Bah, my local gamestop says no Vegas until Wednesday afternoon.  There is also a special at Fry's in Southern California for Vegas priced at $39.99 available thursday by noon.

We're getting slammed here in Southern California.  3.95 near MCAS Miramar. 

<stares at Kato> You KNOW you want to play co-op.  And test out the T-hunt mode.

I know I know..... Besides, who else is going to catch my mis-thrown grenades?  FRAG OUT!!!

Nice to hear you're doing ok, now get ready for some Rainbow Six action!!!

Just like Kevin Gray said, grats to Lost Odyssey.  This game isn't for everyone but at least it lets microsoft know that JRPGs has a chance on the 360.

So is everyone jumping into multiplayer right away on day one or go through the single player stuff first?  I'm going to go singleplayer (as long as peer-pressure invites don't get to me).  I think its really cool that you can earn experience points and unlock gear in every game mode.

360 on release day. 

[Pt1: M-16 Backlash]

Pt1: M-16 Backlash

So I had an up and down night last night- mostly up. After one particularly good match (33-7 or something on strike) a guy said something that totally riled me up.  He was a few prestige ranks above me- the really nice one with like the ruby crystal thing and he says, he says: "SensuousLettuce you're a total nerd for using the M-16 at your level."  I reply, "I'm sorry, What?" 

"Why do you use the M-16?"
"It's the best gun in the game"
"You should not use the M-16 when you're that rank because it takes no talent to use it."
"Uh.  Well why don't you show me how to use it if it takes no talent to use it." (in retrospect I meant to say "Well, everyone would use it if took no talent" but it was late and I was tired)
"I'm not saying it's a bad gun."
"It's the best gun in the game! Why use anything else?"
"Because it takes no skill to use it."
"So why don't you use it to show me how easy it is to use?"
"Duhhh duhhh duhhhh." (not his actual words)
"That'd be like telling the US military not to use the M1 Abrams cause it's the best tank in the world."
"Glarg a darg ding dang. I need my mommy to hug me."  <disconnects to go reconsider his life>*

*<please note: text in italics did not actually happen as I was too tired to form the sentence before the next match began but I was thinking it. He disconnected shortly there after though>

So anyway, I have been noticing a backlash against the M-16 lately as the topic has come up on multiple occasions in the last few nights by higher ranked players.  What's your take fellow COD4ers?

In any case, I was insulted at the notion. Does this fool not realize I used the M-60 almost exclusively for 1.5 prestige runs!?  And the AK for my first 2.5 prestige runs!?  INSOLENT SON OF A COWARDLY VERMIN!

Part2: Wherein ATB considers Retirement

I think I'm going to hang up COD4 for a while once I hit 30k kills (I'm at 28k and some change) as it has become my negative go to game- in that I am playing nothing else when I would like to be because COD4 is too strong of a pull- and I'm good at it.  So I think at 30k I'm gonna give it to my wife for a month or so...or perhaps until the new maps comes out. Whichever timeframe is longest.

That is all.

Please let me know your thoughts on the M16 issue.

Total BS.  Those higher ranked players that you played with that must be seriously butt-hurt over being killed by an M16.  Just like you said if you were exclusively using the RPD, M60, or AK47 that night, they would have bitched and moaned about it also.  If they hate it so much, they can start a private match and hold hands together while shooting each other with pistols.  And if all else fails, hit the mute button and shoot them with the M16 over and over again.  It takes greater skill not to get shot by it.

[Brute Force]

I mean split screen with online or LAN multiplayer.

Basically, in CoD4 and a lot of games, you either play split screen, or single screen online multiplayer.  There's no mixing the two.  Very few games have done split screen online/LAN multiplayer.  The few that have are reasonably successful and can make mediocre games a whole lot of fun, especially if that involves some kind of co-op.

My gaming group has had a ton of fun playing Perfect Dark Zero with their split screen LAN with a team of 4-8 players vs an entire team of bots.

It just seems to me they're neglecting the whole same-room social aspect of consoles in their drive to promote online multiplayer going.

I know what you mean Turtle.  Remember the original xbox game Brute Force? Mediocre game when playing by yourself, but with 3 other friends it was fantastic.

Very excited about this game and making this a day 1 purchase for me for I am a MMO whore. 


Anyways, just watched the old original movie, and its still great.



Here's the new poster for the upcoming Conan movie

I always wanted to try condemned and CC is giving it away with C2, so C2 it might be. Don't know yet...

really?  that's a good deal.  i wish i had known that before i grabbed army of two last week. 

Wow, nice deal.  I think its for an online order only right? Had it pre-ordered at gamestop but will get at CC instead

Old...but still strange as ever.

 

Condemned 2.

Well, I just recently upgraded to Vista-64 bit and I'm going to re-install titan quest.  Never got the chance to really put some time into this game before.

Actually for me, it was the other way around.  After getting blasted to hell (at the beach with no water), I got hopelessly addicted to videogames during rehab.  I <3 videogames 

  The Co-op Campaign is fantastic

  The versus mode is shit...... I've only played about 5 matches, but it seems really unpolished.

I've been following this for a long time, seems to have improved quite a bit. 

Take Care buddy....

Niners

Perhaps......

I've been playing Frontlines with Jarrod 

Frontlines 360

There's a couple of us on Virtue, mostly CoV but we have a base for both CoH and CoV.  I just upgraded the base to include all the storage options on the CoV side.  Dual Blades is very fun and looks smooth going between one power to the next in a combo.

I'm enjoying COV quite a bit, while my poor XBOX is getting fixed.  I haven't played since the beta of City of Heroes, and back then I thought it was a shallow experience.  But now, its quite deep with so much customization....so yeah I like it 

[Who's Da Master?]

Who's Da Master?

I'm going to re-up to this later today to test out the changes since I last played (which was a long long time ago).

If any of you want to do the Invite a Friend Back, let me know.

I haven't played this game since launch! Would be interesting to try this out again.

Chicken or the Egg?

I love the game, but that's not why I post this:
Why would they program in cheats? How would those cheats work? Why would the AI only cheat sometimes?

I don't know....I kinda think of it as "rubber band AI" like in Racing games or sometimes in sport games to make game sessions more competitive? Yeah, I have no idea 

I was going to get DW6, but no online co-op  So I guess the Club

Wow.  The computer cheats just as badly as it did in the first Culdcept.

In my second fight, the computer hadn't raised the level of any of its squares all game.  I'm sitting at around 4500 points in a 5000 point game, and I'm halfway around the board.  The computer's maybe at 2600.  I'm sitting adjacent to one of his spaces with an Aqualing on it.

On his turn, he rolls and lands on that space.  He immediately levels it up to level 3, which made the toll around 850.  On my turn, I roll a 1.

Okay, bad, but not terrible.  I keep going, noting with interest how the computer guy manages to always seem to avoid landing on any of my spaces that carry hefty tolls.  Eventually, I'm about six spaces away from his big 850 toll space again.  He rolls, and lands on the space I'm standing in, and somehow is able to level up the big space again, making the toll something like 1800.  My turn comes up, I roll, and land on that space again.  Of course, my hand is full of armor cards, so I have nothing capable of dealing 80 points of damage in one shot, so I have to flush more territory.  This puts him up to around 7800, and me down to 2500.  Two turns later (because he also happened to draw a haste card), he wins.

I find it very hard to believe that the computer isn't cheating when I somehow managed to land on his huge space just after he leveled it up in two trips around the board.  Something doesn't smell right in Dodge City.

So, once again, I'm confronted with a game system that I really like, and an AI to play against that brazenly cheats, making me not want to play it.  Damn, I wish they'd tone that down so that playing was more enjoyable.

Screw that then, I'm returning this game.  Nothing pisses me off more than cheating AI.  Glad I never opened my copy

Hey, if anyone has finished the Sorceress' Manshion part please get in touch. I can't find one thing I need...

Just beat that part, what are ya looking for?

I would play but like Pete said, its hard getting a group going nowadays.

One of the few trailers that just makes you grin ear to ear.

Based off these early impressions, my only concern is that the load times and framerate get bad later on in the game. I wonder if anyone has confirmed that the final game was different from the review version.

After 5 hours in (I did have to restart my game due to playing on another xbox), I'm really confused about what some reviewers are talking about concerning the load time and framerate.  But like you said, maybe on disk 3 or 4 things start to get bad, I don't know but so far its playing great.

Champions online? Need more info

Snowstorm canceled this evening's plans, so I've been able to put in about 2 1/2 hours so far.  Some initial impressions:

-  The load times between areas or cutscenes haven't been an issue for me at all so far.  They are frequent, but I don't think I encountered one that was more than 5-10 seconds.  When going into a battle, they don't seem any longer than any other turn-based RPG I've played.  There's a screen effect, the camera pans around for a couple seconds while it loads, and there's some initial 'battle animations'.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I'm probably more forgiving about load times than most people, but so far they haven't bothered me at all.

-  Haven't run into any technical issues either.  No slow downs or frame rate issues whatsoever.

-  The story definitely starts out slow.   I'd say that nearly half my time so far has just been spent wandering around the city talking to people and learning the backstory.   The characters are a mixed bag, with Kiam being pretty cliche, and Jansen being pretty awesome.  Just got started on the first real dungeon (outside of the tutorial area), and I'm glad to finally get some action going.  Combat is pretty simple, but the ring feature is a nice touch.  The skill link system reminds me a lot of FF VIII's Junction system, and I'm digging it so far.

-  The Thousand Year Dream stories are going to be awesome.  Only had one so far, but it was very well done and very moving.  Very excited about that feature.

-  It looks and sounds great.   The VO work has been very good so far, and the visuals are outstanding.  Pretty disappointed in the music, though.  Hopefully it gets better, as so far it's completely generic and very un-Uematsu-ish.

Pretty impressed so far, and it feels really good to finally be playing a next-gen JRPG with a 'classic' turn-based feel. 

My impressions are pretty much identical to Gratch.  About 3 hours in, very nice visuals, no framerate issues (yet?), the load times are no better no worse than (FFX, Shadow Hearts, persona 3) and it doesn't bother me at all.  Just like Gratch said, the Thousand Year Dream sequences are pretty damn cool and moving.  IMO the VO language i picked is the French dub (just finished watching Brotherhood of the Wolf) and its excellent!

So far so good, JRPG fans only though.

Game just arrived in the mail, gonna go ahead and play a few hours........

My kill-stealing kit:

M16 - red dot sight

Bandolier
Stopping Power
Deep Impact

Interesting, that's the same kit I use to prepare the kills for you to steal.

Well, I understand Hark using bandolier as he likes to perch, but why you Kato? You run and gun and my assumption would be you die before you need the extra bullets.

I prefer the claymores because that allows me to set up in a spot and blast away...If I run out of bullets, I usually just displace and get another gun.

I'm just a lazy bastard, and I hate picking up weapons that are not mine.  (this is my rifle, there are many like it but this one is mine)

But you're right, I don't need it.  Gonna change it next time I log and maybe put on 3 flash or 3 frag.

My kill-stealing kit:

M16 - red dot sight

Bandolier
Stopping Power
Deep Impact

Didn't run into any major problems while playing.  Some minor lag here and there, but we were also playing peer to peer as opposed to the dedicated servers.

There are C4 charges that can be used to obiliterate tanks if you can get close enough.  There are also landmines that can kill tanks in one shot.

Just letting go of X should stop you taking a capture point.  I know I had a guy do that to me while I was trying to sneak up on him.

Same with Jarrod, no major problems, in fact in ran pretty smooth.  The only problems I came across was Papasmurff and Jarrod shooting me in the face too many times.

Not bad.  A slight learning curve but not bad at all and has some potential me thinks.  I might actually pick this game up release day