Well its been about a month or 2 from when I went back to X360 mostly because of the online community over there. and everything has been peachy for that time. however my 360 has been making some weird noises reciently. it almost sounds like a rattle like noise and so far i have only noticed this sound when im playing halo3 (the only game i play for long periods of time, considering im finally going through the campaign on legendary). the first time i heard it, i thought my 360 was once again eating my games. so i opened the disk tray and inspected the game disk...no sighs of the system scratching my disks. however the sounds keeps happening...and every time i hear it im worried about my gamedisks.

perhaps one of my systems fans is going out and making noise ever so often as it wiggles inside of my unit...either way its getting back to im paranoid to turn on my 360 unit...this time not in fear of the RRoD, but of my system killinga 60 dollar game. this makes me really upset, cause game like mass effect, portal, and halo3 got me on my system at least once a day to play and chat with friends.

i dont want my unit to eat games, but i almost wish this one would get the RRoD so that i can get a new unit that would cause me less stress over keeping my games in working condition.

Well, now that i have established I could careless what each system is packing inder the hood (weaker systems have never been a problem before. ps2 vs xbox, gameboy went for less impressive hardware for battery life and look at how he ended up). Any way i thought i would share with you my thoughts on the two navigation units for the two power house next gen units.

first XMB (cross media bar) on the PS3:

This is probably the cleaner design of the two, making a nice smooth transition between each of the sections. within each colom theres a number of options to choose from that end up being the colums rows. this system is clean and efficent, but not always the most user friendly (navigating sub menues and then finding out you have to hit things like triangle to open up another submenu that gives you even more options can at times be kinda clumsy). some ps3 games save textures and such things on the HDD so that the game can load faster, and untill a couple days ago when i was searching for these files to delete them off my HDD did i actually find where such things are saved. so the XMB looks nice, works well for the casual user. but finding where things are and sub menus can be a pain.

next System Blades on the X360:

this system works strangely like the XMB, where you choose what menu you want from left to right, from the marketplace blade, xbl blade, game blade, multimedia blade, and system blade, each of which has a nicely laid out menu that shows you all of the options (usually) or indicates theres more to the list in some way. the way the menus are structured is much prefered over the XBL. to where the system blade gives you access of all setting about your system. from memory management to changing the time on your system. its well thought out and user friendly by keeping things in a nice organized order. the only complaint i have about the system blade system, is it seems sluggish compared to the XMB. perhaps the system blade system loads the blades as you switch between them while the XMB is fully loaded when you acess it?

Now i never bought LAIR, mostly because i was scared off because of reviews. So today i got hold of my friends LAIR and decided to give it a try...and so far I have to admit i had fun. i did the first two mission like things, one being training, and ther other being actuall combat...and flying the dragon actually feels pretty good, the dragon cant turn on a dime, but its got nice larger turn radious that make the dragon feel like how you would expect a dragon to fly. mixing this with the ability to do a 180 qickly and other tactincs, for generally can get in and out of any situation so far.

while when i got into a boss battle with another dragon, and the controls felt a little clumsy (you have to slam into the other guy...and it just didnt feel like my controller was responding at all durring this fight at points) it just wasnt as good feeling as swooping down and attack ships.

so while this title is not the AA title it was said to be, i defenetly feel the reviewers attacked this game because of the hype rather than what the game offered. maybe they were so dissapointed, they just couldnt stand the game in its current form.

In recient weeks I have come to the conclusion, Real gamers dont and should not care about the console war. The console war is infact non-existant. people moan and **** about the processors in the gaming consoles, and about who sold the most consoles from month to month. As interesting as some of those numbers may be, they are pointless facts we can look at.

for my first example i point to the ps2, which was the weakest of all the consoles last generation. no one complained the original xbox could have more polygons than the ps2, it was all about who had the games. Only the games mattered, those who liked sports and first person shooters obviously bought a xbox if they found it for the right price. there was no huge debate on which console could pump out better graphics and so on.

perhaps MS is to blame for starting this fake war, by bringing up numbers and saying they were going to sell more than the console king at this point sony.

i just think its unfortunate so many gamers have become divided because they seem to think there are sides to some sort of console war.

PLAY THE GAMES! NOT THE SYSTEMS!

Considering i havent even touched the campaign yet, i decided to give my views and opinions on what really matters in a UT game...the multiplayer.

Now after being spoiled rotten by XBL for the past few weeks with such titles as Call Of Duty, Halo3, and well... thats about all i play online on the Xbox side of things...anyway, it was hard coming back to the rather messy PSN set up, friends list is much harder to manage(while still not as hard to use as that stupid zune 2.0 software update) and i was once again plunged into a rather lonely online experiance with the PSN. Even after adding about 12 people who said they would be playing UT3 from the forums, i have played with 1 of them...and sent messages back and forth with like 3 of them.

when i was flaoting around the UT3 menus looking to see where i could change my character, i ran into a nice little "friends" and "messages" tab that can be accessed in game...however only friends on your friends list who have played the game show up...and rather than telling you if they are signed on to PSN and just in another game...it only tells you if they are on UT3. anotehr rather annoying thing was when i got i message i went to my message tab...no message...you can only send and recieve messages to and from other ut3 players. to get a message from your friend telling you to get on cod4...you still have to exit the game. so i must say that was a major bummer after seeing the menus like i did. man XBL spoiled me rotten.

now past what are obvious faults with more of the overall construction of the PSN than Unreal. the gameplay, thats where its at. This game feels fast just like the older PC versions of Unreal i use to play. once again your aim has to be dead on in order to take out the enemy, and your reflexes have to be good shape as well. if anything i would say the gameplay is exactly what you expect from unreal...mostly because this game feels like an HD ut2004 rather than a new game completly.

the online portion of this game gets a 8.5-9/10

Now, originally I was against paying 10 dollars for a map pack that only contained 3 maps. However after talking to my friend online, i decided to cough up the 10dollars and get the map pack for myself. after running around on the maps for a couple hours I have to say, I'm gladI bought the maps.

Rat Trap:

this is probably my least fav. of the 3 new maps, mostly because of the limited ammount of use this map will see. the way the map is set up, anything other than rocket races and variations of slayer and zombies would absolutly suck on this map. around the outside of the level is a nice track made for a mongoose or worthog to beable to go around and around in circles, making this probably the best map for a good old rocket race. on the inside of the track is a building on which has 5 or 6 rooms with a room acting as a base at either end. its not too complicated to navigate, but its got a nice area for some CQC-mid range battles. so i really feel this map is good, just isnt going to work well with all gametypes.

7/10

Foundry:

This is the map I like the most, which is rather ironic and ill get into that in a moment. Now i cant give you a review on the actual Foundry map, mostly because i have never seen it. This map is literally a giant room. now what makes this such an interesting map, is bungie included new items in forge to let you make your own map. doors, containers, stairs, bridges, boxes, etc. now using these new items you build your own map, you place the boxes and walls and doors, to your liking changing the map to how you want the map to be played. I would have been the first person to jump up and say how much i hate forge because its worthless on maps such as guardian. but with a plain map with very few actual structures in it, forge finally has a purpose which was to change maps and the game to your liking. with this sort of map you can make the best zombie maps and so on. the map is as good as you are creative. so other than the usual forget is hard to be accurate and precice this is a great map, and so far i have spent 4 hours testing and building my own maps for. or perhaps bungie was just too lazy to make a map so they make their users make maps...=P

9/10

3rd maps whose name i cant remember:

This is a rather odd map...theres 2 large bases a few hundred feet away from each other. the area inbetween the two bases is rather flat making sure you can shoot anyone walking up or away from your base. the only thing i can compare this map to would be a beaver creek meets coagulation. bases are close but the overall terrain is rather flat making it easyier to shoot across the map. i really want to see how this map plays out before i say much more on it. thos i have my concerns on how flat and small the level is with such game types as CTF or even TDM.

not rated/10

well like i said, i would pay the 10 dollars to just get foundry, mostly because i now have the tools to actually make the maps the way i want, not just moving items around on one of bungies pre-made maps.

now most people who see me in the forums talking about XBL and if its priceworthy, i will go all out saying i pretty much hate the fact i have to pay for XBL. most of my issues is the fact there are no dedicated servers to play on. theres only servers for downloadable content, and routing servers that help set up games to play.

well after playing a good deal of games on both PSN and XBL, i have come to another conclusion on why XBL costs money. as ironic as it may sound, you pay for the community. on psn ill be searching for a game to play for minutes at a time, trying to play with some goes in a random game. XBL takes 1/3 of the time and constantly is throwing me from one game to the next. theres just more people playing, more people looking to play, and so on. truely being able to find a game everytime you log on quickly is more than enough reason to buy XBL if you enjoy playing games online.

Today i got in a rather heated debate with my friend over Nintendo, even more specifically Mario Galaxy being a gamecube game with slapped on Waggle controls. he wanted to defent Nintendo by using defenses such as "well maybe its got waggle controlls cause thats what the wii does", which i quickly retoreted with "the wii uses motion controls, mario doesnt use full advantage of those and simple replaces a single button with a waggle. thats not fulyl developed motion control". in the end he refused to listen because i have yet to beat super mario galaxy, thus i have no voice on if the waggle controls are just tacked on. so i agreed to get all the stars and then tell him that i would rather have used a normal controller for the game.

uses of the wii-mote so far (25 stars in)

replacing the attack button with a waggle (replaces a button)

collecting star bits (unnecessary gimick added to the game to try and justify pointing)

controlling mario on a ball (replaces analog stick)

controlling mario on a manta ray (replaces once again analog stick)

pulling mario into blue stars (replaces a combined jump button and analog stick)

One of the best features of Xbox.com is how i can log in and i have access to my friends list and messages and so on. however Sony as far as i can find has no features like this. if im just in the forums and find someone to talk to and want to add to my friends list i need to take a mental note, write down his name and add him when i get on my ps3. it makes it almost a hassel to remember to add friend as i go and grow my list so that i have a better experiance online.

im going to keep it short so, I would really like to have the ability to manage my PSN ID from any computer anywhere, not just PSP when my ps3 is in remote acess or my ps3 when i can get to it.

I don't know why, but i absolutely have almost a none existent friends list. perhaps its because i only add people i like to play with or what, but i have 3 on my friends list 2 of which i don't know. maybe its due to the overall lack of mics on PSN that keep me from getting to know people so that i feel like playing with them again or what. but seriously the PSN community is nearly always dead silent and almost seems kinda cold compared to the immature loud chatter constantly going on in XBL.

i really started to notice this when i started up a gaming clan with my friend and realized on the PSN side of the clan, it was only the two of us. Call of Duty 4 continues to grow this lonely feeling as i see large clans on the other team who work together and act efficiently. i look over at my team of lone-wolfs and just get a feeling im missing out on half the game.

Other titles like Unreal Tournament 3 are about to come out, and it looks like the perfect community to play with friends. you and some joes hook up and just have fun in a fast pace run n gun game. cracking jokes as you play and just have a good time. I use to have experiences like that back when gears of war just came out, and had 8 of my friends in a room chainsawing each other to death.

perhaps gaming as changed as well because I'm not getting this feeling of closeness with my squad mates anymore on the 360 as well. other than the people who go back 2 years with me and those i know in real life i don't get attached to people any more.there isno one that just screams I'm fun to game with in the random matches anymore.

maybe I'm the only one who feels like this or I'm putting too much thought into this matter.

dang it, I'm going t go add some random people who are going to play unreal as well.