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No excuse for the slow downloads on Xbox Live

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So we have a scenario here! I have an Xbox 360, hard wired to a gigabit network running through a house, riding on a cable connection of 120+mbps (varies usually between 120 and 130). Everything else connected makes use of the full connection. The Xbox 360 takes about 1 minute+, to download 16.89KB? A file so small, it shouldn’t even be a thought (and barely a memory for the console). Yet here we are in 2015, downloading at speeds that AOL in 1999 would have laughed at. What the heck is going on Microsoft?????

I understand that networks can be stressed down, but when you have millions of fans not only paying you for the console and games but yearly on top of that just to be able to use it…you have no excuse for cutting back. Especially that badly. Microsoft needs to step up their game!

The number one selling item ALL YEAR (and last year) on Amazon is a card game…Happy Holidays

So I have been looking at fun gift ideas (both for others as well as my own wishlist) and searching through Amazon is one of my favorite places to start. Each time a birthday popped up this year and now due to Christmas, I searched to see what are the biggest items selling right now, so that I know whatever I get…should be a safe option (if everyone else likes it…then it must be a great gift). The one thing I noticed, is the “number one selling item on Amazon” spot…never changed. Last year, this year and this holiday...Cards Against Humanity is the top selling item. I can’t believe it…a card game has reigned champion, and for that long. Friends have mentioned off and on these last few years how fun the game is. Never going into too much detail, they made it sound like a game that tests the extremities of which you are willing to say or do among friends.

A tag line of “A Party game for horrible people”, I still don’t quite know what it is about, but I did read that the company that made it is based in Chicago and has made MILLIONS with this game. A card game……millions. Quickly too, as it has remained the top selling item on Amazon for so long. Beating out TVs, Apple products (I know that sounds crazy), tablets and more. There must be something magical about this game that has to be put to the test….therefore it made it to my gift list this Christmas. In fact, one of my friends should be getting it and taking it with to our latest vacation everyone is going on. So might just get a  whiff of it before the gifts come out (assuming anyone snags it from the list at least….unless it has already been snagged and I just don’t know o_O…the suspense…

You can find it here

Halo 5 – Behind the Scenes

I know I have practically vowed to stay away from Xbox for the moment, but it is still nice to reminiscence about the many hours of enjoyment certain games like Halo have provided over the years. Since Halo 3, the franchise has felt…burned out. At least on the online side of things. Everything felt like a clone of 3 as they attempted to squeeze its success for everything they can. A little light inside shines in hope that Halo 5 will bring it back.

We will have to wait until later in 2015 to know for sure (when the game will be ready for launch). There are new Spartan abilities, better graphics and the obvious chance that this game will only be available on the Xbox One.

Since I still have a pile of games I haven’t even touched yet in my position, it’s best to assume that it is going to be awhile before I invest into the new system. I have also enjoyed my escape from the game world by filling it with friends, traveling, hiking and so much more. I guess I may just have to wait to see what you other games feel about the game before I dive in 🙂

What are your thoughts now? Comment box is below! ↓↓↓↓ Do share!

Halo: Nightfall Trailer – First Look (Live Action Series Coming November 2014)

Halo: Nightfall introduces a pivotal new character, Jameson Locke, a legendary manhunter and agent with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Earth’s most powerful and secretive military branch. When he and his team are caught in a horrific biological attack, they unravel a plot that draws them to an ancient, hellish artifact, where they will be forced to fight for their survival, question everything, and ultimately choose between their loyalties and their lives.

Taking place between the events of Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians, Halo: Nightfall is Locke’s origin story which will lend insight and understanding into the character he becomes in Halo 5: Guardians.

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Broken From the Shackles of Xbox Live?

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I don’t know how, but over the last month or so, I just haven’t been playing any Xbox. Even with the excitement of Destiny right around the corner, I have no interest in going up there and turning it on (still bat***t crazy about it coming out in general though). I have a pile of games I haven’t even opened yet. Halo? COD? None of it lights that gamer flame to lure me in. Could it be that I somehow calmy removed the gaming shackles to enjoy a little more of reality? Was the flame blown out? Is it just a phase? Only time will tell.

I think it’s a good thing that I haven’t hid behind the Xbox with all of my free time though this summer.

During the same time, I have focused more on a pilgrimage about getting outside and doing dangerous things (hiking, rappelling, now ascending and other crazy fun acts) as if I need to get something out of my system. As well as working on investments and expanding my portfolio(*s). My book for example sold it’s first copy within an hour of newly being online in the Kindle store (right on!).

With having little to zero work in my main field for two months (and knowing that until next week, it will continue this way), I have had to do everything possible to keep my mind busy.  Earlier in the year, so many indefinably wonderful things were happening all at once, that a pedestal grew rapidly with pride and encouragement (a positive one). To mention a few, I experienced gains, unlimited work and blindly developed interests that I have never felt my life. Then, almost all at once, life threw every possible curveball to not just push me around, but completely knock that pedestal down sending me flying towards the ground in a massive face plant. Everything I built up this year with positive anticipation, was gone.

A test from God? Maybe. Why? Don’t know. What I do know, is

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Destiny Launch Party at Microsoft Stores

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Microsoft will be having a midnight release party at all Microsoft stores around the country for Destiny. It’s release date is September 9th, 2014 so if you want in, you better be there at the strike of midnight. There will supposedly be drinks, food, game play and giveaways (“and more”).

Apparently from August 26th (tomorrow) through September 5th, there will also be challenges, tournaments and some other activities for the release of Madden NFL 15. On September 6th, each store will have Madden NFL gift bags for the first 25 customers who buy it, and there will be a big party.

Who cares about that though right? It’s all about Destiny! I know it is for me as I have grown tired of Call of Duty myself. I tried playing just the other night as my cousin was over and he wanted to blow some “****” up, but I quickly found myself irritable..and that’s no fun. Too much drama and ignorance online.

Destiny looks like it will be a lot of fun. A nice mix between Halo and…Mass Effect maybe?

So who’s anxious? I know I needed something to be anxious about to make up for this summer (this summer has been both a blessing, and a faceplant)…thank you Bungie.

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Omega Race Video Game Remake (Download)

Omega Race

 

A family member pointed this game out to me as being one of his childhood arcade favorites. A vintage game that is apparently pretty hard to find anywhere now-a-days and was considered to be a very difficult game to conquer (aka, a quarter sucker, a parent’s nightmare). Thanks to Sokurah from Tardis.dk, a revision of the game was created (Omega Race 2009) bringing it back with an all-new color theme. It looks and feels a lot like the original colored version but everything has a glow, better music and better effects.

If you didn’t know who the author was though, you are typically stuck searching it down and downloading it from one of those weird file download sites that force you to first download a questionable “special download tool” in order to get it. I personally wouldn’t touch those sites with a 10-foot stick, so I have included a direct link to the file here (and another version below so keep reading) so that the internet has at least one mirror link available without having to jump through

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Xbox Live Needs to Upgrade It’s Friends List

It’s great. I have said this so many times before and probably have posted it here but I was reading the Xbox official forums and ran into someone else requesting the thing once AGAIN. It’s mind boggling that Microsoft hasn’t done anything about it.

I’ve wanted more friends as you can never have enough people you like to play with. The ability to sort them in groups…I’ve brought this up so many times as well. I’d like to create a group and call it Family…so I can remember who everyone is compares to my group of friends who kind of play together like a clan….or friends for a specific website/community that like to play together. I really wish MS would get up and do something about this. They claimed they would years ago…that was one of the reasons why they nixed support for orig xbox games (the orig games didn’t support a change in the friends system which was preventing such from evolving). Come ON Microsoft!! We have all complained so much over the years. You took away support for the original games yet you didn’t give that upgrade in return your promised. Now you make it appear you only did it so that you can *RESALE* us those old games with “newly enhanced” digital download versions or total revisions. It wasn’t so you can upgrade..it was so you can make more money and take from us.

I don’t know how many times I have compared Xbox Live with something like an instant messenger. AOL, Yahoo, whatever…..we can have unlimited friends, grouping options and so many other features….and the service is free. Xbox live you can only have 100 friends and we have to pay every year just to be able to use it, and get no grouping features of any kind of enhancements. Instead of getting what the customers want…all we get is silence with no improvement…course we still have to keep paying.

They keep adding external stuff like TV an everything which is great but lets focus on the foundation of what Xbox Live IS. This is a GAMING SYSTEM and Xbox Live is for ONLINE play. So let’s enhance that before adding all this other crap into it that even our cellphones can already accomplish.

 

Ohio State University Marching Band Performs and Marches to Video Game Themes

This is actually pretty impressive. The entire marching band for Ohio State University performs a number of classic and current video game themes while marching out various designs and keeping excellent control of their synchronization.

Video Game Rant: Startup Logos With No Skip Feature

I had to point out how bothering it is when you buy a new Xbox game (or any other console) and the first thing you are greeted with are logos with no option to skip. Not just one or two but sometimes five or six. Now, that is fine if it’s the very first time you have loaded up the game, but they should cache onto the drive that you have loaded it for the first time already so that next time it gives you an option to skip. When I have to sit through what seems like five minutes of logos with no option to bypass, every single time I want to play a game….it gets old fast.

Yes, I get it…this person and that person and this person and that person and this person and that person all had a hand in making the game. That’s great! However, I don’t care anymore…I just want to play the game, and them move on with my life.

It’s bad enough we are dishing out so much money anymore these days for a friggin video game, but then to be force fed advertisements every single time we want to play it, it’s just not right. If you buy an app for your phone vs the trial or ad-supported free version, there is no ads because you paid for the app. If something is legally owned by you, you should ALWAYS have an option of not having to deal with ads. Same thing goes for DVD and Blu-Ray movies that do not allow you to skip the previews (or at least make it obvious on what button to hit for unknowledgeable users).

So a message to all those developers out there. QUIT force-feeding us advertisements and logos within the things we spent our hard-earned money for!

🙂

Feedback: What games have you found to be bothering due to lengthy logo introductions?