I intended yesterday to engage in some Marvel: Ultimate Alliance action with an online mate who recently rented Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The more the merrier for that game. I was looking forward to getting my game on with it... But oh my... Activision/Raven Software... What HAVE you done?

 The update that prepares your game for the possibility of the new characters was released a couple days ago, and I have it. However... Apparently, the update messed up some peoples games, so they took the update down and delayed the new characters. Now. My friend, gets the game on rental for a three day gaming session of it hopefully with me and this other guy who has it. But... Now the update is gone, he can't get it. And people who don't have the update can't play with people who do. And if you try it gets really stupid and doesn't even TELL you that it isn't working, just leaves you sitting at the loading screen like a lemon until you reset your console.

So much for that. :( Hopefully he'll get the game again sometime in the future when the update is out. And hopefully by then we'll have those new characters which look awesome. It's a shame, though.

In other "UPDATES RUIN EVERYTHING" news, the Shivering Isles bug for PC is causing even MORE trouble. Apparently the patch that fixes the current bug introduces a NEW one. Which resets everything about your character. What's even WORSE is, there are now reports of the initial bug happening on Xbox 360's, but Bethesda, thus far, at time of writing, is refusing to acknowledge that the issue is present on Xbox 360 aswell. Could mean trouble, and I advise not getting that Expansion pack if you were considering it, at least until all this is sorted.

In the absence of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance I played Halo 2 again for the first time in a while. It was intensely fun, actually and it's incredible how that game still holds up so well. If Halo 3 is going to be even better then... Well. We're going to have quite a game on our hands, ladies and gentlemen.

Project: Top Secret rolls along at a steady pace, with people dropping like flies. We seem to have gone from over 26000 people to.... About 200 max. And that's only going to drop further as more and more people have their ideas not picked for the game at certain stages, I fear. After some initial friction and turbulence over the first stage of the process, it was re-done, addressing many of the issues I previously had with it. We have decided that the visual style of the game will be Anime, and are now onto deciding what exactly this game is going to be about, what it's main "hook(s)" is/are going to be. Exciting, and truly interesting stuff both in terms of game design and group dynamics.

Back to College soon... Less gaming time, but oh well. This past 2 weeks has been pretty awesome as Holidays go. Besides my birthday, driving lessons, generally relaxing, a lot has happened in terms of videogames...

Annex came out in Gears. Halo 3 beta dated, new Halo 3 video, Xbox 360 spring update announced (MSN ON XBOX! Still pumped about that), got back into Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, did more Crackdown, advanced significantly in my Uno challenge, I kicked some major ass in Gears (And met some major ass in ranked games), played Halo 2, enjoyed Tournament TV Gears of War, two decent "On the Spot"s, two excellent "HotSpot"s and more. S'all good, and here's hoping the good times continue.

Nab's thought: Still need something to spend my Microsoft points on...