The Pensive Gamer

Posted 01/08/2009 @ 10:30:00 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Community Games , Games , Media , Xbox 360

Christmas was a bit crazier this year. Normally we travel to the Great White North (aka Canada), but this year we stayed in Palo Alto and had my wife’s family stay with us. This meant having a lot more people in the house than bedrooms. But I loved it. I love having people over and it was great to see the kids playing together.

I still find it amazing (and fantastic) how consoles are playing such a predominate role in entertaining a holiday crowd. Last year we played a ton of Guitar Hero. This year it was Scene It?: Best of Show. In fact, Scene It? was the nightly pre-bed ritual for four us.

The surprising Holiday habit, however, belonged to my sister-in-law’s husband. He isn’t a hard-core gamer but he does enjoy racing and sandbox games. So what was surprising? He was completely addicted to CarneyVale Showtime, the 400 MS Points Community Game. 

Rob doesn’t care about Indie developers or small versus large games. He cares about being entertained, and CarneyVale was something that very clearly kept him entertained. In fact, while we nearly finished the game during his visit he purchased it when he got home.

While most of the family left prior to the New Year, my father-in-law remained and has helped us with the move to the Seattle area. He isn’t a gamer (and no goading will change that) but the 360 did become a nightly video rental machine.

As for me, I didn’t have a lot of time to game over the Holidays but I did manage to play a few other Community Games and finish Gears of War 2. I also received a couple games as presents; first on my list to play is Fallout 3 … once I have at least 60 to 80 hours available.

So that’s how my consoles were used this past Holiday. I hope everyone had some restful time-off and have had a great start to the new year.

Posted 04/09/2007 @ 06:30:00 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Media , The Weekly Curiousity , Xbox 360

The Xbox Live Video Marketplace is a convenient way to rent movies and my wife and I have noticed a nice increase in films that suit our tastes, including The Departed and Babel.

What we don't understand is the rental period. Once you start a movie you can watch it as often as you like over the next 24 hours. This time period is too short.

My wife and I generally start a film after we put our little one to bed. There have been a few times where we wanted to stop and continue the movie the next day. Since movies expire 24 hours after they start we would be unable watch the rest. Why not change it to something like 36 hours?

Yes some folks will abuse this but lending your Xbox 360 hard disk is a lot less convenient than lending someone a DVD rented from a brick and mortar store.

Posted 02/08/2007 @ 10:30:00 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Media , News Picks , Windows Vista , Xbox 360

Xbox Live Video Marketplace RSS Feed

While I'm a fan of the Xbox Live Video Marketplace it is nice to see my number one annoyance, the lack of knowing what was released without turning on my 360, is now solved. The Microsoft Gamerscore blog announced an RSS feed that gives the details.

XNA Game Studio Express running in Windows Vista

David Weller of Microsoft has posted the instructions on how to get the non-Windows Vista Visual Studio 2005 and Visual C# Express development tools patched so XNA Game Studio Express will run on Vista.

I had trouble installing XNA Game Studio Express late last year so this is great information for those stuck. However, I really wish Microsoft would finish Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista. The release versions of Windows Vista have been available to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers since November 2006. Those subscribers probably use Visual Studio as their main development tool and really shouldn't upgrade to Vista until the official Windows Vista Visual Studio Service Pack 1 is released.

Apple TV to Play Games?

Engadget is reporting how Greg Canessa, Xbox Live Arcade's ex-executive who is now at casual gaming company PopCap, may have slipped that Apple TV will support games. While rumour until official confirmation, this really shouldn't surprise anyone. Apple already supports casual games on the iPod via iTunes. If it wasn't clear before, this week continues to prove that the living room is one huge battleground.

Posted 02/07/2007 @ 10:30:00 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Media , News Picks , PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360

Oblivion in the News

I am a huge fan of Oblivion. It is my only game with a 1000 Gamerscore. In my News Picks from last week I mentioned I would get the Shivering Isles expansion if it was going to take advantage of Microsoft's new Gamerscore policy. Well, according to this article on GameSpot Bethesda is going to add new achievements.

There are also multiple sources indicating that the PS3 version of Oblivion should load faster, handle the draw distance better and run at a more stable framerate. This is great news for PS3 owners. It is good to see a year of additional work didn't result in a straight port. My personal recommendation, assuming you have a couple hundred hours to kill, buy this game.

Battle of the Downloadable Videos

This week has seen Walmart and Amazon make some announcements regarding movie and television downloads. While Walmart appears to be having trouble, Amazon's move to work with TiVo makes a ton of sense. Downloading movies to watch on a PC just isn't, in my opinion, a great experience unless you are about to head on an airplane. You really need a device that makes it simple, like an enhanced cable box, Xbox 360, a PS3 (coming soon) and later this year, a TiVo.

Posted 02/05/2007 @ 06:00:00 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Media , The Weekly Curiousity , Xbox 360

When the Xbox Live Video Marketplace went live in November last year there was little my wife and I were interested in. It wasn't until New Years Eve that we tried our first film, Superman Returns. Other than a long download (it is 7.1 GB), it worked well.

Now for those that don't know, movies on the Video Marketplace cannot be bought, just rented. You have up to two weeks to watch the film and once you start watching it you can watch it as often as you like in the following 24 hours.

This past week, however, I discovered my Superman Returns rental hadn't expired. It would appear neither of my 360s recognize the license being used (photo attached) but both are able to play the film without issue. I have tried it multiple times on multiple days. Yup, I have a movie I can watch whenever I like.

I'm not sure how prevalent the 'problem' is but the other movies I've downloaded have not suffered the same fate as Superman Returns. Anyone else seen this?

Posted 01/31/2007 @ 10:30:00 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Media , News Picks , PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360

Poor Xbox 360 DVD Playback

Xbox-Scene mentioned an ExtremeTech article on the DVD playback quality of the Xbox 360; it was not good. Only once have I used the 360 for DVD playback. It was when my standalone player was having issues. The poor image quality of the DVD made it impossible to notice how well/poorly the 360 performed.

But it is disappointing to see how badly the 360 performs on standard DVDs. As the ExtremeTech article points out, the 360 has the horsepower to pull it off. You can see this based on reviews of the 360 managing the more taxing playback of HD content off of the HD DVD add-on player.

I would love to see ExtremeTech perform a similar review of both HD DVD and standard DVD playback on the 360's add-on player. Presumably the standard definition playback would be just as bad since the codec is likely the same.

With Microsoft pushing the 360 to be more than a game console, it is important for them to fix things like the DVD playback and the noise generated both by the fans and the DVD drive. Unfortunately, while the DVD playback can be fixed with a software patch, the noise requires new hardware.

PlayStation 3 Price Cuts

The past few days have seen continual chatter regarding a PlayStation 3 price cut this year. This comes after a magazine reported Sony's insistence otherwise. Even a modest cut would be a great psychological move. Hell a PS3 bundle with something like God of War II, a PS2 game, would cause a nice sales boost for Sony (though a cut in less than two months is unlikely).

What could be interesting is if Sony managed a price cut prior to Microsoft. While it is unlikely to have Sony end the year with more consoles in the market than Microsoft, it would put a damper on Xbox 360 sales ... at least until Halo 3 is released.