I was in the middle of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas and about to start the original Saints Row. My Xbox 360 was only about 6 months old!
I've been a fan of Xbox for a while now. I bought a copy of Gears of War on Xbox 360 for my brother, for his birthday - a game I thought looked pretty amazing.
While I waited to give it to him, I became more and more tempted to play it myself. After a few days I caved, bought an Xbox 360, and ripped that copy of the game open for myself. I bought him another copy later.
Overall I think I had two Xbox 360's "red ring" on me. I still have the third one, an Xbox 360 S, sitting under my TV, but it doesn't get much use - virtually all the games I own for it work on my Xbox Series X.
It's a little crazy that the Xbox 360 did so well for its generation, considering the technical issues it had. But the PlayStation 3 had a number of problems as well, and the Wii was almost in a class by itself.
I'm glad the latest slew of consoles are so much better, in any case. Having constant dread over the "red ring of death" was not a good way to be.
Back in 2010, a week or so before Halloween, Double Fine Productions released Costume Quest. Somewhere between then and a month or two ago, I bought it on XBLA, and I finally got around to actually playing it about a week ago. It's a cute, fun little game, and I enjoyed it.
It's basically a light RPG-type game, where you run around neighborhoods trick-or-treating houses, collecting candy, costumes, and battle stamps (which improve your abilities in combat). Encounters with monsters are the meat of the game and trigger a sequence where the cute cartoon children and silly monsters morph into giants who do battle over the town in a turn-based RPG style. It kind of reminds me of that episode of South Park where the kids morph into anime characters and battle each other.
The cartoon graphics are crisp and colorful, and the sound design is simple, but does all the appropriate things. Controls are easy. Overall, it's a shorter, but quality title - the quality of which I've come to expect from Double Fine.
If you haven't played Costume Quest yet, I'd recommend it. Maybe save it as a little Halloween treat for later this year.
Just wanted to throw down a quick update here, since it's been quite a while, and I'm sure many people out there are sitting on the edge of their seats, wondering if I'm lying in a gutter somewhere. Many sleepless nights were had, courtesy of my lack of updates, and I am sorry.
Fear not, however! I am alive and well, and have just been busy with a lot of work and, of course, a lot of play.
I don't think I'd posted the above picture on the blog yet, so there it is - a tree painting I'd done some weeks ago for a contest and auction for the Sacramento Tree Foundation. Sadly, it didn't get accepted into the limited space of the show, but I'm glad to have made it, and I have more ideas for some other paintings in this style.
This painting was done in acrylic paint and paint pen on a 15" x 30" canvas. Here's the sketch the painting is based on (ink on 5.5" x 8.5" sketch pad):
During my time away from the blog, I got to go up to my parents' house for a bit one weekend, and went out on a small vacation to Sonoma with my girlfriend too. I had a great time with both, and the time away from doing work has been refreshing.
Speaking of work, I've got more work lined up for No Love Skateboarding - along with the rat image I posted a while ago, which was used for a shirt design and then reconfigured for a skateboard design, I've done a Denver cityscape and have a few other projects for shirts and boards on deck which I'll post here eventually.
I'm also working on a disc label and CD jacket for a friend of my dad's, Johnny "Guitar" Knox, who is a local blue guitarist in the Sacramento area. That project is going a bit slower than originally planned, but it's getting done slowly.
I've also got a logo to design for my girlfriend's cousin which I have yet to start.
And finally, probably the biggest time sink of them all, I've finally completed Dragon Age: Origins, after about 60 hours of play. The game was good, long, and fun. I'm glad I finally got into it. I've already started another play-through, but I think I'm going to take a break for a while so I can finish on my aforementioned projects, as well as re-acquaint myself with some of the other games I've neglected over the months.
After the somewhat botched Gears of War 3 announcement last week, I've been thinking about running through Gears of War 2 again on Insane difficulty, so I can grab all the collectibles I missed and have some more action-oriented fun for a change. I also want to sink my teeth into some of the Mass Effect 2 DLC that came out while I was playing Dragon Age, but I'm just not in the mood for another epic gaming marathon right now.
Anyway, thanks for checking in, hope the lack of posts hasn't kept anyone away, and (again, I know!) I shall try to be better with the updates.
I was thinking about doing a write-up of my favorite games from 2009, but as I was going over most of the games I played last year, many of my favorites turned out to be from 2008 or earlier. I got a few of 2009's finest for Christmas, but so far, I've only had time to play through one of them - Assassin's Creed 2. Luckily, it turned out to be one of my favorite games in a good while, so instead of doing a list I thought I'd just write a game review instead. Read on for tales of free running, theft, death-defying acrobatics, and of course, assassination.
As a note of precaution, I am going to try to keep spoilers for the first game to a minimum, but in order to talk about the opening sequence of the second game, there might be some slight spoilers for the first one. If you haven't played Assassin's Creed 1 yet, and you're planning on doing so, proceed with caution. I will not spoil the content of AC2, save for the introductory portion of the game.
A little over two years ago, I picked up Assassin's Creed 1 (also as a Christmas gift, I believe), and quickly played through it over the course of a few weeks. It was a fun game. With sprawling ancient urban environments, the visuals were particularly impressive, as were the movement mechanics for the player. In the end though, the whole thing became somewhat repetitive, with each level in the game playing exactly like the last. There were a few quirks with the fundaments of the game that could probably have been overlooked if the rest of the game had been better, but which ended up standing out instead. And the finale of the game, which was deliberately left open for a sequel, was somewhat of a letdown.
Despite the first game's drawbacks, however, I did have a good time with it. So when November 2009 rolled around and Assassin's Creed 2 was released to better reviews than its predecessor, I was excited. Unfortunately for me, I usually don't buy myself many games between November and December, just in case someone decides to get me a game for Christmas or my birthday. I waited for the holidays, did in fact, get the game, and played through it over the last few weeks. After nearly 24 total hours of game-time and collecting 47 of 50 achievements, I can say with confidence (and puns) that Assassin's Creed 2 is leaps and bounds above Assassin's Creed 1; it's truly a great game.
AC2 begins right where the first game left off. Desmond Miles, the surrogate protagonist of both the first and second games, has finished locating the Piece of Eden for Abstergo, and locked in the laboratory with the Animus. Lucy, the technician who projects sympathy for Desmond in the first game, returns to the lab and the two escape from the Abstergo building, seeking refuge with a group of modern-day Assassins. Armed with their own Animus, the group enlists Desmond to help them find out the truth behind the Piece of Eden, and we delve once more into history via Desmond's biological memories.
Almost all of the game takes place inside the Animus, in a virtual recreation of ancient Italy. The story follows Desmond's ancestor Ezio as he uncovers a vast Templar plot, and includes many historical figures like Niccolò Machiavelli, Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI), and even Leonardo da Vinci.
One thing you'll notice right from the start is that AC2 makes a much stronger effort to explain the story better than the first game. The virtual past is a bit different, it is explained, because the new Animus is more feature-packed than the one used at Abstergo. At various points in the story the other characters who monitor Desmond's progress will voice over and explain what is happening. And all the people and places of interest you visit in the game is explained in historical context via a large collection of database entries that are added to Desmond's Animus menu as you progress through the game. It's all very well done, and I spent a lot of time reading the database as entries were added to it. In many instances, the historical information is actually a pretty interesting read, and it adds a lot to the game as well.
The story that Ubisoft has woven into real-life history for Assassin's Creed, particularly this second game, is compelling. The interactions between Ezio and other characters, both historical and fictional, is very well done and does much to add a distinctly human element to the game. Whereas in the first AC game you were relegated to performing the same pattern of actions over and over with very little narrative in between, the second game gives you many more unique missions while stringing them along with strong story elements in between.
Gameplay in AC2 is varied and thoughtful. Once the initial theatrics are over and you've assumed your role of Ezio, you're given free reign to explore a sizable portion of Renaissance Florence. Similar to AC1, you're able to climb tall structures and use them to scope out nearby missions. Unlike AC1, however, you'll find that you now have access to a few different types of vendor stalls, where you can buy weapons, new armor, quick-travel to different parts of Italy, etc. Missions that do not progress the story include assassination contracts, races, and fighting. There are also many treasures scattered throughout each explorable area that pad your wallet and eventually help you learn more fighting moves and increase your health points.
Combat is somewhat basic, but less frustrating than in the original game. There are more ways to dispatch enemies, and there isn't as much emphasis on maintaining an overall rhythm, so there are many fewer times where you get caught in a string of attacks that are impossible to stop. Additionally, you can buy new weapons from blacksmiths, and you can use weapons dropped or taken from enemies as well.
Sometimes, you might not want to fight the throng of guards chasing you - not a problem! There are far more places to hide in AC2, and it's much easier to tell when you're blending into a crowd (for anonymity). You can also hire bands of thieves, mercenaries, and courtesans to help give you a little cover and distract or fight guards when necessary.
Finally, player movement in Assassin's Creed 2 seems much more refined than before. Ezio climbs and swings around structures much faster than Altaïr, and if you're like me, you will be happy to see is that swimming has been added to the game engine, so you no longer have to fear the random instant death of a bad jump near water. Overall, player movement in AC2 is very fluid, and even though you'll be spending much of your time watching Ezio perform stunts that seem super-human, the animation is so natural you'll come away feeling like it really could be possible for a person to move the way he does. With Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, and a host of other games, Ubisoft has a good lock on games involving non-linear movement/acrobatic mechanics, and with each new game, the engine only seems to get better.
In addition to the regular assassin gameplay in AC2, there are also a good number of hidden puzzle sequences, where you solve a collection of ever-challenging puzzles in order to uncover more of the secrets about the Piece of Eden. These puzzles serve as a good break from the action now and then, and are quite devious towards the end of the game. Luckily, you can always choose to solve them later on. These puzzles, along with the collectible codex pages and all the other supplemental information included in the Animus database, are a good example of the efforts Ubisoft went to in order to explain the Assassin's Creed world better in the second game. Both the cryptographer and conspiracy buff inside you will jump for joy.
Gameplay aside, the very first thing that might draw you into AC2 (or the franchise in general) is the look of the game.
The original game, Assassin's Creed 1, had some good graphics; even playing the game today, I am still amazed at how well the game engine draws the vast expanse of ancient cities and surrounding countryside. Assassin's Creed 2 is no different - and oftentimes better! It is a visual feast, and Renaissance Italy has never looked so good. Everywhere you go, people are walking, talking doing things. The buildings in each area you visit are gritty yet fantastic. Historical sites, like Basilica di San Lorenzo and Basilica di San Marco, are recreated somewhat faithfully (at least, close enough for a game), as are the surrounding area structures. The day/night cycle is slower than most games, and both look great. Visual effects for the Animus and Eagle Vision have been ramped up from the original game. Ezio even looks wet after he climbs out of some water.
Sound is equally good. The voice acting for all the major characters is believable, and the little bits of Italian you hear now and then (attributed to a flaw in the Animus' translation software) adds to the illusion of the whole thing. I thought the soundtrack was particularly nice; it instills feelings of awe, tension, mystery, and urgency at all the right moments, and fills in the gaps between the action nicely.
Assassin's Creed 2 isn't without its faults of course, but they number much fewer than the original, and are ultimately much easier to forgive for all the greatness of the rest of the game. For example, as with Altaïr in the first game, Ezio manages to make some clumsy jumps now and then, which can sometimes result in an accidental falling death. It doesn't happen often, and I can see how the game engine can get confused about exactly which platform you might be aiming for in the distance, but it's not a fun time when it happens.
As with another game I reviewed not so long ago, health potions also seem to make the game a little too easy. Naturally, the farther you get into the game, the harder the bad guys can hit you, sometimes taking 4-5 hit points in one attack. But early in the game you gain the ability to carry around vials that can refill many depleted hit points at once. You eventually are able to carry a maximum of 15 of these vials, and with so many at your disposal, it becomes almost impossible to die, save for an accidental fall. The vials are important to AC2, because unlike AC1, you do not regenerate health over time, but it still feels a little cheap sometimes to be able to just click the D-Pad and become healed. Of course, I also like the idea of your character becoming more adept at what he/she does as you progress through a game, so I can't hate on this too much. Poor planning or lack of funds will limit your supply of vials, so I can live with it.
One final thought I had on the subject of problems is that some of the puzzles you uncover are either unclear in what they want you to do, or are difficult to devise. I didn't have many problems with them for the most part, but some of them seemed to require some very non-linear thought to be solved, and I actually had to wait for the hint to appear before I could get through (an optional hint can be given after a certain amount of time has been spent on a puzzle). This isn't really a problem with the game, I guess, but for some people who aren't very good at deciphering numerical puzzles, it could prove frustrating.
In any case, none of these things detracted from the experience much for me. The level of polish applied to AC2, especially compared to AC1, really shows in this respect.
On the whole, I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed 2. It continued the story from the first game in a smart and provocative way, it fixed many of the problems from the first game, and it did so without being tedious, and without running out of gas. There are lots of things to do in AC2, and if the story line for the series interests you, I definitely recommend giving this game a shot (and the first game before that, if you haven't played it already). I'm really looking forward to Assassin's Creed 3, which I hear is due out in about 2 years. That's alright though, because I'll probably need a while to collect all those feathers (think flags from AC1).
I haven't been able to update the blog as much as I'd like over the last few weeks, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about things to write about. Instead of letting all of my random thoughts go to waste, I thought I'd present them here as a collection. If you're just looking for a few moments of entertainment, you like reading the musings of the slightly insane, or you're looking for something to spark your pent-up rage, the following list is probably for you!
Never Too Zune
Each time I plug my iPod (5th generation) into my computer and it freezes up, I secretly hope that it won't come back on, so I have an excuse to buy a Zune HD. From everything I've seen online, these things look pretty nice, and I'd like to try something different than iPod for a while. I have absolutely no interest in the iPod Touch or an iPhone; the 32gb Touch is $110 more than the 32gb Zune HD and being tethered to AT&T again just makes me feel sick.
But I digress; the Zune HD looks slick in its own right. Wireless streaming capabilities and built-in HD radio are great, and I also like the idea of being able to output HD video and, of course, web browsing. If Microsoft opens up the Zune to user-created applications, it will become an even great alternative to the iPod. They seem to be making an effort to get developers to consider their other mobile devices, so I don't think this is too far-fetched. So far, however, they've been pretty tight-lipped about it.
Marvel Comics Feeling a Little Disney
Though I am not a huge comic book buff, I still felt as though I could almost hear the collective groan of fans as Disney scooped up Marvel Comics for a cool $4 billion early this week. Though both companies are distinctly American, and I am sure DIsney will handle Marvel with care, I still feel like Disney is starting to (or maybe already has) hit that critical mass where a company gets so big, with a reach so broad, that it ends up losing focus on all fronts.
There are plenty of companies out there who handle the multiple prongs of modern media quite well, but Disney has already been in danger of losing its grip on things in the past, and with yet another large addition to their stable of interests, I can't help but wonder what the future will be like for both Disney and Marvel.
Will Disney change how Marvel presents its franchises?
Will we see Marvel characters integrated with Disney's other mainstays, in titles like the Kingdom Hearts games?
Will we see another feud in Disney's management as these things happen?
Who knows? It could be interesting to watch, but it'll be a shame if either brand is hurt because of this.
All-Out Fallout
When I got sick a couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days laying around my apartment, relaxing and recovering. My girlfriend had some things to do up at her mom's house, and didn't want to risk getting sick, so I was all by myself for much of that time. Instead of doing anything productive, I used the time to get re-acquainted with my Xbox; I decided that there was no better way of doing this than by collecting all the achievements in Fallout 3.
I did all that I could with my existing character (why did Bethesda choose to make one bobblehead impossible to go back and get?), and then made another so I could focus on slightly different talents to pick up a few odd achievements, like the one for 50 speech successes, and also so I could hit the appropriate levels with neutral and bad karma.
I've now gotten every achievement in Fallout 3, as well as in Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt, and have had a lot of fun in the process. I've seen a lot of things that I missed in my first go-round, and have grown to appreciate, for a second time, the vast world of Fallout 3.
Hackintosh is Dead
Though I usually get my fill of OS X at work, a few months ago I got OS X up and running on some old PC hardware I had laying around at home. I was mostly interested in trying my hand at iPhone App development, so I downloaded the iPhone SDK and got everything up and running without many problems. I didn't use the old rig often however, and I let it sit around for a while before firing it up again last week.
Though I've been told it isn't a good idea, I've used the system update on my Hackintosh before, and everything's turned out fine. When I booted up to find a 300+ mb system update waiting for me, I thought nothing of it as I proceeded with the download and installation. Unfortunately, the update broke my installation, and for some reason I haven't been able to re-install it since. Either something has changed on my box (something which sticks around after multiple hard drive re-partitions?) or I simply can't remember the settings I used to install OS X the first time. It's a drag, but frankly I haven't had time to learn to code iPhone Apps anyway. I'll probably dig into this a little deeper one of these weekends when I've got nothing better to do.
Can't Take the Heat
Recently, I was playing some World of Warcraft on my desktop computer, wrapping up a dungeon with a group of others, when the image on the screen stuttered, a strange dot pattern appeared around my cursor and the UI elements, and then the computer locked up. After a quick restart, and about a minute of play, the same thing happened. In a hurry to get back into the game (and in an effort not to be the reason for the deaths of my entire group), I threw open my laptop and loaded the game up there. In-game disaster was narrowly averted, but it left me worried about my desktop machine.
In my experience, most graphical glitches of this kind are attributed to overheating hardware – the bane of all computer gamers.
So earlier today, I opened up my desktop computer and dusted it out. Then I turned it on and started World of Warcraft again, and let it sit. About 10 minutes later, I came back into the room to find the screen flickering and the computer frozen. Not good.
I guess this is a good excuse to get a new GPU, something I've been wanting to do for a while anyway, but my existing motherboard doesn't have a PCI-Express 2.0 slot on it, so I'm back to the same conundrum as before I assembled my current desktop - upgrading one part means upgrading two or three others as well. And since these are all the most expensive parts (GPU, CPU, motherboard), I might as well just splurge a few extra hundred bucks and update the rest of the hardware. But if my apartment is getting too hot (it's hot here lately, but not that hot), I'm not too keen on buying and subsequently ruining more computer hardware either. It's a problem, I guess.
That's All For Now
Anyway, I think that's enough of this rambling for now. I've been a bit of a scatterbrain lately, and now the madness shall spread!
I found myself in the local Target today, perusing the games section of the electronics department. Game releases have all but dried up over the last few months, but I always like to check in now and then, just to see if anything new came out that slipped under my radar, or to see if anything I'd been marginally interested in had been marked down.
Surprisingly enough, I found a single copy of Dead Space, which I'd wanted to try, marked down to $30 for clearance, so I decided to give it a go. I took it up to the register, and waited a few minutes for one of the clerks to notice me standing there.
Eventually one of the workers wandered over and took care of my purchase, and then I met my girlfriend up front and we continued to checkout for her stuff. We drove home, and upon arriving at our apartment, I forgot all about Dead Space and fired up some retro e instead; Wind Waker is turning out to be a great little game for me, but that is another blog post, I think.
An hour or so later, I finally remembered Dead Space, so I picked up the Target-emblazoned plastic bag it was in and brought it into our spare room. I noticed the bag was a bit heavier than a typical Xbox 360 game, so I opened up the bag and peered in, thinking there might be something else I'd bought that had completely slipped my mind. But no, there was nothing else inside the bag except for the game. Unless, of course, you count the plastic security box the game is still inside.
Yes, my new copy of Dead Space is still completely secured thanks to the Alpha Security box that houses it.
I find it odd that the alarm system in the store didn't buzz when I exited the store, because the plastic security case includes a re-usable security device that, to my knowledge, is not supposed to be disabled by the in-counter disabling device used by the clerk.
I am also disappointed that the clerk didn't take the thing off in the first place; I specifically paid for the game in the electronics department because I thought they'd be more mindful of those kinds of things.
So now I'm sitting here, staring at my brand-new copy of Dead Space, and wondering just how I'm going to get the case open without completely destroying its contents. Should I take it back and have them open it up for me? That seems like such a hassle... not to mention a great opportunity to test my own ingenuity. Okay, so it's not exactly a job for a professional safe cracker, but it should provide me with at least 15 minutes of fun. That's more fun than I've had with some of the games I've bought in the past, and this is before I've even opened the game's case!
Update: Case Open, Case Closed
The case has been cracked, as they say, and I now have my Dead Space, with only minor damages to the game's case. At first, I thought the best approach would be to hammer off the hinges. After sever futile attempts to break them off (and the minor damage to the game's case), I took the opposite approach and wedged a screwdriver into the lock casing on the other end of the box, pushed it inside and yanked it around to destroy the lock and allow the case to open. I think next time I mihgt just bring the game back to the store!
Pictured above is the demolished security case, my new copy of Dead Space, and the tools of war.
Have you ever suffered from the so-called Tetris Effect?
If you've ever played Tetris for a prolonged amount of time, I bet you have. Don't worry, it's okay to admit it – you're in good company, as I am also a Tetris Effect survivor.
I actually found it quite funny that there's a name and an entry for the Tetris Effect (which is attributed to repetitive stress, whatever that is) on Wikipedia. I always thought it was just me who, after a long Tetris session, couldn't stop seeing the falling pieces and thinking about how to make good fits whenever I closed my eyes!
Anyway, I was recently going through some old stuff of mine up at my parents' house, and I came across an old watch I used to have as a kid – a Tetris game watch, to be more specific. It got me thinking about how much I love Tetris, so I thought it'd be interesting to reminisce a bit and figure out just how many different versions of Tetris I've played/acquired over the years. All in chronological order!
Tetris (NES)
One of the first games I ever played, Tetris on the NES served to kick off my life-long love for the game. I remember playing the game with my brother and dad, with each of us trying to out-do each other's high score. Much excitement occurred whenever one of us finished and we were treated to one of the rocket launch "congratulations" screens.
Tetris (watch)
This was the watch I mentioned above. The playing field was smaller than standard, there was no color, and the buttons were hard to press fast enough for later levels, but this was still a fun toy to have for long road trips. My grandparents got one of these for both my brother and I, if I remember correctly.
Tetris (Game Boy)
I was late to arrive to the Game Boy scene (my first Game Boy was a clearance Game Boy Pocket), so I didn't play Tetris on a true handheld until much later than most fans of the game. I enjoyed this version nonetheless, as it introduced me to one of the best things ever: Game Boy during bathroom breaks.
Tetris Worlds (GBA)
When I picked up Tetris Worlds for a measly $20, I figured that even if the game was slightly bad, as long as it stuck to the roots of Tetris, it couldn't be that bad. It turned out I was half right – the game wasn't all bad, but it lacked a lot of things that I expected from a Tetris title, and it introduced "Easy Spin," which let you keep a piece alive as long as you continued to rotate it where it landed. This feature doesn't break Tetris entirely for me, but in Tetris Worlds, it was implemented in such a way that made it almost impossible to lose.
Tetris (iPod)
Upon hearing about Tetris making an appearance on my 5th generation iPod, I was excited, but controlling Tetris with a click wheel sounded incredibly difficult and stupid. Well guess what? It is.
Tetris DS (Nintendo DS)
This is probably my favorite version of Tetris thus far. It's got many different play modes, local and online multiplayer, global ranks, it saves your high scores, and it contains loads of sweet Nintendo-oriented stuff – all wrapped up to go as a DS cart. The one thing I don't like hate about Tetris DS is that the only people who play online seem to be grand masters at Tetris, so despite my being a pretty fast/decent player, playing online (and winning) is more often than not a slightly frustrating experience, unless I'm playing with friends.
Tetris (Cell Phone)
Chalk this one up to an impulse buy. Thanks to the tiny buttons on my LG Chocolate 2, it's only slightly more controllable than the iPod version I mentioned above, but it is handy to have when I'm out and about, and bored. I haven't played this much since I got Pictocross Mobile, however.
Tetris Splash (Xbox 360)
Though one could probably make the argument that Tetris Splash doesn't really push the envelope as far as new features is concerned, it's still a solid game, and I've had a few good hours with it. The fish/aquarium stuff is utterly useless, other than to provide a pretty backdrop for the main game, but with decent multiplayer and a few good single player modes, Tetris Splash isn't all bad. And hey, getting Xbox Achievements for playing one of my favorite games of all time doesn't hurt either.
Looking back on my list, I think my obsession with Tetris might go beyond the Tetris Effect, huh? To hell with mental illness! It's a fun game, and I'm going to continue playing it in every way possible!
I'm finally back from my Thanksgiving holiday at my parents' house, and I can hardly believe it's already December! Where has this year gone?
Anyway, I had a couple of things I wanted to post today.
A recent episode of The Simpsons took Apple down a peg, as Springfield mall got its first "Mapple" store. It was quite enjoyable. Of course, all the YouTube links are gone now, so you'll have to find the episode yourself.
The next thing I wanted to post, also a video, is a new trailer released yesterday for the Black Mesa mod - a Half-Life 2 mod that is looking to recreate the original Half-Life with the Source engine, but with more content, higher resolution textures and models, and environments that take better advantage of the engine than Valve's original port of the game. Normally I don't get too excited over Source engine mods, since they rarely make good on their promises, or even get finished for that matter, but the amount of polish that has gone into this trailer makes me hope otherwise for Black Mesa. You can view the trailer below and find out more about the mod at the official site.
I played through a huge chunk of Half-Life 2 this holiday weekend, so I guess I'm a little bit excited about Half-Life in general again.
I'm glad to see that people found my recent set of examples interesting too, and I hope to get a fixed GM6 version of the 3D Rain example up sometime tonight. Sorry about the slow rain example, I'll play with it and see if I can get something up that's a little easier on the older machines soon as well!
That's all for now - thanks for reading, and I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving (or just a good weekend if you're not from the U.S.)!
Update: I've made a new GM6 file that should run better than the previous rain example, and which should load correctly in GM6. The area that the rain covers is a bit smaller than the original example, and the rain is a bit more sparse, but you should get the idea.
You can download the new example at the link above!
Before hopping into my car and heading off to work this morning, I powered up my Xbox to chance a brief encounter with the New Xbox Experience, a brand new dashboard for the three-year-old console. Based on my short time with it, my only complaint is that I wish I had gotten up earlier this morning. Well, that and I wish I had a bigger hard drive on my Xbox.
Updating to the new dashboard was easy and much faster than I thought it would be. Upon booting up, my console showed me the normal update blade informing me that I a system update was available, and that I had to install it in order to continue using Xbox Live. I accepted, the download took only a few seconds, and the Xbox restarted.
When the power came back on, a new update screen awaited, this time telling me that the NXE was downloading, and giving me the option to cancel the update (which I was relieved to see, because at this point, I still wasn't sure if I'd have time to check it out before leaving for work). The progress bar began moving, and the onscreen text changed to reflect this - 5 minutes remaining.
I was quite surprised at this. Not only did I expect the update to be quite large and subsequently take 10-20 minutes to download, but I also assumed the Xbox Live network might be bogged down by all the traffic. Not so. Not at six in the morning, anyway. I hear the Xbox Live Marketplace is having trouble today, however.
I ducked into the bathroom and did my usual morning grooming, and returned with only 2 minutes left for the download. I watched the progress tick by. When the NXE was finished, I was treated to a neat intro video featuring the familiar Xbox 360 sphere taking different forms, flying around all sorts of games and media, and finally coming to rest in the corner of the screen where it resides in the new dashboard. I wasn't able to hear any of this unfortunately, since I didn't want to wake up my girlfriend, but I can say that the visuals were neat.
Once the video was over, the NXE prompted me to select a profile, and then to create an avatar for it. A selection of random avatars rushed onto the screen, and I was given the option to use one as a base for my own or to usher in a new group. I randomized the group a few times, found one that looked like a good place to start, and began crafting my virtual Xbox self (pictured above).
The avatar editor is easy to use, loads everything relatively fast, and was quick and responsive. I fiddled around with it for a few minutes, leaving a lot to check out later today when I have more time to play with it. My avatar actually looks kind of like me, but only when you see him from an angle, since he's got a pony tail.
I spent the remainder of my time buzzing through the menus just looking at stuff - which was quite confusing. It's probably going to take me a while to get used to the new menu hierarchy, but the system seems so much more responsive now, especially in the guide, I think I'll manage with that just fine.
As I mentioned above, the only thing I really feel like I need to do now is pick up a larger hard drive. The 20gb hard drive that came with the system has served me well, but with the new NXE option to install games, I'd like a little more space than what I have now. I can't see myself installing every game I own, but newer/frequently played games wouldn't hurt.
Aside from that minor gripe however, the NXE is looking to be a great improvement over the blades of old, and I'll be using it and writing about it more soon. Thanks for reading, and hopefully your Xbox update is as enjoyable as mine was, however brief it might be.
I logged in and updated my games list to represent my recent game-buying spree. I added the following games:
Audiosurf (only $2.49 this week on Steam, thanks for the heads up, Xot!)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Commander Keen Complete Pack
Fable 2
Gears of War 2
I've still got one or two more I want to pick up, and like I've mentioned before, a couple others I'm putting on my Christmas list, but I'm really starting to get progressively angrier at game publishers for this mess. Seriously - I know everyone wants to have big sales for the holidays, but pace yourselves please! We can't all go out and buy a dozen games in one month, and many great games are going to suffer from poor sales because of this ridiculous overlap.
Penny Arcade summed it up pretty nicely here. It's eerie how similar this comic looks to my Google calendar where I've marked all the upcoming games I'm interested in.
Oh well. That's all for now. I'm feeling a bit under the weather and I need to recover... which means less time spent blogging, and more time spent laying on the couch, complaining to my girlfriend, and of course, playing games. Just gotta make sure I fit some rest in there somewhere!
