Halo 3 Mongoose and Grunt Audio Outtake

Earlier this week, Bungie posted up a profile on one of the upcoming new vehicles for Halo 3, the Mongoose. You can check it out here.

In their Weekly Update, they also posted a Grunt audio clip outtake, which you can listen to here.

The Throne of Orthanc

I was out doing site visits with our CEO today, and our property manager was showing us one presently occupied space to provide us with a visual aid of what an upcoming space could look like size wise.

The most interesting thing about this occupied space is that the company in there seemed to have been involved with the production of The Lord of the Rings. In addition to swords and posters along various walls, they had the actual throne of Orthanc right at the front door.

For those not in the know, the throne of Orthanc is where Saruman often sat while ruling over Isengard. This piece was featured in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, and I believe it was the actual throne from the set since you could clearly see the Styrofoam from where they would have removed it from a larger overall set-piece.

What they had was the throne and a part of the wall that it was attached to, and this would have been the actual seat that Christopher Lee sat in.

And that's the highlight of my day.

Gears of War: Limited Collector's Edition... in French???

Last weekend the Staff rented Gears of War, and he was going all ape-shit over it, so I started thinking about renting it to. When I went to BlockBuster, however, they were all out and so I went home and noted that ActionTrip named Gears of War their 2006 Game of the Year. Since I tend to trust ActionTrip with their generally impartial reviews and staff on crack, and also seeing how they're mainly a PC gaming site, I decided what the hell. Thus, I ordered the Gears of War: Limited Edition from Best Buy.

The package arrived on Friday and I opened it up and noted how cool the Collector's Tin the game is packaged in is. I then turned to the Tin over to read what was on the back and realized that something was wrong... I couldn't read a single thing on the Tin save the Gears of War title: it was all in French. Best Buy, in its infinite wisdom, decided to send me the French version of the Gears of War: Limited Edition.

Now, the irony is that I'm half French and speak next to none of the language. So after verifying the exchange policy and _not_ opening the product, I stood in a 40 minute post Christmas customer service line to get my proper English copy.

I must say that, while so far no Halo, Gears of War is a pretty cool game. The Art Book that comes with the Limited Collector's Edition is cool and seems to flesh out the story a little better than what's presented in game. The game itself looks very nice and has some cool audio. I'm loving the concept of having to constantly run and take cover while popping shots off in between, definitely a different style of combat than I'm used to. The only thing I need to do is really get used to the controls.

I've had it happen several times where I was using "A" to perform a certain action, but it ended up performing something completely different. I've also just started getting used to throwing grenades, and they're coming in quite handy.

The only other thing I've had problems with is the Chainsaw melee. I've gotten it to work a few times, however mostly when a Locust has gotten in close to me and I tried to cut him up, Marcus Fenix would just stand there all stupid like and, well, die. This frustrated me a lot yesterday, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Anyway, Gears of War seems to be a really cool game, and probably one of the most interesting titles available on the Xbox 360 right now.

Rome Season 2 Premieres Sun. Jan. 14th

Rome is probably the first new television series I've actually likes in half a decade, since most TV is drivel.

The second season is about to begin and premieres this coming Sunday, January 14th on TMN at 9:00 pm.

I suppose this means I'll be missing Family Guy, but such is as it is.

Kameo: Elements of Power Review

At the end of my Christmas break, I finished going through Kameo: Elements of Power, which came as a bonus title with my Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle.

The history of Kameo: Elements of Power is an interesting one. I read that Rare was originally developing the game for the GameCube, then shifted to the Xbox, and finally developed and released it as a launch title for the Xbox 360. While it seems to have had such a long development cycle, I honestly believe that Kameo: Elements of Power could have benefited from even more time being refined.

Kameo: Elements of Power is set in a Disney-esque fantasy world chronicling a war between the ruling Elves and the rising Trolls (who look a lot like Warcraft Orcs). You play as Kameo, youngest daughter of the royal family, and the one named heir to the throne by your mother after your father vanished. Your older sister, Kalus, is outraged at this betrayal and frees Thorn, the self-styled king of the Trolls, to wage war against the Enchanted Kingdom and bring the Elven nation to its knees.

As this war begins, Kalus also abducts most of her family, and the game begins with Kameo staging a solo rescue in Thorn's castle itself. Well, not exactly a solo rescue, as Kameo has the ability to transform into different Elemental Warriors, what seem to be spirits of the world used by the Elves to maintain piece and order. Basically, Kameo can become different cute animal-ish characters with different strengths and weaknesses to kick the snot out of the Troll forces.

While it does sound childish, and this is certainly a title children will enjoy, Kameo: Elements of Power plays very much like a classic adventure game from the mid-'90's, and it is this feeling of nostalgia that has captured my attention with the game. Because aside from that classic feeling, there's not too much else to the game.

The story I've outlined above is basically about as deep as it gets. The story of Kameo: Elements of Power is not properly developed in-game. The tutorial level sort of just drops you in there, and after you fail to rescue your family from Kalus' clutches, you're rescued somehow and awaken in the Mystic's hut. The Mystic is the royal adviser, and not an Elf. In fact, there are many other species in the world aside from Trolls and Elves, though I have no idea what most of them are called, what their back story and overall relation is to the main factions of this game. The reason I don't know is it simply isn't explained, which is quite the shame as there was potential for a good deal of depth.

So in a nutshell, I found the story to be very disappointing, but let's look at what matters most in the end, the actual gameplay. Kameo herself can move, jump, hover, and kick her way out of various situations all with relative ease of control, but for the bulk of the game you'll be controlling the Elemental Warriors that you set out to collect/rescue. There's a whole lot of variety here, as there are 10 Warriors in total, from the boxing plant creature Pummel Weed who excels at combat early on, to the ape-like Chilla who can climb icy walls and throw spikes of ice at enemies from a safe distance. The game often features interesting puzzles for the player to solve, traditionally needing the specific power of one Elemental Warrior to achieve results.

The game also features some very nice, large, and detailed areas to explore. In times this exploration almost reminded me of exploring Albion in Fable: The Lost Chapters, but not quite up to that level. Along the way, aside from helping general clans people who reward you with Elemental Fruit which allows you to increase the abilities of your Elemental Warriors, you'll be beating the snot out of hundreds of Trolls. Again, with the different Warriors you have lots of different options on how to dispose of your enemies, but by the end of the game you'll feel that you've simply done it all and have been doing the same repetitive motions for hours. It's strange how even with multiple options, the gameplay is ultimately a bit bland.

The game also isn't very difficult, and you also have something called the Wotnot book, which has a wizard in it who can give you tips. In fact, he'll often do more than that, he'll tell you exactly what to do to solve any given situation after a bit of time. While this makes the game's puzzles too easy, it also does alleviate some frustration if you do get stuck. Too bad the wizard's advice is all text instead of voice over.

Overall though, it is the game's controls that I feel needed more refinement. While simplistic in their presentation and execution, I found it could be very frustrating getting around certain areas with Major Ruin, and controlling Deep Blue underwater was an absolute nightmare, what with his thumbstick inversion that makes simple submerging a challenge. There are also many points where you need to push an object along, however the collision detection of the game is too good, and more oft than not you'd begin to run past what you were pushing, have to move back and repeat again. Tedious. While the game certainly features many fun and exciting moments, there's nothing quite like running over a mass of Trolls while mounted on a horse in the Bad Lands, it did need some more polish.

Graphically, Kameo: Elements of Power is a beautiful game. The world is rich and detailed as are the characters. The colour scheme is lush and vibrant and water effects are very, very nice. The game does have some texture pop-in, unfortunately, which I find surprising for a console launch title.

Audio wise, while the voice acting is good and the sound effects are standard fair, the soundtrack is simply awesome. The score ranges from epic to subtle to cute, all depending on the situation and location. Fantasy games are always a treat as they often feature a stellar soundtrack, and as we all know music has a big impact on drama and tension.

So the question of course is if Kameo: Elements of Power is worth picking up. Well, it's now a Platinum Hits title and is on sale for only $19.99. That's not a huge lot of money and for that cost, there is a good deal of fun here. Because the game does have some issues, however, I would recommend either trying out the demos available at the Xbox Live Marketplace, or renting the game for a weekend first.

G4 Wii vs PS3 Video

You've all seen those retarded Mac vs PC commercials, right? Well, G4 produced one for the Wii vs PlayStation 3. Check it out at Google Video here.

It's funny, 'cause it's true. Now please stop molesting the Wii's innovative new, TV breaking controller.

Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta Played by US Troops

TeamXbox is reporting that this holiday season, US troops stationed in Iraq got a surprise present from Microsoft and Bungie: the opportunity to play the upcoming Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta to be released later this year.

You can check out the article along with screenshots and footage right here.

Top 3 Paperback Novels of 2006

For my final list of the year, I present you with my top 3 paperbacks of 2006.

3) Star Wars: Dark Lord - The Rise of Darth Vader - This is the expanded universe sequel to Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, and it's a great read to get into the psychological state of cinema's all time favourite villain at a point when he himself is very vulnerable. You find more about why Vader made the choice he did, what happened to other surviving Jedi, and details on the further reformation of the Galactic Empire, including a brief glimpse into the reorganization of the Grand Army into Stormtroopers. This is a novel that no Star Wars fan should miss.

2) Halo: Ghosts of Onyx - What else can I say save that it's an original new story set within Bungie's epic military sci-fi universe. Halo: Ghosts of Onyx takes place mainly after Halo 2, and though it doesn't feature the Master Chief or Cortana in any prominent role, you get to find out what happens to the remaining Spartan IIs. More information is shed on the Covenant Civil War, and perhaps some hints about Halo 3 are glanced on as well. If you enjoyed the first and third Halo novels, odds are that Halo: Ghosts of Onyx is for you as its written by the same author and features the bulk of the same characters.

1) The Eagle - The final companion novel to the epic A Dream of Eagles series, The Eagle concludes the tale of Clothar, better known as Lancelot, and lays bare the fate of the colony of Camulod and of King Arthur and his Knights Companion. While some have called it anti-climactic, what you need to remember is that this is now Clothar's story, not Merlyn's and not Arthur's. Based on this, the final novel makes a lot more sense and will leave you feeling more satisfied. The Dream of Eagles series is the best novel series I have read in my life bar none. It is filled with all too human characters who present us with a beautiful historical fiction rendition of a traditional fantasy legend. The only disappointment I have to express with The Eagle is that it does indeed end the series, but what a series it is. If you decide to pick up The Eagle, please start at the beginning of the series proper so you follow the proper flow of the story. The first novel is called The Skystone, and if military and historical fiction is your thing, than you owe it to yourself to give this novel a read.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (PC) Review

After reading the novels and then watching the films, I always wanted to command the armies of Middle-earth. My first chance came when EA released The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, however they didn't release a demo and the game received so-so reviews, so I decided to pass.

Later on they released the sequel to the PC, and ultimately the Xbox 360, and this time they did release a demo, which I decided to try. The PC demo for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II was simple yet enjoyable and showed a lot of potential, and the game also received very strong reviews across the board, so I decided to ask for it as a gift for my birthday. That was in early October.

While I got my copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II - Collector's Edition (the first collector's edition title I've ever purchased/gotten for the PC) in early October, it took me this long to finish it. Why? Well, I've always been very picky about my real time strategy titles, or more to the point, very picky about the interface of the game. With very rare exceptions, I've only ever liked Blizzard Entertainment's RTSes as they've been of the highest quality with the most polished interfaces for their time. After getting underway with The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, I started to notice all the flaws in the interface and this really started to hamper my experience to the point where I stopped playing. However after finishing the game and spending a good deal of time with it over the last several days, I think I may have been too hard on the game.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II takes place parallel to The Lord of the Rings and chronicles the war in the north of Middle-earth. While the armies of Mordor and Isengard assault the Men of the West, Sauron sends additional armies north to lay siege to the Elves, Dwarves, and other free peoples of that land. This war was mentioned in the book, however there was only a brief snippet of it in the Extended Edition of The Return of the King (when Legolas tells Gimli that he fears war is marching on the borders of his dwarven kin). So, one of the most exciting things about The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II is simply being able to see locations that you've read about, but have never really seen.

The Single Player game is broken down as follows: You have a tutorial where you play as the Men of the West in the White Mountains that teaches you the very bare-bone basics. There is then a Good Campaign where you play as the Elves and Dwarves and a "what if" Evil Campaign where you play as the Goblins and Mordor. The last faction, Isengard, makes a very brief appearance in the Evil Campaign, however they are not playable in the Campaigns. There is also a standard Skirmish mode and the War of the Ring mode which I'll type about later.

Now, on to my major gripe: The interface. This game must of had a target release date of 1998. Why? Because it has the same styled interface as Starcraft. The units in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II have a good number of special abilities to choose from, including the Hero units. I'd like to tell you how great this special ability is, or how unbalanced that special ability is, but I honestly wouldn't know. Why? Because battles are so large and the controls so antiquated that micromanagement is a nightmare.

If you have a bunch of different unit types grouped together, you can not "tab" between them to access different special abilities quickly, you're forced to put different units on different number keys. However if you group more than one battalion or horde to a number key and use the special ability, only one battalion will do so while the others continue to bumble around normally. There's also no way to select an individual Hero unit quickly other than clicking on their portrait at the bottom of the screen.

What does this all mean? It means that The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II is extremely heavy on tactics, but low on strategy. Against the AI at any rate, the primary strategy is simply hucking masses of units at them, possibly holding your regular units at bay while siege units punch a whole in walls or defences. Hero units also just become damage sponges instead of heavily turning the tide of battle with special abilities.

Having learned to live or die by micromanagement with Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne a few years ago, this was, at first, simply appalling to me. The more I played the more frustrated I got and so after forcing myself to finish the Good Campaign and just begin the Evil Campaign, I stopped. I couldn't believe that such a slick and high production value title could stumble up on such a critical component; and I do mean a slick title.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II is beautiful. I'm playing on the High graphic settings, and everything, and I mean everything, is so detailed that it's all a joy to look at. Every unit, every building, every landscape has had so much attention paid to the models and animations, and the water effects! The game has to be seen to be believed. Audio wise, all the effects and music are taken from the films or else engineered in the same style. With the exception of certain Heroes being voice-acted by someone other than their film actor, it all fits and flows together. The Collector's Edition also comes with an interesting DVD that goes into the making of the game, contains all the cinematics, art samples, the soundtrack, etc. And then there's War of the Ring mode.

War of the Ring is a lot like playing Risk. You have a map of Middle-earth that's divided up into territories and you start with a small army and three Heroes in your territory and your enemy(ies) and ally(ies) start in their's. You then take turns moving along the board claiming territories, building basic structures to train and upgrade troops and recruit Heroes, and generally try to defeat your opponent(s). Battles can be auto-resolved on the map based on troop strength, or you can actually do an RTS battle. While this is cool as you can actually see an RTS map with Minas Tirith, Isengard, Helm's Deep, etc., these near-skirmish like battles can take a while, meaning you could be playing a War of the Ring game for over 12 hours minimum. Yes, minimum. For this reason, unless you have that much free time on your hands, I recommend using the auto-resolve option. Generally, I found a War of the Ring game to take about 2 to 4 hours and with the different game modes available (claim all territories, claim X amount of territories, claim your opponent's capital), there was enough variety to keep things fresh and fun.

Several days ago I determined to finish the game once and for all and just get it off my play list, however once I started playing through the Evil Campaign again, I found that I was enjoying myself. Sure, I was just hucking units at one another, but it was fun to quickly build a town, train hordes and march them off in formation, watch cavalry run over infantry, and see Trolls knock soldiers into mid-air. While the Good Campaign was also a bit boring story wise, I found the Evil Campaign to be a little more fun in that regard. So, instead of focusing on micromanaging battles, I had turned to managing unit production and base management, and though it's no Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, it was fun in it's simplicity, and in the end, fun is what mainly matters to me in games these days; my competitive tournament days are behind me.

I've tinkered with Skirmish mode and the Medium AI seems to put up a good but not impossible fight. There's a large variety of maps to choose from, as well as neutral buildings (including Ship Yards) that you can claim to enhance your forces. In all modes, you also get Powers for your faction. You can summon Eagles as the Elves to attack your enemies, use a group Healing spell, or even summon a special Hero or reinforcements. The same goes for the forces of Evil. It's great fun to see a Watcher of the Water erupt from the ground and start smacking everyone around and dragging individual units to it's mouth. Again, a lot of visual detail and polish. Skirmish mode itself is something I need to experience more of, but it does have potential.

You can also create your own custom Heroes to use in both Skirmish and War of the Ring, however I didn't tinker with this and just used the game's default Heroes.

So, in the end, what's the verdict? I've flip-flopped with my impressions of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II. On the one hand you have an extremely high production value title, but on the other you have an antiquated control scheme. However I now believe that the game was designed with tactics and less so strategy in mind. I will say one thing, it does present a bit more realistic view of the chaos of medieval style battles, and the battles and sieges of this game can certainly feature a huge number of units.

I'd say if you're interested in commanding the armies of Middle-earth in massive battles, download the demo for either the PC or Xbox 360 and see what you think. Regardless, I'd wait for a price drop before dropping $50.00 plus on the title. The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II is a fun game with some really enjoyable moments, however at present I don't feel it's worth the price of admission. Once the price does drop to, say, $30.00-ish, go have some fun knocking soldiers into the air. You'll laugh your ass off.

Component vs Composite

It's been so long since I've done a proper comparison between component and composite cables, I'd forgotten how drastic a difference the two signals are!

My grandparents popped by for a visit today and I showed them my new Samsung LCD TV, and to demonstrate the gorgeous picture quality it's capable of, I started playing a DVD which is connected to the TV via composite cables. The first thing I noticed was a good bit of artifacts showing up everywhere.

I then decided to test the same DVD out on my Xbox 360. The Staff mentioned to me several days ago that he was using his Xbox 360 to view DVDs simply because it's hooked up via component cables, and after testing this out now, I'll be doing the same.

The picture quality was no contest. The component cables with the Xbox 360 provide a clearer, crisper, and more vibrant image than my DVD player can with simple composite cables. What's nice is that unlike the original Xbox, the Xbox 360 will play DVDs out-of-the-box and the Controller can be used as a remote control.

I plan on watching The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soon, so I'll see how that goes.

Free Xbox Live Trial Gold Membership and Classic Xbox Live Content

We'll, it seems that Microsoft is offering free one month trials of their Xbox Live Gold Membership to anyone who creates a new Xbox Live Silver Membership on their Xbox 360. According to some posters on the Xbox Forums, this is only valid for the first 3 accounts created on an individual console, and I've created 2 accounts on mine. The first is my main account which didn't offer me the trial as I mentioned in this post here, and the second is my test account. What a pain in the ass the set up was for this, though.

When I went to create this second dummy account, I decided to try the path of creating everything from scratch from my Xbox 360, and while I had no trouble getting an account name on Xbox Live, creating a Windows Live ID account was just stupid. I tried over half a dozen account names, some of them really dumb combos of words and numbers, and according to Xbox Live, they're all taken. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that llllleditiontokkaabd1239@hotmail.com is taken. Ultimately I just used my personal Sympatico email account (thankfully I merged it with MSN some months back, so it's recognized as a Windows Live ID account) to get things up and running.

The strange thing is that after creating this dummy account, I was able to sometimes log into Xbox Live through the classic Xbox titles I was trying using my regular Silver Membership account, something I was unable to do before and could not repeat consistently. Not sure why, but whatever. I was able to download the Halo 2 and Doom 3 Bonus Maps I wanted, and more importantly, the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Yavin Station Content.

I also found some bugs with the Xbox emulator for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. There's some artifacts that appear around certain text in the main menu and in-game menus, and there's also some white/blue lines that appear in various character portraits and under the main game screen's Action Menu. It's nothing horrible and doesn't effect gameplay or really even take away from the improvements in the game's visuals, but it's worth note none-the-less. Another strange thing is that if you download the Yavin Station Conent and don't have or don't create any save games, the Xbox 360 HDD will no longer recognize the game as "SW:KotOR" and will instead list it as "Unknown Game," even though it's still displaying the proper Darth Malak icon. Once you start and save a game, however, this issue seems to resolve itself. Anyway, I've reported all this to the Backward Compatibility team, so perhaps they can address these issues in a future emulator update.

Once February 1st roles around, I'll call up Xbox Support and delete my dummy account since I'll no longer need it.

Top 3 Games I Missed Out on from 2005

Since 2006 sucked ass for great new video games, here's my Top 3 Games I Missed from 2005:

3) Kameo: Elements of Power - One of the Xbox 360 launch titles, I missed out on this one simply because I didn't have an Xbox 360. Kameo: Elements of Power is a title thats been in development for a while and changed between 3 different consoles during this cycle. The end result is an enjoyable Disney-ish fantasy adventure in which you control the Elven Princess Kameo as she seeks to collect the Elemental Warriors that she can transform into so she can rescue her family and defeat the Trolls laying siege to her kingdom. Kameo: Elements of Power is a beautiful game with a great sound track, who's only major short-comings I'm finding to be are various controls and some repetitive gameplay. The experience is still enjoyable, however, and I'm nearly finished my first playthrough.

2) Quake 4 (PC) - The reason I missed out on this title was because my previous PC didn't meet the requirements to play it and I didn't own an Xbox 360 for that version. Quake 4 is a great, fast-paced, and simple first person shooter. The game pics up the story where Quake II left off and continues humanity's siege of the Strogg's home planet of Strogos. You play as Mathew Kain, a member of the Elite Rhino Squad that partakes in many important missions critical in furthering the war against the Strogg. Powered by the Doom 3 engine, Quake 4 looks great and also features some great audio. Weapons are powerful sounding and the music kicks for the war theme. Though the gameplay is pretty standard shooter fair, it's still very enjoyable due to it's hectic, fast paced action and decent variety of enemies. Your squad mates who fight along with you are often useful as well and add to the fun of the game.

1) Fable: The Lost Chapters (Xbox) - I still can't believe I passed this one up, and I'm glad I gave it a second chance. Fable: The Lost Chapters is one of the best action RPGs I have ever played bar none. While the story itself is weak, the living world of Albion and the amount of options you have as the player character just blows my mind. I loved just sitting around and fishing, screwing my wife, renting out houses, and exploring the land, all in addition to normal Questing. The game's dry sarcastic whit matches my own style of humour perfectly, and as such I was laughing my ass off at many points throughout the game. Fable: The Lost Chapters is also the kind of game that you can play through multiple times and enjoy different outcomes to many situations. I'll be starting my second (and Evil Moral Alignment) playthrough soon on my Xbox 360, so the game'll look even nicer than the first time. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel witch will hopefully be released later this year.

Happy New Year!

It's a whole new year of fun and games kids! We got some good games and flicks on the horizon, which is more than I can say about sorry old '06.

Anyway, to celebrate the start of something so new and fresh, I'm going to put the world to the flame... MacGyver style! All I need is a lighter, a piece of tissue paper, and the solar winds...

Xbox 360 vs PlayStation 3 Graphics Comparison

Well, well, speaking of a comparison between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the Staff actually did something useful for a change and found an article comparing the graphic capabilities of both over at GameSpot.

You can check out the full article and screenshots right here. The results don't surprise me that much, actually.

Update: Another thing I find funny is if you go to the PlayStation 3's official site and check out their Top Games, with the exception of Resistance: Fall of Man, they're all on the Xbox 360. If you check their upcoming titles, with the exception of Virtua Fighter 5, they're also _already_ all on the Xbox 360. The next generation truly is now for Xbox 360 owners.

No Chimps is Good Chimps

We, the Staff (TM) feel a growing amount of concern over what appears to be Fearless Leader's obsession with all things simian. If We had a nickle for every time he's threatened to replace us with a chimpanzee, orangutan, gorilla, howler or prairie dog (okay, so those guys aren't quite primates, but you get the idea), We'd own an island in the middle of the Atlantic from whence we could plot global domination!

Seriously, Fearless Leader, We, the Staff (TM) think you should seek professional councilling regarding this... perversion of yours. It's not natural... not natural at all. And you know what happens when the townsfolk find out about such things - pitchfork and torch-wielding angry mobs happen!

In conclusion, We, the Staff (TM) may be lazy, but would the viewers of Arbiter's Judgement truly want to see Fearless Leader's exploits with trained chimps? It could get just a little disturbing...

-The Lazy yet Decidely non-Simian Staff

Top 3 DVD's of 2006

Well, with today being the last business day of the year, I suppose I should get started on listing my Top 3 lists. I'll start with DVD's and like last year, keep in mind that I'll only be listing items I've personally used. Since we're just a simple blog and not a pro site, I don't get free stuff and I obviously can't go buying everything and anything for the hell of it.

So, without further delay, my top 3 DVD's of 2006:

3) V for Vendetta (Single Disc Edition): What's more to be said, aside from the fact that this was the best film I can think of released to theatres this year, and it was a cool DVD to. There isn't much in the way of bonus features on the Single Disc addition, and the bonus features on the 2-Disc Edition didn't interest me for the cost which is why I got this version, and why it sits and number 3.

2) Corpse Bride: Tim Burton's back with another claymated masterpiece. It's short, sweet, and filled with the general theme of morality that Burton's so great at. Featuring a great cast of voice actors, an excellent score by Danny Elfman, and great animation, Corpse Bride will please both adults and children alike. The DVD comes with some nice little documentary features, and the special edition I got even came with an illustrated booklet of the film itself. A great buy all around.

1) Kingdom of Heaven - 4-Disc Director's Cut: Shear brilliance. The 4-Disc Director's Cut takes Ridley Scott's lackluster theatrical masterpiece and adds about an hour to it, fleshing out the characters and motives and presenting us with the film that should have been released to theatres bar none. If you saw the theatrical version of Kingdom of Heaven, whether you liked it or lumped it, you owe it to yourself to check out the Director's Cut and see what you missed. The film is spread across two discs, and the remaining two discs are filled with a feature length documentary that take you from the film's conceptualization all the way to release. It has detailed storyboards, interviews, casting sessions, etc. and generally more stuff than you can wave a sword at. It also comes in a great fold out case, and truly is an amazing DVD experience.

Well there you have it. Early next week, I'm hoping to post my top 3 books of 2006, and I'll also post up my top 3 games of 2005 that I missed since 2006 sucked for new games. Since I only saw 2 films in theatre this year and only liked one of them, I won't be posting a top 3 films list.

Suzuki SXbox

It's obvious to anyone reading my blog that I'm a gamer. I love my video games and I also love my Xbox and Xbox 360. Keeping all that in mind, there are things that I would never do, and one of those things is drive something like this.

It's the kind of unique concept that screams beat me. Oh, and if left unattended in a parking lot for more than 5 minutes, this car would get stripped so fast.

Thanks TeamXbox.

Xbox 360 Warranty Extension Email

Received this email from Microsoft yesterday:


Xbox 360™ brings you top quality customer service.

Effective December 22, 2006, the Xbox 360 console warranty has been extended to one year from the date of purchase. The extended warranty applies to new customers and existing Xbox 360 owners. If you experience hardware issues with your Xbox 360 console within one year of purchase, your console will be repaired at no cost*.

Now, that’s a holiday gift, indeed. Play with confidence and enjoy the best of next generation gaming. Celebrate the holiday season with a catalog of over 160 high-definition games, the freedom of wireless accessories, and the online entertainment you can experience with your friends on Xbox Live®.

To find out more information on this policy change, please visit www.xbox.com/en-ca/support. Should you have questions regarding this policy change or experience any hardware issues, you can also visit: http://www.xbox.com/en-ca/support/contact/ or call 1-800-4-MY-XBOX and speak with an agent.

I'm quite happy with this move, the more coverage, the better.

Xbox 360 Impressions

So what can I say, other than I'm really liking my Xbox 360. Aside from the false advertising mentioned below, the console is great. Aesthetically it looks very nice and I love the Wireless Controller. The Dashboard is very sleek and intuitive with customizable options in the form of Themes [think Desktop Wallpapers, but one per Blade (think tabs)]. What I also really like is how the Controller can be used like a remote control.

You can press and hold the Xbox Guide button to turn on your console. If you press the Guide button again at any point, even in game, it'll bring up the Guide, which lets you customize your Profile (you can have multiple Profiles on a console to separate save games, etc.), check your wireless controller's battery charge, track your active downloads from the Xbox Live Marketplace, etc. If you press and hold the Guide button for over 3 seconds, it'll bring up the option to shut down your console or just your controller.

Aside from the Guide button, the Xbox 360 Controller is a bit different from the Xbox's Controller S. Microsoft has done away with the White and Black buttons and instead has added a left and right bumper directly above the left and right triggers. They've also repositioned the Back and Start buttons. I thought these few changes would take a bit for me to get used to, however so far I haven't had a problem. I'm sure when I'm playing a backward compatible game, like Halo 2, I'll be pressing the wrong place to cycle through my Grenades, but I imagine I'll compensate quickly enough.

The Xbox 360 also has a 20 GB Hard Drive, and the console is really set up to be turned into a media unit as well as for games. So much so in fact that I spent the first half week just downloading trailers and demos from the Xbox Live Marketplace instead of playing any games!

My only gripe with the hardware is the DVD drive, or more specifically, the noise of it. It's loud. It can be very loud. I did some poking around the net yesterday, and found that there are two different manufacturers for the Xbox 360 DVD drive, Hitachi and Samsung. Basically, the only difference between the two seems to be that the Samsung one is extremely quieter, and guess what, I have the Hitachi model. So long as it functions though and the unit doesn't crap out, that's the main thing. You can find out more details here.

I also bought the Play and Charge Kit a few days ago, figuring since I'll be wracking up a lot of cash in replacement batteries for the Controller over the years, this'd be the more economical way. One thing to note about the Play and Charge Kit: If you have you're Wireless Controller connected with the USB cable, it disables the auto-off feature under System settings. Not a big deal of course, but something to take note of.

The Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle I purchased comes with three games, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1, and Kameo: Elements of Power. I've tried to get into Ghost Recon, I really have, and though the game looks and sounds great and has such an excellent concept, I find the Controller simply doesn't have enough buttons for smooth gameplay with the precision that's needed in this tactical shooter. Basically if I want to grab a Smoke Grenade, for example, I need to press and hold one button to bring up a list of weapons, then I need to use the D-Pad to cycle through and select Grenades. Next I need to hold another button down and then cycle through to Smoke Grenades. Finally, I have to charge it up with the Right Trigger and toss. Too tedious for my tastes. Most likely I'll be selling Ghost Recon after the 30 days.

Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1 is a lot of fun, especially Texas Hold'em. I've played so much of that, it isn't funny. Hexic HD, which comes pre-installed on the HDD, is also a great addictive puzzle game.

Kameo: Elements of Power, is the best of the lot though. While not perfect, it is a very enjoyable Disney-ish fantasy adventure with stunning visuals, and excellent score, and retro adventure gameplay. Honestly, it feels like I'm playing a classic SNES game. I mean, it has classic style boss battles for crying out loud; how much fun is that!

To sum it all up, Xbox 360 = Yes. The console is much more polished and stream-lined over the Xbox in just about every respect. 2007 is also looking like a great year for Xbox 360 games. With Mass Effect and BioShock coming out during the first half, and Halo 3 more towards the end of the year, there'll be a lot of gaming goodness with the 360.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas you crazy wankers! Now go play Doom 3 or something; kill some Zombies.

Edit: Replaced the original pic 'cause I didn't notice at first that that Santa was smokin' up, when what I wanted was a zombie Santa pic. Since getting stoned isn't something I do and Christmas is all about promoting alcoholism anyway (seriously, go ask the LCBO), we have a new, proper, zombie Santa pic. Now go play Doom 3.

False Advertising with Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle

As I mentioned, I purchased an Xbox 360 recently (a week ago tomorrow night, to be exact), and while I'm really enjoying the product, I must confess that it came with a bit of false advertising that has me shaking my head.

First and foremost is the free 1 month trial period of Xbox Live Gold. The Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle comes with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1, the latter advertising right on the case a free one month of Xbox Live Gold, stating on the case's back that there's a subscription card inside.

There is no card.

I'm also not the only one with this issue, as indicated by this thread at the official Xbox forums. Basically, it seems that Xbox Support is giving everyone the shaft (big surprise). This bundle package has been put together by Xbox Canada, and support is through Xbox (America), which, according to them, means they're not responsible for international issues. The only hope that people have been able to find is that apparently, the first three Xbox Live accounts created on a console will be offered a free one month trial of Xbox Live Gold.

I created my account online back just before the Xbox 360 was released over a year ago, and apparently, even though this online creation method is fully endorsed by Microsoft, you will _not_ be offered the Xbox Live Gold trial when you use this account on your Xbox 360.

In English, if you want a free one month trial of Xbox Live Gold, do not create your Xbox Live account via the web, do so through the console itself.

Please note that I have not tested this offer with a new account from the console myself, so it could be that customers are completely screwed. Since I'm only interested in a Gold account so I can download the Yavin Station content for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, it's not a great loss to me, however the rest of you have been warned.

The other bit of false advertising with the Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle is with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. It shows on the packaging both bundled games in their respective cases, however when you open up the box, you'll find that the DVD for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is in a simple paper CD sleeve and the manuals (English and French) are loose. Basically, Microsoft (or perhaps Ubisoft) screwed it's customers out of a game case, yet they included one for Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1.

According to the same forum thread above, Xbox Support is giving its customers the shaft on this as well, so basically if you want a case, the best way is to make it yourself. I'm trying to find a place where I can buy a replacement green DVD case, however in a pinch a basic black one will do.

One of the posters in the above thread also pointed out a great site where you can download and then print off high quality colour scans of case art, including Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. The site is called The Cover Project, and the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter case art can be downloaded here.

Overall, I'm greatly enjoying my Xbox 360 and will post about it soon, however it's sad little things like these that really make you wonder what a company is thinking. Sad. Very sad.

Speaking of that Lazy Staff

Come to think of it, that lazy-assed Staff of mine has been pretty, well, lazy lately what with his only posting BS once every 3 or 4 months or so.

Basically, Telly, we need to see some more activity around here on your part, otherwise it'll be more productive for me to replace you with a trained chimp.

I want you to write and post an essay on this blog by no later than Dec. 31st. Failure to do so will result in your posting privileges being removed, as well as the requirement to get your hair braided by you-know-who (no, not me faithful readers) with pretty pink bows that really are so you anyway.

The essay can be about anything you like, and must be a maximum of 5 words. And if they aren't the most inspirational and profound 5 words I've ever read, so help me it'll be pig tails for you!

Fearless leader is waiting.

Xbox Live Gamer Card Added

As you may have noticed, I've gotten around to adding my Xbox Live Gamer Card to the blog. Thought it'd be cool to have it on here, and that way you kids can sort of keep track of what I'm doing.

I say sort of because my Xbox 360 is mainly going to be off-line, and I only have (and want) an Xbox Live Silver Membership, which means I can't play Multiplayer against other people; all my Achievements and Gamer Score will be from off-line play.

Also, since I'm off-line most of the time, the card won't be updating much. Right now my plan is to log onto Xbox Live at least once a month to browse the Marketplace and check for Updates, Trailers, and Demos that I may want. At that point my Gamer Card should update to reflect all that I've been playing.

Once the Staff gets around to picking up an Xbox 360 and creating an Xbox Live Account/Gamer Card of his own, I'll probably post it up here as well. That way you'll all be able to see how much better than him I am.

Guys and Their Drinks

My browser's home page is Sympatico/MSN's main page, and one of the headline articles for today caught my eye. It's Bartender's Dating Tips: What a Guy's Drink Says About Them. I found the article funny because it's true.

The section that applies to me:

6. Drinks beer: He's a regular guy not out to get hammered (assuming it's not from a funnel).

7. Drinks tequila shots: He's more interested in getting hammered than he is in you.

I also like this section:

A BlackBerry: He's important enough at work that the company needs to be able to reach him at a moment's notice. (That doesn't mean he should be checking it while he's talking to you!)

Save for me it's a company cell instead of a BlackBerry. I hate BlackBerry's.

Halo 2 and Fable: The Lost Chapters Boxing Day Sale

Via an email from Future Shop, I've just learned that during their online Boxing Day sale, starting at 8 pm on Dec. 24th, both Halo 2 and Fable: The Lost Chapters will be on sale.

Halo 2 will sell for $11.99 and Fable: The Lost Chapters will be on sale for $9.99.

If you own an Xbox or Xbox 360 and don't have either of these title yet, buy them, as they're two of the top titles available on Microsoft's consoles. That's an order.

Fable: The Lost Chapters (Xbox) Review

I can not believe I passed up this title for so long. Years ago I rented Fable and sadly I experienced an issue with my Controller S (had a permanent target lock) and I also found the Hero Save system to be most frustrating. For those reasons, the latter in particular, I chalked Fable up as an overrated, over-hyped piece of junk.

A few months ago I felt in need of a great RPG, so I decided to try Fable again and borrowed it from the Staff, and though the Hero Save still annoyed me I decided to use a Future Shop gift card I had lying around to purchase Fable: The Lost Chapters (Xbox), the Platinum Hits version that features additional content over the original release.

Simply put, Fable: The Lost Chapters is one of the best RPGs I have ever played, hands down. I find it difficult to judge whether it's the best RPG I've ever played, as that honour is presently held by Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (Xbox), which of course is a different style of RPG and has a very different feel from Fable: The Lost Chapters. Fable: The Lost Chapters is an action RPG with a lot of open ended gameplay, and unlike BioWare's story driven and character heavy RPGs, Fable: The Lost Chapters reminds me of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition, or rather, what The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition should have been.

As some of you may recall, while I found the open ended gameplay of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition to be an amazingly addictive experience at first, the game ultimately was too open ended for it's own good with no real focus or semblance of a story to keep my interest. Fable: The Lost Chapters, on the other hand, provides a healthy balance of both.

In Fable: The Lost Chapters, you start out as a young boy living in the town of Oakvale. Your first quest is to find a way to earn enough money to buy a birthday present for your older sister, and this introduces the player to the game's Morality system. You can earn the Gold by performing good deeds around town, which you're father will reward you for, or you can steal the money and thereby perform bad deeds. Like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, your actions will affect your alignment, or your Morality as it's called in this game, which will ultimately alter your appearance and affect the way that people will react to you around the world.

Oakvale is soon attacked by Bandits (the world of Albion is full of them), and almost everyone is killed including your father. Just as you're about to die, however, you're rescued by a great Hero who goes by the name of Maze. He teleports you to the Guild of Heroes where you begin your new life, training to become a Hero.

An important point to note here is that "Hero" is a general term used to describe characters of might and legend in Albion, and therefore a Hero can be either good or evil. This is also where you begin to see your character age as you pass from childhood into young adulthood. Your training at the Guild takes roughly 10 to 20 minutes, and serves as the game's general tutorial. This is also where you're introduced to the Hero Save feature that annoys me so much. In Fable: The Lost Chapters, while a core Quest is active, you can not save your overall progress, called a World Save, and instead can only save your character's stats and items, the aforementioned Hero Save. I didn't understand this concept at first and ended up having to repeat the Guild training about half a dozen times over.

Once I got around and got used to the Hero Save system, I was able to immerse myself in the wonderful world of Albion, as once you're training is complete you can begin accepting Quests and exploring the open world; and what a world of options it is.

While the main story and character development of Fable: The Lost Chapters is rather weak, the game's true strength is in it's many gameplay options. Instead of pursuing the main Quest, you can explore the country side, dig for treasure, go fishing, play the market and sell goods, drink in a Tavern until you get drunk and hurl, play bar games, get a haircut, attract a partner (of either sex) and get married, own a house and live in it or rent it out, etc. The amount of things you can do in Fable: The Lost Chapters is staggering yet not overwhelming.

Unlike The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition, Fable: The Lost Chapters keeps a complete record of all your Quests, area maps, gameplay instructions, stats, etc. You're never stuck not knowing what to do (should you want to do something specific that is), and the game can be driven forward as fast or as slow as you want.

As you Quest and gain Experience and Renown, you can level up your Hero at the Guild increasing basic stats like Strength, Health, and Will (Mana), as well as learn a wide variety of spells. You can find or purchase Swords, Axes, Bows, Crossbows, and all different sorts of Armour and Clothes to really customize how you're Hero looks and fights. You can also get tattoos, haircuts, beards, and mustaches to suit your mood and personality.

From a technical standpoint, the game looks very beautiful. The world of Albion is a comical fantasy setting that doesn't take itself too seriously (read many of the item's descriptions at shops, for example) and as such the characters have a very cartoony look that matches the game's dry sarcastic whit very well. Audio wise all the sounds and voices are great, with people sounding as smart or slow-witted as needed, and the sound track is simply gorgeous with the main theme being created by Danny Elfman himself.

All this praise, however, is not to say that Fable: The Lost Chapters is without its flaws. As enjoyable as the game is, I find the slogan of "For every choice a consequence" to be a bit of a false statement. Why? Because if you fail at a Quest, instead of accepting that failure and moving on the game requires you to repeat it or load a save game until you achieve victory. Essentially, the only consequence for failure is having to repeat a Quest again. Not that this is a major as issue as Fable: The Lost Chapters is not a difficult game. Unless you're very careless, you'll always have enough Health and Will Potions on hand, as well as Resurrection Potions, to bail you out from any encounter. The game is so easy, in fact, that if you just pursued the main Quest you can probably win the game in about 10 to 15 hours. The core Quests were very easy, and the ones I found to be the most challenging were most of the optional Silver Quests, mostly 'cause you have to protect someone and they accidentally die or something.

I also encountered some minor bugs from both a technical and gameplay standpoint. I found that there was a good bit of audio popping and some of the game's shadowing effects, mostly with leaves, cast choppy shadows on character models, which looked rather poor. I also had some minor Quest bugs, such as escorting a wandering Trader to a certain area without it registering as an official Quest, and days later having the same Trader pop up again looking to be escorted, this time registering as an official Quest, however with the Quest being uncompletable.

Still, given how much fun Fable: The Lost Chapters is and how rich the world of Albion is, this is all minor problems with such a great game.

I could simply go on and on about all the great things that Fable: The Lost Chapters is, however I suppose I must end this review at some point. Being a Platinum Hits Xbox title, the game is now very cheap to purchase, so I strongly recommend that you go and pick it up if you have a taste for great RPGs. Fable: The Lost Chapters is also backward compatible with the Xbox 360 and looks even better at 720p with full screen anti-aliasing. Don't pass this title up as I did for so long.

Xbox 360 Warranty Extended in North America

Today, Microsoft announced that they're officially extending the warranty of the Xbox 360 to one year from the original 90 days.

This change includes already purchased units and re-reimbursements will be made to people who paid for hardware service in the next 10 weeks.

You can read the official release here.

This is great news, as my Xbox 360 is now covered until Dec. 18th 2007!

Samsung LN-S2651D Impressions

A week ago I purchased my first LCD TV, the Samsung LN-S2651D, and thus far, I'm very pleased with it.

The Staff came along for the ride and assisted in its set up, and afterwards the very first thing I did was calibrate the snow. What can I say, I'm a perfectionist.

I next hooked up both my VCR/DVD combo and Xbox and did some basic colour calibrations, however what I got to as quickly as I could was the first real test: Playing Halo 2.

Halo 2 in wide screen at 480p looked absolutely gorgeous. The image was nice and clean, the extra view added a little twist to game play and of course on the 26" screen, everything was nice and big.

The following day I decided to try out some other Xbox games, however most of them didn't look near as good as Halo 2 (and most don't support wide screen). One thing the LCD TV does is really show off the age of the Xbox's hardware, particularly with aliasing (jaggies). My God, is the aliasing bloody well awful! While Halo 2 seems to have been developed with this in mind, most other games Fable: The Lost Chapters, were not. Some games, like Jade Empire and Doom 3, looked very good despite this, however for some reason, Fable: The Lost Chapters looks like shit. It's not even just the aliasing, Fable: The Lost Chapters seems to have some kind of layer over the graphics that makes it look like old coloured newsprint; simply horrible.

After frowning over that, I watched Spider-Man 2 to finalize the colour calibration that I was looking for. Haven't watched the film for a while, and after settling on the set up I like, it looked gorgeous.

In a nutshell, aside from the poor looking Fable: The Lost Chapters, I've loved everything about my new LCD TV. I've used it a lot this week, and actually picked up an Xbox 360 to see how the up-conversion to 720p and full screen anti-aliasing would look on original Xbox titles, and so far all's well.

Fable: The Lost Chapters looks great off the Xbox 360, however since I can't transfer save games from my Xbox to Xbox 360, I need to put up with the low image quality to finish my original game. I think I'm close though, so it's no big deal.

I'll post about the Xbox 360 in detail in several days one I experiment with it more.

Halo 3 Vidocs Now Available

Bungie has released two Halo 3 vidocs (video documentaries) this week, the first a behind the scenes look at the making of the announcement trailer, the second a documentary at the revision and design process of the Brutes.


Both vidocs are nice views for Halo fans, especially the Brute doc. You can download them via the Xbox Live Marketplace if you have an Xbox 360. I haven't been able to find the announcement trailer vidoc for download elsewhere, though I really haven't looked and you can probably find it on a gaming site or video site.

The Brute documentary can be downloaded from Bungie's official site here.

On Vacation

Well kids, it's that holiday time of year which brings us to the true meaning of Christmas: Vacation. Seriously, it's not about the shopping or even the religious significance of the holiday season (that died with corporations decades ago), it's about not having to go to work for a bit and actually relaxing since everyone else is off to.

This all means I'll have some more time to work on the blog! Things on my To-Do list:

- Look into the new version of Blogger, which sadly has to do with stupid Google and their accounts.
- Post about my year-end awards.
- Discuss the new LCD TV I bought a week ago.
- Discuss the Xbox 360 I picked up at the beginning of this week.
- General News and Crap coverage.

From a gaming standpoint, I plan to:

- Try and finish The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (PC).
- Complete Fable: The Lost Chapters (Xbox).
- Possibly complete Doom 3 (PC) for the 2nd time.
- Start playing Kameo: Elements of Power and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.

Much to do, much to look forward to!