Tag Archives: xbox 360

Xbox Live Celebrates 10 Years

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I must admit, as a life-long gamer I never thought we’d be where we are now.  Playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES was all that for sure, but games got bigger, better, and had higher functionality.

In 2001, the Xbox debuted from Microsoft going head to head with the Nintendo Gamecube and Playstation 2.  While it was obvious that PS2 would win that generation on console alone, the Xbox would have another trick up its sleeve a year later that would put them ahead going into the current generation of systems.

In the summer of 2002, I was having a blast with the Xbox.  NHL Hitz was the first game I had played on it.  Halo was purchased at launch as well, and it changed everything.  It was graphically superior to anything I’d ever seen.  You could even play with up to 16 players by hooking up multiple Xboxes to a LAN.  There was also great games like NFL 2k2 and Morrowind.

I had signed up to become part of a massive beta test for Microsoft’s Online Network.  It was something that was going to revolutionize gaming.  In July of 2002, I remember waking up for work, checking my email and being ecstatic as I was chosen to be part of the first wave of beta testers for what would be called Xbox Live.  There were only 5000 chosen for the first wave of beta testers and while this number expanded over the course of 60 days, I was among the very first.

The email informed me that over the next couple weeks, I’ll receive a package with everything I needed to get my Xbox online.   When I did, I remember seeing a lot of orange.    The packaging to the headset, the t-shirt, the bag, and the disc cover were all orange.  It was a great day.  It also came with beta versions of the game Re-Volt, which was also on Dreamcast, as well as a copy of NFL Fever 2002 featuring Peyton Manning.

I was given a set of instructions an went to town, downloading information onto the Xbox.  After the initial setups I was in a room of 7 other people gearing up to race in Re-Volt.  Everyone was happy, excited and eager to play.  You didn’t hear any name calling and angry racists like you do now.  It was adults who were respectful and grateful for this amazing opportunity.

A screen from the early stages of the beta test featuring the unreleased game “Re-Volt”.

Re-Volt wasn’t the greatest game ever, far from it in fact.  However, just to play something online with others simultaneously and without lag, all while being in constant vocal communication was out of this world.

Throughout the 60 day beta testing period, there were more discs sent with updates and improvements.  We also got a few other things in the mail like an orange memory card.  There was a lot of communication from Microsoft via surveys that we filled out to provide input on service improvement.  I like to think I supplied vital information that helped mold Xbox Live into what it is today.

On November 15, 2002, the service went live for anyone with an Xbox console.  Mech Assault was probably the first game I played on the service.  I honestly don’t remember enjoying it that much, but I know it came early on.

Other great memories came from Xbox Live over the last 10 years.  Here’s what sticks out the most for me:

- NHL 2k3:  Not only was EA Sports nearly irrelevant when it came to quality hockey games at the time, 2k was really finding its stride with an epic game of simulation sports.  Hockey was no disappointment.  NHL 2k3 was online and amazing.  As with many sports games, my website hosted a league for it.  Even just playing co-op on the same console against random opponents online was a blast.

- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow:  The ultimate game of balance for 2 on 2 stealth game play.  Spies versus Mercenaries is still one of my all time favorite games to play online.  It required significant team work and while we frequently had an advantage by playing on XBL with 2 televisions for maximum vision, we still enjoyed this game for years.

-  Halo 2:  When a sequel to Halo was announced, details revealed an online component that was even more massive than its predecessor, but it would be on Xbox Live.  I logged nearly 3000 games of Halo 2 according to Halo Waypoint, but less than 500 for Halo: Reach.  That’s how good Halo 2 was.

Those are the games that stood out but there are countless memories from Xbox Live.  I routinely play EA’s NHL series online.  The arcade section has expanded tremendously, and there are apps that run music and Netflix.

It was also announced this week that the longest tenured XBL members may be receiving 10th anniversary Xbox 360 consoles as a thank you for their commitment.  No one has been a part of XBL longer than I have…..fingers crossed.

Happy 10th anniversary Xbox Live.  You are the superior online service, and it is not even close.

NHL 13 Setting Sports Game Standard

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As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, gaming online cooperatively in a franchise mode is something I’ve longed for years ago.  While I’ve been slow to blog about it, my excitement piqued when information was released that NHL 13 would have this very feature in their game.  Being incorporated into a series I play far more than any other is a huge cherry on top of a giant sundae.

EA Sports is calling the mode GM Connected.  The premise is the same as Be a GM mode, where you control every aspect of a franchise over the course of multiple seasons.  The difference here is that GM Connected is an online mode.  That means up to 30 teams can be controlled by different people and play each other online.  Even better, there appears to be a plethora of options to play how you wish.  For instance, you can play “versus” style with one person controlling the whole team, or “online team play” style where up to 6 players are on the same team….or anything in between.

What I, and a couple of friends I regularly game with, plan on doing is taking over a single team and rolling against the AI.  We’ll of course use appropriate sliders and adjust the difficulty so it isn’t a cake walk.  I’d also like to keep a record of games and possibly even post highlights and stats.  There are so many great possibilities here and the excitement has me eagerly awaiting September 11, 2012, the release date of NHL 13.

Before I go any further, read this fantastic article from Game Informer that goes into great detail about the upcoming mode.  It should also be noted that much more information is expected to be released very soon concerning GM Connected.

A couple issues that bother me.

-  It was noted that the commissioner can advance the game in “three-day, one-week, or two-week periods.”  I truly hope this  is not interpreted as playing one game every three days.  If there is no flexibility here, this mode because useless since we will likely play several games a night.

-  There was no mention of customized sliders being used.  I have to think we will be able to adjust the period length, difficulty and all sliders you can change offline.

The article in question is close to two months old now, but is still by far the best information available.  My hope here however is that more games follow suit when it comes to the online co-op format that NHL is utilizing.

More to come on GM Connected.

 

NHL 12′s Shortcomings

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The annual releasing of sports games has been going on for over 20 years now.  It can be argued that no game really benefits from this type of release.  Just look at Madden and NCAA Football as prime examples of games who have been negatively impacted by annual releases.  The money is made by game publishers for annual releases and that is the bottom line.  Unfortunately for EA’s NHL series, this is also the case.

As I’ve mentioned before, NHL is a game I get every year without hesitation because I know I’ll play it more than any other.  The series has been high quality since NHL 07′s complete overhaul on Xbox 360.  They’ve even made significant strides since then.

NHL 12 introduced goaltenders who can be hit, net battles, and um…goalie fighting.  A pretty substandard year as far as new gameplay features are concerned.

NHL 12 dedicated resources to adding females into the game. *sigh*

So as we are now halfway through the game’s life cycle and I really question how good NHL 12 actually is.  I’ll start with the meat of the game, online team play.

I’m more and more convinced that the guys at EA Vancouver have either never seen a hockey game, or are dead set on making it impossible for the defense to be effective.  I should preface this by saying I play this game to simulate a real hockey game.  I want to cycle the puck, make smart hockey plays and simply play it the right way.  I have 800 games played and I have a vast knowledge of the sport.

First off, the glitches.  My goodness these have become bad.  I’ll start with the worst offender…the goaltender simply doesn’t hold the post on the short side.  It’s incredibly frustrating to see this exploited on a regular basis.  Despite playing optimal defense and keeping the shooter to the outside, they manage to score a ridiculously high percentage of the time.

How about the pull back wrister that has more or less been in the game for 4 years now?  How is this still in the game???  First off, no one pulls the puck back like that in real life.  Secondly, why does the goaltender wave and miss and this shot so often?  I get the fact that being in the slot should create greater shooting percentages but going 4 for 4 isn’t right.

Many will say “play better defense.” Yeah?  I think my defense is just fine.  I rarely go for a hit, I play positional and yet the stupidest shots still go in.  I shouldn’t have to get to a certain spot on the ice and prevent an easy shot from being taken.  I want to play hockey, not “stop the cheater.”

Defense is so non-existant in this game as well.  The game is so offensively slanted it is insulting.  Poke checking, even with a stat category of 99 is incredibly difficult.  Stick lifting, which was admittedly overpowering in NHL 11, is simply useless in this game.  Even positional defense doesn’t work because highly rated skaters can just do figure-eights all day long and wait to make their move, all while staying on their skates and never losing an edge.

The offense was helped out even more by the fact that passes are no longer bobbled like they were in NHL 11.  In fact, last year’s passing was the best the series ever saw.  If you powered up a pass for too long, the recipient would likely have issues corralling it depending on their hand-eye stat.  This year, you can charge a pass as long as you want and they will receive it with no problem.  Simply put, this was a terrible decision.

Speaking of creating your online player…Remember the first couple weeks of the release? The game played great and at a realistic speed.  This is because most of the XP wasn’t earned yet.  Now it is an end to end circus with players who have perfect balance and puck control.  One of the best things they can do is significantly reduce the amount of XP earned.  You shouldn’t be able to max 6 or 7 categories in your stats.  This is a major offender when it comes to game play.

There are so many things that bug me in this game but I thought I’d mention the significant ones.  However, I’d be doing a disservice if I failed to mention the A.I. in online team play.  Is it really hard to make them actually play defense when they are assigned that spot?  They are rarely in position, and they get beat so badly at the blue line.  On offense, they shoot the puck every time they touch the puck and make no effort to do anything else.  It really is atrocious that we’ve gotten to this point.

After seeing this, you’re probably wondering why I play such a shoddy product.  The truth is that the game can be fun.  When you aren’t playing against a team of exploiters and cheaters, it really is an enjoyable game.

Now I’ve given up on playing the other portions of the game.  For some reason they dedicate so much time to adding legend mode and the money grabbing Hockey Ultimate Team.  Franchise mode is pretty decent with the right sliders but after 29 games, I couldn’t advance the schedule due to a freeze.

If this series would not be forced to meet a September release deadline, perhaps they could fix these issues that have been plaguing the series for years now.  I can’t for the life of me believe these games are being tested.  If EA really believe this is how hockey is when it comes to the glitches I’ve mentioned above, we have some bigger problems.  Of course a lack of competition in the video hockey market is an obvious factor.

Sony’s Terrible Service

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The headline, while not misleading, may have you thinking of a number of ways that Sony fails.  That list is definitely a long one, especially when it comes to the Playstation 3 console.  I have no problem declaring the Xbox 360 to be the superior console on the market today, and honestly don’t even think it is close.  Both have their problems, but I’ve added another to Sony’s side this week.

Somewhere between 3 and 4 years ago, I purchased a used PS3 on Ebay for extremely cheap.  I did so with the sole intention of purchasing the only good baseball game available, MLB: The Show (to this day that still remains true about baseball games).  The Show is exclusive to the PS3.  I still have no regrets about it because The Show is easily the best sports sim on any console that I’ve played.  Also, having the Blu-Ray inside was a great bonus as well.

Last year around this time, a few weeks after MLB 11 came out, there was a major problem with my PS3.  The yellow light of deathoccurred.   This is the equivalent to Xbox 360′s semi-more frequent red light that occurred on the first version console.

With a brand new game stuck inside the console, I called Sony to request service.  Having no warranty off a console that I purchased on Ebay, I expected to pay for it.  $129.00 was the bill.  More than half what I paid for the system…awesome.  They paid for the shipping but it took over a week for me to even receive the box.  After sending it out, it was another week before their warehouse received it.

This was frustrating to say the least.  2 weeks after the problem and Sony hadn’t touched the console yet.  After another full week of having it in their possession, I got an email with a tracking number.  Finally, they are shipping me my PS3.  It took another week and it finally arrived.  When it came, I immediately discovered they shipped me a different console.  It was the same model, but definitely a different console.

One month of waiting seems like forever when my favorite sports game is out and am unable to play it.  I’ve sent my 360 to Microsoft on more than one occasion and had a 10-14 day turn around….more on this below.

Fast forward to this week and my frustrations return.  Upon turning the PS3 on, I get a blank screen with my television telling me there is no signal.  I tried 3 different HDMI cords, 2 A/V cords, 2 tv’s, and nothing worked.  I tried every fix available on the internet without so much as a blip on the screen.

I called Sony and got a hold of someone who sounded like she was incapable of having a conversation without her screen telling her exactly what to say.  We went through all the troubleshooting options, each of which I already did, and discovered that I needed to send it to Sony for repair.  The cost?  $129.00.

Does this price ever go down?  We are on the verge of the next generation of console and gaming companies are still charging about half price of a new console for repair.

I asked her to confirm the date in which I last sent in my PS3 for repair, and she told me a date I already knew.  Indeed it was LESS THAN 1 YEAR AGO.

You’ll have to forgive me as I believe that is an insufficient amount of time to be forced to pay “full price” for another repair.  I’m told that the 90 day warranty from the repair is all they give.  90 days is nothing.  I wonder how many PS3 owners have ever used this 90 day repair warranty.  I’m guessing a handful at most.

I told the representative that this was absurd.  4 times over the next 2-3 minutes she told me “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do”.  I feel bad for customer service reps when people yell at them in anger because it isn’t really their fault.  However, I have a much better understanding as to why customers get mad….the reps aren’t apologetic at all.  They are reading their scripts and show zero human emotion at all.  That, to me, is offensive and as a customer, makes me feel unimportant.

After asking for a reference number for the call, so I could call back later to get right back into it, I thought it over for a bit.  I decided I’m not going to pay $129 for a system that worked for 11.5 months (minus the 2+ weeks of shipping and the 3 months of sitting dormant after I got rid of The Show).  Surely I could talk to someone and try and get this outrageous asking price down to the $50-70 range.

I talked to a robot gentleman and gave him the reference number and explained everything I had told the previous rep.  He told me all the same stuff and I then asked if there was anything at all he could do for me.  Of course he said no and that the $129 is set in stone, no exceptions.

I asked to speak to someone else who might have more authority to help.  I did this all while staying as polite as possible without pissing anyone off…even though they had done a terrible job of returning the favor.  This clearly wasn’t part of his script because in a completely nervous voice he asked “Uh….who would you like to talk to?”

The exact opposite of how my customer service experience with Sony went.

I bet the janitor could do a better job of helping, how about sending him my way.

I said just give me a supervisor or manager.   After a few minutes of Sony advertising, I was directed to a man who actually sounded like he gave a damn for a brief second.  After I told him my problem, he stood firm in telling me it would be $129 and went through the whole 90 day crap.

I asked him if he thought it was absurd that if an essentially new console stopped working 91 days after I had paid $129 to have it fixed, that I’d have to pay the same amount again.  He went on some spiel about how if his PS3 was in this situation that even he would have to pay full price to have it fixed.  Well, good for you buddy.  Way to make yourself sound real important in front of the customer.  I also didn’t ask about you and your console.

I thanked him for his time, but ended my saying I won’t be giving them any money to fix this  thing twice in a single year.

I was stunned at the sheer unapologetic answers and unwillingness to help that Sony was. It is really that much to ask that a system work for 1 calendar year?  Technically, it could break 4 times in a year and you’d have to pay for a repair every single time.  That is outrageous.

Even Microsoft sent me a brand new generation Xbox 360 after I had three separate issues with my system. Those were all with no charge too.

I quickly found many reputable 3rd party companies that specialize in fixing gaming systems.  One stuck out with overwhelmingly positive reviews and I went with them after a few hours of research.  As I type, my system is en route to RSOL PC.  I’ll discuss my thoughts on their service in the near future, but so far, it’s been a good experience.

NCAAB Conference Tournament Coverage on ESPN3

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With most mid-major conferences already underway with their tournaments, you may see an explosion of them on the ESPN family of networks.  As a huge college basketball fan, I’m offering a little reminder to you that ESPN3.com offers up not only nearly every game seen on the ESPNs, but a plethora of games you can’t see anywhere else.

Not only will you get first and second round coverage of all the rarely seen conferences, but it is high school basketball championship time.  ESPN3 frequently shows many state basketball championships for boys and girls.

ESPN3 is available at their website, if your internet provider offers it, as well as on Xbox Live for gold members.

It really is a great service that gives you coverage of mainstream sports as well as a lot of fringe sports you could never find on television.

MLB 2k12 Demo Tomorrow; The Show Still Unknown

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MLB 2K12 demo will hit the Xbox 360 and PS3 tomorrow.  Xbox gamers can look forward to another underwhelming game while PS3 gamers will laugh at 2K for actually taking the time to put their game on the system at all.

The demo will feature the previous World Series matchup of the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals.  This will be your first opportunity to control the Cardinals without Albert Pujols on the roster.

Meanwhile, MLB 12: The Show has made no announcement about releasing their game’s demo on the PSN SEN.  However, if you make a trek to select Best Buy stores, you have access to MLB 12: The Show at kiosks.  Not every Best Buy store has this available so your milage will vary.  While there, you may even be able to compare the Vita version with the PS3 version of the game.

Both games are available on Tuesday, March 6.

‘Next’ Xbox Controller Could Have Touch Screen

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Nintendo’s Wii U controller could be the prototype for all next generation controllers.  It’s being rumored that the successor to the Xbox 360 will utilize an HD touch screenas part of the controller.

The Father of what could be the norm.

Gaming as evolved over the years in various ways and this could very well be the direction we are going.  It’s pretty obvious that motion controls have not represented what the hard-core gamers are about.  However, it’s impossible to argue how well Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect have sold with the casual crowd.  This could be a very interesting transition.

This summer’s E3 will be a significant expo as it is a near certainty to be the first one in nearly a decade to showcase the next generation of consoles.