The Full Circle: 360 News Report 10.24.08

Posted by Joe Roche on 10.24.2008

It's Friday and 411Games Joe Roche is back with another edition of The Full Circle. This week in Microsoftland we're talking about Portal: Still Alive and Valve ignoring the rules, problems with Fable II freezing, the full track listing for Lips, and who won't be playing Gears of War 2 on November 7th? All of that plus a new feature is coming to TFC next week see how you can be a part of it.



It's Friday and that can mean only one thing – it's time for the twelfth ranked writer on 411Games to bring you around The Full Circle. Since the last time we met the poor Red Sox were mercifully killed off by the Tampa Bay Rays who have since lost Game 1 of the World Series. Chalk me up amongst the people who are still stunned that the Rays got this far, and I'm especially depressed because before the baseball season started my chick told me that Tampa was going to win the World Series. Would have been nice to put some of my 411mania fortune on the Rays at 200-1, but such is life I guess.

- Spent a good portion of the week playing NHL 09, and I still think this game is immensely enjoyable. I thought EA did some good things with Madden this year, but NHL 09 is easily the best sports video game I've played since perhaps Madden 04 (cover boy reference deleted). As a diehard Bruins fan I will say that the most depressing part of the game is that the B's goalies are horrendous. After being called up from Providence and put on a line with Phil Kessel and Milan Lucic my power forward RW had a +/- of -5 in my first three games, and I scored 2 goals. It was a tough stretch, but if you haven't tried this game yet it's well worth the investment.

- As I write this week's column I am also anxiously awaiting the arrival of Saints Row 2 so that I can review it for this site. The game has been getting a mixed bag of reviews that cover the range of emotions that people have with a supposed "GTA Killer." I bring this up because if you're playing SR2 this weekend and want to be a part of a 411mania review, find me (gamertag: jdroche) and we can play some online co-op. You'll get your very own shout out in my review of the game.

I could talk for days about what went on this week, which is surprising because really nothing went on. But nobody is interested in my game playing habits, so without further ado let us take a look at what news Microsoft is making this week.

Portal: Still HUGE on XBLA



When Portal was released as part of The Orange Box it got a strange reception. There were some people who went out and picked up TOB just to get their hands on Portal. You would hear these people imitating GLaDOS in their every day lives, and talking about getting cake as a reward for good behavior. Of course there were those who took a cursory glance as Portal and moved on to Team Fortress 2, and the Half Life 2 experience (myself included). Portal was critically acclaimed which usually equals forgettable in my experience, but this is one quirky game that just will not die. This week Portal: Still Alive, which is not really a sequal, and not really a remake debuted on the Xbox Live Arcade and it is HUGE. Checking in at an astonishing 630MB this is easily the biggest game on the XBLA to date. If you remember, Microsoft keeps a 350MB limit on their Arcade games. Part of this is done so that people using a 512MB memory card can fit an XBLA game on their card. Well Valve apparently ignored that standard completely as they went over the allotted space by almost two times. So if you're a Portal fan who bought the ridiculously useless Xbox 360 Arcade unit, I know one XBLA game you won't be playing this weekend.

Fable Freezing Problems?



I must confess that at this point I have yet to pick up or play Fable II. I've flip flopped on this issue like my name was John McCain and we were talking about higher taxed for the super rich (a proposal by the way that McCain has championed for years before the "S" word started getting thrown around). On the one hand I have heard nothing but good things about the game, but something about the entire experience makes me feel like I won't enjoy it a much as others. With that being said, some people on the Lionhead message boards were having some problems with freezing issues in Fable II. The majority of users on the forum experienced the problem when trying to load a saved game file – apparently the entire system locks up and requires a restart. I have seen some posts where people are comparing the effect to that of the RROD, and others have come face to face with this problem during game play sequences which is not a good thing. I haven't seen anything posted by Lionhead that makes mention of the problem but I will keep you updated, in the meantime make sure you save often so you don't lose your game file during some whore banging mini game.

Banhammer Goes Epic



Japan and Germany are counties with long histories of being non violent, peace loving nations. Naturally because of this reputation not in spite of it, I bring you news that the highly anticipated (at least in my house) release of Gears of War 2 will not be happening in those former Axis of Evil countries. It turns out that Gears 2 is much to violent for the youth of Japan and Germany and the game has been outright banned in those places. I find this story to be a bit perplexing because I seem to remember on this site talking about Epic including a parental block feature on Gears 2 that would allow you to turn the blood into sparks, and meat shields into hugs. If that feature does exist why doesn't Epic just lock the German and Japanese versions of the game into the parental control mode and allow the game to come out sans blood. I've seen some people claim that this lock would be easily hacked which is probably true but one the game is off the shelves why should Epic be concerned about what some kid in his parents basement does to watch blood splatter on his TV screen.

Toot Your Horn



While Fable II is the hot item this week most of the people I talk to on a regular basis (read: myself) are looking into the future to the post apocalyptic world of Fallout 3. Not to long ago I wasn't very interested in Bethesda's epic game experience but as the day draws near I am getting more and more excited to try the game out for myself. With that being said it appears that us 360 owners made the right choice (note: please forget Death: Red Ring of) in the console wars because according to Playstation magazine PSM3, the Microsoft version of Fallout 3 looks better then the PS3 version. This remark caused quite a stir in the depths of Blu Ray Central and the comment was clarified to read that the games look identical, except the Microsoft version has smoother looking graphics in the distance, and the lines are sharper. So there you have it – the game doesn't look better on the 360, unless you take into account the better looks.

Lips Track Listing



I can't imagine there is a huge Lips fanbase reading this column. I have made no apologies for spending most of this column talking about things that interest me and Lips is not one of those things. However, I will make one exception and that is to post the released track listing for the Xbox 360 response to SingStar if only to wistfully dream of the day when we can all sit around the TV and pass the microphone back and forth while singing The Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated."

a-ha - "Take on Me"
Nirvana - "In Bloom"
Alicia Keys - "No One"
Peter Bjorn and John - "Young Folks"
Aly & AJ - "Potential Break Up Song"
Queen - "Another One Bites the Dust"
Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
R.E.M. - "The One I Love"
Ben E. King - "Stand by Me"
Radiohead - "Fake Plastic Trees"
Beyoncé - "Irreplaceable"
The Ramones - "I Wanna Be Sedated"
Blondie - "Call Me"
Rascal Flatts - "Stand"
Chris Brown - "With You"
Rihanna - "Umbrella"
Coldplay - "Yellow"
Roxette - "Listen to Your Heart"
Depeche Mode - "Personal Jesus"
Sara Bareilles - "Love Song"
Destiny's Child - "Survivor"
Sheryl Crow - "Soak Up the Sun"
Dido - "White Flag"
Taylor Swift - "I'm Only Me When I'm With You"
Duffy - "Mercy"
The Bangles - "Walk Like an Egyptian"
Duran Duran - "Hungry Like the Wolf"
The Fray - "Over My Head (Cable Car)"
John Denver - "Take Me Home, Country Roads"
The Jackson 5 - "ABC"
Johnny Cash - "Ring of Fire"
The Police - "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"
The Raveonettes - "Love in a Trashcan"
Lil' Mama - "Lip Gloss"
Trace Adkins - "Ladies Love Country Boys"
Lupe Fiasco (featuring Matthew Santos) - "Superstar"
Weezer - "Island in the Sun"
Maroon 5 - "Makes Me Wonder"
Young MC - "Bust a Move"

E3 Going Big…Again



Well after the travesty that was this past E3 it looks like the planners are going back to the drawing board, and by that I mean back to what made E3 the major event that it was in the first place. Namely bring back everyone – including the fans. Apparently next year the ESA is planning on hosting 40,000 industry and media members, up from about 5,000 this year. The ESA went on to explain that they will be working in the next year towards making it easier for legitimate bloggers to gain admission as media members so that – get this – real game fans will be able to bring their readers the announcements of E3. There is still some hesitation to open E3 up to consumers, which I don't really blame the ESA for because it would turn the event into a circus (see: Comic Con). However, just by making the event bigger in scale, and bringing in more media and more industry members E3 should return to its previous splendor. Also, and I don't want to toot my own horn for this one, but I specifically said this was the right path to take after E3 ended this past year – the convention will be moved from July to the first week of June. I wanted the entire thing moved to May, but I'll take early June as a compromise which should allow for more big reveals at next years convention.

THE HOT BUTTON

Today's topic: what am I missing?

I know this might be hard for people to swallow, but I'm not always the most up to date gamer. I mean hell, I just picked up Halo 3 a month ago and haven't even gotten through it because between then and now I've also tried out TNA Impact, Lost Odyssey, Mega Man 9, NHL 09, GTA IV and by the time you're reading this – Saints Row 2.

I'm also the type of person who starts a game and then puts it down, maybe never to be seen again. Most of my problem stems back to the fact that I like to keep myself busy, and when I sit down and play the same game for too long I start to feel like I'm wasting my time. I realize that sounds stupid but if I see that I've spent 20 hours on Lost Odyssey I start thinking about all of the games that I'm neglecting. I wind up burning myself out trying to finish a game, and then when I put something else in to chance the taste in my mouth I just never go back to wrap everything up.

For the most part the only time I even get to the end of a game is when I'm doing a review for this particular website, or it's a game that I simply can't put down. I think I finished Battlefield: Bad Company because I was having so much fun blowing everything up that I didn't even notice that suddenly the game was over. This erratic behavior is the main reason I haven't picked up Fable II, and I fear Fallout 3. Frankly I'm at a point in my life where hearing that a game has the potential for 100 hours of game play makes me break out into a cold sweat.

There is a reason that I bring this up though – and it's namely that with my affliction comes the harsh reality that I'm missing out on a lot of good games/endings. Ever since I started to take this column more seriously, and ever since my employment turned into a volunteer position and it became economically unwise for me to continue showing up I have had more desire to play through games. I now want to hear from you the faithful Full Circle readers about what games you started and never got through to the end. Treat this as a confession, a time to clear you mind of something that has haunted your gamer personality.

I'll start the train because this one has been haunting me – I never got through Bioshock. I realize that this might be sacrilege for some people but this game I actually have a reason for not getting through to the end, namely that it was borrowed and before I finished I had to return it. I actually really loved this game, and had a great time exploring Rapture and trying to collect all of those tapes to hear about what happened as the city fell into the insane asylum that it became. However, I never saw the end – I've heard what happens, but I've never seen it for myself. This is one of those things that bothers me to this day and just yesterday I saw Bioshock for 19.99 used and almost picked it up. Actually if Saints Row 2 doesn't come today there is a very good chance that I'll be playing Bioshock by the time this column gets posted.

So, to the faithful reader of this column I open the floor to you. I do this because it allows a more interactive environment here at TFC, and also because next week your comments will become a part of this column. Your response will become a mailbag feature in this column next week so leave your comment, come clean about a game you never finished and let the healing waters wash over you.

Punching Out

Nintendophiles by Theo Fraser.

Working Title by Jordan Williams.

Hall of Shame by Vincent Chiucchi.

Beyond the Report by Derek Robbins.

Achievement Unlocked by Rod Oracheski.

Fact of Fiction w/ Ramon Aranda and Rod Oracheski.

The 10th Hour by Derek Robbins.

Coming Attractions by Drew Robbins.

The Classic Flashback by Ty Huston.

Fact or Fiction w/ Mark Salmela and the Robbins Brothers.

The PC Centric Extravaganza by Chris Evans.

The PC Spotlight by Chris Vicari.