Although I haven't been creating video updates lately, I've been playing Steel Battalion: Line of Contact a little more then average lately. For the past week or so, I've been playing every night with Lt. Louis, TheBestMaster (Kyle), D.A.V., Tempress, and others, but tonight put a quick halt on the insane amounts of LOC madness.

As I was dodging Lt. Louis' sniper fire, I heard a small snap in my foot-pedal block. I figured a torsion spring had broken (a minor and fairly common problem), so I kept on playing. In the next battle, however; the problem proved to be much more serious. I slammed down my sidestep as I had done thousands of times before, but this time my pedal didn't come back up. After ejecting, I look down to find my pedal completely severed right in the middle of the plastic. My pedal had just had it. My broken pedal.

Assuming I can still order replacements, I will call Sammy (the maker of the controller) tomorrow to order new pedals and a left block (a long overdue replacement). It should cost me about $80+shipping. In the meantime, I'll attempt to switch the brake and sidestep pedal. So, obviously, no LOC for at least a few days. :( I think the fact that I can't play will make me want to play more and drive me insane. This just sucks.

I was pleasantly surprised today to find one of my favorite racing games appear on the updated Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list. That game is IndyCar Series 2005. So, after playing some LOC tonight, I threw it in my 360, downloaded the emulation software, and created a new profile. While selecting the control setup, I was reminded that the 360 controller really sucks for racing games. This brought an intriguing thought to my mind. Can the Xbox 360 racing wheel be used with backwards compatible games? My guess is that it probably can. If it can, I'll be able to go back to many of my original xbox games and enjoy them with a good racing wheel.

After that interlude in thought, I went to attempt to play the game with the abysmal Xbox 360 controller. After fumbling with shifting for 5 minutes in practice, I decided just to go back and play it on the original xbox. But when I started racing, I realized just how much better the 360 makes the game look. Here is an example. (click to enlarge)

Ya, the 360 has more anti-aliasing issues, but damn it looks alot nicer! Now only if I could easily transfer all my setups. :|

Anyone who has played Xbox Live throughout its lifetime can think back to the days when Ubisoft's Tom Clancy games such as Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and Splinter Cell dominated the entire Xbox live community. My first was Ghost Recon: Island Thunder. GRIT had a unique element of strategy no other game, at the time, could match. After playing some Moto GP, my buddies and I would hop onto GRIT and play several hours every night. That was until, several months later, when Rainbow Six 3 came out. After sitting on the dashboard watching everyone play it 24/7 for a week, I finally broke down a purchased it. Almost instantly, I was hooked. I remember being proud of my 30 hours in the first week. Again, Ubi managed to balance action and strategy into multiplayer that became so incredibly addictive! Then came, almost with ease, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow. Both great games! Everywhere you looked on your friends list, you couldn't help but see a Tom Clancy game.

But then, almost without warning, things went wrong. Very wrong. Ghost Recon 2 came out. The much simplified squad command and mission structure made the single player and coop feel drab. The multiplayer was a spawn killers heaven. Then the game everyone who loved Rainbow Six 3 was waiting for. Rainbow Six: Lockdown came out. They totally ruined the single and multiplayer! It was totally arcade style all of the sudden. The game would later be re-dubbed by fans of the series, "Rainbow Six : Letdown." Critical Hour and GRAW only continued the now traditional simplification and negative trends of the games. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was the only game to escape the madness. Hopefully, Splinter Cell can continue to be good, and Vegas can go back on the right track. But as of now, I have little hope.

In other news, yesterday a new trailer for Ace Combat X was released. It looks like it is indeed getting the full fledged Ace Combat treatment. I was half expecting it to be a glorified AC5 arcade mode. It sounds as though they're keeping the traditional faces on the musical front, although the music seems to have taken yet another drastic turn in its evolution. It sounds kind of like Ace Combat 3's electronica. The Trailer! (click on "trailers" in the main nav - I can't link to it directly)

I've been tracking Test Drive: Unlimited since I got a 360. I'm not a big fan of Arcade racers, but some of its ideas sounded cool. Well, when I woke up this morning, there was a demo for the game on XBL Marketplace. After Downloading, I played the thing for nearly three hours straight! The game is so cool! Basically, there's a huge city for you to drive around in. While you're cruising the city, you'll be thrown into a random online game with up to eight others (usually 7 or 8 ). You can then chase each other around or drive up to an opponent and issue a challenge. If the challenge is accepted, you are thrown into a map showing the start (where you issued the challenge), and you can pick a place (on a road) to be the finish. At certain spots around the city, you can enter into single player time trial events, or online race events. When entering an online race, a lobby system is available (with quickmatch, etc.). From the cash you earn in those online and offline events, you can buy new cars located at dealers around the city. In the demo, there is a Lamborghini dealer with four cars available to buy. All that is good, but most importantly, the driving is just fun! The Ninja motorcycle is particularly fun to drive (even though the falling physics suck). If you have a 360 you NEED to download this demo! It's so enjoyable! You can even invite your friends from the online race lobbies. Send me one! Here is some footage from the demo: [video=cXU3wTb95bsIvD7b] With the price at $40, I'm definitely getting this game!

I can't even tell you why, but I'm really excited about almost all the first party accessories coming out for the Xbox 360. The Live Vision Camera looks really well integrated with the rest of the dash, the Racing Wheel looks like it has quality on par with Logitech products (not to mention the cool pedal design to avoid slipping), and I can't wait for the wireless headset so I can go eat greasy food and not have to worry about trying to lug my controller along to go wash my hands. In recent years, I can't recall this kind of first party accessory support from any company. I like it! When a first party releases an accessory, you can pretty much guarantee it's of good quality. In my mind, the extreme first party support raises questions about the required licensing of 360 accessories for 3rd parties. In the past, if you wanted to make an accessory for a console, you didn't have to pay the console maker. However, for the 360, MS is requiring licensing for all accessories. Is MS being "forced" to release these accessories themselves because of the licensing? What do you guys think?

To be frank, Texas Hold'em poker for XBLA sucks. It's as basic a poker game can be. But for free, I can't complain. I just feel bad for the people who will get suckered into buy the game for $10.

On the Chromehounds front, last week some new parts were released. The first round of new parts from Sega (a few weeks back) was free, but this go-around, they cost some real money. There are about 7 new weapons at 100 MS points a piece, and 2 new spacers at 60 points per part. For those who don't know there MS points, that's $1.25 per weapon. Purchasing the weapon "unlocks" the part for you to buy an unlimited quantity of in the in-game shop. Personally, I think 100 points is too much to ask, and subsequently, won't be buying any of them. I do, however, commend Sega for keeping the parts in balance with the rest of the game. If you don't have the parts, you can play against those who do, and they're not extremely overpowering. All the Download parts seem to be a little better then the strongest of their respective type defaultly avalible in the game, but thankfully Sega doesn't practically force you to buy them. Thank you Sega! While on the subject of Chromehounds, I'd like to express my displeasure in the Gamespot Chromehounds Tournament. It was simply stupid! They played the most nonstrategic gametype possible. I wanted to see some cool strategy being played out! I wanted to see some RoleTypes! That's the last time I'll ever get excited about Tournament TV. They've all been lame lately anyway. Now, to talk about something that will hopefully not be lame at all: The Xbox Live Vision Camera! From the moment I first heard about this thing (even on the original xbox), all I could think of was going into a chatroom and having to, even if for only a few seconds, witness the horror of a big dick on my screen. Putting those fears aside, however; the thing looks freaking awesome! Jeff's blog post really sold me. I can't wait to get a picture of my lego avatar for my personal picture! I'm just a sucker for cool accessories. Some might call that a bad thing. But how could it be? It led me to the greatest game ever! Lately, I've been getting my hot card action fix on Uno with Neo Jedi, RRoss, Dwraith, and Satchmo Baggins. We have a blast! But within just two short days we'll be playing some Poker! (for free) Whew! It's kind of funny how many people don't even know it's free for 48 hours. I had to tell two clueless guys at work. :) P.S. I was just listening to Keiki Kobayashi's Agnus Dei (Ace Combat 04 Soundtrack), and it remined me of this Steel Battalion: LOC video I made quite a while back. Check it out! [video=ICRnkGH75bkIuA]

For years, I've proudly announced, "Graphics don't matter." I always said that, but I never knew if it was true. The quality of visuals can attract me to some games, and turn me away from others. Graphics pre-release power goes unchallenged every time there is a new game announcement, and is looked at as an early sign of quality in a game. But do they really matter? For me, getting a 360 has made me come to realize, once and for all, that they don't. Sure, I could treat my eyes to the bright and brilliant explosions of Chromhounds, or the pristine gore of a Katana slicing through 8 zombies in a single swipe on my 360, but a lot of the time, I'm still playing my original xbox. You know, games with stunning graphics like Operation Flashpoint: Elite and SB: LOC. ;)

When I first got my Xbox 360, I thought the white controller was sleek and cool because it was different. I had been using black controllers for my Xbox and PS2 for 5 years, and it really started to get boring. But after playing my Xbox 360 for six weeks, I'm starting to wish it was black again. Why? Because my controller is turning brown/grey, and that's really disgusting. In many of the cracks and several surfaces, an absolutely sickening scum is taking over. And generally, I'd say I wash my hands more then most people. So that's not the problem. If MS ever makes a Black or Grey controller, I'll be the first in line. I finally got to play some Steel Battalion: LOC tonight. Here is some of the action: [video=I3JnlDas5bsPvTPW] We actually managed to pull some people away from CH to play about six great games. Good stuff guys!

In playing 360 games, I've noticed a somewhat disturbing trend. That is, making games for high definition TVs and ignoring the fact that the game doesn't work very well in standard-definition. The biggest issue is unreadable text. I've seen this in XBL Arcade games (Cloning Clyde) as well as many full priced games. The problem makes sense in that text becomes more difficult to read in less pixels, but it's troubling that more developers aren't doing anything about this blatant issue. Every time a new batch of games comes out, it just seems to get worse. I don't know what percentage of 360 owners are HDTV owners, but I can't imagine it being anything over 40%. This problem hit particularly hard in Dead Rising. So much so, in fact, that Capcom has said that they're considering working on a patch for the issue. Here are a couple examples (click to enlarge): Keep in mind that these look better on my monitor then they do on my TV. Many times I really have to strain to fill in the unreadable gaps in Dead Rising's unvoiced text. As for the Chromehounds screenshot, anyone with half a brain can read the text under all those bars, right? Developers need to face the facts. Not everyone has a $2000 HDTV like the one they all play it on. In other news, I've beaten Dead Rising once, and am slowly working through it a second time. Also, after beating Dead Rising, I'm back to playing my regular games like Chromehounds, and Operation Flashpoint. Unfortunately, Steel Battalion: Line of Contact (LOC) seems to have taken its last breath. KingLeer, Kaebora, and I haven't been able to get a proper game for quite some time. I haven't given up on the greatest game of all-time, but other former players seem to have there head in their ass (aka: playing CH when they could be playing LOC).

Well, I played the game about 10 hours today. While the save system still blows, the games action grew on me. At one point I ran out of time and had to restart, but other then that, the game hasn't been that frustrating. I've learned how to somewhat counteract the save system's extreme prejudice. And because of that, I really got some good enjoyment out of the game. Once your all set up, the boss battles are particularly memorable. The psychopaths are extremely fun to fight. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had when you take one out. And in many cases, its the journey, not the destination which turns out to be the most fun. When your in a mess of zombies that all want to kill you, and your just struggling to hang on for dear life hoping no one can get a good grip on you, its seriously freaking intense! Definitely one of the more intense game experiences I've had in quite some time. I think the reason I hated the game so much yesterday (as opposed to today) was because of conflicts in what I thought the game was about, and what the game really is about. Most of the content I've seen from the game focused on showing ridiculous weapons, and a million different ways to kill zombies. But today, the day after, I stepped back and looked at the game from another angle. Not the angle that I saw in preview footage, but instead, let the game present itself. That's why I'm able to say positive things about the game. The game is less about killing zomies, and more about saving people. And the game is more about defeating crazy psychopaths/bosses then about crazy weapons. One thing that really bothers me is that when it comes down to the missions/bosses, almost the whole game is gunplay. I guess this wouldn't sting so much if the aiming mechanics weren't so stupidly designed. First, you aim with the left stick. No other game does this and it confuses the crap out of me. Secondly, you can't move at all when you are in aiming mode. And to make this worse, when you go into aiming mode, the gun points in the direction your character is facing, as opposed to the camera direction. This makes precise movement and quick aiming nearly impossible. And again, nothing I saw in any preview footage indicated gunplay would be such a big part of the game. Dead Rising is a case of mass misinformation. It's what the gameing media wants to show you vs. what Capcom wants to show you vs. what the game actually is.