I went "shopping" today and picked up nothing less than 6300 Microsoft Points. You could say that I'm preparing for the "Summer of Arcade". I bought two of the best XBLA games of this year, Braid and Geo Wars 2!
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
I played the latter first, and I currently only have 3 achievements left. Some of the achievements, like Wax Off (rub along the walls in Pacifism twice) and Treaty (activate 30 rings in King as a pacifist), were hard, but overall the achievements in GW2 seem easier and more fun to obtain than in the first one, which is a good thing. I currently have Slalom, Smile and Game Over left. I'm not at the top of my Friend's List, but I feel that I can compete at least. Having the nearest Friend on the high score list in the HUD is simply genius. Overall, I've enjoyed the sequel much more than the first.
Braid
I knew that I had to get Braid the moment I managed to get the last puzzle pieces in World 2. The puzzles are very cool, the music is awesome and the story seems very well done. I am looking forward to the ending, which is apparently insane. Some of the puzzles are pretty difficult however, so I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time endlessly wandering back and forth until I solve them. It's sad that Microsoft forced them to have a 1200 points price tag, since I'm sure that has scared customers away, but I do not regret the purchase.
I am looking forward to Bionic Commando Rearmed and will probably pick that up as well. I think this is the best year of XBLA yet!
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I've never been really into F.E.A.R., but now that I've played the first game, I must say I've become a fan. The crazy story, the atmosphere and the crazy SlowMo really impressed me, even when playing it on low settings. There was some bad stuff though, like that fat guy that I really wanted to kill, and those robot thingies that fly through the windows. The gameplay was also kind of basic, besides the awesome SlowMo effect, which I slavishly used. The sound was also superb. And the ending... oh my God. I laughed so hard. Like, BLAM! Cliffhanger ending at its best. Project Origin, here I come. The ending is below;
What do you think of F.E.A.R.? Excited for Project Origin like I am?
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition was AWESOME. It had loads of cars and jumps and crazy shit going on. You could pimp out your Dodge Ram and then build up a special move that lets you destroy traffic, or pop a two-wheeler to squeeze between oncoming buses, then hop on your Aprilia Mille and swoosh through traffic. It even had sweet music, featuring "HANH!" by The Ying Yang Twins, one of my favorites.
When I first saw the trailer for Midnight Club: LA, I noticed it looked a lot different. It's all very sunny and clean, which I didn't quite like when MC3: DUB was very dark. However, it's starting to shape up. I read a couple of days ago that there would not be a demo for the game, since the developers think the game is too big to display with 2-3GB demo - a silly excuse in my opinion. They could easily have put up some invisible walls and say "Teh full game is wai bettar - money plz kthnxbai". Still, the game being too big isn't exactly the worst thing in the world. Also, online multiplayer will be big, which should be a good thing. GameTrailers got some new videos;
I got a new cat! My sister wanted to call her Luna, so we went with that. She didn't know what it meant, but I think it suits perfectly with the cat's colors and eyes. She's potty-trained and everything, but she doesn't like our other cat just yet, but that's OK.
Also, I've been playing some older games lately. I recently started playing Burnout 3 again, and since my savefile was mysteriously destroyed, I'm unlocking everything again. Also, I got to borrow Max Payne 2 for the PC. It's pretty cool, and my PC handles it perfectly. I know my old PC wouldn't have. I think I'll have to get that Microsoft Wireless Receiver thingy that lets you use the wireless 360 controller on your PC. It doesn't seem to be working just with the Plug N' Play. On top of this, I also downloaded The Adventures of Fatman, which is under the Creative Commons license and thus free. Not sure if I like it, but I can see myself playing it when bored.
FaceBreaker demo is out. The game has potential, but it's not my sort of fighter. Still, the Share a Boxer feature is pretty sweet. By using the Xbox Live Vision Camera, I took a picture of the front and side of my face. The game spent a while creating the image, but the result was pretty cool. At first I was of African descent and without hair, but I customized it further to make it look more like me;
User-created boxerUser-created boxer
P.S: I'm over a thousand points! I think I'll take it easy from now on... 3 Comments
Embedding HTML is awesome. You can post videos and even music to your profile, the latter of which I have done right now. Not sure if you noticed it, but there's a little box in my About Me section that plays music if you press the B button and let it load a bit. How did I do it? Through MyFlashFetish.com.
All I did was register and now I can create my own playlists using whatever songs and whatever skin I want and then embed it on my profile. The best part is that it supports YouTube videos, so you can get the audio from any YouTube video and thus the possibilities are endless. I added some game music, but I'm not sure if it should be auto-play or not... What do you think?
EDIT: Added player with videos from YouTube! Added GANGSTA playlist!
I was forced to see Mamma Mia! with my mom and sister today. Definitely not my kind of movie, though the daughter was mighty fine in that bathing suit... but I digress. The movie featured a lot of singing, being a musical and all, and I got to thinking... Do I want Lips, Microsoft's upcoming karaoke game? The answer was yes.
I don't have a habit of throwing SingStar-parties with my friends, although that seems to be common among most of my female friends. In fact, I believe that is the main reason SingStar is such a hit in Europe. I do however enjoy singing now and then. I was in a children's choir in first and second grade (mostly because I didn't know what the hell a choir was and just said yes when the teacher asked) and I do love music. Do I have a good singing voice? I doubt it. I had a lot of trouble hitting the higher notes when I tried out SingStar Pop Hits at my classmate's birthday-party. One girl loved my performance of Tenacious D's "**** Her Gently", however, which I am proud to know the lyrics to.
Still, I want this game. I want to have a game where the only goal is to use my voice (speaking of which, EndWar looks interesting). I want to learn songs that aren't rap songs. Sure, I know the text to "Gin & Juice" and "Stuntin' Like My Daddy", but I don't know any pop songs that require pitch. The game even features a dedicated rap mode (as atrociously demonstrated by the otherwise adorable woman at the end of the trailer) so I can kick some beats, Jeff Gerstmann style. I think the menus are awesome, and the controller looks pimp. Also, support for music devices is darn epic.
Bottom-line, I want this game, and I hope you don't think less of me for doing so.
I was surprised to find some Ninja Gaiden II DLC on the marketplace today. Mission Mode is finally out, and it rocks. 800 points might be a little steep, but you get 24 missions. I am assuming each mission can be replayed at a higher difficulty, as the ones I've done included less or easier enemies than the thumbnail representing it. Most importantly, you get 10 new achievements. They're all Secret achievements, but I've gotten two already for completing 4 and 8 missions. What do you do in these missions? Loads of craziness. They're all set in a closed portion of a chapter (like Volf's Coliseum or Zedonius' Clocktower) and usually require you to kill everybody. What I've done so far was easy, kill everyone and then deal with the bosses yet again, but there are Survival modes further down the Mission selection screen and some interesting ones like "Defeat one hundred Fiends!" or "Defeat the Greater Fiends!" Wait... all the Greater Fiends? At once? Everything has its own Leaderboard as well, which is always nice.
I'm happy spending 800 points on Mission Mode. Then again, I'm a Ninja Gaiden fanboy who loves Achievements.
Remember, if you see a ninja... then it's not a ninja.
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