WoW has basically taken over my PC time, as it's absolutely nothing like a level-grind like ALL the other MMOs I've played (EQ, DAoC, AO, SB, SWG), as there's so much to do other than just killing for experience (crafting, herb collecting, fishing, general chatting, wandering).

Sure, you do kill, but the meat of this game are missions. Each town/land you enter has a ton of quests to do (which do mostly revolve around killing, but there are quite a few exceptions), which net a ton of bonus experience on top of doing the quest itself. And each mission has its own story as well, which really draws you in.

The only exception to the above is CoH. That game is so fast paced and so much fun to play that you don't realize that you're just doing a level grind. The ton of missions available (even though they give squat for experience at the end) helps. Although they really need more mission interiors.

But between WoW, CoH, and the two console RPGs I intend to buy in the next two weeks (Tales of Symphonia on the Cube and Sudeki on the Xbox), I suddenly no longer have the free time to do anything. Gotta get my priorities straight though for the site though...

More WoW time!  :twisted:

I'm just glad I don't have a Hotmail account anymore.

Actually, Hotmail is far, far better than ever before. All my spam just goes into a 'junk mail' folder automagically. I just got my first piece of pron/spam that didn't get caught by their filters in like a month.

Good luck to the anti-spammers though. The world would be a far better place without all of them. Just like telemarketers.

Reading.  Lots and lots of reading.  Probably catch up on my DVD watching.  I just can't imagine watching more television.

I agree with you here 100%. I have a large pile of books that desperately needs to be read, among other things.

Do you guys know of any others that are already out for the xbox that are like this game?  Turn Based Combat is fine with me by the way.  I am more interested in all those cool powers and skill points and stuff like that.  

Based on how the game is described (as I haven't played the demo), I'm guessing that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is exactly what you're looking for. It's technically Turn Based (although it doesn't look like it in action), and is one of the best RPGs ever made.

Goodie - yet another RPG I have to buy...

The worst part? Tales of Symphonia (which is a must buy in my mind) comes out the week before...

Not only is it high quality, but it's funny as heck as well. Made it worthy for my Wrap this morning.  

How do you save money by cancelling a completed game?  Is it really so bad that they couldn't make back a limited run's duplication costs?

As stated from the PR piece we posted a few days back:

BattleBorne(TM) Entertainment, Inc. today announced that a preliminary injunction has been entered in its favor against Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. (OTCBB: AKLM) by order of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Nassau. The preliminary injunction restrains Acclaim from shipping BattleBorne's Combat Elite(TM): WWII Paratroopers for the Sony(R) (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation2 and Microsoft(R) (NasdaqNM: MSFT) Xbox platforms. BattleBorne Entertainment has sued Acclaim for breaching the parties' development agreement by failing to make payments when due and by threatening to release Combat Elite prior to making all required payments.

Ah, lawsuits due to lack of payment...

Yeah, RCR is a great old-school beat-em-up in my mind, just like the classics you mentioned (but far more fun). The fact that it doesn't have multiplayer is a crime, but you said that you wouldn't mind that feature.

BARF!  :twisted:

I still use Firefox .8, as .9 doesn't support some of the things correctly I have to have in my surfing (ad-blocking and mouse gestures). Other than that, it's an absolutely fantastic browser.

Never see an ad, can simply move my mouse to navigate, and nothing will EVER install behind my back.

However, unlike Atari's PR announcement stating that 2 million copies of Driv3r have been 'sold', odds are that Activision has actually sold a total closer to this 2 million.  :twisted:

If anyone can find me Rez, I'll gladly pay you double (if not more) of Circuit City's price.

And you didn't get Panzer Dragoon, Ron? Shame on you.

Do you guys like have your computer in the same room as your Xbox or something?  Sheesh...I have to move from room to room to post and go back to Xbox...heh.

Well, I have AIM on my laptop, so all I have to do is move to my TV room.

Unfortunately, I have to drag this butt ugly cable from my Xbox to my PC every time I want to play online. 30 some ft worth.

Lockdown - let's just say that I was. Ron's favorite game type is Keep Away, and I'm sorta good at it.

This is my first 4th in a state that allows fireworks...methinks the fire department will get no rest tonight.

Here in Arizona, it's so dry that one misplaced firework burns half the state down. Count yourself lucky.

Hey guys, it won't let me into Tim's game for some reason

Just noticed and letting Loren recreate.

I'm waiting...

Add DestructorCG to your friends list. I'm online.

Give me a buzz, Ron, and I'll be there. Dragging a friend along as well.

Can I just say that Jeff Gerstmann is a tool?  He gave the game a 7.2...way too low in my opinion.  Right now I'd probably put it in the 80s, maybe low 90.  The graphics aren't the best, but when you look at the sheer size of what you can see with no loading you begin to respect the graphics for what they are.

A 7.2? Good lord. This is an outstanding game, worthy of the score I gave it. But, to each their own I guess.

It was posted in the GG forum that you cannot retry missions that you have failed. Is that correct?

For the most part this is wrong. Depending on mission, you'll respawn instantly, with only a slight loading time to 'port' you back to the mission start point.

Same thing if you die while on a mission - odds are you'll respawn rather close to where you dropped in the mission point.

Going for the photo shots from JJJ? You'll be able to retry. The travel challenges? Same thing. The story missions to trail somebody? Same thing.

The only 'missions' you can't retry are the ones you'll get from citizens. IE: The save somebody missions. You get one chance at those. But they also happen so often via the 'generic citizen needs help' listing, that you'll do them again.

MJ I could possibly see, but JJJ is rather dead on. I don't know what IGN is thinking honestly.

I would be tempted but buy the Farscape DVD's if they came in a season set.  I'm not one of those that likes to buy individual discs.  Maybe I'll eventually rent one.

As far as I know of, they do. So get out there and buy, buy, buy!  

I never got into Farscape...

I hate you.  :twisted:

Firefly is a very cool series, one that was canned far before its time. Same with Farscape for that matter...

Stupid stations not liking Sci-Fi in general...

Actually I think it's got Toby, Kirstin and Alfred Molina doing their voices.

I know for sure that those three (Spider-Man, Mary Jane, and Doc Ock) are truly done by their real voices off the top of my head. The guy who's Mary's love interest (who's name I can't think of off the top of my head) sounded like him as well.

I'll have to double check my information when I get back home. Thanks for bringing it up though.

Edit: The direct link to the review is right here.

Whoops, left SM2 off my list.  If what I hear can be believed, this may be a dream come true for me.  The first time I can recall fantasizing about an SM Videogame was on the atari 2600, and while it was OK, it failed to live up to my anticipation.  None have so far...

Trust me - the game really is as good as everybody makes it out to be. Check out my Preview for a few details, and expect a full review (as stated above) early Wednesday morning.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I just hope they fix up some of this stuff for the PC port.  As much as I love driving games and really wanted this one, I just can't pay for a broken game like this.  What a waste of potential.

You expect Atari to fix this crap for a PC port? Personally, I expect the PC port to be a simple port of the Xbox version, possibly with the addition of mouse controls. I don't expect anything as far as bug fixes go.

Atari games have always been hit-and-miss as far as publishing goes. For every UT2004, we have a Temple of Elemental Evil (which wasn't 'allowed' to be patched, even though the patch was ready).

Nicely done review. Kinda surprised to see it rated so...high though.
However, looking over it, it was a fair review. It looks pretty, sounds nice, and plays like crap.

Too bad about the game, really. I mean, you have to put up with bugs like this: http://media.xboxyde.com/misc/nowayitsaflyingcar.mov  :twisted:

How glitchy is Driv3r? Click this link:

http://media.xboxyde.com/misc/nowayitsaflyingcar.mov

Uh... Now that is bad.

Custom Robo would be a MUCH better game if there was less dialog. It's horrible!

And the fact that it's so damn campy, as if a 12 year old wrote it. Ugh.

...

I always loved that line of text in many games. What exactly is that character saying? What's his opinion on the matter? How does he feel?  

Personally, as long as the dialogue is good, I don't mind the yapping. Some games though *cough*Xenosaga 2*cough*...

Here's to hoping Spider-Man 2 will heal the wounds of disappointment.

Based on my playtime and preview of the game, it most definitely will. It better at least.

The reason why I thought it was real when I talked about it on the front page was simply because there was too much information there to be all conjecture.

Is it at all true though? We'll see.

Naednek - Holy shit! While I can perfectly understand the price of Spider-Man 2 (its release date and nothing more), Halo 2 seems a bit...cheap.

I wonder if they'll honor that price.

Another big thing I want to do is slingshot around buildings. How does the manual (i.e. two webslingers) handle versus just the one webslinger with automatic?

As I said in my preview, the manual mode allows two webs at once. The only real advantage is being able to slingshot yourself around the map. That and a bit tighter control when swinging around.

And while the physics are realistic to a point, there are some liberities taken. For example - if you hook onto a side of a building (near a corner), you can swing around the side of the building, even though your web would clearly have hit the side of the building and wrapped around it before you got halfway around.

In short - the two control modes handle almost the same, and you can slingshot around buildings with little issue at all. Just a few minute learning curve to start.

Destructor, your post reminded me of something that I think is almost as bad, and that is "mainstream" magazines and their horrible game "reviews."  If you look at mags like Maxim and Playboy they have a half-page or so with game reviews.  It just irks me because the games they "review" are often not even close to release, especially with the lead-time print mags have before they are printed.  It's like they read the press release and reviewed it based on a single screenshot and potential

Believe it or not, I actually talked to somebody recently who's a freelance reviewer of sorts. Maxim pays an absolute ton of cash to the people who write their 'reviews', as millions upon millions of people subscribe to the magazine to read the 'articles'. Even though those reviews come out months (if not years thanks to HL2) before the actual game is released.

Scary, eh?

Clearly Console Gold is not immune, judging by the generous 56% awarded to Spawn: Armageddon.  Is that what it took to secure funding for the site redesign? :wink:

*looks up from counting Spawn cash*
Er...  :twisted:

On a more serious note, I'm guessing that this happens to movies as well, but not as often. There are a ton more movie reviewers out there (in every single newspaper across the US for example) than gaming sites/publications, so 'bribing' everyone off for a good review would be that much harder.

Now, here's what sure to be a controversial topic - are some game reviews bought by the companies themselves?

It makes you wonder why some (usually shoddy) games have such drastic review scores. Driv3r comes to mind, with both IGN and Gamespot agreeing with each other in the 5.5 range, yet some sites and magazines are giving a 9 out of 10 for the final score.

What are your thoughts?

I look at the current thing going on with Spider-Man 2, how there's a completely different usage of the license on the PC version, and I wonder if that wouldn't be a better model.  Just make separate games and try to focus on strengths of each platform.  Probably never happen, though.  Too much work as it is.

But then I look at Spider-Man 2 and I'm amazed just how well the cross-porting of the game worked out.

Is it only certain developers who can pump out a good multiplatform title without it looking like a simple PS2 port? Only certain types of games (one that doesn't push the processor/limits of the console)?

Any interest in the title I had vanished as soon as I read the 'l33t' title of the game. That right there told me that there was things wrong with the game.

That, and quotes like this from Gamespot:

A big part of what makes Driver 3 so mediocre is a series of technical, graphical glitches that make the game look like an absolute mess. For starters, the game is very, very aliased for an Xbox game. Everything from Tanner's legs to the sides of car models are incredibly jaggy. Playing in the game's 480p video mode just makes this problem stick out even more. Also, the game has a great deal of nasty pop-up. What makes it so much nastier than your average pop-up or draw-in is that the distance at which items appear seems to vary at random. On average, cars tend to appear when they're around the equivalent of 80 feet from your position, which when you're cruising along at full speed, is just enough time to react. Unfortunately, sometimes cars won't show up until they're even closer. This can be catastrophically frustrating, as one crash can often be the difference between completing a mission and having to replay it. The problem isn't limited to cars, either. Ramps also decide to appear with the same randomness. For example, if you need to get up onto a rooftop to complete an objective, you won't be able to see the ramp you need to jump from until you're almost on top of it, which is something that goes beyond the realm of a mere graphics problem and begins to seriously impact the gameplay as well.

And this was from the Xbox version. So, was this title a simple port from the PS2 version, or was this game simply doomed from the start? Or was this yet another game rushed out the door thanks to Atari?

I think I am gonna preorder it so I can get the Artbook with it.

Artbook? From who? *runs around trying to preorder*

The Tales series was always best described as an Action/RPG, with the action part being the combats themselves. In the prior two titles (PS1 and SNES (Japan only)), the battles are side-scroller fights, with your other three characters controlled by the AI (or another controller). There's actually quite a bit of stragety as well with how and when you want to use your attacks/spells. Nice combo abilities because of it.

I know I'll be buying this game on day 1.

Now as to the specifics of the preview - how is the main story?  Does it just basically re-do the movie?

The game does follow the movie (to a point), but the developers realized that they needed more villians than just Doc Oc to beat up. So, the Shocker will make a return, and Rhino shows up for a boss appearance. Black Kat is in there as well, but she's more of a teammate (or just somebody to talk to) than anything else.

Whiteboyskim - yes, freefalling from the Empire State Building is an amazing experience. Especially how Spider-Man does this wonderful swan dive from up there. And then it's a good 15-20 seconds before you splat onto the ground. Yes, you will die from a high enough fall. The developers clearly showed that aspect.

As clearly posted on the main page, I've put up a indepth preview of Spider-Man 2 for all three consoles.

Any questions or comments while my playtime is still fresh on my mind? Ask away.