GET-tastic Tuesday!

Boo yeah! Yesterday was a GET-tastic Tuesday if I do myself. Not even counting Pokemon Black 2 I picked up on Sunday, yesterday's fine acquisitions come in the form of Atlus's Code of Princess for 3DS and the Prometheus Blu-Ray.

And though they were free, I was also able to pick up my Commendation and Victory packs and the Retaliation multiplayer DLC for Mass Effect 3. VOLUS there's even VOLUS a couple Volus (VOLUS) characters to VOLUS unlock now! VOLUS! Ok, enough with the volus (VOLUS!) I promise. It is pretty epic though. I didn't get to play Mass Effect 3 at all yesterday but I'll try to get a couple games in on the weekend if I finish my review for Code of Princess.

Oh yeah I should do some sort of impressions on that shouldn't I?

Remember, Remember, the 14th of September!

As most of you probably know I picked up the Limited Edition version of Halo: Reach yesterday night. Of course after the initial batch of pictures I took my friends and I jumped into online multiplayer for a couple hours before it was time for bed. I didn't really have any time to really look over the main component of the limited edition: Halsey's journal.

After getting a chance to look at it I can honestly say the extra 20 bucks was well spent. The effort and design put into the journal is nothing short of astounding. Bungie has really outdone themselves this time and I think it's safe to say those who purchased the limited or legendary editions will be extremely pleased.

The journal itself is more like a small book written by Dr. Halsey: a very very important, yet frequently unexpanded, character in the Halo universe. Anyone who has read "The Fall of Reach" will understand what I mean when I say this journal contains some very awesome totally canon information that until now was never truly expanded upon.

Aside from the journal pages themselves, the journal also contains alot of extra printed material from the Halo universe. News clippings, photographs, dossiers, personal letters, and even information on the Spartan Master Chief John-117 and his Mjolinr mk.IV armor.

Oh and there's an iron-on patch, whooo!

So aside from the game being totally awesome (so far) I highly recomend the limited or legendary editions for any person who is hungry for more insight into the Halo storyline!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Say it with Zombies...

I downloaded "The Passing" DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 this past saturday and honestly I'm pretty glad I did. This is the first DLC released for L4D2 and in fact I'm surprised it took so long for one to come out.

Timing aside I have to say this is my favorite Left 4 Dead DLC so far. It adds a new 3-act level, a new heavy weapon (the M60), and a new melee weapon (golf club!). I like it because it's quick, easy for when you dont want to play a prolonged campaign or versus match, but it's longer than Crash Course so it feels like its got more substance to it. The enviroments are diverse enough through the levels that it feels longer than its 3 acts while only taking 30-45 minutes to complete. And the climax of the campaign is a very aweseome scavenge run with the survivors from Left 4 Dead helping you!

Also added in the DLC is a new special infected type, the Fallen Survivor. Imagine a survivor who thought he was immune and was sadly mistaken. Apparently people like that become special infected. They have no unique attacks but take more damage to kill than a regular infected and can also retreat before being killed, usually running you to another special infected or zombie horde. Thankfully when you kills these annoying kiters they drop things you might normally find on a survivor like health packs, pills, adrenaline, explosives, or the occasional melee weapon.

Another change to the game the DLC makes are the caches. They're exactly what they sound like, a large case filled with an unlimited supply of things like pistols, pills, molotovs, pipe bombs, or adrenaline shots.Camping by these things can be very advantagous if you need to stop anyways or in case of horde.

And of course if that wasn't enough The Passing adds a new Midnight Riders song!

What you're not sold?

Fine, The Passing DLC also adds a new mode called Mutation. What that is exactly is a constatnly changing special game type. The way it works is every thursday a new blog post will be availible detailing the Mutation that will be availible friday. As an example the Mutation until this friday is Realism Versus, So whenever you click on the Mutation gametype, you'll automatically be taken to a versus match with realism mode enabled. It won't stop there either, the rules can be changed as much or as little as valve decides so I'm curious to see what kind of zany antics they come up with.

All in all The Passing is definatly worth your 7 bucks and adds a total of 250 gamerscore points in case you were interested.

I give The Passing DLC for L4D2 a solid BRAAAIIINNNNSSSS/10

My Xbox 360 is Inspector Gadget...

Remember that show? lol., well it does have everything to do with the point im trying to make so i'll run it down for you.

Inspector Gadget was a secret agent who's body was augmented with all sorts of gadgets to help him in his espionage. in actuality he was kind of a loser and his gadgets although cool, never helped him much. it always came down to his niece Penny and her dog to help him save the day and accomplish his missions

ok, what the hell does this have to do with my Xbox? well they just added 4 new distinct features to the Xbox 360 console a couple days ago, Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and the Zune Marketplace.

The Facebook and Twitter tabs are an Xbox 360 way to bring social networking to games. mostly its just a slightly watered version of the 2 current most popular social networking sites (cutting out the facebook aps, and facebook chat functions only). Its good for you if the computer is currently occupied (or dead if youre like me :/ ) but otherwise the web version will still be your best bet. Twitter is twitter so if youre all about the tweeting than its pretty much the same actually lol.

Last.fm is quite cool, ice never heard of it before but it builds radio stations around particular artists that stream songs by them and by bands of singers that are similar. if all you want are the popular singers, listen to your top 40 station back home, but this is a great tool for finding new or less popular bands. and thankfully if there is too much you dont like, there is a skip button or simply move to a new station. the absolute best part is after youve browsed other stations and told Last.fm what you like, it can build you a radio station with your favorite songs/genres. the only problem with this is it doesnt run behind anything else. you cant listen to this with custom soundtracks or anything. so if youre like me and when you actually DO get a chance to use your Xbox, you probably wont waste time by listening to Last.fm, no matter how cool it is.

and last but not least is the Zune marketplace. this isnt an add-on so much as its an update. they are now using the Zune marketplace for all Xbox Live marketplace media downloads. i'm not sure if game DLC is also through the Zune marketplace, but i think its just music, videos, and movies. the good news is theyve added a couple features like viewing parties where people on your Xbox Live friends list can come in and watch streaming videos with you in a mystery science theater 3000 kinda way. the good news is since all this is from the Zune marketplace theres more content now in the movie and tv categories, yay!

Now what does this have to do with Inspector Gadget? I feel about most of these exactly what i feel about Inspector gadget. Alot of cool features, but he still can't get the job done alone. Xbox has had a recent decline of 360 exclusives in the last year, and although alot of former Playstation exclusive developers are taking games to both consoles Microsoft needs to encourage developers to go Xbox onry! Thats what will sell consoles, not fancy features, not project natal, not Facebook and Twitter for Xbox Live. and while these things are great and add a wide range of things you can do with the console, none of them truly expand on what people buy the console in the first place: the games.

NXE Newness!

Well hello there....

what? you say you notice something different?

Yup that new fangled xbox live update hit adding new awesomeness to the world of xbox live.

new is the avatar marketplace, where you can buy anything from the most useless avatar items, to some of the coolest stuff ever.

and dont worry theyre still comming out with more free stuff, all this stuff to buy is liscenced (hense having to charge for it)

so far are pirate costumes from Sid Meyer's Escape from Monkey Island, apparel and clothes based on Halo 3, a UNSC marine costume and more apperal for Halo: ODST, Gears of War 2 outfits and clothes, and also lightsabers and jedi outfits from Star Wars: Clone Wars.

they also have actual branded apperal, stuff like adidas and tokidoki but it seems kinda tame when you can wear clone trooper armor

aside from that you can now update your netflix watch it now que from your xbox, watch videos and chat with other xbox 360 netflix users in an xbox live party, and see what netflix videos the people on your friends list are watching.

theyve also added some technical features like a "progressive scan"-like option that formats your video settings based on a scan of your tv automatically.

and probably one of the coolest additions is that of the full game download station.

no, were not talking about arcade games

no, were not even talking about xbox originals

were talking full Xbox 360 games you can download and play straight from your hard drive! sure, its gonna make us all lazy ass bastards but hey, its still a damn cool thing!

Jump In!

so what do you guys think of the new me?

ok so its not the NEW me but it is my avatar on xbox live.

for those of you who dont know Xbox Live was recently improved.

the Dashboard has a new look that features stuff like comunity spotlight and upcoming events as well as all the old normal stuff.

you can even link your gamertag to your netflix account and watch streaming movies

if you dont already have a netflix they give you a free trial but i dont know how long it is.

and of course most notable change are the avatars.

you can customize them and are pretty much the same thing as a Mii (of Nintendo Wii fame)

and when you want to play a game together with your buddies all your avatars join an xbl party. this way its basically easier to join their games in progress or isolate voice chat so only they can hear you.

i gotta say this update has been quite a blast!

but if all of this is too overwhelming for you.... just press the Xbox guide button and it bring up a small version of the old Dashboard menu blades.... just in case!