Halo Reach Multiplayer Beta

OK, so I was at work all day wishing I was at home playing the Halo Reach Multiplayer Beta.  I finally got home and popped in my Halo 3 ODST disk and downloaded the beta.  It took less than 30 minutes to download the 1.15 gigabyte beta.  I connected to a match and I had the first kill which announced I believe first strike or something to that nature.  I was playing team slayer.  For a good portion of the match I had the most kills on my team.  Later I lost that lead on my team.  Not that I am competing against my team but its always nice to be able to say I have the most kills on my team.  lol  My team did end up losing.  Now for glitches I can definitely say there are some glitches in the beta but that is to be expected.  Bungie wants us to find and report these glitches so they can fix them for the game's release in the Fall.  Now the glitch that I and probably everyone had noticed was that on the map it shows way too many red dots (the red team) than there actually were playing the game.  I saw probably 20 or more red dots on the map when there was actually way less than that playing the game.  Respawning after a death usually went without a hitch till one death when it looked like it was going to start a new game.  I died and then it said something like starting game.  I was like what???  The game isn't over yet, just respawn me.  Eventually it did respawn me back into action.  I went back to fighting the good fight.  When the game ended and my team lost, the servers went down and I could not connect to another match.  Now before I go onto the server problems let me talk about the experience points and rewards.  So after a match has ended you are shown your experience you earned from the previous match.  You gain experience points for things you accomplished in the game.  For example, I had the first kill in the match so I was awarded points for that and along with all the kills I had.  It also puts a cool icon next to your accomplishment which is a nice feature.  I waited around for 20 minutes with no luck so I shut my Xbox off and here I am now blogging about it.  I enjoyed the one and only match that I was able to connect to and I want more but I am not going to wait around all day.  I definitely will be getting the game on day one of release in the fall.  Like I said before I only played one match but I was definitely having fun and I really enjoyed the new additions to the game.  Bungie is aware of the problem and they are actively working on getting the servers back online.  I think I am done gaming for today and I will give it another shot tomorrow.  I am sure the servers will be working fine by then.  How about you guys, have you played the beta and if so how do you like it?  What don't you like?   What do you like?  What glitches have you found so far?

Plumbing Problems

Sunday night I had gotten home from my Mom's house from having dinner.  I had gone up stairs to use the toilet and when I went to flush I noticed the handle was very loose and would not flush.  So I took the top off of the toilet and quickly saw what the problem was and fixed it.  Awesome its working now!!  OK so the night ends and its time for bed.  I wake up the next day and have breakfast and take a shower.  Later while I am doing the dishes I hear water to my left.  I look over and see water coming out of the hookup for the washer (we don't have a washer).  After a few seconds the water stops flowing out of the washer hookup.  My brother is sleeping in the living room on the couch.  I ran over to him and woke him up so I could tell him about it.  I am wondering what the hell is going on and why the water is coming out of the washer hook up.  My brother goes to the bathroom and I can hear the toilet being flushed and more water comes out of the wall where the washer hookup is.  Its coming out pretty fast and stops after a few seconds.  I called my brother downstairs to tell him that we can't flush the toilet till we get this fixed.  So I got the towels out and cleaned up the water and went to work.  My brother called the land lord to come and fix the water problem.  When I got home it was fixed.  Problem solved yeah!!!  Later that night I go to do the dishes and the water in the sink won't go down the drain.  I try using the garbage disposal and the water goes down the drain and when I turn the garbage disposal off it comes back up.  So I'm thinking shit we have another problem.  I knew that if they were going to fix it in the morning that I had to do the dishes so I did the dishes and went to bed.  In the morning the water was down the drain.  I think good the problem is no more.  So I take a shower and shave and I start coming down stairs and I hear dripping.  I am thinking shit what the hell is going on?  So when I get to the bottom of the stairs and step on the tile floor my foot touches not a dry floor but a soaking wet floor.  The hall way is flooded along with the kitchen.  The sink is full of water that has overflown on to the floor and counter.  Water is every where.  I am flipping out and cursing up a storm.  Not happy at all!!  I used all the towels in the apartment to clean up the water and then I wake up my brother telling him about the flood.  He says OK I will get up at 6:30 and give the landlord a call.  So I do what I can and leave for work.  Later at work on my break I call my brother to see if the plumbing problem has been fixed.  He tells me they are working on it and that the apartment to the left and on our right both are having the same problem.  So something went wrong and I don't know what it was but that was really a pain in my ass but I was not the only one to have to deal with a water problem.  I later received a call from my brother telling me that the problem was fixed and that tomorrow (Friday) the landlord would be sending over someone to shampoo the carpet.  I said why because the carpet did not get wet?  My brother says well they are doing it as a courtesy.  I thought wow that's really nice of them.  So now its Friday, and I got home from work about an hour ago and I can see the carpet people were here and it looks great!!  The water has been working fine since yesterday and its still working the way it should.

Crazy Taxi And More Coming To Xbox Live Arcade

Over at Digiex today, screenshots have been posted called, wasabifights2, which shows Quake Arena Arcade, Hydro Thunder, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure: Director's Cut and Doom 2.

Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi and been rumored before as coming to XBLA but we haven't seen anything to help support that hunch. From these screenshots though it all looks pretty believable.

I cant remember how many hours I have spent playing Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure. I suspect we might be hearing more in a few months at E3.
What do you all think of that?

Final Fight Remix Soundtrack Available Free

If you are a fan of the classic Final Fight, then you are probably a a fan of the latest remix on XBLA Final Fight: Double Impact. So for all of you out there looking for some new video game music to enhance your iPod and Zune experiance, you will be happy to hear that creator Simon Viklund has made the remix soundtrack available as a free download.

You can pick up all 46 tracks here.
Hope everyone enjoys!

Free DLC Every Thursday For Splinter Cell: Conviction

In a very generous and unexpected announcement on the in-game dashboard of Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ubisoft announced that every Thursday they will be releasing free weekly DLC.

The planned DLC will include some very nice detailed touches to the game, including, new outfits, skills, weapons and even maps for the game's Deniable Ops multiplayer.

You can bet that these free DLC packages wont last forever but for the time being I say "Bring it on!" The more free DLC the better, as im sure much of the community will agree. I would also guess that at some point Ubisoft will throw in a more conventional paid DLC as well.

This week's free item is the MP7A1 Machine Pistol as seen below. You can grab it from SCC's 'Extra Content' menu right now. UK and Europe will have to wait until Friday when the game launches.

Forza 3 Road & Track DLC Pack Now Available

Fans of Forza 3 will be happy to hear that earlier today Turn 10 released a new DLC pack for their latest Racing Sim in their over powering series. The Road & Track Pack includes a long list of 10 different cars that can be seen below. Also if you want there is a sample pack available containing the Mini Coupe Concept.

- 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports
- 2010 Mazda MX-5 Superlight
- 2010 SEAT Leon Cupra R
- 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG
- 2010 Renault Megane RS 250
- 2010 Vauxhall Insignia VXR
- 2010 Mini Coupe Concept
- 2010 Volkswagen Golf R
- 2009 Holden HSV w427
- 2010 Ford Taurus SHO

The DLC of 10 cars will set you back 400MSP.

Gears of War 3 Officially Announced On Jimmy Fallon

Even with last weeks slip up on Xbox Live Dashboard last week showing an advertisement of Gears of War 3 for April 2011, we were still waiting for Cliff Bleszinski's "Big Announcement" on the Jimmy Fallon show.

During Cliff's time on the show, we were graced with the Announcement Trailer entitled "Ashes to Ashes". We got to see the debut of the double barrel shotgun (because you can always use another barrel) and a much older more grizzled Dom.

Its looking great so far, and I'm sure we are all going to be on the edge of our seats for more information. As of right now there is a penciled in release date for April 5th in North America and April 8th 2011 for Europe.

PSA: Xbox 360 8 & 16GB USB Flash Drives On The Way

With the much anticipated USB flash drive update to the Xbox 360 last week, comes the not so much anticipated overpriced 8 and 16GB Xbox 360 flash drives by SanDisk. Over at Gamestop.com you can find these two specially designed flash drives for $39.99 and $69.99 respectively. This would be great if only Microsoft's prices would be even a little bit competitive with the 'normal' competition. What I mean is that right now you can go to Amazon.com and find up to 4 pages of 16GB flash drives by SanDisk and a few other big names for as little as $27.99. on Average you looking to spend about $35 give or take with shipping and handling.

The Microsoft branded flash drives are listed to come preloaded with the updated Xbox Live update software, a one (1) month free of Xbox Live Gold Membership and a few other things that don't make a difference from any other flash drive.

At first I was excited when I heard about Microsoft making their own flash drives for the Xbox 360. I as many other people out there would love to have more things branded by Microsoft with there Xbox 360 logo. But when your charging more then double the price, its really hard to justify making this kind of purchase.

Windows Games For PC Getting Microsoft Live Treatment?

Well, the 'Rumor Mill' strikes again and this time with some very interesting claims. From a source within, Microsoft is allegedly preparing to implement Live functionality into the free suite of games that comes with all Windows-enabled PCs: Solitaire, Chess, Checkers, Spades, Hearts, Backgammon, Minesweeper, Purple Place, Spider Solitaire and Freecell. Its been reported that each Windows game will not only get Achievements, but also chat and leaderboard support.

No word on if this would just be a free update or not but I would assume so. For fellow Achievement junkies out there this will be a great and much welcomed update to get our fix. For the new people out there, this will be a great way to give them just a small taste of what Microsoft has to offer with there Live service and leave them craving for more.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

3D Video Games????

I have just received word that 3D video games are coming to the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.  Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of The Year edition will be coming out on May 11th 2010.  The game will use TriOviz 3D technology and will require the use of 3D glasses which will come included with the game.  That's not all that's coming with the game, you will also get to play in four new challenge maps.  Attack of the Movies which is another 3D game that requires 3D glasses is coming out for the XBOX 360 and the Nintendo Wii on May 18th 2010.  I don't know about you guys but I sure am excited to see these games in 3D.  Now the question is, if you played the original Batman Arkham Asylum are you going to buy the 3D one just so you can see how much better the gaming experience will be in 3D?  I would at least rent it if I were you.