If you didn't read my previous blog, I talked about using the Necromancer armor in Tribes.  I used it again today without any major hiccups(it crashed only once, but I think that was cause by the flag glitch).  Once the map started I immediately realized that the Necro armor would be very helpful, because we were essentially in one big globe.  Once out of it, you can enter the enemy base where they least expect it.  However, I ran into something I wasn't expecting: another necro.

As I was about to leave my base I ran into an enemy Necromancer carrying a teleport pad.  Not good.  I'm still not sure how they managed to get an inventory station out of their base.  Necros can't carry anything, so he must've placed an inventory station outside, then change into an armor that can carry a tele.  Once I saw this I knew we lost the upper hand, if we ever had it.  Not to sound like an egotistical maniac, but I don't think my team realized just how important I was in this particular game.  Being the only necro armor, only I could go through walls and see if they were teleporting into our base.  And they were.

I ran into the same necro carrying a tele quite a few times.  If I stopped searching for just a few minutes it was plenty of time for them to set one in our base.  I destroyed about 3 teleport pads throughout the game, saving our base and teammates from utter destruction.  I thought about doing something similar, or at least entering their base from the back, but it proved near impossible.  Once I launched myself over the "globe", I noticed they somehow set a few turrets up there.  While I may have been able to avoid them, it certainly wasn't worth the trouble.  Simply guarding our base from any incoming necros was enough of a challenge. 

While playing a game of Tribes, as usual, I ran into an annoying little glitch.  I'm starting to branch out into the other armors, one of which is mighty interesting to use.  I've used it before but just recently gave it another go.  It's called "Necromancer", and gives you the ability to walk through walls.  There are of course downsides to using this armor, such as the weapons you get.  They aren't really weapons per se, but more like "spells".  There's a death spell which takes away the life of an enemy, another spell freezes him on the spot.  There's a flame spell which...well...is rather self explanatory.  However, there's one weapon that I've grown a liking to.

It's called the "shocking grasp", and it's a lot like the soul grabber for Rogue Armor's.  Except this one is a constant stream that sucks the life from someone, instead of a short bolt like the soul grabber does.  I can drain the life of a Heavy within seconds, which has gotta be embarrassing.  It can drain the energy from stations and generators as well.  Practically anything that has some form a power in it.  Unfortunately it causes my entire game to crash, at least tonight it did.  It was fine earlier today, but just a few moments ago, whenever I whipped out that particular gun, it crashed on me.  Which resulted in a rather odd situation:

I am by no means an RTS expert.  I've never been able to get into them, other than Team Melee in Starcraft(which I found to be extremely entertaining).  I've tried getting into them with Age of Empires years ago, but usually found myself creating my own little battles in edit mode(or whatever it was called).  The process of collecting minerals, building your base and units for the first 10 or so minutes of the game is extremely boring and tedious to me.  So when Halo Wars was announced I had no real interest in buying the game(even though I don't even have a 360).  The concept of an RTS on a console seemed confusing as well.

So when I watched GameSpot's review of the game today, I was actually surprised at the low score.  They gave it a 6.5/10.  While 6.5 isn't a terrible score, it's surprising for a Halo game to get anything lower than an 9.  One criticism the reviewer gave is that games can be slow in the beginning.  I must say I laughed at this part.  Again, I'm not an expert on these types of games, but RTS' usually consist of builing up your base and units in the beginning, which is always slow.  How this could be considered a criticism is a mystery to me, but I won't get too worked up.

The rest of the review was decent.  I could nitpick on various other parts of it, but I won't.  It'll be really interesting once they hand out their Killzone 2 review though.  It's ridiculous how insane each console's fanboys are.  There has always been a battle between the Halo and Killzone fanboys(or, more appropriately Microsoft and Sony fanboys), which is completely understandable.  But when it comes to an RTS vs. an FPS, it just doesn't make sense.  Even if it is a Halo game, it doesn't make much sense to compare it to Killzone 2.  Apples to orange.

I decided to play a few levels of Halo that I rarely do, most of which consist of the Flood(whom I hate).  The first was The Maw.  I didn't finish the level, but from what I played it was somewhat enjoyable.  Like I said, I hate the Flood.  So an entire level consisting of them isn't ideal in my eyes, but I gave it a go anyways.  My main gripe is that it's so confined.  I much prefer the more open levels like Halo, AotCR and Silent Cartographer.  So many more options when trying to complete and area.  Then, just earlier today, I gave Two Betrayals another go.  This is a whole other story...

I think I can safely take back anything negative I've said about TB.  This level is beautiful in its darker setting.  The part after you go through the broken blast door and walk up that snowy hill(where the 2 hunters are on AotCR) was amazing.  Looking up into the dark sky and then having the checkpoint arrive turning it into letterbox....Glorious.  I was surprised to see that they slightly tweaked this area, though.  I thought it'd be identical to AotCR, but alas, it wasn't.

Again, this is my first full run through of TB since I first beat the game over 7 years ago, so I really didn't know what to expect(enemy-wise).  I knew the layout by heart.  When I got to the big battle where you need to get the Banshee(under the first bridge in AotCR), I really didn't know what to do.  The Covies and Flood are going at it, so I decided to sit back a while and see if they'd finish each other off eventually.  Of course they didn't.  Then the Hunters came out, and the Covenant aimed their fire at me.

I decided to take a walk back a ways and grab a Ghost.  I made a mad-dash for the Banshee and just made it.  Overall this is a spectacular level, possibly beating out Halo for second spot.  Oh, and when you have to deactivate that 2nd chasm...yeah.  I just about shat my pants there.  Was NOT expecting that at all.

Hooray for poor memory!

I'm finding that listening to dance/techno/trance music really helps when playing games online, mainly first-person shooters.  In this case I'm speaking of Tribes while listening to Trance(via a link I found on Twitter).  I noticed a definite change in gameplay and performance from myself, specifically I'm more alert and active.  Of course, it also helps when you find a new way of playing the game altogether(different armor and weapons). 

Super Smash Bros. Brawl isn't a fun game.  To me, at least.  I remember the first Super Smash Bros. game on the Nintendo 64 and enjoyed it quite a bit.  Simple, fun, addictive.  Everything a game should be.  I never got the chance to play Melee, which wasn't all that disheartening.  I mean, SSB was a good game, but it wasn't one of those games I really looked forward to seeing sequels to.  The game is good on it's own merit. 

Then the Wii came out, SSBB was announced and everyone went ape-shit.  This was it!  THE game for Nintendo's online service.  Again, I wasn't excited to play the game like everyone else was.  Just how much further can you go with a game like this without drastically changing the gameplay?  So then comes tonight when I get the chance to play it.  After 5-10 rounds with 2 other friends, I wasn't have any fun.  "What the hell is going on?" was what I was thinking most of the time.  The main thing that bothered me were the levels.  They constantly moved or rearranged themselves, which I didn't like at all. 

I also had a hard time concentrating on controlling my player.  The controls alone were confusing enough, having the camera zoom in and out at random times is a whole other thing.  Just too many things going on at once for me to enjoy it.  Perhaps if I had a day to mess around with the characters I would've had a better time.  But tonight was just lame.   Oh, and whoever designed the Gamecube controller is an asshole.

Well, more like survey I guess.  3 days ago on Reddit someone started a thread asking if a demo ever persuaded someone to actually buy the full game or not.  Fairly simple and straight forward question, though it applies to every gamer.  It has 243 replies so far, which is pretty damn good on Reddit.  I then decided to ask it at the gamespress forums, which mainly consists of of game journalists.  Right now it only has 11 replies, but the GP forums aren't really that active so 11 is pretty good in my eyes.  Then, for reasons unknown, I decided to continue asking the question throughout various game sites.

As of now I've asked this question at 11 different sites, all of which have gotten a good number of responses so far.  At Teamxbox.com it currently has 96 responses, and Xbox.com has 83.  GameSpot has 37, N4G has 30,  IMDb has 19, Zantive has 16, PS3Center has 6, GamerNode has 4, Xbox-Alternative has 3, and WiiChat has ?(page won't load).

What I'm going to do with these I have no idea.  Feel free to ask it at any other game sites you can think of.  I would've at IGN but I needed to be an Insider($), and I'm apparently not at a high enough level at 1UP to start a thread. 

The computer hasn't moved an inch since I mentioned the idea of doing so.  My dad and I briefly talked about it tonight and I brought up how the cord was now tied to a beam and such.  Fortunately he whipped out a tape measure and did a few measurements and concluded what I'd already thought: the cord could indeed stretch another 12', but that's it.  We'd have to build a shelf of sorts to place the router on, then bring a cord down to the computer.  Assuming we're both right, a female-to-female connector wouldn't be needed, though I still wouldn't mind having one.

So, if we project ourselves into the future and the computer gets moved, the router would be about 25' directly under my room with 1 floor in-between.  My dad said we could simply snake the cable through the air duct and out of the register in my room.  Once in my room I'm still not sure how much extra cable I'd have to play with, but thankfully my Xbox/TV are only a few feet away.  The main reason I want to do this is to see if it can actually be done, out of the sake of curiosity I guess.  While the possibility of using Xlink-Kai from my room is certainly intriguing, it's also 100x more of a hassle since you really need to be close to the computer to change rooms and such.  LIVE©(lol copyright symbol) is much more appealing.

Then again, all I have to play is Halo 2.  No 360 in this house.  But Halo 2's multiplayer gave me the greatest gaming experience(s) of my life.  Yes, I've certainly bashed Halo 2 in the past, but the multiplayer has always been awesome.  I've only played system-link, so I've never experienced superjumps, stand-by's or annoying 12 years olds screaming into the mic.  The game only has 3000 playing right now and 15,000 over the past 24 hours.  Is it really worth the hassle of sneaking a cord into my room and $50 a year?

(in my opinion, Live should be free for those using the original Xbox.  No NXE, Netflix, avatars, ect.  What exactly are you paying for?)

Having played both the N64 and PS1 last night, so far the N64 is dominating the nostalgia test.  Rush 2 alone is demolishing both Gran Turismo 2 and Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed(though the latter is considerably better than GT2).  I'm finding the controls to be much better, even though the N64's controller gets a lot of hate for some reason.  And I'm not half-assing this experience, either.  I'm going full nostalgia:


That TV can't be much bigger than a 14", and the VCR next to it is around 12 years old or so.  While a nice 50" plasma would be nice, this is still fun in its own sort of way.  I'm probably going to play Rush 2 again tonight because it is quite fun, regardless of its age.  I started thinking how epic that game would be on XBLA with 16 other people.  Just imagine that for a second.  It'd be mass chaos on the Stunt Track, my favorite track in the whole game(though Alcatraz is up there).

After having a few computer problems I was a bit on-edge this afternoon.  I needed to let off some steam but didn't know where.  Splinter Cell doesn't really calm you down(it actually does the opposite).  I thought about popping in Halo: Combat Evolved, setting it on Easy and going on a murderous rampage.  This sometimes helps, but I haven't been in the mood for Halo for quite a while.  Instead I reached for Unreal Championship.  I honestly can't remember the last time I played this game...

Anyways, I pop it in and play a quick 30-kill match.  With the bots set to easy this only lasted about 8-10 minutes, so I decided to mess with the settings a bit.  During my first run my aiming was quite slow, so I increased the sensitivity a bit.  I then increased my speed, turned on Vampire(you receive health in the amount of how much damage you inflict on enemies), and set the weapons to Rocket Launchers.  The game loaded, and it was much more intense than I had originally thought it would.  The aiming and speed increase really made a difference.  With the bots still set to easy it was another slaughter, but fun nonetheless.  I may come back to this game tomorrow and increase the bot skills.

My rage was gone while playing, but came back as soon as my Xbox switched off.  In about 30 minutes it'll either turn to joy or disappointment.  Time will tell...

Does everyone know what time it is?  Splinter Cell Time!

To be honest, I haven't been playing the original Splinter Cell a whole lot lately.  Instead, I decided to pop in the Chaos Theory demo I got back in 2005.  Playing the original SC for a short streak, then suddenly playing Chaos Theory really brought out the differences between the two, mainly Sam's speed while crouched.  In the original SC, you can move at a pretty decent rate while in the crouched position, which is quite a bit of the time.  In Chaos Theory however, you move at a noticeably slower rate.  It isn't a game, or I should say demo breaker, but it's worth noting until I eventually get the full game one of these days.

Then we have the button layout, which I'm sure I've mentioned before but I'll say it again: changing the controller layout for a sequel isn't very easy to get used to.  Especially for someone like me, who has recently been playing the original game for some time.  Now obviously there are exceptions, such as Halo 2 when dual-wielding was introduced.  But with Chaos Theory, I wasn't aware of the layout change during my initial run(which was back in 2005).  Case in point: 2 enemies are in front of me.  To better hide myself I decide to hug a wall.  Like I normally would in the original game I pressed Black, but all of a sudden Sam whistles!  My cover is blown, and I die.  The thing with demos is that they don't come with instruction manuals that display the controller layout.  But instead of getting mad at Ubisoft I simply laughed at my own stupidity.

Anyways, this blog wasn't supposed to be about Chaos Theory.  I'm not even sure why I brought it up, really.  I decided to go back to Splinter Cell's final mission this afternoon.  The first half of the game is a cinch.  Distract a few guards here, snap a few necks there.  It starts out like your ordinary level, but when you really look at it, everything you've learned throughout the game is put to the test in this final mission.  Wall jumping, ledge and pipe climbing, avoiding spotlights, bypassing laser censors, picking locks, ect.  It's all wrapped up into one for your final task, as it should be.  Like I said earlier, it starts off rather mundane after you complete the first few obstacles(wall jumping and ledge climbing mainly).   Once you get to the last half of the level, things suddenly get hectic.  Very hectic...

I take an elevator down to the bottom level and I'm suddenly surrounded(I've explained this before here.)  I'm assuming you went to that link, so I'm not going to explain my current situation in exact detail.  Anyways, I exit the elevator and attempt to secure the area in the same fashion that resulted in success last time.  Unfortunately it didn't work.  5 restarts later and I still wasn't getting anywhere.  The problem?  My gun is too damn powerful.  The best way to complete this particular battle is to use smoke grenades(in my opinion at least).  Last time it was sheer luck that got me out of there alive.  Now that I know what to expect, things are strangely harder.  When I fire the smoke grenades, one of them always bounces back at me.  The other does his job, but the other turns into my own enemy.  I give it another go and I finally get it.  Luck was still on my side, that's for sure.  It wasn't even anything to be proud of because I didn't take everyone out.  Once the smoke grenades went off I just said "Fuck this" and ran to the exit. 

Now I'm in a basement.  Again, check the link for details on my current scenario.  The first time I completed this was in mercenary-style.  Instead of taking FULL advantage of the blackout, like an idiot I stuck around for a gun fight.  I watched a walk through after I did this and realized I could've simply ran to the exit while my enemies are trying to figure out why the lights went out.  So that's exactly what I planned to do this afternoon.  The lights went out and I made a mad dash to the exit.  But what happens?  I die.  I restart the checkpoint and get ready for another dash for the exit.  This time I'm fully prepared: Rifle equipped with an air ring coil, night vision on, and aimed at the platform that'll shave off a few seconds.  But again I fail.  Perhaps if I wasn't such a dumbass during my elevator battle in acquiring multiple bullets I wouldn't be in the mess.

So I did the unthinkable.  Once the lights went out, back into mercenary mode I went.  After a brief run for cover I crouched down to analyze my inventory: Plenty of rifle ammo, 6 bullets in the pistol, 1 air ring coil, 3 sticky cameras and 1 frag grenade.  My health: 1/4.  It certainly wasn't the best of scenarios for me, being surrounded by 4(possibly 5) guys with automatics and armor.  Amazingly it turned out to be easier than originally thought and I eventually got out of there alive.  Now onto the next challenge: the assassination.  The assassination itself is quite easy, and even the parts up to it aren't too bad(just 2 guards to take care of).  Once my duty is done, I'm now onto the final part of my mission.

I take care of 3 more enemies and then encounter the staircase.  Ah...the staircase.  I'm at the top of the stairs, directly facing my exit which is roughly 30 feet away.  To the left of me are 3 baddies, to the right are 3 more.  Fortunately they're facing the other way so this should be an easy getaway.  All I have to do is run to the door, and I'm done.  So I do just that, which ends in utter failure.  The short animation of Sam opening the door is just enough time for the 6 men to kill me.  I decided to call it quits at that point.  I have the checkpoint saved so I can always go back to it if I want.  Next time I think I'll have to take out a few baddies before going down those stairs.  How I'll do this isn't known right now...

After reading an article listing the best Xbox 360 games of 2008, a spark went off in my head: The media doesn't know shit about games other than sales figures.  In that article, they claimed that Fable 2 is the best game of 2008 for the Xbox 360(exclusively).  Now, there will be a bit of bias and lack of knowledge in this post because I haven't played any of the games on the list.  But judging by the comments on that particular article, it doesn't take a genius to know people disagree with it.

This is mainly due to media sites looking at the first-week sales of said game and concluding whether or not it's a smash hit that gamers love.  They couldn't be more wrong, but I'm sure you already know this.  What they need to do is wait, for about a month or two, until the initial hype and buzz wears off and gamers start seeing the game as it really is.  When you're really looking forward to a game and finally get a chance to play it, you sometimes overlook a few bugs or glitches.  You want to enjoy the game, so letting a few bad spots slide is just fine.  But after a month of encountering the same things over and over again, those nasty bugs become clear as day and annoying as hell.  This is when the media should then go to community forums and see how gamers feel about the game.  To see if the developers are working on any patches or DLC to keep the customer satisfied and interested in the game.

Having the actual media review a game is pointless nowadays.  It's way too "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours."  You need look no further than the whole Gamespot debacle.  Remember that?  Jeff Gerstmann was fired for giving an honest review of Kane and Lynch, a game by Eidos that plastered ads for the game all over GameSpot.com.  Advertising a game, then giving it a not-so-great review certainly didn't sit well with Eidos.  While no one knows the real reason behind the firing, it wouldn't be all that crazy to assume it was because of his Fair review. 

It's actually quite rare for me nowadays to read a review unless it's by someone I know or EGM, who's certainly been in hot water before and didn't back down.  The whole GameSpot ordeal has really made me re-think which websites give out worth-while and honest reviews, rather than sucking the corporate cock.

Yep, this is indeed another Splinter Cell post.  The replayability of this game has increased from what I originally thought.  However, this time I didn't play CIA Headquarters, like I usually do.  For some time I've seen a saved Checkpoint at Chinese Embassy, and I've always wondered where exactly I left off when I saved it.  I loaded it up and noticed I was pretty much done with the level.  At the time I'm sure I wasn't aware of how close I just was.  If I did I probably would've finished the mission.

I remember this part being quite the challenge because I didn't know what to do, exactly.  I whipped out my laser mic, listened in on a conversation, and that's it.  You aren't specifically told what to do after that.  I remember thinking I had to enter the embassy, because that's where Nikoladze exits.  However, time and time again I'd end up failing the mission one way or another.  Obviously I know now what I was supposed to do, so I approached this scenario a bit differently.  Recently, I've found out that shooting an enemy in the head with a diversion camera acts just like a ring air foil-subsequently knocking them out.  You have to aim just right, however.  It must be in the head.

So after Nikoladze left the embassy I was now left with 3 guards to take care of.  Usually in this scenario I'd sneak past them, but I had time so I had some fun.  I knocked one out with a camera, then another with gas.  That left one guard left who I really didn't even have to worry about since he was in a small room of sorts.  I tried entering the embassy but the door read "Door Jammed".  Nuts.  I then thought I could possibly sneak in right after Nikoladze leaves, but things didn't go too smooth...

Ok, Nikoladze has just exited when I decided to make a mad dash for the door before it closes.  I have one guard to take care of.  Sounds easy right?  Wrong.  For some reason the guards are now immune to gas.  I placed a camera directly below a guard and engoulfed him in gas, but it had no effect whatsoever.  I attempted this once more with the same result, so I'm thinking the developers don't want you going in there.  I won't give up, and I plan on asking in the Splinter Cell forums at Xbox.com if it's even possible. 

Going through Splinter Cell again has showed me that the majority of it's levels are fairly short, once you know the general layout, objectives and enemies.  It's also given me the opportunity to actually explore them.  For instance, at the end of CIA Headquarters, right before you kidnap the guy during his smoking break, many people never notice the door directly to your left.  Going through the level again I happened to spot it, and noticed a sign next to it labeled "UFO Sightings".  This is obviously a joke/Easter egg, which I highly praise in video games.  The developers are sort-of rewarding you for going off on the set path.

Anyways, the UFO Sightings room was overall a letdown.  All it had were some extra ammo, and that's it.  Nothing UFO-related from I remember.  So I continued throughout the mission, kidnapped the guy and proceeded to carry him to the van.  I got to that final room, where a repair-man of sorts and agent roam about.  What once seemed like an impossible task is now child's play.  Once you memorize their walking paths it's easy to take them out, or just avoid them altogether.  After tackling that room I was onto my final task: the long walk to the van, with 1 guard in my way.  This always seemed to be the most boring part of the mission, in my opinion at least.  So just as I was about to embark on this boring walk with my kidnapee over my shoulders, I noticed something.  A ladder.  Now, obviously I can't climb down the ladder with a man on my shoulder.  That wasn't my intent.  What stuck out at me was the opening. 

All but this one spot on the ledge was blocked off by a railing.  So what does this little opening mean, besides access to the ladder?  The opportunity to throw my kidnapee over the ledge and onto the ground, completely ignoring the long walk and finishing my mission within seconds.  Now, one little thing did stand in my way: the risk of my unconscious fellow dying upon impact.  I'd never thrown a man from a ledge before, so I didn't know exactly what would happen.  I took the risk anyways and over the ledge he fell...but not before smacking his head against an aluminum roof.  Whoops.  This made a very loud sound that would alarm any normal patrol men instantly, but not in Splinter Cell.  The sound of another AI falling really doesn't alarm them unless it's close by(very close by, actually).

So, he smacked his head on a roof, then fell onto a cement slab.  Amazingly he survived and I completed my mission by handing him over to a group of interrogators.  I did this 2 more times, because I really enjoy that particular level.  My third attempt, however, was...inconsistent.  I got to the opening and threw my man over the ledge.  Now, there's no "Throw over ledge" option, so you have to improvise.  Get as close as you can to the ledge, turn your back to it, and press "X".  "X" simply throws your victim from your shoulders and onto the ground, while at the same time whipping out your pistol/rifle.  Normally a fall from Sam's shoulders is quite small, only a few feet.  However, in this instance, those few feet turned into about 30 or so.  What made my third attempt so weird is that when I threw my guy over, he landed on the aluminum roof, instead of merely smacking it with his head on the way down.

So now I've gotta get on the roof and do the whole process over again.  I get to my guy, and throw him a second time onto the cement cushion.  Oddly enough however, he died.  I failed the mission.  So a throw from a lower height results in an instant death?  Perhaps the initial fall onto the roof damaged him a bit.  I don't know, honestly.  The AI in this game don't have any health indicators, which seems rather odd compared to games today.  Anyways, I restarted from my last checkpoint and finished the mission.

Just yesterday I attempted the level again, but from a different approach.  Just before you enter the room with a repair man and agent, there's a fairly long walkway that really serves no purpose whatsoever.  It was a complete mystery as to why they decided to add this walkway, complete with railings and detailed gated floor.  I walked down it and saw a roof that really didn't look safe to jump onto.  The roof itself was safe, but the distance to it was staggering.  At first glance, the mere thought of jumping onto it seemed suicide.  But as I analyzed it some more, it started to look survivable.  Knowing my last checkpoint was only minutes away, I really had nothing to lose if I did die.  It was decided.  I would jump onto the roof, and approach my mission from a whole new perspective.

One jump put me onto the railing.  I turn my back in hopes of catching the ledge before I fell, thinking it would help soften the initial fall a bit.  I backed up and down I went.  But I missed the ledge!  It was now a total free fall to the roof, which seemed miles away.  Down and down I went, thinking surely I'd die automatically before I even reached the bottom.  But, alas, I survived...with 1/16th percent health left.  And I'm not kidding.  Without full health this jump IS suicide.  Thus began my new approach.  Overall it was actually quite boring, which makes all the drama up to it quite humorous now that I think about it.  Honestly, this new approach has no real benefits.  It takes longer, and you're practically dead anyways.  If the guard sees you, you're toast.  I ended up finishing the level anyways, which was good.

All of this was for just one level, too.  God knows what I'll find in the others...  

If you have an Xbox 360 or browse the Xbox.com community boards, you might've heard a few people(ok, a lot) say the avatars are childish.  This is mainly due to the comparison drawn from Nintendo's own little avatars, also known as Mii's.  I've seen countless threads proclaiming Microsoft simply ripped-off Nintendo's feature and were grasping for new ideas to make their system more family oriented.

I myself don't view avatars as childish.  Mii's, yes.  But not avatars.  We've all had an avatar at one point, whether in a forum or using a service like the Yahoo! Avatar Creator.  They give people something to look at instead of walls of text.  Some use their own personal image, others use something totally abstract.  It's merely a little boxed-in picture of anything you choose, which is why they are so fun.  You can use any image you wish, depending on the services' TOS.  They've been around since the 90's, so saying Microsoft stole them from Nintendo is ridiculous.  The only similarities between the two is that they are both 3D representations of the user, but Microsoft goes for a more realistic look as opposed to Nintendo's Miis.

What's unfortunate is that Microsoft could've avoided all this from the begining.  In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Mark Betteridge stated that Rare threw the idea of avatars to Microsoft 4 years ago, when the Xbox 360 was in development.  It wasn't revealed why Microsoft turned down the offer.

In my last blog I mentioned that gamers are left out of the loop when it comes to the product they'd like to buy.  Since then, I've thought about this more and more and I've only gotten angrier over time.  There was a time when I actually enjoyed not knowing what would be in a game I'd probably end up buying.  The surprise of encountering a feature the developers never told you about was great, and made you wonder what else was hidden throughout the game.  Unfortunately, as time has gone by I've stepped away from playing today's games and started listening to the community of gamers themselves, while at the same time following what developers, publishers and general big-heads of the video game industry say.

By doing so, it's become quite apparent that withholding information about a product isn't a good thing(big shock!).  This is mainly aimed at the recent NXE debacle that Microsoft(and gamers) have had to go through.  LIVE went down, and gamers were left furious and without answers as to why.  A call to 18004MYXBOX resulted in a variety of answers ranging from "LIVE should be back up in 30 minutes" to "It'll be another 24-48 hours."  The fact that the operators didn't know why LIVE would be back up isn't that big of a surprise.  What is surprising, or actually disappointing, is that no one from Microsoft gave an acceptable answer.  Our only source of information appeared to be from Larry Hryb's twitter, but that proved useless since he decided to watch Quantum of Solace when gamers were growing more and more furious on the Xbox.com forums.

To add insult to injury, before he left he stated the LIVE issues had been fixed.  The cherry on top of this shit-sandwich was the fact that Microsoft had been through this before.  From what I can remember, this was the 3rd major LIVE outage.  One was during last holiday season, when LIVE was down for weeks.  Another came during the fall update this past September, which took longer than expected.  And now we have the NXE mess.  It's a safe bet to assume that when Microsoft handed out those 3 waves of early NXE access, it was merely a test on their servers.  It's a fail on Microsoft's part, but nothing compared to their first disaster.  Ironically everything ran fairly smooth today as they handed it out to everyone, but a few hiccups did occur.

But when someone is paying for a service to, you know, work, shouldn't they be entitled to know why it isn't?  In my first paragraph I mentioned that I used to like not knowing everything about a game I'd buy, and this still holds true...to some extent.  I obviously don't want to know if the main character dies, or if any character dies really.  There's a difference between spoilers and features.  I often wonder why game developers even bother with game ports they know are crap.  When they get called out from disappointed customers, some even admit it was embarrassing how bad it turned out, but this doesn't make up for the fact that they passed it on as a product worth buying.  Then you have people who blatantly lie about a product....

Once again, I'll use Microsoft as an example.  I distinctly remember reading an EGM article from 2005 in which Microsoft reps said every Xbox 360 would ship with a hard drive: EMG issue #197 "Microsoft wasn't always dead set on releasing a cheaper, hard-drive-free 360 package.  When we first saw the Xbox 360 earlier this year, company reps assured us the drive would be packed in.  They even played with the idea of releasing one package with the drive for $350 and being done with it."(Also see this and this)  Well, I think we all know how that turned out.  This was one of the main reasons I didn't get a 360 at launch.  In my eyes, releasing a cheaper system without all the bells and whistles is like giving parents who don't know better the middle finger when buying one for their child.

This initially started out as a rant against the video game industry, but since then I seem to be focusing on Microsoft, so I guess I'll continue.  The last bone I have to pick with them are options.  This can be said about any service, really, but I'm sticking with Microsoft.  The first option that bugs me is the NXE.  While it's undoubtedly better in some ways, there still exists the crowd who prefer the old dashboard.  I would love for a Microsoft executive to come out and tell everyone why they can't use the old dashboard anymore.  This isn't a mock or anything.  I'd honestly like someone to tell us exactly why people don't have the option to use the old dash.  My second argument is against the new Hotmail layout.

To me, Hotmail was fine as it was.  I didn't have a single issue with it, nor did I ever wish for any new features.  E-mail is simple to me: I'll either read the messages because I'm expecting them, or I'll send them to the junk bin because it's spam.  If I find a message useful, into the designated folder it goes.  And that's how it is for me everyday.  Honestly, there was nothing wrong with the old layout, which is why everyone is blasting Microsoft for forcing this new layout upon us.  Again, I'd ask for a Live Team rep to explain why we can't simply use the old layout.  All I've heard so far is that Microsoft deems it better overall for users.  I'm not saying I absolutely hate the layout, but I'd like the option to go back.  I guess my biggest complaints are that it looks amateurish and the bar at the bottom serves no purpose whatsoever.

All I ask for are answers.  This may come as a shock, but when companies answer specific questions, customers like it!

Where to begin?  Xbox Live has received a serious case of the flu after handing out the latest(and last) wave of NXE to select users, and gamers are pissed.  I stayed up for a few hours last night, trying to figure out just what was going on.  Unfortunately it's nigh impossible to get information when you have no real connections.  My only source was Major Nelson's twitter page, which I've actually been following for a while now.  I scourged the internet for answers, only to see more and more users complaining about connectivity problems and no solutions.  I started a thread at the Live forums on Xbox.com, posting the latest message from Major saying that all the issues had been solved.  Not having Live, I wasn't aware just how wrong I was...

For some reason one of the members seemed to think I had authority on the matter and kept asking me questions as if I actually ran Live.  He was noticeably mad, so I answered the best I could(I felt like some lame PR manager to be honest).  I think the main reason why gamers were so upset over this has to do with two factor: 1.) This isn't the first time this has happened.  Last Christmas Live was messed up for weeks, and just a few weeks ago it was down after the fall update, even though Microsoft said it wouldn't.  Paying for a service that doesn't work is a real pain, and I highly doubt people will get any compensation.  2.) No one tells us what's going on.  This is a big one, for me at least.  If the server room caught fire, tell us!  If someone tripped over a cord, tell us!  If you honestly don't know, then at least have the balls to admit it.  What you don't do is completely ignore your customers complaints until 24+ hours after the issue started. 

People felt out of the loop when they had every right to know why a service that they're paying for isn't working.  Put gently, it's simply unacceptable, especially when Microsoft has had this same problem in the past and acted the same way.  We know you're a big corporation Microsoft, but that's what PR people are for.