Game informer

[jvd]

Hey guys today i picked up the new game informer on my lunch break (new job ! ) and the new issue is pretty good . It has about 8 pages of info and screen shots of gears of war and a pretty good write up . Game sounds really interesting and may be bigger than halo 3 and pdz .


There are some interesting things in it like the live break down

Online game play is subscription only

access to mmos (additional fees may apply) both free and subscription

free xbox live weekends both

free and premium downloadable game content , movies , music , trailers/demos , and tv in both

micro transcations , game invites / friend invites , text voice service / system messages , custom playlists , playing music from portable music devices , pics from digital cameras streaming media , media center extender built in , interactive full screen 3d visualizers , track info for cds and parential controls are in both .

So the only thing u don't get free is the week day game play



They have pictures to size of the consoles and it looks like the ps2 is wider than the x360 but the x360 is longer (taller ) and the x360 is both shorter and smaller in height compared to the xbox .


From the spec page it says

storage

detachable and upgradeable 20 gig hardrive .

Sounds like its included .


ALl and all its not a bad issue so you should give it a pick up

 

[Kill_Jade]

you must know something about Halo 3 that we dont

 

[jvd]

you must know something about Halo 3 that we dont

not really except that halo's story sucks alot where as gears of war's story seems really cool and seems better tied into the actual single player game

 

[Acert93]

free xbox live weekends both

...

So the only thing u don't get free is the week day game play

One of the huge turn off for MMOs for me is subscriptions. If MS will offer weekends for free I would maybe even try a AAA one... and (eeek!) that could get me addicted (like how people got addicted to WoW).

Overall I really like the Live features. As a HEAVY online gamer (BF1942--still play it and its mods today, CS:S, Madden, and I have BF2 preordered) the quality of Live could be the make or break. I really want to see what Sony and Nintendo offer.

Free is good, but the quality of the service is primary to me. On the PC you have the advantage of PEOPLE setting up servers, so there are always a lot of good servers around. On the console space it is up to developers or a service to do it... so I will be keeping my eyes on this.

The only thing I fear is weekends may be overloaded. Weekends is a prime time to play so the free service would be good in many ways, but the quality of the experience is more important. I would rather buy 1 game and get really good online through a service than buy 2 games with shoddy online play. Mainly because online to me is where the value is at--I can play the same game I like for hundreds of hours online with never getting bored.

 

[jvd]

yea it sounds like the weekends could get bad . But remember as more games come out the amount of people playing each game will get smaller . sure halo 3 will come out and for a while many people will be playing it but then pdz 2 comes out and people leave halo 3 . At least that is what i'm thinking . I might get the subscription live if its nothing crazy in price

 

[pegisys]

I have live on the first xbox, it $49.99 a year which is not bad considering it's the same price of a game, and with all the new features I'll probably get it agian as long as they don't raise the price

 

[jvd]

hmmm 50$ sounds reasonable for the year . Mabye i will give it a shot . Most likely not to 2006 though as the x360 is coming smack dab in the holidays and i barely have anytime

 

[Brimstone]

Free is good, but the quality of the service is primary to me. On the PC you have the advantage of PEOPLE setting up servers, so there are always a lot of good servers around. On the console space it is up to developers or a service to do it... so I will be keeping my eyes on this.

In Halo 2 you don't join a server to play a game like in Counter Strike or Battlefield for the PC. What happens is you go to a match making screen, and players of a similar rank get grouped together into a game. There is some sort of automated LIVE Halo 2 server that does the player sorting. The person with the highest upload bandwidth becomes the host I think.

If you have a friend online in Halo 2, he can join your party and will always be grouped with you. During the whole pre-game process you can chat back and forth. You can have your party size go up to a total of 8 people and launch in 8 v 8 team battles.

Some games do allow you to host your own online games matches. Of course the problem will be your upload bandwidth. 128k and you really can't do more than 4 people at once. I really dig it when a game allows the option for a person to run their console as a dedicated server and have map rotations and such. Some people with cable service have incredible upload speeds.



I don't understand how RARE is going to pull off the up to 50 players at once with Perfect Dark Zero unless they are planning on hosting dedicated servers with massive bandwidth. Unless Microsoft has some sort new type type of technology for online play.

 

[ninelven]

erased

 

[wco81]

Is the free weekend online play confirmed?

I thought that was only stated in the rumors before the unveiling but hasn't been stated since?

 

[jvd]

Is the free weekend online play confirmed?

I thought that was only stated in the rumors before the unveiling but hasn't been stated since?

it was in this article so i would think so

 

[jvd]

(was reading it again in the john )


It seems like the old xbox wires will work on the x360 according to them


I also looked at the pictures of full auto (read so much about it already) and the pictures look like the replay screens of froza or gt4 with fsaa and alot more going on in the shots . So i'm happy with that as this magazine had to be ready at least 2 weeks ago to get on stands already and there is another 4 months left


Tomb raider looked pretty good also i'm not very interested in this series anymore (it was once really good and then eh ) but the graphics are clean and crisp and blow away any platformer i've seen on the current gen systems and the redeisgn of lara isn't that bad .


Anyway just threw a little more on there