Xbox360 thread

[Cullen]

I'm now the proud owner of Beatles Rock Band and Rock Band 2, but I'm away from my 360 at the mo so can't play. I've still managed to buy about £20s worth of DLC already, which are all queued up to be downloaded for when I get back home on Monday.

[Jaymz]

neato, one of my friends got Beatles Rock Band, looking forward to trying the 3 player harmonic singing!

[Cullen]

Me too. I just need to get two more microphones.

[Jaymz]

The harmonies are very hard to do.

[Cullen]

They are hard to do with one player, let alone two. I keep getting about 50% on both tracks as I don't have that level of control over my voice.

[Cullen]

I picked up Mass Effect 2 when it came out last month but haven't played it much. Looking to rectify that this weekend. So far it's looking a lot more polished than the first.

[legios]

Feb 20, 2010 10:00:41 GMT Cullen said:

I picked up Mass Effect 2 when it came out last month but haven't played it much. Looking to rectify that this weekend. So far it's looking a lot more polished than the first.

It is - I'm about half way through it at the moment. I would be further but I keep running the Normandy back to Fuel Depots to get more probes so I can mine more minerals just in case...... I have "overpreparedness syndrome" I think.

The cover system works a lot better than it did in ME1 - I actually stopped trying to use cover the way I was supposed to in the first game, because it was getting me killed more than running and gunning was. They've got the balance a bit better on the mission length as well.

The fact that they have ditched the inventory system of the first game in favour of upgrades you research on the Normandy is a good step too. No more spending five minutes breaking down the mountains of rubbish into Omni-gel every side-mission or so.

Good voice-cast as well. Even the TV notables (something that doesn't always work well for video games) put in a decent shift.

Karl

[jameso]

I got a copy of Dragone Age Origins before christmas because if you got it at retail you could download free stuff, but I've never been able to get online with the EA servers (not sure why, but I think it might be slow internet connection) to redeem my codes and I'm not too hot on the game anyway... so, I'm not too happy with EA or Bioware so I'm not bothering with Mass Effect 2 at the moment.
Plus I still haven't finished the first one, and plus I don't think I like all this downloadable content on day one of game release, expansion packs within a few weeks, exclusive online unlock codes depending on where I buy a game and so on.
In unrelated to Mass Effect news, EA is in the process of shutting down their game servers for certain games which means they can't be played online, regardless of me paying my £40 a year for xbox live. One of these games is Lord of the Rings Conquest which is barely a year old. I can just about get on board with a basketball game from 2005, but with this instance, no. So I'm a bit miffed with the xbox360 in general at the moment.

I know Karl isn't even online with his console, which I'm thinking might be a lot easier for Mass Effect 2!

[Cullen]

The downloadable stuff in ME2 doesn't look like much so far, certainly not anything for Karl to worry about missing.

My plans to play ME2 this weekend failed as apparently I can't stop playing Rock Band. I bought Lego Rock Band on the cheap last month, mainly just so I could export the songs, but ended up playing it until I got 910/1000 achievement points. I've only got two achievements left: 100% the solo on The Final Countdown on Expert (not going to happen after I gave it one go) and 100% a song with 4 players (might happen if I can convince some friends to help me). I'm done with it now and back on Rock Band 2 but it just goes to show what well structured achievements can do.

I got Beatles RB for Christmas and thought I would be playing that a lot but I haven't touched it since completing the story mode. All of the achievements are either 'be great at everything' or 'be super fantastic on Expert on one particular thing'. All in all each seems a lot of work and not that much fun, so I haven't been enthused to play it. If there were some mid-level achievements to lead me into the harder ones I'd be playing it a lot more. At the moment it just seems like a massive mountain to climb.

RB2 seems better but seriously fuck those Endless Setlist ones. Bladder of Steel? You must be joking!

[legios]

Feb 22, 2010 11:18:33 GMT Cullen said:

The downloadable stuff in ME2 doesn't look like much so far, certainly not anything for Karl to worry about missing.

Actually, I do have a Live Silver account these days. When I got the router to replace the heat-slagged remains of my modem (long story, suffice it to say the long time Battletech/Mechwarrior fan in me is amused that I managed to take a modem off the top of the heat scale...) I managed to get it hitched up. I haven't bothered with a Gold Account as I don't have any real interest playing stuff online, and besides I only registered for the Silver account originally for the free DLC for AC6.

I'd agree that so far the DLC for ME2 hasn't really been anything that one would really miss. The Normandy crash site doesn't really work in a narrative sense without interaction with other survivors, and the shotgun might be useful if I didn't believe that any range close enough that a Shotgun is useful is far, far too close. I have kitted out my male Sheppard in the Cerberus Assault Armour though - not for game benefits, but because I like the irony of Karl Sheppard going around telling people that he hasn't joined Cerberus whilst stomping around in their battle armour. The way that my male Shep came out of the ME1 playthrough he is very much the kind of person who wouldn't get why this isn't convincing anyone.

I'm most of the way through ME2 now - probably going to be starting the suicide mission itself in the next couple of days. I m surprised to find that I have started to care about getting some of my crew through it alive. Not sure whether I have done the right things to ensure that they make it through though. I guess I won't know until I hit the Omega Four relay and head out to do the impossible.....

I do like the fact that the missions are a bit more varied this time around. Not just in terms of environments, but in the fact that some of the personal missions for your crew are not just "go here, shoot lots of folk". Samara and Thane's missions especially have been quite enjoyable to do because of that.

Karl

[Cullen]

My three days on the sick this week meant I got a significant chunk of ME2 out of the way. I'm loving it for the most part but I've got one little niggle: why do I keep bumping into or getting emails from all the random people I met in the first game. It was nice the first couple of times but now its getting a bit tired and really spoiling the feeling that I'm exploring a big universe. I think Bioware got carried away with what they could bring forward from your old saves. By rights there's so little chance I'd randomly bump into any of those people again, its starting to make me suspicious. I've decided that, even though I'm playing a paragon for this run, that I'm going to be an arsehole to the next one of these people I meet as I think The Collectors are behind this.

[legios]

Yeah, there are far too many callbacks really. But then, I stopped reading most of the emails by about midgame anyway. Mostly because I was getting sick of the Illusive Man telling me that I wasn't making the decisions that he would have made but that he trusted my judgement. Honestly, stop trying to soft soap me and give me a little credit for intelligence - we both know that we are only using each other - and if you really trusted my judgment you wouldn't have your AI monitoring my every move and the Cheerleader (that description was one of the games great laugh out loud moments. Although I would have described her as "Prom Queen") sizing me up for my utility or lack thereof.

I finished the game last week, and was actually rather disappointed with the endgame. More so than the climax to ME1 the final battle felt somewhat contrived and "videogamey". And it felt like it was too easy to get everyone out alive - in retrospect I approached the game the way that I would have done anyway, all my preparations for the suicide mission were just the sort of things that I always do in these sorts of games. Although they talked up the idea that it was going to be a darker game and you might have to make some morally dubious choices to succeed in your mission it really didn't feel that way.

Still, good game (the mining time-sink not withstanding - could we have had less mining and a couple more N7 missions please Bioware) and I am looking forward to playing through it again with my male Sheperd, and importing Rachel Sheperd who I think will be a more interesting character to run through it. (Whereas Karl Sheperd saw no problem with wearing Cerebus Uniform and wearing their Assault Armour - when you run with a gang you wear the colours, that is just how he grew up - Rachel Sheperd is going to stick with N7 gear and civvies, Polly Paragon Navy Brat is not getting any closer to Cerebus than she absolutely has to.

I do think that the various party members are more memorable characters this time. Mordin is wonderful - somehow they manage to make him faintly disturbing at the same time as wonderfully amusing. "Found many bugs. Destroyed most, returned the rest to Miss Lawson". It is only the Krogan that I didn't really warm to - he was a little bit too much on-the-nose an ST:TNG Klingon for my tastes. Theoretically useful to the team as a big hammer, but I carry a Widow Anti-Material rifle which tends to make him either redundant or a positive menace to my battle plans.

Karl

[Cullen]

Well Saturday was a good day as I finished both Mass Effect 2 and Resident Evil 5. ME2 was fantastic overall. The 'plot' was pretty lame but was a great excuse for going around and meeting a lot of interesting characters. Mordin was definitely my favourite. Karl, did you get the conversation were Mordin says that he's not interested in Shepard, and when you reply 'What?' he explains that he assumed you were interested in him as you come around talking to him so often? Hilarious.

I got all the achievements apart from the level 30 one and the complete on Insanity one. I'm a bit pissed off there wasn't enough experience to hit level 30 on one run. I got to level 28 plus 500 exp, and I did all the loyalty missions and scanned every planet so I think I did all the N7 missions too. Tempted to start again with my character on Insanity as I'd hit 30 after the first 2 missions but I kind of want to play an asshole fem-shep, to see all the different dialogue. But then I think I should start from ME1 as I never did a Hardcore or Insanity run on that...

RE5 on the other hand was pretty shit. I've been playing this exclusively with a friend so its taken about a year to finish as we could only play when we were both free (and none of our other friends were as getting them to watch would have been rude). It's not really a Resident Evil game having giving up all pretence of survivial and horror, but was a passable action game until the last couple of chapters. I wanted to throw the controller through the screen on every phase of the Wesker fight. All of the major boss fights were the typical, shoot this thing enough time to reveal its blatantly obvious weak spot then shoot that, repeat 3 times (and its always 3!!). 30 bloody years of videogames and we still see the same old boss fights.

The game was best when there was loads of zombies and you have to use the environment and limited ammo to defeat them or hold on until back up arrived. Unfortunately this meant the first level was the best. I've got limited desire to mop up the many achievements I've missed.

[legios]

Mar 15, 2010 14:48:53 GMT Cullen said:

Well Saturday was a good day as I finished both Mass Effect 2 and Resident Evil 5. ME2 was fantastic overall. The 'plot' was pretty lame but was a great excuse for going around and meeting a lot of interesting characters.

Yeah, the main plot is a bit thin - but the "hiring the samurai" part of things was enough fun that I rather forgive the lacklustre main plot. (Not so forgiving of the last boss though - yes, Mass Effect is daft Space Opera at heart, but that felt just slightly the wrong side of silly)

Mordin was definitely my favourite. Karl, did you get the conversation were Mordin says that he's not interested in Shepard, and when you reply 'What?' he explains that he assumed you were interested in him as you come around talking to him so often? Hilarious.

I did indeed get that one. It had me absolutely in stitches. It was only topped by the moment that I learned about the Gilbert and Sullivan.

Mordin was indeed the standout character of the lot. Even his in-battle dialogue often raised a laugh from me. ("Flammable, Inflammable....Don't remember. Doesn't matter").

I got all the achievements apart from the level 30 one and the complete on Insanity one. I'm a bit pissed off there wasn't enough experience to hit level 30 on one run. I got to level 28 plus 500 exp, and I did all the loyalty missions and scanned every planet so I think I did all the N7 missions too.

Hmmm. You did slightly better than me - I think I came out at about 26 by the end of the game. I'm definitely trailing on the Achievements - partly because I play as pure Soldier and concentrate on shooting the enemy with guns so I miss out on the biotic and close combat based ones. Also didn't get the Paramour one on my first playthrough as Shep was staying faithful to Ashley. May pick that up with my other Shepard seeing as she has no living romantic interest from ME1 to complicate matters.

[/quote]
Tempted to start again with my character on Insanity as I'd hit 30 after the first 2 missions but I kind of want to play an asshole fem-shep, to see all the different dialogue.
[/quote]


I must consider seriously playing either of them as something other than Soldier. I have dabbled, but never done a full playthrough as any other class as yet.

But then I think I should start from ME1 as I never did a Hardcore or Insanity run on that...

Me neither. I did start a Hardcore run with Rachel Shepard, but after being instagibbed by the first Geth rocket drone for the sixth time I decided to put that whole idea on hold for a bit.....

Karl

[Cullen]

Against my better judgement and to the detriment of my ever growing backlog, I decided to start ME1 on Hardcore with a ruthless female Shepard (called Leanne ) who is a sentinel. I'm shooting for about 6 of the use x ability 75 times achievements and the Garrus and Wrex ally achievements (did Ashley and Tali the first time). I think I'll be skipping all the collecting missions as you don't need them to get the ally achievements, and that was the bit I hated most about ME1.

It already feels like a different game with the female voice for Shepard. I'll also be looking to make the opposite of most of the decisions I made during my soldier play through. So I will be letting Wrex and Ashley die and saving the council during the assault on the Citadel.

If I managed to do it fair quickly I'll then attempt an Insanity run using that character in ME2. I'm really interested to see if the choices I make will make a big difference or not. I also intend to let some characters die in the 'suicide' mission to see what impact that will have on ME3.

I agree about the final boss in ME2. It was far too videogamey - it even had big glowing orange week spots that I mentioned before. Still it was one of a small number of blips in anotherwise great game.

One thing I did notice (or didn't notice more accurately ) about ME2 compared to ME1 was the soundtrack. I don't really remember any standout tracks in ME2 that weren't recycled ME1 tracks. Playing ME1 again the score was a lot more obvious (and well used) but I don't know if that's because I've listened to the CD a lot since. The ME2 score was just kind of there. And it didn't have anything by Faunts for the credits roll. I'll try and pay more attention next time.

Ooh and I figured out why I didn't hit level 30 on my first play through. It's only possible if you import a level 60 character from ME1, then you start out at level 5 in ME2. I imported a level 50 character and started at level 3 (I think) so that would explain the 2 level difference. Should be able to hit 30 easily on a second play through with the 25% exp bonus.

[Cullen]

I've finished my Hardcore run on ME1 and I'm on to my Insanity run of ME2. Grinding out the side missions to get the ally achievements for Wrex and Garrus was tedious. I'd forgotten how boring it was driving over yet another uninteresting planet (woo some more mountains, yay) to get to one of the same 3 rooms you've already been in 20 times before.

[Cullen]

I've just taken advantage of this deal to get £70s worth of Microsoft vouchers for £40 using some promotional codes on the Woolworths website. I'll let you know if I have any problems but it looks legit.

savygamer said:

I received my MS points the other day, and I have had plenty of confirmation from other people that they have successfully received these items, and the discount from the code has been applied correctly.

6,000 Wii Points – £33.95 delivered
8,400 MS Points – £43.95 delivered
Nintendo Wii, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort & Wii Motion Plus – £122.95 delivered
£60 PSN credit – £33.95 delivered. Add three of these to your basket.

Apply code “ZZ472″ to get this price.

Only for new Woolies customers. I have heard that the code “XV002″ might get you free P&P too, but I have not tried it myself.

Also, bear in mind:

"If you use a cash discount promotion such as £10 off, and you pay for your order with a credit or debit card then we will process your payment in two stages. First we will charge your card with the full price of the order then we will refund your card with the value of the discount. Please note that the payment and refund may not occur simultaneously but the refund will be made no later than when your order is despatched."

I got the refund pretty much straight away.

[Cullen]

Forgot to say the above worked a treat. The points arrived on Friday and I'm now 8400 points better off. I decided to splurg on Tempest and Road Warrior in the Game Room.

[legios]

Apr 7, 2010 11:32:34 GMT Cullen said:

I've finished my Hardcore run on ME1 and I'm on to my Insanity run of ME2. Grinding out the side missions to get the ally achievements for Wrex and Garrus was tedious.

I must admit I only have one of those achievements - the "Quarian Ally" one. I have done a number of playthroughs but I tend to end up with a similar approach to picking my teams - Tali with me pretty much all the time for her tech skills, and either Ashley or Garrus (mostly Ash) along for bonus shootyness. I usually swap out to take Garrus on the hostage rescue type missions (learning opportunity for him), and Wrex on Virmire. I rarely have Tali tagging along because she seems so woefully un-combat ready in personality that I can't see Shep putting her in the line of fire.

I suppose I could play through the game specifically to get the green thing popping up but I'm much more comfortable sticking with teams that feel like they make sense to me. (Apart from his war stories I am at a loss as to why either of my Shepards keep Wrex around at all.).

I'm taking a break from the Mass Effect universe for a little while to go back and try and get to grips with Far Cry 2 properly. It is a decent game, and one I paid full whack for so I would like to get my moneys worth. Unfortunately I am having the same problem I had before - the constantly having to shoot my way through road checkpoints to and from my missions becomes grindingly dispiriting after a while (not to mention the randomly spawning technicals which drive straight into my vehicle and then try to shoot me from virtually sitting in my lap. Followed by having to get out, fix my current wheels and then deal with the other technical that has spawned just out of view whilst I am clearing that up. I seem to spend more time dealing with the (semi) random encounters to get to and from the missions than I do actually doing the missions.........

Karl

[legios]

My Mass Effect 1&2 back-to-back run with Rache Shepard is on temporary hold as I have recently picked up Bioshock 2 and am dabbling in that a little at the moment.

I have discovered recently that split-screen Co-op Firefight mode in Halo 3:ODST is perhaps the best thing to happen in shooters in a long time. Two folk gathered around the same telly, bantering back and forth and strategising as they find ways to take on endless waves of Covenant troops is immensely fun.

Competitive multiplayer doesn't really interest me in terms of FPS games, but cooperative modes are definitely a very different matter.

Karl

[Cullen]

I'm about halfway through my Insanity run on ME2. It's rather hard!

[jameso]

Sounds like you'd like the Horde mode in Gears of War 2, Karl.

[legios]

Maybe, but given that I didn't like the the way the original Gears of War played or the general aesthetic of it I'm not certain. (Didn't realise that it did split-screen, I thought it was Live or System Link only).

Wouldn't be worth buying the game just for very occassional co-op when someone else was around though I don't think.

Karl

[Stomski]

The XBox360 just doesn't do anything for me. I have an XBox and most of the games on that console didn't appeal to me at all. The same goes for the XBox 360. I've got no problem with the graphics but all of the games I've seen advertised are the same old 'first person shooters' game. Furthermore, the adverts for all XBox 360 games never actually show in game graphics to try and sell the games to me. All we get are CGI scenes that claim to be 'representative of gameplay' and that just annoys me. If they are representative of gameplay why don't you actually show us real gameplay instead of getting us to buy a game first and then find out afterwards that its nothing like the advert! At least Wii game adverts shows actual gameplay footage. They know that their graphics aren't as good as PS3 or the XBox Always Breaking Down 360 but do they care. Nope, they don't!

Another thing that irks me about the Microsofts is that they always release the first version of the console as a massive heavy console and then, when sales start to slip they don't release a smaller version and then when sales slip even more they release a platinum or other special edition version. I've known people before who have been compelled to buy every different version of the XBox AND the XBox 360 as soon as they have come out because 'the old version isn't as pretty, and this new version looks better in the lounge' even though it is still an XBox or still an XBox 360 and it does exactly the same things as 'yesterdays colours'.

[jameso]

Stom I think you want Have Your Say, and also there wasn't a smaller version of the first xbox.

[Stomski]

when sales start to slip they don't release a smaller version

SPOILER: Click to show

Although I did mess up on the final sentence of first paragraph --> XBox compared to XBox, oops, hahahahahahahaahhaahhahahaahaha.

In other news, I hear Fifa 11 and PES 11 demos are available.

[Cullen]

I started Darksiders a couple of weeks ago and I'm nearly finished. It's a good little romp that blatantly rips off (in a good way) just about every genre out there. It's essentially a Zelda clone, but the combat is more like God of War, with hints of Portal, on-rails shoot 'em ups, and a few more.

[jameso]

But they have released a smaller 360, the new one is basically a ps2 slim as far as I can see.

I'm seriously struggling with Darksiders, it plays identically to Dante's Inferno which was the last game I played and is making it a right slog, which is probably unfair on Darksiders but there you go. Can't say it reminds me of any Zelda I've played though.

[Deleted]

I thought the first Assassins Creed game on the PS3 reminded me a bit of Zelda Twilight Princess. I never played Assassins Creed but I was told about how the game went by somebody who played it and then the same person gave me the instruction manuel to the game. I read through it and noticed a lot of similarities between AC and Zelda: TP. Obviously, because I haven't actually played the game I can't give a cast-iron judgement of this but maybe somebody here has played it and also Zelda: TP and can tell me if there are similarities between the two games.

[Cullen]

Sept 20, 2010 16:36:42 GMT jameso said:

But they have released a smaller 360, the new one is basically a ps2 slim as far as I can see.

I'm seriously struggling with Darksiders, it plays identically to Dante's Inferno which was the last game I played and is making it a right slog, which is probably unfair on Darksiders but there you go. Can't say it reminds me of any Zelda I've played though.

Seriously? In each dungeon you find a map, a compass (which reveals all chests) and an item which you get halfway through which you must use to defeat the boss of the dungeon. This is exactly how every dungeon in almost every Zelda game plays out. You also collect lifestone shards, and every four you get grants you a heart container... err sorry... lifestone. Crossblades=boomerang, chain thing=hookshot, guantlet=power glove, bombs=bombs. I mean most of the puzzles early game involve either lighting torches with your boomerang, bombing walls, or pushing sliding blocks around. It's a love letter to Zelda!

I could name more but don't want to spoil some of the later game stuff. In fact I stopped playing the Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the DS because I didn't want to play two Zelda games at the same time.