Come and get it. Minty fresh new copy of Mass Effect. The game is impressive, no doubt, but it just didn't grab me like it did everyone else. My loss is your gain. $35 shipped to your door.

[with]

Somewhat similar, but with the God of War games. And compared to the heroes of your other games, Kratos is anything but dull.

For the love of baby Jesus, NO MORE WW2 games! This is getting ridiculous. They're not even giving the illusion of trying anymore. Give me more modern action the likes of COD4 - anything other than WW2.

I'm getting what I really needed this year - a much needed vacation from work. After some major drama and craziness for this project I'm working on, I get to take most of December off. In fact, I'm only working a total of 8 days for all of December.

As for games, I may ask for Mass Effect but everything else I already bought myself  .

Nothing. My wallet needs a rest.

Do you guys still do a Christmas gift exchange with your friends? Back when our group was smaller we would, but now that we're all older with jobs, disposeable incomes, mortgages and spouses/girlfriends it gets to be expensive to do it. When we all start having kids, forget it.

Being one of the last single guys in a group where everyone else has a significant other doesn't help much either. Maybe we could do a Yankee Swap/White Elephant thing this year. A nice dinner someplace followed by some drunkenness and Wii or Rock Band would be sweet too.

How was Christmas gatherings changed with your group of friends each year?

We've had real ones before but they're just too much hassle and maintenance so we got a reduction and went for the smaller, fake model. Wait, shouldn't it be the other way around.... what are we talking about again?

For all the hate that Gamespot gets, I actually liked their reviews and reviewers like Kasavin and Gerstmann. Shame on Gamespot for being marketing whore sellouts and shame on Eidos for flexing muscle to promote a shitty game.

Mine. Hasn't really changed much:

So who here is going to their company Christmas party? Normally I hate these things, but then again it could be fun to see your fellow co-workers and managers shit-faced. For the past few years ours have been pretty lame. There was a full bar and a decent spread, but it was an employee-only deal - we couldn't even invite our spouses. I think I'm gonna skip out on it this year and stay home to sleep.

Does your company pull out the stops as far as Christmas parties? Or are you even lucky to get one?

No more, please!  I am buried in backlog!!

Backlog schmacklog. We're gamers. We'll always have a backlog! 

So now that our wallets have been lightened a bit with the glut of recent high-profile titles, what big releases are coming up in the next few quarters for the 360? What's the next big hype for?

[Burn Notice]

Burn Notice

Slick, cool, and it has Bruce Campbell in it.

What's the actual reward/achievement for completing it fast though, just bragging rights?

Looks like one of the dishes we had for thanksgiving dinner last night.

[Edit:]

Anyone braving the masses of rabid shoppers again this year in search for those sweet door-busters deals? Every year I swear not to get sucked into the madness, and it seems every year I manage to drag my ass out of the house at 4 in the morning.

This year, I'm definitely not doing it anymore. The stress, the craziness, the ugliness of people willing to kill each other for a deal - it's just not worth it. Add to that the fact that I haven't really seen ANYTHING in the papers worthwhile means I'll be sleeping in my warm bed snug and tight.

Edit: Post your loot! Who did you have to kill to get your goodies?

The Dirty Baklas

Holy crap. Awesome.

ACTIVISION AND MICROSOFT GIVE THANKS TO GUITAR HERO AND HALO FANS

In appreciation of Guitar Hero and Halo fans alike, Neversoft, Bungie,
Activision/RedOctane, and Microsoft have all joined forces to bring players
the iconic Halo theme (MJOLNIR Mix) as a free playable song for Guitar Hero
III: Legends of Rock, exclusively for the Xbox 360 video game and
entertainment system from Microsoft. The theme will be available from Xbox
LIVE Marketplace on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 22nd.

The Halo theme was written, composed, and performed by Martin O'Donnell and
Michael Salvatori; and the MJOLNIR Mix features guitars performed by the
Grammy Award winning guitar hero, Steve Vai.

"It's a real pleasure to hear one of the best loved and most iconic themes
from Bungie's Halo Universe in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock," said Marty
O'Donnell, Composer and Audio Director for Bungie Studios. "As longtime fans
of the Guitar Hero franchise, it was great to collaborate with Neversoft
and Activision/RedOctane to offer this exciting free download to our fans."

Vegas is played out. How about a little extra creativity, guys.

I'm fighting the urge to get this one, but my gut feeling tells me to pass. I don't know what it is about Bioware games. It's either the slow and plodding pacing, UI, or what. I barely got through KOTOR and made it 1/4 the way through Jade Empire before getting bored of it. It could be that I'm just sick of RPGs in general. The whole sci-fi space epic story is intriguing though.

Speaking of a "nice set of drums", I don't see a pic of Ms. Raymond here pimping Rock Band. You've failed 2 threads in one day 

So at this point we only have two impressions threads, a "bugs" thread and the 18 page pre-release thread?

Times like these I miss Hetz.

And this thread is lame.  At least put a picture of Jade Raymond in your first post or something.

Here you go:



Hello my adoring fan(boy)s, I'm Jade Raymond! I had absolutely no involvement in Mass Effect, but I look good and you should buy this game to support Bioware!

It's out today. Go get your copy!

All this hype is making me sad. For some reason I just can't get excited for this game. I think I've had my fill of the guitar rhythm games with GH3. Besides I'm broke and don't have enough friends to play 

Do we need a new Jade Raymond comic for this one? Haha.

Minty fresh copy of Assassin's Creed for the 360 (Jade Raymond not included). Despite all the hype, this one just didn't do anything for me. My loss is your gain. $35 shipped to your door.

I have oft wondered if it would be possible to kill every last man and woman in one of these towns.  Methodically take your time and pop them off until the town was a ghost town.  Might try it after I beat it.  That would friggin cool to pull off.  My fear is that new ones would spawn indefinitely or people just walking in the front gate would make it impossible. 

I bet, before I try it, we hear of someone doing it.  Mark my words. 

It's probably pretty unlikely we could get to do that. People would still continually file in from those magical blue areas of the map that your "memory" couldn't access. Or maybe your "memory" would constantly recollect memories of people populating the areas. Would be interesting though.

Assassin's Creed (someone's gonna die......)
COD4 (need to up my rank!)

Yeah about the horseback riding.  Is anyone else as confused with the Kingdom hub as I am?  I can barely find my way through it!

After hitting all the major cities you should be able to warp to them directly instead of riding around (either that or I got to enough viewpoints on the world map). You have to ride past the main arch of Masayf (sp?) and a there will be a menu to select your destination city.

Anybody figure out a way to get into a city without blending in with scholars? Don't get me wrong, they're always conveniently around when I need to get into the city but I'd prefer to get in all  -like.

I've killed about half the dudes I need to assassinate thus far. Hopefully there will be some gameplay surprises in store otherwise it's just feeling like a grind to complete investigations, access view points, etc.

[Spoiler]

A cookie to someone who could remember the full names of our favorite GhostBusters (without Googling). This is probably wrong, but my best recollection is:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Egon Spengler
Winston Zedmore
Peter Venkman
Ray <something - I keep forgetting>

[Spoiler]

I'm not too far in and I'm still enjoying it, but I can definitely see the complaints of repetition being valid. Make no mistake, the graphics are incredible and the environments are expansive and diverse but I just can't shake the feeling that I'm doing the same things over and over again. This really is a game you can get lost in just exploring each nook of every city and each little village as you ride through the countryside.

The story is jarring, at least it was for me. Then again maybe I'm not the "sophistimicated" gamer I thought I was. Missions all seem to play out the same way (spoilered just in case - don't worry, no plot elements revealed):

Spoiler for Hiden:

1. Get assassination order from the Grand Master.
2. Ride to town/city of said mark.
3. Visit Assassin Bureau/Guild to check-in.
4. Bureau gives you hints on where your investigation spots are.
5. Wander about town to find and climb a View Point to see exactly where your investigation points are.
6. Pickpocket, eavesdrop, or plain bully someone into giving you your investigation info.
7. After completing your investigations, the Bureau gives you the assassination blessing.
8. Kill your mark.
9. Rinse and repeat.

In some ways it feels like Hitman in the middle-ages only in Hitman you were given a specific mark and location, you just had to be creative with your final kill. In AC the progression of steps to the final kill seem to be same, only the environment and location of your mark is different.

Like I mentioned the game is still pretty fun. Call me a dork, but riding around the countryside brought back similar memories of the first time Link rode Epona in Ocarina of Time and the sense of exploration of discovery is fantastic.

Edit: The free-running, climbing, and roof-bounding is plain awesome. Now if they only made a decent next-gen Batman game with the same type of mechanic, only in sprawling metropolises.

Personally I really like the wireless Les Paul, so I'd go with the GH3 bundle. Not sure when the stand-alone Les Pauls will be out, but definitely get another as a 2nd guitar too. GH2 is worth playing if not for the sake of completeness. I really only liked about half of the songs on it.

Am I the last guy on this forum who's holding out for a proper deal on this?

Yeesh.  I WILL BE STRONG.  Plus I have to beat Halo3 on Legendary still, I have to finish what I started.

You mean COD4 with COD3 for free isn't a proper deal?

I thought CC were being tools about it and not honoring that deal.

I'm in. Doesn't the Collector's Editon come with an autographed pic of Jade in a bikini? 

I can feel the love in here. I really can 

[RoboSim]

So yeah, I caved and bought a copy 

Let's play!

XBL Gamertag: RoboSim

As much as I liked the previous COD games, this one will sadly be relegated to rental status. I'm sure it's worth it for the MP alone, but maybe I don't play enough MP or even play with the right people to get anything out of it. I was hoping the SP would be more substantial.

Got my 360 copy at midnight last night.

- Agree with the awesomeness of the wireless controller.

- I thought the boss battles would be cooler. I'll definitely try again on higher difficulties but it just didn't seem as cool as they made it out to be.

- Maybe it's just me, but activating the Star Power didn't invoke any cool animations for my guitarist. They sort of just stood there and played as normal. I like in the previous Guitar Heroes where they would do some crazy stage move.

- Pretty good selection of tracks thus far.

Picked mine up at the local Meijer's. Got there around 10 to midnight and I was about the 6th person waiting in line. They only had 6 360 bundles in and luckily only one guy ahead of me bought a 360 bundle. Everyone else ahead of me bought Wii bundles.