XBox 360 Rally

Hi, boys and girls. It’s just me, your friendly neighborhood JW, here to remind you all that we’re currently looking for people to replace us here at Xbox 360 Rally. All you have to do is go HERE, fill out the form, and wait to hear back. It’s really not that hard.

So, get to it already — so Paco and I can get to the NEW site!

Ok, people, here’s the deal — Paco and I are on our way out. We’re taking over at 1PStart.com in an effort to restore it to it’s former glory. …that, and I just plain want to write about another game every once in a while, is that so wrong?!

Anyways, here is what we’re looking for: A competent, capable writer with a love for all things Xbox. Now, by competent writer, we mean someone who spells “you” correctly, and knows when to capitalize. If you can do that, you’re a shoe-in. So, CLICK THIS DAMN LINK, do the required stuff, then get paid to play video games and write about stuff.

…hell, Mike and I did the hard stuff already, and YES, the GTA4 Banner contest will continue, and I will still give you a copy of GTA IV… or something. So, hop to it.

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Video game rentals, we all have to do it. With titles that come out like Shadowrun, that may seem “kinda cool” in some ways, but you know in your heart you can’t justify plunking down $60 for a game you just aren’t sure about, we as gamers have to rely on game rental services. I started writing this a little over a month ago, noticing that Blockbuster had 6 copies of Transformers (all on the shelf), while their one copy of Overlord they ordered for the store had not even arrived yet. Quickly, I went home with a copy of F.E.A.R. and the desire to find something better. Let it be known, I have been using the Blockbuster GamePass service through my little brother for well over a year now, the most obvious problem with them however, is they are Blockbuster, or as I know them, ‘the devil.’ I have been using Netflix for many many moons now and with that I have a certain bitterness with Blockbuster as far as late fees plus crappy selection of movies, but hey, this is about the games.

Off to the Internets, I knew that Gamefly was the big contender here, but I wanted to find something else, I had already heard the stories of Gamefly discs being stolen by mailmen as well as their horrid turnaround shipping times. I remember the company Gameznflix.com, they have to be good, they were smart enough to jump into the extremely small market of online video game rentals early on, and at the same time compete with Netflix to be the Blockbuster of online (I am ignoring that ‘the devil’ has an online service of their own, damn my bias). So off to check online reviews of GameznFlix… oh man, not good. Coming from the CAG forums, in a sea of many quotes I could pull from, here is my favorite, “I’m done with Gameznflix. I had 20 games in my queue, half new, half old, and they failed to ship me a single game after 14 days.” Even the guys at XBL Radio have dropped support of the company. Want more current GameznFlix issues, look no further than NeoGAF.
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The servers are melting. Paco spilled his cola on the keyboard. JW’s out back trying to wrangle the horses. In short, we’re all kinds of FUBAR, so we may not be able to update as much as we’d like today.

Sorry, peeps. We’ll be back soon.

There has been a lot of controversy regarding a recently posted rumor regarding SEGA’s possible Tokyo Game Show line-up. Now, I was originally very defensive of this piece because of who sent it in. He, a long-time go-to guy named Rob, has sent me exclusive tips for four years, and until this most recent one, they were ALL accurate.

Regardless, after the link had been posted by reader “Cedge”, I immediately contacted Rob via GoogleIM.

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The concept behind the Transformers couldn’t get any easier: Autobots vs. Decepticons. Good vs. Evil. There were no drawn out love stories. There was no political intrigue. There was no subtle attempt to slide social commentary in. All you had were two sides of robots that transformed from everything ranging from fire trucks (Optimus Prime), VW Beetles (Bumblebee) and F-15 Fighters (Starscream), to more “unique” items such as cassette tapes (Soundwave) and a Walther P38 (Megatron, baby!), into giant robots that would pound the living crap out of eachother day in and day out as they fought over the life-giving Allspark. You’d think there could be no way a developer could screw that up, right?

…well, somehow Activision found a way.

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Eternal Sonata is a game that has got my attention right from the first screen grab. Then after hearing the storyline revolves around pianist Chopin on his death bed being inside his head. That is a really short version of what the game is about, there is a bit more to it.

Now on to the Demo review; the game starts off with no thrills, getting right into “New Game” start screen and seeing how the controls are (very basic btw).

Now onto my first goal I have to accomplish. I don’t even know my characters name yet, this is fast paced so far… which is good because I have been wanting to play this game forever. Going back to having a goal to accomplish, well, after playing a while, I think that the only true goal is to keep moving forward.

The game itself, movement smooth and fluid, graphics…. gorgeous. Colorful and so detailed. Still screens don’t do the game justice.

Ah, now time for my first battle. Wow, very nice battle system. You have three characters, and 5 seconds to make a move with each,.. ie one of your guys takes a stab, now he has to wait 5 seconds, but you can still use your other two characters while he is on his 5. In a weird way, I was reminded of Quest 64, but not in a bad way. The animations for the attacks are good enough, and there is a variety of attacks you can use. Enemies do get a little repetitive, but who knows how many more types of bad guys that aren’t in this demo (cause im sick of fighting these turnip gangs)

I can hardly write this review while playing, im already sucked in. this is the Chrono Trigger type RPG i have been waiting for (but doesn’t seem to be as free roaming), to me, its real easy to compare, you have very lush detailed backgrounds, a fixed camera system, and such a unique look. When going to new areas, load time is near non-existant. There is no other word to describe this game other than ‘beautiful’ .. it just looks and feels great, with a classic rpg feel. Classic to the point, of get ready to read a bit of text, which I felt was actually light.

Before I end this review, I want to say the word.. “Earthbound” ..in no way is Eternal Sonata like Earthbound in gameplay, but it hits that originality factor character wise mixed with the slightly enhanced fight sequences. Remember to re-arange your life schedule, this feels like an RPG that you’ll want to keep playing to level up and live the storyline. Which, let me add at the end here, I played for about an hour, and when I finally just put it down, I still wasn’t sure the storyline. Maybe Japanese Demo’s have a different take on how demos should be done.

[If you do not know how to download demo's made for non-americans, click here]

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For those of you who have been living under a rock or in Soviet China for the past week or so, there is a new game out on the Xbox Live Arcade called Aegis Wing. This, as I’m sure you probably know, is that “free” Xbox Live Arcade title that has been all over in the Xbox media the past week or so. But while the lure of a free game may be tempting, the all important question remains to be asked — is it any damn good?

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Gameplay. It’s Tetris. However, more so than just the straight up classic mode of play, this does offer 8 different game types (single player) along with other multiplayer modes (ranked as well as unranked play). The newer single player modes are ones I have never seen before in any Tetris game, such as “Go Low” (the lower the blocks are when clearing a row = more points) and “Hotline” (clear specific marked lines on the grid to get points).

Graphics. I can say everything is extremely crisp on an HD set, and looks ahead of any other Tetris game I have played on a SD set. Lots of customizing is part of the strong points of the game. See the pic below: (more…)

Before I get to the actual review, let me say a couple of things. First, I have always been a huge fan of the Spider-Man games, going back to the Playstation titles. When Activision started doing titles based off the films rather than the comics, I was somewhat disappointed. I thought the first Spider-Man movie tie-in game was a disaster, and the second game improved significantly with a realistic-looking New York that was to scale. That, and nose-diving off the Chrysler Building is just plain cool. So when I heard that Spider-Man 3 will have, in addition to the city, over twenty miles of sewers and subways, I was naturally excited. But, the question remains – is Spider-Man 3 any damn good?

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