Halo Reach is fanfuckingtastic. The online has SO MANY OPTIONS. Why was I not playing this the second I got my 360. We need a reach night. I feel terrible that in a week this game will be outdated.

phantom_leo said:

I can't get over NYC...

Subways flooded and completely closed. The City's at a standstill and that blows my mind more than anything!

In RI it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. I didn't lose power...whereas last year during Irene I lost power for almost a week. This started as some strong wind, then the wind died down and we got a ton of rain. Almost like a really strong thunderstorm.

Dvader said:

Halo Reach is fanfuckingtastic. The online has SO MANY OPTIONS. Why was I not playing this the second I got my 360. We need a reach night. I feel terrible that in a week this game will be outdated.

Had a little exchange of words with an un-official "support" person (aka shill) on the Xbox Support forums about the nature of my troubles with Live for the past few days. He kept on trying to convince me it was my system (my problem) and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the new Dashboard and there was nothing wrong with the update. One of the things I mentioned was I JUST transferred my profile and all of my Arcade Games to a new system not too long ago. This supposed networking "expert" kept on telling me to reset my router, move my system, change the router channel, etc, etc... You know, all the things you'll read on ANY faq regarding networking ANYWHERE on the internet.

Long story short, TODAY, FINALLY there is a Disruption of Service message up on Xbox's Site stating there is indeed an issue with Old Profiles on New Systems and Microsoft is (FINALLY) looking into it! Of course I --HAD TO-- go back to my original Topic to let the good non-official "support" person know!

One other thing: These "experts" keep on telling everyone experiencing issues to delete their cache... DELETE YOUR CACHE... Turns out, by doing this, you are deleting the 4MB Update for Borderlands 2 and this needs to be re-downloaded everytime you DO delete the cache...

**Thank You, GS Eye-Rolling Smiley for the Cameo!**

edgecrusher said:

Did you get to the night level yet? I love that one. Reach is IMO the best Halo since the original.

robio said:

DQ7 on 3DS huh? Interesting..... still not touching that game again though. Just too freaking long.

Skyward Sword theme performed by choir and Zelda lookalike

Since I have a week before Halo 4 comes out to try to beat another game, I decided to try Penumbra on the PC. Its basically a slow paced 1st person horror puzzle game with really bad controls. Not really feeling it, sorry Steel. Doubt I'll ever go back to it.

Then I swtiched to From Dust, which I've been interested in for a long time. This game is pretty cool, but it feels like something is missing. It doesn't have the addictive quality that Civilization has. I think I'm like halfway through it though, its not very big. Its ok but seems like a lot of wasted potential for a bigger, more fleshed out game.

I really want to play Metro, but don't wanna play a shooter before Halo 4. After Xcom I'm just feeling meh about everything.

I may take a crack at Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.

I got to try the MG Rising demo and I am not jumping for joy. The combat system is pretty different as it makes use of freezing time to chop up people in a sort of finish move. The normal attacks are normal attacks and strong attacks, you alternate between them or hit them in sequences and you do different moves. This part feels a bit like Bayonetta but without the depth. There was no move list so maybe I am missing some advanced moves but for the most part you just mash square and triangle until.

What really bugged me is the complete lack of doging and a real block. The only defense you have is a parry where you have to press the left stick + square at the same time to get into a ready position where you raise your sword up to deflect any incoming attacks. There feels like there is a delay from when you press it to when it becomes active, if you can press it in time, you try to press left stick + square at the same time as you are in the middle of constant action. Plus you cant cancel out of an attack into it it seems. So basically you press it way before an attack happens and you enter a ready postion which will wait for the attack, really weird.

The camera isnt that great, way to often I was being hit from offscreen. The point of the action is to cut enemies in a certain spot, if you do then you get to steal their spine for extra health and points. So when you fight a gekko you just mash on them until they glow blue then you can chop them up. There are stealth options where if you sneak up on someone you get to do an instant kill. There is an area with four guards, two on balconies, two on the ground with a hostage. If they spot you they kill the hostage. You can charge the ground guards and kill them before they kill the hostage but that is risky. I went around the buildings taking out the guys in the balconies, btw these guys are idiots, i climbed up right next to one of these guys and they never saw me, their view is strictily in front of them, almost no perhipheral vision. I went around the buildings and snuck up behind the ground guys. Its nice to have options like that but it seems almost an afterthought.

The sword cutting has its issues, mainly trying to aim it properly doesnt feel right. Plus after multiple slashes there is a delay, it will perform the moves you did with the R stick but it does it one at a time so if you do it very quickly you maybe done inputing the commands but the game is still catching up. The game basically freezes as you enter this mode so that isnt really an issue. I kept wondering how much better this would be with the move. The cutting everything mechanic is mostly for show as it adds nothing to the game. So you can cut trees, cars, some pillars and crap. It all looks like some low budget game when things get cut, it falls all weird and quickly disappears.

The codec is back with a new cast of characters. Cant judge them yet but they dont seem that interesting, hell Raiden is never interesting. The game doesn't look that great and the demo is glitchy as it froze on me three times.

Now its not all bad, its platinum so when the action is on its pretty fun and crazy. There is an AWESOME boss battle at the end and I know that is nothing compared to what the game has to offer. Also I assume you will gain new moves as the game goes on so maybe some of my criticisms gets fixed with that. When compared to the very best like Bayonetta it doesn't leave a great impression but it does feel like it can be a high quality action game.