30 Sep 09 Entry 0218
An Open Letter to Gabe Newell
Gabe Newell, Director of Game Development - Valve Software
Dear Gabe Newell,
Hi, how are you? I’m fine. The weather is finally cooling off, which is nice – won’t have to run the AC as often, which in these harsh economic times means I might be able to save a bit of cash.
But, enough small talk – this isn’t a social call. No, I’m actually writing you (or pretending to write to you via my blog) in order to register a formal complaint on the latest DLC for Left 4 Dead on the XBox 360.
This product is, sadly, buggy and not at all worth the seven dollars you are charging for it. Oh, I’ve read the sob story that Microsoft forced you into charging for the content, that you wanted it to be free but Microsoft made you charge for it… And that’s fine, that’s understandable, I suppose. They want you to charge for it, well… charge for it. But a whole seven bucks? For a level that takes less than half an hour to complete, and is full of bugs? I’d expect this from Bethesda, but not you. You made Portal, one of my favorite games of all time, and the Half-Life series of games, which are astounding.
And you also made… This. This pile of crap. (more…)
Tags: angry gamer, buggy, dlc, gabe newell, games, open letter, rant, valve software, xbox
11 Dec 08 Entry 0145
I recently expressed my desire to write up another State of Gaming Address – but as I was attempting to write it out, I started to question the need for a long post discussing the many nuances and distinguishing factors between the three home systems.
Then I realized that I don’t really need to spend as much time detailing everything – it’d be better for everyone if I just summed stuff up, and moved on to a new post.
So, here’s the short version:
Tags: games, ps3, super nerd, wii, xbox
20 Nov 08 Entry 0136
Dunny0 - XBox Avatar
Yesterday, Microsoft launched what they are calling “The New XBox Experience”, or NXE for short. It is, at the core, a system update to your existing XBox 360 that drastically changes the menu system, and adds support for Netflix, ripping games to the hard drive, and “Avatars” – their version of the Mii.
The Avatar on the left is me… As you can see, it’s a slightly more sophisticated version of the Mii. As of right now there are a few (three) games that will allow you to play as this little bugger. Creating one isn’t too difficult, and once done you can spend some time playing dress up too. Right now the clothing options are a bit sparse, but I’d expect that to change quickly as game devs jump on the bandwagon and offer branded shirts for your little guy to wear.
(more…)
25 Aug 08 Entry 0106
There are a few things on needs before being able to use the Netflix Watch Instantly feature on their Mac:
- A copy of Windows
- Patience
Which of those two do you suppose I am not known for having?
Other than a few mild issues with the quality of the video due to buffering and home-network issues that seemed to be resolved by simply allowing the movie to play for a few minutes, and a few technical problems caused by not having Windows updated correctly because I use a fucking Mac, I didn’t have any major issues getting this working.
What I managed to take away from this is a renewed enthusiasm for the Netflix service, and a burning desire for the damn XBox update to happen sooner.
21 Aug 08 Entry 0104
Demo on XBL and PSN
It’s been a while since the last time I was excited about a new game hitting – I think MGS4 was the last game I actually got all excited over.
Star Wars : The Force Unleashed is one that I’m really looking forward to. Not sure if I’m exactly excited about it or not, but I am really hoping to be.
Tonight I’ll be downloading the demo and giving it a spin – and, since it’s on both XBox Live and Playstation Network, I figure I’ll download them both, and compare the two. I did this once before with Burnout: Paradise, so I figure this might be a good chance to try that again.
As a bonus, and just because I’m a total dork, I’ll LiveBlog the whole thing right here.
So, stay tuned for the fun.
Let The LiveBlog Begin!
- 17:38 -
Started downloading the demo on both XBL and PSN. Started the download on XBL before PSN, might have been a mistake. For some odd reason the demo weighs in at ~905MB on XBL and ~1350MB on PSN. That’s a strange ~400MB difference… Could the PSN Demo have higher resolution textures or is it just coded poorly?
Last time a saw a strange difference in file size like this was with Spore, and it turned out EA had just wrapped the Windows version of spore in Wine before releasing it on the Mac.Maybe LA is wrapping the PS3 version of the game in an XBox emulator… YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!
- 17:50-
Still downloading, I’m going to go take a short nap… I’ll post more when I get up. - 19:25-
Woke up from nap, demo was done downloading on XBox. Gave it a test drive.
OMFG THIS IS NEAT
Hard to control though. - 18:05-
At “boss” – Yeah, kinda hard – still awesome.
Once you figure it out, it’s a little *less* awesome. - 18:19-
Gonna give the PS3 a go – “installing” the demo. Man, this is one area where the XBox gets it right.
Weird. (more…)
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