XBox 360 DOA4 - First Impressions

From the moment you first boot up and get treated to a kick-ass intro with Aeorsmith playing in the background, you know you are in for something special.

Getting my ass kicked by a drunken master handing out free 10x combos has never been so much damn fun!

This was my favorite title at Zero Hour and it has been significantly tightened up since then. And... way harder, but not in an un-fun way. Tight-tight-tight gameplay. Good online modes and lobbies.

Insane graphics - so much detail you won't believe it. The water, the hair, the leaves, the glass, the people in the casinos, the bosoms - you will be amazed! This is THE best looking XBox 360 game to date. Great frame-rate in stunning HD.

Only been playing for a day, but I can assure your, this game F&?#ing rocks!!!

Nice touch - your Gamercard slogan appears in the Vegas level!

Spoiler! - Call of Duty 2 ending on the XBox 360

I finished the Call of Duty 2 off-line campaign over the holiday weekend. I was surprised at just how much I loved this game. I’ll for sure be playing through it again very soon. The nice thing about COD2 is that if you die, the experience from your last checkpoint can (and usually is) completely different due to the awesome enemy AI and open environment. What a rush!

But enough of that, you can read how awesome this game is on any other site. I’m just going to tell you about the cool ending. You see, when you end the final U.S. campaign you get a nice group picture with a COD2 flag photoshoped in. Then… you are treated to a very nice in-game engine movie of all sorts of cool combat. You rescue your captive comrades and take part in a balls-out escape. You escape from enemy troops, a tank (very cool moment) and even a fighter plane (beautiful aerial shots). So cool! I loved watching this sequence! Nice touch from the developers who brought us what is indisputably the best XBox 360 launch title (shhh, don’t care to debate that point).

Afterwards I tried out the XBox live multi-player. I’m not sure if it was because of the Christmas holiday or what, but I was treated to an interesting slide-show of an XBox Live match. It was kind of neat how you could change the slides every few seconds by pressing the stick in the direction of your choice. After a while I got tired of it and turned off my XBox. I was a bit disappointed since I had such fun playing multi-player at the IGN Live event.

Hey guys, can’t wait until that patch comes out! For now, we’ll forgive you since the campaign is so unbelievably awesome!

King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie for Xbox 360 Q&A

Now that I’ve finished this wonderful game I can answer a few questions:

1. Yes, the 360 version plays nearly identical to the Xbox 1 version. Not a bad thing though since both versions kick ass. If you don’t know exactly what I mean, go play Dinotopia and imagine the exact opposite experience.

2. No, the time you spend in New York kicking ass is nowhere near long enough. Its fun while it lasts, but you’ll be booting up that old copy of War of the Monsters soon after to get your city destroying fix.

3. Yes, the character models look great and move well even though they have creepy ghost-like eyes. Don’t pee your pants – you’ve played Silent Hill already.

4. Yes, I went to the game’s web site and put in my fancy code. Yes, I sucked in comparison to the other million people higher up on that list.

5. No, I didn’t think the game was too hard – just right difficulty level.

6. Yes, using the spears and bones as weapons took a little getting used to, but once you figure it out the game rocks. This is not at all like that crappy Robin Hood archery game.

7. Yes, its worth buying on any console.

Kameo Elements of Power – The lowdown411

The first thing you will notice about Kameo: Elements of Power is how incredibly detailed and colorful this game is. It really is stunningly beautiful in parts and a decent showcase of what the 360 is capable of – at minimum gives us a glimpse of great things to come. From lush greenery to cracked lava rocks to incredible looking water this game is very easy on the eyes. But what about the game play?

The advertisements may have led you to believe that this was a cutesy platformer, but really it is more of a beat ‘em up type game. You play as Kameo – a girl whose jealous sister caused a bunch of trouble for you and blah, blah, blah… do you really care about the story? Go listen to the Kameo Podcast if you really want to know more. Basically you are able to morph into different creatures with different abilities – some more useful than others. As you progress you collect these creature abilities, or elementals as they are called.

There are ten elementals to collect in all, but the ones you will end up using most are: Major Damage – an armadillo/elephant thing that rolls into a ball and allows you to get to places otherwise unreachable. Chilla – a furry Ice Gorilla thingy that can climb mountains and throw frozen ice spikes. Pummel Weed – a boxing weed with the ability to dig underneath enemies and knock them with a nice uppercut. The others can be interesting and entertaining but you won’t use them nearly as much.

The game is moderately easy with a few spikes of difficult tasks thrown in here and there. It would be much harder if there weren’t a talking book giving you the solution to each puzzle (what creature to use to progress further) you encounter.

The game interface is pretty good, but not super “Next Generation” in comparison to other Xbox 360 titles we’ve seen. There was an available “Winter Warrior Pack” download in Xbox Live Marketplace that allows you to change the characters costumes to a Christmas theme. I however could never get it to work – maybe I’m just lame. It cost me 150 points and I’m still bitter about it. I tried downloading it to both the Hard Drive as well as a memory card with no luck. I tried it with new and existing game but no go. There are a number of sites that explain how to change the outfits but none of the processes explained worked for me. I was able to acquire alternate skins within the game and apply them though. I’m sure some 5 year old will show me how this works one day but I’m all out of patience for now.

The two player co-op that gets unlocked during the campaign is surprisingly weak which is a bummer since in theory it sounds very cool. There simply is not enough room in the world of Kameo for two morphing players. Sucks the fun right out.

All in all Kameo is a great experience and I was sad to see it finally end. I would have liked to see the other creatures used more and the game last a bit longer. I guess that is what sequels are for. The game can be completed in about 15 or so hours but offers some replay value if you want to “tie up loose ends”. I was pleasantly surprised by this game and recommend it to anyone looking for something a little more accessible on the Xbox 360.

I give it 150 lost Live Marketplace Points out of 187.5

New TiVo PodCasting Service

TiVo began offering extended services to subscribers recently on a first come-first serve basis. The new services only run on select series 2 units. Yahoo Weather, Traffic & Pictures integrates well. There are also some games (Sega swirl?) and Internet radio stations (UFO Abductees!!!), but the feature that really caught my eye was a PodCast player. I tried it out and it's not bad! Lacks any kind of pause/fwd/rewind but still is cool. Free if you sign in at Tivo.com!

Xbox Launch Items

What a great Christmas surprise - my Xbox 360 Zero Hour custom faceplate came in the mail yesterday! It came direct from Madcatz and looks great!


I thought this would a great time to showcase some neat Xbox 360 launch related collectables. Hope you enjoy!




Here are Zero Hour related collectables:
- Sweatshirt signed by Peter Moore and J Allard
- Xbox 360 Memory card signed by Peter Moore and J Allard
- Xbox 360 Zero Hour Survival Kit
- Alternate Tee Shirt and Hoodie














Here are US launch collectables:
- Best Buy DVD & Coupons
- Faceplate signed by Bill Gates in Best Buy line
- Xbox 360 Developer Team faceplate
- 2K Sports music CD
- Various launch promo items
- Project Gotham 3 Poster signed by entire dev team - damaged by US Customs :(















Here are some nice Euro 360 launch collectables:
- Euro launch party items
- UK launch Gorillaz hand painted faceplates