Bought Digital Devil Saga 2 | Xbox 360 Game Impressions | personal webpage update

The Minnesota Gophers football team won the Michigan trophy for the first time since 1986! The Michigan Wolverines won against Minnesota 27 times in a role. The victory was won by a field kick with 5 seconds left. I saw that kick today. Michigan went for a blitz when it was their ball, but it failed. History indicates Minnesota won’t be this lucky come next year.

Firstly, I called ahead and got for Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 2 reserved for 10 minutes at Toyriffic yesterday until I got there. It only came an hour before. I knew I wanted this game for about a week. If I played handhelds more often I would’ve got Castlevania - Dawn of Sorrow for the Nintendo Dual Screen scoring 9.3 out of 10. It could well be the best 2D Castlevania yet. One thing I’ve learned is videogames aren’t cheap and they hold my interest for now.

Meanwhile while there I was eyeing Xbox version of Madden 2005 for only $12. My next football game will be on Xbox 360 although recently soccer has been my favorite sport to play. I haven’t got to Far Cry Instincts yet. Best graphics on Xbox were a draw between Jade Empire, Far Cry Instincts, and Ninja Gaiden Black.

In my opinion, Madden 2002 is complicated for me. Madden Football 06 is coming out for Xbox 360 next month, but not before I buy FIFA 06. Soccer was always more enjoyable. I rarely see it played on TV or in the real world.

My birthday allowance could absorb most of the cash shock of buying Xbox 360. If I can’t afford PS3 the first week than I won’t get to write about it. I’ll have to tough it out then. None of my friends will own one because they’re not that interested in purchasing it. The Xbox 360 Pro retails at $399 next month, but worth it rather than paying for 3 flash cards for game saves. New games cost $59. What I shall do is not buy anymore videogames for two months so I can afford an Xbox 360 with hard drive add-on. I have the current generation of games to fall back on. I sometimes wonder about the success of Xbox 360 because half the people who eye it can’t afford it. Wisconsin residents are spoiled paying half as much for current generation hardware, it’ll be shocking to shell that money out. The good news is I’m shock resistant. I get to write a huge check to Wal-Mart next month.

What should I do? Write a check, or whip out four one-hundred dollar bills and a $20 bill from by billfold. I think paying it in cash will shock people around me. I can feel rich. Yep, 12:01 AM on launch day I’ll be getting Xbox 360. I won’t be wasting any time.

Here are my opinions on some of the launch titles for Xbox 360 starting with Project Gotham Racing 3.

Though the beta builds of PS3 games may look a bit better than PGR3 on Xbox 360 my TV has a lower digital resolution. In PGR3, I’ll play the expensive exotic sport cars instead of the street cars in PGR2. This means every car in the game will have a minimum top speed of 170 MPH. Project Gotham Racing 2 came out on Xbox two years ago so Bizarre Creations must’ve spent over two years on this project. Yeah, but it does has best racer graphics.

Quake 4 is the primary first person shooter. It’s an Xbox 360 launch title from Raven Software although the PC version is coming out October 18th. Raven Software has been known for their Soldier of Fortune first person shooter. ID Software gave Raven full rights to making Quake 4. It will feature Doom 3 PC GFX with similar mutant demons, but has both Single player (AKA Quake 2) and multiplayer including Deathmatch or Capture the Flag or Last Man Standing onslaughts. The story mode starts after Quake 2. My fragging skill level was horrible in Quake 3 since I wasn’t a big first person shooter player at that time. Quake 3 was very popular in 2000 and I got a pirated copy from a friend that year. Quake 4 on Xbox 360 isn’t able to download maps from the community yet. Third party maps historically were never above the quality of original maps anyways.

ID Software on the other hand is working on Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2 for Xbox 360 and PC. The old 1992 original and the 2001 sequel involved Nazi experiments gone wrong in 1940s Europe. There are no screenshots yet of this sequel. CW2 is using the Doom 3 gfx engine.

Dead or Alive 4 is popular because it’s a silly fighting game and God is it annoying. Good graphics have double meaning in this game. The females are kind of busty with oversized features wearing the weirdest clothing accompanied with those silly foreign high-pitched voice-overs. It’s been that way since DOA 2 on Dreamcast. This game may not suck in terms of game play, but first person shooters or racing games sound better.

You know the guys are staring at their legs or flapping boobs. Those games appeal to not so intelligent males and I’m moving onto bigger and better things like first person shooters and racing games.



Madden 06 is the Xbox counterpart with boosted graphics and better frame rate. The snow looks more like snow and the crowd no longer looks flat and the stadiums have an incredible draw rate (distance from zero). It sports 1024p progressive scan with Pro Logic 2. No analyzing either.



FIFA 06 will have to do because there are no other soccer choices. Like Madden 06 it’s a straight port of the Xbox game /w next generation graphics while Winning Eleven 10 is next year. The draw rate has also improved much. The players are much more detailed, and analyzing is not present.

Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion is basically Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind with better GFX. ES3 had those lush polygons with texture lighting and anti-analyzing support at HD resolution 1200x1024 or 1200x960, and the community released texture packs replace every texture in the game as well as better facial texture packs.

The Xbox 360 will feature many more polygons than ES3 on any PC. I think it’s popular just because it’s a RPG which is rare on Xbox 360. Oblivion is set on the continent of Tamriel. The game builds onto all the major classes from ES3 ruled under the Imperial imperialism (again) with Emperor Uriel Septim VII voiced by Patrick Stewart. Oblivion will feature over 50 hours of recorded dialogue which takes up nearly half of the game’s DVD-9.

The story starts out as the main character becomes a prisoner of the Imperials. The Emperor needs to escape through a tunnel connected to his/her cell to escape assassins. Tamriel has a lush, procedurally generated forest. The team at Bethesda actually consulted the University of Maryland geological lab in order to generate accurate algorithms for producing realistic environments.

So far what I’ve learned off the Internet this game will feature a lot more dungeons than ESIII had.

Too Human was Silicon Knight’s Gamecube game before it got canceled when Eternal Darkness came out. It looks very, very good. Unsure it’ll be on PS3 or not because it’s looks so expensive to make from the screenshots. Microsoft is funding this project giving it that unlimited development budget feeling. Too Human is two games on Xbox 360. Too Human took the lethal Terminator theme and made its own version of it.

Gears of War is primarily the focused gun combat game for Xbox 360 despite Quake 4 coming out the same time because Microsoft will advertise it as if it was Halo. Game Informer calls it Microsoft’s secret weapon. Epic Games developing Gears of War with superior graphics so the mainstream will appreciate it like Halo. This is the best looking Xbox 360 game so far which is probably why you’ve heard of it.

As for the story line. There is a world war on a far away planet over an energy source called imulsion which is like nuclear fusion in many ways The planet’s cities look a lot like Earths. The government who controls Planet Sera (once striving with plant life after a World War suddenly found itself at war with a terrifying species appearing from the planet’s crust. The game starts when all human governments form C.O.G. (Coalition of Ordered Governments) against the Locust army. The main character is Marcus Fenix who is trying to rebuild his reputation by leading the operation. There will be many times Marcus will encounter melee combat with Locust resulting in a mini-game. Like Master Chief, Marcus will command his platoon according to Epic Games. There’ll be a co-op multiplayer option available via Xbox Live. Player 2 will control Marcus’s friend Dominic who looks exactly like Marcus despite wearing a helmet. I’m unsure if it’ll be my first game next month.

Oh yeah, on another note I’ve created a new website template made up entirely of vector graphics except those photos of me via Namo WebEditor 2k6. I made a new webpage since it’s been 4 months since my last update. I didn’t have time to do it and with the blogspot doing my weekly entries there was no need to do it myself. There would be less people coming across as well as more work for me, and less time info gathering information on stuff that interests me. The template is nothing special, but the lists are updated to present and that can make a difference in everything. There is no obligation. This webpage took me most of last night to do and been touching up with new ideas.



New games

Far Cry Instincts (©2005 Uri-soft)
Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 2 (©2005 Atlus)