Much to the dismay of my wife, I have been playing Gears of War 2 quite full on for the past week. Last night I finished the campaign mode on Hardcore difficulty, signalling the popup of a number of achievements and also the ending credits. Not being able to skip these credits, I left them on and set about tidying the house.
As I came back to them, the Microsoft copyrights ran through the screen and a Gears of War 2 loading screen came on. What happened there was something you would have expected from the end of a Cloverfield type movie.
A man’s voice kicks in (I won’t divulge as to ruin the ending for people playing it), tells us that the grand plan was a huge mistake. I’m left thinking, “I just spent countless hours sinking Jacinto, how is that a huge mistake?!“. What is does signal is that we are in for a third Gears of War instalment (I can hear the collective sighs of the Xbox widows around the world).
Interested on what other people thought of the ending, I searched Twitter for the phrase: “Gears of War 2 Ending”. Here are the results:
As you can see, for some it’s a stroke of genius, for others it’s a similar feeling of: “Is this Halo 2 all over again?!”
For those of you who don’t know what the hell I am talking about, I have embedded the ending below, so if you don’t want to spoil it for yourself, this is a massive SPOILER ALERT!
Have you finished the game? What are your thoughts on the ending? Have you got an idea of what the (insinuated) third instalment will deliver? Hit me up in the comments.
In game making land, the summer never really brings many high profile console game releases. Although we were lucky enough to have GTA IV and a few other minor titles, this autumn/winter is shaping up to leave Xbox 360 drooling in front of their wide-screen LCD TV’s.
I’m going to push the originality angle here and post yet-another-list of games that any self respecting Xbox 360 owner should take heed of when deciding what games to buy in the next few months.
Excuse the pun but Gears of War 2 looks to be a lot more EPIC. Different weapons, bigger bad guys and improved gameplay will contribute to an all out gore fest of immense proportions. Early indications are that it will be a 4 player co-op allowing some fantastic campaign missions but also the matchmaking system will be modified so teams can play maps together similar to Halo 3.
This game will set all the little kiddies scampering back onto their Xbox Live mic’s, I don’t care, I was pretty good at annihilating them the first time, I expect it will be the same on November 7th.
Fallout 3 is the latest outing from the creators of Oblivion; Bethesda Game Studios. Set in 2277, two hundred years after the nuclear war that destroyed the world, this game focuses on a man who survived the war in a bunker known as Vault 101. He lives with his father and wakes up one day to find that he has left the safety of the shelter and ventured out into the wastelands. As any would-be hero does, he ventures out after him and that is where the real heart of the game begins.
Fallout 3 features breathtaking visuals, an improved targeting and attacking system and fantastic character interaction. It’s less than a week until it’s release, I suggest you take the plunge and get this game, it’s gonna be a good one.
Release Dates:
US: October 28, 2008
UK: October 30, 2008
For our US readers, Dead Space may already be on your shelves and our UK readers may be interested to know that this game is released tomorrow.
Dead Space is a third person shooter which is set in (yep, you guessed it!) deep space. The player takes control of Isaac Clarke, an engineer tasked with getting a stricken mining ship back online that also (rather surprisingly) has his ex-girlfriend onboard. The player takes charge just as his crew are savagely killed and mutated into evil beasts.
Dead Space not only boasts stunning visuals, it features an over the shoulder camera view (a la Gears of War) and without a HUD, shows life meters on the space suit of the games main protagonist and visualises ammo levels on holographic displays.
Depending on it’s popularity, you could see this game dropping in price after it’s release but I would recommend getting it as soon as possible.
Release Dates:
US: October 14, 2008
UK: October 24, 2008
A massive hit on the first generation Xbox, this game looks to have taken all the good points from it’s prequel and extrapolated them a hundred fold. With huge dynamic level designs and an improved weapon base, it’s truly upto the player to decide how his/her character will materialise. You can be the hero of Albion but also a legend for being an evil villain, it’s all dependant on how you deal with your quests.
Release Dates:
US: October 21, 2008
UK: October 24, 2008
Mirror’s Edge looks to be truly unique in it’s gameplay. You play a character named Faith who is a renegade against an oppressive government that controls her people. Faith, a free runner, attempts to rescue her sister while running messages for the criminal underworld, she gets caught up in a series of events which lead to her being pursued by the totalitarian government.
Mirror’s Edge employs a first person view with no HUD, only showing the flailing arms and legs of the character you control. This helps the player keep a sense of momentum as they guide Faith over rooftops and down buildings, as is shown in the video above.
It’s certainly a different concept but one that looks to be a sure winner.
Release Dates:
US: November 11
UK: November 14
Conclusion
So there you have it, a little rundown of the best looking games coming to us in the next month. Agree or disagree, why not leave a message in the comments?
This week saw my father in law go into hospital for surgery on a recurrent hip problem. He (like me) played a hell of a lot of sport in his younger years and his body until today had made him pay for that. This leads to me hoping that I don’t start to fall apart in my later years, due to the amount of football I have played.
Early this morning the landlord came and introduced herself properly, giving us an explanation of things that were never indicated to us by the letting agents. It was the usual “Call us if anything should go wrong”. We mentioned that our neighbours had been making loud sounds, something that seemed to be reinforced by the family the other side of the couple in question. We put in a request to get the oven sorted, because at the moment it takes a hour to cook something even when it’s at 250 degrees.
The kittens have acclimatized to their new home, they love coming up into the bedroom in the evenings and sleeping on the bed, which at first we were happy to let them do until they started fighting at 2am in the morning. They have subsequently been banned from the bedroom, and don’t we know it, they have mewing and clawing at the door every evening since!
My Xbox has been repaired, just in time for my pre-orders, it also means we can watch all of our movie downloads on the big screen, saves wasting money heading to the cinema that’s for sure (but don’t tell anyone, right?!).
Two days before my birthday, my Xbox decides to give up, I thought with two years under it’s belt and no errors, it was free from the dreaded rings…..alas, I was wrong.
I registered the Xbox online and have completed the order form to get it sent back to Microsoft and repaired for free. Here’s how you do it:
Click on the Repair Agent image on the right side of the screen.
Click to register a new device and enter your Xbox 360’s serial number (This is found on the back of the unit, near the power cable insert).
It should now have your registered device on the screen, now click request a new repair.
Follow the on prompts and for all intensive purposes “order” a repair for your Xbox from Microsoft.
You may be told about getting a box to send your Xbox in, you won’t. You will only get a shipping label. Make sure you save a receipt (this comes in handy for UPS pickup or drop off).
You should now have an email in your email account from Microsoft/UPS with the delivery label. Print this off.
Hunt down a big enough box and pack your Xbox 360 into it. Make sure you disconnect hardware/hard drives etc and just send the unit itself. Stick the UPS delivery label printed earlier to the top of the box, making sure to use see through tape so the label doesnt fall off and so it can still be scanned.
Get UPS to pick up your package or you can drop it off in one of their centres. Please note: If you drop it off, take your receipt as UPS can mark this to prove you sent it via them.
Play the waiting game.
I look forward to seeing mine again in a few weeks, just in time for Fallout 3 and GoW 2
It’s been crappy weather the last few days, Saturday was scorching and since then it has been rainy and miserable.
Anyway, I digress.
This morning I come into work and find I have seven emails in my Gmail account waiting for me, for the first time I thought, could they all be Spam? I had two or three pointless emails there that I deleted and then I spied an email with the following subject:
Strange I thought as I had already pre-ordered the game with a rival company called Gameplay (£5 cheaper I hasten to add!), the order should be waiting for me at home when I return this afternoon!
The email also contains codes for free Gamerpics and Xbox Live points, should I spend them? There’s a moral dilemma for you first thing in the morning!
You may have applied a recent update to your Xbox, come to stream a movie and your 360 throws it’s toys out the pram, showing an error message.
The error may be the exact one that I have experienced:
Unplayable Content
Can’t play this contet because it may not be supported. For more info, go to www.xbox.com/support
Status code: 69-04-80070057
There is only one way to fix this at the moment, encode all your movies and files to a format supported by the Xbox 360 itself, so far these are WMV, MP4 and some MPEG files.
Stick with the lads at TVersity, I’m confident they will have this rectified soon.
Update: There is a new version of TVersity out, download it from here. I have downloaded but haven’t had the chance to see if it works yet.
Update No.2: The update has worked for me, make sure you have a codec pack like CCCP Codec Pack or KazaaLite Codec Pack and make sure that on your “Transcoder” option inside the GUI, Use DirectShow for Windows Media Encoding is ticked.
