INOX's Reviews

Where is Para?

2007-05-19T11:17:00Z

World of Warcraft almost got it's hooks in him. It started innocently enough, he wanted to spend more time with his son and that's what he was playing. Before long it was "No really, I can stop anytime I want...". Sound familiar? Like most addicts he stayed with it only until a better drug came along and that drug was "Second Life". Now Para spends his time day-dreaming about that house on the beach instead of that headshot in the trench. Well, if you think he's been a little "scarce" lately then think about this, I heard a rumor that he recently got his mitts on an X-Box 360 and a copy of Gears of War. He will be missed.

Don't believe the hype. I finally got around to playing the Halo 3 Beta last night and I'm a little dissapointed to say it's basically just more of the same. Honestly, I didn't see anything going on that could not have been downloaded in an update for Halo 2. New maps, slightly better sound effects and graphics, a few new weapons and vehicles and some minor tweeks to the old ones. Other than that the game still suffers from all the drawbacks that kept me away from H2, that run and gun, every man for himself, twitch reflex, mindless, shoot everthing that moves gameplay that I just don't enjoy. A little strategy, teamwork and communication would have gone a long way. For me, the final nail in the Halo multiplayer coffin is the fact that you STILL have no say in which game type or map you get thrown into. Basically, you connect to Bungie's servers and those control freaks put you in whatever random game comes up next. That's just lame. A total deal breaker. Do they honestly believe this makes matches more "fair"? Seems like getting rid of the cheats and exploits would have done that. C'mon Bungie, get it together.

The 360 Elite is the console that the 360 should have been in the first place. After playing on mine for a few weeks now I have to say that this is the best console I have ever played on and I didn't even get the BenQ DVD drive I expected, I got the Hitachi. Say what you want about Microsoft, they seem to have found a way to read my mind and give me everything I could possibly want in a video game console. Now if they would only start making women....

Some things just go well together. Peanut butter and jelly, burgers and fries, breaking and entering, Halo 3 and Zune. Wait a minute. Halo 3 and Zune? That's right, Microsoft just announced the "Halo 3 Zune". I may not be a fan of Halo multiplayer but the story line and campaign are near and dear to my heart and I'm a little sad that they didn't annouce this earlier, I would have waited.

Riddick on the 360. Just the sound of those words got me salivating like Pavlovs's dog (look it up). Nothing official, no release date or publisher announced but take my word for it, Starbreeze is working on a 360 version of one of the best original X-Box games and, in my opinion, one of the best games of all time. Now I understand why the game hasn't been given any backwards compatible love when it seemed like doing so was a no-brainer. How many games can you honestly say you would be willing to shell out $60.00 for to play again? I suspect not too many. Hopefully this time around they'll cover the one little detail they overlooked before. MULTIPLAYER ! ! ! PLEASE ! ! ! This game would totally ROCK X-Box Live. By the way, Starbreeze is worknig on another 360 title that I'm very excited about. "The Darkness" is poised to be one of the most elusive creatures in video gaming, the summer blockbuster. With a June release date this game should easily steamroll all competition until Halo 3 comes out on Sept 25. I like the way Starbreeze operates. They do things a little differently and it pays off in the long run. Kudos!

INOX NYC

360 News.

2007-04-21T15:37:00Z

In case you have't already read in the Anime blogs, Naruto is coming to the X-Box 360. Ubisoft (the only French company I'm not boycotting) has secured the rights to the IP and their Montreal studio will be handling development. The Montreal team has an excellent track record so this should be a good one.

Delays, delays, delays... No surprise Portals has been delayed, again. Maybe if Para would stop stealing Valves source code they could start getting games out the door in a timely manner. I hear Gabe Newell's old friend Bill Gates has ninja assasins out looking for Para right now. Other X-Box 360 games currently delayed (is "currently delayed" an oxymoron?) include Shadowrun, Bioshock and Mass Effect. Team Fortress 2 and Episode 2 have been delayed simply because they are bundeled with Portals. Speaking of delays, what in the world is going on with Duke Nukem? Can anyone please explain to me why a franchise that was loved by all and made a bundle of cash has lingered in development limbo for over ten years? I'm starting to feel like one of those Mac owners still waiting for that RTS called "Halo" that they were promised way back in '99. You say you didn't know Halo started as an RTS? That's another story. I'll tell it in a later post if anyone's interested.

The 360 Elite comes out on April 29. Lucky for me it's a Sunday because Gamestop isn't taking any reserves (due to lawsuits surrounding the 360 release, another story I'll tell later if anyone cares) so I have to do the "Fanboy Lineup" as I like to call it. I just found out that the DVD drives in the Elite are made by BenQ and run allot smoother and quieter than the old ones. Speaking of DVD drives, I was getting allot of disc-read errors on my old 360 and was grumbling about it and calling it shoddy workmanship but I had to eat my words because as soon as I quit smoking I stopped getting the crashes and errors. Seems the problem wasn't my 360 it was my smoking. I'd heard that second hand smoke was a killer but....

Speaking of killers, was I the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that psycho at Virginia Tech wasn't a gamer? Can you imagine the s**tstorm THAT would have started? You know they would have blamed it on violence in video games and we wouldn't have heard the end of it for months and months. It turns out he may have been influenced by a film called "Oldboy" which showed at Cannes in '04. Now, my heart goes out to anyone involved in this tragidy but given the video game industry's tendancy to implode at the first sign of trouble (Take 2 Interactive's stock just now got upgraded back to "hold" after the Hot Coffee Mod scandel) I'm relieved to see the film industry take the hit on this one.

INOX NYC

Full Circle of X-Box 360 News

2007-03-31T12:01:00Z

Para and I both work in a "service" industry and one of the companies we provide service to on a daily basis is Rockstar Games. Everybody knows how secretive Rockstar is about who is doing voiceover work on Grand Theft Auto games in developement and I'm not here to name names but I will tell you that they have been BUSY. The Rockstar machine has gone into overdrive and the closer we get to the October release date the more excited GTA fans get, myself included.

Sony's loss of exclusivity deals on several high profile games is great news for the X-Box faithful. Developers don't seem to have much confidence in Sony's ability to move consoles and software. GTA 4, Assasin's Creed, Unreal III and Blacksite: Area 51 are just a few of the games that Sony once had exclusive deals on but now have to share release dates with the 360. Gabe Newell of Valve Software said that Sony should just do a do-over. Just apologize to gamers for selling them the PS3 and apologize to develeopers for forcing them to work on it and start over. Rumor is that his license plate is IH8-PS3. Ouch. He's also not too thrilled with Vista, and neither is Para.

By now most of you have probably read Para's post on the X-Box Elite. I know I don't have to tell anyone how excited I am about it. Granted, the Elite is not for everyone. If all you use your 360 for is gaming and you don't mind the giant ipod look then the Elite may not be for you. However if you're like me and you use your hard drive for storing everything from Beavis and Butthead episodes and Red vs. Blue to game trailers and demos then the Elite is a must. Not to mention that it's black like an X-Box should be.

Now to complete the full circle of X-Box news. Up until recently all rumors about GTA 4 have had the game taking place in London but if you go to www.rockstargames.com and watch the GTA 4 trailer they posted you will know the truth. My son and I watched it five times last night, the whole time high-fiving each other like couple of drunken frat-boys. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so all I'm saying is I think I may have died and gone to Gamer Heaven.

INOX NYC