Max Gives Brief E3 Thoughs, Excuses Why He's Not Posting...

E3 nearly passed me by. Almost. I only found out it was E3 last week when I saw a news story about Nintendo’s press conference on Newsarama (which goes to show how I’m way more into comics than games these days). Since then, I’ve been playing catch up. I caught a little bit of Sony’s press conference, and thanks to the Nintendo Channel, have been able to get a dose of Nintendo’s videos. This week, they’ve even put the press conference up this week, so I’ll be digging into that soon. And I gotta say, I was pretty (pleasantly) surprised that Nintendo is actually utilizing the Nintendo Channel for this stuff. I'm just used to them not doing anything like this, while Sony & Microsoft have done it for awhile!

Unfortunately, this is final’s week at my University, and I have a ton of stuff to do to wrap up the quarter this week. No tests, but lots of papers to write and short stories to revise. Therefore, I can’t delve into blogging just yet. After Thursday though, expect a ton of reactions from me, which will (of course) be a Nintendo-centric response. I will say now (without trying to be a fanboy) that it seems pretty funny both Sony & Microsoft are trying to cash in on the motion control introduced by Wii. Granted, each do it their own way, but too bad Microsoft’s super-de-duper motion/voice controlled “controller” NATAL costs about $200. I don’t see legions of non-gamers signing on for that.

I’ll post a couple quick things though before delving study time!

Max

New Xbox Experience Initial Impressions

Well, I’ve spent a few hours this afternoon just dicking around with the NXE, and I have mixed feelings about it. First off, I was greeted by a new Terms of Service agreement, which I earnestly tried to read in full. However, it was FOREVER LONG, and I ended up just skimming the parts I thought were important. Then there was a little animated video of flowers blooming, race cars racing and a giant (yet thin) mountain growing and spawning the 360 logo. Oooookaaaaay…. I thought there was some instructional video once you booted up NXE, but I think this was it. Then it was off to pick a starting point avatar. After that, I had to leave for an obligation I had made earlier (getting through the ToS took waaaaaaaaaay longer than I thought).

Coming back later in the afternoon, I booted up again and tweaked my avatar to make it look a bit like me. While there’s way more customization than Miis in terms of body parts and clothes, which is cool, I have to say (for now) I still prefer Miis. Making Miis you can rotate and move around facial features on them to make some cool (and twisted) stuff. Plus, sometimes simple is better. Still, I did like reading that Microsoft will be adding more clothes, for free (it looks like at least) in the coming weeks and months.

After that I joined a Party with my buddy Mike and Dustin’s fiancé, Rose. I guess Parties allow up to 8 people to chat together, even across different games. It also shows all your avatars together on your friends’ list, all of whom are also represented by their avatars, and the avatars of people they’re partying with…interesting. The three of us basically chatted about what we thought of NXE, and Mike gave us detailed Left 4 Dead impressions (which it doesn't look like I'm getting this week). There is of course the ability to watch Netflix movies from your queue on your console right away, though I’m not a Netflix member so no big whup to me.

Instead of blades of old, they have several different menus that scroll vertically, each with small picture boxes of the different things you can do, which scroll horizontally. It’s a lot more to deal with, and a little less user friendly. There are also several more advertisements. The upside is that there is a Events menu that advertises several upcoming events on Live; this will definitely increase the presence and strength of the Xbox Live community, which I think is good.

Hitting the giant “X circle” in the center of the controller brings up pretty much the same things, though a “quick launch” has been added to where you can fire up your arcade games right away (maybe console too, wasn’t sure how that worked unless the game was in the tray). Audio and video menus are similar to the old ones, which made me happy.

One thing I especially didn’t like was that the Batman theme I paid for awhile back was obstructed by over half the screen covered with the top of a giant grey circle. What the fuck! I don’t understand why; is it supposed to be ground for my avatar to stand on? Mike, Rose and I all agreed this was a gyp. Another problem is that it seems you can’t share music anymore; however, there is a channel called “Photo Party” where you can share pictures with people in your party. This worked for me at first, but I got disconnected, and as more friends joined our party, it was impossible for me to reconnect. When I did, I was separate from the group and couldn’t see their pictures or added any of my own. This seemed to be a problem in several other aspects of NXE, with network errors popping up for several functions. I don’t think it’s bugs in the system, it’s more likely just due to probably every Xbox Live account fucking around with NXE like I was today.

It’s new, and different, but increasingly less exciting to me. Microsoft is trying to do some cool things here and that’s great, but until network traffic slows a bit and I figure out all the ins and outs, I’m still lukewarm on it all. Rose pointed out that after it’s no longer new, it may not seem that special. I dunno, only time will tell… Either way, I guess it’s what we’ve got now.

Max

Change Abound & the New Xbox Experience!

As many of you know (and have probably already downloaded), the New Xbox Experience hit early this morning. Honestly, I have yet to download it. Part of it is that I had to finish my last bit of school for the quarter by turning in a revised short story & having a conference (plus coffee and chit chat) with my teacher. The other part of it is that I’m resistant to change, and I want Maureen to be up when I make said change.

“Do I have to make an Xbox Mii?” Maureen asked me last night. I told her of course not. Unfortunately, the Mii rip-off aspect, plus the Netflix feature, are about the only things I know about for the NXE. I’m sure there is lots of new features, and I plan to post impressions later today. I just hope they’re good improvements, and not a lot of unnecessary bells & whistles.

Meanwhile, the change I am excited about is being out of school and having lots more time to play games over the next five weeks or so. I’m hoping I’m able to get Left 4 Dead on Friday, and in the meantime I plan on beating No More Heroes, I’ve only two more ranked assassins before I’m #1 (though a friend who beat it told me I may not be as close to the ending as I think I am). I’ll also have more time to post on the blog, which I’m thrilled about. I’m looking forward to when Dustin wraps up his quarter and can post (and hang out) more. I’m excited by the possibility that J might get an Xbox 360 for Xmas, because believe me, if you knew him and how much shit he’s talked about the system, then you’d see the chance of him getting one a sign that Hell is freezing over (actually, Hell will freeze over if J gets a Wii). Speaking of the Wii, I plan on doing a holiday guide for new Wii owners to list some of the better games, at the request of one of my friends who is a reader and just got a Wii.

So yeah, big day for change. It’s a lot colder; there’s a little snow on the ground. But with the season change comes the holidays, new games, and a couple meals where it’s totally cool to eat too much. Plus the end of the year, and a start of a new one where George W. Bush is no longer in the White House, and Barack Obama will be. Change is good.

Max

Banjo Kazooie Nuts N Bolts’ Text Overhaul

You may remember my brief time with the demo of Banjo Kazooie Nuts N’ Bolts wasn’t very enjoyable due to text that was completely unreadable on my standard definition TV. Apparently, a little while ago, Rare heard the complaints of many other disappointed gamers and staffer George Kelion had this to say:

“I'm sorry that we weren't able to address this issue as nothing would please us more than turning all your complaints into gleeful responses, but it's simply something that's too expensive in terms of time, resources and money to alter.”

A mere three days after that statement, George via Microsoft PR issued a completely different story, indicating the tiny text would be fixed via a patch:

“It has come to our attention that people are experiencing subtitle [dialogue text] readability issues with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on Standard Definition TVs. We would like to assure you that contrary to earlier reports, we are aware of the issue and currently working on a title update to be released within the next 30 days that will fix it for those with Standard Definition TVs. We’re committed to ensuring all fans of the franchise are able to have the best experience possible with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.”

I guess Microsoft got pretty serious about this marquee holiday title having readable text, real quick. That’s great and all, but hey Microsoft, why not go after Capcom to fix Dead Rising?

Max