Tag: Xbox 360

Minecraft 360

Gaming

I bought Minecraft on the PC early on. I played through a lot of the alpha and beta phases, and even quite a bit after release. And still, I always felt like it needed one more update, one more thing to make it a really great game. This weekend, I sat down and tried to find a game for the wife and I to play cooperatively. There really aren’t a lot of games like that. But as I was flipping through the list of games on my Xbox 360, I saw the Minecraft trial I’d downloaded a while back but had never played. She was a fan of the game too, so I loaded it up to see what it was like.

Perfect.

Minecraft 360The 360 version of Minecraft has the one thing that the PC version lacks: recipes. Yes, when playing on your PC you can Alt+Tab to a browser or use a second computer to pull up a wiki and learn everything, but in the 360 version all the recipes are there, and you don’t even have to put the items in the right location to “figure out” the item to craft, you just select the recipe and if you have all the needed items on you, you press A/Green and the item is crafted.

Better still, the wife and I can play together in split screen mode, which makes finding each other when we are lost a thousand times easier than having to turn my back on my own screen while looking at hers. Instead, I just glance down at the lower half of the screen.

Currently, I’m building a mine, digging deep looking for ore. She’s building additions to our home. What started as “Honey, do you want a little fishing shack?” turned into “Look at this cylindrical great room surrounded by aquarium!” “Where is my fishing shack?” “I’ll put a dock off the roof or something…”

Our original home is an upside-down pyramid. You know, you build a little shelter, and then it gets blown up once or twice and you decide to just dig out all the ground beneath it and have a floating house with a bridge to it. Then you want a second floor for more stuff, so you build up, but bigger than the floor below (also because the lip prevents spiders from climbing over the wall). And then the floor about that is even bigger, and so on.

Since I have more shooter skills than she does, every morning I go kill the creepers, which I’m finding to be very fun.

All in all though, I’m finding the experience of playing Minecraft on the 360 to be superior to the PC in just about every way. A big piece of that is the 360 version doesn’t randomly crash and lock up like it does on our PCs. The 360 version just works.

If you are on the 360 and have Minecraft and you want to play around together, my gamertag is Jhaer.

Zed-box 360

Gaming

Last week, Undead Labs announced their partnership with Microsoft and plans to release their upcoming Zombie MMO title exclusive to the Xbox 360.  As an owner of a 360 who does not own a PS3, this news excites me greatly.

They followed that up with a Q&A of their own and a rundown of links to other sites covering the news.

It is safe to say that there is no other MMO, or even game, that I am looking forward to more than this.  I just hope it doesn’t disappoint.

I also hope that Capcom is watching, because a Dead Rising 3 with even more multiplayer capabilities would be kinda awesome.

Anyway, here is a gaggle of concept art lovingly swiped from the Undead Labs site.  Hopefully they won’t mind.

Dead Rising 2 – Case: 0

Gaming

Dead Rising 2 drops next week and I’m really looking forward to it.  Three weeks or so ago, the Xbox 360 got a nice little exclusive prequel called Case 0.  If you are familiar with the original Dead Rising, you’ll remember that the story unfolds as a series of cases, unlocking each successive chapter as you complete the one you are in.  This tightly made bonus for the 360 seems to fit in nicely, giving the new hero, Chuck Greene, a path to Las Vegas, the setting of the upcoming DR2.

The one thing I enjoy most about the Dead Rising series is the stark contrast it has with the Left 4 Dead series.  L4D is clearly a high octane shooter.  Sure, you occasionally try to silently tiptoe past a witch, but most of the zombies in that world are charging at you at full speed.  Running is rarely an option, you have to fight to live.  The DR games, on the other hand, are populated with shamblers, zombies that shuffle their feet, walk, and sometimes even *gasp* walk fast!  Running is almost always an option.  This leads to Dead Rising playing more like an RPG, especially given its levels and character development.

Back to Case 0… I bought it last week and I’ve been fooling around in the little road block town of the game and it has me really excited to play the full blown DR2 when it releases, and at the same time it also doesn’t just feel like a teaser.  It feels like a complete game on its own, probably the best $5 I’ve ever spent in the marketplace.  And with the announcement of Case West coming to the 360 sometime after DR2’s launch, I imagine that’ll be a well spent $5 too.  If only all games in the Xbox Live Arcade could be this good.  Hell, if Capcom decided to just release a new mini game as good as Case 0 set in the Dead Rising universe every month, I’d be thrilled.

Anyway… if you liked the original Dead Rising and you still have a 360, I highly recommend Case 0.

The Passing

Gaming

I haven’t been playing much Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 lately, but that is about to change.  Tomorrow, Valve is releasing a new add-on called “The Passing” for Left 4 Dead 2.

The story behind this is you are playing the usual 4 people from Left 4 Dead 2, but the original Left 4 Dead gang shows up.  Three of them alive and one of them… well, not so alive.  The dead one is part of the mystery we’ll learn tomorrow.  This add-on also offers a bunch of new game play elements and achievements, all of which looks fantastic and fun.

If all the stories are to be believed, Left 4 Dead will be getting an add-on itself that will let players play out the sacrifice of the fallen survivor, and it will be following in some measure of Valve Time.

Sadly, I won’t be able to play tomorrow as I have plans, but I’m working hard to clear my schedule for the weekend.  Feel like playing with me?  My Gamertag is Jhaer.

Left 4 Demo 2

Gaming

If you are a Gold Member on Xbox Live (and seriously, if you are planning to play Left 4 Dead 2 as single player or local multi-player only, you are missing out on the best parts of the game), the Left 4 Dead 2 demo is out.

Personally, I’m not going to bother.  To me, a demo is something you play if you are not yet decided on purchasing in order to see if you enjoy the game.  For example, I played the demo of Mirror’s Edge because I wasn’t sure of the game, and I’m glad I did because it saved me money.  But from all accounts, Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be Left 4 Dead only with more awesome.  Considering how much I love the original, there isn’t a chance in hell I won’t love the sequel.  Valve just doesn’t make crappy sequels.

As a birthday gift this year, I was given a pre-order of Left 4 Dead 2.  So I will happily wait for it to show up and not spoil any of the game playing a mere demo.  But I won’t judge you if you do play the demo.  Have fun!

Wii`ve made a full 360

Gaming

So, yesterday morning, after breakfast at IHOP, before getting gas for the car, the wife and I swung through Target to see what was what.

The new Xbox 360 Elite was due out, and they happened to have one. Just one. They also had eight Nintendo Wii’s (left from the 20 they’d had just an hour before). In full financial abandon, we bought both.

This should be fun…

One Step Closer

Gaming

The 360 takes another step toward closing the Console-PC gap with its upcoming release. Check out the details over at gamerawr.

The biggest thing to me, and the step I’m saying they are taking, is the addition of the keyboard. Frankly, voice communication has only come so far, and for games supporting multiple chat channels, like MMOs, voice is severely limited. Some games just need text, and without a physical keyboard its just too hard to do. If you don’t believe me, trying using virtual keyboards, or even your 10-key phone pad to write long messages. There is a reason people invented text message short hand. (And deep in my heart of hearts, I hope this goes toward the erradication of needless short hand.)

Should this take off as I expect it to, we could be seeing the beginning of the end of PCs as a gaming platform. Though some might think this is great, its not entirely all roses. How do indie game devs break into the console? Maybe Microsoft could start offering a program to burn viable 360 discs so that indie games could be run… but I don’t really see that happening because it opens alot of doors to piracy. Also, if game modding continues to be popular, consoles do not exactly support making mods, at least not modeling and creating textures. As, of course at this time I don’t believe Microsoft supports external game servers… the PS3 claims it will though (or will support paid hosting of game servers).

In any event, the 360 is adding something new that may have an effect on the industry as a whole. Time will tell…

Stuff on the Net III

Stuff on the Net

Here is a comparison of game graphics 20 years ago versus today (XBOX 360). The sad thing is, even though the graphics are prettier now, I had alot more fun playing the games back then. Many of today’s games have such crappy playability and replayability.

Even I have my limits when it comes to TV… I’d have passed on this one too, 1999’s Heat Vision and Jack.

Want to be a grunt? Plaguelands reports that you can do just that in Sony’s PlanetSide game. You can play up to rank 6 for free, at which point every time you leave the game you’ll be annoyed with a website filled with “subscribe now” propaganda.