Ive heard that there is a ton to do. But about the map size...Im sure I wont be too suprised as I played this little game called Just Cause with a map 100 times this size!!!!! But I am looking forward to it as installation went ok and I should be able to play later today.
It's not just the size of the world, it's the number of towns, people, dungeons, and other things to interact with and keep straight.
As for installs, all I had to do to "install" it on the 360 was pop the DVD into the tray.
Eh, It just took like 3 minutes....where do I go though...I left the dungeons, and im going towards the red triangle thingy on the compass...is that right???
Once you're out of the dungeon, the sky is the limit. the red arrows is the point of your active quest.
Microsoft announced they will be releasing Xbox 360 Elite, which will include 120 gb hard drive for about $479.00. The gaming system will also include some other upgrades. Current owners of a 360 will be able to buy a snap on hard drive for $179.00. Personally I don't need the extra space as I have downloaded very little and have only saved a few demos. But for others, the improvements will come in handy.
Microsoft announced they will be releasing Xbox 360 Elite, which will include 120 gb hard drive for about $479.00. The gaming system will also include some other upgrades. Current owners of a 360 will be able to buy a snap on hard drive for $179.00. Personally I don't need the extra space as I have downloaded very little and have only saved a few demos. But for others, the improvements will come in handy.
I'm a little wary of this "Elite" console; the more I look at it, the more I think this is a misstep by Microsoft.
The pricepoint puts it at just $20 shy of a core PS3 but without any hi-def DVD support. MS couldn't very well go BluRay since they don't support that format and they decided against slapping in an HD-DVD drive since that technology hasn't really caught on either. Sony is sure to pounce on this and really harp on it in their ads.
I'm also not sure if HDMI support and the larger hard drive will really benefit the average consumer all that much. HDMI only comes into play if you just have to be able play your games at 1080p or want the 360 to upscale your standard DVD's. And the larger hard drive is really only an issue if you plan to download lots of movies and TV shows from Microsoft's on-demand service.
Microsoft has always had a bad habit of trying to "one-up" competitors on a feature by feature basis and I see some of that here. The PS3 had HDMI, so the 360 has to have it too. The PS3 had a 20 or 60 GB hard drive, so now the 360 gets a bigger one. Unfortunately, MS failed to address Sony's most touted feature - next gen DVD support and that will come up.
If I were Microsoft, I would have continued to focus on getting more solid software out there rather than fragmenting the console base with another SKU. That kind of fragmentation of the hardware is what ultimately doomed Sega and I hope MS doesn't go down the same path.
I think the add on option is probably a better option. Because not everybody wants it and are not willing to pay lot's of money for it when they don't have a choice to opt out. I can only see this being an advantage to sony until HD and blu-ray players drop right down.
I think the add on option is probably a better option. Because not everybody wants it and are not willing to pay lot's of money for it when they don't have a choice to opt out. I can only see this being an advantage to sony until HD and blu-ray players drop right down.
I agree that it's better to make high def DVD playback optional and charge people for it only if they want it. Personally, I buy these consoles for good games - the 360 has plenty so I have one; the PS3 has very few so I don't have one. The problem here is that people who don't know too much about these consoles will always compare features (often without stopping to think if they really need those features or not) and price; and since the pricepoints are so close they'll say "well, for $20 more I get BluRay too." That kind of thinking could hurt Microsoft.
It also doesn't help that there are now three flavors of Xbox 360 out there; that could confuse consumers and hurt them more. Sega had the same problem. At one point, they were selling the Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega CD Attachment, 32X attachment, and CDX all-in-one unit (not to mention the Saturn). That was then things started to go bad for them.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
Hey guys, just ordered GRAW 2 and Hitman Blood Money, both for 360, on eBay. Yay.
I can't wait!
I haven't played GRAW2 in a couple of weeks; I bought it too soon after finishing GRAW1 and am a little burned out with squad based tactical shooters right now. But it is a great game and I'll get back to it eventually.
Let us know how Blood Money is; I saw it for $40 at Toys 'R Us and was thinking about getting it.
Received both Blood Money and GRAW 2 recently, and started playing Blood Money today. Truly awesome game, and I can actually play it and beat missions without cheating, unlike in Hitman 2. Even so, it is very challenging, but the truly amazing thing about this game is the multitude of ways you can kill every mark, and in most levels, there are multiple marks. In one level, one of the men you have to kill is the son of a senator (the other is a Hugh Hefner lookalike). Anyway, this son is in a jacuzzi with a bunch of bikini clad girls. These are the ways that I found to kill him:
1) Just walk up to him and shoot him
2) Find a balcony and snipe him.
3) Find a way underneath the jacuzzi- it is made of glass, and if it is broken, he and the ladies will all fall through and die.
4) Grab an aphrodesiac from the bartender, poison his drink with it, follow him as he takes a woman to his room, interrupt them and follow him out onto the balcony, where you can a) shoot him, b) fiber wire him, c) poison him, d) push him off the balcony.
And those are only a few of the possibilities!
Plus, the upgrade system rules. You get paid for every mission, and can upgrade your weapons with that money. You can silence your pistol, put a scope on it, put a laser on it, change the ammo type, extend the magazine, etc. And you can do this with five different weapons- your Baller pistol, your MP5 SMG, your SPAS 12 shotgun, your M4 assalut rifle, and your W2000 sniper rifle (used by Tim Dalton in TLD!)
I just got STALKER and im really likeing it. It is a ton of fun and its got a great atmosphere.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
Also started GRAW 2, and it is pretty good. With the surround sound cranked up, the incredible explosions are really fun. But is it too much of the same too soon? Well... yes. And I was hoping to customize my avatar online at least to the extent of R6 Vegas, but no, you can only change headgear yet again.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
Im having a blast with STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl as it rules. The singly player is long like Oblivion and the multiplayer, if a bit generic is reallyfun. Weapons customization is awesome and the RPG element of this game is done well. All in all, if you have a decent or good computer this is a highly reccomended game!!!
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
Are you tired of your gimmickless 360? Are you fed up with the lack of arm workout you get while playing it?
Well, get ready for a revolution, kids. Or at least a SixAxis copy.
There's a restriction on streaming videos at my office so I can't check this out till tonight. Is this a standalone device or does it connect to the 360 pad somehow? Either way, this is just another example of Microsoft's penchant for always wanting to match the competition feature for feature, regardless of just how useful it is. They've done in on the software side for decades.
What I'd really love to see for the 360 (or any console for that matter) is a good pair of LCD 3D glasses. Sega used to have these as an accessory for its 8-bit Sega Master System way back in the late 1980's and the 3D effect was actually very good. The LCD style 3D glasses allow the games to still appear in full color, not just red and blue like with those cheap 3D glasses. If Sega could make a viable and affordable 3D solution back in 1988, imagine what could be done with today's technology.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
It is a chip that is placed beneath the battery, or that is what it looks like in the video.
Can't say I agree that we need 3D glasses, I think that would just be weird. Maybe better suited to a Wii.
Last night I played a little Halo and some PGR3, but after awhile felt like watching a movie. So I thought I might download a movie from the Xbox. However, when I went and looked for a movie it seemed the list was pretty much the same movies I saw 6 months ago. I was pretty disappointed and I have to say I think Microsoft is missing an opportunity. I recently read an article (attached) that stated the Xbox 360 was far superior to Apple's I-TV in providing HD media. Yet, Microsoft seems very slow to offer any through the Xbox. I think Microsoft has a chance to be the household media center hub if they get aggressive. Seems to me, that if someone offered HD entertainment that could be downloaded they would make BluRay and HD-DVD players unnecessary.
Last night I played a little Halo and some PGR3, but after awhile felt like watching a movie. So I thought I might download a movie from the Xbox. However, when I went and looked for a movie it seemed the list was pretty much the same movies I saw 6 months ago. I was pretty disappointed and I have to say I think Microsoft is missing an opportunity. I recently read an article (attached) that stated the Xbox 360 was far superior to Apple's I-TV in providing HD media. Yet, Microsoft seems very slow to offer any through the Xbox. I think Microsoft has a chance to be the household media center hub if they get aggressive. Seems to me, that if someone offered HD entertainment that could be downloaded they would make BluRay and HD-DVD players unnecessary.
I read the same article; very surprising to see Apple drop the ball like that - they usually have their ducks pretty well lined up before releasing a piece of hardware.
The whole on-demand download thru the 360 effort is still very much a beta test. The service only went up 4 or 5 months ago and MS is still trying to get more studios on board to offer their wares. In time, I'm sure it will grow - we'll probably see an uptick in content to coincide with the arrival of the larger 120GB hard drive at the end of April. And once IPTV is up and running, which should allow for a smoother streaming experience over Live, more content will become available. But MS needs to get the studios onboard and I'm sure Sony will fight them tooth and nail. Whatever happens, I wouldn't expect to see much content from Sony or its exclusive partners for a while.
Can't say I agree that we need 3D glasses, I think that would just be weird. Maybe better suited to a Wii.
I've always been something of a 3D nut. I've got lots of books and comics that are done in 3D. You should try to find a copy "Batman 3D" - a really great graphic novel from the late 80's / early 90's with some amazing 3D galleries in the back - that might sell you on the concept.
If the games took advantage of the technology, it could make for some pretty awesome gameplay. I remember one 3D game for the Master System that was basically a 3D version of Missile Defense, only the rockets came towards you and you shot them with a light gun. The 3D effect thru the LCD shutters was amazing and the missiles actually looked like they were coming out of the TV.
As for the Wii - I sold mine a few days ago. A friend had been desperately looking for one for his son's birthday and since I wasn't using mine all that much I thought I'd help him out. It also didn't help that all the software being released for the next few months was either ports of existing games or Nintendo franchises that I never cared for. Heatseeker was about the only original game that intrigued me but with Ace Combat 6 coming to the 360, I think I have the flight combat genre covered.
And in case you're wondering - NO - I'm not planning to buy a PS3. Every time I get the itch, I read some review of another mediocre game and lose interest. The last one was Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which reviewers are saying looks better and runs smoother on the 360, even though the PS3 had almost 6 more months of development time. So I'm back to being 100% Microsoft for the forseeable future.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
100% Microsoft- as it should be.
Yeah, I think the Wii hype is dying down. I haven't heard of any good games coming out for it. Same goes for the PS3. Honestly, the 360 is the only thing exciting right now- Mass Effect should ship in the next few months.
There's also a niftly little keyboard attachment coming in May that clips inside a wireless controller. I'm not much for instant messaging but this could still come in handy for blasting off quick invites or entering MS points and similar activities. Here's an article at Gamerscore with more info.
No beta for me. I didn't get Crackdown and I'm not much for online play so I'll wait till the release of the full Halo 3 game and then focus primarily on the single player game - which will hopefully be a little deeper than Halo 2.
BTW Night, there are some pictures of PGR4 floating around. There will be rain this time around, as well as snow, ice and other variable weather conditions.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
I'm excited by that because I felt the one thing PGR3 was reaaaaaally missing was rain. The pictures look pretty good. I can't wait for this one.
Went to pick up Crackdown last night and decided to pass. What I saw of the game didn't excite me and I decided I didn't want to pay $60.00 just for the Halo 3 demo. Sorry Night.
NightshooterIn bed with SolitairePosts: 2,917MI6 Agent
Sorry you felt that way, for me, Crackdown was an amazingly fun game. Barry, there is a free Crackdown demo on the Marketplace, try it, you might like it.
Comments
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20070328&ID=6676323&Symbol=MSFT
I'm a little wary of this "Elite" console; the more I look at it, the more I think this is a misstep by Microsoft.
The pricepoint puts it at just $20 shy of a core PS3 but without any hi-def DVD support. MS couldn't very well go BluRay since they don't support that format and they decided against slapping in an HD-DVD drive since that technology hasn't really caught on either. Sony is sure to pounce on this and really harp on it in their ads.
I'm also not sure if HDMI support and the larger hard drive will really benefit the average consumer all that much. HDMI only comes into play if you just have to be able play your games at 1080p or want the 360 to upscale your standard DVD's. And the larger hard drive is really only an issue if you plan to download lots of movies and TV shows from Microsoft's on-demand service.
Microsoft has always had a bad habit of trying to "one-up" competitors on a feature by feature basis and I see some of that here. The PS3 had HDMI, so the 360 has to have it too. The PS3 had a 20 or 60 GB hard drive, so now the 360 gets a bigger one. Unfortunately, MS failed to address Sony's most touted feature - next gen DVD support and that will come up.
If I were Microsoft, I would have continued to focus on getting more solid software out there rather than fragmenting the console base with another SKU. That kind of fragmentation of the hardware is what ultimately doomed Sega and I hope MS doesn't go down the same path.
I agree that it's better to make high def DVD playback optional and charge people for it only if they want it. Personally, I buy these consoles for good games - the 360 has plenty so I have one; the PS3 has very few so I don't have one. The problem here is that people who don't know too much about these consoles will always compare features (often without stopping to think if they really need those features or not) and price; and since the pricepoints are so close they'll say "well, for $20 more I get BluRay too." That kind of thinking could hurt Microsoft.
It also doesn't help that there are now three flavors of Xbox 360 out there; that could confuse consumers and hurt them more. Sega had the same problem. At one point, they were selling the Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega CD Attachment, 32X attachment, and CDX all-in-one unit (not to mention the Saturn). That was then things started to go bad for them.
Received both Blood Money and GRAW 2 recently, and started playing Blood Money today. Truly awesome game, and I can actually play it and beat missions without cheating, unlike in Hitman 2. Even so, it is very challenging, but the truly amazing thing about this game is the multitude of ways you can kill every mark, and in most levels, there are multiple marks. In one level, one of the men you have to kill is the son of a senator (the other is a Hugh Hefner lookalike). Anyway, this son is in a jacuzzi with a bunch of bikini clad girls. These are the ways that I found to kill him:
1) Just walk up to him and shoot him
2) Find a balcony and snipe him.
3) Find a way underneath the jacuzzi- it is made of glass, and if it is broken, he and the ladies will all fall through and die.
4) Grab an aphrodesiac from the bartender, poison his drink with it, follow him as he takes a woman to his room, interrupt them and follow him out onto the balcony, where you can a) shoot him, b) fiber wire him, c) poison him, d) push him off the balcony.
And those are only a few of the possibilities!
Plus, the upgrade system rules. You get paid for every mission, and can upgrade your weapons with that money. You can silence your pistol, put a scope on it, put a laser on it, change the ammo type, extend the magazine, etc. And you can do this with five different weapons- your Baller pistol, your MP5 SMG, your SPAS 12 shotgun, your M4 assalut rifle, and your W2000 sniper rifle (used by Tim Dalton in TLD!)
This game is worth every penny.
SO. INCREDIBLY. COOL.
Well, get ready for a revolution, kids. Or at least a SixAxis copy.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/06/tilt-sensitive-tiltboard-module-going-big-for-xbox-360/
There's a restriction on streaming videos at my office so I can't check this out till tonight. Is this a standalone device or does it connect to the 360 pad somehow? Either way, this is just another example of Microsoft's penchant for always wanting to match the competition feature for feature, regardless of just how useful it is. They've done in on the software side for decades.
What I'd really love to see for the 360 (or any console for that matter) is a good pair of LCD 3D glasses. Sega used to have these as an accessory for its 8-bit Sega Master System way back in the late 1980's and the 3D effect was actually very good. The LCD style 3D glasses allow the games to still appear in full color, not just red and blue like with those cheap 3D glasses. If Sega could make a viable and affordable 3D solution back in 1988, imagine what could be done with today's technology.
Can't say I agree that we need 3D glasses, I think that would just be weird. Maybe better suited to a Wii.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070404/tech_test_apple_tv.html?.v=6
I read the same article; very surprising to see Apple drop the ball like that - they usually have their ducks pretty well lined up before releasing a piece of hardware.
The whole on-demand download thru the 360 effort is still very much a beta test. The service only went up 4 or 5 months ago and MS is still trying to get more studios on board to offer their wares. In time, I'm sure it will grow - we'll probably see an uptick in content to coincide with the arrival of the larger 120GB hard drive at the end of April. And once IPTV is up and running, which should allow for a smoother streaming experience over Live, more content will become available. But MS needs to get the studios onboard and I'm sure Sony will fight them tooth and nail. Whatever happens, I wouldn't expect to see much content from Sony or its exclusive partners for a while.
I've always been something of a 3D nut. I've got lots of books and comics that are done in 3D. You should try to find a copy "Batman 3D" - a really great graphic novel from the late 80's / early 90's with some amazing 3D galleries in the back - that might sell you on the concept.
If the games took advantage of the technology, it could make for some pretty awesome gameplay. I remember one 3D game for the Master System that was basically a 3D version of Missile Defense, only the rockets came towards you and you shot them with a light gun. The 3D effect thru the LCD shutters was amazing and the missiles actually looked like they were coming out of the TV.
As for the Wii - I sold mine a few days ago. A friend had been desperately looking for one for his son's birthday and since I wasn't using mine all that much I thought I'd help him out. It also didn't help that all the software being released for the next few months was either ports of existing games or Nintendo franchises that I never cared for. Heatseeker was about the only original game that intrigued me but with Ace Combat 6 coming to the 360, I think I have the flight combat genre covered.
And in case you're wondering - NO - I'm not planning to buy a PS3. Every time I get the itch, I read some review of another mediocre game and lose interest. The last one was Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which reviewers are saying looks better and runs smoother on the 360, even though the PS3 had almost 6 more months of development time. So I'm back to being 100% Microsoft for the forseeable future.
Yeah, I think the Wii hype is dying down. I haven't heard of any good games coming out for it. Same goes for the PS3. Honestly, the 360 is the only thing exciting right now- Mass Effect should ship in the next few months.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070409/microsoft_xbox_360.html?.v=1
There's also a niftly little keyboard attachment coming in May that clips inside a wireless controller. I'm not much for instant messaging but this could still come in handy for blasting off quick invites or entering MS points and similar activities. Here's an article at Gamerscore with more info.
http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2007/04/08/543788.aspx
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070410/sftu022.html?.v=84
BTW Night, there are some pictures of PGR4 floating around. There will be rain this time around, as well as snow, ice and other variable weather conditions.