Gears: Take Two

Holy crap. And I thought the game was good solo.

I just finished up running through act 1 of Gears of War a second time, but this time I was playing co-op with my brother, and I have this to say: I want to give Cliffy a big, crushing hug. Online co-op is 31 flavors of awesome.

As you may or may not know, Epic has made the entire single-player campaign available for online co-op play. For me, this is a huge, huge selling point, as I don't have many people nearby who I can play with. They've also made it drop-in/drop-out style, so your partner can join and leave at any time. When playing online, all of the important aspects of the session are controlled by the host player, including pausing and ending. You can even set up a public co-op game and let random people join in. You choose where to start (either the beginning of a chapter or the checkpoint stored on the host 360), the difficulty, and off you go.

What makes the co-op mode so great is, of course, the fact that your partner is no longer a sub-moronic, mouth-breathing imbecile (depending upon who you play with, of course). The more tactical encounters are so much better when you have two players who can really work together. The AI isn't very skilled at capitalizing on any advantages that you provide, while a human can easily flank and provide covering fire.

I also managed to squeeze in a couple rounds of warzone (team deathmatch), though the people I jumped in with seemed to still be learning the ropes. I'll have to get some more of that in, as it seems like a lot of fun, and a bit of a change of pace from your Halo-style gameplay.

Gears is great stuff. Do not hesitate to pick it up.

Agents are GO!!

It's new game day! I try not to buy more than one game a month (otherwise I end up not playing any of them to completion), but I had to make an exception today. I've been waiting on Gears of War since it was announced, which I believe was before the 360 itself made it to store shelves. I've only managed to play through the first act (of five) on the wuss difficulty level, but I'm already completely satisfied. The game delivers, and I can't wait to get some online co-op going, as your AI teammates can be rather brain-dead.

As you can see, I picked up the Collector's Edition, which comes packed in a black metal tin emblazoned with the red Gears logo. Included extras are a bonus disc (haven't checked it out yet) and a small hardcover art book titled "Destroyed Beauty". It also comes with a free 48-hour pass for Xbox Live. They're trying to get you hooked, and it'll probably work.

You can see the package's naked guts splayed to the left. The only item I'm disappointed with is the book. I was honestly expecting something a bit larger, and hoping for something on the scale of the art book packed with the World of Warcraft Collector's Edition. The content is good, though, and the package was worth the extra ten bucks.

Speaking of collector's editions, Bradygames has published a collector's edition of the Gears of War strategy guide. I am honestly not certain what the point of that is.

The other game I picked up is Elite Beat Agents, the US-localized version of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! I played the Japanese original to death, so when I found out that not only were iNiS putting together a US release, but that it would feature all new music and scenarios, I was overjoyed. This may as well be a sequel.

For those not familiar, EBA is a rhythm-based music game for the Nintendo DS that is played entirely with the stylus. You tap and drag things to the beat while terribly strange things happen in the background. That's a terrible description. Go read a review and watch some videos for a better idea. I'm going to go play.

Xbox 360 Wireless Headset

Electronics Boutique got these in a few days early, so I picked one up last night. I must admit that I'm impressed. It's a little bit pricey at $60, but that price was worthwhile to get rid of one more wire. That, and the audio quality seems to be much more consistent than that of my previous Plantronics X30.

On the front side, you have three buttons: the silver power/mute button in the center, and the volume control buttons on either side. On the reverse, you have the speaker (covered in a soft felt), the connect button, and four green LEDs. The headset is charged using a supplied power cable plugged into the power jack on the rear of the unit (seen in the third image above). A full charge immediately after opening the blister pack (curse you, blister packs!) takes about four hours, and supposedly is good for eight hours of use. You cannot use the headset while it is charging; plugging it in will disconnect it from the 360.

The one thing that most people I've spoken with seem to be worried about (aside from audio quality) is comfort. Let me assure you that the wireless headset is comfortable in the extreme, and it's entirely possible to forget that you've got it on. The one component that I was most concerned with — the grey ring that clips over your ear — is made of a very soft silicone rubber and exerts almost no pressure on your ear. The package includes two clip sizes, just in case you have freakishly huge monkey ears.

The process for connecting the headset to the 360 is identical to that for connecting a wireless controller. Once connected, the headset will associate itself with the first available quadrant of the ring of light. You can then press the connect button on the headset to iterate through the rest of the quadrants as necessary. The battery level is displayed in the 360 guide next to the wireless controller's battery indicator.

Overally, I'm very pleased. It's pretty much as I expected, and a welcome addition to my accessory collection.

Major Nelson on Sirius

Looks like Major Nelson is going to be a regular guest on Maxim's new video game-themed show, "Level Up". This caught my interest as my brother just got me a Starmate 4 for my birthday, so I'm still new to the whole Sirius experience. Of course, my luck being as it is, I noticed this the day after the show. Oh well. From what I'm hearing, Nelson was about the only worthwhile part of the broadcast. The show is apparently not aimed at people who actually play games.

He apparently did an audio review of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which I caved in and bought sometime last week. I've only been playing the single-player campaign to this point, and I must say that I'm really enjoying it. I haven't really played a Splinter Cell game since the original, and now I'm kind of wishing that I did. I'm going to be way, way behind when it comes to multiplayer. Then again, I have a feeling that world + dog will be playing something else next week.

I Met an Internet Celebrity

Talk about your odd occurrences. Last week I received a couple of random friend requests on Xbox Live, which I immediately blamed on the blog (that's what I get for posting my Gamer card front and center). As a rule, I don't accept friend requests unless I know where they came from. If I do that, I end up running out of room at some point and then deleting all the people whose names I don't immediately recognize, since I prefer to play online with people I know (I'm in the Recreation zone for a reason, folks).

Anyhow, one of those two sent me a follow-up message after I'd so politely ignored him for the better part of a week. That guy happens to be Knuckles Dawson who, unbeknownst to me, is some kind of Internet Celebrity™. It turns out that Mr. Dawson (who I shall now refer to as "KD", as typing "Knuckles Dawson" repeatedly makes me feel funny) has scored at least one achievement every day since the machine launched on November 22nd of last year. He calls this project the KD Endeavour, and even has a nice online calendar detailing exactly when and in what game he obtained his achievements.

I found all this out after adding KD to my friends list (like I said, your chances are better if I know who you are), as he is very chatty and somewhat Canadian. Then he had to go away and have a video chat with some important dude at Microsoft. Ah, the life of a celebrity...

In Love With Lumines Again

Welcome back, beautiful! We missed you.

So at around 10:30 last night, Xbox Live finally caved in to my demands and allowed me to give them money and download Lumines Live. As you're probably aware, the base game runs 1200 points ($15), and there is already an expansion available (22 additional skins for 600 points/$7.50), and several more are planned. It's expensive for an arcade title, but I don't really care. I played it to death on the PSP, and I still love it and it was worth every penny. So there.

So how did the game turn out? As good as I could have hoped, really. Gameplay is spot on, and the game is perfectly playable using the 360's analog stick (as opposed to the craptastic d-pad). The base skins are decent; most are remixed skins from the original Lumines, with a few tossed in that I don't recognize. Graphics are sharp, audio is high quality...everything feels just right. The Lumines experience is definitely here in full force.

I also picked up the Advance pack (the aforementioned expansion), and I must say that I much prefer the skins it comes with to the base pack. Unlike the base, most of the skins here are new, with only a handful returning from the first game. Definitely worth the additional points.

What surprised me is the fact that I remember how to play. Since downloading the game, I've only managed to squeeze two games in: one in base mode and one in advance. The problem is that my games are averaging two hours in length. Sitting down for a "quick game" probably involves blowing my evening. Oh well. It's a game that I've always enjoyed killing a few hours with.

Lies, Lumines, and Xbox Live

Regardless of what Major Nelson might tell you, someone borked something during yesterday's Xbox Live maintenance, because at some point around 4:30 AM CST, everything died. This is only disappointing because they finally got around to releasing Lumines Live today, and I was hoping to sneak in a game or two before work. Oh well.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent is available today, too. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going to pick that one up. I downloaded the demo, but never got around to playing it. Knowing me, I'll probably cave. IGN seems to like it.

DR Interactive Map Update

Cybermike has relocated the interactive Dead Rising map that I mentioned in this post. You can now find it here, though he indicates that it will probably get moved again before the end of the month. I haven't been paying too much attention to it (been playing too much Lego Star Wars II; more on that later), but Cybermike has really gone out of his way to get this thing complete. The map really does include damn near everything, now.

It completely slipped my mind that Dead Rising was released in the UK/Australia only last week, so I expect that thing will be getting a lot more hits in the near future. I might see about hosting it here, if bandwidth is the problem.

Dead Rising Interactive Map

Dead Rising Secrets Video

Just found a cool video showing a bunch of bonus/secret stuff in Dead Rising over at GameVideos.com. Things shown in the video include:

• Various random PP bonuses for breaking/activating certain things in the environment.
• Locations of several hidden submachine guns.
• The three book mini chainsaw combo (collect a certain three books to make your mini chainsaws last 27 times as long).

Credit for this apparently goes to the 1up.com Dead Rising guide, though I can't seem to find the actual video in that guide.

XNA Studio Express Beta Released

Microsoft has just posted the first beta for XNA Studio Express, the free version of their XNA Studio development tool (which, at some point, should allow community creation of games for the Xbox 360). I have yet to install this myself, but take care with the prerequisites. It appears to require Visual C# Express. Not a problem, but I see no mention of whether or not a full version of Visual Studio will suffice. I assume that it will, but there's always a chance that MS did something silly here. You'll also need to grab the August 2006 DirectX SDK if you want the audio tools.

Prayers Answered: Tempest for XBLA!

This is seriously, like, the best game announcement of the year. Jeff Minter is creating a version of Tempest for Xbox Live Arcade! For a quick example of Jeff's work, you need only look as far as the music visualizer built into the Xbox 360. Even better is the game will only run 400 points. This will be one to look forward to!

Jeff's post (screenshots included)

[Update] It's come to my attention that this game is actually going to be called "Space Giraffe" (which is a fantastic name, I might add), due to licensing issues with Atari over the name "Tempest."

Dead Rising PP Sticker Photos

I've just stumbled across a Picasa web album containing screen shots of all of the Dead Rising PP stickers. This is very handy in combination with the PP sticker map that I posted a while back. The screen shots are listed by general location and include a short description of exactly where they are located.

Interactive Dead Rising Map

OK, now this is pretty cool. I've found an interactive map for Dead Rising that shows locations of all types of equipment, books, and the psychopaths. There's no instructions on it, though, and it's not immediately obvious as to how it works. The box marked "Locations" on the right hand side of the map is actually a menu. Click the various labels to interact with the map. You can also click "View Maintenance Tunnel" to switch to the maintenance tunnel view.

Unfortunately, it doesn't show the locations of the PP stickers. Otherwise, we'd have an all-in-one solution.

Dead Rising Maps

SomethingAwful Forums user Mandarb took the time to go over the Dead Rising mall map with a vector illustation app and then mark all of the locations of the PP stickers. Very useful stuff. The pink dots represent the stickers.

User Taco Avenger put together a quick map of the maintenance tunnels, pointing out exactly where to find the maintenance key (as well as the two working vehicles, exits, and truck bombs). You really should get this key as soon as you can, as it allows you to get around the mall much more quickly, as well as really inflate your kill count. If the map isn't good enough, there's a nice video of the entire process on YouTube.

[Update] Maps updated. Additional PP stickers on both.

Happy Zombie Day!

Dead Rising finally arrived yesterday, and it is quite entertaining. I managed to get a few hours of alone time with the game, and the level of creativity that has been poured into this title is simply astounding. The game is a lot more difficult than I expected, too, but every bit as fun as I had hoped. I’m even enjoying the escort missions (of which the game has more than its share), and I generally despise those. It’s certainly not for everyone (but then, what game is?) but it’s definitely worth checking out.

My only real complaint is, much like many of the reviewers, the save system. It's not the way that it's implemented that bothers me (you get one save slot per profile; if you die, you can either load from a save or start over while retaining your stats and skills from the previous game). The problem I have is that it's not very convenient. It's nearly impossible to save on demand, so if you need to step away from the game (e.g. you made the very wise decision to start playing ten minutes before you’re supposed to leave for work), you may need to choose between losing some progress or leaving the machine on for an extended period of time.