The Full Circle: 360 News Report 12.05.08

Posted by Joe Roche on 12.05.2008

This week 411mania's Joe Roche spent some time learning how to be comfortable in a work environment where he feels completely out of his element. However, in his never ending effort to keep TFC running on time he brings you a column this week with news on a new James Bond game, Fable II being patched, some Microsoft economic woes, free online gaming for particular games, and something called COD4MF2.

One of the most terrifying aspects of finishing law school for me was the prospect that I had exhausted all of my scholastic options. There is something to be said about going to college for seven years. When you're in college you can work six hours a week at the library and nobody hassles you about getting a job, plus you can drink every night of the week and nobody asks you to go to meetings. When I finished law school I knew that ride was over.

This week I began my first full week at my new job. As a newly minted Attorney in the Central Massachusetts area I can faithfully say that I have never been so terrified in my life. You see most of my experience heading into this job was doing menial law related tasks that didn't prepare me for a position as an actual Attorney, so for the past week I have basically had to learn how to be a lawyer without alerting any of the senior attorney's that I in fact, have no idea what I'm doing.

As you are reading this I am yet to be fired, which I can only assume means that things are going well. Of course I have worked about 90 hours this week, have seen my wife for a grand total of twenty minutes in the past five days, and have written about three hundred total pages of legal documents. All in all it's been a difficult week to keep up with gaming news, so you'll excuse me if this week's column seems a bit light. I spent my down time (what little of it I had) this week playing NHL 09. I'm not sure why, but something about my exhausting work schedule turned me off to Gears of War 2. I imagine that at some point this weekend I'll be back playing Horde but for now it's all NHL 09 when I have the opportunity.

So now that you've all put up with my complaining, let's see what type of news we have in store for you as we go around the Full Circle.

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No More Child Assassination

Hey remember that Fable II patch that was announced in October? Well apparently it's finally about to make it's way to Albion and the folks over at Lionhead are talking about what they intend to fix when it does become available.

Fable 2 Patch Fixes

The Ritual / Monk's Quest – Fixed the issue with the Abbott becoming unresponsive if you leave Oakfield before he finishes talking. This will fix the problem if you've already hit it, too.
Rescuing Charlie / Rescue My Baby – After rescuing Charlie, you can now able to interact with objects.
Guild Cave chest – Resolves any issues with previously inability to retrieve items unlocked from Limited Collector's Edition, website or Chicken Kickin' game. If you've already hit this bug you should now get your items.
The Spire (Pt2) – No more issues with ship captain being unresponsive.
The Hero of Skill (Pirate King) – You'll no longer get stuck during Hero of Skill quest (Bloodstone).
T.O.B.Y. / Trouble In Bloodstone – You'll no longer get stuck during T.O.B.Y. quests (Bloodstone).
Your child will no longer be chosen as an assassination target.
Furniture Shop in Albion (Bowerstone) will now always have something for sale.
Additional unspecified fixes.

Friendship is Free

Apparently friendship is free. Or at least the sound of high pitched voices over a wired headset for the holidays is. For the month of December, select XBLA games will be free to play online for everyone, regardless of membership status. Basically this means is that the one person you know who still has a Silver membership can now jump online and play these particular games for free during the holiday season (month of December). You will notice by looking at these games that some of them feature the new Avatar playability mode (did I just invent that?) so if there is a casual gamer in your house this might be the time to try and get them interested in some online Arcade fun. The games in question are:

- A Kingdom for Keflings
- Aegis Wing
- Bomberman Live
- Hardwood Hearts
- Hardwood Spades
- UNO
- Small Arms
- Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Modern Warfare 2: Search for Curley's Gold

If you are a fan of Activision's Call of Duty opus Modern Warfare then we've got some good news for you, because Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 (or CoD4M2) has been confirmed to be in development for a Fall 2009 release. I'm not entirely sure why this is news as I was pretty sure that we had all agreed that Treyarch and Activision were switching year to year on the CoD franchise, but it's been everywhere this week so I thought I'd talk about it. My major concern with COD4MF2 is that one of the most appealing aspects of Modern Warfare was that it was new. I guess I'm just nervous that Activision will go back to the well and we'll get Call of Duty 4.5 instead of a true sequel that expands on the original fourth installment of the series.

Microsoft Cutting Back

Speaking to Reuters (another source that I like to check on for my video game news), Shane Kim, the man who I imagine has a much bigger office then I do, says he is remaining cautiously optimistic about the holiday buying season for the 360. However he warns that 2009 might be a difficult time for the company because he anticipates that while people will still need entertainment they might cut back on their expenses for it. My solution for Mr. Kim is to start making sure the products that you send out the door are actually, you know, good games and you won't have to worry about the economic down turn. Hell look at the last few weeks, video games are flying off the shelves while people are losing their jobs left and right. Amazing what a good video game can do to people who otherwise can't afford to heat their homes.

Activision Shaken and Stirred

As part of the same information dump that gave us the news on Modern Warfare 2, we've also learned that Bizarre is hard at work on an original James Bond game. There is absolutely no other information available at this time on what that Bond game is going to feature, and/or be like, but I imagine that we can start the Goldeneye comparison in three…two…one

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Reader Rants:

From Joe Roche: Man this column sucks.

This is actually a comment from the future I am referring to the column you are currently reading, and admittedly it is not my best work. Trust me when I tell you all that I am just getting comfortable in my new office so it's going to take me some time to adjust my writing schedule. Just bear with me. In the meantime I appreciate that you're probably all so wrapped up in Gears 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, and the handful of other great games available right now that none of you even care that my regular Friday column is a piece of garbage right now.

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The Hot Button:

Welcome to the First Annual Hot Button Holiday Guide.

Frankly this seems like a ridiculous proposition because everyone who reads this column already has to be at least somewhat versed in the world of current trends in video games. However, my reason for doing this is two fold, first off maybe you stumbled across this site and have no idea about what video game to get your nephew at Christmas, and the second reason is that I am flat out pressed for time, and this is the easiest column I could think to write.

The Child: So you've got a young kid in your house. I would suggest not buying a toddler any video games. However, for kids a little bit older, if you need something to melt their brains why not try LEGO Batman. Do you remember a few years ago when every kid in the neighborhood was walking around with Spiderman stuff on? Well I have a feeling that this Christmas Batman is going to be the big hit with kids, and for that reason might I suggest a little LEGO Batman.

The Teenager: Too old to want to play a LEGO game, and too young to have Mom buy them Gears of War 2, what is out there for the Teen gamer? I would actually suggest Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution first and foremost. This game is actually really fun (although becomes a bit repetitive) and I think any good teenager would find some entertainment value from this. Might I also suggest Mortal Kombat v. DC Universe this game had a lot of controversy surrounding it, but I'll admit, it is kinda fun. Sure without the blood and gore it doesn't feel like a real Mortal Kombat game, but then again the last time I had fun with one of those I was twelve. And last but certainly not least, Mirror's Edge. I had to do a double take on this one because I was going to put it in the next category, but then I saw that it's rated T for Teen and I thought – what teenager wouldn't want to smoke a joint, look at the cool colors and get motion sickness running around on rooftops? The perfect gift.

The Adult: Hopefully the wonderful Mrs. Full Circle is reading this column right now so that she knows what to buy the adult gamer who otherwise has everything. Prince of Persia. There is a good chance that your gift recipient will not brave the holiday crowds to buy Prince of Persia before the Christmas rush is over, and with that in mind here is a perfect chance to get someone a game that everyone will be playing after the holiday. Gears of War 2 is also a must for any gamer this season. If you are buying for someone who doesn't have Gears 2 yet then you absolutely would be doing a disservice to that person to not pick it up for them. And finally I cannot recommend Fallout 3 any more. The game is flat out fun to play, huge, and a gigantic time waster. When I come home from work the best thing about playing video games is that I can sit down and just do it for hours on end, and Fallout 3 is the perfect vehicle for that.

The Sports Nut: Only one game this holiday season for the sports nut and that's NHL 09. Face the facts, any sports fan already bought Madden 09, and in America we don't play FIFA 09, so that leaves one option. NHL 09 is the best sports title available this year hands down. The Be A Pro mode is great fun, the online component is perfectly done and even for people who are not fans of the sport this game is the best representation of the hockey experience.

The Casual Gamer: If you know this person, just do yourself a favor and don't buy them a video game. However, if you must under any circumstance buy someone a game who you're not sure if they like to actually play games, then get either Rock Band 2, or Guitar Hero World Tour. I honestly have no opinion on either game, but then again I have no idea why you'd buy a casual gamer a video game in the first place, just get them a sweater, or one of those Pepperidge Farm salami gift baskets.

So…I throw it out the crowd, what is on your holiday wish list?

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Punching Out:

B3yond the Report by Derek Robbins

The Hall of Shame by Vincent Chiucchi

The PC Centric Extravaganza by Drew Robbins

The PC Spotlight by Chris Vicari

The 10th Hour by Derek Robbins

Achievement Unlocked by Rod Oracheski