Hi,

So, improbably as it is, the original Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is probably my favourite game of all time. Earned In Blood was also excellent and Hell's Highway, which I just finished, was good but not great.

What I loved about the game was the superb combination of twitch gameplay with pressure tactics, taxing both your trigger finger and your brain. I loved that there were points in the game where you could be pinned down, in an apparently hopeless situation, and actually plan your way out of it, letting your squads do the work and without firing a single shot yourself.

That's quite different from the usual "tactical" shooter gameplay where the tactics consist of little more than planning on which pillars and walls to hide behind and learning the AI routines of the guards.

I also enjoyed the astonishing realism, missions based on history, maps built on actual area photos and the like.

So now that I've played all three games in the series, is there anything else - any budget, any platform - that has vaguely similar game play? As far as I know BIA is fairly unique, but I'd really, really like to be proved wrong.

Cheers,

Matt

So my old, original model 360 finally hit me with the red ring of death. Right when I was getting into Arkham Asylum too.

Was surprised to find out that it's not easy to get it repaired on the high street, and also how expensive it was. One local shop charges £50 with only a 50% success rate! The cheapest I've seen so far is £45 with P&P, and a whopping ten-day turn around:

http://www.undercutter.co.uk/xbox360-repair-services

Of course I have no idea whether that's a particularly legitimate repair service or not. And I'm given to understand that old consoles, once they've had the red ring once, are quite likely to do it again.

So then I started wondering about whether to get a new one. I can walk into Argos and pick up a 250GB model for £170, sell the controller and my old hard drive to get back £20-30 and I'm looking at 3x the repair cost. No need to worry about a recurrance of the heat damage. Quieter running (not a small thing since it's also my main DVD player and Media Center). Wifi and a direct plug for the Kinect are small but pleasing extras.

So what's the word on this - new one, or repair? And if it's repair what's the best place to get it done?

Cheers,

Matt

Thanks for the advice guys. Sounds like it's a goer. I'll take a look at some of the games you've mentioned.

I've got two daughters, aged (just) 3 and six.

Been wondering if they might enjoy a Kinect as a joint Christmas present (I already have a 360, obviously). I'm sure the older one would, but what about my pre-schooler? Will it even pick her up? Are there any worthwhile games she can play or (better) that they could play together?

Anyone got any experience with this?

i recommend an antec fusion remote case. it is an awesome case, pretty small and still fits full sized cards. i just built a new pc and got this case to put my old pc in for hooking it up to the tv. i love the case. it's not a new idea btw, lots of people do it, just not for games as most pc gamers prefer mouse and keyboard and that's not too easy from the couch. MuD3

Hence my question about the suitability of games controllers with PC games.

Good wireless mice and keyboards have a high premium in cost, you can't just get some random wireless combo and expect it to be as good as a wired mouse and keyboard. C_Rule

Luckily, this is something I already have covered :)

Thanks for the advice, all. This is sounding increasingly like it might be a good idea for me.

Hi,

So, recently I've been kicking around the idea of getting a new laptop, seeing as my PC is over six years old now and starting to show its age pretty badly. I work as well as game on the PC so it's obviously something I'd rather have than a games console, but the trouble with a laptop for gaming is that visual display and controls are obviously a bit wonky if you're going to - as I would - sit it on your knee and try to play.

While pondering this issue the other day, I was struck by the idea that if you bought a small-case PC, you could plug it into the TV, get yourself a wireless keyboard, mouse and game controller, and have all the comfort and conveniecne of a games console while also being able to work on the system if you want to, as well as having a neat media center into the bargain.

The more I thought about this, the more it seemed like such a fantastic idea that I had trouble working out why more people didn't do it. About the only problem I could think of was that PC games might not adapt well to a controller and you'd end up faffing about with a keyboard and mouse on your knee - I've never used a plugin controller on the PC so I have no idea how well the motion translates. I can imagine it might be difficult playing an FPS game designed for a mouse on a controller, for example.

So is this a problem? Or are there more issues I need to know about? And if not, why don't more people do it?

Cheers,

Matt

That's a shame, thanks for letting me know.

Looks like I'll be hanging on to the old console until I can finally finish Morrowind then :)

Hi,

Finally planning on upgrading my old Xbox for a 360. :)

However there are a couple of games that I'd like to keep playing on my new console and so ideally I'd like to get my data across from my old console to the new one.

Is there any way to do this?

The effort is likely to be hampered somewhat by the fact that I don't have an Xbox live subscription and my old console isn't connected to the internet. However I'm planning on getting a subscription with the new console, and I'm happy to try connecting the old console and activating it first if that's any help.

Cheers,

Matt