Been Busy

I've been playing some Rock Band 2 the last few days which is why I've not been posting much here. It is a lot of fun and has some great additions to the original Rock Band. I'm also working on the last few achievements in Civilization Revolution.

If I ever put Rock Band 2 down I'll play Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Also, for those of you into Xbox Live Arcade titles I'm running another contest on XBLA Ratings.

More of the same

I'm still playing a lot of Too Human and a little Civ Rev. I'm sure in the next few days I'll get tired of one of them and move on to something else but for now they are both holding my interest.

Don't forget there is a week left in the contest for 1600 Marketplace Points over at XBLA Ratings. So, get your ratings posted this week to increase your odds of winning.

Too Human Recap and Review

I've been playing Too Human for a few weeks now and I'm still really enjoying myself. It is a bit of a grind to get the higher level equipments, but I don't mind because there is always a ton enemies that need killed. I can see why some people find it frustrating because of the camera and slow in-game menus, but I can ignore these because the actual game play is fun. Sure, better camera position (especially indoors) would be nice, but I don't find it as big a deal as some people.

The game is based around combat, lots of combat, and that part is where the game excels. The combat controls are simple, but using them to make huge combos takes a lot of skill and practice. At first I had a lot of trouble with getting combos, but after a couple hours I really started to get the hang of it. Now, 24 hours of game time later, I can get combos over 100 if they send enough enemies my way.

The single player game is fun, but the co-op is even better. The co-op has more enemies and the enemies are more varied, but it also gives you better loot when you kill the enemies. Having finished the main story line ones I play the co-op pretty much all the time now even if I'm playing by myself.

The character creation process is really easy and you have 5 classes to choose from. I wish there was a little more variation in the skills between classes, but they are different enough that you can't play exactly the same with all the classes and still survive. You really do need to focus on that classes strengths.

The achievements are a nice mix of difficulty. Some of them will take 30 or more hours of play time to get while others you can get very quickly. I've got about 40 of the 50 and I'm looking forward to getting the last 10.

If you like dungeon crawler games, and looking for better weapons and armor all the time this is a game for you. Personally I'm loving it and I think a lot of people would if they just give it a chance.

Misc Gaming Today

I played some Big Beach Games on the Wii the last couple days. It is pretty fun. My wife likes the Frisbee Gold and Boccie Ball. I'm liking pretty much all of the games in it. Those two just have the easiest controls which is why she likes them I think.

We also got Wii Fit. I'm pretty happy since my Fit Age is 26 and I turn 30 next month. Still, it has some fun games. I'm more looking forward to what other games get released for the balance board.

I also tried out the Pure demo in Xbox Live Marketplace today. It is the first racing game since Full Auto that I think I can definitely win some races in. I really like the simple arcadey controls and how doing tricks fills up your special/turbo meter. It is nice that you can either pull bigger tricks or use the boost to go faster with the same meter.

Finally, I checked out this weeks Xbox Live Arcade games. Shred Nebula is not my kind of game. I don't like how you control the ship. I just can't get use to it. Pirates vs Ninjas Dodgeball was not that great either. From what I understand the full version has some other game modes that are suppose to be better, but the one int he trial stunk.

Over all a fun day playing so far. I'm headed off to try some more stuff in Wii Fit and probably some Too Human.

Too Human Tips, Tricks, and First Impressions

I started playing Too Human last weekend and while I'm enjoying the Single Player the Co-op is what makes this game so great. The co-op mode with a friend is the most fun I've had playing my 360 in months. And, I've been having fun playing other games. The demo really doesn't do this game justice since there is no co-op in the demo. Playing single player requires you to go slower and take care not to get killed. In co-op you have a lot of options on strategies you can use together to work through enemies faster.

Also, I found while playing co-op there area of of little things about the game that can easily be missed if you don't carefully read the whole manual. Even then there are things that are not explained very well. So, here are a few tips and tricks that I've picked up over the last few days:

- When you're using a ballistic weapon (pistols, rifle, or cannon) you can target missiles/bombs in the air by double-tapping the right stick in any direction. After you shoot down the first inbound missile you can keep shooting and double-tap the right thumb stick again and it will target the next item in the air. So, in later levels, where you can shoot for quite a while without reloading, you can shoot down a lot of missiles in a row without stopping. Unlike targeting enemies on the ground you do not need to stop shooting to switch airborne targets.

- The game does a terrible job explaining how to use/activate Charms. You need to equip the Charm to activate the quest (that is the line that says something like kill 100 enemies) and then you also need to hit x and fill in all of the rune slots on the charm. Once both of these things are done the Charm is activated and the effects will being to happen.

- The Trolls do not stop trying to lean when you are in their back. After you knock off their shoulder armor roll behind them and it will show an 'A' button in the upper right corner. Hit A and then when they lean you lean the opposite way. They will then lean the other way. Push the opposite way again and once they are pretty much standing strait push up on the right stick and smack it in the head to kill them.

- Don't forget to use your battle cries, spiders, and ruiners. I find that depending on the class I'm playing as Itend to use one or two, but not all three. When I would remember to use them all it makes killing the enemies a lot easier.

Civilization Revolution Review

I rented Civilization Revolution from GameFly and I'm completely addicted to it. I've not played a Civ game in years, but I had forgotten how long the matches are. Some of the rounds I've played on the harder difficulties have taken 3 or 4 hours depending on what type of victory I'm going for. The only issue I have with CivRev is that I tend to loose track of time while playing. I guess that is not the games fault, but my own. I'll get to the point where I should save and go do something else, but instead I just keep telling myself "just one more turn."

Since Civilization Revolution is on the console and not the PC they have taken out a lot of the micro-managing from previous games. Personally I like it this way. Makes they game a little less taxing, but in easier difficulty settings you're pretty much going to dominate.

Civilization Revolution has some pretty fun graphics, but the music gets a little tiring. Personally, I tend to ignore it, but if I notice it after a couple hours I turn on the radio.
There is a really fun set of achievements ranging from pretty easy to really difficult. They will take quite a while because you have to win at least once match with each race and for each victory type.

If you;ve not tried the CivRev demo yet I would definitely recommend trying it out, but be warned that you'll loosehours of your live playing.

XBLA Ratings

Well, I've been working on a side project I thought I'd share withe everyone. It is not done yet, but it is getting there.

XBLA Ratings

I found myself frustrated a while back with the lack of Xbox Live Arcade reviews that talk about if the game is fun or not. To me XBLA games are not about the graphics, sound quality, achievements, etc. Yes, those things factor in, but really I just want to know if I spend $5 of $10 on a game if it will be fun. If it worth the cost of a movie ticket or a lunch out? So, since I could not find any sites that rate Arcade titles by how fun they are I figured I'd make one.

Like I said it is not done yet, but it is getting there. Feel free to post a quick rating of your favorite (or least favorite) games and let everyone else know how fun they are.

SoulCalibur IV Review

I've been playing SoulCalibur IV pretty frequently the last week. It is the first fighting game I've playing in years that I find myself enjoying both against the AI and against my friends (who are much better at fighting games than me). The controls are forgiving enough that button mashing can get you though the Story or Arcade mode on Normal. However, with a little time looking through the moves list, and a little practice, you can learn some cool combos and make it through on Hard pretty easily. In addition to the Story and Arcade modes they have a great mode called "Tower of Souls." Each level gets progressively harder as you work your way through it. I'm really enjoying it because it has forced me to learns some combos and vary my fighting style. Plus, you get a nice amount of gold and items as you play through the Tower of Souls.

The items and gold you win in the various game modes are used in the Character Customization. In the Customization section you can either edit current characters or make your own new one. It really helps in the Tower of Souls because you can take your favorite character and then give them better weapons and armor to make the fights easier on yourself. You can also customize your specials to fit your play style, but really the shave damage and autp impact specials are really the best ones. My customized character currently has 195% attack and 155% Hp. It makes fights go really fast as long as I land some strong attacks.

The achievements have a really nice range of difficulty. Most of them can be picked up pretty easily, but some of them require a lot of time and effort. For example, you get an achievemetn for customizing a character but also for completing the entire 60 levels in the Tower of Souls. Sure, I like easy achievements but it is nice to earn some by actually working at them for a while.

For anyone who even sort of likes fighting games I'd recomeng checking out SoulCalibur IV. It is a great fighting game to play with people who don't generally like fighting games because there are so many characters to choose from and the controls are really forgiving.

I Give Up On Supreme Commander

I tried playing it some more, but the crashing at the end of missions finally pissed me off to much. It takes too long to save and load to have to replay part of the level each time you complete a campaign mission. In addition to the freezing/crashing the camera issues have put me over the top. I'm sending it back to GameFly today. It is really to bad because the game was a lot of fun when it worked. If they patch it to fix these issues I'll rent it again, but for now I'm done with it.

SoulCalibur IV First Impressions

I don' play a lot of fighting games because I'm not very good at them, but I did rent SoulCalibur IV. I played a lot of SoulCalibur on the Dreamcast back in the day, and I could not pass up the chance to play Yoda. I had a firend over and we played for a few hours against each other. We tried all the characters you start with, and we both agreed that all the characters we remembered play pretty much like we thought they would. Overall, we had a lot of fun playing each other. I will say it is hard to fight against Yoda because he can't be thrown and high attacks go over his head. After we had played for a while we checked out the option to create a character. I think the create a character option is going to be what makes me love this game because I can create a player that fits my play style perfectly. I spent about 5 minutes just throwing a guy together and I was already dominating with him. With more time I cold have made him even more perfect. I'm planning on playing some more tomorrow and this weekend to see if I can get everyone unlocked and figure out some of the cooler combos/moves. Once I spend more time with it I'll get a better review together.

Supreme Commander First Impressions

I started playing Supreme Commander this weekend. It is a very traditional RTS with a lot of micro-management. I am enjoying it for the most part, but it is quirky about saving. I started playing the campaign and found that the missions are very long. Like between 1 and 2 hours per mission. I don't mind this, but it would be cool if there was an option to speed up time when you're waiting for things to build and then slow it back down when you are ready to attack. The controls work well for a RTS on a console. They give you access to everything without going through a lot of levels of menus.

My big complaint is that the game has a tenancy to freeze/crash when it saves at the end of a mission. It has done that to me twice. I looked around xbox forums and it seems it is pretty common occurrence with this game. I get around it by saving right before I finish a level so that if it does freeze I can just load it back up and try again. It seems to be about a 50/50 shot on if it will freeze or not. It is bordering on making me send the game back to GameFly, but I have not even tried the other races yet and I'd really like to. Additionally the camera has a tendency to stop moving for a few seconds when a lot is going on. Everything continues, but the camera will not move for you. It is like the game can't keep up with everything in has to control so it pauses the camera while it catches up. With hundreds of units/buildings on the map I can see where that would be an issue, but I with they had worked that kind of thing out.

I'm planning to play some more and if I finish the game it will be a while until I get a full review because it is so long. However, if I get mad and send it back I'll get a review up sooner.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review

I finished Guitar Hero: Aerosmith this weekend. I ended it like I started, annoyed. The game only has 42 songs on it including all the unlockable ones. Maybe it was just me but they did not seem to properly progress in difficulty. Some songs in the last couple tiers were very easy, but others were almost impossible for me. It seems like though have spent a little more time on putting the songs in a better order so they progressively getting more challenging.

The songs also feel very different from the Rock Band tracks I'm use to. In Rock Band the harder songs feel like the developers want them to be challenging, but still possible. In Guitar Hero: Aerosmith the harder songs feel like the developers made them trying to make it so you will fail. They do chord combinations that just don't feel natural. They have HO/PO sections that are ridiculously long and hard to complete. I really think they want me smash my guitar in anger so I have to go buy a new one and they make a little more money.

The one good thing about the game is that the achievements are easy for a Guitar Hero game. In past games you had to get all songs with 5 starts on expert to get all the achievements. In Guitar Hero: Aerosmith the hardest cheevoz are for beating Expert and playing a song prefectly on at least Medium.

Unless you are a huge Aerosmith fan and have a lot of spare cash I'd not recommend this game. If you're really wanting to play it then rent it for a weekend. You should be able to get through all the songs in a weekend if you want to. And, since all the Aerosmith songs feel the same when you play them you'll get your fill after getting through the career mode.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith First Impressions

I decided to rent Guitar Hero: Aerosmith since I already have the guitars and I heard the achievements are stackable so I no longer have play on every difficulty setting to get all the achievements. Finally, I can play though on Hard and get the Easy and Medium achievements as well. After loading the game up the first thing I did was to try my Rock Band wired guitar which worked great. I'm really glad because I've seen polls showing that about half of people who tried could not get the Rock band Guitar to work in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and the other half could. Since I like the Rock band guitar a lot better than my Guitar Hero Xplorer I was pretty excited when it worked. I've played about 8 or 10 songs so far and I have mixed feelings about the game. I should preface that by saying that I'm not a real big Aerosmith fan. So far, playing all their songs is getting a bit old because they all feel the same. However, the opening ats songs have been pretty fun to play. Overall though I like Rock Band better. I can't quite put my finger on why, but the songs in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith are just not as fun to play as the ones in Rock Band. I think it is how they structure the note charts, but I'll have to play more of each to see if I can figure it out. After I get through more of the game I'll get a full review together, but that might take a few days since I keep going back to Rock Band.

Iron Man Review

I decided to rent the Iron Man game for Xbox 360 since the movie was so good and the demo was pretty fun. If you tried the demo the game is more of the same. Lots of flying around and blowing up a large number of weapons and enemies. For the first couple levels it is pretty fun to blow stuff up and try different attacks, but after about 3 levels it gets old really fast. It is the same enemies and goals over and over again. Graphically the game looked pretty good and it controlled pretty well once I got use to switching between flying and hovering. Almost all of the achievements can be done playing on easy so I was played it on easy to just go through and try all the levels. I easily finished the whole game in a couple sittings. I really wish there was more I could say but if you play one level you've played them all. If you were thinking of checking out this game just play through the demo 4 or 5 times and you'll get the same experience. Sure, there are fun moments. Tearing apart tanks and grabbing planes out of the sky are fun, but after you've done it 50 or 60 times it looses its appeal. The plot line follows the movie with some levels thrown in the middle to make it a bit longer. I'm really disappointed because playing as Iron Man is fun. I just wish they had more things to do than fly through very similar levels and blow everything up.

Finished Indy

I completed Lego Indiana Jones' story line andt hen went back and got 100% completion in game and all 1000 gamerscore points on it. This is the first game I got all 1000 points from in a while. It was fun to finish all the little parts of the game to get the achievements and 100% completion in the game.

I also made it into the Royal Court in Kings of Babylon last night. That means I'm in the top 20 players in my realm(Purple FTW). It is pretty fun because it unlock some more advanced areas of the game that are pretty useful.

Lego Indiana Jones Review

When I've not been playing Rock Band and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 I've been having a lot of fun with Lego Indiana Jones. If you've played the Lego Star Wars games you'll feel right at home playing as Indy. Sure, there are difference like you get a whip and no force powers, but the game feels really familiar. You're still playing as a lego guy and trying to solve pretty simple puzzles to play through each movie's main story line. I'm about 75% through the game currently, but I'm sure I'll play back through it a few times trying to unlock ever little thing. Some of the best parts of playing these lego games is that they are pretty long, they hide lots of little easter eggs throughout the game, and there are lots of things to unlock and find.

There are a few downfalls to the game. First, the load times are pretty long for a game that has pretty simple graphics. The levels are pretty big, but the load times are still longer than I expect on an Xbox 360 title. Additionally, the game doesn't always stick to the movies story line exactly. It is pretty close, but they take a few liberties. I personally did not mind this but I know a couple guys who are die hard Indy fans who did not like it. Finally, the biggest issue with the game in my opinion is that lack of co-op support over Xbox Live. The co-op on the same screen is pretty good although the camera could use some work at some points. I really don't understand the decision to not support co-op over Live when even simple XBLA titles have that kind of support.

Still, I'd recommend Lego Indiana Jones to anyone looking to play a game to just have some fun or to play with their kids. It is a lot of fun to play as Indy and play through the first 3 movies.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Review

I rented Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and have been playing for the last week when I get a chance. At first I found the speed of the game hard to get to use to but it is starting to grow on me. Since it a Quake game you move fast and as your character levels up you move even faster. The leveling is match specific so, unlike Call of Duty 4 where I came to the party late and was getting destroyed by people with guns I had not unlocked, each match starts off with a level playing field. While there is a single player campaign it is really the same as the multiplayer, but with everyone besides you being bots. The gameplay is all objective based, first person shooter, with 5 classes of characters to choose from. Each class has different strengths and special equipment. There is the standard soldier who shoots and blows stuff up. The medic who can go heal and revive people. The engineer that can put up automated turrets and mines. Field ops who can call in artillery and guided rockets. And finally, the covert ops that can disguise themselves as the enemy and sneak behind the enemy lines. Each class still has decent weapons to use for general attacking purposes but it is the unique equipment that sets them apart.

The game play style is similar to Frontlines: Fuel of War and Battlefield: Bad Company where your team tries to either defend or capture/destroy an objective. Once that objective is taken or destroyed then you move on to the next one. It leads to some great rock-paper-scissors battle strategies. For example, when attacking a point to destroy an objective I can take a tank in and try and blow the whole place to smithereens. The defending team then can use an engineer to counter this by setting up anti-vehicle turrets. In return the attacking team's field ops players can use an artillery strike to take out the turret. Or an EMP grenade can be used to disable it for 30 seconds. Or a covert ops can just sneak past them and try to destroy it from behind. As you can see pretty much every attack has a counter. In larger 8v8 rooms it makes things really fun and interesting.

The problem I had was that there is no way to see all available rooms to join. Instead you search for what game type you want (or leave it set to any) and it throws you in one. I found this frustrating because it seldom put me in a mostly full room. There is an option to fill the spots in a room with bots, but the bots on medium are pretty easy to kill and on hard they get headshots on you a lot. When I did find a room of 12 or 14 people it was fun; as most of the time as we were all trying to learn the ins and outs of that maps objectives and the nuances of each class.

I'll probably keep Enemy Territory: Quake Wars rented for a few more weeks and play some more matches to see if I can get a good feel for it but if there are not more people hosting large rooms in a week or two I'll send it back to gamefly and try something else. Still, if anyone else is playing it and hosting a large party or room feel free to send me an invite.

Turok Review

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I rented Turok last week and played through the campaign. I was going to check out the multiplayer as well, but i was never able to find a room with more than 3 other people in it . After a couple rounds of 2v2 I gave up on the multiplayer. I'm glad that I rented Turok for a couple reasons. First, if I had bought it I would be mad about the waste of my $60. It is not that the game is really bad, but it is not good enough to be worth buying. The game goes between some indoor and outdoor settings. The outdoor settings are all graphically very nice and tend do be fun because there are dinosaurs to lure into attacking your enemies. Apparently, dinos are like monkeys and chaise shiny objects like flares. It did not seem very probably, but it did not stop me from firing flares at my enemies so the dinos would attack them. The indoor areas all seemed to be very poorly lit and generally consisted of walking through tunnels/hallways killing everything until you reach the end.


The other reason I'm glad I rented it is because they put some really fun weapons into the game. The story line is very linear and when it is not extremely frustrating it is a lot of fun. There are points that drove me crazy because I would be forced to try them over and over. Most of these were in the middle of the game before I got the really powerful weapons, but after the stronger opponents start appearing. The flamethrower and rocket launcher were both well done and fun to use. Also, the bow and arrows were pretty fun to use once I got the hang of them.

The one weapon I found really annoying was the knife. When you approach any enemy who is not a main boss, with the knife, a right trigger indicator will pop up when they are in range letting you know you can get them with a one hit kill. I killed pretty much every dinosaur with the knife because it was easier and faster than using a gun. Very Unrealistic. Also, the knife was annoying at the parts where the developers want you to sneak through levels and get silent kills with it, but there is no cover system so the only way to hide is to crouch in tall grass or behind cover. But when you do this you cannot see anything. Then, when you stand up to look around the enemies see you anyway. I don't mind games that require you to use stealth, but when stealth is required there should be a way to achieve that action without getting spotted easily. Such as a solid cover system or active camouflage. My final annoyance with the knife occurs when you get attacked by a larger dino. If you get knocked down you then have to follow the on screen cues to use your knife to fight the dino off. Mostly this consists of hitting the tirggers repeatedly or wiggling the left thumb stick. These were always frustrating to me because it I am holding a gun when I get knocked down why don't I just shoot it instead of pulling out my knife to do some a random button pressing.

This leads to my other big frustration with the game. The final boss fight. After chasing down this guy for the whole game who is suppose to be this really great soldier instead of getting to fight him the final battle is a choreographed cut scene where you have to hit the button that comes up on screen to keep the fight going. Other than when you get knocked down by dinos this was the only time in the game like this. I found it really poorly done. I don't understand why you would end the game with a choreographed fight after letting every other fight occur naturally. It was lame.

Overall the game was alright. The graphics were good for the most part. The enemy and dino AI was fun to work with, and the sound was really well done. The voice acting was cheesy, but the sounds of where dinos/enemies were approaching from were really well done. My surround sound saved me from getting hit from behind multiple times. Most of the achievements are for multiplayer, but there are some decent ones in the campaign to get. So, if you were thinking of getting Turok I'd recommend renting it instead because it is not worth buying, but it is worth playing through once.

Universe at War: Earth Assault Review

I finally finished Universe at War: Earth Assault this weekend. The single player campaign was a lot longer than I anticipated, but it was a lot of fun. The game's graphics, especially during cut-scenes, are not that great, but they are not terrible. Since this is a real time strategy game the graphics don't have to be spectacular. They just need to make it easy to see which units are doing what, and that it does just fine. The sound gets a little irritating at times because you're units respond whenever you highlight them and they pretty much say the same thing every other time. This would not be such a big deal except the AI is iffy and aggressive at times, and needs your attention to not wonder off and attack passing troops. So, every few minutes you need to call them back if you don't want them half way across the amp chasing some enemy who moves faster than they do. These little things aside the game is a lot of fun. They really nailed the controls for playing an RTS with an Xbox 360 controller. Everything can be accessed quickly using the triggers and bumpers without highlighting specific units or buildings. This makes it nice because you can watch a fight and build more troops at the same time. Additionally, they let you move around the mini-map very quickly which makes it easy to jump between fights.

The campaign lets you play as each of the three races for quite a while to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. First, you play as Novus which is an all robotic race whose sole purpose is to protect planets from the Hierarchy. The move very quickly and while their individual attacks are not very strong, but when you get a lot of them together they are very effective. The Novus are the most traditional type of unit from the other RTS games I play where you build a base and then start training troops.

After Novus you get to play as the Hierarchy. Instead of the traditional base building the Hierarchy build giant walkers. They do have a few building they can make, but mostly you make walkers who generate troops. The walkers are essentially walking and attacking bases. There are different types of walkers who have different strengths, but all of them you can build weapons and upgrades onto. I found the Hierarchy to be a lot of fun to play as because they were so different. It was a blast to get a couple walkers built and leveled up and then walk them into an enemy base and just start leveling the place with their powerful weapons. Actually the most fun might have been the Science Walker because you can upgrade it to have mind control. Once you have that it will take over the enemy troops and make them attack each other.

The Masari are the final race. They are more traditional with building regular bases and then troops, but they can switch between light and dark modes. In each mode their units have different attacks and specials. While you can win with them by staying completely in light or dark mode it is by effectively switching between modes that they can be truly devastating. For example their planes can only fly in light mode, but in dark mode they become artillery units that have very powerful attacks. So, you can fly them quickly behind enemy lines in light mode and then switch to dark mode and pound on their base from behind in dark mode.

The achievements are mostly for multiplayer but there are a few for playing through the campaign. Plan on spending a lot of time playing multiplayer if you want to get all these achievements.

If you're a fan of RTS games I'd recommend giving Universe at War: Earth Assault a try. The controls work well for a console the three distinctly different races make for a lot of great strategies to try out.

The Bourne Conspiracy Demo Impressions

I finally got around to trying The Bourne Conspiracy demo last night. It was an utter disappointment. I'm a big fan of all three of the Bourne movies and I had high hopes for the game. I probably should have thought that through and I would have had more realistic expectations. The graphics for the game look pretty good and the sound is not bad, but the controls and the camera kill this one for me. There are three different types of levels: shooting, driving, and melee, and the demo has one of each. The driving level was actually pretty easy. It consisted of driving around until you can ditch the police following you and then drive through a tunnel to escape. However, if you drive down one of the smaller alleyways you pretty much loose all the police right away. As you approach the tunnel a button press sequence comes up that basically lets you control a cut scene as you finish the escape. This part is pretty easy as long as you're ready for it. If you're not paying attention then you can easily miss the first button causing you to have to replay from the last checkpoint.

The melee sections I found extremely frustrating because you can't control the camera and attack at the same time. So, once you finish one guy off then you may have a guy behind you that you can't see who will hit you in the back as you try to turn and find him. The fighting is pretty lame too. You have a quick hit, a heavy hit, and a block button. I don't think I ever blocked. I just went back and forth between the quick and hard hits until my adrenaline meter filled up and then I used the "take down" button to finish the guy off without any skill involved. It was a real waste. I'm not looking for all the fighting options something like Soul Caliber has, but at least 3 or 4 different attack buttons would be more realistic to a guy who is suppose to be a walking weapon.

The shooting level was even worse. When you're shooting you move slower and it is harder to aim precisely. The weapons feel really weak and take a lot of shots to kill a guy even if you're hitting them in the head. There is a cover system while you have a gun out, but it works really poorly. I pretty much never used it and would just stand behind the cover when I really needed it. Plus, they want you to take people out by blowing up barrels and card that they are hiding near. That is fun and all, but when every hiding place has an explosive barrel next to it I find it very unrealistic. For a game that is suppose to make you feel like you're in a movie the shooting sections did the opposite. I don't remember Bourne shooting barrels all over an airport to take people out. I'd think he would sneak around behind people and take the out quick and quiet.

I had been planning on playing The Bourne Conspiracy once it releases, but now I will most definitely not.

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 Title Update

When RS:V2 released there were a couple issues with achievements not unlocking properly. It is not the first game to have that issue. Most of the time issues like this are corrected in an update after 3 or maybe even 4 months. Ubisoft surprised me yesterday with an update to RS:V2 update that addresses these issues and a few others. I'm not surprised that they fixed the issues, but I'm really impressed with how quickly they got these items fixed. Here is the full breakdown of what all was updated.

>>> IMPROVEMENTS <<<

Weapon Switch
Swapping to & from Pistols are now faster in Multiplayer.

Sound Loops
Optimized sound bank to improve weapon firing and helicopter sound clips that loop over and over.

Pings
Servers now update their pings more often so that players have a more accurate value of server performance.

Team Leader Respawn Modification
Spawn Shield is shorter when respawning with the Leader.

XP Modifiers
When there are more people on a team than the other, there is an overall XP modifier applied to all XP gained during the game.

Outfitting
By pressing the start button, players now have access to the outfitting menu in observer mode.

Team Deathmatch Respawn Modification
Respawning in Team Deathmatch now work like regular Deathmatch (random points throughout the map) which intensifies gameplay and minimizes spawn camping/trapping.

Faster Respawns
Faster respawns for Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. You no longer have to wait a full 10 seconds!

Custom Search
Players who enter a room using custom search then exit will be brought back to an automatic search with the same criteria.


>>> FIXES <<<

Rank Reset Glitch
Fixed. Players will be able to use their Xbox guide during the game loading without risk of losing their rank.

Private First Class - Achievement
If you are ranked Private First Class or above, you will automatically get the achievement after the title update is complete and you load your gamer profile.

Freedom Shall Prevail - Achievement
If you’ve passed all checkpoints on Story Mode on Realistic and finished the game, you will automatically get the achievement after the title update is complete and you load your gamer profile.

That Wasn’t So Hard - Ribbon
Your ribbon now unlocks when you get the achievement.

Light Machinegun Sound Glitch
When firing continuously with any light machinegun, the sound of the weapon will no longer get cut off.

Civilians & Hostages on Tactical Map
No longer are displayed as terrorists.

Shield Teleport Glitch
Players can no longer teleport when trying to take cover with a shield

Out of Map Glitch
Players can no longer cover-peek into each other to raise a team mate above their heads that allows them to walk into areas outside the designated map.

Friend Invite in Ranked Matches
Inviting friends in Ranked Matches now work correctly.

Custom Face
Previously, Custom faces were sometimes copied over to another player’s face. This is no longer the case. Custom faces will display the proper faces.

Radar Jammer
Radar Jammer now work for clients, not just hosts.

XP Farming
That one famous area in ACT 1 “Ambush” will no longer allow XP Farming.

Observer Mode
Players will no longer be stuck in the respawn screen at 0 seconds while in observer mode.

Weapon Restriction
The weapon restriction configuration is no longer kept in Terrorist Hunt, Story and Co-op Story.

Custom Camo 3 Save
The colour and pattern of Custom Camo 3 now saves correctly.

Lost Cities Impressions

I also checked out Lost Cities today on Xbox Live Arcade. I generally don't play a lot of board and card games on XBLA. It is not that I don't like them, but there are just other types of games I prefer more. Lost Cities is pretty fun - not great, but still fun if you like this type of game.

The game is a strategy card game basically that is played with two people. You have to play your cards in a strategy that gets you more points than your opponents. There is an element of chance that effects the outcome because you draw cards from a random deck. So, if you partner just gets much better cards and has an ok strategy he could probably beat you even if you have a great strategy but get lousy cards. Fortunately the cards are randomly drawn so you'll most likely get pretty even cards. Then it is up to you to have a better strategy.

I played the trial a few times and was beating the AI pretty badly. It was actually kind of boring after about the second time. I think this game would be more fun in the multiplayer mode when you're playing against a friend and shooting the breeze.

Rock and Bullwinkle Impressions

I decided to check out Rock and Bullwinkle on Xbox Live Arcade today. What a waste of time. This game is garbage. It is designed to be a party game with a Rock and Bullwinkle theme. Basically you have a lot of little games all in a row, but the games are so ridiculously short and easy that it was annoying. Most of the mini-games you play using just a single button or thumb stick. I'd guess that somewhere around half of the mini-games that I tried I literally pushed one button and either won or lost. Most without even knowing what I just did. Going into it I did not know that it was a bunch of mini-games I thought it would be like playing through some episodes of the story in and adventure game mode. If you're looking for a party game try Rock Band or Scene It. Leave this piece of garbage alone.

Iron Man Demo Impressions

It has been a while since there was a demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace that I really cared to try. Normally games based on movies are not ones I'd bother checking out, but I'm a fan of the Iron Man comics and the new movie looks pretty good so I gave the demo a shot. Maybe it was intended to be that way sine it is a demo, but it seemed pretty easy to me. Since you pretty much auto lock-on to targets you only miss if you are to far away to get a lock. Still, I had fun flying around shooting stuff and punching things to blow them up.

The one aspect of the game that has me really intrigued is the options to upgrade your suit. The demo only gives you two upgrade options, but it looks like there will be a lot of available upgrades in the full game so you can really customer Iron Man's abilities to the situation. Additionally, you can reroute power to different parts of the suit so that if you want to fly faster or have more fire power for a while you can.

The entire demo pretty much comes down to killing everyone in the area and blowing up some weapons. I'm curious if the whole game is like that or if other levels will have different objectives. Guess I'll have to try and find some game play videos after it release and see.

This one falls into my "I'm renting this to play something that doesn't require thinking much" category, but still it was fun enough to rent at some point.

Again ... More RSV2

I started playing through the campaign of Universe at War: Earth Assault and am enjoying it so far. I'm only a few levels in but they definitely spent a lot of time thinking how a RTS could work with a controller because it handles nicely. Once I've played through more of the game I'll get you all a full review. I thought I would be much further into the game right now, but every time I get ready to play someone invites me to RS:V2 and I play that instead. I can't help it. As much as I want to play Universe at War: Earth Assault I just can't pull myself away from RS:V2. Maybe this weekend all my friends will not be online and I'll get some solid time in with Universe at War: Earth Assault.

Still Playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Yep, I'm playing tons of RS:V2. I made Officer last night. I noticed while playing some Terrorist Hunt last night that now that I've maxed out all 20 levels in the ACES categories the leveling up goes much slower because there are no more experience bonuses. I'll make Elite eventually but for now I'm just happy I made Officer.

Rock Band Drums Best Streak

For the Rock Band - Battle of the Bands I'm currently participating in over at AGERocks.com one of the songs this week was Wanted Dead or Alive. Our band actually got a higher score than the one in the photo above, but the 574 note streak I had was the longest one I can remember getting. I regularly get 250 to 300 note streaks on Medium and Hard, but I don't recall breaking 500 before. For everyone else playing drums on Rock Band what is your best streak

Lost: Via Domus Review

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I decided to play Lost: Via Domus because I'm a fan of the Lost and I thought it might give some cool back story stuff. I'm glad I only rented it because I beat the whole thing in around 4 hours without much effort. It is suppose to be a mystery style game where to try to remember your past and learn about the island but really your just walking through a story with very little mystery solving to do.

I'm pretty disappointed with the game. Besides being ridiculously short there was very little you do in the game besides walk from one area to another and talk to people. There are a few puzzles you have to solve to unlock areas, but mostly they are pretty simple. Additionally, there were only a few things you actually learn about the show. The first is that the shark that was seen during the episode where a few people try to escape the island on the raft turns out to be a mechanical shark. The other thing you find out is that the Swan Station, where Desmond was pushing the button all that time, did have a way to get behind the concrete sealed walls into the area where the electromagnetic fields come from. They show what is back there but I have no idea what it was suppose to be. It was some big metallic thing. They also show to get off the island by boat you have to temporarily disable the device so you can follow a compass setting like they told Michael and Walt to do without it interfering with the compass. Not really that big a deal.

The game leads you up to helping the others capture Jack and letting you off the island so you can prove that you did not kill your girlfriend (you have photos of the event as you;re a photographer). However, when you go to betray Jack Kate does the usual follow along and gets caught so you blow up some dynamite and help them both escape. You then run to the beach and get on the boat before the Others can stop you since you've already deactivate the electromagnetic field. As you get n the boat Locke helps cover your back and escape. He admits he doesn't want to leave the island but your path seems to be to head home. The game then cuts to the final cut scene and you're back on the beach again just like how the game starts, but this time your girlfriend comes running over to help you. What?! First off she was dead. Second, how did you go back in time and gt back to the plane crash again after escaping the island? The ending doesn't answer any of these things. It just ends with her coming over to help you up with the plane crashed in the background. This might be the worst game ending ever. I did not expect to get a lot an answers since Lost never gives any, but why not just end the game with getting on the boat?

If you're a fan of lost and have 4 or 5 hours to waste the game has a few little things you can enjoy about the back story of the show and it has really easy achievements. However, the ending sucks and some of the voice acting is not very good. Overall I'd not recommend playing this game unless you're a die hard Lost fan and a huge achievement whore.

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 Review

I've been playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 almost every day since it came out and I'm having a blast with it. I know a lot of people are calling it Rainbow Six: Vegas 1.5 in the same way that GRAW 2 was called a 1.5. However, I loved Rainbow Six: Vegas so the new additions in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 make it worth the purchase for me. First off, the biggest new addition is the ability to sprint. It took a little for me to get use to, but the sprint option is really nice for running from cover to cover and to get away from grenade throws. Now that I'm getting the hang of using sprint it has really come in handy. There are also about 10 new weapons in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. My favorite has to be the silenced sniper rifle. It is so much fun to snipe guys and not have them be able to figure out where the shot came from.