Xbox 360 Woes

Oh Xbox360, how your days are sad. I've had you for 2 months now and already I'm thinking of selling you. Should have known better being a Nintendo guy to go and buy a console that I wanted for one game (Forza Motorsport 2). Well OK, maybe I was hooked to Viva Pinata for a good long time. But now Mr. Wii has come along with Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy, are your days numbered? It seems so. The things holding me back at the moment:

Tiger Woods 2008

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008

The Orange Box

Project Gotham Racing 4

Is that enough reason for me to cash you in for my £300 back or not? Other than that...can't really see a reason to keep on playing...especially with Mario & Zelda calling me...

Will Santa Bring Me Please...

Need one of these!

Super Mario Galaxy Reviews

So, Super Mario Galaxy is now slotted firmly in my Wii. It has risen the metacritic charts to become the first game in nine years to topple the mighty Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with a 98 average so far...

GamePro: 10/10
Eurogamer: 10/10
G4TV: 10/10
Gametrailers: 98%
Gamesmaster: 97%
IGN: 97%
1UP: 95%

Needless to say, it is not a disappointment in any way, (only 15 stars in!) and I'm pleased to say it is keeping me from my university studies. Woohoo! Long Live the Mario.

Kameo: Elements of Power Thoughts

So, I ended up buying Kameo. It was only £9.99 brand new from the magic of eBay, so I can't complain about that. After seeing the 79 rating it has on metacritic, I wasn't too hopeful for it, pretty much only buying it to complete my Rare games collection.

But after playing it for a few hours now, I kinda like it a lot. It's very Zelda-y and soooooo RARE. I dunno what it is about those guys, but since playing Bajo-Kazooie on my old N64, they have just had me hooked. It's something about the level/art/character design that is just so distinctly Rare and great. For example, the talking characters in Kameo all have funny regional English accents, which is just a typical Rare touch. The graphics are really familiar after having played Viva Pinata for so long now, but that's no bad thing. The gameplay is a little formulaic and repetetive but I could imagine worse ways to spend my game time. Looks pretty good so far!

Perfect Dark Zero Impressions

It's not as great as Perfect Dark N64 in any way. This makes me sad.

Played most of the way through the single player now. Meh. Story is lame to the point of not caring and skipping it sometimes. There's just no draw to play it and I'm only completing it for the sake of "I've bought the game so I might as well", not because I am dying to do so. Yeah, the graphics are quite nice and have a nice style to them but as ever they are too shiny, and being an old game they do look a bit dated next to BioShock and whatever. Music is lame, which is poor from Rare as I think they have some of the best soundtracks ever...

The multiplayer has only recently came to my attention and again, I feel it's not as good as the N64 classic. The game moves too slowly and compared to the likes of Halo 3 these days, it's just too simple. PD for the N64 was innovative, and this feels like a remake rather than a BAM next -gen effort. Disappointed so far. Will be testing Live to see if things get any better over the weekend.

And P.S. What have you done to Jo Dark!?!? She looks like some kind of raver. I preferred her N64 days look, now that was cool.

My Next Game Purchase

For the Wii, my next game purchase will be Super Paper Mario, without a doubt. Not too keen on paying full price for it, having sunk fifty hours into Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door earlier this year, I'm not too keen to get RIGHT into this again. Nonetheless it seems a great 9/10 game. Lovely graphics and RPG/platformer hybrid will at least be a change from the slew of driving games I'm playing at the moment. And my Wii always needs new games, especially Mario ones!

On the Microsoft side, I am collecting all of Rare's games, as Rare have given me so many countless hours of great gaming, starting with of course Goldeneye 007.... Viva Pinata has turned out to be one of my favourite games of the year so I have high hopes for this one. Graphical style looks similar and it seems Zelda-esque. Plus, I can pick it up for a tenner.

I'm not meant to be buying loads of games at the moment as it's my first day of university this week, but oh well!

Solution: Buy both!

Xbox 360: One Week On

Day One: The very first day I buy my shiny new Xbox360, and the very first game that ever graces it's disc tray, Forza Motorsport 2, great game by the way. All is well, until halfway through a loading screen, the console spits out the disc and says "THE DISC IS UNREADABLE". It hasn't really a scratch on it. Not a good sign.

Day Five: Again, while loading the menu of FM2, the music skips into a loop and I have to hard reset it.

I still do not know of one person who has not had a single problem with their Xbox360, it's ridiculous. I've had about 10 consoles in my lifetime and none of them have needed so much as a little blow on the cartridge connectors, hehe. But Microsoft, you can honour my warranty AND suck my balls. Your manufacturing is pathetic. Sort it out.

Day .....?
It will be a sad and very annoying day.

Viva Voce

Listen to this band, they are really nice and kinda original. Saw them live this year supporting The Shins and they were literally the first support band that I actually enjoyed. Their song "Lesson #1" was recently on an ad for a mobile phone and is one of their better ones, breezy and floaty. Cool band. Oh, and the lead singer Anita is easy on the eyes. Go check 'em out!

Viva Pinata Graphics

For comparison to the previous post (Cruisin' Wii Graphics), this is a screen from Viva Pinata. This game just has a lovely art style, so colourful and rich. The lighting is perfect and the little details just make it a joy to look at. I guess that's what all your extra Xbox360 tech does eh? Probably the next game I will buy!

Cruisin' Wii Graphics

Now it is no secret that I am a Nintendo fanboy and will buy their consoles until they drop Mario and co.

Since the Wii came out it has received it's share of criticism for it's lack of graphics. I thought this wasn't much of a problem, and clearly, games like Metroid Prime 3 look amazing. However, I bought an Xbox360 yesterday and the graphics in some games there kinda make you stop and just look at the game world, rather than playing it. Viva Pinata, I'm looking at you in particular! So when I see that some developer has the balls to make a game with graphics like these, you question...why? Are the designers/producers blind or what? Most DS games look better than this...

Phoenix Wright - Trials & Tribulations: Improvements?

Having just completed Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney: Justice for All, am I excited to play the third game in the series? Well, yes and no. Phoenix Wright is a weird one indeed, it kind of sucks you in to keep playing, and you enjoy it, even though it is not all that much fun. I'd compare it to the last game I played like this, Killer7 on the 'Cube. The gameplay wasn't AMAZING, but it had a certain something that kept it fun and kept you playing right until the (superb) ending. Definitely worth playing would be my verdict.

So, I will end up buying PW:T&T because again, the ending of JfA was so good and sets up a nice story for the next game. I know they haven't particularly been implemented but here's what I'd like to see in T&T and future games in the series:

• Better decision trees. For example, where the decisions you make have a larger bearing on the game. All too often in JfA you would make a decision and the game would advance as normal either way. As you really get into character, you should be made to think carefully when making choices.

• More inventive use of the investigation phase. Totallytouchscreen and microphone madness. There are so many possibilities here. Would make PW much more of a "game" than "slightly interactive story".

• Less (ridiculous and unbelievable) plot twists, and cases where the actual murdered isn't always giving evidence earlier on in the case.

• Cases that are not murder-based. There are more crimes out there! And it ends up where the characters talk about murder as if it is nothing or trivial.

• More obvious solutions, less linear answers to the "present item x at statement y" formula.

• More animations andvoice work would of course be nice. Not expecting the entire script to be voice but a few more clips is always nice. Also continue the great music standard.

• ...Best of all, a fully animated WII VERSION! I would definitely buy this.

Hope you are listening, Mr. Capcom!

Super Mario Galaxy

OK, So i NEED THIS GAME!!

New iPods Released

Now as much as I love the Apple and their products, the new iPods are kinda whack. New Nano..."Fatty"...if they had brought out a 16GB version in line with the current price point, say £180-200, it would have been a no-brainer for me. But this is just a revision to the current version, adding video, which I don't particularly want on a 2inch screen anyway. The new interface is all nice and stuff but I'm not gonna buy a new one just for that, sorry Apple. Shame.

The "Classic" iPod. 160GB storage is nice and would even hold my entire collection(!). But I'm no fan of the hard-disk iPods, too many failures I've heard of, plus, they are big and looking a bit long in the teeth nowadays.

The "new" iPod Touch. What, an iPhone without the phone part? Why would I really want that? I could get an iPhone for a similar price, and then I don't have to carry around 2 gadgets. The major mistake they made here, if they had included a HARD DRIVE instead of flash memory, this would have been massive (not that it won't be anyway). But 16GB...not gonna shell out the cash for basically a touchscreen ipod. Even if it does suft the net. Which is nice.

So....I awaited quite excited to see what was coming yesterday at the Apple event, and came away pretty disappointed. Damn. Where is my 16GB/32GB iPod Nano? Maybe 6 months down the line, in v2.0 of the fatty. Then Apple, you will get my £200.