. …that, and I just plain want to write about another game every once in a while, is that so wrong?!

Anyways, here is what we’re looking for: A competent, capable writer with a love for all things Xbox. Now, by competent writer, we mean someone who spells “you” correctly, and knows when to capitalize. If you can do that, you’re a shoe-in. So, CLICK THIS DAMN LINK, do the required stuff, then get paid to play video games and write about stuff.

…hell, Mike and I did the hard stuff already, and YES, the GTA4 Banner contest will continue, and I will still give you a copy of GTA IV… or something. So, hop to it.

Xbox 360 Rally, JW, Stuff, Job Openings