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.

I’m Back (Cya on Gaming Night)

As most of you may have noticed, some may not have, I was out-of-pocket this week. I visited the coast of Maine with my family. As you can see by the Characiture of my boys; gaming wasn’t far from my mind. I just finished listening to the past casts. Great job on the .5 and .0 shows.

Looking forward to Gaming again this Saturday. So hit me up and let’s do some Bomberman! I hear it BLOWS!

-Carp Out

Vampire Rain Review

Very few games give you a chance to learn another language. I now know that in Japanese ‘Vampire’ means ‘sucks’ and ‘Rain’ means ‘balls’. Hold onto your butts, here is my review of Vampire Rain.

Question: What does doing your taxes, passing a kidney stone, and finding out ‘she’ is actually a ‘he’ have in common? Answer: All are more fun than playing Vampire Rain.

The line between genius and insanity is very thin. Never has this been truer than in Vampire Rain. Vampires have overrun an entire city, and are on the verge of taking over the world. It is up to you, Jake Lloyd, special operative of an unnamed generic task force, to infiltrate this city, discover the vampire’s weakness and kill them, saving all humanity. Be swift, you only have one rainy night to do so! For rain interferes with their bat-like sonar, giving you the chance to slip by unnoticed. Combining Sam Fisher and vampires could have been utter genius; instead it simply creates a game which will drive you insane.

The game’s mechanics are shamelessly taken from Splinter Cell, with a dash of Metal Gear Solid thrown in. You control Jake just as you would Sam Fisher, the only difference being the radar used in MGS is sometimes available, giving you vision cones to avoid. The problem with this mechanic is it’s not entirely reliable, as vampires don’t always automatically register on your radar. You have to sit still, switch to heat vision, wait for the vampire to be targeted, see where he’s looking, then maneuver around his cone. Problems with this: 1) Sometimes vampire placement seems entirely random, and you’ll replay certain segments wondering where the hell you were spotted from. 2) Vampire vision is very irregular. Some can see you from way off, out of your radar’s range, while others have no peripheral vision at all, allowing you to literally walk to the front right/left of them. Even more puzzling is that sometimes the mission path will require you to do so. Read the rest of this entry »

XBL Radio Ver 48.0

A special show this week! The same great XBLR without all the babbling normally done by MrCarpalTunnel…

TECH NEWS:
-Sony drops the price of the PS3.
-Blu-ray backers offer summer promo.
-Microsoft unveils Big Button Pad for casual gamers.

GAME NEWS:
-E3, E3, and more E3.
-Unreal Tournament III due in ‘07, PS3/PC exclusive ’til ‘08.
-Spielberg puzzling Wii, thrilling 360 & PS3.

GAME REVIEWS and KID PIX:

-Dirt: TOG’s going to give you the lowdown on this offroad racer. -Super Stardust HD: Steve519 got the first ps3 review covered for you guys? -Transformers: Is it as good as the movie?

All this PLUS: The Marketplace Minute™: Is Gui J up and running again? Useless Tips™, Console Crimes™ ; all this and The “360FriendSpot Spot” featuring Squidpunch.

Direct Download ver 48.0,
Right Click here (and save as… for best download experience).

To subscribe to the podcast you can click on one of these…

Imagine life without carpaltunnel…

Forza Motorsport 2 Vs. DiRT Part 2

Welcome back to the 2nd part of the comparison. This time were looking at the multiplayer and the extra/other features so I hope you kept your seatbelt buckled. If you missed the first part you can read it here.

Multiplayer
This is where Forza simple destroys DiRT in every way. DiRT only has one mode online-play mode and it’s a dismal one. You and up to 99 other players race at the same time! But, each on your own track competing for lap times on a limited amount of tracks. Now I don’t understand why they couldn’t include real racing with multiple cars on the track in this game; but, according to Codemasters they were too busy making the single player portion of the game. I would have preferred the game to be delayed then ship with this horrible online play. And along with that comes horrible voice chat, think about private chat but set up by the game where you invite 1 other person to talk to them. Now I understand 100 people talking would not only be laggy but extremely loud. But why limit it to only one? A better option would be to choose a channel system (like in PDZ or Solider of Fortune 2). I’m disappointed to see the online play so limited in this game as I think that often gives the bulk of the replay value. But hopefully DLC will be released containing full multiplayer or DiRT 2 will have it.
Read the rest of this entry »

A new writer arrives! His name is Thrillhouse17!

Allow myself to introduce myself. I’m Thrillhouse17, listener, forum poster, and now writer for XBL Radio. I came across the show by pure accident about a year and a half ago. Searching through itunes I was looking for a different podcast (which shall remain nameless), and thinking I had found it downloaded XBL Radio. I’ll be totally honest, when I first listened to the show I can’t say that I cared for it. Lets just say that I had no intention of listening to further shows. Well, via the magic of the ‘subscribe’ feature shows kept appearing on my computer, and being too lazy to delete them (I know, it takes maybe two clicks, but let’s not discuss how lazy I am right now) they just sat there, waiting my attentive ears. Weeks past, shows piled up, and eventually out of curiosity I gave it another listen. Well…I found that the show had slowly improved, and the two hosts had become more comfortable with the format and found their groove. Needless to say well over a year has past and I’m still listening.

I grew up in the ‘golden age’ of gaming. The Atari, and more prominently the NES, were the first consoles my neighbors owned. Yeah, I was ‘that’ kid, the kid who would come over and ask “Can I, uh, have a turn playing too? Please…” It wasn’t my fault! When you’re an 8-year-old kid you can only make so much money selling lemonade and popcorn. Still, despite my lack of funds, I always managed to find my way into someone’s home or into a local arcade. I’ve probably lost years of my life playing Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 2, NBA Jam, Twisted Metal…

If I had to peg one game as being the most influential in my young life, it would be Jurassic Park for the NES, for reasons having nothing to do with the game itself, but the friendships that developed because of that game. Nothing brings young kids together like a game, and my friend and I are still in touch today yet being literally thousands of miles apart. (Cue sentimental music…and tear.)

Many years later here I am, pretty much doing the same thing, you know, just hanging out, playing Nintendo. I may have grown up, but when life doesn’t get in the way there’s still a kid in me that likes to nerd out and have fun. XBL Radio has given me a great chance to entertain and enlighten you all with my wisdom, so I’ll be doing just that. Feel free to send me a message telling me how great my articles are. Or how you’re wrong and think my articles are terrible. Either works. I’m just kidding. But seriously.

July 14 Gaming Night

Alright this weekends game is Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. This weekend is going to be a little different though, we are going to be doing the defender mode to help all of us get the Ultimate Defender Achievement so if you would like to join, check our XBL Radio Gaming Night thread right here, it contains all the info and rules. And as an added bonus one lucky, and random, person will win a free copy of Vampire Rain just for attending. So I will see you all there.

MS Keynote Wrap Up, XBL Radio Community Style

Thrillhouse17 wrote this in our forums, I felt he was dead on in pretty much his entire summery so I figured I would post it here for the world to see,

I was very underwhelmed and disappointed. They showed very little new material, and didn’t make many large announcements.

Opening: Total fan service, and dragged on. We’ve all heard the Halo theme, we want to actually hear the music while we SEE the game. Read the rest of this entry »

E3 Press wrap up GUI J style

By now most of you have watched Microsoft’s E3 keynote speech. I can see most of you scratching your heads, thoughts swirling about, asking yourselves, “Where are the big bombs Microsoft?” “No price cut?”, “No Metal Gear?”, “No new exclusives to set my drool glands into over dive?” I too pondered these thoughts last night as I angrily lay my head to bed after what I thought was an hour and a half of my life I will never get back. Sulking until I actually had time to think and reflect about what I had seen, I was only then able to be at peace and thought maybe I could shed some insight as to what had happened.

First, lets rethink the stance of the new E3, it is now back to what it was always supposed to be about, the buyers. Microsoft did an excellent job last night addressing the fact that they have a good foothold in the Next–Gen war and that NOW, meaning this year, this holiday, this crazy credit card inducing time that puts most Americans in debt. The Xbox 360 WILL have the best lineup of first and third party games, hands down. They are showing the retail market that, it is, the Xbox that is going to need your display space this coming holiday season. And that is exactly what they did, by showing off so many quality titles that the average to hardcore gamers are already groaning thinking about the black hole that is going to be wrapped upon their wallets.

Read the rest of this entry »

And then theres 4

People are talking and jumping up and down, thats right rumor has it that there is a 4th XBOX 360 (code name Falcon) price of the elite to drop to $350 smack a rues. Watch out and make sure you are wearing your hard hat cause prices are dropping from the sky left and right. Just yesterday the PS3 price drop hit my dog in the head. Check back for more on E3.