Registration begins at 8:30pm CST on March 6th. So who's going?

Nothin much from Major Nelson on this day four years ago. So, I looked up some other stuff...

Nintendo: Revolution will be cheapest next-gen console
"How low will Nintendo go? It's hard to tell. Rumors of a $199 Revolution are running rampant in forums, though there is nothing concrete to support such an assumption. However, it would have to be below the only known next-gen price points. Microsoft is selling two Xbox 360 SKUs--the no-frills $299 "core" Xbox and the $399 standard model with hard drive and wireless remote."

Intel, Microsoft endorse HD DVD
"Intel and Microsoft believe weighing in on the HD DVD side will be enough to tip the balance. "We have a high expectation of having a single format, and that format is HD DVD," said Intel spokesman Bill Kircos."

Top five movies...
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
Hitch
Constantine
Man of the House
Cursed

I'm going to post this stuff every Friday. From Major Nelson's Blog I will post the interesting (to me) Xbox stuff happening from four years ago this week...

Xbox Live Top 25

1 Halo 2
2 Tom Clancy`s Ghost Recon 2
3 Rainbow Six: Black Arrow
4 Madden NFL 2005
5 Counter-Strike
6 ESPN NFL 2K5
7 MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf
8 Project Gotham Racing 2
9 Rainbow Six 3
10 ESPN NBA 2K5
11 MVP Baseball 2005
12 Dead or Alive Ultimate
13 Need for Speed: Underground 2
14 Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
15 Pro Evolution Soccer 4
16 NBA Live 2005
17 Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
18 World Championship Poker
19 Greg Hastings` Tournament Paintball
20 Unreal Championship 2 Live Demo
21 Star Wars: Battlefront
22 FIFA 2005
23 Burnout 3
24 Call of Duty: Finest Hour
25 Street Fighter Anniversary Collection

Gamertag.com celebrates it's 50,000th member (I didn't even know it had been around that long).

That's all for this week. See you next Friday!

I am really enjoying the new Xbox 360 interface, and the addition of being able to watch Netflix movies kicks ass.

Yea, I admit it; I attended a GameStop Midnight Launch to get this game. Mainly so I could get my Son (godZilla) the exclusive code that makes one of the weapons in the game a cool gold color and another that gives you a new Gears 2 theme for when the NXE (New Xbox Experience) interface launches later this month. I also picked up a Gears 2 themed skin for the 360 that looked much better while still in the packaging, the first issue of the Gears of War comic book, a few packs of gum and a couple sodas for my time.

I fell in love with the first game in the series after Calley and I played the campaign during a local late night co-op session, so I had some high expectations and was really looking forward to this latest entry in the battle to save Sera and what remains of humanity.

The Good stuff...

The graphics are a notch above the first game which is awesome in it's own right to say the least. Nothing revolutionary has been done here but the environment, modeling, and effects have gotten a bit nicer looking and more fluid. The water, fire and explosion effects especially got my attention. The sound has also been improved subtly. I love the tweaked weapons sounds and the music scoring has an even more cinematic vibe than the first.

The campaign so far is the best I have experienced from any game on any platform, but I love the sci-fi action genre. It's intense with only a few moments to actually ogle at the scenery before the action begins anew. The story is more fleshed out and the voice acting is really good for the most part. I loved a certain character’s grand entrance, and felt a little sad over a tragedy that I didn’t see coming at all. Overall I was more drawn into the story than the first one.

Some of the firefights are awesome with action coming at you from afar and up close and personal at the same time, and even if I die several times getting through them (stupid exploding bugs!), it's so much fun that I don't really mind doing them over. There are also a few new ways to execute your opponents that are icing on this bloody cake.

The new Horde mode is totally addicting! godZilla and I played a good bit of this and once he figured out that every time he tried to be the stud, we were both doomed. Then the team work kicked in it got really fun. Basically, what we discovered that what worked the best for us was just finding a strategic spot in the map that could be defended with only one or two possible entrances. After we quickly collected our preferred weapons and set up camp we worked together to hold the fort while every so often we took turns sniping while the other went in search of much needed ammo, going on like this until the enemy was exterminated. Then it starts again with more and smarter enemies taking different paths. Good times.

The new maps are well laid out and some new cool effects have been added (like razor hail!), and the original Gears 1 maps have been refreshed to make them feel almost like new maps with a familiar flavor. If you buy the game new, you get the original map pack as a free download... nice.

The AI is much better, but still, every once in a while, you still see ole' Dominic running in circles, doing the DomDance or just staring intensely at a wall while you are fighting for your life.

The Ugly stuff...

I ran into couple of bugs. I got stuck a few times while investigating whether I could walk into certain objects and ended up having to restart from the last checkpoint to get unstuck. Once, on a "flying boat" map when I went below deck, pulled a lever down, went back up and all of my squad had just disappeared and the story would not advance. For several minutes I just ran around in a ghost ship with nothing happening... another restart. I also saw some instances of clipping (melding into walls) and floating dead bodies every once in a while.

The "giant worm" (think Fantastic Voyage) level with the puzzles, in my opinion just felt completely out of context with the rest of the game. Parts of it were ok, but it was mostly tedious BS. In the end, I did find some disgusting humor in the whole thing, so even this low point wasn’t a total bummer.

On line multiplayer matchmaking is frustrating at best, with long waits for players and frequent disconnects, although it did seem to get a little better later on in the weekend. It really needs to be fixed now.

Overall...

Gears of War 2 is a beautiful looking and sounding game with intense action, a decent story and very little for hard core shooter guys and girls to complain about. I am totally rocking with the campaign, and Horde is going to keep me playing with myself (heh) for a long time after I have finished the story. It's my kind of game and I'm loving it!

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chili