Stuck on the Main Menu

I can’t remember the last time I wrote anything of note on my gaming experiences, mainly due to the fact that I had been relatively bored with gaming since I finished up Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. I can’t stand to be on Halo more then a few minutes and while I have fun with Black Ops it has begun to feel like the same thing over and over and over. At one point it looked like my first game of 2011 was going to be Dragon Age 2, but in my immense boredom I decided to give some games I would normally pass on a chance and have found two gems to begin 2011 with.

Dead Space 2:
I’m am 2/3 of the way through this game (Chapter 10 of 15) but even with the amount I have played so far I can tell this will easily be the best “survival horror” game I have ever played, topping Resident Evil 2. Besides having flawless sound and great visuals the developers managed to incorporate a great story with some WOW moments. There is one sequence in the game where you are on a train/subway/”L”train and you think there is a cutscene but, you actually have control of the Character. It was a nice touch to constantly keep you in the game. There is also a few Jurassic Park moments (those that have played the game will understand) that provide some intense game play.

Bulletstorm
Pure fun…not many other ways to describe it. It will remind old school gamer of what shooters use to be (arcade) and with the point system for pulling off awesome kills only add to the addictive feel of the game and its replay ability. I really wish more games would include a scoring system in their campaigns that you could compare with your friends it would be a great way to get a little more life out of the single player. What really surprised me was how much I liked the campaign. You expect it to be mindless, but it’s rather good and you want to find out how it ends.

Dragon Age 2
I really just started this game and hope to be fully immersed in the world of Dragon Age for the next few weeks. So far is been rather good, not quite as good as Origins, but still the best fantasy RPG to come out in a year. The combat is vastly improved, but I feel like I lost a little customization and the story isn’t as “grand” although still rather good. I’ll give a longer blog about the game once I finish it, but so far it’s been a nice escape.

What I am looking forward to:

There are several games that I am very excited to get my hands on over the next few month as soon as I finish up Dragon Age II and Dead Space 2.

LA Noire
Brink
MLB 2011: The Show
Lord of the Rings: War in the North

With what I have played and what is coming out…it looks like its going to be a very busy spring.

PS3

So I have finally decided to get a PS3 (I asked my wife to grab me one for my birthday) which will give me all three systems. Why I wanted a PS3 is simple…I wanted a console for my bedroom that I could watch Netflix and blu rays on. I also wanted to give the great exclusives the PS3 has offered and is offering a go. PS3’s Uncharted, Demon Souls, Heavy Rain and several other look too awesome to not experience.

Is Xbox live a rip off?

I keep thinking about Xbox live Gold and I wonder…”what am I paying for”

Playstation Network offers pretty much the same services, but they are free so what am I paying for.

It seems like I’m paying for a lot of things that Microsoft doesn’t provide.

Netflix – How many of us use the Xbox for Netflix? It a service you pay for separately from Xbox Live, but you still need a Gold Membership to access it... I’m already paying 8.95 a month for Netflix, $15 a Month for internet and yet I still need to pay $60 a year just to have access to it. Now I’m paying three times for the same service…that in my book is a rip off.

Online Gaming – This is another service that has to have an xbox live Gold account, but Microsoft does not control or do any work to provide. Most of the online games will do one of two things. (1) Have their own dedicated servers to host games on. These are run by the gaming companies or the developers, not Microsoft. (2) Peer 2 Peer hosting, again this is in the code for the game to have a lobby then while in that lobby select someone to “host” the game. This is yet something else that is not provided by Microsoft yet we are charged for access to it. Both of these things go through the internet or the individual game companies, not Xbox Live, and what does Microsoft do? Charge You!

My problem isn’t necessarily paying for Xbox Gold, if it is for a service that Microsoft provides such as the ESPN package, Hulu Plus and party chat, but requiring the “Gold” package for services I am already paying for (internet, Netflix). The Gold package should be an upgrade and not a requirement to enjoy all aspects of a game you have already spent $60 on or a service you spend $9 a month on. Make it an option if you want to access Facebook, ESPN and Party chat, but for people who want to just game online or watch Netflix it is a rip off. It’s almost like they are simply charging gamers “because they can”.