Halo 2 Blastacular Map Pack Released

So, Bungie released a couple new Halo 2 maps today. I figure anyone interested in these maps already knows all about them, but it not you can get more info here. Personally, I'm not going to pick up these 2 maps. I don't see a reason. I quit playing Halo 2 over a year ago. I did not even know people were still playing Halo 2. I guess if one has not been able to get an Xbox 360 yet, but they still have their Xbox they might still be playing Halo 2. Other than that I don't see anyone else playing Halo 2. I looked through my friends list (all 97 gamertags) and none of them have played Halo 2 in months. So, Bungie can't be releasing these maps because they expect to make a lot of money of off them. At $4, yes $2 per map, it seems expensive for a game that has been out for almost 2 and a half years. Why are they even still spending time making maps for Halo 2? Shouldn't they be focusing on getting Halo 3 finished? If anyone buys these maps post what you think of them in the comments.

My Full Xbox Live Friends List Dilemma

My Friends list filled up for the second time today. It first filled up about 3 weeks ago. At the time I was annoyed, but I had some guys on there I had not played with in years so I removed them and freed up about 8 spots on my friends list. Today, when I went to add another Rainbow Six: Vegas player I got a message saying it was full again. Now I’m pretty upset. All of the people on my friends lists are either close personal friends, people I play regularly with, or members of a Rainbow Six: Vegas league that I play in. The majority of the people on my list are AGE (Adult Gaming Enthusiasts) members. They are either in the Rainbow Six: Vegas League with me or people I play Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas with during the Weekly AGE Game Nights. Every Tuesday is Gears of War and every Thursday is Rainbow Six: Vegas. So, how do I choose who to delete? I know I’m not the only one with this dilemma because we’ve been discussing it over on the AGE Forums for some time.

Having a full Friends List brings a few problems. First is the obvious, who do I delete to make room for new friends. This is getting harder and harder to decide as I slowly whittle down my list to people who I play with regularly. Any given night I probably have 30 to 40 of my friends playing online. How do I remove guys from my list that I play with on a regular basis?

The second problem is one of organization. It can be hard, especially late at night, to remember exactly which friend has which games and who prefers to play what. As a result I end up inviting people to play Gears of War when they only have Rainbow Six: Vegas, and vise versa. Sure, it is only a minor annoyance, but one that could be easily remedied. There are multiple ways it could be resolved. Allow for Friends to be tagged/categorized and then sorted those tags. Or, add a folder system where I can make folders of “Friends,” “AGE GoW,” and “AGE RS:V.” Then I could put the friends on my list into the corresponding folder and keep track of them easily that way. Either of these simple enhancements would take care of this issue.

The final problem is one of bandwidth. When I have 30 or 40 friends online and I’m trying to go through and invite, or message, those playing a specific game it can take a few seconds for each name to pull up. Multiply this by 30 or 40 and it can take a couple minutes for the list to completely populate. A lot of this delay has to do with the speed of my DSL, but only one speed of DSL is offered where I live. I know that I’m not the only one who has this problem. It seems pretty common for those of us who have a larger friends list and a generic DSL connection.

I know Microsoft keeps stats of what the average number of friends people have on their Friends List. They don’t give the exact number, but it is reportedly less that 20. I can believe that, but using that statistic to determine how best to enhance the Friends List does nothing to help those of us who are most active in Xbox Communities and have larger Friends Lists.

Microsoft, please, find a way to streamline the Friends Lists so that they can have over 100 people and add some organizational tools.

Xbox 360 Carrying Case Dilemma

I'm headed out of town next week and I'm going to have some down time while I'm at the In-laws. So, I was thinking of taking my Xbox 360 with me, but if I'm going to fly with my Xbox 360 I'm going to need a good carrying case for my $400 toy. I started looking around for a decent carrying case and apparently there are really only two Xbox 360 carrying cases available. The first is a messenger bag that looks like it does not have very much padding. This would be ok for taking over to a friends house, but not for running through an airport and taking on a plane. The second is a hard metal case that I can't imagine they will let me take through security. Even if they did, it would not be that fun to have it banging into my shins for the whole flight.

For my origional Xbox I had a nice carrying case that had firm sides. It had a panel on the bottom so you did not even have to take the Xbox out to use it. You just opened the panel and plugged the cables in while it was still in the case.

Why isn't there a Xbox 360 case like this? My guess is that no one can figure out what to do with the 360's Power Brick. I sure hope they figure it out soon because 2 weeks without any video games is going to suck. Especially since Crackdown comes out while I'm traveling.

If anyone knows of any other quality Xbox 360 carrying cases let me know. Thanks.