Over the last few days I have been playing Forza Motorsport 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and have enjoyed them both to a degree. You can read my review of Pirates at MSXbox World by clicking here.
I have just started playing Shadowrun only a few hours ago and am finding that there is a lot of information to take in and remember during the course of gameplay; the game has a very good tutorial mode though which helps significantly. I'm sure most Xbox 360 FPS fans will know that Shadowrun is the first game under Microsoft's Games for Windows (Vista) platform that allows cross-platform play between Xbox 360 and Windows Vista gamers. So perhaps the ultimate battle of the mouse and keyboards versus the controller?
In other news I just recently hit 27,000+ gamerscore - I am obviously aiming for the big 30k which I hope to get some time soon as I have a few games left over where there are some rather easy achievements available, its just finding the time to want to revisit old games when there are so many new "good" games available and on the horizon - also not forgetting the Halo 3 Beta which is gagging for some serious playtime.
I also received an email today from Sony regarding the Casino Royale Blu-ray disc promotion I mentioned in a previous post. Here is a quote from the email: "Being one of the first to register you have qualified for a free Blu-ray Disc™ of Casino Royale™. We will aim to deliver your disc within 45 days." I find this particularly amusing as it states I'm one of the first to register for the PlayStation Network... I didn't get a PS3 until May 1st so they must have had lots of registrations from the UK launch til then? The other thing obviously is that I received my disc of Casino Royale on Blu-ray just recently from Sony so it seems odd for the email to arrive just now and inform me that I qualify for it and that the disc will be posted within 45 days... when I already have it. Still nothing to complain about as such, as I have the film now anyway.
Wednesday 30 May 2007
Saturday 26 May 2007
Back on Xbox LIVE + Freebie from Sony :)
After some network issues I am back on Xbox Live, about god damn time too. Not been upto much today or over the past few days - I do not like being disconnected, feels very strange. Anyways, I'm happy to be back online in full force, just spent some time downloading a few trailers and the Colin McRae: DiRT demo; I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and yeah it impressed the hell out of me, I will be spending some more time with the demo before the game releases.
During my down time I had the chance to get into my PS3 a bit more and have spent some well over due time with Resistance, at first I thought it was just OK but a couple of levels in then I really got into it and am really enjoying it so far, multiplayer I find weird though. It's good, no lag or anything but there is just no communication, I am not sure if I need a Bluetooth headset to actually hear people or if I should be able to hear them through the speakers like I can on Xbox Live, I'm not wanting to spend money on a headset if hardly anyone talks... perhaps Sony should have included one in the box or sell an official headset.
I will be looking to finish off the campaign of Resistance very soon then get back to some well deserved Halo 3 Beta action (before I blink and wonder where all the time went).
I was very happy this morning too, as I woke up to find a package from Sony containing the film 007: Casino Royale on Blu-ray disc. I did read about the promotion on their website but wasn't sure if I would receive it or not, though I obviously have and it took 26 days from me registering on the PlayStation Network to receive the disc. So I guess I will be watching some Bond... James Bond tonight then.
During my down time I had the chance to get into my PS3 a bit more and have spent some well over due time with Resistance, at first I thought it was just OK but a couple of levels in then I really got into it and am really enjoying it so far, multiplayer I find weird though. It's good, no lag or anything but there is just no communication, I am not sure if I need a Bluetooth headset to actually hear people or if I should be able to hear them through the speakers like I can on Xbox Live, I'm not wanting to spend money on a headset if hardly anyone talks... perhaps Sony should have included one in the box or sell an official headset.
I will be looking to finish off the campaign of Resistance very soon then get back to some well deserved Halo 3 Beta action (before I blink and wonder where all the time went).
I was very happy this morning too, as I woke up to find a package from Sony containing the film 007: Casino Royale on Blu-ray disc. I did read about the promotion on their website but wasn't sure if I would receive it or not, though I obviously have and it took 26 days from me registering on the PlayStation Network to receive the disc. So I guess I will be watching some Bond... James Bond tonight then.
Friday 18 May 2007
Playing Bungie at their own game + movies -- Everyone was Virtua Fighting' dun, dun, dun... you get the picture.
May 16th 2007 was the official release of the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta to the public, on this date I had the opportunity to team up with and go against some of the team behind the development of Halo 3 - Bungie Studios. There were other select members of the community in on the action also and we all had the chance to take on and team up with Bungie on what is sure to be the game of the year when the retail version releases on September 25th, 2007.
You can view the article and movies by clicking here. Certainly some great games and I'm quite happy with how well I did considering I had only been playing the Beta for a few hours before joining - though I have had plenty of experience with Halo 2 though admittedly I havn't been playing this a great deal as of late.
An update on Virtua Fighter 5 from my last post, the preview is up and if you're looking at your next brawler for the Xbox 360 or perhaps even the PS3 then you may be interested in checking out my preview of Virtua Fighter 5 by kicking here.
You can view the article and movies by clicking here. Certainly some great games and I'm quite happy with how well I did considering I had only been playing the Beta for a few hours before joining - though I have had plenty of experience with Halo 2 though admittedly I havn't been playing this a great deal as of late.
An update on Virtua Fighter 5 from my last post, the preview is up and if you're looking at your next brawler for the Xbox 360 or perhaps even the PS3 then you may be interested in checking out my preview of Virtua Fighter 5 by kicking here.
Sunday 13 May 2007
Halo 3 Beta, MSXbox World, WCF Community Night
As of the last few days I have seen a couple of people on my friends list playing the Halo 3 Beta and it is that fact for any Halo fan that is enough to drive you completely round the bend. To compensate for this I have been downloading hi-def video clips of the Halo 3 Beta in action, and this probably was not a good idea; as I find myself wanting to just play the damn thing even more. Eventually I will get my hands on it, come this Wednesday at least anyway - hopefully before.
Other things I have been doing as of late are designing a few nice slide images in Photoshop for various previews and what not as well as a Video Studio Tour of Codemasters, check out www.msxbox-world.com for all that, there's loads of stuff for you to check including exclusive screenshots from Forza Motorsport 2 and more. I've just finished writing up a short Hands-on preview for Virtua Fighter 5 as I have recently been playing the PS3 version and so have compiled my overall thoughts into a preview for the Xbox 360 version which will release later this summer. This preview should be up in the next day or so.
Just recently I had some games on Gears of War with a few of my old graphics buddies from WCF, this is actually the second event... or is it the first as no one actually showed up for the first one, including me? Either way it was OK, we had some good games and some other friends and random players joined in on the action. A few WCF'ers sadly couldn't make it for various reasons including: "the event is 6pm UK time but that is 4am in Australia (-2 buddies)' 'my Gears of War disc is unreadable - perhaps fear of getting owned or legitimate? (-1 buddy)"
Still may have some ranked games tonight as a couple more are expected to come online -- anytime now, hopefully.
Other things I have been doing as of late are designing a few nice slide images in Photoshop for various previews and what not as well as a Video Studio Tour of Codemasters, check out www.msxbox-world.com for all that, there's loads of stuff for you to check including exclusive screenshots from Forza Motorsport 2 and more. I've just finished writing up a short Hands-on preview for Virtua Fighter 5 as I have recently been playing the PS3 version and so have compiled my overall thoughts into a preview for the Xbox 360 version which will release later this summer. This preview should be up in the next day or so.
Just recently I had some games on Gears of War with a few of my old graphics buddies from WCF, this is actually the second event... or is it the first as no one actually showed up for the first one, including me? Either way it was OK, we had some good games and some other friends and random players joined in on the action. A few WCF'ers sadly couldn't make it for various reasons including: "the event is 6pm UK time but that is 4am in Australia (-2 buddies)' 'my Gears of War disc is unreadable - perhaps fear of getting owned or legitimate? (-1 buddy)"
Still may have some ranked games tonight as a couple more are expected to come online -- anytime now, hopefully.
Monday 7 May 2007
Added Twitter... The Buck-eth's Review.
I have added Twitter to my blog, you can see this just to the right below my Xbox Live gamercard, basically this little tool allows you to update the box with your own text to let people know what you're doing (or for other reasons). The handy thing about it is that you can not only update it from Twitter.com but also using your mobile phone or instant messenger... I have not figured out everything yet so am updating it via. the web but it would be more convenient if it works with my msn messenger though. I will have to dig a bit deeper and find out about that. Not that I'm doing anything of interest but it's handy if some buddies are wondering why I'm not on Xbox Live or msn for example.
Also my good buddy mr Buck-eth or Buckdawg as he likes to be called of WCF fame has got his very first review up on www.msxbox-world.com, you can check that out by clicking here.
Also my good buddy mr Buck-eth or Buckdawg as he likes to be called of WCF fame has got his very first review up on www.msxbox-world.com, you can check that out by clicking here.
Thursday 3 May 2007
HDMI cable arrives :) Gears of War new map pack now available.
Finally after the waiting, my HDMI cable has arrived today and as can be seen by my setup pictures I'm sure you can imagine how much of pain it was to get it connected to my TV (click here for setup pictures). First off I had to remove the top of my desk and then remove the TV's speakers just so I could get to the underside of the TV, needless to say once that was out of the way it was pretty straight forward. Anyway, these pictures were taken yesterday afternoon as I was in the mood for snapping some pics at the time, so the PS3 image on the TV is in low resolution 576i using the composite cable. However, I now have it setup to 1080p over HDMI and it looks drop dead gorgeous. I will hopefully find some time tonight to start the singleplayer campaign on Resistance: Fall of Man and maybe get some Motorstorm in if I'm lucky.
Though anyone that knows me will know that I can barely keep off Gears of War, I thought I would stop playing it once I got the last achievement in the game (Seriously .. 10, 000 ranked kills), but as of late I seem to be enjoying the game more because I don't have to try and take it so seriously all the time - no pun intended. Though I'm sure any Gears of War fan will have heard about the new Multiplayer Map Pack entitled Hidden Fronts, this new map pack includes 4 new maps and is available to download now from the Xbox Live marketplace for 800 MS points - keep in mind though that this new pack will be made available to download for free on September 3rd.
Wednesday 2 May 2007
PS3 arrived yesterday!
Yesterday was a very long day. Waiting in for the PS3 to be delivered and it shows up about 5.10pm, after about 3pm I had given up hope of it arriving at all. I was more dissapointed that my HDMI cable did not get delivered the same day - still fingers crossed that should arrive some time this morning as I have not had any post yet.
So yesterdays activities obviously revolved around the PS3 and getting it setup and setting my online account up and then downloading some demos and trailers. First thing I downloaded was the GT:HD demo which seems impressive, it looked quite poor though - I am putting that down to me using the composite cable that ships with the console.
Today though I've stuffed some more demos and trailers for download including Formula One CE, Ridge Racer 7, Genji: DotB and the Virtua Tennis 3 demo - I actually have the Xbox 360 version of this so I'm more interested in comparing it visually. The thing I have had the most fun with today is Super Rub 'a' Dub, this is basically what Sony were showing off in one of their demonstrations a while back. So they've turned it into a game which actually works surprisingly well and is all controlled by tilting the SixAxis Wireless controller. The basic premise of the game is to free your young ducklings from the enclosure and in some of the later levels avoiding sharks too. I havn't played it a great deal and have only downloaded the free demo version so I'm not sure how many levels are available.
The thing I am most excited about playing today is the Ninja Gaiden: Sigma demo, this is not available on the UK PS Store so I created a US account - basically the same way to access content from other regions on the Xbox 360. The download has just finished as I'm typing this but I'll wait for now and try it out once my HDMI cable arrives.
As an Xbox 360 owner it seems I have not been appreciating what my 360 offers me as I'm sure I am not the only one to take some of the consoles features for granted but this becomes more evident when playing on other consoles and you expect to be able to do specific things. I cannot access the Friends list whilst playing a game or watching a video and you cannot check on your currently running downloads - to do any of those things you need to be on the XMB (Cross Media Bar) or Dashboards to keep things simple you 360 people (assuming there is something I'm not missing).
One other thing I want to add before I finish, which really disgruntles me for some reason and that is if you download a game or demo from the PS Store you can obviously check on its progress and access it on the XMB, but when you come to launch it for the first time it has to install it, this is a very quick process but just seems so odd, I guess Sony really are pushing their console to be like a computer or something... I really don't understand why they just don't auto install during the download, I would have thought if it must install that the download could pause at say 99% and then install and hit 100% and be complete that would just seem so much more beneficial and convenient for gamers - the less screens to go through to access the content the better or at least thats what I think.
I shall head off now and wait for Mr Postman, quite looking forward to getting on Resistance: FoM, I havn't even opened it yet - I want my first impression of the game to be in HD goodness :)
--- Nooo as I was just finishing this up and the postman has been and there is no HDMI cable :*(
So yesterdays activities obviously revolved around the PS3 and getting it setup and setting my online account up and then downloading some demos and trailers. First thing I downloaded was the GT:HD demo which seems impressive, it looked quite poor though - I am putting that down to me using the composite cable that ships with the console.
Today though I've stuffed some more demos and trailers for download including Formula One CE, Ridge Racer 7, Genji: DotB and the Virtua Tennis 3 demo - I actually have the Xbox 360 version of this so I'm more interested in comparing it visually. The thing I have had the most fun with today is Super Rub 'a' Dub, this is basically what Sony were showing off in one of their demonstrations a while back. So they've turned it into a game which actually works surprisingly well and is all controlled by tilting the SixAxis Wireless controller. The basic premise of the game is to free your young ducklings from the enclosure and in some of the later levels avoiding sharks too. I havn't played it a great deal and have only downloaded the free demo version so I'm not sure how many levels are available.
The thing I am most excited about playing today is the Ninja Gaiden: Sigma demo, this is not available on the UK PS Store so I created a US account - basically the same way to access content from other regions on the Xbox 360. The download has just finished as I'm typing this but I'll wait for now and try it out once my HDMI cable arrives.
As an Xbox 360 owner it seems I have not been appreciating what my 360 offers me as I'm sure I am not the only one to take some of the consoles features for granted but this becomes more evident when playing on other consoles and you expect to be able to do specific things. I cannot access the Friends list whilst playing a game or watching a video and you cannot check on your currently running downloads - to do any of those things you need to be on the XMB (Cross Media Bar) or Dashboards to keep things simple you 360 people (assuming there is something I'm not missing).
One other thing I want to add before I finish, which really disgruntles me for some reason and that is if you download a game or demo from the PS Store you can obviously check on its progress and access it on the XMB, but when you come to launch it for the first time it has to install it, this is a very quick process but just seems so odd, I guess Sony really are pushing their console to be like a computer or something... I really don't understand why they just don't auto install during the download, I would have thought if it must install that the download could pause at say 99% and then install and hit 100% and be complete that would just seem so much more beneficial and convenient for gamers - the less screens to go through to access the content the better or at least thats what I think.
I shall head off now and wait for Mr Postman, quite looking forward to getting on Resistance: FoM, I havn't even opened it yet - I want my first impression of the game to be in HD goodness :)
--- Nooo as I was just finishing this up and the postman has been and there is no HDMI cable :*(
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