Podcast Episode 38 Now Playing

Image by Major Nelson via Flickr

The latest podcast is now available here and on Itunes. This week my review on the latest Resident Evil Movie (Afterlife), Halo Reach for Xbox 360, SlideIT Keyboard for Android phones, some media news and more.

Email me at Gamesmoviesandmore1@gmail.com and if you have Xbox Live friend me up Gamertag BrianAtGMM I’ll play some Halo Reach or Battlefield Bad Company 2 with you.

Halo Almost Within “Reach”

Image via Wikipedia

The latest game in the Halo Series “Halo Reach” is finally out and most stores had midnight launches to celebrate Bungies last game in the series. I myself bought a pre-order at my local Gamestop and was told they would be opening at midnight but I should get there around 10:00pm, I thought to myself “yeah right, I’ll get there around 12 and just sit in the car until the line dies down a bit. So I ended up actually getting there around 11:30pm and noticed there was a line but it wasn’t too long, as we got closer to midnight though the crowd multiplied like rabbits with nothing better to do, and I decided to get out of my car. By this time it was too late for me there were probably over a hundred people on the line and it wasn’t moving in any hurry. Still I stood in my spot for about twenty minutes until I heard one of the Gamestop employees come outside and call out numbers, it seems that before getting on-line you were supposed to wade through the crowd into the store and pick up a number then go back outside and wait for it to be called. My time spent in my car and then on the line was all for nothing so at about 12:45 I decided to just call it quits and go home, it’s not like I would have been able to play the game anyway as I would be disturbing those I live with, still it would have been nice to have.

In the past I had gotten the prior Halo games at the midnight launches and would call out sick from work the next day, however after last years Halo ODST I was a bit let down and figured it wasn’t worth losing a sick day and abandoning my co-worker(maybe I’m finally maturing a bit, nah) for this one. However all the reviews out there for this game seem to very positive and I am buying into the hype and am eager to get home from work and play today. So I still have my pre-order receipt on me and will stop by Gamestop after work which is only a few minutes out-of-the-way from home, and if all goes well I’ll be playing by about 5pm.

A little bit of background on Halo Reach: This  game is actually a prequel in the series and takes place in the year 2552. The Halo series of games are first person shooters that take place in a science fiction universe where humanity is at war with an alien race known as the Covenant. In prior Halo games you take control of the super soldier known as the Master Chief, however in this game you control a lesser powerful but still bad ass soldier who belongs to a squad known as Noble 6. This is also the first Halo game where you can choose the gender of your character. If you read the books or follow the Halo lore you know that the battle for the world of Reach ends very badly, but from what I’m hearing it’s one hell of a ride getting there. As this is the last Halo game being developed by Bungie they’ve gone all out, the graphics have been revamped, and the multiplayer which has always been the series strong point has taken all of the best from the past and amped it up including a much more customizable map maker known as Forge World. All in all I’m very excited and can’t wait to play it and will probably have plenty to talk about on the next podcast.

Here is a video someone posted on youtube showing an example of what the lines looked like

New Prices Coming To Xbox Live

On Major Nelson’s Blog site he reports that starting November 1, 2010 Xbox Live will be raising their prices. One month is going from $7.99 to $9.99, three months from $19.99 to $24.99 and the yearly from $49.99 to $59.99. I currently do not have an Xbox but have been thinking about getting one due to the upcoming release of Halo Reach, when I did own the system I used to buy the yearly membership cards when they were on sale, sometimes as low as $29.99. Major Nelson also states that if you renew before that date you will be locked it at the regular price plus they are offering an additional $10 off as a way to thank loyal customers. Xbox live first launched in 2002, and this will be the first price increase since that time. In my opinion a ten-dollar increase isn’t terrible, especially for what they do offer, Netflix streaming, decent servers to play games on with very little lag most of the time, Facebook, and Twitter as well. Hopefully they will still have sales on the cards, and now may be the time to start looking, If I find any I’ll post them on my Facebook Fan Page.