First of all, I shall  not go into a detailed blog about my impressions of the NXE but I will say that I am quite impressed with it. Mainly due to the party system. For people that aren't in multiplayer lobbies nightly, this feature probably appears less grand.  However, for gamers like me that find themselves in multiplayer lobbies daily, the party system is a Godsend....or is it?

The ability to communicate, flawlessly in between lobbies and during loading screens is definitely an excellent and much needed feature Microsoft implemented with the NXE.  We can all party up and coordinate what we are doing, while we are doing it without being cut off, interrupted or dropped.  Even in the event, that someone in your party has to update the game they put in, they are momentarily disconnected from live and then automatically rejoin the party after the game update, which again is another great addition to this party system.

The other great thing about using party chat as opposed to game chat is that you no longer are subjected to the vast community of Xbox live.  No longer are your ears full of the screaming, singing or racial slurs.  However, as much as this feature appeals to the more mature, seasoned crowd of gamers I am a bit apprehensive about utilizing it and I'll tell you why...because within the ocean of ignorance that is the Xbox live community there are still good people to be found.

Anyone that knows me or Cavemanjr, knows that we game together a lot.  This would have never come to pass if I would have had the party system, or if I muted everyone but those on my friends list.  I met him, ironically, on a MGU gamenight of Rainbow Six Vegas 2.  He inquired about the MGU and the rest is history. My point is that I have met plenty of good people over xbox live and by utilizing the new party chat feature, the chances of meeting more "cavemen" seems highly unlikely.  I guess in a round about way I'm conflicted about using it.  Though last night it was quite refreshing to hear nothing but silence from all the other users in the lobbies.

Say what you will about the Xbox live community but something is to be said about the interaction regardless if it is positive or negative in nature.  The social interaction found on live is more than instant messaging, private chat or are need to feed our competitive nature.  Arguably, the reason we keep coming back is simply for the social interaction....period!  (Hence the reason that many whom do not seek it more than likely rarely play multiplayer games over xbox live.)

If you compare it with real life it seems a bit absurd.  We don't walk around with an internal mute function for all stimuli with the exception of friends.  Although, I'm sure a mute function for in-laws could prove to be a highly popular and useful feature. :P

At the end of the day, the party system is probably the best feature, in my eyes, of the NXE.  However, I still wonder if using it is in someway closing a few doors that in all reality should remain open. 

For all of you 360voice.com members, I am launching a 30 day viral gamerscore challenge.  There are a few rules:

• No Avatar and No sports games
• All privacy settings must be disabled, that way 360voice can track all games, times and achievements.
• All achievements gained MUST be achieved while signed into Xbox live. (No offline achievements)

• Firstly, the feed portion of our pages looks cluttered.  I am well aware there is a feature to whereas you can set them to public or private, however, I would like to keep them public, if given a feature to hide them all-together from our home pages.
• Secondly, the limit on wall comments by not allowing more than two consecutive comments, kind of hinders the reasoning behind wall comments.  Isn't the whole focus of wall commenting, the ability to easily communicate with fellow bommers.  That is hard to do, with a two comment cap.
• Lastly, a preview feature would be useful with the embed html button. 

This is just a heads up for all you 360voice.com users...

This will be a short blog... no anecdotes today my friends. 



At any rate,  we are new here and navigating our way around Giant Bomb, so I'm sure we are all running into a few problems.  For me, the lack of a video upload feature (yet) has me wondering if we will see such a feature here.  No video walkthroughs, speedruns, trailers and the most disheartening we can not post video logs (insert crying smiley here).

oh, speaking of smilies.....I've noticed the absence of our friendly and not so friendly smilies .  You would think that these little guys are insignificant, however, I'm quite fond of those guys and do hope Giant Bomb decides to implement the video upload feature as well as giving those darn smilies a new home.

I only thought it proper to post my first blog, as I am an avid blogger on a few different sites.  Perhaps this blog will merely be for introduction purposes, however, most of you that will read this already know me well.  So is an introduction blog really required?  At any rate, I plan on becoming active here as well and checking out the site as well as becoming familiar with this point system here.  Apparently, "submissions" will render points.

So I suppose a transition period is expected for new users....Gosh, I'm a noob again.  Back to a lowly 6 posts in the forums, no blogs, reviews etc..   Ah well, here's to new beginnings and congrats to the Giant Bomb dream team for breathing life into another, hopefully great, gaming website.