Darren, Chris and I recently played a round of Halo 3. Darren, being a beginner, was dropped frequently as he learned the weapons, the vehicles and the controls altogether. The next night, he decided to cut a musical montage of his more interesting deaths, which I begged him to let me upload and share. It’s attached below. Enjoy!
I just paid $5 for virtually nothing. It makes my avatar look cool. It’s a developer/publisher I’m happy to support with my dollars, but it’s something I can’t really ever interact with, just display.
I paid for an outfit to make my Xbox Live avatar look like a character from a game series I like; Splinter Cell. It wasn’t TOO bad a deal in the grand scheme of things, because I had $7 in free Microsoft Points 
(Microsoft’s virtual currency used to buy Xbox and Zune purchases) from buying shampoo and stuff from Target over the weekend.
I have no tangible media on which this content is sitting. If Xbox Live’s servers break, I cannot access what I purchased. In essence, I purchased a license for it, which I’m granted if Xbox Live’s servers are functioning properly (which to their credit is VERY reliable, barring last winter’s complete meltdown).
The concept of it is just blowing my mind as I sit here thinking about it. Perhaps a nice thing about it is that the money I’ve spent on this content license is going to the developer, who in turn could make a potentially stronger product with my money.
I wish more things would do this promotion, like ‘Buy a Big Mac, get $1 in MS Points’. I know it’d only appeal to a limited market, but I’d wager they’d still draw that specific crowd out to make a lot of money.
If you play Xbox, how much virtual money do you estimate you’ve spent on the service over the years? Is there a way to tell?
I’ll start out by saying that I never watched the leaked “work print” of the movie that came out several weeks ago, which seems to be the source of most of the trash talk, since it was only released four days ago (from posting this). After hearing all the negativity, I had pretty low expectations about the movie, but I thought, even if the movie around him is bad, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine would still be fun.
By the way, I’ll keep try and keep this as spoiler-free as any trailer you’ve already seen.
This movie ended up being somewhere around the first X-Men movie, not quite to X-Men 2 level, but far better than the third movie. Like I thought, Hugh Jackman was good, but some of the story around him was equally good. There is MUCH creative license with his origin. Had this been Spider-Man they were dinking with, I probably would have been more critical. However, with Wolverine’s past, so much of it has been muddled with false memories, amnesia, his healing factor “healing” his brain from painful memories, brainwashing and so forth, that it’s hard to definitively nail down his past, even IN the comics.
It pretty action-packed, with a few slowdown parts to show that Wolverine has a heart. That may be another sticking point with die-hards. He seems to be VERY sympathetic in this movie (and the following ones). From what I’ve read in the comics through the 80’s and 90’s, Wolverine was more apathetic and self-centered than this, but I understand that you’ve got to care about the guy. Otherwise, why would some of your audience watch the movie?
The weakest part, as I’ve discussed with some other people familiar with the source material, is the expendability of some of the complimentary characters. From what I’d read, Gambit was an afterthought added by the writers after realizing that they’ve skipped him in three movies already, and the fans wanted to see him. But unless there’s some director’s cut, he’s SEVERELY underused, using his kinetic power MAYBE twice, never his hypnosis, and otherwise just being really good at fighting with a staff.
The weakest part of the entire storyline, and what I’m betting is the most upsetting to the fans, is what they do with Deadpool. It’s very weak, and I wish they’d just created a new character to do what he does, but instead, I suppose for name recognition, they pulled in Deadpool. The only positive of that is that it doesn’t take up much time in the story.
Overall, I think the movie was as fun to watch as its predecessors, and don’t understand all the bad press it’s getting.
Now, the second, bigger surprise was the game of the same name. This game is incredible. It’s not the same as many other movie tie-in titles, rushed out the door to make sure it’s there for kids to buy as soon as they leave the theater. This game is a Wolverine game, that just happens to have some ties to the movie.
In an interview with Major Nelson, Don Vondrak with Raven Software’s explained that after doing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, they wanted to make a mature Wolverine game, and it wasn’t until a way into development that they were approached for movie tie-in themes. The game, which was already very violent, could have some tweaks made to the plot, and they could continue making the game they wanted to make.
Then, in another bit of rare game development, Vondrak said the game had been wrapped up in December of 2007, but after the movie was delayed, they were given an extra 12 months of development time, which they used to polish it into exactly the game they wanted.
I’ve played several hours into it, and I’m TOTALLY impressed. There are already several story lines that have nothing to do with the film, so I feel like I’m really forging new ground with Wolverine.
Also, the game maintained the hyper-violence most suited for the character, instead of being watered down to match the tone of the movie. So you get a better sense of the Wolverine in the comics, that you’re actually leading down this cool path of his broken memories.
Another amazing feature of the game is this incredible physics engine they use to destroy and rebuild Wolverine’s body as he takes damage. His body can be stripped of skin, then muscle, then down to just bone. Then, it will slowly rebuild itself as you watch. It’s REALLY fun to experiment with. At one point, I had taken a shotgun blast to the head. Half of Wolverine’s face was gone, and just his metal skeleton showed through, but slowly, muscle tissue regenerated over it, then skin, then hair. It was WILD.
I really liked both, so it was a good weekend for geekery.
I apparently like game trailers with interesting music choices, like in my first post like this. This is an old one, but now, after starting watching House, I remembered this one. If you know the show, you’ll probably know why.
Do you like this one? What trailers stick with you?
I’m slow on some issues. Many of my friends, including probably the biggest proponent, Regan, have been hounding me to start watching House, M.D. I kept saying, “I have too many shows already. I can’t get involved in another.”
This was a mistake.
I recently got Season 1, Disc 1 from Netflix, and watched the pilot and second episode. I’m now disappointed that I’ve let the show go for so long, but at the same time, SUPER-EXCITED that I’ve got a show to watch this summer, when all my other shows stop.
The reason I’d been holding off is because I’m now into Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, Law & Order, LOST, The Office, 30 Rock, My Name is Earl and maybe one or two more I can’t recall right now. It would be hard to commit more time to more TV. But the timing of my discovery couldn’t be better, because all of my shows will be wrapping up in about a month. Then, I can catch up at my own pace to the new kid on the block.
Also, Chris and I finished Army of Two last night. After buying the game, brand new, for $19.99 at Wal-Mart, I talked Sean and Chris into picking it up. Sean and I played through the first few levels together, but with his erratic schedule, it’s often kind of tricky catching up online. Then Chris picked it up, too, and he and I blasted through it in three or four nights. There’s still plenty of reason to go back and play more, also, so not only is squeezing the life out of existing games fun, but now finding the cheapos and having fun with them is great recently, too.
I like them. Epic has done a great job with their Gears of War ads. I was showing Angie last night and she liked them, too. I took that as a sign that they were a little more than an average gameplay trailer, especially since Gears is NOT her type of game. The first one, with Gary Jules remake of the Tears for Fears song, “Mad World”:
And then for Gears of War 2, they used DeVotchKa’s “How It Ends”:
Do you like these? Would you buy a game, or look INTO buying a game, after seeing an ad like these?
Right now, I have very few Christmas gifts bought. I have nearly everyone on my list picked out, but have only actually purchased/built/etc around 40% of the presents. I do this every year, and it’s never a problem, but this year, watching all the morons at the intersection of Burkhardt and the Lloyd, it makes me a little more nervous than normal. I put a new poll up about Christmas shopping. Let me know how you’re doing.
On the gaming front, I’ve found a new gem. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. I’m amazed with its customization, sense of humor, and ability to talk to the outside world. In the game, you can take photos, and upload them to the Banjo Kazooie website, then download them or send them to friends at your PC. Also, there’s a workshop where you can build vehicles to drive, float or fly around the different environments of the game.
I’ve also gotten into the show Weeds recently. Since I can stream the first two seasons over NetFlix, I’m caught up now through the end of the second one. Unfortunately, season three isn’t ON NetFlix right now, so I’m kind of stuck. But seeing Kevin Nealon and Elizabeth Perkins (from the movie “Big”) again has been pretty cool.
Angie, the kids and I picked out a puppy Saturday. Normally, I’m more of a big dog kind of guy, being around German Shepherds when I was little and a Golden Retriever more recently, but I have to say this little mutt breaks the stereotypes of little dogs. I’ve never heard her bark, though Angie did say she did bark at Beyonce on TV once. Which brings me to this.
Angie showed me that yesterday, and I liked it.
Holy moly. Fallout 3 is MASSIVE. I’ve been playing it now for a few days, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface on seeing what there is to see.
I’m playing the game as a sort of rogue character. I will steal when necessary, but won’t hurt an innocent person or bystander. I just need supplies. As I was telling Chris, if the guy that will be the one to save the world steals a couple of bucks from you on his journey, I doubt you’d mind too much. You might even feel honored to have played your part! </rationalization>
It has one of the best video game introductions of any game I’ve seen. It’s right up there with Bioshock-calibur openings. Good voice acting too, led by Liam Neeson. Apparently, Bethesda likes to pull in some Anglo-Saxon talent to kick off their stories. (Oblivion was led by Patrick Stewart as the Emperor)
It’s Oblivion in scope, as well, though like GTA4, it doesn’t seem as large of a game world, opting instead for a more densely populated, more detailed world.
It will be one that will definitely be installed to the hard drive once the NXE is released.
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