Thought i was gone, well not anymore!

I bet most of you thought that since i haven’t been able to play games with you guys on Xbox live that i might be gone from XBL Radio forever, guess what, I am back, but this time as a writer.

I’ve had a few problems lately with my 360 and my internet(no three rings of death, but close enough). I can either set up my router so i can play games online, or have an internet connection on my computer. I guess this is more or less a moral dilemma to me because i just wish i could have both and be done with it, but i can’t and that’s where I am stuck. If you guys have any way of helping me out here, please let me know because i want to get back to some gaming nights and keep on fragging Mr. Steve like i used to.

Well anyways, it’s great to be back as a writer, as a poster in the forums, and as a part of the greatest gaming community out there. I will do my best for all of you, because the gamers are the best people out there, rock on.

Take care,

Matt(Mr. B4)

XBL Radio Gaming Night 7/28

Come join us tomorrow for an XBL Radio Gaming Night. Tomorrows game, Bomberman!! as voted by you guys in the forums. We will kick off gaming night at 7pm pacific time, all you have to do to join us is send me a message over Xbox Live requesting an invite. Now space is limited, especially with Bomberman maxing out at 8 players so it will be strictly first come, first serve. But if you don’t get in or don’t have the game, don’t worry, because all you have to do is check out our forums to see what else is being played tomorrow and message that person. So take it easy everyone and I hope to see you online tomorrow night.

Wing Commander Arena Initial Impressions

Wednesday at 5 AM EST, Wing Commander Arena, a space combat action game, was released on the Xbox Live Market place for 800. Wing Commander Arena is a spin-off from the franchise Wing Commander, which was released in 1990. Wing Commander was published by EA and developed by Gaia Studios. Just as expected for an Xbox Live Arcade game, Wing Commander Arena was completely remade from the ground up; having better graphics, sound, and enhanced features such as multiplayer over Xbox Live as well as playing in 2D as opposed to 3D, so don’t expect a souped up port.

This is being written from the point of view of a person who is looking for another good Xbox Live Arcade game. Just seeing the videos on IGN made me excited for this title, despite not playing its predecessors. When I played my first single player match, I noticed that the controls were very easy to pick up. Everything felt fluid and natural. The first game that came to my mind when I played this was Star Fox for the N64. I felt a similar level of enjoyment from Wing Commander, despite playing in 2D. As far as game balance goes, Giga Studios nailed it. It was as easy to go on the attack as it was to defend, making for very interesting battles. Other than straight up deathmatches, Wing Commander had an interesting gametype. This gametype had two GIANT motherships. The object of the gametype was to destroy the opponent’s mothership. The mothership was equipped with turrets and weapons. The mothership could not be destroyed by firing it in general; it could only be destroyed by taking out the mothership’s weakspots. Overall this gametype was intense and lengthy.

The best part of Wing Commander is the plethora of power-ups and ships at your disposal. Power-ups had a wide variety of effects ranging from defense to offense. Some of these included energy efficiency, clone, absorption, refill weapons arsenal, enhance shields, and MUCH MUCH more. Ships in Wing Commander ranged from little fast ships to colossal tanks. Each ship could hold four weapons and had its own stats such as hull strength, thrust power, turning radius, and velocity. However, I was very disappointed about one part of Wing Commander Arena. It lacked 4 player local multiplayer; a feature that is now becoming less and less of a trend on the Xbox 360. 4 player splitscreen would have been totally possible, but it only has single player and online.

If you are looking for a fast paced action game, Wing Commander Arena is for you. Only playing for just a few hours, it feels like Wing Commander Arena has made its way in the top five Xbox Live Arcade Games. Overall, Wing Commander Arena is definitely worth the 800. I would definitely recommend Wing Commander Arena as a purchase for any hardcore gamer.

Those that cannot innovate, replicate.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)

Are you familiar with William Dean Howell’s Christmas Every Day? One of my favorite hobbies, gaming, is starting to look an awful lot like Christmas. And it isn’t good.

I’m simply not having fun anymore. After years of shooting, jumping, sneaking, and more recently covering, the twinkle in this gamer’s eyes is gone. I used to get home after a long day, relax on my favorite chair and smile as I turned my console on. Now I find myself actually procrastinating from gaming. Why is that? For years I’ve had fun playing these games…these same old games…maybe that’s the problem? It’s not me it’s you baby, you haven’t changed at all, and I think it’s time we take a break and start seeing other things. We can still be friends?

Pretty much every game falls into one of two categories:

1) The Sequel Addict: They thrive on nostalgia, name recognition, and fear of change. They’ll splash on some new paint and hide by new release shelves. Sometimes they’ll go so far as implementing shiny new features, but look past the jewelry and you’ll find the same old game you spent far too many nights with.
2) The Genre Culprit: These are perhaps the worst of the two. They lie and deceive you into thinking that they’re completely different. They’ll mesmerize you with a couple new tricks, maybe even throw new modes and features at you. You’ll love the novelty, the adventure of treading new territory…but the second you get comfortable the surface strips away, and you’ll realize the shocking truth: not only have you, and everyone, been here before, but this is a Sequel Addict in the making.

Just take a look at some upcoming releases:
Read the rest of this entry »

Coming up on show 100!

Alright everyone I just wanted to let you know that our next .5 show will be our 100th show. Now this might not sound like a huge feat but you have to remember where we are coming from. We are in fact just a bunch of regular gamers that try to put together a show every week for you guys to listen to.

We are no experts on the subject matter but we do try to stay informed as much as possible to keep you guys in the loop. We don’t get paid for what we do, but we do put together, what I think, is probably the best put together podcast out there. Consider our show format, special segments and Carpal’s and Rusty’s awesome editing skills (they wouldn’t say that themselves so I figured I would). Now I can probably go on and on about the show and fun moments but I will save that for the special show.

I do however have a couple of fun facts that I want to share with you all. Now we have never really shared our show stats but I just want to let you guys know what you have helped us achieve. Throughout our time of doing XBL Radio we have went from a show with really no listeners and no followers to a show that has around 25,000 downloads per month (this is total show and interview downloads). In the past year we have went through over 5 terabytes of bandwidth, just for our mp3’s alone. And all this is because of you guys, our awesome community, which covers over 140 different countries. We have started up new segments as well, like the Gamer’s Video Update, which again, because of you guys has had well over 150,000 downloads in only 7 months since it started (even with all my vacations and such). This is what we, just a bunch of average guys, have accomplished, and because of this, we are able to help you guys get a voice in the community. So because of your help and support I just want to say thank you.

Now for our 100th show we are going to have a few special things lined up. Maybe a few giveaways, maybe a few cameos (you never know), but I don’t want to stop there. I want you guys, and gals, to be apart of our special show, I have setup a voice mail line where you can call and leave a kind message and we will play it on our show, the phone number is, (206) 965-9269. All you have to do is call that number and leave a voicemail saying whatever you want to say. Now it would be nice if you do it starting off with your gamertag, where your from, your site (if you have one) and then your message. So please give that number a call and you will have your voice heard on the show.

LIVE 48.5 No moore E3 for G4

Gui J joins Steve519 to host
LIVE on LIVE The Gamers Roundtable™

Topics include…
E3 impressions: How did it compare?
No moore Peter: Is EA fortunate?
Tons of games discussed
Spin-off Topics include: Shoot there were so many I don’t know where to begin. How about TwoWorlds, Army of Two, Bioshock, The Darkness, Gears on XP with no LIVE? Rock Band and more…
YAY or NAY™: Moto GP 07, Bioshock, Madden 08, Strangelhold, Two Worlds, Tiger Woods, Blue Dragon, Medal of Honor, Stuntman and more…

Brief Show Wrap-Up with Steve519 and Silent Cypher…
PAX 07! Plane Tickets Paid!
Games for GI’s:” The awaited update. And it’s worth the wait.
Show 100 coming up soon. What’s in store?
And-Now-For Outtakes™ and more…

LIVE on LIVE™ guests (regular gamers, just like you) are
II V0LD3M0RT II, GamerAndy, ROORhighness, INFECTEDPB503, and, Evolgenius.

Direct Download ver 48.5 - The Gamers Roundtable™,
Right Click here (and save as… for best download experience).
-Duration 01:25 (58.33MB) 96Kbps-

Subscribe now! It’s free! You must act fast…

Let’s take a long walk on the beach.

Games for GI’s Update

Hey I just wanted to let you guys know how awesome you were and what has happened. First, sorry for the delay on updating this. I never knew how big of a thing this was going to be nor did I realize how much work it entailed.

Alright now for our final stats. We took game donations for about a month or so and we received just a little over 200 games. Thats right, over 200! All this because you awesome gamers out there wanted to show support to our troops.

We also received help from a few awesome developers which include, EA, Activision, Tell Tale Games, and the biggest donor, The Behemoth, who donated themselves a whooping 96 games. So with all that being said I just want to thank everyone that showed support whether you donated or helped by just spreading the word, it all mattered and none of this could have been done without your guys (and gals).

I will hopefully be posting more pics and letters later on from some the the troops that received these games. Thanks again everyone, you guys make this the best community out there to be a part of.

Fanman791 is here!

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m fanman791, a new writer here at XBLRadio. I’m 18 years old and I am going to be a senior in high school. As for this summer and for the rest of my senior year I am currently occupied working at GameStop. I currently reside in Southern New Jersey, but that is going to change when I go to college. Since I’m and math/science kind of guy, I plan on majoring in computer engineering. My current goal is to get a good position in the video game industry, specifically in the hardware department. Read the rest of this entry »

XBL Radio Gaming Night

Come join us tonight for an XBL Radio Gaming Night. Tonights game, Bomberman!! We will kick off gaming night at 7pm pacific time, all you have to do to join us is send me a message over Xbox Live requesting an invite. Now space is limited, especially with Bomberman maxing out at 8 players so it will be strictly first come, first serve. But if you don’t get in or don’t have the game, don’t worry, because all you have to do is check out our forums to see what else is being played tonight and message that person. So take it easy everyone and I hope to see you online tonight.

CO-OP? Who needs it? We’re HALO!

Seems like GOW will still be the dominant go-to-game for Co-Op Fans of the FPS genra. In a recent quote from CVG; Bungie’s spokeperson stated:

“‘We’re not dumb,’ says Bungie’s Frank O’Conner. ‘We know that people want it and we’re trying to make it happen. I think the biggest problem for us for online co-op is that we have a situation where you can be in a Warthog with five troops, almost a mile away from the other player. That’s a significant challenge. And there’s lots of design things you could do to prevent that from happening, but they would make it not feel like Halo anymore. If we can make it happen in a way that works well, we will - and if it works badly, we won’t.’”

So perhaps all those months of beta-testing and feedback fell on hushed ears. Or did Bungie not realize that Co-Op on GOW (the one game we’ll be comparing Halo 3 to) was the highlight of the game?

To be fair though; Bungie has been under a deadline for the past 3 years to get this game out. And with not much feedback from the community, during the open-beta, it’s hard to feel the pulse of what gamers want!

*For die-hard Halo Fans: The last statement was known as sarcasm to most Gamers.