...my 360 Elite died. I was going to play a little Madden tonight (first time since release day) and after getting my gameplay sliders how I wanted them, I set up a game between the Raiders and my Rams. The game loaded, it started showing the crowd mingling outside of the stadium and wham! - the game froze. I rebooted the system and it froze loading up. I rebooted a 3rd time and I got the glorious Red Rings Of Death.
Perfect. Absolutely wonderful. My game-playing buddy from Canada will be in town in less than 2 weeks and my 360 just died. Microsoft said it should be back within 3 weeks after they receive it. Grand, huh? Maybe if I am really lucky, I'll get it back in time for The Beatles: Rock Band.
I'm going to bed.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Beatles: Rock Band - new trailer and complete song listing!
The final list of the songs included with the game has been confirmed, with one being held back as a surprise. These are the confirmed songs, with the albums they come from in bold:
Singles
I Want To Hold Your Hand
I Feel Fine
Day Tripper
Paperback Writer
Revolution
Don't Let Me Down
Please Please Me (1963)
I Saw Her Standing There
Boys
Do You Want To Know A Secret
Twist and Shout
With the Beatles (1963)
I Wanna Be Your Man
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
A Hard Day's Night
Can't Buy Me Love
Beatles For Sale (1964)
Eight Days a Week
Help! (1965)
Ticket To Ride
Rubber Soul (1965)
Drive My Car
I'm Looking Through You
If I Needed Someone
Revolver (1966)
Taxman
Yellow Submarine
And Your Bird Can Sing
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
Good Morning Good Morning
Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
I Am The Walrus
Hello Goodbye
The Beatles (White Album) (1968)
Dear Prudence
Back In the U.S.S.R.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Birthday
Helter Skelter
Yellow Submarine (1969)
Hey Bulldog
Abbey Road (1969)
Come Together
Something
Octopus's Garden
I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Here Comes the Sun
Let It Be (1970)
Dig a Pony
I Me Mine
I've Got a Feeling
Get Back
Love (2006)
Within You Without You/ Tomorrow Never Knows
It's a great list with some real surprises. I love it that they didn't just go with the hits and chose to include great songs like Dear Prudence and I'm Looking Through You. Of course full albums will be released as DLC with Abbey Road, Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper already confirmed. I'd like to see the With The Beatles and Help! albums get some more love. I'd love to see the whole catalog released, but I don't know how realistic that is. I am sooo psyched for this game!
This and that
Barb has her finals this week for her 2nd semester of nursing school. She is doing well (of course!) but the finals are comprehensive so she is quite nervous. She has been studying this weekend and went to school today so she could study in peace without having to worry about the kids (or me!). After this semester Barb has 1 more to go. Graduation is set for December 12th and Barb has had that marked on her calender for a long, long time. Hang in there, honey, you can do it!
The Rams opened their preseason schedule Friday night with a win over the Jets. The team came out with a much-improved demeanor over the last couple of years. I give all of the credit to new head coach Steve Spagnuolo, who will not let these guys coast the way they have in recent years. Spags is a go-getter and believes in playing with great intensity. It was so nice to see it come together on the field. There is still an overall lack of talent on the roster (especially at WR) and more than a few problems from the past few seasons, such as pass protection and pass rushing, still look as though they could be a problem this season. Blitz pick-up in particular looked pathetic as QB Marc Bulger was sacked 3 times in the 1st quarter. So while I am not expecting a miracle turnaround from the Rams this year, I do expect them to play with real heart and to compete in each game. If Spags can pull that off this year and win 5-6 games, he will be setting up a really solid foundation for the future.
I have put in a little time with Madden 10 and it seems very solid. The game plays much slower than NCAA Football and it is quite jarring at first, but this lets you see the plays develop and makes the game more a test of brains rather than just thumb twitching. I like that. The presentation is much improved (though it still needs work) and the game play itself is more realistic. It still needs to be adjusted in some areas: the CPU cannot mount a decent running game against you and rushing the passer seems too difficult, plus several other things (such as constant holding calls on extra points) keep the game from being nirvana, but it is the best Madden on this generation of consoles to date. Last year's Madden was an improvement. This year's is a pretty big leap beyond that. Kudos to EA for making Madden more of a simulation this year rather than catering to the arcade crowd. It was a bold decision and I hope it pays off for them.
The Rams opened their preseason schedule Friday night with a win over the Jets. The team came out with a much-improved demeanor over the last couple of years. I give all of the credit to new head coach Steve Spagnuolo, who will not let these guys coast the way they have in recent years. Spags is a go-getter and believes in playing with great intensity. It was so nice to see it come together on the field. There is still an overall lack of talent on the roster (especially at WR) and more than a few problems from the past few seasons, such as pass protection and pass rushing, still look as though they could be a problem this season. Blitz pick-up in particular looked pathetic as QB Marc Bulger was sacked 3 times in the 1st quarter. So while I am not expecting a miracle turnaround from the Rams this year, I do expect them to play with real heart and to compete in each game. If Spags can pull that off this year and win 5-6 games, he will be setting up a really solid foundation for the future.
I have put in a little time with Madden 10 and it seems very solid. The game plays much slower than NCAA Football and it is quite jarring at first, but this lets you see the plays develop and makes the game more a test of brains rather than just thumb twitching. I like that. The presentation is much improved (though it still needs work) and the game play itself is more realistic. It still needs to be adjusted in some areas: the CPU cannot mount a decent running game against you and rushing the passer seems too difficult, plus several other things (such as constant holding calls on extra points) keep the game from being nirvana, but it is the best Madden on this generation of consoles to date. Last year's Madden was an improvement. This year's is a pretty big leap beyond that. Kudos to EA for making Madden more of a simulation this year rather than catering to the arcade crowd. It was a bold decision and I hope it pays off for them.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Happy Madden Day! (and some Beatles Rock Band news too!)
Today is the official release day for Madden NFL 10. I will be picking up a copy for the 360. Everything I have read so far says that this is the best Madden yet for the current generation of consoles. It is supposed to play quite differently than NCAA Football, so I will have an adjustment period. But the good news it is also supposed to play better than NCAA Football, so I am really intrigued. I prefer the college game over the pros, but I love football in all shapes and sizes. It should be quite a challenge trying to build my Rams (who are properly rated as pathetic in Madden) back up to the top of the NFL heap.
In other awesome news, I read that 2 more full Beatles' albums will eventually be available for download for The Beatles: Rock Band. One of those is the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is a great album but honestly not among my favorites. The other one however is Rubber Soul, which may very well be my favorite Beatles' album. It's a toss-up between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road, and of course Abbey Road has already been announced as the first available album for download. So my 2 favorite Beatles albums will be available for the game. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for more full length albums, particularly A Hard Day's Night and The White Album. I am thinking that an edited version of The White album may be what we end up with, which I understand; do we really need Revolution 9 on Rock Band? I think not. But I hope they don't get too crazy with what they cut, if that is indeed how they go about releasing the White Album.
In other awesome news, I read that 2 more full Beatles' albums will eventually be available for download for The Beatles: Rock Band. One of those is the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is a great album but honestly not among my favorites. The other one however is Rubber Soul, which may very well be my favorite Beatles' album. It's a toss-up between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road, and of course Abbey Road has already been announced as the first available album for download. So my 2 favorite Beatles albums will be available for the game. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for more full length albums, particularly A Hard Day's Night and The White Album. I am thinking that an edited version of The White album may be what we end up with, which I understand; do we really need Revolution 9 on Rock Band? I think not. But I hope they don't get too crazy with what they cut, if that is indeed how they go about releasing the White Album.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Big Boy
John is growing like a weed. I thought I'd post a recent picture to show how much he has grown. He is really getting around well and of course he gets into everything. He has a terrific sense of humor; he loves to make people laugh. He also has his really sweet moments when he will come up to you out of the blue to give you a hug and a few love pats. Let me tell you, those moments rule.
We love you John!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Cash For Clunkers has been good to us
Barb and I traded in our 1996 Jeep Cherokee (which had over 160,000 miles on it) in at the local Chrysler/Dodge dealership. Previously I had been told that the Jeep may only fetch $500 in trade-in value. With the Cash For Clunkers program, it's value for trade in was $4500. Chrysler then matches the amount the government pays, meaning we got $9000 in trade in value for our old Jeep. We used this to purchase a brand new Dodge Grand Caravan, which we have been wanting for a long time since we now have 6 in our family; no longer will we have to take 2 cars if we want to take the entire family somewhere.
Barb and I are both thrilled with the van. Now long trips won't be so bad (the van is equipped with a DVD player for the kids) and taking the whole family somewhere will no longer be such a pain. We are very thankful for the opportunity to get the van we have wanted so badly, even with Barb currently out of work. The program really worked for us and I hope it is working for others out there as well.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Red Faction: Guerrilla & IL-2 demo impressions
Got in a little time with both of these games and have some quick thoughts about them. RF:G is an open world sandbox type of game, along the lines of a GTA clone. I am only about an hour into it but so far it has been enjoyable. The game controls pretty well on foot and in vehicles and the aiming/shooting feels pretty good too. The environments are destructible and that is supposed to be the big draw here. It seems like the missions will get repetitive after a while, but without actually going through the game more, that's really just a guess. It appears to be a quality title through and through, but it's probably something that would be better as a rental for me. That feeling may change as I get deeper into the game, but with limited gaming time, that may not happen for a while, or even at all.
I was nicely surprised by the demo for IL-2. I wasn't expecting much but the game looks fantastic and offers different levels of realism as far as how the planes control. Targeting an enemy was easy as was leading the target when firing away with your plane's machine guns/cannons. The ground assault mission was a little more difficult because the targets are basically stationary, so you really come up on them fast. This game definitely has me intrigued and I will be checking out the full version. Again, my one concern is the repetition of the missions in flying games such as this, so perhaps a rental may be best. Either way, I will be playing this game in September. With Heroes Over Europe due out a week before IL-2, I will definitely be getting a healthy fix of WWII flying action. I only wish one of the games was set in the Pacific theater instead of both being set in Europe; I love my Japanes Zeroes and the F4F Wildcats and the F4U Corsairs. Oh well, maybe some day.
I was nicely surprised by the demo for IL-2. I wasn't expecting much but the game looks fantastic and offers different levels of realism as far as how the planes control. Targeting an enemy was easy as was leading the target when firing away with your plane's machine guns/cannons. The ground assault mission was a little more difficult because the targets are basically stationary, so you really come up on them fast. This game definitely has me intrigued and I will be checking out the full version. Again, my one concern is the repetition of the missions in flying games such as this, so perhaps a rental may be best. Either way, I will be playing this game in September. With Heroes Over Europe due out a week before IL-2, I will definitely be getting a healthy fix of WWII flying action. I only wish one of the games was set in the Pacific theater instead of both being set in Europe; I love my Japanes Zeroes and the F4F Wildcats and the F4U Corsairs. Oh well, maybe some day.
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