Category Archives: Xbox

And In Other 360 News…

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With E3 almost here, the news is starting to roll in at a faster pace, of course. Of stuff known so far:

Final Fantasy XIII: Not really a huge surprise that it’ll be on the 360 as well. Even with the 360 doing horribly in Japan, it’s just too big in North America and Europe to be ignored as a source of revenue for major titles, unlike the original Xbox. It’s kind of surreal to think that the 360 is the major console right now and for the near future when it comes to RPGs and the PS3 is rather lacking, when it was the complete opposite in the last generation…

Rock Band 2: 84 new songs, most of which are great, backwards compatibility, and a lot more band flexibility? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

New Dashboard, Avatars: Eh, whatever. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the look of the old one, but I guess MS feels like they have to at least try and ride the Wii’s coattails a little bit. I just hope it makes managing all the games and DLC a bit easier, since now you have to deal with lists hundred of entries long.

Installing To The Drive: Loading times haven’t really been a problem for me, but the DVD drive is rather loud and has been a source of glitches in previous units, so this lets us avoid those problems at least. The downside is that I only have a 20GB drive, you can’t provide your own, and MS charges an arm and a leg for the larger sizes.

Demomania

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With the release of a couple high-profile demos, I realized that it’s been a while since I’ve checked out the latest 360 demos and XBLA trials. So, as a quick roundup:

Elements Of Destruction: Fun at first, but it quickly gets a bit old. It feels more like a Flash game than something I’d buy and play regularly.

Happy Tree Friends: Reminiscent of Lemmings, but not nearly as much fun.

Schizoid: It’s definitely a unique game, with its coop-dependent play and interesting presentation, but it’s more of a temporary diversion than something I’d really pay for.

Sealife Safari: More of a toy than a game.

And then for the big ones:
Too Human: It has some silly dialogue, and bad camera control, but the combat is really fun and it has the addictive Diablo-style loot. I didn’t get far enough to see the more advanced combos and skills, but I think I’ve seen enough to convince me to get it.

Tales of Vesperia: It has a mix of the Eternal Sonata art style and Star Ocean combat, and otherwise looks like ye olde generic JRPG. There was no tutorial, so maybe I’m missing something, but the combat was a bit too light on tactics and heavy on the button mashing. I don’t really dislike it, but it would go on my “eh, maybe eventually” list, which with my current RPG backlog essentially means…never.

Working Twice As Hard

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It was time yet again to catch up on some Rock Band tracks, and I picked up the two latest Rush tracks and a couple others I’ve already forgotten (they apparently weren’t that notable). “Closer To The Heart” is pretty good, but “Working Man (Vault Edition)” has been a bit controversial since they’ve already released a cover version of it before. Apparently they found the master tapes since then, and released this slight variant with different solos. It’s kind of annoying that it’s still full price for those of us who already bought the cover version, but oh well. The notecharts seem a bit off during the new solos too, though they might be better on Expert, when more of the ‘missing’ notes are filled in.

And in other news, the previews of Rock Band 2 are pretty satisfying so far, and it looks like it’ll address most of the complaints about RB1.

We Named The Brick Indy

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I was going to play some more Diablo 2 tonight, but after getting two ‘failed to join game’ errors in a row, I figured I’d better not risk it. Unfortunately, that error commonly popped up in the past when dupers and botters had figured out a new hack or way to flood the system…

So, instead I played a bit of the Lego Indiana Jones demo. It plays just like the Lego Star Wars games, as you’d expect, but they did add some new stuff to the formula. You can dig up and carry around items now, as needed for some puzzles, Indy’s whip gets used in different ways, and there are now equipable, temporary weapons that you can pick up. I don’t think I’ll buy it though, having pretty much gotten my fill via the Star Wars games.

Oh Right, That Other Music Game

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I got back to Guitar Hero 3 for the first time in quite a while today, mainly to check out some of the free songs released recently. I Am Murloc is silly, but fun, and the Dropkick Murphys pack isn’t really my kind of music, but was still interesting to play.

I also retried a handful of other built-in and downloaded songs, and improved on my old scores on all of them, so at least I’m getting a bit better. It did drive home just how much harder GH3 is than Rock Band, even on medium, as I didn’t even come close to 100%-ing any of them.

But I Still Have A Negative Number Of Fans

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I spent a bit of time over the last couple days rocking out, or at least an approximation thereof. First, I picked up the Pixies album recently released for Rock Band. A lot of the songs are really short (some are even less than 100 notes, on medium) and not too difficult, but there’s a decent amount of variety to them, at least.

I then finally got to try out co-op mode with a friend, and it worked fairly well, though it’s still disappointing that you can’t do the world tour mode online. Something to hope for in Rock Band 2, I guess.

And this afternoon I spent a while on my HC necromancer in Diablo 2, getting him through the rest of Act 2 and all of Act 3. No real difficulties so far, though I’m going to have to watch out for the Stygian Doll monsters in the nightmare and hell difficulties. Their suicide explosion will be powerful enough then that I’ll run a very real risk of instant death. I should probably start thinking about the bone armour skills before that point…

As If I Didn’t Have Enough To Play Already…

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I figured it was about time to catch up on the latest XBLA games, so I grabbed a handful of demos of those that looked interesting. Aces Of The Galaxy was the first, and it looks pretty good and plays pretty well, but I’m not terribly good at these kinds of rail shooters.

Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1 has a fairly nifty character generator in keeping with the art style, which actually works fairly well in 3D. It’s also good that they didn’t try to use voices for the characters, since that rarely works out well for established characters. The mechanics are rather Paper Mario-ish, except that you have to switch between characters and initiate their attacks in real time, which I found a bit annoying. That aside, it looks to be fairly well-written and funny though, so it might be worth it after all and I’ll probably eventually pick it up.

And finally, Roogoo is cute, but weird. You have to save the home planet of these little creatures by…dropping blocks through discs that you rotate to match up the right block shapes? With various twists thrown in as you progress, of course. Cute, but I don’t think I really have time for it.

The Neighbours Haven’t Started Pounding The Floor Yet

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I also rounded out the night with another catch-up session in Rock Band, where I picked up the recent MTV pack. None of the songs were really all that notable on their own, but they did have a bit of variety to the note charts. They were really short and fairly easy though, and I hit 100% on all three of them.

I also took another stab at GG&HT, improving my score on it by about 15k or so, though there’s still plenty of room for improvement. It’s one of those songs where I have a tendency to break note streaks as I’m trying to activate overdrive, actually making things worse for myself.

I’m Calling My Band “The Hovercrafts”

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Today was also a catch-up-on-Rock-Band day, and I wound up picking up Hier Kommt Alex, and Hysteria (by Muse) from the Euro release, and the full The Cars album. Hier Kommt Alex is pretty much like the GH3 version as far as I remember, and is busy but not too difficult. Hysteria is also pretty good, but a bit tougher. And The Cars album is great overall, with a pretty good variety within the songs’ notecharts, and keeps up a fairly challenging difficulty. I was only able to 100% one of them (My Best Friend’s Girl), even though I’m still at Medium and should be doing better (I would have 100%ed Moving In Stereo as well, but for a couple of GB chords out of nowhere).

How Many Times Have I Bought Kool Thing Now?

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It’s been a while since I last fired up Rock Band, so I checked out the latest new songs via the store previews. A lot of them didn’t really interest me, but in the end I did wind up picking up Kool Thing (Sonic Youth), Zero (Smashing Pumpkins), and Song With A Mission (cover of The Sounds).

Kool Thing seems to be different than I remember from the Guitar Hero version, and a bit harder. There are a lot of spots where it’s really obvious where notes are missing on the lower difficulty charts, making it feel like it doesn’t quite match up, so it’ll probably be better at the higher difficulties. If I ever get there… Song With A Mission is pretty short and easy, but fun. And Zero is also pretty short, but much trickier with rapid shifts all the way across the frets.

There’s already rumours of a Rock Band 2, but if so, they’d better let us use the songs we’ve already downloaded in it. I’m already up to something like 50 or so downloaded songs…