Ghosts, Spies, And The NXE  

I finished GRAW2 again the other day. I generally play my games on easy, because they are primarily entertainment, so i'm looking to get as much fun as possible out of it with as little effort as possible. I don't consider that to be lazy, as i've already paid upwards of £30 for the damn thing and should therefore be allowed to take things easy. I mention this because i finished GRAW2 on a higher difficulty level, which i would have been unable to do if i'd finished it on that difficulty before. I like difficulties that stack up (like say Halo 3, where finishing it on Legendary gives you the achievements for Normal and Heroic as well), but i think that negates the possibility of future playthroughs. If i slog through the game on Legendary, and get the achievements for all 3 difficulty levels, then there's no reason for me to ever play it again. So, i first finished GRAW2 on the easiest setting, and having found out that it was an excellent game, i kept it for future playthroughs. It's really well done; and possesses an early view of the game direction that COD4 implemented beautifully i.e. the sense that "big thangs popping up in here". Where Ghost Recon had nuclear missiles, Call of Duty had... okay, shut up. Where the nuclear missile was detonated in Ghost Recon, In Call of Duty...

Okay okay it might sound like COD4 copies those two scenarios from GRAW2, but my point was that it's done very very well in Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty manages to hammer it home even better. So if you've played COD4 to death, and you're looking for something new (or rather, old), GRAW2 is quite cheap these days, and if you've managed to get a free Xbox, you might as well get a free copy of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. (Now you see why i say GRAW2)

Moving on, i JUST now finished The Bourne Conspiracy, and i gotta tell you, playing as Jason Bourne really impresses upon you just how badass he is. Watching the movies are one thing, because you see him on the screen and a small (but very much aware) part of you knows that the film studio can make him as dangerous/suave/gangsta as he needs to be to make an entertaining movie. But playing him? It's like playing the movie, in a good way. The hand to hand fights are fast and furious when they go right, but when they go wrong they devolve into button mashing fests because your button presses stack up so even though it looks like he's not responding, he will be in about a second or two. This doesn't help, because by now you've pressed all four buttons in order to get him to MOVE ALREADY! When he finally does, you see a sweet combo, but you don't know how you did it. The takedowns are pretty well done too, because they tried to capture the movie effect, and having seen what Bourne is capable of, no amount of xx, yy, up-down-back would do. They made it so he does all the work, and you just sit back and press the on screen buttons at the right time so he follows through perfectly. Missing a prompt isn't the end of the world (or the mission, bar a few situations), because when you miss and he fumbles, the enemies DO follow through perfectly, so whatever happens, you get to see a really good fight. They might have overdone it though, because towards the end of the game, i felt like i was watching him unravel this conspiracy (as opposed to actually playing it and unravelling the conspiracy myself), and pressing buttons at certain times. I plan to play it again, because i found it surprisingly short, and i like the achievements, because they're challenges such as complete a mission without using a shooting takedown, etc etc

The NXE came last week and for better or worse, the old dashboard is gone, bar a few diehards who refuse to connect to XBL. I like it, a lot. One question i get asked a lot about it is, what does it do? Short answer is: nothing, because it's not supposed to do anything. Long answer is: It's an interface that provides access to all your system functions while looking good, the last phrase being key here. It's essentially doing the exact same thing the old dash did, but better. It's faster, smoother (to look at anyway), and things are somewhat better organised. That's all there is to say, really. The only major addition is the Avatars, which look like a thinly veiled rip off of the Miis. One wonders if the threat of lawsuits is what detered them from copying the Miis wholesale. It's not like they HAD to go with that appearance for their avatars afterall. That said, i like the variety available for customisation although once i find what i like i tend to stick to it. I like the friends' list, but i don't like how you have to be online to see it. I understand that you need to be online to do stuff with it, what i'm peeving about is how it's just not there when you're offline (as in, not signed in to XBL). It's completely unavailable. Oh well. It's also somewhat slower on the marketplace, because it tends to want to load up all the pages at the same time, so i get a row of loading icons, and then they all show at the same time. I like installing games, my xbox is now quieter because there's no disc noise, hopefully it'll last longer since the disc is not spinning anymore. Installing games does eat up a lot of space though, i've installed about 4 games, and i'm down to about 65gb, from say 80. It usually caps at 90gb, take say 10 off for save data, videos, themes, and that's where i got 80 from.

Anyway. FREE IPOD soon. SWEEEET

Peace