Topic: Congrats on your new Xbox 360, Scott!

[Cobra951]

Hey, welcome to the fold.  Got & replied to your friend message.  How's Lost Planet?

[iPPi]

So you did get a new 360!  I thought you decided not to get it and stuff. 

[Cobra951]

He can't answer.  He's still in Lost Planet, an hour and a half later.   

[sirean_syan]

Damn. Another one? I'm really gonna fall behind on this generation.

Congrats. I'm curious how Lost Planet turned out, so you need to share.

[scottws]

Heheh.  I have to admit, the commercials for Lost Planet pretty much sold me.  Who says marketing doesn't work?

Yeah, I went out and spent a shit-load today.  One thing I hated to buy but had to was the wireless adapter.  $100 friggin' dollars.  But at least this one supports WPA and WPA2.  I remember the wireless adapter my brother got for the original Xbox only did WEP.

I spent a lot of time on my brother's Xbox 360, and I was really impressed with it.  The wireless controllers are awesome and the integration with your home network (if you use Windows Media Connect, Windows Media Center, Zune, or Windows Media Player 11) is also pretty awesome.

In addition to Lost Planet, I also got Gears of War and the system came with Madden 07, but haven't played those yet.  I'm also downloading the Crackdown demo.

As for Lost Planet... it's ok.  The visuals are awesome, and there are some neat gameplay ideas.  However I often feel... lost.  During boss fights I often feel helpless.  I can find the boss' weakness fairly easily, and I can exploit it, but I can never seem to avoid getting damaged.  The VS' (robot suits) are so slow that you're always getting nailed.  So I'm having to replay every boss part several times.  But I do like the game well enough to keep going.

I wanted to get Dead Rising too*, but I couldn't afford another $60 on top of what I already spent.

* I like the game overall, just have a lot of nitpicks with it.

[iPPi]

Yea I hated getting the Wireless Adapter as well, but running a 20m+ cable from my computer room down to my TV was out of the question, so I got the wireless adapter as well.  Gotta say t hough, the adapter is really good.  Gets a great signal and doesn't lose it or anything like that.

[Cobra951]

I had Lost Planet in my hands at Microcenter today, but I couldn't bring myself to spend the $60 on a game I'm not sure I really really want.  Instead, I got the limited edition of Prey (for the 360) for the same price as the regular version: $30.  2 pewter figurines and an art pamphlet, but the big tin can is actually a minus.  It's bulky, doesn't fit in well with the rest of my games, and the disc is stupidly attached to the bottom of the can, under everything, including the molded plastic & fuzzy stuff insert that holds everything else.  Now I need to find me a standard DVD case somewhere.  Too bad I threw out an AOL mailer or two, and fairly recently too.

I'm in the middle of Gears of War (finally).  Awesome, awesome game.   (Gee, Capcom, you can do a roll, in any direction, without making you think twice about moving too soon after stopping?  Wow, who would have thought it possible?)  The achievements say I finished 3 chapters.  I didn't pay enough attention while playing to where a chapter ends and the next begins.  It's all so seamless.  I have to praise the devs for giving me such good controls over the lighting too.  And while I'm not too sure yet, it seems like they're handling the 1280x768 res I have it set to correctly, meaning it doesn't seem to be just 720P stretched out to a 16:10 ratio.  Circles look like circles, and nobody looks too tall or skinny.  (Course, these jarheads probably would never look that way even streched up that 11%.)  I'm playing on casual difficulty, and that's fine for me.  Not too many frustrations, but still a good challenge.  I'll ramp up to the other settings after I finish, maybe.

Anything new to report on Lost Planet, Scott?  I did read your post, and it leaves me with the impression that you're on the fence about it.  My experience with the demo was that you have a limited time to run through each area, or your life support runs out and you die.  Are you always running against a tight clock?  (I generally don't like that kind of pressure in a game.)

[scottws]

I really like Lost Planet.  I'm on the last boss, I think.  The thing you're talking about Cobra isn't really a timer, per se.  But it can be.  You can get "thermal energy" which increases the "clock."  But it is always counting down, and after it counts down to zero you can't use the VS' (big robots) or energy weapons and you start to lose your real life.  But the life regenerates if you can get more thermal energy.  It is strange, and hard to explain, but it works.

On some levels it feels like a timer, and on others it feels like your health.

[Cobra951]

Cool.  I'll probably end up getting this.  But not yet.  I have more than enough to keep my Xbox humming for a while.

[Quemaqua]

Congrats on the purchase, Scott.  Microsoft seems to be doing its damndest to kill the PC.  And I can't say I don't like my 360, no matter how much more I like my PC.

I'd like to nab Lost Planet, but I'm broker than broke at the moment, so that isn't gonna' happen.  And I really need to play through Gears some more.  Don't worry about starting on Casual, Cobra.  It's very short and whizzes by at a lightning pace, so you'll definitely want to play through again on the other difficulties.  It gets even more exciting when you do (mostly) and gives it some replay value.  Try coop too if you get the chance to also.  I've fiddled with it and its awesome.  I've been dying to play it more substantially but I don't have Live, don't have a second controller, and there's only one person who'd play it with me and all he does is paint miniatures.  =P

[iPPi]

Gears of War is an absolutely phenomenal game.  I played through on Hardcore by myself, and I did most of Insane by myself as well, but I did do act 2, and act 5 on coop.

I recently went back to collect all the COG tags, and I did it on Casual so I didn't have to worry about the enemies so much... and man... the game is dead easy on Casual.

I'm not sure if I want Lost Planet or not though.  It seems interesting, but probably not interesting enough to justify a purchase.

[Cobra951]

It's humbling to see where I fall on the game-skills scale around here.  "Casual" was a good-enough challenge for me.  I finished the game after getting killed a few times by the last boss.  Then started a second run on "hardcore".  I got to this round fountain early in the game (shortly after finding that dead body by a hole outside, with a white van halfway into it).  About 3 emergence holes pop up around it, and you have to fight off the grubs from inside of it, and try to seal the holes with grenades.  Well, I must have gotten whacked about 5 times, always from one of those ugly dudes rushing me as his buddies are shooting from several angles.  I gave up.  They can take so much more lead in "hardcore" before dropping.  I'll end up trying again, later.  Now I'm just going through "casual" once more, looking for those COG tags.  The game seems to remember which ones you picked up before on the same difficulty, so I only need to find the ones I missed before.

[beo]

glad you finally got into gears, cobra - it's effing sweet. casual is pretty easy, but it gives you a chance to get to grips with the controls. hardcore is much more fun in my opinion though - you have to really watch your ammo and nail the timing for taking cover / reloading. things such as the perfect reload system work so well though, it's like a mini-game in itself.

the only thing i've found to top the gears experience on the 360 is playing co-op GRAW. last weekend, we got some 4 player action going on a 42" hi def set and that was fucking awesome, barking orders and enemy locations at each other, we became a highly efficient, albeit, slightly drunk, unit.

[scottws]

I beat Gears of War last night.  I too played on casual.  On Gamespot's video review, they (Kasavin?) mention that casual is easy and hardcore "feels right" for most of the game then starts to get really difficult at the end.

I also had my share of trouble in casual.  I didn't find it hard per se, but there were definitely a couple parts that I had to replay several times and I probably fought the final boss about 20 times before I finally beat him (I killed him with my last grenade, which was also happened to be my last bit of ammo entirely).

I was floored by the Unreal 3 engine.  It is simply amazing looking.  Especially that level in the rain.  Wow.  The only thing I could possibly suggest is they have some effect that makes little splash effects on the bodies of the COGs and Locusts.  I wouldn't even call that a complaint, as it is literally the only engine flaw I noticed.  Huge environments... awesome detail... nice framerate...

[Quemaqua]

I found some of the shader stuff on the rain level to be a little inconsistent or overkill, but like you said, that's hardly a complaint.  It was so stinking awesome.  It's also fugly if you look straight up as you can see the boxes that the rain falls in... but again, it looks so amazing 90% of the time, and certainly so much better than anything else, it's hard to care too much.

I played through my first time on hardcore.  It's definitely difficult, but not controller-throwingly so.  I definitely died a lot, but usually just a couple times on difficult points.  Last boss took me a good 10 tries, I think, and I'm still not even entirely sure what I did to kill him.  I think I figured it out then but have since forgotten.

Anyway... yeah, awesome game.  I just want them to flesh out the story stuff they took so many pains to put in there.  They really could have beefed it up and used that to do so much and they totally blew it.  But the universe itself is cool, and I think a sequel could really expand on those basic building blocks.  Fenix's family/background will certainly get more attention in the next game I hope.

[Cobra951]

Scott:

The perfect reload--yeah.  I totally ignored that on my first run.  The only thing I knew about it is the annoyance of hitting the reload button after you run out of ammo.  It gets interpreted as a 2nd press, at the wrong time, so my character curses, and reload takes forever.  That sucks.  Now that I understand the timing, I have it down pretty good, and it sure helps.  There's only one other thing that bugs me about the controls, and that has to do with going into and out of cover when things are insane all around.  I often end up sticking to the wrong wall, or ping-ponging between 2 walls, when all I want to do is run!     I need to work on this.

I love the game's look.  Did you play it at high res?  The frame rate at 1280x768 (or maybe a slightly Y-stretched 720P--I don't really know if the game uses my dashboard res) is uneven.  It's good most of the time, but does get somewhat bogged down sometimes.  I also get some very rare (i.e., few) freezes in the action with a "Loading" blurb.  I hope my DVD drive isn't having any issues.

Que:

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The key to the last boss is having the correct weapons.  You need to scare off those Pitch Black flyers so you can nail him.  Grenades work, but the torque bow is better.  Your other weapon should be that sniper/rail gun (whatever it's called).  They're both in the train car just before the boss.  (Pick them up first, then the 2 ammo boxes.)

[Quemaqua]

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Ah... I remember using grenades and the bow to get rid of those guys, but I wasn't sniping him.  Might have been why he took so damned long!

I ended up playing it at low-res because on my screen I get the letterbox thing at high.  It looked so fucking amazing, and if I was playing split-screen coop I'd totally do that (as it'll just do the same size letterbox but on the upper and lower parts of the screen, yay), but it was pretty annoying otherwise.  I wish they'd patch that shit out.  Viva Pinata had no problems going HD in a non-widescreen format without letterbox.  Fucking Epic.  That was the only thing that kinda' pissed me off a bit.  But the game still looks phenomenal even without HD resolutions, so it didn't matter too much to me in the end.  Amazing looking game.

[Cobra951]

They have a lot of res/aspect issues to handle all the time.  Now there's a clamor for proper support of 16:10 monitors.  (I didn't even know widescreen PC monitors weren't 16:9 until I got one.)  I wish some high-tech warlord would decide on a real standard, then shoot everyone who makes equipment that fails to comply.  Lots of Sony Blu-Ray execs dead.  Yay!

[scottws]

Yeah, I played at 1080i on my brother's 51" (I think) widescreen Toshiba.

I had the same problem as you Cobra, especially on that last boss running to opposite ends of the train where I'd keep getting stuck to things and I'd be like, "Fuck dude what are you doing!!!"  But it was still a really cool game despite that control flaw.

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Do the Krill really get scared away?  After I stopped being an idiot and remembered that the Krill don't like light, I think I noticed that when the dude would step into a lighted area they'd fly away from him.  But it also coincided with me blasting him with the torque bow so it could have been either I guess.

[Cobra951]

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Yes, you can wait around for him to step into the lighted areas, and the Krill fly away.  But well-placed explosives definitely send them away too, I noticed.  The arrows stick & then explode.  Easier than grenades, I thought.

[iPPi]

Cobra is correct with that strategy.

[Antares]

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I was able to beat him by slipping past and railing him with the chaningun mounted on the second to last car.  It took a few tries though, the chaingun is technically in the dark and if he sees you you'll get torn to bits pretty quickly.

My only complaint with GoW was that it was short.  I'll most likely go through again at higher difficulty levels though.... also MP kind of sucks.

[PyroMenace]

So Scott, did you finish Lost Planet? What did you think?

I just beat it and my reactions are its a pretty solid shooter. Its really well presented. I have some grips about the story as there are some inconsistencies that I didn't really get. At about 2/3rds of the way through the game started to wain as the levels got straightforward and repetitive but then I will say the ending boss fight was awesome. Visually its really impressive and some of the akrid monsters just really blow you away with their sheer size. Theres a good amount of challenge in the boss fights as most of them will take multiple attempts, but they weren't overly frustrating. Overall I had a lot of fun with it, glad I picked it up.

[Cobra951]

I might get this game when it gets cheap.  After playing through the demo a few times, I decided to hold off on purchase.

Did you get the premium 360, Pyro?  You should really try some of the demos if you did.  Lots of good free gameplay there.

[scottws]

Yeah, I finished it a long time ago.  I got into the multiplayer for a little while, but got frustrated by the lack of consistency game-to-game.  I'd go from last to first to last to second.  It was frustrating.

The story was very poorly presented.  It like they cut so much out of it that what is left doesn't make any sense.  You get little snippets here and there, but not enough to really piece together what was going on.

I ended up selling the game on eBay for about $30.  I didn't feel very attached to it and felt like I should try to recoup some of that initial purchase cost.

[PyroMenace]

I might get this game when it gets cheap.  After playing through the demo a few times, I decided to hold off on purchase.

Did you get the premium 360, Pyro?  You should really try some of the demos if you did.  Lots of good free gameplay there.

Yea I got the premium. I checked out the Test Drive Unlimited demo since you guys were really enjoying it and I also checked out Perfect Dark Zero. TDU seems kinda cool, not sure if I could really get into it. It was cool though that as I was playing the demo there were other players roaming around, I had no idea I was on an online game. The offering of PDZ left me unsure if I wanted to pick that one up or not. At least the demo took place in a middle eastern town which made it feel like modern warfare which I don't like, I was hoping to see more futuristic themed locales, however it felt solid and looked good.

[scottws]

Perfect Dark Zero can be given a pass.  It just isn't that good.  The setting is supposed to be futuristic, but it seems pretty near-future.  Plus it's taken an almost cartoony twist, especially in the cutscenes.

It has the same problems that Goldeneye and Perfect Dark had in that you have to do various secondary missions but aren't sure what the exact objective is sometimes, and certainly not where it is.  The levels can be pretty huge sometimes too.

It might be fun in multiplayer.  I don't know.  I never tried.

[Cobra951]

Give the Crackdown demo a try too.  Like TDU, you can play it for a good long time, and have a big fraction of the world open to you.  I think the demo by itself is a good small game.  See how far you can advance your character within the hour you're given.  Although I bought the game (and it's one of my 360 favorites), I still have the demo installed.

[PyroMenace]

I checked out the Crackdown demo. I wasn't sure if I would like it since I had my fill of GTAness since I played the hell out of GTA3 and VC. But after spending the full hour on the demo I actually had a lot of fun. Its kinda of cool your given super human characteristics. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop was a blast, I went after those agility orbs and leveled my agility 3 times. I felt like spiderman or something jumping around. As for the criminal bosses, I managed to just mow them down with hardly breaking a sweat. I played it on the lightest difficulty, which said "Tough" so I figured to go with that one. Overall I ended up being impressed.