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Category Archives: Xbox 360

Fable 3 finally in my hands

My wife and I were happy this holiday season to encounter an early discount on the Xbox 360 game we’ve been wanting to pick up. Bless Target, they were offering $20 off the normal price for Fable 3, which brought the game within reach of our budget.

We’re long-running fans of the Fable series, and this newest one is no exception. I love that the game teaches morality, in a way, by allowing your decisions for good or evil to determine how you change the world and the world changes around you.

At $40, essentially, Fable 3 is a reasonable price and we felt we just had to jump on it. While I gave up videogames almost entirely for November, I’m slowly allowing myself to get back into them on occasion and obtaining Fable 3 was the catalyst. While finding it on sale this early in the title’s run was not as big a relief as finding colon cleansers that work, it was nevertheless a significant relief.

Nothing like a great new game to revitalize one’s interest in gaming. Of course, this is made all the more dramatic by the fact that, this holiday season, Fable 3 has been the only new game coming out since October that we’ve had any interest in at all. It’s been a thin holiday season from a games perspective.

Things should pick up in 2011, though; Mass Effect 3 has just been announced! And we already know the next Dragon Age title is in the works. Yay!

Still not sure about Fable 3

I’m still not sure when I’m going to pick up Fable 3. I know it won’t be this month, as November is a month I’ve dedicated myself to novel writing. So I have no time for Fable 3 and the distraction it would provide.

Still, I’m looking forward to trying the game out and if there’s a great Cyber Monday special on it, I may pick it up earlier than I’m currently planning to. Time will tell.

I do know that I enjoy the previews I’ve seen of the game, and it’s always been among my favorite RPG franchises.

Can’t wait to get my hands on Fable III

Generally speaking, the Fable series is a favorite for both my wife and me, so neither of us is going to be very patient when it comes to getting our hands on the newest installment, Fable III. The game appears to have matured even more since the last installment, a surprise considering it came out sooner than expected after Fable II.

I no longer play videogames anywhere near as much as I used to; at least not the traditional console games. But games like Fable III draw me back for brief but intense play sessions.

Of course, it’s not like I want to play so much that I’m gonna need to buy buy Lipofuze once I’m done. But I imagine I’ll play it pretty intensely for a while after we get it.

Maybe not as intensely as a few years ago, though. And I certainly don’t want to get it until after NaNoWriMo is over. So, December at the earliest!

Xbox 360 games on my wish list

With recent release Alan Wake, as well as Mass Effect 2, now in my possession, things have perked up on my Xbox 360 in the last few months; but what new titles, despite the lack of a really good ECG machines simulator, are making my blood pressure rise in anticipation?

One game that looks like it might be good, but isn’t quite at the top of my wish list just yet, is Arcania: Gothic 4. It’s an RPG that could go either way… it could be good, or it could stink. Hard to tell right now.

Fable III is also looking quite nice; I loved the first two titles and so I’m expecting the third to be no less enchanting.

And really? That’s about it. But it’s a couple more titles to look forward to, anyway.

Alan Wake impressions

For our anniversary, my wife bought us the long-awaited Xbox 360 game, Alan Wake. It’s a great suspense game with a healthy dose of survival horror tossed into the mix. And so far, from what I’ve played of it, it’s the finest example of the genre since Silent Hill 2 on PlayStation 2. Yes, I like it that much! And what a great personalized gift for my wife to think of!

Alan Wake focuses on a writer of popular suspense novels who goes with his wife to Bright Falls, a town in the Pacific Northwest that looks just beautiful and gorgeous on the 360! Well, during the day it does. At night is a different story as the locals tend to go mad and try to kill you.

Instead of standard weaponry alone, your most important weapon in Alan Wake is one’s flashlight, since only light can drive the possessing spirits away long enough to make them vulnerable to physical attack.

It’s a chiller of a title, yet offers a great narrative over the course of the game. We waited until the game dropped in price, but Alan Wake was certainly worth the wait.

Mass Effect 2 breathing new interest into my 360

I own both an Xbox 360 and a PlayStation 3. In all honestly, I always try to get the PS3 version when I’m buying multi-platform games, but there are several gems that are Xbox 360-only, and I love each of them.

The most recent addition to that library for my wife and I is Mass Effect 2. We both enjoy BioWare titles in general, and this space trilogy is no exception to that rule. The new story and method of keeping your character intact is innovative and fun.

And Mass Effect 2 is by no means the only title we have our eyes on. My wife and I both want Alan Wake once the price comes down, and we may not even wait for a price-drop once Fable 3 is released. So while I favor my PS3 to my 360, I wouldn’t want to give it up; not for anything.

DLC ruminations

When I first heard of the concept of down-loadable content in console gaming, I liked it; it made sense to use the HDD and internet capabilities of this generation of machines to advantage by offering gamers a way to spend even more time in their favorite games.

However, it’s getting a bit pricey in some cases.

Disgaea 3 is a good example. I love Disgaea as much as anyone, but really, do I look like a rube who wants to spend another $30 or more buying extra characters for my party? Nope. Much as I loved Laharl from the first game, I’m ready for someone else’s story in Disgaea 3. There’s just no way I’ll ever collect all the downloadables for Disgaea 3.

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum (and not the one near SEM Chicago). And by that, I mean that some games keep the amount of DLCs offered down to a reasonable number, but they are price-and-HDD-space hogs!

For example, in Mass Effect 2, I have purchased all the DLC currently available, but I have an original 20GB Xbox360, so I’m already thin on space and each significant mission added in DLC is averaging 0.8 GB of hard drive space. That adds up quickly when you only have eight GB free to begin with.

Heck, Dragon Age: Origins’ Awakening add-on was so massive and expensive, it fit right in on the shelves with new games, and the prices were not that far apart. Yikes!

Finally obtained Mass Effect 2

After opting to get Dragon Age: Origins instead of Mass Effect 2 last winter, I’ve been waiting for Mass Effect 2 to come down in price before getting it, since I knew it eventually would drop. That finally happened recently as Mass Effect 2 fell from $59.99 to $39.99. So I finally grabbed it.

Sure, I could have waited fro ME2 to become a Platinum Hit before snatching it up; that would have saved me an extra ten dollars. However, while I have to be frugal with my gaming dollar these days, my wife and I had waited long enough to obtain the sequel to the best SF RPG on the 360 or any current system. Yes, that includes Star Ocean.

Playing videogames like Mass Effect 2 almost qualifies as one of those crash diets that work, since it hooks you in so effectively, to tend to forget about other priorities in your life, like sleep or, you know, eating. Not that I recommend that.

Also, by buying Mass Effect 2 now, I got the Cerebus Network for free with the included card, rather than having to pay for it on Xbox Live, which is what will likely be the case once the game becomes a Platinum Hit.

That brings up one of my big gripes; I still dislike Xbox Live’s point-system for buying game add-ons and the like; I wholly prefer the real-money system found on the PlayStation Network; it’s a system most Apple’s iTunes in that respect. It also eliminates the need to over-buy; if you have game add-ons that require 560 points to purchase on Xbox Live, it’s not like you can just purchase 560 points — you have to buy 800 points and then have a balance sitting there for a while. Ugly.

Anyway, I never finished Mass Effect when I reached the final mission because I’d just purchased an add-on and was hoping to find a way to go back and play it; now, if I want to start Mass Effect 2 and keep my original character of Shepherd, I’ll have to finish off the original first.

So I haven’t dug into ME2 just yet; I want to complete the original ME and bring my Shepherd over. Sure, I could start a new Shepherd, but what’s the fun in that, when the game was designed to allow you to import the character you started with?

New Assassin’s Creed title on the way

Ubisoft is really stepping up the pace of their development; hopefully, it will be without a sacrifice in game quality. After releasing Assassin’s Creed II only last fall, the company has announced the next installment, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, featuring online multiplay for the first time, for a November 2010 release.

The game appears to still focus on Ezio, the central character of Assassin’s Creed II, and his neverending quest for how to get rid of blackheads… err, I mean, how to off a whole bunch of famous people. Since the game does not appear to have the expected “Assassin’s Creed III” moniker, it appears this may be a side-story to the main series.

So long as Ubisoft keeps delivering the 1080p eye-candy combined with great play mechanics and a solid storyline, and they can issue new installments endlessly, as far as I’m concerned. However, let’s hope the series doesn’t travel down the Lara Croft path of diminishing returns by maintaining too steady a stream of titles to allow for actual improvement in the game.

New Fallout title in October

Bethesda Softworks isn’t taking time to catch their breath, lately; the company has scheduled their newest chapter in the Fallout universe, Fallout: New Vegas, for release this coming October; that’s only five months away, and a lot sooner than it is taking the company to come up with a follow-up to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

Not that I’m suggesting their project management software needs upgrading or anything, and I love the Fallout world as much as anyone; however, A new Elder Scrolls title would be a welcome thing, too, and not premature at all.

Fable III on the horizon

Currently projected as a November 2010 release, Microsoft has announced the development and impending release of Fable III as an exclusive for the Xbox 360 system. As a fan of the series from the beginning, I can’t wait to get my hands on this one, and I’m sure my wife will feel the same way.

The scope of Fable III is expected to expand from personal morality to social morality; as the tale begins, the world of Albion has evolved into the age of an industrial revolution and while the player begins as a revolutionary against an evil tyrant of a ruler, you are offered the chance to rise to power yourself, ascending even to the throne of Albion – and then ruling it, and beyond.

Now, not only do your decisions for selfishness or the benefit of others affect your own personal growth, the affect your dog, your friends, even the entire kingdom of Albion! Will you administer justice fairly, look to enrich yourself, or even offer credit cards for bad credit? The choices are in your own hands and the consequences have never been greater, it appears.

Nice advance in the Fable concept!

Alan Wake intrigues

There are a lot of intriguing games out on the market right now, and most people can’t afford them all. This makes choosing the right handful of games more important than ever. Enter the new Xbox 360 title, Alan Wake.

Wake was first announced six years ago by the team that brought us the Max Payne titles; however, those crime noir shooters bear little resemblance to what is billed as a “psychological thriller.” In point of fact, Alan Wake draws more from videogames like Silent Hill and Heavy Rain, as well as TV shows like Lost and Twin Peaks, that it does Max Payne.

Now, sometimes this genre can trigger click here nightmares of poorly executed games of a bygone, point-and-click era. Fortunately, Alan Wake appears to be nothing like that; it works with a solid “light versus dark” theme that is simultaneously basic and effective.

The game features a novelist, Wake, who is trying to track down his missing wife in the Pacific Northwest, with pages from a novel he doesn’t remember writing as his only clues … pages that seem to reflect the reality unfolding with each passing moment.

It’s a primal concept that reminds me of Silent Hill at its best, which for me was Silent Hill 2, the first appearance of the franchise on PS2, and by far the one with the more basic and visceral premise: a grieving husband being beckoned by his dead wife to “meet her” in Silent Hill.

Similarly, Wake offers up core, primal fears and motives that make this 360 title one of the more intriguing options on the market right now; it’s on my “seriously consider getting this” list, along with Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2, White Knight Chronicles, and Cross Edge.

In fact, it’s likely to stay near the top of my want list right up until Fable 3 is released near the end of the year (if it stays on schedule).