My Wife and I have been busy with our XBOX360 lately. It’s kinda funny because we barely touched the thing in over 6 months then suddenly it’s getting a full-on workout. The last set of games we played on it were Mass Effect, and Force Unleashed (me) and Guitar Hero 3 (Her). I really didn’t get too much into Mass Effect even though it was typically my kind of game. Force Unleashed was good, but way short and even replaying it twice didn’t take more than a week. Burnout Paradise was ok as well, but that started getting stale. Like I said though, the console had been gathering dust... until last weekend. That’s when we got Rockband 2 and Fable 2. The Rockband 2 Special Edition was a much awaited birthday present for my wife while Fable 2 was from a “deal I couldn’t refuse.”



This is my wife’s character in Rockband 2. She’s been killing on the drums lately but has delved into the mic on occasion. Right now (at this moment) she’s getting used to the guitar. There are definite differences in feel between Guitar Hero 3 and Rockband 2’s guitar (or so she tells me... I’m totally lacking skill in rhythm games).





And... this is my current character in Fable 2. Yes, she’s female. And yes, those are “interesting” clothes she’s wearing. Fable 2 is definitely going to be a replayable game for me, and since I had a guy as my character last time around in Fable 1, I thought I’d go with a female character this time. My plan: Female - Good Hero, then next round a Male - Evil Hero, then I’d change things again and swap out the alignments if I was still playing the game at that point. Note: with the adult humor, sex, violence, and sex AGAIN in this game, it definitely earns its M for Mature rating. A few nitpicks: I wish there was more offline/interaction with the web akin to the way Halo3 works with Bungie.net. Yes, you can continue to earn (at a reduced rate) money from rent and shops you own while not playing the game and you can get some stuff by playing the online flash game & puppetshow, but I’d also like to be able to view character stats, take in-game screenshots/videos (I used my EyeTV to capture the ones here on my MacbookAir) and compare achievements and trophies with my friends. I guess Halo3 spoiled me with the interactive web stuff.

One thing is for sure, we’ve probably used our XBOX360 more in the last week than we have all year. Its at the point where we actually take shifts playing so we both get our groove on (so to speak). Anyone else out there getting as addicted to these two great games as we are? Read More...

Tags: Rockband, xbox 360, fable2, fable, Rockband2, games

In all the hoopla regarding the latest 2.1 firmware upgrade to the iPhone (fixes many of the lingering issues I still had since previous posts on the subject), one piece of iPhone news may have been overlooked. Laminar Research, the developers of the popular and highly accurate Flight Simulator for the Mac, PC, and Linux, have released a version of X-Plane 9 for the iPhone. Their Flight Simulators on the bigger platforms are so accurate and well liked by the Aviation community that the FAA even allows its use for logging flight time towards certification.



I downloaded and tried the simulator out. Although limited in many aspects regarding terrain range and instrument simulation (relying instead on a HUD), the simulation itself is fairly solid for a mobile App. The graphics are quite nice for the iPhone, especially the external flyby views. Controls utilize the Accelerometer and some on-screen sliders and buttons for Throttle, Flaps, Landing Gear and Brakes. You also have your choice of various planes and high level of control over the weather and time of day.

Per Austin Meyer, the creator of X-Plane:
The iPhone is not QUITE as powerful as a Quad-Core desktop, so I had to really scale it down to a perfect little ’slice’ of X-Plane.

You can choose from the Cirrus Jet, Columbia-400, Cessna 182, and Piaggo Avanti, with flight physics that are about 95% as accurate as X-Plane for desktop, so the flight modeling is really just amazing for a little device of this size.. really just stunning.

I’m surprised that the launch of this Flight Simulator on the iPhone hasn’t garnered more attention. I didn’t see it on the Apps, Games, or Entertainment pages of the iTunes Store yet, so it may still be below the RADAR (so to speak), but you can find it by following this link to get it from the App store. It goes for $9.99.
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Tags: iphone, games, gadgets, flight simulator, simulation, x-plane, apple, apps

Haven't had much time for my blog lately.. it's been all Halo, Oblivion, or work lately. I have huge backlog of photos I have to edit as well.

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Tags: halo, xbox 360, gadgets, games

Today I'm expecting delivery of a few small trinkets that I'll have to setup tonight...





I already transferred my Xbox Live Account into an Xbox Gold membership with 5000 points, made room in my home theater setup by moving the Wii, and changed out my power strips to allow for the extra outlets needed. I already had an XCM multi-game unit component switch so the connections are already setup. I even programmed my Harmony 880 remote control to have a setting for the Xbox 360 (mind you, I still don't have any of the above in my hands).

As usual, I ordered everything through Amazon.com.

UPDATE 9/1/07 7:25AM: Everything worked with the Xbox 360 setup the other day except for the HD DVDs. The drive was definitely a bad apple since it kept on "Reading" the discs, even the King Kong HD DVD it came with. A few times, I left the discs in there for up to an hour with it still "Reading." Long load times for HD DVDs I've heard of, but this was ridiculous. Yesterday I picked up another HD DVD drive at Best Buy (along with another wireless headset for the wife and another game, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion). Of course that one worked right away! It prompted for a software update, like it should, and all was well. Even the 300 HD DVD combo disc worked, which my research on the web indicated might be a problem disc.
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Tags: xbox 360, wii, hd dvd