Bought 4000 points for $49.99 at Amazon. Surely this will be enough. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nooooo...!
Bought Limbo. Plants vs. Zombies and Shadow Complex. 400 points left. Dammit I can't buy ANYTHING with that!
Bought another 4000 points for another $49.99. Amazon asks: "This is a duplicate sale. Are you sure you want to proceed?" Grrrr... YES!
Bought Alien Homind. Geometry Wars 2. Zeno Clash and CastleVania: HoD. Done. Again. WHY CAN'T I JUST BUY THE GAMES DIRECTLY WITHOUT BUYING POINTS?! ARRGGGHHH!!!
Bought another 1600 Points for $19.99. God these numbers are strange!
Bought Rez and Pac-Man CE. Done.
Bought another 1600 Points for $19.99. "This is a duplicate sale..." FUCK YOU ! ! ! YES. YES. YES ! ! !
Bought Darwinia + and 'Splosion Man. Done.
But. But. I wanted Ikaruga and Lara Croft and Trials and P.B. Winterbottom...
Eh. I'll just play a game.
View Active Downloads... Zeno Clash 16% Downloaded...
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU... ! ! ! ! ! !
phantom_leo said:Bought 4000 points for $49.99 at Amazon. Surely this will be enough. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nooooo...!
Bought Limbo. Plants vs. Zombies and Shadow Complex. 400 points left. Dammit I can't buy ANYTHING with that!
Bought another 4000 points for another $49.99. Amazon asks: "This is a duplicate sale. Are you sure you want to proceed?" Grrrr... YES!
Bought Alien Homind. Geometry Wars 2. Zeno Clash and CastleVania: HoD. Done. Again. WHY CAN'T I JUST BUY THE GAMES DIRECTLY WITHOUT BUYING POINTS?! ARRGGGHHH!!!
Bought another 1600 Points for $19.99. God these numbers are strange!
Bought Rez and Pac-Man CE. Done.
Bought another 1600 Points for $19.99. "This is a duplicate sale..." FUCK YOU ! ! ! YES. YES. YES ! ! !
Bought Darwinia + and 'Splosion Man. Done.
But. But. I wanted Ikaruga and Lara Croft and Trials and P.B. Winterbottom...
Eh. I'll just play a game.
View Active Downloads... Zeno Clash 16% Downloaded...
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU... ! ! ! ! ! !
I wish I could help you play all those games. 
Two Hours later, can't decide what I want to play first.
I pick Alien Hominid. God, I love you Behemoth! No one makes games like you do! I had this game on the GameCube. Don't know what happened to it, really. May have been stolen with a large bunch of games at one point.
What color! Wow! The game looks GREAT in HD. Pew! Pew! Pew! I giggle as I burrow underground and snatch unsuspecting agents to their bloody doom! Oh! Big bad robot! Can't get me! Burrow! Pop! Pew! Pew! Pew! Ooooo! What a big laser beam you have! Zoink! Burrow! *Giggle!*
I'll go back to this later...
This game and Castle Crashers pretty much cements The Behemoth in the Pantheon of original games, right up there with Treasure! <3
You buy a 360 and the first game you play is a GC game?!
Shush you! It's ME... Of course the first thing I am going to play is a Retro-Style, 2D game! DUH!
phantom_leo said:One thing I DID NOT like was the placement of the touch-sensitive Disk Tray opening button. I had the system plugged in, but the clear plastic strip NOT taken off the face yet, and my hand inadvertantly brushed the button. The disk tray was trying to open but was stuck by the plastic strip in front of it, so it immediately retracted. Did not like that one bit! I guess they are built so an obstruction in front of the tray causes it to close. Does anyone actually PUSH the trays closed anymore? They tray also feels kinda flimsy. I wish MS had opted for the front loading feed thingee like the Wii and the PS have. Anyway, seems like no damage was done!
Yeah, I really dislike disk trays now after using the Wii for so long. MS was just being cheap-asses.
phantom_leo said:Two Hours later, can't decide what I want to play first.
Pac-Man: CE 
I then popped in Mass Effect. Never had ANY contact, experience, hands-on with this game... EVER. Just read on jealously as Steel and GodMode talked about it in the RoF.
Made a male Shepard, cause, well, girls are icky!
Explored the ship, questioned some crew-members, was intrigued by the Conversation Tree options. Of course, I am on my way to becoming a Paragon (Good Guy. I think.)...
Found out the nature of the mission WAS NOT just a routine escort mission. Have to retrieve some kind of Beacon. Noticed the underlying Alien mistrust amongst the crew. They want me to be a Spectre. 'K. Don't know what that means yet, but I guess I'll find out!
Transported down to the planet. Two Rookie Ensigns with me. Might as well be wearing Red Shirts... You are SO gonna die!
Fired two shots. Plays like a FPS with the stats of an RPG. Interesting!
Realized at that point I hadn't eaten or showered yet. This was around 7:00PM. Did I mention I've been home sick with some kind of Flu or something? Stopped playing at that point!
Ravenprose said:Pac-Man: CE
Hey. I bought it at least! I'll get to it eventually!
OK. I'll admit it. That purchase was inspired COMPLETELY by you!
Showered. Ate. Decided to try something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
Xeno Clash UE was it.
Oh boy, DIFFERENT doesn't even BEGIN to describe it!
If you can imagine:
+
You'll kinda get this game. It totally reminds me of THAT movie, but even weirder, but it has the play-style of THAT game. Don't know what they are? Boooo...!
Imagine the most bizarre fantasy world meets First Person Brawling + Shooting. So decidedly different, but very, VERY cool!
IGN said it in their review: "At the very least, Zeno Clash provides an experience that most gamers probably haven't experienced before. It is provocative, violent, and definitely interesting, and sporadically fun."
They don't offer games like this on Wii Ware or PSN!
Finally went back to Mass Effect. Really, truly is a FPSRPG. Explored the Planet a tiny bit. Ensign Ricky is already dead. !
I have to admit I am completely overwhelmed by the Menus, Character Customization options, Equipment Upgrade...
There is DEFINITELY a STEEP learning curve here, but I can totally see why people were so enamored.
I was originally worried that a game that was a few years old would seem a bit dated. HA! An earlier effort by Bio-Ware (at least graphically) puts their newer effort, Dragon Age, to shame!
The game PLAYS easy enough. Left Trigger to Aim. Right Trigger to fire. X to Pick up Items... Yada, yada. It's the RPG aspect of it that is sooo in-depth that it is almost confusing!
I love the different Roles your character can take on: Engineer, Soldier or... Jedi-like guy with Force-like powers it seems... The options seem endless... I just don't know where to begin...!
Played a bit with my Pistol and my surviving crew member. Watched a scientist get mercilessly skewered. Rescued some girl. Again, NOTHING like this on PS3 or Wii!
This game deserves A LOT more attention...
...tomorrow!
I have been admiring my Big, Black, Glossy New Friend all night! It's quite a nice system when all is said and done.
The game selection is certainly different enough to warrant a purchase versus the PS3 and the Wii.
I am getting the impression the Online Service eclipses both of what the other two consoles offer, at least Socially... ( Love you, VC<3 ! )
What I DO NOT like is the MS Points System... even beyond my Credit Card Authorization troubles; It is just NEEDLESSLY obtuse and seems DESIGNED to always have you over-purchase points, or under-purchase points and NEED to buy more. NO. LIKE! Why can't they all be like PSN, where you hit "Buy" and it does JUST THAT, then and there, without the need for all the extra trouble?!
Finally... MY GOD, the Dashboard is a MESS! Finding my Games. Stopping my games. There's SOOO much on screen that it's all information overload! Take a lesson from Nintendo here MicroSoft! Your User-Interface here S-U-C-K-S ! ! !
(To be continued...)
...AND... At 12:05AM EST, I am FINALLY able to Buy Microsoft Points with my Credit Card. THAT only took EIGHT HOURS!! 
By the way, I am VERY distressed someone already had the name Phantom Leo as a Gamer Tag!
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
Played the Introduction Level of Darwinia +.
One part Populous.
One part Robotron.
One part Tron.
Smidge of Centipede.
Smattering of Syndicate.
Interesting, to say the least!
I also gave this a whirl, mainly to make the Hamster dance with glee!
Retro-remake done RIGHT!
Kinda reminds me of:
...but I've heard the Arcade version isn't as good as the one above, so I am going to stay away. 
Tempest 2000 is effing awesome. The XBLA Tempest is okay, but no where near as good as 2000.
Give the demo for Space Giraffe a try, Leo. It's kinda like Tempest 2000, only far more insane.
A 360 Virgin's First Time Stories!
So you ripped extracts out of Archie's personal diary? Tut tut.
phantom_leo said:...Finally... MY GOD, the Dashboard is a MESS! Finding my Games. Stopping my games. There's SOOO much on screen that it's all information overload! Take a lesson from Nintendo here MicroSoft! Your User-Interface here S-U-C-K-S ! ! !
(To be continued...)
It's terrible. It's like a myspace page. Or what AOL looked like in the 90's.
Went to Best Buy and picked up pretty much everything that caught my eye.
Didn't get the Reach System simply because I don't need Two Controllers at the moment. I figured I would put the $50 I saved towards the purchase of other games instead. None of the games I purchased have Local Multiplayer anyway and I am going to use good-old reliable batteries, so charging one while playing with another wouldn't be necessary. Bought Component HD cables for $39.99 as both of my HDMI ports are occupied and I didn't feel the need to go searching for a Switch or Splitter. 1080p is available through the cables I got anyway, so not really a big deal.
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Unpacked the box, everything was neatly compartmentalized; the quick set-up instructions were discarded pretty quickly 'cuz I've been playing games for more than a year or two...
Like that the power source is outside of the system. It runs hot enough itself where I can't even fathom a time when power supplies were once part of the system! Yikes! Runs VERY silently though, almost to a fault! I didn't realize and turned the system on, which leads to my next little experience...
One thing I DID NOT like was the placement of the touch-sensitive Disk Tray opening button. I had the system plugged in, but the clear plastic strip NOT taken off the face yet, and my hand inadvertantly brushed the button. The disk tray was trying to open but was stuck by the plastic strip in front of it, so it immediately retracted. Did not like that one bit! I guess they are built so an obstruction in front of the tray causes it to close. Does anyone actually PUSH the trays closed anymore? They tray also feels kinda flimsy. I wish MS had opted for the front loading feed thingee like the Wii and the PS have. Anyway, seems like no damage was done!
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Setting up the options and features of the system was a lot easier than the PS3 and the Wii. Enter name. Enter info for Xbox Live account (one month free!). Setting up the auto-detected Wi-Fi was REALLY quick and easy! Put in my WEP Code and was done. Nice, speedy, reliable Wi-Fi signal. Done!
IF ONLY actually entering my Credit Card info was that easy! Put all the info in, went to purchase points... You card cannot be authorized. Huh? Called MS support. They tried to set it up manually. Same thing. "Contact your bank." So I did. "Did you purchase Playstation titles this morning?" Yes. "How many?" Two. "Did you just spend $575.00 at Best Buy?" Yes. "Your card was blocked due to suspected fraud." Thanks. Can you remove that block? "Done." Try to purchase points again. You card cannot be authorized. What?! Called MS back. "Your bank must have blocked your card." Right. Got that fixed. "We'll manually enter the card for you." You card cannot be authorized. Getting annoyed. "You must have attempted to purchase the points too many times. You've probably been locked out for 24 hours. If you are sure your bank removed the block, you can purchase points through Amazon.Com. Have a good day!" Thanks... *fucker!* Called back the bank. Are you SURE you removed the block? "Yes." You card cannot be authorized. DAMMIT! I'll try again tomorrow...
To Amazon!
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