Insert Credits

I’ve been playing Oblivion on the Xbox for the past month and a half.  Last night I finally got around to starting the main quest after spending the better part of my time in the game working on an Efficient Leveling plan to milk the most out of the leveling system. This meant a lot of sidequests and a lot of closing random Oblivion gates, but not much in the main quest.

The upshot of all of this is that I’ve been sending a min/maxed demigod up against quest creatures that were designed to run at a much lower difficulty, and this is even taking the game’s unique leveling system in mind where all of the enemies stay within a certain range of the same level as your avatar. This min/maxing had an interesting side effect as I was working my way through the Dagon Shrine quest where you’re supposed to infiltrate the Mythic Dawn, the organization that’s trying to summon an evil demon lord from the planes of Oblivion by assassinating the emperor at the beginning of the game and generally being nasty.

The quest gives you an option to sneak your way into the cavern and infiltrate the organization briefly to learn what they’re up to. Never one for subtlety myself, especially when I’m operating an Efficiently Leveled demigod, I opted to “infiltrate” the organization at the end of a pointy sword and a few well placed fireballs.

Except the enemies all ran.

Each and every one of the Mythic Dawn cultists that I ran into would spout something along the lines of “I’m not afraid to die!” before launching themselves at me with weapons and magic blazing. Then I would whack them a few times, get them to about 10% of their healthbar, and they would retreat into the caves. Normally I’d take the time to chase them down, but the loot tables for this particular set of mobs wasn’t that impressive and I was more interested in looting all of the shiny treasure chests that dotted the dungeon and did boast an impressive loot table.

So I made my way through the dungeon, finished the quest, and made my way out. Except on the way out I suddenly found myself confronted with a room full of these crazy Mythic Dawn cultists at 10% health huddling in a giant mass and refusing to attack my character. This was the first time that I’ve seen such an odd interpretation of a fear algorithm from a faulty AI, and the way they all stood there milling about in a circle almost moved my heart to pity.

Then I remembered that these assholes killed Captain Picard back at the beginning of the game.

And it was on.

Share This:

Consumerist has a post up about college student Ben Strauss who is working on a research project about the failure rate of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for his Marketing class.  I’ve had good luck with my latter-generation Xbox so far, but I’ve only owned it for a couple of months now.  On the other hand my brother and several friends from work who were early adopters all had to go through the RRoD at least once with their systems.

So if you have a failed Xbox, or if you don’t, hop over to Consumerist and help Ben out by contributing to his survey.  It’s unscientific, but it might still paint an interesting picture of consumer experiences with Microsoft’s shoddily saudered wonderconsole.

Share This:

The consoles that launched a thousand flame wars.

I’ve already given away the answer in a previous post, but I thought I’d go a bit into why I chose an Xbox 360 over a Playstation 3 when I decided to pick up a new system a few days ago.  The criteria for picking out a system were simple: I wanted a console that would last for at least a couple years with good third party support, decent graphics, reasonably priced, good games, and a good online component.

The problem I found was that there aren’t many sites out there analyzing the problem from a neutral point of view.  The Internet is teeming with fanboys willing to preach the glories of their system to the unwashed masses, but an objective point of view is difficult to pin down.  When you’re getting ready to put down $4-500 on a system and games it’s a bit frustrating to click through to another site full of circular logic trying to justify a purchase after the fact instead of providing information for someone preparing to buy.  Ultimately I found this series of articles written over three years since the PS3 launched helpful, and I thought I’d add some of my own reasoning to what they already covered.

A console's life should be a marathon, not a sprint.

1. Longevity

The Xbox 360 launched in 2005 and the Playstation 3 came out a year later.  One is a little over three years old, the other is closing in on two years.  Each console generation has lasted around 4-5 years since the NES hit in the mid-80s, and it seems that the console and handheld development has moved more towards incremental upgrades rather than a clearcut line separating generations.

If we were going strictly by the numbers and the hardware then the PS3 would appear to have a slight advantage in the longevity department since it’s slightly newer and still has hardware potential due to developers not quite getting the hang of the cell processor quite yet.  And there are the recent rumblings from Microsoft, courtesy of Steve Ballmer, that the Xbox might be getting replaced by 2010 or 2011.

Point: Playstation 3

2. Price

This one was the easiest to figure out.  The mid-range Xbox 360 with a 60gb hard drive is $299.99 and Fry’s was running a sale for the 80gb PS3 with an extra controller thrown in for $399.99.  Games for the systems are similar in price.  The online service is the only other cost consideration, with Microsoft’s Live service costing ~$6/mo and Sony’s online service being absolutely free.  I can’t in good conscience include the subscription to Live as a consideration since subscriptions are just the price of doing business with online gaming these days, but I know that’s an important consideration for others so I’m throwing it out there.

Point: Xbox 360

3. Third Party Support

The Xbos 360 has a large back catalog of games from their year ahead of time, and the success of the install base on the system has led to big developers who used to be exclusive to Sony – I’m looking at you Squeenix – are now moving cross-platform.  There are still a few exclusives of interest for both consoles – Little Big planet on the PS3, Halo 3 for the Xbox – but for the most part it seems that platform exclusivity isn’t the big deal that it once was.  And for all the fanboys out there suffering from an aneurysm I’d like to clarify that I mean that exclusivity doesn’t seem like a big deal to me since I’m not a big Killzone or Halo fan to begin with.

Third parties, however, are a different story.  The 360 is easier to develop for and has a larger install base, so third party developers have been flocking to the system.  See Squeenix mentioned above.  More third parties means more shovelware, but it also means more potential for big blockbusters and quirky indie games to gravitate towards the 360.

Point: Xbox 360

4. Graphics

On paper the Playstation 3 has more potential power thanks to the Cell processor.  To date the graphics have been about even due to the difficulty in developing for the PS3.  Developers just haven’t quite figured out how to take advantage of the extra power.  That leads to situations like this where the graphics are actually slightly better on the Xbox compared to the PS3.  So the potential is there for Sony’s console, but at the moment I don’t see a discernable difference in graphics quality between the two systems.

Point: Neither

5. Online

Sony has been trying with their free service, but the simple fact is that Xbox Live has been around for years as a persistent gaming service that consistently delivers the goods.  Sony’s online service doesn’t have as many people on due to the smaller install base and they’re still trying to play catchup with Microsoft in terms of basic online functionality.  I’m grown up and have a job, so paying $6 a month and getting good service in return seems like a fair trade.  Plus Xbox Live has better support for retro gaming, while Sony has been downright miserly in doling out some of their back catalog.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, almost everyone I know has an Xbox and not a PS3.  You have to go where your friends are.

Point: Xbox 360

Backwards Compatability:

This wasn’t a huge issue, but I thought I would mention it since I’m sure there are people out there who will care.  The Playstation 3 started out with complete hardware backwards compatability.  Then the second generation of units switched to software emulation for backwards compatability with old PS2 and PS1 games.  Finally they dropped any and all pretense of backwards compatability with the latest generation, and started selling copies of old games on their online store.  This isn’t a huge issue if you still have a PS2 (and I’m sure most of you do), but I think it does say a little something about how Sony operates during this console generation.

Xbox 360, on the other hand, mostly works with older Xbox games.  There are a few odd titles that have issues, but you would have to be a diehard Xbox fanboy to run across most of those issues.

This wasn’t a consideration for me since I still have my PS2 and I wasn’t a huge fan of the original Xbox outside of the occasional game of Halo 2.  But Microsoft seems to be doing right by their back catalog for now whereas Sony has decided it’s a better idea to mine the previous generation with a slow trickle of online titles rather than support the backwards compatability they were famous for in that generation.

Final Score:

Xbox: 3

PS3: 1

Conclusion:

I went with the Xbox 360, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best console out there.  Ultimately you have to do some research yourself and figure out what games are out there that you would like to play, which looks the best, and which online service you think would best cater to your needs.  My answer was the Xbox, but yours could very well be the Playstation 3.  I was a huge fan of the Playstation 2 in the last generation and barely touched my Xbox, so these things can go back and forth.  What’s true this generation might not be true the next, and it ultimately comes down to personal preference.

But in the meantime, hit me up on Xbox Live under Daecrist42 and we can bust some heads, in a spiritual sense.

Share This:

Wife: I knew we were going to do this.

Me: Do what?

Wife: You said “Oh no, I don’t want to play the Ghostbusters game that bad. I’m gonna wait. And here we are buying an Xbox and the game.”

My wife knows me better than I know myself. And she’s kickass enough to go out on a moments notice with me to buy an Xbox. And if Mario games are any indication, she’ll be trouncing me in Halo by the end of the week.

Share This:

I’d just like to point out that Erron’s jedi mind tricks have yet to work on me.  I’ve staunchly avoided picking up a 360 to this point and likely will continue to do so until the console has been tossed into the dustbin of gaming history.  The 360, and anything with the Xbox logo attached to it, simply holds no sway on me.

This isn’t a case of fanboyism.  I’ll buy whatever system is out there as long as it has a game that will hold my attention.  The unfortunate fact is that the type of games that hold my attention tend to be of the strategy and roleplaying variety on consoles with an occasional dash of platforming thrown in for good measure and a gluttonous feast of Mario Kart about once every two years.

I did own an original Xbox once upon a time.  I was lured into picking up the system on a Christmas long ago by the promise of Halo 2 offering full support for Xbox Live.  I’d played Halo with friends at parties and there were generally positive feelings associated with the experience.  So I figured that the same game played online with friends via the magic of the Internet would be just as good.  Sadly, the experience of online play lacked the same visceral appeal of sitting around a room fragging your best friends while downing Mountain Dew and Doritos, and the lure of Xbox Live quickly fell by the wayside.

The problem that I have with the Xbox is that everything that has been done on the system to this point had already been done elsewhere long before the console came along.  Online play, a major selling point, was something that I’d enjoyed on my PC since the mid-90s for free.  First person shooters, the staple crop of the system’s first generation, were old hat for PC gamers and especially frustrating for anyone used to fragging with a mouse and keyboard setup.

I will give the Xbox credit for bringing online play to a broader audience who likely wouldn’t have considered online gaming on a PC.  I can understand why people have a fanatical devotion to the system after getting their first taste of online play in any genre.  I’ve just long since given my fanatical devotion to another platform that did it first and, in my opinion, still does it better: my PC.

Share This:

It almost seems like everybody I tell to get a 360 is getting one. In the span of a month, I’ve gone from having nobody I know having one, to three friends getting one within a day of each other, another one getting one in the next few days, and yet another friend getting one at the beginning of January.

I’m pretty pumped about it. With every last one of them planning on getting Gears of War 2 and Worms, it means that I now have a nice roster of people with which to engage in the Live features, such as hosting a party so we can all voice chat. As I write this post, I’m engaged in a Horde match in Gears 2, while some friends are playing Castle Crashers, and we’re all just chatting.

Now, I know PC enthusiasts will say “We’ve been doing that for years,” and yes, it’s true. You have been doing that for years. But consoles haven’t, and now that they can it’s sort of like a breath of fresh air.

Share This: