Well, kinda.

I re-installed Battlefield 2 but the ranked servers still claimed I had modified something (maybe the mini-mods in the mods folder), but I did play some unranked. In a few, the whole place was populated with team-killers. In one memoriable game, with 50 people on the smallest Gulf Of Omah (or whatever it's called), I revived so many people the server told me to spamming as my character kept saying "Clear!"

I also played Perfect Dark Zero's multiplayer a bit more in-depth. Without my premium stuff, or the hard drive to transfer my old account over, I was restricted to only the bots, but, dang, it was fun. All those weapons . . . it was great. In one rocket match, I camped on an ammo respawner and used the secondary fire to continually hit the enemies on the other side of a cliff face on the "Desert" map. My killing streak got to 30 before the match ended! On another, the only weapons were these sword things in the cramped allies of the "Old Town" map. Kill-con-carnage, as the PDZ announcer says. The sniper isn't so great, however, as the scope is incredibly difficult to use.

Eventually, my X360 started freezing up and I figured it was overheating. This has happened multiple times after a few hours of gameplay; I noticed the back of the console grows much hotter than the original Xbox. Can anyone confirm this?

Okay, I talked to the REAL manager (turned out the guy who messed up was one of the assistant managers) and I'll be getting all of the extra stuff as soon as it comes in.

Well, I'm still gonna buy Call of Duty 2, and Oblivion later, but for now I'll have to play PDZ without a hard drive. Which means, I can't save - there's no way I'm spending $40 on a memory card I'm only going to use once.

In other news: I'm going to re-install my copy of Battlefield 2 and take out all of the map-enlarging and NPC-adding mods, so I can play online.

One word sums up my launch night: crap.

As you may have read in my previous entry, I waited in line at WalMart for 13 hours. I went to pick up my Premium at midnight . . . and it turns out the only guys who got a Premium bribed the manager.

I do have a core package now, but there are absolutely no hard drives available anywhere. I may have to buy a Premium package, and then I'll have two Xbox 360's . . . I also could sell the core on eBay as a "buy now" for $500.

I did buy Perfect Dark Zero. At first, I didn't find it that great; mostly the aiming threw me off. A tried the bots on easy and thought they were almost as stupid as the WalMart employees, but once I set the difficulty up the game became great. Without the hard drive, though, I can't save it or anything, but I love the new features I can't use.

Well, just my luck, right?

Woohoo! I've just spent the last 13 hours of my life in a Wal-Mart, sitting in a line and awaiting the release of the Xbox 360. I came at 9:00 AM, this one kid skipped me in line; by 10:00 PM, we have gotten our tickets to get the 360 at 12:01 . . .

But it was obvious the Wal-Mart people did not know what they were talking about, and the future is still clouded. On Saturday, when we first inquired about the purchase, I called and they said you could reserve it. We headed to the store, where the manager said you can't, and that there will be 12 Core units and 2 Premium packages. When I arrived on Monday, today, they said by 1:00 PM that there will be 9 Core units. And that's it. That bummed us out pretty big, and a few left. I decided to stick around. So, the number of units and the packages bounced from 7 to 16 to 14 to 9 to 10 and so on. They finally told us that there were 10 and no Premium, but I decided to just buy the extra accessories the next day. At 10:00, I confronted the manager and he said there were 2 Premiums. I won't find out 'til we head back at 11:40 . . .

The 1-player campaign mode for Doom 3 may be to terrifying to take on alone, but the co-op is completely awe-inspiring. I noticed that the changes were quite significant; not only was there a lack of PDA or Soulcube, but there were many, many more enemies, and the game was quite a bit shorter. There were also different boss encounters, it seemed.

The basics of the Doom 3 co-op were very well thought-through. The dropped backpack idea was neat, and, thankfully, the co-op wasn't like Dynasty Warrior, for example (it wasn't game over if one of the two died). It was particularly horrifying when your companion dies and you are trapped in a very dark area, awaiting his return.

Overall, the co-op mode was VERY good, and I understand why it requires a system link to play (the graphics are so advanced, the Xbox couldn't handle both screens on one TV). It was a bit aggravating when we had to go out and rent another copy of the game, and get a system link cable.

The November issue of OXM is very convincing. With a look at the screenshots and others' opinions, Perfect Dark Zero didn't appear to live up to expectations a few months ago. Now, the game looks very, very good. My only misgiving is the "Jackal Sniper Rifle" weapon, which is what many people called the Beam Rifle in Halo 2. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the magazine.

Also, the demo wasn't the best, but it was packed. The demo of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was disappointing, especially after I played Battlefield 2. It's an exact third-person copy! Plus, playing a Jedi takes the charm out of it (Battlefront was all about fighting as one of the grunts, and now you're a hero yet again). The demo also had time limits, which sucked.

In other news: I bought Battlefield 2, an awesome game. What I didn't like was the lack of SP levels; there were only ten. I noticed a had the level "Maashtur City" or something like that in my files, but not actually in the game. Anybody know whats up with that?

Huh, for some reason I can't delete or move games from my collection or now playing list . . . Mebbe its this new computer.

Yeah, a few days ago I bought The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind GOTY, and its gooooood. One of the best games I've ever played, in fact.

And I'll probably be the proud owner of Battlefield 2 soon.

Whooo! :D

Yes, I'm in line for the Xbox 360, which I will be getting around November 26 or Christmas. I'm not yet sure if I'll be able to buy it off of store shelves (my back-up plan, however, is to camp outside of the local definite retailer for mine); I'd rather have the security of a preorder. Definitely not the $600 bundle - that's pretty much the premium (or pro) with a bunch of crappy launch games (only racing games and Perfect Dark Zero, which looks like a disappointment).

I also just traded in Unreal II: The Awakening and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (possibly the most overrated game in existence) for Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. I was also able to finally beat the last level . . . *exhale* Look for a review in the near future.

First off, before addressing the entry title, I must give one final update on the Steam problem: my unnaturally slow dial-up connection gave me more than 4000 minutes to update Half-Life 2. Therefore, I am now selling Half-Life platinum collection (due to the fact it doesn't work on XP), SWAT 4 (breathtakingly dull after the first play-through) and Half-Life 2.

Also, I am now adding a (+R) to all journal entries that include a game review, and a fancy new subsection:

REVIEW: Destroy All Humans

VERSION: Xbox

After playing Destroy All Humans, I am very surprised it got such a low rating on Gamespot. The single-player campaign lasted a good 13+ hours, straight-through - each time I thought the game was almost over, another mission came up. There is a great freedom of movement; there are usually many ways to complete a mission goal. Much of the game reminds me of Grand Theft Auto; if enough humans are aware of your presence, your alert meter goes up, like the stars in GTA.

The story is fairly interesting, but not enough that you look forward to the next cutscene. You are the Crypto of the Furons - a species degenerated from constant war against other worlds. Apparently, the Furons were once related to humans; deep inside a human's brain are strands of DNA that connect the two species. The Furons exist solely because of cloning, and each generation is worse than the last; its up to Crypto to invade Earth and harvest the DNA from the humans' brains and repair his species. Crypto is guided by Pox, the overseer of the invasion, as he attacks several different cities and wreaks massive havok.

Now, Destroy All Humans isn't the greatest game in the world - it doesn't come close. The missions are fairly repetitive, and it gets old very fast. The weapons at your disposal aren't interesting after a few missions, though some are quite amusing - one particular gun overloads the human's brain and causes their heads to explode, allowing DNA to be collected. Still, with the exaggerated ragdoll physics, it is great fun to throw humans up in the air and watch them hit the ground with a crunch, or just fling them to and fro, listening to their screams of terror. If you are particularly sadistic, you can hurl enemies into the air and catch them just before they hit the ground, or smash them into the pavement repeatedly, or launch them into walls.

Using his psychokenesis powers, Crypto can scan minds, implant thoughts, extract brains, or simply pick up objects and toss them at will. It uses up mind power, so you must recharge or scan more minds to keep your abilities intact, especially so when you are disguising yourself from the enemy with the Holobob - you can take on a human's exact appearance and melt into the crowd. The missions aren't to tough or frustrating; it is usually very easy just to flee and let your shields recharge (Halo, anyone?).

Overall, Destroy All Humans offers some quick fun, great for a weekend rental. The repetitive gameplay and lack of multiplayer causes the game to become old very quickly.

It's been a long time since my last journal, and a bit has happened . . . I got onto Xbox Live (Halo 2) after an entire summer's break from it. For some reason, I had lost every single level, while my friend (whom started several months after me) was just breaking level 20.

I've been powerleveling for the last month, and I'm now at level 20, while he's at at 23. I can't get anywhere now; on Team Skirmish, I am constantly suffering feeble teammates; at Team Slayer, I'm on a run of encountering De-Rankers on my own team. Why doesn't Bungie add "Teamkilling Behavior" as feedback? Rumble pit seems my only hope (how dramatic).

And today, I discovered, diagnosed, and repaired the Steam problem. My mother - yes, I admit it, my mother - set AOL on mature teen, but external programs cannot connect, like iTunes and Steam. Setting it on General, however, finally allowed Steam to update, but I only reached "Preparing to Play Half-Life 2" before encountering yet another dead end. It gets stuck there - which is probably attributed to my firewall or something of that nature. Unfortunately, I was not able to ascertain the problem's nature - my dear old mother switched me back to Mature Teen. I'll have to lobby for General, or get Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to work, in order to research the said dead end.

I also just checked out the specs, pricing, and J Allard's defense of the Xbox 360. $400 may be a hefty amount - but Christmas is only . . . eh . . . five months away, and anyone who still lives with their beloved parents will probably be able to force the dough out of them and into the gift wrap. I can't really envision anyone buying the "Core Package" or whatever it is. Why get a '360 without the hard drive? Why?

Hopefully, by my next journal, I will have Half-Life 2 working (by the way, I installed another 512 MB, bringing my RAM up to 960 MB).