SHTUFF
Microsoft announces a new Windows? Already? Windows 7 beta coming soon. And I'm still running XP Home Edition.
I wish I could go to CES.
A Coworker asked me the other day if you can browse the web on a 360. The answer is that you can, if you have XP or Vista Media Center Edition. Unfortunately, it's merely a proxy, but you'll still be browsing on the big screen:
http://www.anpark.com/software.aspx
I had my heart set on playing some Super Street Fighter II Turbo online last night and maybe a round of Catan, but my network service was down for most of the evening. Bummer. So, I played Bioshock instead. I wish I'd played this one sooner, but it's more fun with a nice big widescreen television. I have maybe another three hours left in the game and it's been a twisted ride so far. Spoilers abound, but this game has some memorable enemies. I'm reminded of how the Super Mario games named off all the enemies during the ending credits and I'd love to see something like that for this game. What's interesting is the way these genetic experiments ended up forming their own little ecosystem within Rapture and how much of that you can feel in the atmosphere of the game after spending time with it.
My only complaints with Bioshock have been that it's buggy, has framerate issues, and that the save/respawn system breaks the difficulty. It will be nice to put this one to rest, though. I have quite a long list of games in my possession that I haven't really even played:
Call of Duty 4
Assassin's Creed
Left 4 Dead
Zak & Wiki
No More Heroes
for Christmas:
The Orange Box
Ninja Gaiden II
Ace Combat 6
Armored Core 4
I'm really ready to settle into Ace Combat 6. I loved loved loved Shattered Skies for PlayStation 2 and this one seems to deliver similar levels of awesome: real licensed jets, gorgeous contrails, weather effects, and realistic, dynamic radio banter make this the Gran Turismo of flight games. My only concern is with the non-jet cut scenes: the storyline seems a bit hokey and the dialogue is pretty ridiculous. The older games had the elegant solution of using solid narration and foley art on top of hand-drawn static images, but Fires of Liberation's in-game acting isn't as effective.
I wish I could go to CES.
A Coworker asked me the other day if you can browse the web on a 360. The answer is that you can, if you have XP or Vista Media Center Edition. Unfortunately, it's merely a proxy, but you'll still be browsing on the big screen:
http://www.anpark.com/software.aspx
I had my heart set on playing some Super Street Fighter II Turbo online last night and maybe a round of Catan, but my network service was down for most of the evening. Bummer. So, I played Bioshock instead. I wish I'd played this one sooner, but it's more fun with a nice big widescreen television. I have maybe another three hours left in the game and it's been a twisted ride so far. Spoilers abound, but this game has some memorable enemies. I'm reminded of how the Super Mario games named off all the enemies during the ending credits and I'd love to see something like that for this game. What's interesting is the way these genetic experiments ended up forming their own little ecosystem within Rapture and how much of that you can feel in the atmosphere of the game after spending time with it.
My only complaints with Bioshock have been that it's buggy, has framerate issues, and that the save/respawn system breaks the difficulty. It will be nice to put this one to rest, though. I have quite a long list of games in my possession that I haven't really even played:
Call of Duty 4
Assassin's Creed
Left 4 Dead
Zak & Wiki
No More Heroes
for Christmas:
The Orange Box
Ninja Gaiden II
Ace Combat 6
Armored Core 4
I'm really ready to settle into Ace Combat 6. I loved loved loved Shattered Skies for PlayStation 2 and this one seems to deliver similar levels of awesome: real licensed jets, gorgeous contrails, weather effects, and realistic, dynamic radio banter make this the Gran Turismo of flight games. My only concern is with the non-jet cut scenes: the storyline seems a bit hokey and the dialogue is pretty ridiculous. The older games had the elegant solution of using solid narration and foley art on top of hand-drawn static images, but Fires of Liberation's in-game acting isn't as effective.