Haven't had much to blog about recently - I've slipped into a habbit of falling asleep early on the sofa during the evenings, meaning time on the Xbox has been limited. And anytime I do go on it tends to be FIFA that gets the nod, despite it sending to me asleep itself!
But during this time one thing has really got on my tits - the newly designed Xbox 360 dashboard.
Its a sad time when playing games becomes a secondary function of a games machine. I've never seen it before but this Xbox dash update confirms Microsoft's sad intentions - to appeal to the wider market and turn the 360 into an entertainment hub, leaving idiots like me who might expect some kind of games focus incredibly frustrated and saddened.
I used to enjoy turning on the machine and looking at the latest game features, demos & coverage on the home screen, but its now hidden through multiple menus in a dark sweaty corner, barely making a whimper. New demos are just not advertised, new XBLA releases are unknown. Instead I get some more news about Facebook & some shitty movie being available to download.
Message to Microsoft - get a grip and remember who got you here - the hardcore gamers who purposely picked an Xbox and a 360 to play games. Tossers!
Showing posts with label xbox 360. Show all posts
Showing posts with label xbox 360. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Friday, 28 October 2011
Faults, give-aways & memory
It had to happen at some point, it seems.
My bashed up old Xbox 360 Core unit that I bought on the cheap pre-owned (stupidly) the day before the new Xbox 360 Slim was released in the UK has given up the ghost and suffered the same RROD fate as most the others in existence. Wonder whether it is the last one left to do it in the world????
That makes it 3 units knackered - my original 20GB unit that got replaced under warranty, the replacement which I unsuccessfully tried to do the X-Clamp fix on, and now this Core unit replacement. That is approx £300-400 worth of consoles just breaking one after another after a matter of months through no other reason that being played (and not even that much!)
Yet the sad thing is that this is entirely normal. Microsoft has obviously fixed things somewhat with the newer chipsets and internal set-ups on the later Arcade/Elite & Slim versions, but I can't help thinking that (if I still had it), my good old 1991 Sega Megadrive would work 100% of the time if I flicked it on now regardless of how I positioned it under my TV or how much I played on it. Its a similar situation to today's mobile phones. I have the charge the battery of my HTC Wildfire S every single night - whereas my old Samsung G600 easily lasted a week between charges - why is the battery so insufficient? How is it that newer technology is far less reliable??
Fortunately, my lovely lady wife is getting a new mobile phone contract which conveniently had the option of having an Xbox 360 Slim 4GB + Kinect thrown in for free. Talk about good timing. ;) I'm sure I'll get away with just buying her some wool or a crayon or something as a thankyou... if only.
The fact that the console (plus Kinect even though we have one already) is essentially free shows how the world has changed since the early and mid 90's when I was getting into gaming. Those were the days where the thought of a games console being given away for free so flippantly was frankly unheard of.
I remember the Japanese Sega Megadrive (there wasn't really a particularly great reason for getting a Japanese one in all honesty) my elder brother and I got for Christmas back in 1990 (along with Golden Axe & Whiprush!) must have been an epic purchase for my parents to make. Likewise, the Sega Saturn that we got later in 1995 launched with a retail price of £399 without any kind of bundled freebies. Of course, mobile phones & incentives for taking out contracts simply weren't around back then, but there is no way that a games console would be 'given away' with any equivalent thing.
With this conveniently-timed free upgrade from an old broken Core unit to a brand spanking new 4GB Slim comes an frustratingly awkward decision on how on earth I can transfer the contents of a full 20GB hard-drive onto a 4GB Slim memory. It shouldn't be anywhere near as complicated as it appears to be if external storage wasn't so strictly managed by Microsoft. Why should I be in the position of - having bought a load of games off XBLA and having all the games, saves, profiles, music stuck on one now unusable hard drive - now needing to possibly shell out money for a shitty official transfer cable just because Microsoft doesn't feel comfortable or reasonable enough to let gamers use any kind of modern-day external storage devices that they use in every other data transfer application in the world??? Yes, there was always the option of forking out another £200 on a 250GB Slim version, but why the bollocks should I buy the same console for a third time??? Surely in any other market I'd be already classed as a golden customer, thanked for my loyalty to Microsoft and given a free god damn unit as an apology for the shitty customer service me, like millions of others, have had to endure?
Again, it brings me back to wonder why the glory days of the trusty Sega Megadrive - with it's big, indestructible instantly-loading cartridges with in-built memory - have not been improved on in terms of reliability. Maybe I should just sack it all off and get a Megadrive instead? I probably would if it wasn't for me being a tight git and needing to pay for it!
My bashed up old Xbox 360 Core unit that I bought on the cheap pre-owned (stupidly) the day before the new Xbox 360 Slim was released in the UK has given up the ghost and suffered the same RROD fate as most the others in existence. Wonder whether it is the last one left to do it in the world????
That makes it 3 units knackered - my original 20GB unit that got replaced under warranty, the replacement which I unsuccessfully tried to do the X-Clamp fix on, and now this Core unit replacement. That is approx £300-400 worth of consoles just breaking one after another after a matter of months through no other reason that being played (and not even that much!)
Yet the sad thing is that this is entirely normal. Microsoft has obviously fixed things somewhat with the newer chipsets and internal set-ups on the later Arcade/Elite & Slim versions, but I can't help thinking that (if I still had it), my good old 1991 Sega Megadrive would work 100% of the time if I flicked it on now regardless of how I positioned it under my TV or how much I played on it. Its a similar situation to today's mobile phones. I have the charge the battery of my HTC Wildfire S every single night - whereas my old Samsung G600 easily lasted a week between charges - why is the battery so insufficient? How is it that newer technology is far less reliable??
Fortunately, my lovely lady wife is getting a new mobile phone contract which conveniently had the option of having an Xbox 360 Slim 4GB + Kinect thrown in for free. Talk about good timing. ;) I'm sure I'll get away with just buying her some wool or a crayon or something as a thankyou... if only.
The fact that the console (plus Kinect even though we have one already) is essentially free shows how the world has changed since the early and mid 90's when I was getting into gaming. Those were the days where the thought of a games console being given away for free so flippantly was frankly unheard of.
I remember the Japanese Sega Megadrive (there wasn't really a particularly great reason for getting a Japanese one in all honesty) my elder brother and I got for Christmas back in 1990 (along with Golden Axe & Whiprush!) must have been an epic purchase for my parents to make. Likewise, the Sega Saturn that we got later in 1995 launched with a retail price of £399 without any kind of bundled freebies. Of course, mobile phones & incentives for taking out contracts simply weren't around back then, but there is no way that a games console would be 'given away' with any equivalent thing.
With this conveniently-timed free upgrade from an old broken Core unit to a brand spanking new 4GB Slim comes an frustratingly awkward decision on how on earth I can transfer the contents of a full 20GB hard-drive onto a 4GB Slim memory. It shouldn't be anywhere near as complicated as it appears to be if external storage wasn't so strictly managed by Microsoft. Why should I be in the position of - having bought a load of games off XBLA and having all the games, saves, profiles, music stuck on one now unusable hard drive - now needing to possibly shell out money for a shitty official transfer cable just because Microsoft doesn't feel comfortable or reasonable enough to let gamers use any kind of modern-day external storage devices that they use in every other data transfer application in the world??? Yes, there was always the option of forking out another £200 on a 250GB Slim version, but why the bollocks should I buy the same console for a third time??? Surely in any other market I'd be already classed as a golden customer, thanked for my loyalty to Microsoft and given a free god damn unit as an apology for the shitty customer service me, like millions of others, have had to endure?
Again, it brings me back to wonder why the glory days of the trusty Sega Megadrive - with it's big, indestructible instantly-loading cartridges with in-built memory - have not been improved on in terms of reliability. Maybe I should just sack it all off and get a Megadrive instead? I probably would if it wasn't for me being a tight git and needing to pay for it!
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
More-tal Demo Generosity
Wow - long time no blog. And just look at how naff that title is! I've clearly gone a bit wierd.
But, just like Eminem, now I'm back with a brand new rap. Or more accurately, a brand new post.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the new demo for Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection up on XBLA last night. Never one to miss an opportunity to re-live my childhood, a few minutes later the demo is downloaded and I'm off playing.
In a previous post I have raised my concerns over the generosity of some Indie developers in how much they show on a demo. While this Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is a standard XBLA release, it seems the developers have forgotten about why a lot of people played & enjoyed Mortal Kombat - the fatalities.
The demo gives the player just 1 match-up on all of the 3 Mortal Kombat games (1, 2 and Ultimate 3), but all characters are available from the off. Therefore, with the relatively quick restart of fights it is completely possible to spend a fair bit of time just running through each of the characters on each of the games messing about doing the special moves and fatalities, babalities, animalities or whateveralities to your heart's content.
For me, thats plenty entertainment for a game that was only ever going to be a quick blast. No need to buy!
However, given I've got over 900 MSP burning a virtual hole in my virtual Xbox points wallet, I might actually invest a chunk in this decent value collection. Even if it is just to perv on the woefully pixelated Sonya, Mileena and Kitana and their lovely lycra outfits... which is unfortunately not quite as hi-res as this. Oh well.
But, just like Eminem, now I'm back with a brand new rap. Or more accurately, a brand new post.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the new demo for Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection up on XBLA last night. Never one to miss an opportunity to re-live my childhood, a few minutes later the demo is downloaded and I'm off playing.
In a previous post I have raised my concerns over the generosity of some Indie developers in how much they show on a demo. While this Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is a standard XBLA release, it seems the developers have forgotten about why a lot of people played & enjoyed Mortal Kombat - the fatalities.
The demo gives the player just 1 match-up on all of the 3 Mortal Kombat games (1, 2 and Ultimate 3), but all characters are available from the off. Therefore, with the relatively quick restart of fights it is completely possible to spend a fair bit of time just running through each of the characters on each of the games messing about doing the special moves and fatalities, babalities, animalities or whateveralities to your heart's content.
For me, thats plenty entertainment for a game that was only ever going to be a quick blast. No need to buy!
However, given I've got over 900 MSP burning a virtual hole in my virtual Xbox points wallet, I might actually invest a chunk in this decent value collection. Even if it is just to perv on the woefully pixelated Sonya, Mileena and Kitana and their lovely lycra outfits... which is unfortunately not quite as hi-res as this. Oh well.
Friday, 4 March 2011
Demo Generosity
I've been spending a lot of time recently in scouring the huge but still badly organised Xbox Live Arcade back-catalogue in the hunt for those hidden gems.
Downloading trial versions has unearthed a wide variety of generosity from the developers - and it makes me wonder whether there are other people like me who are quite happy to just fill time being utterly cheap & scummy with just playing the free demos of XBLA, Indie and full price games?
I would say my gameplaying time is approx 2 hours a day max - aside from a lengthy play of Fifa I'm milling around my XBLA & full game demo collection each night playing a bit of each - a blast on TMNT Arcade here, a bit of Golden Axe there, a whirl on Scrap Metal, a race on NFS:Shift or Days of Thunder Arcade... you get the picture. I mean, you get practically half the game on the Golden Axe trial.
While I'm tempted to shell out a bit to download or buy the full games, I'm wondering if there really is any point? Am I really going to get significantly more enjoyment for the short time I'm playing them by getting the full game? Could I actually get by never purchasing another game again (at least for a short while) and just skimp off the generosity of developers & Microsoft?
For Indie game developers in particular, the availability of a free demo and how to judge its length & content must be a struggle. Out of curiosity I downloaded a game called Toddler Tantrum off the Indie marketplace - it is apparently designed for toddlers to play, pressing buttons on the pad to make very simple coloured smiley face shapes to appear on screen. Being a parent of a toddler myself, I tested the free trial on her, and she was actually quite taken by it. Unfortunately for the developer, the demo just never seemed to finish. Two minutes was all it was going to occupy any toddler for, so the trial did the job. Why the hell I'd download the full game... I have no idea. The fact I have took the decision to occupy my daughter with the Xbox is bad enough as it is. Next stop: putting the DVD of Hostel on next to keep her entertained...
Downloading trial versions has unearthed a wide variety of generosity from the developers - and it makes me wonder whether there are other people like me who are quite happy to just fill time being utterly cheap & scummy with just playing the free demos of XBLA, Indie and full price games?
I would say my gameplaying time is approx 2 hours a day max - aside from a lengthy play of Fifa I'm milling around my XBLA & full game demo collection each night playing a bit of each - a blast on TMNT Arcade here, a bit of Golden Axe there, a whirl on Scrap Metal, a race on NFS:Shift or Days of Thunder Arcade... you get the picture. I mean, you get practically half the game on the Golden Axe trial.
While I'm tempted to shell out a bit to download or buy the full games, I'm wondering if there really is any point? Am I really going to get significantly more enjoyment for the short time I'm playing them by getting the full game? Could I actually get by never purchasing another game again (at least for a short while) and just skimp off the generosity of developers & Microsoft?
For Indie game developers in particular, the availability of a free demo and how to judge its length & content must be a struggle. Out of curiosity I downloaded a game called Toddler Tantrum off the Indie marketplace - it is apparently designed for toddlers to play, pressing buttons on the pad to make very simple coloured smiley face shapes to appear on screen. Being a parent of a toddler myself, I tested the free trial on her, and she was actually quite taken by it. Unfortunately for the developer, the demo just never seemed to finish. Two minutes was all it was going to occupy any toddler for, so the trial did the job. Why the hell I'd download the full game... I have no idea. The fact I have took the decision to occupy my daughter with the Xbox is bad enough as it is. Next stop: putting the DVD of Hostel on next to keep her entertained...
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Beyond the Reviews
Don't get me wrong - reviews are great. I'm a daily reader of Eurogamer and value a 10/10 in Edge magazine as much as anyone could. I fully appreciate the opinions of experienced people in the industry and they are a huge help in guiding what games I may want to buy.
However, with the introduction of the internet there comes a whole barrage of crap opinions. Opinions from people who don't know what they're talking about. Opinions from those who exaggerate everything with no basis. And opinions from those who follow the sheep and unable to look beyond the mainstream.
With this in mind, I was playing a trial of new XBLA racer Days of Thunder Arcade the other day. Blindly hoping it would be the budget re-incarnation of Daytona USA, or at least close resemblence, I gave it a shot and came away having had quite a bit of fun. The handling was kind of eratic, the crash mechanics were less than polished & there seemed to be a complete lack of powerslide as I've come accustomed to nowadays.
But the key bits were done well enough - it felt quick, the cars felt weighty and it was entertaining. The 'hammer' or boost function worked well, built up through 'drafting' or slipstreaming, clean laps or overtaking. I even bumped up the lap count to 20 laps of the circuit (seem to go up to an epic 60!), making the pit stops pretty essential. Rough around the edges sure, but containing a lot of the ingredients of a proper old-school arcade racer that is rarely seen nowadays.
I was intruiged as to what the world thought about the game, and quickly found out that, generally speaking, the world thinks it is, frankly, a bit shit. Problem is, a lot of these opinions are from those thick people as outlined below. One blog gave it a score of 1/5 - yet it turns out that the reviewer didn't even download the full game, so based this judgement on playing 1 track with 1 car.
Its no Daytona, but I quite liked it and am considering a full purchase. Its all opinions - thats why Microsoft make the trials free.
However, with the introduction of the internet there comes a whole barrage of crap opinions. Opinions from people who don't know what they're talking about. Opinions from those who exaggerate everything with no basis. And opinions from those who follow the sheep and unable to look beyond the mainstream.
With this in mind, I was playing a trial of new XBLA racer Days of Thunder Arcade the other day. Blindly hoping it would be the budget re-incarnation of Daytona USA, or at least close resemblence, I gave it a shot and came away having had quite a bit of fun. The handling was kind of eratic, the crash mechanics were less than polished & there seemed to be a complete lack of powerslide as I've come accustomed to nowadays.
But the key bits were done well enough - it felt quick, the cars felt weighty and it was entertaining. The 'hammer' or boost function worked well, built up through 'drafting' or slipstreaming, clean laps or overtaking. I even bumped up the lap count to 20 laps of the circuit (seem to go up to an epic 60!), making the pit stops pretty essential. Rough around the edges sure, but containing a lot of the ingredients of a proper old-school arcade racer that is rarely seen nowadays.
I was intruiged as to what the world thought about the game, and quickly found out that, generally speaking, the world thinks it is, frankly, a bit shit. Problem is, a lot of these opinions are from those thick people as outlined below. One blog gave it a score of 1/5 - yet it turns out that the reviewer didn't even download the full game, so based this judgement on playing 1 track with 1 car.
Its no Daytona, but I quite liked it and am considering a full purchase. Its all opinions - thats why Microsoft make the trials free.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Return of the Bugs
Sometimes the best things are those that surprise you. That was certainly the case with Earth Defence Force 2017 on the Xbox 360 when it was released back in 2007.
Being presented with pretty dodgy box art and, in hindsight, two woefully unrepresentative images on the back, I mocked Earth Defence Force 2017 on the shelf for being a crappy low-budget me-too shooter without even watching a trailer or playing a demo. Shame on me.
Moving on 4 years, I can now think back and laugh about my poor judgement. I stumbled upon the trailer for the game on the Play.com website and it blew me away. The scale, the destruction - quite unlike any other game I'd ever seen. Got it & love it - simple to play & genuinely entertaining, and it still stands with its neck above the slurry of more popular yet bland first & third person shooters in the marketplace made with larger production budgets.
So the news that its sequel - EDF: Insect Armageddon - is on its way is superb news. July can't come quick enough.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Simple gaming
Next-gen gaming brings us the wonders of high-definition visuals & huge game worlds in which to play, but why do developers feel they now have to make games so complicated?
Back in the day where control pads had 2 or 3 buttons and a directional pad there wasn't a lot to learn and remember to be able to play a game. Stick a game into your Xbox 360 now and be prepared for a horrendously complex 'Controls' screen to pop up while the game loads. A function for every one of the multitude of buttons on the pad. Good luck remembering them all.
The introduction of 3D visuals suddenly opened up new possibilities of gameplay - no longer was it a case of scrolling from left to right. But with this brought the end of the side-scrolling beat 'em up, the scrolling shooter and the simple platform games. In developing modern sequels on new platforms, developers felt the need to produce them in 3D. Great, but for every Mario 64 there are a hundred Sonic Adventures.
Picking up a copy of Ultimate Sega Megadrive Collection recently on the Xbox 360, it brings me back to a time when there were no lengthy introductions or training levels - just simple games that could be played through and enjoyed time and time again.
Are games just too clever for their own good nowadays?
Back in the day where control pads had 2 or 3 buttons and a directional pad there wasn't a lot to learn and remember to be able to play a game. Stick a game into your Xbox 360 now and be prepared for a horrendously complex 'Controls' screen to pop up while the game loads. A function for every one of the multitude of buttons on the pad. Good luck remembering them all.
The introduction of 3D visuals suddenly opened up new possibilities of gameplay - no longer was it a case of scrolling from left to right. But with this brought the end of the side-scrolling beat 'em up, the scrolling shooter and the simple platform games. In developing modern sequels on new platforms, developers felt the need to produce them in 3D. Great, but for every Mario 64 there are a hundred Sonic Adventures.
Picking up a copy of Ultimate Sega Megadrive Collection recently on the Xbox 360, it brings me back to a time when there were no lengthy introductions or training levels - just simple games that could be played through and enjoyed time and time again.
Are games just too clever for their own good nowadays?
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