Say Hello to My Little Friends

Like the rest of the world, as soon as I fired up my 360 last night I downloaded the new dashboard. I was figuring the interwebs were going to be tangled by the time I tried, but the install was fast and smooth.

After a brief intro I dove straight in and started creating my Avatar. Not a very true-to-life resemblance, but I’ll tweak it when I get more time. After fooling around with avatar creating, I started to check out the new dash itself.

The thing is light years faster than the old blades, and snappier than a feisty turtle (not sure what that means). It’s going to take a little settling in to figure out where things are, and what new stuff the dash has to offer – but thankfully the guide button still brings up a bit of familiarity. I was surprised they didn’t change the look of the notifications however to match the NXE style.

I fumbled around with the party system for a few minutes, but I am truly going to have to RTFM on both it and the new dash. Once we were all in a party I wasn’t sure what the advantage was aside from having open chat. It was a comedy show to listen to however as a some of us in the party were playing Gears, others were customizing their avatars, and others still were exploring what the NXE had in store.

One side benefit to the party chat was being able to play ranked Gears of War without having to hear the other team (YOU NEED TO ADD A QUICK MUTE FUNCTION TO THAT GAME EPIC!!!!!!).

First impressions of the new dashboard are all good. Nothing seemed broken or worse off as I flipped my way through the tiles last night, and still having the mini guide makes settling in much easier.

I would like to take a moment to say goodbye to the Blades – they have served us well over the years, and while I can’t say they will be missed – I did appreciate their efforts.

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Back on the Battlefield with Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

As I write this I’m fighting a war with my eyelids to stay open. Last night’s Advance War battle raged on way past my bedtime. I had bested one of the three opposing forces on the map, but the two remaining CO’s refused to give up any ground. After the 10th time I said, “one last turn” my wife finally forced me to retire from the battle for the evening and call it a night. Judging by my exhausted state, I probably should’ve listened to her the first time she told me to put the game down.

That’s the thing with Advance Wars, once you’re in the thick of it – it’s nearly impossible to put down. That’s just where I’m finding myself again after a bit of a hiatus from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin.

I was initially let down by the departure Days of Ruin had taken from previous Advance Wars games. The change in art style and characters didn’t bother me nearly as much as the striped down, ‘back to basics’ gameplay. What I’ve realized with the loss of overpowering CO attacks and additional skills is that Days of Ruin is raw Advance Wars at it’s core.

Days of Ruin leans much more towards a methodical game of chess now as opposed to a simple bout of rock, paper, scissors. The rock, paper, scissor mechanics are still there, but you’ll need to pack more strategy than firepower now if you hope to walk off the battlefield victorious.

I still stand by my original review of this game (short version: horrible story, drab characters, lack of features when compared to Dual Strike…) but it is still one of the best games I have played on my DS. Once you get into the rhythm, Advance Wars is pure, gaming crack. Just look at me, I’m strung out right now, and all I can think about is ‘one more turn’.

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What’s Next for the Hype Wagon?

With all the big releases I’ve been following now finally on store shelves the Hype Wagon seems to be packing up it’s effects and is rolling on. My question however is “where is it going?”

What are the next big, Triple-A titles for the Hype Wagon to hitch onto and work it’s magic? Will it be shilling new IPs, or is the wagon reserved in 2009 for games with 3s, 4s and even 5s following the name?

I must confess, that even after the release of both Little Big Planet and Gears of War 2 have liberated me from the wagon, I do feel a bit of a void not having that gigantic, eminent game to follow. I had been looking forward to both of those games for what feels like eons, and while I’m ecstatic to finally have them I’m already looking around for the next ‘big thing’.

There are plenty of games I am looking forward to in the coming year (Skate 2, Resident Evil 5, Bionic Commando…), but none of them have reached that ‘all consuming’ state of mind for me yet. Perhaps Bioshock 2 can take on the roll when more details of that game are released, or perhaps it will be something completely new and out of left field.

I suppose in the meantime I should enjoy my vacation from the Hype Wagon and focus solely on the slew of great games I’ve got in front of me. I suppose I had gotten used to the workings of the Hype Wagon, and now that it’s gone I kind miss it.

Anyone else?

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My Long Gears of War 2 Weekend

Thanks to a struggling economy, my entire office (those that weren’t let go) was put on a four day work week. While it no doubt sucks, it did allow me to have an extended Gears of War 2 launch weekend. It all started Thursday evening, 11:00pm standing in line outside of Best Buy.

My buddy and I were probably 7th & 8th in a line which stretched around the corner of the building by the time they started letting groups into the store at midnight. Immediately after entering the store we were greeted with a ‘Gears of War’ table which had copies of the games, strategy guides, as well as some midnight launch goodies including a GOW2 shirt, trucker hat, golden hammerburst redemption codes, 1-month Xbox Live card, and pre-order bonus – the remote controlled tank (all destined for sale).

After filling up on the freebies, those of us with pre-orders were set to customer service, while those who hadn’t pre-ordered to game were allowed to pick up a copy off the table, hit the register and walk out the door. Basically, if you pre-ordered you had to wait in two lines, but if you didn’t you could get your ass out of the store ASAP and get home to play. I just found that a bit interesting.

Another interesting thing I saw was someone on the pre-order line holding up the works but also purchasing other items aside from his pre-order. This dude sat there trying up one of the two open registers buying stuff that he could have easily purchased during the day. Needless to say, those of us waiting on-line, anxious to get home and play, were not amused. From there it went from bad to worse as I ran into problems at the other register thereby tying up EVERYONE who pre-ordered the game.

After 25 failed minutes at register #2, register #1 was free and I was finally rung up and on my way.

That night, I ended up playing multiplayer until 4am. The bulk of my time was spent getting a feel for the game in Horde with some friends. The changes were subtle from the first Gears, but evident enough that it took a few rounds to ’sink in’. Once adjusted though, it was nothing but glorious

I’ll try not to come off as a fanboy here, but it is going to be difficult as I have nothing but praise for GOW2. It’s as if the game was custom built for me, as it takes queues from all my favorite gaming genres. It’s got the action of a shooter, the tension from a survival horror, and the ‘world on the brink’ intensity that brings a huge, stupid grin to my face.

In multiplayer, the changes have made the game much more enjoyable in my opinion. The original Gears of War multiplayer matches devolved into little more than shotgun brawls. So much so, that during a ranked matched my (random) teammate yelled at me to ‘PUT THE LANCER AWAY!!!’. While the original Gears was all roadie-run shotgun, my GOW2 multiplayer experience has been all about digging in for some epic firefights.

Bullets are flying everywhere, smoke grenades are detonating sending you flying on your ass, and rounds are lasting longer thanks to everyone keeping their heads down. You can say what you want about GOW2, but this is exactly the type of gameplay experience I am looking for.

Over the weekend I managed to make it through level 50 on Horde (on normal) and finish the campaign (on hardcore). Both experiences were simply awesome, and I’m looking forward to going through them again multiple times. Horde is an absolute blast to play with friends. While it may start out simple enough, things ramp up pretty quickly which is only exacerbated by you and teammates dwindling ammunition supply.

Working together trying to hold off an ever growing onslaught is as much fun as it is intense. Screaming intel back and forth such as “LEFT SIDE CLEAR!”, “BLOODMOUNT BEHIND YOU!!!!!” and the ever important “I’M DOWN!!!!” accentuates just how frantic the rounds can be. Horde is a great multiplayer addition for those times when you just prefer to ‘work together’.

In the original Gears, my friends list rarely ventured outside of Execution. While Execution made be the dominant game type in GOW2, it is certainly not going to be the only. Guardian. Submission, Wingman and even King of the Hill (sorry annex) were all on the playlist over the past four days – and the simple ability to change these on the fly without having to create new rooms each time is a joy. Not to mention the ability to add bots here and there to fill in the gaps when we have lopsided teams. Pretty much everything about the new multiplayer lobby is light years beyond what the original game offered.

Campaign mode is just as ‘bigger, better and more bad ass’ as multiplayer (Cliff B. is never going to live that down, is he?). I had two concurrent co-op campaigns running with friends and one of them via split screen with Ev. While I did end up playing one of them to completion on my own, I have to say this game is best when played with a buddy. The firefights are tremendous, and the game barely gives you time to breathe in between them. It doesn’t mix the variety up all that much, but as long as I have my finger on the R trigger, I’m happy.

The vehicle portions of the game did mix things up somewhat, but they were the low points of the campaign mode in my opinion – especially after multiple, ridiculous, trial-and-error deaths. The ‘final ride’ however sure was a helluva a trip.

There was plenty more to chew on story-wise this time around in Gears, but it still only amounts to an appetizer portion as opposed to a full meal. There is much more emotion involved this time around, and it was done extremely well without delving into campy. Then again. it may have only worked for me because I’ve bought into the characters. Those not willing to do so might not get the same from those particular story moments.

I think I’ll end my ‘wall of text’ here (has anyone even read all of this?), but that doesn’t mean I’m done yet. Expect plenty more GOW2 ramblings in future posts.

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Currently Playing 11-4-08

Been a while since I’ve run a ‘Currently Playing’ post so I thought I’d do a quick update.

On the Xbox 360 side of things I’m still spinning The Orange Box. I finally finished Half-Life 2, HL2 Episode 1 & HL2 Episode 2. Now I’m just doing a bit of ‘achievement whoring’ with the remaining achievements in the game.

Half-Life 2 was an awesome ride. For a 4 year old game it holds up solid and is more than worth your time & money if you haven’t already checked it out. In the end, the experience was much more satisfying to me than a typical FPS though I’m not entirely sure what about HL2 set it apart. Perhaps the strong supporting characters and the lack of traditional cut scenes that gave the story a bit more oomph. Or, perhaps it was the story itself. Whatever the case, it was a helluva ride… Count me in on day 1 for Half-Life 3.

On the PS3 side of things, Ev and I have been putting in several hours nightly with Little Big Planet. Our co-op sessions have me wondering if I would enjoy the game as much playing it solo. The level design in the game is exceptional at times, which has me wondering if the user created levels will be good enough to keep us interested when we run out of levels on the disc. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Who knew that a game so cute could be so frustrating though – there have been a couple of levels where I was just about read to throw my controller through our TV. Ev has much more patience than I do when it comes to platforming

Lastly, is the newest game to my ‘currently playing’ roster. It is Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII on the PSP. This was a recommendation from a buddy of mine, and since I’m always eager for more PSP games I figured I’d give it a shot. Now I have a confession to make, I have never played a Final Fantasy game before. I had some pretty bad pre-conceived notions about what Final Fantasy games were. I expected them to lean heavily into the ‘fantasy’ side with mythical creatures and settings, so I was surprised to see helicopters and a train during the opening cinematics of Crisis Core.

It certainly did the trick to rope me in, and while I’ve only gotten about 15 minutes into the game, I’m eager to see how it plays out.

So there you have it, my currently playing update for 11/4/08. Aside from Gears trumping The Orange Box at the end of the week I don’t expect this list to change all that much for the rest of the year.

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