It's tax return season, kids! Usually for me that means cursing the US government and mailing my check for the 20 bucks I owe, or sometimes getting a small sum of cash. This year, however, we got enough of a return to buy a toy. And that toy was an Xbox 360. It was a between the Wii and 360, and the 360 got the nod largely due to the impending release of Culdcept Saga. So after spending my January recreational time solving crimes in Hotel Dusk: Room 215 while my Crusade was Burning, February has seen the addition of another Microsoft product to the household.
Playing Geometry Wars can result in sensory overload.
XBox 360 gets all the little things right. We've got 2 wireless controllers which, like my Wavebird, work great. You can also turn the console on and off from the wireless controller which is a terrific touch. There is also a service called XBox live which basically gives the XBox all the good parts of PC gaming while eliminating the bad. I turned on the console, connected it to my router and we were off and running. After creating an XBox Live account, I can download demos, videos, movies, TV shows and additional game content. There's also a friends list and email; Every XBox game has a list of achievements which work sort of like the medals in Culdcept. You can compare achievements and scores with people on your friends list. My current list of 360 games features one of the most Couchish games, a huge sprawling RPG and possibly the least Couch friendly game ever created.
After downloading a free demo, I decided to shell out the 5 bucks for a nuts little game called Geometry Wars over XBox Live Arcade. It's a very simple game, you pilot your ship with the left analog stick, you fire with the right stick and occasionally use bombs with your triggers. It's incredibly fast and twitchy, and it's hard like Chinese arithmetic. So far I've managed about 250,000 points. The thought of trying to get the "Get 1,000,000 points without dying" achievement makes me poop.
Viva Pinata: a killing and fucking simulator.
Viva Pinata, on the other hand, is bright, syrupy and full of joy, cheer, death and fucking. Viva Pinata is apparently based on a children's cartoon. Or vice versa. Anyhow, you start with a small garden and soon a whirlm shows up - a simple, cute little worm. Another one shows soon and, after you buy them a little whirl house (looks like hamster tubes) you can tell them to fuck. When the whirlms fuck, you play a minigame which consists of guiding your little pinata through a maze to their mate. They then fuck and produce offspring. Soon after, a Sparrowmint shows up because you have whirlms, but the Sparrowmints only fuck after they eat a whirlm. Throw several species of plant and pinata, all with different requirements for moving into your garden and fucking and soon you have your own little biodome.
Then there's Oblivion. It's huge. Really really huge. And pretty. And nuts.
Tom hates Microsoft, but now they've done something good.
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