Its not one of those games that was really heavily praised for regarded for its story, nor was the story a big part of its experience, but when I think of the story of Prince of Persia, The Sands of Time, and how it was executed, and the way that it ended, I get a big ol' smile on my face.

So that's mine.

From what the OP defined as "art games", I'd take it to refer to games I've played in the past where I felt like my participation in the game was a subtle form of manipulation that the developer played on me to be part of a bigger experience or message that he or she was trying to express. Other games where this comes to mind is Braid (in a HUGE way), and to lesser degrees, Heavy Rain, and perhaps even the (Spoilers!) boss fight against The Sorrow in Metal Gear Solid 3.

Personally, I'm bummed they never got any of the Rallisport Challenge games to be backwards compatible on the 360, let alone being able to play them online.

Regardless, we just put together a little video feature where we sound off on saying goodnight to the original Xbox live service. Hope you enjoy it!

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/halo2/video/6258405/original-xbox-live-shuts-down

If I recall correctly, Alex Rigopolus of Harmonix said in an interview with us at E3... 2007? that he wanted Rock Band to allow people who didn't play instruments to be able to experience the sense of togetherness and symbiosis of playing music with other people. He also joked make a joke later on, once the drum controller had been revealed, that his other secret agenda was for Rock Band to help create "an army of rock drummers" in the world, but I don't think he was ever too serious about this.

I don't think that Harmonix or Neversoft had any aspirations of Rock Band or Guitar Hero to ever be proper learning tools to help someone play guitar or drums. Even the drums, which are a fairly close analog to the real thing, won't teach you anything about the root fundamentals of drumming. As a drummer, one thing I have appreciated through Rock band is playing through the music of other drummers. its greatly diversified the rhythms I come up with in the band that I play in.

Its easy to see how these games might provide the seed of an idea in someone's head that they'd like to pursue learning a musical instrument, but it isn't a teaching tool. Its a rock show simulator to bring together musicians and amateurs alike, and its a pretty fun one at that.

I've tried to look at it from a number of different angles. As has been said already, 1200 MSP is a very steep price for three new maps and 2 old ones. But from what I've seen, the maps look very well crafted and look to be a pretty quality product. Also, when I look back on my time spent in MW2, and consider the number of hours of entertainment the game has given me, measured against the retail cost of the game, overall its some pretty cheap entertainment, even with the map pack factored in.

On the other hand, I'm trying to move on to other games. There's way too much good stuff coming out.

For what its worth, Baja was a pretty good game - and quite challenging to boot. It lacked some polish in a few areas, but the gameplay was quite solid. A rock crawling & trail rding game would be pretty neat - if fairly focused in scope. I'd be interested in seeing how devs would handle the controls.

Have you tried Trials HD on Xbox live? It might scratch some of the itch.

Looks like Baja: Edge of Control to me.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/driving/bajaedgeofcontrol/images/0/16/?tag=thumbs_below;thumb;16

Yeah, get the Orange Box. that's about 40 hours of totally excellent FPS gameplay, and then you get to play Portal.

Outlaws is one of the few PC games that has survived many, many moves since I bought it so many years ago. Every now and again I install it to run it again, but I've never since been able to get it to run the redbook CD audio properly, so there's no soundtrack. And without that soundtrack, there's a LOT less incentive to play it.

I'm still pretty sure this was the first FPS with a sniper rifle in it.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a shoot at Lucas Ranch - which is what the layout for the final stage of Outlaws is based on. Still reminded me of playing through those final gunfights.

Thanks for the advice fellows - we'll see how it goes.

Business_Fun

If you end up taking my advice, while you're trimming it back, please do the needful and carve yourself one of these:

Take pics, and please share 'em. :lol: