Unlike MW2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will not block Xbox Live party chat #BFBC2 #XboxLive

Gamespy has and article up on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and how it won’t block Xbox Live Party Chat  like Modern Warfare 2 does.  I know there were a group of people that cheered the move by Infinity Ward as stopping cheating.  Frankly never saw Party Chat cheating as an issue and I love taunting my friends when they are on the other team.  Well I’m glad to see that another game is giving players a different choice.

Intel Larabee silicon won’t be coming

According to this CNET article while Intel has not outright killed Larabee and will be releasing a SKD for Larabee sometime next year, there is no word if or when actual silicon will be released.

Larabee was Intel’s take on creating a GPU with functional units based on a modified x86 core with a vector unit attached for doing graphics and other FPU intensive applications.  On paper the architecture looked interesting, but Intel has had problems with the design and prototypes did not perform up to expectation.

It looks like the traditional more specialized GPUs with processing units that support some more general purpose computing are the winners for now.

I like the updated 1 vs 100 on the #xbox360 on #xboxlive

Played the new 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live last night, was happily supprised at the changes that I saw as I expected it to be more or less exactly the same as last seasons.

The changes that I personally notice were

1. You can now get Achievements and Gamerscore for playing the game.
2. You unlock new avatar dances as you level up based on your score for the season.
3. Improved how the scoring when you answer a question that makes it clearer as how it’s calculated.
4. Addition of Bonus Questions (at least I don’t remember them from last season).
5. Updated it so you have to hold the “Y” button to use one of your saves.  This fixes the issue where you are trying to amp your avatar and it takes the “Y” as a skip.
6. Tweaks to “the set” were your avatar is.
7. New summary at the end of the round.

Some nice improvements to a game that is pretty addictive to people who are into trivia type games.

Been playing Borderlands for #xbox360 on #xboxlive

I have not posted anything lately because I’ve been busy using all my free time playing Borderlands.  I did not buy it immediately when it came out as I was not sure that I would like the game, but after looking at some of the playthroughs and official reviews I decided to do something I don’t often do and that is to buy it at full released price rather than waiting a year for the price to drop in half and buy it then.

I’ve been very satisfied with the game, the actual game play is pretty solid, it could use a little more polish as there are a few glitches with where is saves when you leave the game as it sometime does not seem to remember the last new-u station you go past even when it lights up green.  I’ve also found a couple places where it seems like the wrong sound effects are being used (Crazy Earl’s Best Friend making the claptrap movement sound when it’s a pet Skag).

I’m currently on my second playthrough and although the missions are the same, the challenge is still pretty high as they are leveled up to match.  At the end of the first playthrough the Skags and Spiderants were pretty boring as by that time I was leveled up enough (upper 30s) that they were not challenge and they would pop out of the ground and I would get out of the car and just start killing them with just the phase walk attacks.  With the second play it back to being a challenge fighting them.

Microsoft raises the ban hammer on Memory Units #xbox360 #xboxlive #datel

A few weeks ago I had almost bought a Datel 2GB unit so I could keep copies of my game saves after accidentally deleting them for a game I was playing off the hard drive. 

Finding the official memory units, for me at least is kinda hard.  I live in a small town and the two nearest Wallmarts don't have them, heck they don’t even have places for them with the xbox accessories anymore.  The Gamestop two cities over only had a used 256MB unit for sale that I passed on.  I went to the nearest Best Buy and they did not have the 512MB unit either, but they did have the 2GB Datel unit for $40 on the self and I almost bought it right there, but decided to pass and see online if I could pick it up cheaper someplace else.  I was still mulling it over when the Preview for the Dashboard update hit and shortly there after the announcement of the 3rd party memory units being disables in the new update hit.  I was a both a bit angry over it and relieved that I had not spent $40 on something that was soon to be useless.

I think the reason they are giving to cut down on cheating is only partially true, like many things like this (think DRM on music) it hurts the honest people more. In the end cutting off some memory units will be ineffective as when I was looking for cheaper prices online for the Max Memory unit I found places selling data transfer cables that let you transfer content and saves off the 360 hard drive and official memory units to a PC.  This change at best it will only be a minor inconvience to gamerscore hackers and the like.

I would not mind the 512MB units so much if they were like two for $15 or instead of $40 (well just dropped to $30 fairly recently) and you could actually find them in stores.  But as it stands it’s not a good option for people who want to backup saves and content because of price and capacity.

When retailers like Best Buy are selling 3rd party memory units with far more capacity and the same or lower price as the official ones, a person would be crazy to buy the official ones.  I wonder if Best Buy is still selling the Datel units, if they are they are going to have some pissed off customers in the near future.

As far as the bone heads that say "get a hard drive" well having all your eggs in one basket is not a really good idea, especially with hard drives where is not a question of if, but when it will fail.  I have a hard drive, I want a memory unit so I can keep a backup in case I do something stupid or the hard drive fails.

Talking about hard drives .... 120GB hard drive for $150 is just stupid ... looking at Best Buy (worst buy in my book) a Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB external USB hard drive costs $110!!  The Xbox 360 hard drive is just a standard 2.5" hard drive (like the passport) the only difference is it's designed to plug into the top of the 360 and has slightly different firmware so that the 360 recognizes it as official.

Microsoft if you really want your customers to buy online content, you should be selling the hard drives for something approaching normal market prices.  Sell a 500GB hard drive for $150 and you stand to make shit loads of money as people buy more DLC  without having to worry about space.

Most PC gamers don’t understand Servers #MW2 #PC #infinityward #modernwarefare2

I was on the forums of somebody that runs a server and they were talking to one of their friends on steam and they did not care if Modern Warfare 2 servers were dedicated or not and all that they cared about was "Hey, I don't care if the servers are dedicated or not as long as I can play on your sniper server"

That surprised some people on the forums, but from first hand experience I can state that 99% of all players probably don't understand about servers ... they are just these nebulous things.

The question is how many will notice after release ... here's hoping its a large percentage (on the order of 50%) will not like the change when faced with it first hand and just don't play online or move onto something else quickly.  If that happens IW will be faced with the fact that they went to far and have to rethink their strategy.


The game is going to sell well on the consoles and probably about what they expected on the PC.  But if it has no life on the PC they are not going to get the money from the DLC that they were hoping for on the PC side as a large number of people quickly move on.

Right now Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising online play stats have been tanking pretty quickly as PC players are getting a taste of a P2P game and the shortcomings it has.  Looking at Xfire, the number of hours being played has dropped from about 25000hr/day to just over 6000hr/day after two weeks.

Now the hope is that Activision does not decide something boneheaded and decide that PC gaming is not profitable and stops making CoD games for the PC.  They (Activision) are the ones that did not want to make a Modern Warfare in the first place, it was too risky and would not sell, Infinity Ward had a very hard time selling it to them.  Activision may just decide that since they sell 10x as many console copies (I'm not sure of the break down) that it's not worth their time to sell to PC gamers.

No reprieve for #ModernWarfare2 for the PC #IW #MW2 #COD

Well reading this article with an official response and this blog posting by FourZeroTwo it looks PC gamers wanting dedicated server support are not going to get it.

Reading both of the articles it I'm starting to think that they see what they are doing as being the savior of PC gaming by making it more console like.

It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face, destroying what makes PC gaming different from console gaming is not saving it. It’s just turning the PC into another console by locking out custom maps and mods that people like creating.

A prime example of the power of the modding community is Counter-Strike, this game started out as a mod for the original Half-Life game created by two people.  This mod is still probably one of the most popular games based on the HL engine and has been ported to the source engine by valve.  Without CS millions of players would not have bought HL and later when Vale took it over the stand alone game.

No dedicated servers or mod tools for COD:MW2 #MW2 #COD #ModernWarfare2 #IW

Well this week is becoming replete with gaming companies doing things to piss-off their users.  First it’s Microsoft readying a mandatory update to kill non-Microsoft memory units, now Activision and Infinity Ward is basically trying to kill off the existing PC gaming community and replacing it with something different.

The news was broken to PC gamers by FourZeroTwo at Bash & Slash that there was not going to be any dedicated servers and that it would be replaced with IW.net matchmaking service. I think that Robert Bowling (Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward) expected applause from the hardcore gaming crowd that he was talking to but just heard dead silence.

Dedicated servers and modding (custom maps, rules, new game types) have been at the core of the PC gaming community since the beginning.  Every online multi-player FPS has survived because people have been able to extend the games to get greater value out of them.

What it comes down to is Activision and Infinity Ward are trying to do a few things.

1. Make the online PC gaming experience more friendly for casual gamers.
2. Create a way of selling add-ons like they do for the console versions of the games to add extra income.
3. Free themselves from the dependence of 3rd parties (server operators) for the success of their game.
4. Manage the life of the game so that next year when the next version game is ready to hit the shelves they community is ready to move on because they have played the shit out of the stock maps.

Despite all the noise that is being made in the PC gaming community about this issue, I have the sinking feeling that the decision is final and we are seeing the current PC gaming community being forcibly replaced by something else.

PC gamer may still be able to make a difference by speaking up about the issue, tweeting, writing blog and forum posts and filling out the online petition against this decision.

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Next #XBOX360 update to disable unauthorized storage devices I may go #PS3

According to this tweet..

majornelson Using an unauthorized memory unit in your #Xbox360? You'll want to read my latest blog post: http://bit.ly/3QhY3D

The blog post then goes on to say..

Don’t use unauthorized Xbox 360 Storage Devices

When Preview Program members start receiving the Xbox 360 system update next week, one of the changes is that unauthorized Memory Units will no longer work with the Xbox 360. If you’ve moved your profile or saved games onto one to “back it up,” you’d better move it back onto an authorized Xbox 360 storage device prior to taking the update. If you continue to use an unauthorized Memory Unit after the update, you will not be able to access your stored profile or saved games.

If you need help identifying officially licensed Xbox 360 storage devices or accessories you can read more about the licensed accessories program on Xbox.com

Well I’m not currently using any unauthorized 3rd party storage devices. I have looked at them because of the ridiculous price of the 512MM Memory card and 120GB hard drive.

For $30 price of the 512MB I can walk into any retailer and buy at least a 8GB USB thumb drive.  I want to have a place besides my 360 HD to keep my save games and profile information.  So I don’t have to keep them on my HD which may have a failure or just safe keeping in case I delete them by accident.  This is especially handy for cases when a game like Mass Effect II comes out and you can use your old game saves in the new version and have your player’s experience carry on.

Some people on the forums are saying “good it will stop the cheaters”, I call “Bull Shit” on this about the only thing cheating this stops is gamer score, which is e-penis waiving anyways.  Most the other cheating is done via packet manipulation over the network as almost all games are peer to peer and this is not rocket science to do.

The only reason MS wants to do this is to keep people from transferring downloaded content to other systems, and that they can stop already by having the content tied to the consol’s serial number.

Shit like this makes me think o buying a PS3 … user upgradeable hard drive and able to use any USB storage devices as external storage.  It’s a shame that Sony took out backwards compatibility, there is such a library of PS2 titles I’ve not played that I always wanted to try out.  Uncharted 2 looks like such a good game and it’s only available on PS3 and then there is the blue-ray drive you get.

hmpf PC troubles have me down

PC troubles have got me down as of late. I have an updated video card, but I'm still having issues, just different issues than I had before.   I've gotten way behind on my twitter and  blog posts, don't know when I'll be able to get back to them as I've yet to determine if it's a software issue or hardware issue that is causing the problems.  I restored an image back to August, before I had problems and the issues have not gone aways, so I'm leaning toward it being hardware related.

Well at least my Xbox is working and Mass Effect is working with the new content.

HOWTO: Fix for Pinnacle Station for Mass Effect Platinum Edition now available on Xbox Live

The title update to fix the issue with Pinnacle Station on the Platinum Hits version of Mass Effect is now on Xbox Live.   What has people confused is it's not a title update for the game, but the Bonus Content disk, so people that are checking the game to see if there are updates are not seeing the updates.

The steps needed to activate the fix that I figured out myself.

1. Go into system properties, storage, games and select & delete existing Bring Down the Sky Content from your Hard drive under Mass Effect.
2. Go back to the dashboard and insert you “Mass Effect Bonus Content” disk and launch it.
3. You will be prompted to install an update, install the update and the Bonus Content disk will re-launch.
4. Install the Bring Down the Sky bonus content from the disk.
5. Exit back to dashboard and eject the bonus content disk.
6. Insert your Mass Effect disk and launch it

Enjoy being able to play Pinnacle Station with your character that you've already used with BDtS!!!!

YEAH!!!!

EDIT: Official steps from the BioWare forum follows…

Posted: Wednesday, 23 September 2009 02:37PM

Here are the official instructions from Microsoft (they're pretty much what subsolar already told you guys; thank you for that post) and it appears as if the title update was live roughly 11 hours ago.

1. Launch Xbox Dashboard
2. Sign in with the profile that was used to install Bring Down the Sky from the Mass Effect Platinum Hits Bonus Disc
3. Navigate to "My Xbox", scroll right to get to "System Settings" and press A.
4. On the System Settings page navigate to "Memory" and press A.
5. On the Storage Devices screen select "All Devices" and press A.
6. On the All Devices screen select "Games" and press A.
7. On the Games screen navigate to Mass Effect and press A.
8. On the Mass Effect screen locate "Bring Down the Sky" and press A to select.
9. Delete the Bring Down the Sky downloadable content package and confirm the download when prompted.
10. Insert your Mass Effect Platinum Hits Bonus Disc into the Xbox 360 DVD tray and launch.
11. You will be prompted that there is a title update for the title. It will install and reboot the title.
12. Reinstall the Bring Down the Sky downloadable content package from the Mass Effect Platinum Hits Bonus Disc

Edited By Jack Lamden on 09/23/09 14:37

I’m tempted to purchase an Antec Mini P180 from Newegg with #freeshipping

Newegg has free shipping on an Antec Mini P180 MicroATX case.  It’s looks like a pretty sweet case and I’ve been tempted to start building a new gaming rig seeing mine is 2 1/2 years old now.

I’ve been planning on building a MicroATX based system for my next rig as it’s getting to the point you don’t need as many slots (unless you want to run Crossfire or SLI) as everything except video is built in the motherboard now and it’s all “good enough”.  With the new Intel LGA 1156 systems out now, that’s kinda the sweet spot between price and performance.

Not that I’m saying that you can’t build a good AMD based system … AMD’s new Athlon II X4 CPU is a budget builder dream.  The X4 is pretty good at overclocking from what I’ve read and it will work with existing AM2+ and AM3 motherboards (something I wish Intel would do).  For about $220 you can get the CPU, Motherboard and RAM that would be a good base for a budget gaming rig and at least $100 cheaper than a bottom Intel LGA 1156 i5 rig.

Xbox 360 ODST “Prepare to Drop” Premium Theme free for Xbox Live Gold Members #xbox360 #halo #xboxlive #halo

Well according to the following tweet …

@majornelson Gold Members can download the #FREE Halo 3: #ODST theme for their #Xbox360 this week only. Grab it now: http://bit.ly/YfSTU

from @majornelson an ODST premium theme is available for download for free for all Xbox Live Gold members.

I’ve downloaded it and installed it and it’s better than most free themes in that it’s more than a background image …. it has backdrops for your friends channel, but that seems to be about it from a quick look around.  I think I’ll keep my Mass Effect Pinnacle Station theme as my Xbox theme for the time being.

Halo 3: ODST hmmmmm $60??? don’t think so. #xbox360 #halo

Listening/reading of the reviews of ODST and thinking I’ll keep my $60 as I’m not a Halo fanboi and the shortness of the single player campaign I’m going to pass on this till the price drops down to what is reasonable for a add-on pack as it seams to be.

Gamespot gives a pretty glowing review of the game, does not mention the shortness of the single player campaign and primarily focuses on the multi-player add-on.

Xplay gives a 5/5 rank but mentions that the campaign is pretty short but well done but says it probably not the game for you if you are not a Halo 3 fan.

Ars Technica basically pans ODST as a not terribly good expansion pack for Halo 3 that is way over priced.

So I’m still saving my money for Fallout 3 GoTY or Modern Warfare 2 as those are the games I’m looking forward to (Mass Effect 2 is too far off to think about).

Wedl’s Hamburger Stand in Jefferson Wisconsin

I was traveling through Jefferson today and was getting a bit hungry for something to eat. I remembered that I used to stop in at a hamburger stand on the corner of Racine& & Center streets called Armstrong’s that had some of the most delicious burgers I’ve tasted. The stand is there but it’s changed hands and is now Wedl's Hamburger Stand, but other than that not much has changed.


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The little (can't be more than 8'x8') stand with the grill in front of the order window is still sitting on the corner serving up burgers to local people like it had when I was much younger.

They mix up fresh hamburger with salt, pepper and other spices and roll it into balls that once you place your order they place on the grill and flatten out into thin patties.  On the grill next to the burgers they have caramelized onions that you can have on your burger (along with cheese and bacon). While your order is being cooked you can wait on the bench next to an Ice-cream Parlor owned by the same people.  Once your order is finished the put the burgers in a brown paper bag and hand them out the window to you.

The burgers are simple, slightly peppery and delicious that no chain burger can compare to.

Edit: There is a review in the Waun-a-Burger blog that I just found about them also, they were Peterson's for a while apparently.

Pinnacle Station patch for Mass Effect on Xbox 360 finally passed certification for Xbox Live

According to this post on the BioWare forums Mass Effect Platinum Hits owners will FINALLY be able to play the Pinnacle Station with their existing characters that they have played Bring Down the Sky with.

Now for the downside, the patch probably won’t be available till Sept 21.  The reason given on the BioWare forum is that Xbox Live only schedules certain update types at certain times and the patch missed the window for this week.

This is all very frustrating.

Purchased a Chatpad for my Xbox 360

Just purchased the Xbox Live, Project Gotham Racing and Chatpad combo.  I mostly purchased it for the Chatpad and the Xbox Live 12 months.

As far as the chatpad goes, I think it’s pretty sweet.  I do like the feedback of the buttons, they are spaced far enough apart so I don’t have problems hitting multiple buttons at the same time.  The backlight is pretty nice along with the messenger button that lights up when somebody sends you a message.  Also the pad does not seem to get in the way of any of the controls and appears to be part of the unit when it’s attached.

One minor gripe I have is that the controller with the chatpad is that the width makes it a bit harder hitting the center buttons of the pad, somebody with smaller hands would definitely have an issue typing I think.

I know that they can’t retroactively make the controller smaller, but maybe they will make a version of the controller with the pad integrated or offer an Xbox compatible Wireless keyboard … that would make some sense with Microsoft pushing Twitter and Facebook on the Xbox.

Yeah GoTY edition of Fallout 3 coming for Xbox 360

According to Gamespot Bethesda Softworks will be releasing the Game of The Year edition of Fallout 3 on October 13th!!
I’ve been holding out buying the game and DLC till the GoTY edition comes out as I can get the whole shebang for a heck of a lot less than I would have if I purchased it when it first came out … I’m really cheap!!
Multi-player games are a bit different as if you don’t join in early everybody else has been playing for a year and you get totally owned when you finally purchase the GoTY edition.

Game play footage of Modern Warfare 2 posted on Gametailers.com

Gametrailers.com has posted some new game play footage from Tuesday night’s press event showing off Modern Warfare 2 multi-player game play.

All looks pretty good to me!!!

Looks like no 250GB drive for Xbox 360 owners for now

According to Gamespot and Joystiq Microsoft has no immediate plans on selling a 250GB add-on drive for 360 owners.  A bit of a disappointment, but eventually they will have to offer larger upgrade drives if they expect their Games on Demand and other DLC to keep moving forward.

A Modern Warfare 2 edition of the 360 will be released November with ME2

According to @majornelson and @IGNcom Microsoft will be releasing Limited Edition Xbox 360 Modern Warfare themed and will include the game for $399, features include…

• Modern Warfare 2 themed appearance
• 250GB Hard Drive
• Two Controllers
• Of course the Modern Warfare 2 game

Not sure if I’m crazy for the price, but the hard drive size has me interested along with the paint job (silk screen?).

Would be more excited if the hard drive was a 320GB or 500GB model, hopefully they will sell the 250GB as an add-on so us with 60GB hard drives can upgrade.

More information at IGN.com and MajorNelson.com.

Xbox Live hawking Mass Effect Pinnacle Station content to people who already purchased it.

Well to add insult to injury to people who purchased the Mass Effect Pinnacle Station DLC are receiving marketing emails from Xbox Live trying to sell them the new content.  This is really a slap to us who can’t play it because they have the Platinum Hits Edition of Mass Effect

Come on Microsoft, you use my gamertag to send the message and so your *should* already know that I purchased the damned content, why the heck are you bothering me with it??

Does anybody at Xbox Live even look at their own forums to see that there is an issue with the content??   Somebody needs to walk over to Xbox Live and use a Clue by 4 to wake them up to their crappy customer support.

New Intel Core i5 750 Pushes AMD out of mid-range Systems

Looking at the benchmarks on Tom’s Hardware of the new Intel LGA 1156 processors it looks like AMD’s top of the line Phenom II X4 965 BE can’t keep up with the i5 750 and currently costs significantly more.

With the new Intel CPUs it looks like AMD CPUs will be relegated to the low (sub $700) end of the gaming PC market and the $800 on up gaming PC market is dominated in the new i5 & i7 in the $800-$1000 price range and $1200 on up by older LGA 1366 Core i7 CPUs.  This is not a good situation for AMD to be in seeing that they are still running in the red.

That being said AMD still is a decent value when an Phenom II X3 720 is paired with a Radeon HD 4780, you still have a good gaming rig that will run current games at medium to high detail on a 22” LCD.  It’s a good rig for a semi-casual gamer, or a gamer trying to stretch their budget as far as possible.  The downside is AMD makes very little money off such a rig and would rather be selling the mid to high end part of the market like they were three to four years ago.

After 2 1/2 weeks no Resolution for the Mass Effect Platinum Hits and Pinnacle Station Problem

Actually it’s gotten rather ridiculous that after more than two weeks there still is no resolution for the the conflict in the Platinum Hits version of Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station from Xbox Live.

What is really bad is that supposedly there is a fix that the Xbox Live Support people can give out and apparently they are not doing for whatever reason.  The real kicker is that there is no acknowledgement on the XBL forums of the issue and the DLC continues to be sold.  This is not the kind of support that a company that is pushing their console based on friendliness and ease of getting content vs. their competition.
At least on the BioWare forums there at least is an official status thread and a representative that posts semi-regular updates on the status of the patch

Unfortunately the status is as follows…

• There is a “quick fix” that XBL support can give, but people are not getting it.
• A patch has passed internal testing and is waiting for certification by MS for the past approx. two weeks.

For the time being I’ve been playing the classic Xbox game Psychonauts that I missed because I was not an Xbox user at the time and the PC version when it was first released seemed to have issues.

Blog Consolidation

I've consolidated a couple blogs I used to run into this and now I have content going back to 2003 if you really wish to read it. The biggest headache was importing the posts from a custom blogging application I wrote back to 2003 when I was running game servers and I wanted to post gaming clan news.

The clan's site is The Fragaholic now run by Goatboy and while nobody plays together much anymore it's still of use as a message board to keep track of members and former members.

Still waiting on fix for Pinnacle Station

Well over a week on and still no fix for Pinnacle Station purchasers that want to use it with the Bring Down the Sky in the Platinum Hits version of the game.

Apparently there is a fix that is being qualified by Microsoft so the issue may be resolved soon, but it’s been a very frustrating time for people on the forums, especially the Xbox Live forums where there has been no official word released at all.   The only place where there has been any good information at all is the BioWare Mass Effect forums.

Mentioning the BioWare Mass Effect forums, I would like to thank Jack Lamden who has been feeing what information they have on the problems and putting up with all our cussing a bitching about the issue.

At this point I give BioWare a +1 for dealing with their customers and I give Xbox Live Support a –5 for being totally clueless even a week after the issue was discovered.

Still No Pinnacle Station Joy for Platinum Owners

On the BioWare forums a message was issued that a fix has been released a fix for the PC version and that Xbox Live support should have a work around for the Platinum Hits edition owners.

Well apparently Xbox Live support knows nothing of the fix to the consternation of the BioWare support people and it still appears to be a major mess that will not be resolved for a few days at least because of the weekend.

So here I sit with some DLC I paid for and a Character that I’ve put many hours in that I can’t use with it.

XBOX 360 Price Drops

Microsoft has posted a $100 price drop on the Elite system, bringing the cost down to $299.

The price on the Pro system will be dropping to $249 “while supplies last” that indicates to me that they will be dropping the Pro system and just have the Arcade & Elite systems going forward.

With the new pricing it makes little sense for the Pro system to exist and 60GB gets used up pretty quickly when games are copied to the HD for play and throw in some HD video and it is puny.  Even the 120GB is not all the big with the push for “games on demand” and other content.

I’ve noticed online that the price for the 120GB HD upgrades have dropped $20 to $119 lately … still way too expensive.  I’m also wondering if they will be releasing larger HD upgrades now since 320GB laptop hard drives are common and 500GB & 750GB drives are available.

So far I have not seen any major online or brick & mortar retailers that have dropped their prices yet.

EDIT: It’s been confirmed that the Pro edition will be going away and the new prices go into effect Friday 8/28.

No Pinnacle Station joy for Mass Effect Platinum Hits owners

Pinnacle Station DLC was just released for Xbox 360 and being a Mass Effect Fan (I’ve played through 3 times on PC and just started on Xbox) I purchased it.

Now starts my tale of woe as apparently the add-on is not compatible with the version of Bring Down the Sky add on that is included with the Platinum Hits version of Mass Effect and the only fix currently is to pay for and download the version of BDtS off of Xbox Live.  I’m too cheap to pay twice for something so I’m waiting for Microsoft and BioWare to release a patch that resolves the issue.

There are threads on both Xbox Forums and BioWare Forums with people having the issue.  The fix for people that purchased their copy of BDtS on the Xbox Marketplace is to just delete the content off the Xbox hard drive and re-download it, no fix is currently available for Platinum edition owners.

There is finally an acknowledgement of the issue on the BioWare Forums so hopefully it will be fixed “soon” for owners of the Platinum Hits edition.

August 11, 2009 Xbox 360 Dashboard Update

Well just got done looking at the new dashboard update to the 360 and about the only things that interest me currently are the following…

1. User Ratings
   It’s nice that people can rate the games and other content on the Marketplace and you can get an idea if the game (especially Indy Games, formerly known as Community Games) is worth spending money on.
2. Games on Demand
   This could be a really nice feature if the games are priced right … more on that in a bit.
3. Avatar Marketplace
   This is kind of interesting especially the ability you can get avatar items by playing games.

When I head of games on demand I had high hopes that there would be a significant discount on buying online.  Unfortunately it looks like the price in the Marketplace is exactly the same as you can buy retail online, quite often with free shipping.  The physical game has some major advantages over the download version … the main ones being.

1. You can loan a game to a friend to play.
   Supposedly if you log into a friend's console with your Xbox Live account you can download it there, after which he can play it until it’s deleted. So maybe it’s not such a big issue, but I curious how it works out in practice.
2. You can resell a game once you are done
   Once you are done playing a game you can take it to GameStop and trade it in for another game.  I won’t get into how much publisher dislike the used game business, lets just say the would be happy for it to disappear.
3. Xbox Storage costs too much
   The 120GB hard drive costs $140 or $1.17 a gigabyte.  Your average 500GB Laptop SATA hard drive only costs $85 or about $0.17 per gigabyte.  With your average game running 6GB or so you can only store 3 games on a 20GB model and even a 60GB model you will only get 8 or so.
   

So to summarize things, the new update provides some nice features, but if Microsoft wants the Marketplace to take off they need to increase the size of the hard drives available and make some very significant cuts in storage price cuts to encourage people to buy content online.

Finished Gears & Gears 2

I liked both games … they had a decent story line to go with what you were doing unlike some other UE3 Epic game I will not name. The only part I felt let down was the ending of taking the Brumak into the hollow and later blowing it up was way too easy.

It has been confirmed that a Gears base movie is in the works, Hopefully it fares better than most game based movies.  Gears has several good characters with a history and a story that could be explored though prequels or movies taking place between the two games.

I’ve started on Mass Effect on the 360 and looking forward to the sequel to Mass Effect coming out later this year.  I have played though the PC version of ME a couple times already and aside from some UI changes to make it more PC friendly there is not any real difference besides 1 … the Mako (an APC you use to explore planets) is alot easier to control in the PC version.

I’ve Recently Gotten an XBOX 360

I have a confession, while I’ve been a PC gamer for most my life, my wife recently purchased an XBOX for me.  Now I’ve owned other consoles, the last I really put any significant time into was a Sega Genesis.  I started out in PC gaming way back in ‘78 playing rip-offs of arcade games.

My PC gaming went though several computer generations Ohio Scientific Challenger, C64, Turbo XT, Turbo AT, etc on till I’m playing on Over-Clocked Core 2 Duo Rig that was top of the line when bought it a bit over two years ago.  My system will still play any “A'” title that I want to play and I’m still having a great deal of fun playing games on it.

So why do I have a console and spending less time PC gaming?  Well it comes down to the fact that there are games like Mass Effect, Gears of War and several other that I find interesting and they and their sequels are Console only or the PC ports frankly are not that good.  I also find the XBOX makes a great multi-media device when teamed up with a streaming server like Tversity.  I do plan on playing new titles like the upcoming Modern Warfare 2, and possibly others that look interest that are not available on the console, or their game play is better on the PC.

No Unreal Tournament “For Several Years”

I’m a bit disappointed by Tim Sweeney’s remark in an interview with G4tv that there are no plans to release a new version of Unreal Tournament in the near future.

While I was not a big fan of the original Unreal Tournament (I was into Decent 3 and Quake II online at the time), I did like UT2K3 and UT2K4, and think they messed it up in UT3 when they toned down the game play and seriously messed up the weapons balance.

The people I played with loved the acrobatics and the jumps you could do and were totally pissed at how “grounded” the characters were in UT3.  The other thing disappointing were that they reduced the damage that skill based weapons like the lighting gun (replaced by sniper rifle) and shock rifle did.  The problem was that they made things more “noob” & console friendly by upping the damage of the rockets and flac.  I think that it would have been much better received if thay had not tried to make a story out of the basic game modes … CTF to shut down the enemies' spawners … give me a break.

Now don’t get me totally wrong the Warfare mode was nice as I was always a fan of Onslaught and the VCTF was pretty solid if a very limited selection of maps.  But obviously most players that were playing UT2K4 did not find UT3 very compelling and most that I knew went to other games after UT2K4 lost it’s appeal for them.

I had hoped that Epic would make a tweaked version of UT3 (UT3.5) where they brought back the bounciness and life of the prior games, similar to what they did to UT2K3 to add content and fix things the community wanted.  The Titan bonus pack, while it was an attempt to bring life to UT3, ended up making the game even less appealing to players of previous versions.

Wow, long time no post

It’s been almost a year since I’ve last posted on my blog … apparently nothing has made me really want to post.

I’ve been playing a lot of games (WaW, COD4, Gears, Plants vs Zombies).  My favorite game and a great time sink every time I try it is Plants vs Zombies … simple but addictive.

Other things I’ve been playing with is Windows 7, I’ve actually been fairly well impressed, and I am using the RC on several PCs at home.  This is the first version of Windows I’ve been excited about since Windows 95, I’ve actually pre-ordered one copy, though I may cancel it if the family pack of 3 PCs for $130 actually pans out.