Something Catchy

Recently the RE5 demo was released for download.  It is still a trial and not the finished version of the levels that are included, so with that in mind if you encounter problems they should be fixed by launch.  For any long time RE fans, 5 follows 4 in regard to the different types of zombies and the view.  Traditionally RE was always a fixed camera so it made peering around corners and looking in general a chore.  However with the addition of RE4 they changed all that, the camera now follows your character in more of a second person view.  If you played RE4 than jumping into 5 shouldn’t be that different.  However they did away with the static menu system, in which you would hit the pause button and you could heal yourself, combine herbs and whatever else tickled your fancy.  While the menu in 5 is similar to the previous installments it’s in game only, so if you are getting attacked by say 50+ zombies and your health is low you can’t just pause the game and fix yourself.   Battles take some for thought which is why you have a companion.  The addition of co-op is excellent, it can create some very epic and tense moments while remaining fun.  Also the sound and graphics are incredible, playing  with surround sound all the way up can really creep you out.  The graphics are some of the cleanest I have seen in a long time, environments were clean and open and didn’t feel muddy with too many textures.  The demo includes 2 levels which are fun and challenging, I would suggest playing them co-op to get your bearings.  This installment should garner many hours of play and a lot of replay-ability, should be a blast when it drops 3/13/2009.

-mikey

Today I downloaded the Fear 2 demo.  As a huge fan of the first installment you might think me a little biased.  However I am not blind to the games imperfections. First off the game looks incredible, the environments are rich and the character models are fairly realistic albeit bulky.  The gore is extremely impressive, for example if you shoot someone in the stomach with a sniper rifle they split in half with a blood bath to follow. The Fear series is known for scares and this one doesn’t disappoint.  I found in the demo a barrage of scares, which usually diminishes the scare value however this time around it didn’t.  The demo is about 10 minutes long give or take and I jumped about 3 times, which is a rarity.  Also there appears to be some new weapons and some new effects. One pretty cool effect is being able to shoot out books on a book shelf, however under further investigation you could shoot out all the rows except the top row which was static.  It would have been nice to see all the rows able to break away.  Also I tried shooting out several lights which had a cool flicker effect, but after some time would come back on to full brightness.  That’s just two of the things I noticed that I wasn’t to keen on and I am sure there will be more.  I know its a little knit picky, but stuff like that you shouldn’t notice and I did which was a little disappointing.  Overall though the game looks like it will be pretty solid when it ships 2/10/09.

-mikey

So today while I was playing drums, something felt off.  About 8 months ago I bought a double bass pedal.  It’s made by pulse so I know its not the highest quality, but its actually a pretty solid pedal.  So there I was playing and something was off, so I decided to put my old pedal back on.  My old pedal is the one that came with kit its a single chain version of this pedal, now mine is older and cheaper but still an incredibly solid pedal.  I put it on and I felt the groove come back.  I think that’s what I was missing.  I love this pedal I really do, it’s possible that I just have some attatchment to it because I have used it for so long.  At any rate though I felt this important enough to post.  Well that’s all I have right now.

-mikey

So the Xbox 360 just got some more functionality with the new dashboard.  The big addition that I have been waiting for and probably everyone else who has a 360 is the announcement that if you have a netflix account you can now watch streaming content on your xbox.  So I have been using the new feature for most of the day roughly 4 hours or so to play with the new dashboard and the new features.  I am going to talk about some of the additions and then jump right into the main event, netflix.

The first thing you are likely to see after the epic intro video, is the addition of avatars.  Now the avatars are pretty cool and I preferred making my avatar than when I made my Mii (Nintendo Wii).  I think that making the avatar was more enjoyable than making a Mii, even though there are less options.  Also they have done away with the blades, sort of, they still exist but it’s more of a mini menu.  The new layout is more like iTunes with the pop up art work and each option is assigned its own box art.  The main problem with the new dashboard though is how heavy it is.  From booting to logging into Xbox Live it takes around 10 seconds or so, maybe longer.  I also had my Xbox freeze while using the new dashboard, it was only once but that’s once too many.  Now on to the main event.

Netflix!  So the addition of netflix is pretty cool.  You have to download the software for netflix which only takes a minute or so probably less depending on your connection.  Once installed you are given a code which you enter on the netflix website.  Once that’s all said and done you can now stream you netflix instant view movies on your xbox.  Complaint number one, i would have liked to have full netflix functionality in which I can add and delete movies like I can on my computer.  However the way it works is there are a certain amount of movies that can currently stream, so you add those to your streaming queue via a computer and it will show up on your xbox if its currently on the list of movies that will play on the xbox.  I have already had about ten movies on my queue that aren’t available on the 360, lame.  Second complaint the movies are added in the order in which you added them, so if you threw a bunch of titles up at once, guess what you have a really unorganized list.  I would really have liked to see some different sorting options, I mean if it was anything like any Microsoft Os I would have 50 different sort views that I would probably not even use, so a sort by title or genre would have been really nice and I don’t think I am asking too much.  Now another complaint is about the website, it used to be that if you added a title to your queue you would have a pop-up window with suggestions, but now it redirects you to a page of suggestions, so in order to get back to where you were you can either open each title in their own window before adding them, hitting the back button in your browser for each selection or clicking through the menus which is how you got there in the first place.  The overall quality of the streaming content is good, though when they said streaming HD i didn’t think it would be a sub category, which it is, not all the content is HD only a small selection is.  I would also like to see more Tv shows on there, right now the selection is slim.  Overall it’s a nice feature and I am sure it will get better and my complaints will be addressed.  Netflix is a great company with a great product, I have been using them for over a year now and absolutely love it, they are a company that listens to their customers and cares what they have to say.

So I was wondering if they will have a streaming only option.  Might be an interesting idea, though would anyone be interested in something like that?  Well just something I was thinking about, let me know what y’all think about it,  Do you like the new experience or hate it?

-mikey