My Xbox Video Game picks for the 2010 Holiday Season

My list of what games would be great gifts for someone special that is into playing video games on the Xbox 360. Most are Adult/Mature rated titles so keep that in mind when giving.

• Mass Effect 2
  In my opinion one of the best shooter/RPG games out this year, you can play it as a shooter or you can play it more as a RPG it’s up to you based on the class you pick.
• Alan Wake
  Great Horror/Suspense game, interesting gameplay mechanics with some great twists to keep you guessing throughout the game.
• Halo: Reach
  The prequel to the original Halo game. Great gameplay on and offline, a good story and some very memorable moments.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
  A story line that keeps you guessing as to what’s going on, memorable gameplay moments and great gameplay online and offline.
• Plants vs Zombies
  A more causal game that is addictive and fun, basically a tower defense game that does a good job of making it fun for people not into that type of game.
• Borderlands: Game of the Year
  If you like your RPG with some shooter thrown in (or is it the other way around) this is the time to buy this game and get all the add-ons.
• Brutal Legend
  What would be called an adventure type game with some RTS thrown in. Some great moments that will make you laugh and a good story to tie it together along with Heavy Metal Music.
• Mirrors Edge
  This game is an under rated game that come out two years ago. It’s a first person platformer/runner with a good story and a different type of gameplay. At times it can be very unforgiving as many platformers tend to be, but if can get though the hard parts you gain a sense of accomplishment.

That brings the end of my list, I’ve played them all and enjoyed them all greatly.

Alan Wake: The Writer DLC, good but short

I've been meaning to write about "The Writer" DLC for Alan Wake, I bought it shortly after it was released, but been sinking alot of time into Halo: Reach multi-player that i have not gotten around to writing about it.

The quality of the DLC is really good and it wraps up many (but not all) of the loose ends left by the ending of the game and "The Signal" DLC and definitely sets things up for Alan Wake II. If you've played the first DLC the game play should be familiar and does not introduce any new game play elements to the game. The only real complaint is the DLC is rather short, but on the other hand it ties up the story really nicely, so if you are a fan of the game I can recommend you get it.

To sum things up, if you loved the game and the first DLC, get "The Writer". If you have not purchased the game, wait for the Game of the Year edition to come out and play the game in it's entirety.

I can’t wait for Alan Wake: The Writer DLC

October 12th the DLC for Alan Wake “The Writer” is scheduled for release.  This DLC will wrap up the Alan Wake story for now and there are no further plans for DLC.

I plan on purchasing this DLC as soon as it’s released and will pray that a sequel/prequel will be release to continue the story.

I love Halo: Reach

I’ve finished the single player Halo: Reach and am impressed with the good combination of solid game play and good story telling moments and some decent characters.


The controls are responsive for a console game, I’ve been primarily a PC gamer, and the fact it takes a while to whittle down an opponent helps keep the frustration down.  I especially liked the space combat portion, being an old player of Wing Commander and Freespace it was something great. There are several well composed cut-scenes to expand on the story. As for characters, my favorite is Jorge as he seemed to be the most human in contrast to the least sympathetic Emile who I really don’t have any feelings for at all.  I did find the Campaign to be a bit on the sort side, but I would rather have a good short Campaign rather than a drawn out one where you feel like you are visiting the same places over and over like the original Halo.

I’ve also completed a Campaign Co-Op play though of the game at Heroic difficulty and been paying online in various modes (mostly the “Runble Pit” types). I have yet to meet anyone I find truly objectionable playing Reach unlike other games.  Also as mentioned before you don’t get the really objectionable insta-kill moments where you get hit with 1-2 shots and are dead.

Over-all a really great game, and well worth the $40 that it cost as a pre-order ($60 less $20 gift card).

Well Halo: Reach will be released tomorrow!!

Well the first Halo game I’ve purchased will be released tomorrow and it’s supposed to be waiting on my doorstep tomorrow.  I’ve played the original Halo on the Xbox and was not impressed.  I also have played co-op on Halo 3 on a friends copy, it was significantly better with somewhat sane controls and much improved graphics & environment.
I’m was impressed by previews and pre-release reviews of the game. To pre-order the game, I’m not expecting story telling on the level of ME or some RPGs.  So tomorrow night after I get the youngest to bed you can bet I’ll be playing Reach, possibly Co-Op with my Older Daughter.

Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2

Downloaded the “Lair of the Shadow Broker” DLC for the 360, at 800 MSP it was a pretty pricy download, but it was a big DLC at 1.5GB.

The game play was really good, there are two big bosses in the game.  The big highlight to this DLC is having Liara as a squad mate and being able to continue a relationship if you had her as a Love Interest in the first game.  The story elements fills in the space between ME1 and ME2 if you happen to not have read the ME:Redemption comic.  The dialog is highly slanted toward the assumption that you are completing this after completing the suicide mission.  Like the Pinnacle Station you end up after successfully completing it with a new place you can hang out.
Overall I would say this is at least a 4 out of 5 in my opinion.

Alan Wake “The Signal” a great DLC

I recently finished the first DLC for Alan Wake, titled “The Signal”.  The DLC starts off shortly after defeating the dark presence where you find yourself in back in Bright Falls, but it’s a strangely distorted Bright Falls.  It starts off like original game at the diner, but the situation veers off and your task is finding out what’s going on.  Along the way Thomas Zane helps you out with clues similar to the first game.

Over-all I feel it’s a great continuation of the first story.  The ending battle in “The Signal” suffers from the final boss syndrome more than the game.  The ending for Alan Wake was great, you did have to fight hard at the end, but the player was rewarded with reflective and unexpected ending, I loved the ending of the game.

Next Mass Effect to get Multi-Player??

According to this story on Gamespy BioWare Montreal is looking for a Lead Multiplayer Programmer “working on BioWare's top franchises”. Many people have interpreted the posting to indicate that Mass Effect 3 will have a multi-player component.

Reading it it could be any one of BioWare’s franchises and not necessarily Mass Effect.  It could be a game in the Mass Effect universe or one of BioWare’s other franchises.

I personally would not want ME3 to have a hacked-on multi-player mode.  Possibly a Co-Op mode that is tangential to the story like in Splinter Cell Conviction would be OK, though I would be hard pressed to find good on the idea of a full Co-Op ME3, it could be good, it could be horrible (most likely the latter).  I was not impressed with Co-Op in Borderlands, it was OK, but really depended on who you played with. Here is hoping that they spend time on making ME3 a really great single player experience and don't try to tack on some half-baked multiplayer and don’t spend time polishing the single player.

Battlefield Bad Company 2, had promise failed on server browser and Content #BFBC2PC

I was playing alot of BFBC2 on my PC, but between the constant server updates resetting servers to defaults, lack of content for Squad Death Match and the browser never quite seeming to work right on Windows 7 64bit I’ve mostly given up playing it.

The game had much promise, but it gets boring playing the same handful of SDM maps over and over and over.   I would be happy to play non-ranked if they would allow user content non-ranked servers, but they have not released any mapmaking tools mod tools of any kind.

The other problem is the sheer number of server updates, and when the partners update the server software all the hardcore servers get reset back to normal.  The final issue is the server browser while it has improved never worked quite right, you could search for hardcore servers, but you were as likely to get a normal server.  In Windows 7 64 bit ping times have never worked, and that is the OS a hardcore PC gamer is likely to have.

I’ll check back and play it now and then, possibly DICE will resolve the issues and make it the game it should be.

Mass Effect 2: Those Minerals Rap Video #ME2

One of the most boring parts of Mass Effect 2 ... searching for minerals

 

Major Nelson confirms USB Memory Support for Xbox 360

Well Major Nelson officially confirms the USB Memory device support for storing profiles, save-games etc.

On April 6th, we will be releasing a system update over Xbox LIVE for your Xbox 360 that will allow USB flash drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more. I’ve been testing this feature out for a few weeks, and I have to say it’s really great.

Still no confirmation on a Xbox 360 Slim or information on Blu-ray support.

Microsoft finally releases 250GB Hard Drive for #Xbox360 #xbox

According to USA Today (and my Xbox dash board) MS has finally released a stand-alone 250GB hard drive for the 360.

Well looks like the reason 120GB hard drives have been hard to find the past couple months is that MS was trying to clear out retailer stock and create some pent up demand for the 250GB hard drive.

No the next question is when will MS release the update to enable the use of standard USB thumb drives instead of memory units.  The memory units have been similarly scarce the past couple months and there have been rumors of an upcoming update to enable support.

Interesting option of Tali and Shepard romance option in #MassEffect2

Just commenting on my prior blog post on Asharan’s Tali and Shepard – Space Age Fairytale video.

First comment I have to reiterate is that it’s a really well and put together fan made video and the choice of Tori Amos’ “A Sorta Fairytale” for the music is perfect and doubly good choice of the simpler demo version (A Piano: The Collection – Disk 5 track 14).

I find it interesting as to the choice of offering the option in Mass Effect for male Shepard to have a romance with Tali. They at first are not an obvious couple (other than her being female and Shepard doing anything female).

She seems to be the Archetypical “Spunky Kid” romance character, she’s supportive & reliable, has plenty of friends, a positive attitude and not afraid to get her hands dirty helping out.

This fits well with her initial role in ME1 as it fits her personality from the first game, standing up for her self, helping Shepard and her people.  In ME2 her character is better rounded out, by her working with a team in Haestrom and their faith in her.  Later on during her loyalty mission back at the migrant fleet you hear people talking about how they don’t believe that she could have possibly done the things she’s accused of and all seem very supportive of her.

The “spunky kid” romantic character is almost a perfect type for Shepard, a “crusader” type character would also be very good, but Ashley from ME1 is not available in ME2 and Samara is not a romance option in ME2.

I’m actually a little disappointed that they had the Tali romance take on physical aspects.  It could have been more touching for them to not consummate their romance and instead kept it more spiritual seeing that the levo-amino and dextro-amino difference between human and quarian mean they can’t even eat the same food and physical contact can be hazardous.

I’m apparently too obsessed with this topic as I’ve written more than I intended and this is after throwing half of what I’ve written out.

Terrific #MassEffect2 Music Video Tali & Shepard – Space Age Fairytale

Asharan has made a terrific music video of Tali and Shepard. I’ve always been a great Tali fan since the original Mass Effect and bringing her and Garrus back was a great idea.

I’m counting the Hours till Mass Effect 2 is released #ME2 #MassEffect #xbox360 #PC

I have not written much lately because things have been so busy with the holidays and also with a follow-on to one of my favorite games Mass Effect coming out in just a few days now I’ve been trying to get two more play-thoughs of Mass Effect and finish up some of the other games I’ve started so I can concentrate on Mass Effect 2.

The SyFy channel will start airing Sci vs. Fi: Mass Effect 2 starting Tuesday the 19th at 10PM US Central time.  Gametrailers has a sneak peak of the first section (the first 5 minutes before they go on 1st commercial break).

Video Games | Mass Effect 2 | Exclusive Sci vs Fi Doc Part I

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

I have my DVR set to record in case I miss it, I’m just chomping to get started!!!