Xbox360 - The Return!!!

For those of you that know me, you know I had an Xbox 360 when they first came out. I payed quite a bit to get one a few days before the official release, and shortly after sold it. What was suppose to be my friends and myself purchasing 360's and proceeding to pwn the Xbox Live community, ended up being me by myself playing Call of Duty (the original one). With a little prodding however my friend Dennis has convinced me to possibly purchase another 360. I have been looking at some games, Call of Duty 4 (his idea), Frontlines: Fuel of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (again his).

Frontlines caught my attention the most since its more of a large scale combat, up to 50 players total on the Xbox 360. The game also features a unique system of play, whereby the "front line" of the battle is extended as you capture important points. There is also unique weapon aspects, drones, air bombs, etc. that seems like they will put a nice twist on the battles. The bad side is the game seems to be too fast paced, way to "run and gun", not enough tactical shooting.

Call of Duty 4, as opposed to Frontlines, seemed like a pretty nice blend of game play. Perhaps Dennis was right, I am sure he will appreciate the acknowledgment. I think if anything that will be the title I pick up when I do get my 360, if I get my 360. After viewing vids of people playing on Youtube, my biggest enjoyment may come from the remote charges. Lots of vids of people planting them on cars, then creating massive explosions, taking out the car, and everyone nearby.

Time will tell what wins out, or if I even get the 360.

Back!

I know I was MIA for a bit, but I have returned thanks to so much going on and such great gadgets and toys floating around these days. I have been attempting to pursue a hobby, so I have been exposed to some of the better toys, games and gadgets around to find something to do in my spare time. We should have some good stuff coming soon for everyone.

ThePirateBay & Tele2

Tele2, the Swedish ISP previously ordered to cut off its subscribers access to ThePirateBay website, has decided to investigate if they should fight back. While it is obvious they should, it is interesting for them to come to these terms on their own. What people have begun to expect, or at least what I have come to expect, is the power of the IFPI, MPAA, RIAA, etc. brings all to their knees. There seems to be something horribly scary regarding a tons of lawyers supporting some of the richest folks in the world, record execs and artists. Tele2 has decided to meet with other telecommunication companies and discuss the concept of them being used as fences to stop peoples right to free speech.

Attacking ThePirateBay will do no good in the long run when it comes to stopping piracy, they are not the only site on the net hosting this information, which in itself is not pirated content. What compounds the issue, is the fact that attacking the head does not cut off the source, it simply disperses the clients onto the rest of the sites. Instead of having one location to deal with, possibly negotiate with, you are left with 10 sites each with a millions users. Did taking down Napster stop the flood of masses to P2P? Obviously not.

So how long can the lawyers for recording artists go on alienating their clients? As if the person you sue will ever purchase a CD ever again, as if each story of destroying a person financially doesn't drive away a once loyal customer. Everyone says it, so I hate to write it ... perhaps its time music got better, perhaps its time the music industry realized you cannot put an end to the sharing of music, and certainly not to piracy.

Dragging anchor destroys net!

Well maybe not that dramatic, however the story being pitched is a dragging anchor has managed to knock out most of the Middle East. Most recently another, possibly the same?, dragging anchor knocked most of Iran off the internet. This is now the 5th trans-Atlantic cable to be severed. Normally lines are cut through natural disasters, such as the major earthquakes like those that hit the Philippines. So what are the odds that what normally takes an earthquake has accidentally been accomplished by a dragging anchor, and most importantly, why are such important lines not better protected?

It later came to light the lines were not cut by a dragging anchor, so who, or what is knocking the lines out?

Previous Stories:
Third line cut (MarketWatch)
Fourth line severed (ArabianBusiness)
Fifth line down (KhaleejTimes)

O, my lonely PSP

Some time ago I managed to get my PSP modded with a wonderful trick involving Grand Theft Auto. The PSP later died, I dropped it quite a few times out of my jacket pocket, and new PSP was purchased, thanks to my Adrienne. The new PSP was later modded and looking back I realize something, I have only had 3 real games on the device: Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of The Lions, Yu-Gi-Oh: Tag Force 2, and my beloved Soduku. So where are the major titles if you are not a GTA fan? I recently helped a friend get his system modded as well, and since then he has been struggling to even find a title worth the time.

On the horizon, I want to give the new FF title, Crisis Core, a try. There is the strangely addictive Patapon which should be released later this month, and ... I guess that is it. So where are all the titles, with access to both Japanese and US games, I would have thought stumbling onto a worthwhile title would be easy. I tried Patapon, the Japanese release, and could not understand what was going on, not enough to enjoy the game at least, however plenty to make me realize I have to purchase it, if not to make sure they continue to make such crazy, addictive, whacked out titles.
What is Patapon? Well I don't really know. You play as a little thing that looks like an eye with legs, like all cute things, what makes them cool is they are violent, its a war title. The little eyes battle giant T-Rex's, storm fortresses and practice the Voodoo arts, now how cool is that? To make it more interesting you issue commands to your side scrolling minions by hitting one of the 4 buttons on the PSP, each representing a sound, Pata - Pon - Chaka - Don. The patterns, like war drums, tell the little eye monsters how to attack and what to do. O so very addictive; my marauding, Voodoo ritual casting, tribal warfare waging, tiny eyes will rule the lands!

So what is on my PSP right now anyway? Tom Clancy's Op Center: Balance of War. Yes a book! A great coder released an application called Bookr that allows you to read e-books on the PSP. Since I grabbed some Clancy titles, I haven't even loaded Yu-Gi-Oh, seems my thrill of deck building has dwindled while I wait for the next title and more cards.

Armageddon Empires

My monthly Games for Windows magazine arrives, squished as normal into the mailbox, I hate the post office! They had a an interesting few pages dedicated to a game, Armageddon Empires (AE), by the indie studio Cryptic Comet. I checked out the demo, about 64MB total download. The game was interesting, a mix of CCG elements in a turn based strategy war game. At this point I absolutely sucked at the title, lost my first two games, didn't read the manual, but I seen the potential if I could get the game mechanics down, more on that later.

My turn based strategy addiction goes back to Nobunaga's Ambition, a SNES title I would play for hours on end. I always felt there was something more competitive when you have more time to think and plan, like chess, given time, you will see more angles of attack. The CCG addiction comes from my early years in High School and the tons of money I dropped on Magic the Gathering cards, of which I dominated the local crew of players. They may say otherwise, but we all know the truth, right?

The problem so far for me has been cards, I am having trouble finding interesting combinations, which is typically what keeps me interested in CCG games. I have Yu-Gi-Oh titles for my DS, my PSP, and had them for my PC for sometime, MtG games for the desktop and a mountain of physical cards. In MtG I managed to win matches throwing my largest creatures at my opponent, turn a bunch of tiny elves into a behemoth and smash the front lines. AE unfortunately does not offer such creative options, or perhaps I am just not seeing them.

The other point I am a bit irked over is the apparent lack of multiplayer ... you pay for what you get right? I am just confused, I could have sworn, after reading the January edition of Games for Windows, that AE supported multiplayer? Was I mislead or did I just not read well enough. I have posted a screenshot of the first page of what I read through. Tom and Bruce, who are reviewing the game, pick separate teams, they report what happened during their turn, however the turns are never the same, so it seems to alternate as if they were playing each other. Only in the end are you given a glimpse they may not have been playing each other, and that is they both won, with different point scores ... Without fully knowing the game mechanics, should I have known it wasn't possible, perhaps they both mercilessly beat the AI? Perhaps they both accomplished a set goal, just at different points in time?

Truth? In all honesty, I do not have anyone I would have played multiplayer against, however the review that pulled me toward the game in the first place, now seems like it was a tad bit misleading. The section of the article is after all "Tom vs. Bruce: Two gamers enter, One gamer wins" If that does not sound like they are playing each other, I do not know what does.

All in all however the game is great and the company, who obviously didn't write the review should not be faulted for Tom and Bruce not being clear. I have even read on the web that a free expansion should be coming soon to those paid for the game. It is to include 10 new cards, not much there, however they focus on making the independent units in the field, more dangerous, currently they are a bit stagnant, waiting to be pounced on by my marauding Thrall hordes. Just as an extended sell point, the full title is only 70MB, making it very portable to bring to friends, play on laptops, etc.