Friday, April 27, 2007

C&C 3 on Xbox 360: multiplayer impressions


Team Xbox got their hands on a some multiplayer C&C 3. You can read the preview here. One interesting mechanic/feature of this game is described.

One of the coolest elements of the game is the fact that you can use the Xbox Live Vision Camera to see and be seen by your opponents. When playing, you’ll be able to see the other players in the corners of the screen throughout the action, giving you plenty of opportunities to flip them the bird or moon them. Wait, did I say that? I meant “wave to them or tell them how well they are playing.” Granted, this isn’t one of those features that is essential, but definitely adds to the fun.


More games need to use the vision camera. I want to moon people that cheese me in Madden, flip off people that glitch in Gears Of War and stick my tounge out at people who play as Brazil in Winning 11.






Wii News: April edition from Nintendo

You can see the Wii News from Nintendo.com that was in my inbox tonight. Really not much to see, an ad for the brower, super paper mario. Pretty low key.

Madden 08 first screenshots tomorrow



I just got this in my email, looks like we will see what EA has up thier sleeves.

click here for the email

Xbox 360 New Platinum Hits

I am a regular lurker at http://www.cheapassgamer.com/ and I really hate paying full price for games. I will post here universal price drops/good deals/rebates so you can take advantage of them also.

Saints row 29.99
lego star wars II 29.99

New FFXII Ifrit boss battle video

I like the final fantasy games, but I can only play them on my handhelds. They are great for killing about 20 minutes to an hour of time, at a time. looking forward to this one.


New Spiderman 3 TVG trailer

I am looking forward to this on the wii. Sandbox gameplay as a superhero is how it was meant to be.

What I'm Playing Tonight

  • Crackdown 360: I need to finish this or just level my character enough to play with stompy and newbcakes
  • SSX blur Wii: Fun to pick up and play
  • Godfather Wii: need to finish it
  • Winning 11 Soccer 360
  • Nhl 2k7: need to figure out feints

Good Game News



Every time I turn on the TV video games are getting a bad rap. Finally something good out of the news.


SHELBY, N.C. Early every morning, you can find nine-year-old Davien Hayden playing video games.
This week, his daily habit may have helped save his family's life.

Davien says he got out of bed Tuesday morning and heard falling glass. He says he smelled smoke, then yelled for everyone to get out of the house.

That's not even the best part

All seven family members got out alive. They're describing Davien as a hero, but he says he'd like to stay out of the spotlight, saying, "Too much fame, dude."
He just wants to be left alone, playing his video games. My hero.

I wish they would have said what he was playing. It was probably GTA3:Vice city.

Money and games

Over at Slashdot Games they have an item on how much Microsoft's games division is losing. The original is on Gamasutra:


Microsoft has released its third quarter results, showing the company's Xbox-encompassing Entertainment and Devices division posting a $315 million loss and sales slipping 21 percent to $929 million, as the overall company saw $4.93 billion in profits and $14.40 billion in sales.


Compare that to Nintendo's latest financials:


Nintendo Co., Ltd., today reported final consolidated fiscal year revenues of 966.5 billion yen and operating profits of 226.0 billion yen for the year ending March 31, 2007, an increase of 90 percent and 150 percent, respectively, over the same period one year ago. Both numbers are record highs for the company.


Imagine what would happen if Microsoft couldn't leverage its monopoly on desktop operating systems to finance its gaming and entertainment forays. There's a place in the home for the 360 and the Wii -- and a place in many homes for both -- but remember that Nintendo gets there on their own and Microsoft gets there because they can afford to lose billions of dollars.

Left 4 Dead

There are a few games I am looking forward to this summer/winter

Left 4 Dead is one of them.

Co op survival horror + players as the zombies.

This 1up preview really makes me want to get it.


All Pro Football 2k8



Since EA and the NFL inked an exclusive licensing agreement, the Madden Football games (06/07) have been dissapointing and sloppy. Madden 06 on the 360 was put together so quickly, a lot of the features that were in last gen's version were not there. I gave them a pass. First generation games on a new console are either ports from previous consoles or tech demos.

Madden 07 on the 360 was buggy at best sloppily excecuted at worst. The clock ran after the 2 minute warning if a penalty was called, the clock should stop. The menus were laggy offline. The game wasn't as responsive as the previous versions due to sloppy graphic programming.


Also, Madden 07's feature EA hyped the most: 3d Grass.

Madden 08's hype so far? The Madden Curse. It was a nice run for Vince Young, I hope he has good insurance.

On to what I really want to talk about APF 2k8. Here is the hook. Legendary players playing side by side. Teams will be made up from these players.

2k sports is hyping:

  • Better AI.
  • Instead of a 0-100 rating system, the rating system will consist of icons these represent the positive and negative effects the player has on the field. The interview with Game Informer uses an example of a mobile QB that is a fumbler. Sounds a lot like Culpepper. I wonder if they have a small hands icon. They also have special abilities. Game informer uses 4th quarter comebacks as an example.
  • They are including game mechanics the NFL doesn't want madden to include for example: Injuries occuring in real time and having animations associated with them and on field banter.
One thing no one knows about right now is the online component. I will make a wild guess here. You will draft your team offline and you will be able to play that team on line. A couple of reasons for this. The teams in the game have no real life counterpart and the players will probably be all of roughly the same calibur, with the exceptions of the special abilities and small hands handicaps. If this is the case, I know a lot of people that will pick this up either with madden or instead of madden.

the price point right now: 59 dollars for ps3/360 versions. Visual Concepts and 2ksports need to work together to lower the price by 10-15. If they do that, madden is dead.