Mass Effect 3 (XBOX 360)

- Finished ME3 with 74% readiness with about 4 hrs of multiplayer.
- about 5300 effective war assets.

- Mined all resources (less than 1hr of grinding to finish up scanning the rest of the planets near the end)

- final save: 46h 15m
- Level 55 soldier, paragon.

- Normal difficulty level

- Got the ummm "perfect" ending.  Went back and played the other 2 endings just to check them out.

- I pretty much played most of ME2  back to back with ME3.  I had started ME2 back when it was first released and quit after about 7 hrs.  I guess I was a bit burnt out on bioware games having just finished Dragon Age on the pc so I gave it a long break.  I then went back and started playing ME2 again about a month ago, finished it, and went straight into ME3.
- Finished reading all the comics and about half way through the second novel so yeah I'm pretty invested in this universe.
- I have both iOS apps.  Infiltrator is ok though has some control issues.  It's not Dead Space quality.  The free data pad app is pretty neat with a galaxy map mini game that contributes to you war assets.  I like reading all the emails you get too which are different than the ones in game.  Also, you get access to the entire Codex with the voice overs.  It's really nice to browse the codex on the iPad.
- I actually went back and played the ME1 DLC: Bring Down the Sky because I had skipped it when it first came out.  It was a pretty bland mission with more mako driving (uggg!!!).  The graphics were pretty dated looking.  Combat has come a LONG way since me1.  Don't bother with this dlc.  It's really not worth it.
- Hit the import bug where it wouldn't import the face of my me2 character.  I went through a lot of trouble getting my xbox save onto my pc and then running it through a variety of programs and online utilities to get my character code and slider values except for makeup.  Even after all that my Shepard still doesn't look right.  To have that serious of a bug slip through QA and then still exist for months after release is totally inexcusable.  You invest 100 hrs into the character, and I better damn well be able to play MY shepard in me3.  Again, it's more signs of a rushed product that could have been better.

Mass Effect 2

I still think I inadvertently created Kelli Giddish

- I got the perfect ending and saved everybody.
- 52h.08m, level 30 soldier, paragon

- I completed all the DLC with overlord and shadow broker being my favorite.  From a game play perspective arrival was kind of meh but it's good to play as a bridge between me2 and me3.

- I felt me2 did a lot of things right.  It had a very large and interesting cast of characters.  Most grew on me by the end.  All their loyalty missions were quit interesting too.  The combat was much improved over me1.  I felt character progression though was a bit over simplified as far as gear upgrades.  

- Scanning planets for resources was just boring busy work after about 15 min of doing it.  Good thing I have younger children which I got them to mine enough resources to get all my upgrades. 

- I liked how crew loyalty and ship upgrades impacted the ending.

- Journal was well done always pointing you to where you need to go next and tracking every step of your missions as you completed them.  You always knew what state a mission was in.

Mass Effect 3 (WARNING: SPOILERS BEGIN HERE)

- Lets start with the good.  The Combat is even better IMO especially if you have played gears of war.  The cover system gets a bit sticky though with one button doing too many things.  The combat rolls aren't bad.  Game looks as great as ever.  Load times aren't bad except for the odd 2 people guarding the load screen between the war room and the galaxy map.

- Quick save is awesome!!!!

- I like the class flexibility how any class can use any weapon.  The weight vs power recharge speed tradeoff is well implemented.

- The weapon upgrade slots are a nice customization and then having 5 levels of upgrades for all weapons and mods gives you even more progression.

- There are some HUGE incredibly well done emotional beats and payoffs throughout the game: Genophage, Geth/Quarian, and tons of wrap up if you saved everybody from ME2.  

- Music has always been fantastic in this series and even better in me3.
- I romanced Liara through all 3 games.  Though I did get the shower scene with Traynor before restoring to an earlier save.  The Tali / Garrus romance was cute too.
- Multiplayer horde mode is a lot of fun.  I like the unlock progression.  You either love or hate the random slot machine style of unlocks though.  In some ways I think it brings some excitement when you buy a pack with in game credits.  At least that is better than some of the crap you have to do to unlock the pro versions of perks in MW3.  On the other hand it would be nice to know you will unlock this race or weapon at a specific overall XP threshold.  Either way, it's different and works pretty well for the most part.  I liked how you got to preview the multiplayer maps if you did the side quests in the single player.  It seems like they could have easily added bots but didn't.
- Jessica Chobot: This game was NOT kind to her.  Her face seemed extra wide, and her poor voice acting really stands out compared to the rest of the excellent cast.

- What happened with the Journal?  It's pretty much crap in me3.  I'm not sure why they broke a working system.  You basically have no idea what step you are on in the mission, where to go, or anything.  It's pretty much useless requiring a lot of looking up in a wiki.
- The new resource mining is improved overall from me2 IMO though it is a bit silly getting chased by those reaper ships.  It's easy enough to escape and come back in until you get 100% resources gathered.  At least you don't have to worry about buying probes or manually scanning every inch of every planet.  It's a lot less busy work.
- Unfortunately, the two trips to the Citadel you have to make to gather up all these lame busy work side quests kind of suck.  It's worse due to the Journal system so you have no idea if you even picked up whatever random widget that person on the citadel wanted.  At least you are visiting all new sections of the citadel.
- The day 1 DLC: From Ashes is a greedy blatant money grab IMO and reeks with EA douchebaggery.  It's quite integral to the story.  It gives you so much needed background information not just in the flash backs with the Prothean but in all the crew interaction especially with Liara.  Liara's realization and misconceptions of what the Protheans are are really well done.

Endings and resolutions
- In general I feel corners were definitely cut on this game.  What should have been their biggest and best mass effect game to wrap up this trilogy instead we get a good game that feels a bit rushed (budget? EA influences?) and not quite reaching it's full potential.  This game should have been treated like the half life series: take as long it takes to make the best possible game.
- After finishing the game I went back and watched all the endings and a lot of the different resolutions through the game because I really don't plan to play this game again.  I was really surprised by some of the outcomes that can happen like saving Mording, Tali committing suicide, Miranda dying, etc.  I was really impressed by some of the different paths you can take which makes the ending look that much worse.
- Tali:  The romance path really should have had a cutscene that showed her face as a payoff instead of a short glimpse of a cheesy photoshopped stock photo.
- Saying goodbye to everybody before the last mission was a great touch.
- All the resolutions you get with pretty much everybody you saved from ME2 was well done.

- In this case I feel artistic integrity is just another word for developer arrogance.  That sums up what I feel about what happened with the ending.  I'm not sure if the rumors are true but it really does feels like Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locked themselves in a room and wrote the ending without any peer review from the rest of the writing team.  I think they were too close to the material and couldn't see it from the outside (how the players would perceive it) and so a very poor ending was released.  I felt the writing and narrative choices were very consistent and made logical sense up until the ending.
- My biggest issue with the 3 choices are none of them matched in tone, belief system, or moral compass that I've been playing my shepard.  There was no way to object to the ultimatum the stupid star child presents.  I spent the entire game proving that organics and synthetics CAN coexist peacefully and can even mutually benefit from one another (geth/Quarian, EDI/Joker).
Destruction: This is what I ended up choosing but I completely reject that I have no choice but to destroy all synthetic life including the Geth and EDI.
Synthesis:  I've been fighting to preserve life, all kinds of life (synthetic and organic), and not force everybody in the entire galaxy to some mutant hybrid.  We fought against this very thing in ME1 against sovereign and saren (indoctrinated).
Control: I've been fighting TIM this entire time against the entire idea of controlling the reapers, how dangerous that path is, and that very notion is from somebody who is clearly indoctrinated.
- The star child's reasoning is that every 50,000 years the reapers have to come and destroy all ADVANCE life else the synthetic vs organic wars will destroy all life as we know it (including primitive organic life).  So the reapers exist to reset everything and let things evolve from the surviving primitive life again over the next 50K years.  I just proved that this cycle is different.  That there is a chance that synthetics and organics can coexist.  Yet, I never get a chance to argue that point.  Star child even admits I'm the first to ever get this far.  That this cycle is indeed different.  Instead, I'm presented with 3 choices that I do not agree with.
- The rest of the issues just makes things even worse with weird logic gaps: how does your ground party end up on the Normandy, why is the Normandy fleeing?
- The last FMV only differs by the 3 color choices and maybe 3 secs of actual cut scene that is different (and even then only very minor differences).  Dude spend some time and money and render different end cut scenes!  This game deserves it!
- There is no explanation why the mass effect relays have to be destroyed.
- fleets might not actually be stranded in sol if you believe this post?
- None of your war assets really mattered that much, and getting over 5000 effective war assets amounts to a confusing single breath from shepard (again spend the time and money here and add some optional cut scenes at least, branch it more, depending on level of war assets to make it feel more meaningful).
- It's these reasons why I'm pissed about the ending.  No where do I mention I want a happy ending or shepard even has to live.  I reject that all the general public wants is a happy award ceremony type of ending.  Take a look at another popular work of fiction: Game of Thrones.  Ned Stark gets his head cut off but you don't see the kind of outrage that you see with the me3 ending.  It's because that result fit the rest of the narrative;  it had an internal logic; the characters had motivation that made sense (a crazy Joffrey world logic but still consistent for his character).  No BS star child came down out of nowhere and lopped off poor Ned's head.  It was definitely not a happy conclusion to season one (and if you've read the books you know lots of bad things happen to the best, most noble, and likable characters).  But I think most people were OK with it.
- I do like the indoctrination theory.

Recommended.  ME3 compared to ME2 is like 2 steps forward but 1 step back.  There was so much potential to have ME3 be the best in the series but this game felt rushed and unpolished.  With 150 hrs invested into mass effect I expected a better ending.  The payoff just wasn't there.  An extra 3 months or so and this game could have been great.  It's too bad they cut corners all over the place.  But I have to admit what is there is very good (except the last 15 min) and still very much worth experiencing.  Maybe the free extended ending DLC will help some but I doubt it's going to make me completely happy for the reasons I stated above.

Skyrim (XBOX 360 and PC)

Yes, I like the game so much I bought it twice.  I picked up the 360 version on launch day but didn't get around to playing it until much later (I was trying to finish Rage first....yeah don't ask).  I just picked up the PC version this week since it went on sale for $40 on steam and to check out some of the cool mods.

WARNING: There might be what some people consider to be very minor spoilers but nothing plot related.

XBOX 360 / General Info
- Looks great to me.  Having three 360's and cloud saves lets me easily switch rooms depending on what the family is currently occupying.
- Finished the main quest line at level 50, 83 hrs with companions and all but the last thieves guild quest (I wanted to keep the skeleton key).  I'm currently working getting the remaining words of power and then I'll begin the Civil war quest line.  I'll probably go stomrcloaks with this character.  The Imperials almost took my head off and  yeah I don't forget or forgive!!!
- I stuck to first person POV for 99% of the time.
- I really like two wiki's.  The first one is great for general information and quest info.  The second is good for looking up locations:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skyrim
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_Skyrim
I'm not going to link a whole lot in this article since you can just search for it in the uesp wiki.
- My build was a very traditional one: one hand sword, heavy armor, block, with archery for some ranged firepower, and during the mid game I dabbled a bit in conjuration.
- Smithing and enchanting are both super powerful and worth leveling.  Though once you hit level 50 or so you pretty much 1-2 shot everything including dragons.
- If you decide to power level some professions I suggest you sink your talent points into your main build areas.  So for me that would be the ones I listed above.  That way you don't end up getting out leveled by the enemies around you.  It doesn't happen that much anyways in Skyrim as compared to Oblivion with the way scaling works now.
- I did choose to power level smithing (create about 450 - 500 iron daggers will get you to 100 smithing, faster if you have the appropriate stone buff).  During this entire time, every time I leveled I would go train with one of the companions for free (make them a follower first, train your 5 levels, trade with them and get your gold back, dismiss them and pick back up the follower you prefer to use).
- Enchanting was a bit tougher which I didn't max out until I was in my mid 40's level wise.  I would buy up every single lesser and petty soul gem I could find (filled or empty).  There are at least 3 people who carry soul gems in whiterun (your wife,Belethor,Farengar) .  Try and find a weapon (sometimes merchants will have one for sale) with a soul trap enchant on it and learn it so you can enchant your own weapon with soul trap (1 sec duration, max charges).  Then go crazy trying to fill as many soul gems as possible while questing.  Come back and enchant all those iron daggers you made from smithing with the priciest enchants you have (banish is by far the most profitable with absorb health being second, do both once you max enchanting).  Now you can sell these enchanted daggers for big profits.  Soon, money won't be an issue at all.  I'm sitting on over 80K gold right now.
- I did the black star quest pretty early on, and I went with the black star choice which can absorb any soul.  If I'm on a quest with humanoid enemies I would recharge my soul trap sword with the black star before I killed another humanoid which would just refill the black star.  You keep doing these frequent recharges, and it also helps level up your enchanting.
- Once you max out enchanting make sure you spend perks to get dual enchants (I picked all perks except the far right branch).  Read this on optimizing.  I didn't go quite that crazy since I hate alchemy.  Even with alchemy in the 20's I was able to create a one hand daedric sword with base damage of 361.  The key thing is using 4 fortify one hand enchants that ALL STACK that increases your weapon damage to crazy levels.  Add to that a fiery soul trap (3 sec duration) plus absorb health (max absorption) enchant and you become pretty unstoppable.  For the bow I tried to make a mage killer: paralysis and shock.  I'm thinking now though I should have probably went with fiery soul trap + paralysis.  For the rest of the pieces I went with a mix of increasing max health, stamina, block, and heavy armor and a bit of magicka on the helm.
- Remember, once you enchant an item there is no undo.  This also means once you get dual enchant you can't add a 2nd enchant to an item already enchanted.  I you have to start with a clean item and then put both enchants on at once.  It's nice that the process only takes 1 grand soul gem though.
- On the other hand you can continually improve weapons and armor through blacksmithing.  So as you improve your blacksmithing (or have a better fortify restoration pot) you can go back to the grinding stone or workbench and further improve your gear.
- For armor I'm basically in dragon bone.  For weapons I'm using daedric.  If you are short on materials on either of those try ebony.  The ebony ingots are pretty easy to get from the 3 blacksmiths + general merchants in whiterun.  Basically, if you are selling enchanted daggers usually the merchants don't have near enough gold.  So I would always buy up all the ebony ingots they had and then sell them my daggers and drain them of all their gold.  I now have 100's of ingots which to cheaply craft ebony weapons and armor which I can experiment with different enchantments or give to my follower.  The main things I always buy from merchants are lockpicks, ebony ingots, and high end arrows.
- Go get married early to pick up a nice food buff, sleeping xp buff, and a cozy little profit.  I married Camilla Valerius in Riverwood since you should have already met her quest requirement (golden claw).  She also becomes a merchant which is just another source for you to sell your stuff.
- Fast travel is very convenient and you can pay a small amount of gold to ride the carriages (there is one right at whiterun stables) to get to any of the major cities to unlock them.
- I started with Lydia as my follower for about the first half of my play time.  I recommend switching to Mjoll if you want a good melee 2 hand/archer follower.  She's a bit chatty (some people like that) but it seems like she can't be perma killed (unlike Lydia which I had to reload many times b/c I found her dead after some of the harder fights).
- For follower enchants I used fiery soul trap + paralysis on all their weapons.  Give them a few soul gems and some empty ones and they will be self sufficient as far as keeping their weapons charged up and filling a few soul gems to boot.  On armor I stuck on fortify health and carry weight wherever I could making them the best pack mule they can be!
- My horses keep dying or getting lost.  I'm thinking about doing dark brotherhood just to get Shadowmere.  I had Frost but he somehow died or disappeared.  Yeah, I have bad luck with horses.
- Steed stone is by far my favorite especially for heavy armor.
- Keep visiting the greybeards for more words of power locations if you are trying to collect them all.
- When looting always look at the weight to value ratio and not just the value.  You want to pick up the stuff that is worth the most for the least amount of carrying weight.
- There were some odd performance issues that happens maybe once every 15 hrs.  The framerate would just tank to single digits and become pretty much unplayable.  It only seems to happen in certain dungeons.  A reload of a save usually fixes it.  It doesn't happen that often but when it does it is quite annoying.
- Lately, I crafted a new set of ebony and enchanted it all out for archery.  I'm experimenting with an archery build and then dual wield as backup.  On this bow I decided to use fiery soul trap and paralysis.  It takes longer to kill things but it's definitely a lot of fun especially after you sink a few points into the archery tree.  I'm basically getting all the skills up the left side of the tree.  Dual wield does pretty crazy damage even without any points in it.

PC
- Trying out a pure mage High Elf destruction build.  I'll probably hit the mage's college early on to check that quest line out.
- Graphics look even better at 1080p + the new free hd texture pack dlc.
- I love the quicker save/load times.  This is by far the biggest difference I notice.  Even with the disc installed on the 360 load times take way too long.  Quick save/load is also a very nice pc only feature.
- Mods Mods Mods which is the main reason I bought the PC version too.  My 360 game is my pure experience while I plan to mod out the PC version quite a bit.
- First of all I'm not really using steam workshop as of yet since without a search feature it's pretty much dead to me.  Instead go here for all your modding needs:
(UPDATE: As I was writing this steam workshop finally got a search bar and most of the mods I listed are there too).
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com
- Make sure you install this first:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/content/modmanager/
which makes managing your mods a lot easier.
Current mods I'm using:
SkyUI - The best UI replacement.  You must install SKSE first though (read the readme.  It's easy).

I also wanted to make skyrim with a bit more ummm eye candy but still making it safe to play around family.
CBBE (with the nevernude option, Make sure you follow the .ini modification needed if you have the texture pack installed)
Better females by Bella (for that glam look.  I still hate bethesda faces.  They were a bit better in skyrim though).
Killer Keos Skimpy CBBE V2 Armor Set -Work In Progress (for ummm more interesting looking armor)
- I've only had the PC version for a few days so I'm still exploring the mod scene.
- Regardless of what the title says I think these console commands would make you feel like a cheater but still these could come in handy:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Skyrim-Console-Commands-That-Will-Not-Make-You-Feel-Like-a-Cheater-236613.shtml
- Runs pretty well on my macbook pro 15" mid 2010.  I actually got the cider wrapper to work but it was still a pretty big fps hit even at low settings (felt at least 10fps slower than bootcamp).  In bootcamp I'm getting a very acceptable 30-45 fps with a mix of low - medium settings.  I'm using the dropbox symbolic link trick to keep my save files in sync between this and my gaming desktop.
- Runs at a nice clip of 30-50 fps at ultra settings with the hd texture pack.
- UPDATE: So I deactivated all my mods in nexus and subscribed to them all in steam workshop.  When you launch the regular launcher it downloads all your mods and will check for updates too.  This is tied to your steam account so it carries across multiple installations/pc's too which is very nice.  Just make sure before you play you at least fire up the regular launcher to get any mod updates, close the launcher down, and then launch skse like usual.  Here are the equivalent steam workshop links for the mods I'm using:
CBBE
Better females by Bella
Killerkeo's Simpy Armor Pack WIP
SkyUI

Highly recommended.  Any game that has me coming back for more even after 83 hrs and "finishing" the game and then getting me to buy it twice says something.  It's vast in content and yet all of it feels high quality and dense.  It's open ended open world yet it has so many really good solid plot quests.

Fixing Your Own XBOX 360

- So my old falcon based XBOX 360 Arcade finally died with an E74 error (usually means gpu or ana/hana hardware scaler chip problem). This is the third xbox to die on me but the first one out of warranty so I was thinking maybe I can try fixing it myself. If your 360 is still in warranty then I would highly recommend you just warranty repair your 360. This fix should work for RROD too.

Things you need:

- XClamp Repair Kit for about $10 from amazon.

- I already had some Arctic Silver 5 which if you build pc's you should already have. The repair kit comes with thermal paste but I prefer as5.

- Isopropyl alcohol. Again, the kit comes with cleaning solution which I did use but I like to finish off with a good wipe of Isopropyl alcohol.

- Heat gun for about $32 from amazon. They go as cheap as $10 when on sale though. Just make sure it has 2 temperature settings.

- A nice Torx driver bit set. I bought this one from radio shack for $16 a while back (needed it for other projects.) Specifically, you need a T8 and T10 which this set has. The repair kit comes with some but I hear those are cheaply made and you do NOT want to risk stripping the screws on your 360 or you will have a very hard time taking it apart.

- A good jewelry/precision screwdriver set.

- adjustable wrench for removing the existing screws attached to the heatsinks.

- The repair kit comes with a sheet of paper with a URL that directs to 2 pdf's: one for disassembly and one for repair. Go ahead and look over those. But the most helpful things are this series of youtube videos. The disassembly video was spot on. I used my jewelry screwdriver for most of it. I used the tool from the repair kit for taking off the back panel which made popping in all the tabs really easy.

- So after taking apart the 360, removing both heatsinks, and cleaning everything really well (I used both solutions from the kit and then finally some Isopropyl alcohol) it was time for the heat gun (you do this in place of the baking process from the pdf).

- I more or less followed the heat gun video. To create my heat barrier I just cut up a cardboard box into strips, taped it around the chips I wanted to heat like show in the video, and then covered with aluminum foil. I then took a baking sheet covered in more foil and stuck the motherboard on that. I then put the baking sheet on top of some pot heat pads. I suggest you do this outside since it's probably not a good idea to breath in a lot of vaporized solder or whatever smell this process creates.

- Make sure you keep moving the heat gun in circles. Never hold it in place for even a second.

- Let it all cool off for 45min before putting the heat sinks back on and follow the pdf instructions to make sure you get the order of the washers correct.

- Reassembly goes a lot faster. Note: You don't need the black 8 X T8 torx screws anymore. This is also covered in the pdf.

I've played several hours now without any issues. It's as good as new. In fact with the xclamp fix I'm guessing it is better than new. Now that I've done it I'm sure I could do it a lot faster. The entire process took about 3 hrs. I still have an original xenon XBOX 360 (no hdmi) that I'm just waiting for it to die. If it does it's good to know I can fix it for $10 and a couple hours of work. It was not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. If you've built pc's before then this repair should be pretty easy. Besides, it was kind of a fun project to do, and you learn all about your xbox 360 inside and out.

UPDATE: 3/30/2011

- I've put in probably over 25 hrs of play on this repaired xbox over the past 2 months, and it is still working great!

XB360 Max Memory 2GB (XBOX 360)

left to right: standard microsdhc card reader, pc software, max memory, official xbox 360 512MB MU





PC software:


CodeJunkies (they also have a 4gb version for $50)
- I picked up the 2gb version from best buy for $40
- Your typical official xbox 360 memory unit only has 512MB of space and goes for $30. The max memory actually has no internal memory. It's basically a special adapter that takes standard micro sdhc cards and makes them look like a regular xbox 360 MU. This is great if you have multiple xbox 360's or if you like the convenience of saving all your save games and profile data on a MU so it is easy to move around. So it's not just for you hard driveless xbox 360 arcade owners.
- I promptly removed the included 2gb microsdhc and replaced it with a 16gb one I had.
- With 16GB of storage space I'll never have to worry about running out of space or moving older saves to the hard drive (if you have a lot of oblivion, fallout 3, gta 4 saves you know what I mean. Those can add up really fast). With this much space you could also just have a copy of all your xbox live arcade games on the MU so you can carry them around with you.
- The microsdhc slot on the max memory is NOT spring loaded. It is just friction based but I found the micro sd card easy to remove and still held firmly in place.
- If you stuck in a new micro sd card in like I did you will need to format it first on the 360 (system, memory, highlight max memory, hit Y) since MU uses FATX file system vs the usual PC fat32. After that it works just like any other MU except it shows 14.8 GB Free!!!!
- Next, I copied over all my save files, gamer pics, themes, etc from my old 512MB MU to the max memory.
- Certain games like all the rock band games have their save files protected so you can only MOVE them. Also, you may only copy the save files for the currently signed in profile. So if you have multiple profiles and associated saves on the MU, you'll need to log into each profile and move their associated saves.
- Profiles of course you can only be moved. After that all my data was on the new max memory MU.
- Installing the PC software lets you do several things like backup/restore an image of the entire MU and backup/restore individual save games. I grabbed the latest version here and after that it had one more update it found when I ran it. You must run their software in administrator mode.
- As a side note if you have purchased their older Xbox 360 Transfer Kit which basically contains a usb adapter that lets you read the standard MU on your pc, it also works with the above software. Granted you need to install the latest XPORT 360 mainly for the drivers for the dongle but after that the Max Memory Manager will see it just fine.
- Max Memory is a lot better when it comes to PC access. Since it's just a standard microsdhc, you can use any microsdhc card reader or if you have an adapter, any sdhc reader. Once you insert the micro sd card into the PC it will ask if you want to format it (since it doesn't know what the heck FATX is). You must hit cancel! It's a bit annoying this happens every time but not too big of a deal.
- Xplorer360 will also see the micro sd card just fine though I find little need for it. The official code junkies software is quite polished now. Everything runs fine under windows 7 x64.
- So with the max memory manager you can backup your entire MU for peace of mind. It also has built in compression for these image files to save a little disk space.

Highly Recommended! If you every find you need an xbox 360 memory unit then this is the one to get. For just $10 more you get 4X the memory of a 512mb unit (or 32X if you opt for a 16gb micro sdhc card), it's the exact same size as the original MU, performance seems about the same, and you get to use any standard microsdhc which makes transfers and backing up to the PC a snap without the need of special drivers. Honestly, I can't find a single negative thing to say about this product.

UPDATE: 10/17/09
- Looks like after the next xbox 360 update this MU might no longer work anymore. If this is true it will truly suck! I mean this isn't some shady counterfeit MU from China that I bought off of ebay. This was purchased off the shelf in a freakin Best Buy!!! Microsoft, you are becoming as bad as apple!
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2009/10/16/unauthorized-xbox-360-storage-devices.aspx

UPDATE: 4/5/2010
- So I finally payed a couple of bucks in postage to send my unit back for replacement with the new version that works with the latest dashboard. Just follow the instructions here.
- I got the replacement unit in about a week along with some new instructions. It's basically a rename hack. Instead of one contiguous block of space you have 4X512mb "cards" on a 2gb sd card. You "switch cards" by renaming the card to "card 1" or "card 2", etc.

- The whole point of the device is now moot since USB Memory support is coming on April 6, 2010.

HAWX (XBOX 360)

- Great graphics, sound, presentation.
- HUD view works well and was my favorite view to play from.
- Assistant Mode Off takes a bit getting use to. It becomes more critical later on when dog fighting aces but I wish it didn't force you into the totally retarded and awkward 3rd person "action" cam. I would have prefer the "turn on a dime" maneuverability while keeping me in HUD view. You'll eventually come to grips with it and become effective but never quite comfortable with it.
- We finished the entire campaign with 3 player co-op (it supports up to 4). It makes things a bit easier since as long as one of you stays alive the other players will respawn after 15 sec or so. Co-op is a blast and is definitely highly recommended you experience the campaign that way if you can.
- Mission design was pretty good with only a couple of frustrating ones. The story is forgettable and the ending is rather abrupt.
- There is a bug where you don't always get your achievements. This happened to me on the last 3-4 missions. So even though I finished it all on the hardest difficulty level I didn't get my achievements. Ubisoft you hear me! You owe me my achievements! Replaying the missions didn't help.

Overall I enjoyed the game quite a bit until the achievement bug and now the game is dead to me. DEAD TO ME!!!! Still, it's worth picking up if you can find it for cheap say around the $20-30 range.

Halo Wars (XBOX 360)

- Finished the single player campaign. Length was pretty good: 15 missions. I did most the of the missions on normal. The last few missions I just switched it to easy because I was trying to get a few more achievements. Besides, there aren't any specific achievements for finishing all missions on normal. I got all skulls and black boxes.
- I tried a little bit of skirmish (farming more achievements) but haven't tried online yet.
- Cut scenes are very well done. The voice acting is quite good, and the story isn't half bad. It was also quite appropriate that I played this right after finishing Halo: Contact Harvest.
- Graphics are quite nice though you don't get much camera zoom control.
- Unit caps were much too low. I prefer either very high are no unit caps like in the c&c games.
- It's a very streamlined and simplified RTS but feels pretty at home on a console. It kind of reminds me a bit of battle for middle earth. You can only build bases and structures on preset spots on the map. Resources come in via supply drop ships that you really don't have to worry about defending. Base defense is pretty much taken care of with turrets. The tech tree is pretty shallow. Unit variety is pretty low.
- Controls work pretty well for the most part. I'm still unhappy about the limited ways you can group your enemies. They let you select all units or local units. You can also easily pick all the units of a particular type but I really wish there was a way to exclude multiple types for your current group or select more than one type from your current group. The circle selection method doesn't help much either. The ability to quickly jump between your different local groups and bases is nice though.
- Path finding is adequate most of the time but once in a while they will do some screwy things.
- Mission variety is pretty good with quite a few heavily scripted levels. Some win conditions seem overly strict. I hate timed missions, and there were a few too many of those. The difficulty ramp is pretty good until you hit around mission 10 where it gets quite a bit harder. Also, I don't particularly like non base building missions. At least heroes can't die and can be revived.
- I liked going heavy air power. I found it quite effective though it takes a while to build up a base to crank out the higher end/upgraded air units.
- What is up with the single mid mission save? Sure you can save at anytime but I would have liked a few slots for experimentation.

Highly recommended. Great RTS lite for the console especially if you are just getting introduced to the genre. There's quite a bit of replayablity. The missions can be quite difficult on the higher skill settings.

Far Cry 2 (XBOX 360)

- Finished the single player. Haven't tried multiplayer.
- The game took 34 hrs. I subverted all main missions, did all cell tower and weapon dealer missions, and found all tapes except 1 and I can't remember which one I missed. I did quite a bit of diamond hunting in the north but not much in the south because by then I had bought pretty much everything I wanted.
- Stats:
96%
21/40 side
5 underground
11 buddies
9 dead
10 rescued
870 diamonds
20 weapon bought
favorite weapon as50
m-249
mac-10
32,482 shots fired
17% accuracy
308 wounds healed
time played 33:43:02
125km walked
257km driven
3km swam

- This game is beautiful. I love the lighting, weather, sunsets, etc. It has an amazing sense of place.
- They really nailed the combat. The weapons are very satisfying and feel and sound great. They AI is pretty good at taking cover and flanking.
- PC version has save anywhere. Console versions have save points that you have to find like in safe houses. This annoyed me a bit at first but I got over it.
- The amount of land to explore is massive with a nice variety of environments.
- Side and even main story line missions follow a pretty rigid structure without much deviation. You'll find yourself doing the same types of missions over and over again with just a few slight variations and a change in locale. But it nails so many core aspects I don't mind the repetitive nature of these activities. It reminds me of Assassin's Creed in this respect. I didn't mind the repetition because I was still enjoying myself even after 30 hrs.
- You will definitely want to subvert the main missions to get the upgrades to your safe houses.
- I did all available weapon dealer missions first because I wanted to unlock my weapons first.
- Favorite weapon load out: AS50, M249, M79. For the earlier part of the game I used: Dragunov SVD, PKM, IED
- I love the vehicle with the mounted grenade launcher. You can burn down entire villages and checkpoints.
- Fire looks cool and affects gameplay. It spreads like a real fire does.
- Malaria isn't too bad. You only run low on pills once you advance a certain amount in the main missions. So you can work on side missions without ever worrying about running out of pills.
- Weapon jamming is a bit more of an issue. Just make sure you go by the weapon dealer and swap out weapons every couple of missions.
- There are many ways to approach an objective especially depending on your play style and weapon load out. I'm usually a mid range assault rifle kind of guy but I quickly fell in love with sniping.
- It is by far one of the most satisfying sniping games out there. I pretty much only used the Dragunov and then switched to the AS50 as soon as I was able to unlock it. Things get way intense when they start shooting mortars at you. You are frantically trying to fend off guys that are charging and flanking you while still trying to find that damn mortar dude (which the AI has amazing accuracy with).
- The ending was a bit short but overall a very satisfying game and a very long one especially for a shooter. The story was rather confusing. I really didn't care who was who or with what faction. Leadership seemed to change almost between every mission.

Highly recommended. Looks great and plays great. If you dig the core elements of this game and don't mind a bit of reptition, you are in for a great experience.

Madcatz Street Fighter IV Fightpad and Street Fighter IV (XBOX 360)

- I picked one up from gamestop for $40
- Sucks that it is wired. Why won't microsoft license out the wireless stuff to any 3rd party controllers except for fake musical instruments??!!?? Cable is pretty long but I added a usb extension cable.
- The size and shape of the pad is just right. It feels really good in the hands.
- The d-pad is very responsive and works great for SF IV. It feels a bit loose and the travel distance is a bit more than I would have liked but it doesn't seem to have any negative impact.
- The buttons are pretty responsive though I find the X and A buttons a bit harder to reach depending on the size of your hands.
- The turbo feature works well and lets you toggle turbo on/off for each of the buttons on the fly. Settings are not persisted between power cycles of the xbox 360.
- Pulling off special moves, typical 3-4 hit combos, ex's, super's, and ultra's are all easily done with this pad.
- Pulling off more complex combos like ones that use focus cancel are pretty difficult to do mostly due to the buttons. I usually like to play with using my right thumb to press the buttons but switching to using your right fingers helps a bit if not quite as comfortable (and you can't hold the pad as steady). I think you really need an arcade stick with nice big buttons to play at that level consistently.

Street Fighter IV
- I am by no means an expert. I'm pretty limited in skill though I played a bunch of SF II back in college. I haven't really touched the series since then.
- I've unlocked all the characters including Seth (which is pretty nerfed as a playable character).
- The graphics and animation are great. It all runs smoothly even over xbox live (well most of the time). The network code really is pretty amazing.
- I love how they stuck mostly to the old school gameplay with an added level of depth if you wish to explore it.
- It took me a while to get use to the two button throws but I really like how you can counter/cancel them now.
- EX, super, ultra moves are a nice addition. I'm not sure how I feel about focus attacks though. It changes things quite a bit, and so far it's one of the harder new aspects for me to grasp and use effectively.
- Characters for the most part seem balanced with a few exceptions.
- Inviting friends over live works great.
- Quick match/player match is mostly broken. If you feel like playing random people just set it so people can challenge you during single player arcade mode. That way you are always playing either against the cpu while you wait for a challenger or some random internet person. I find this works much better than trying to go through quick/player match.
- No quarter mode.
- Being able to map the bumper buttons to all punches or kicks sure helps with some of the special moves.

Both are highly recommended. They really go great together. Once you play SFIV it's really hard to go back to SF II Turbo HD remix which I though was great before but is a bit of an eyesore in comparison. With the pretty much broken d-pad on the original xbox 360 controller, I can't imagine getting one without the other.

Prince of Persia (2008) (XBOX 360)

- Finished in under 12hrs. The Epilogue took me over 2 hrs.
- I've pretty much played all the prince of persia's since the very first PC game and its many ports including the most excellent XBLA version. I even played the horrible Prince of Persia 3D a bit. I loved Sands of Time but never got around to playing its two sequels (which I will someday). So I was quite excited about this reboot of the series.
- I loved the stylized graphics. It's not exactly cell shaded though it does share quite a few similarities with that style. I loved everything about the way this game looks from the the character design, to the intricate architecture, to the beautiful backgrounds.
- The musical score was also quite excellent. I never got tired of the healing grounds theme which embodied the feelings of wonder, mystery, and hope.
- The gameplay feels closer to sands of time than it does to dragon's lair. It's not quite as on rails as some people might lead you to believe. The "no dying" actually worked better than I expected. It didn't make the game too easy. Instead, it just shifted the challenge to other areas. Frustrating pixel perfect jumping is replaced by environmental based navigation puzzles. This especially comes into play when you start orb, errr light seed, collecting which has some of that same addictive quality as Crackdown did.
- Combat is also quite satisfying. Timing is pretty tight for countering. Combos are pretty easy to chain together. Just make sure you learn the 14 hit combo (which also earns you the sword master achievement) early on since it will make the combat much easier and enjoyable for the rest of the game. Plus, it just looks cool with some amazing animation. Speaking of which the animation throughout the game is quite varied and excellent. I'm a bit tired of all the mini QTE events that are sprinkled throughout the combat (similar to God of War). I'd be a happy man if I never have to do a another rapid fire button press QTE again. It's fine for a while but gets a bit tedious toward the end.
- I really enjoyed the two main characters and the way their relationship developed. I constantly chatted Elika up to see what they would say next. The writing was excellent for the most part and so was the voice acting. It's not quite Uncharted levels but close. Both game leads were voiced by Nolan North which I'm becoming quite a fan. He sort of reminds me of Nathan Fillion but for video game voice overs. I found most of the witty banter quite amusing.
- The story was just average mostly due to the cheesy ,unsatisfying, cop out, lets set it up for a sequel ending. I really didn't like how they don't give you much of a choice on how it ends where it really felt like there should have been a player choice.
- The $10 DLC Epilogue was mostly worth it to me. I got a good 2+ hrs of play out of it. It had some nice environmental puzzles though the combat was pretty repetitive and a bit frustrating. Quickly defeating the boss that keeps repeating depended more on your QTE skills. The ending even in the epilogue kind of sucked where it just kind of stops and sets it up for the sequel. Also, I didn't think it adequately explained your actions at the end of the main game.
- Speaking of recycled material. You revisit each area: once dark/corrupted and again light/healed which is fine because they feel quite different, and your objectives are different (reaching the healing grounds vs orb collecting). You also fight each of the 4 main bosses 6 times each. Yeah the setting changes each time. There are some minor differences (especially for the warrior) but yeah there is quite a bit of asset reuse. It's no where near as bad as say Devil May Cry 4 but still it's pretty blatant.
- Did all the speed run achievements which were quite entertaining.

Highly Recommended. It was a thoroughly enjoyable, highly accessible experience. It definitely lives up to the Prince of Persia name.

Fallout 3 (XBOX 360)

WARNING: Minor spoilers. I’ll try and stay away from anything plot related but there might be some minor things I touch on.

- Finished Fallout 3. Final save shows a bit over 63 hrs. I did replay the last part a couple of times to try a few of the different endings though. Also, after my initial 5 hrs or so I did a restart because I wanted to respec my character. I think I spent close to 70hrs in total with this game (quite a bit more than the 50 hrs with oblivion which I only finished the main quest and a few side ones). If you stick to the main quest I’m sure you can complete the game in about 25hrs.
- I went good karma all the way.
- I finished all major side quests that had an achievement associated with it except for one that went directly against my good karma character.
- I love the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Good auto save system too. I stuck with about 20 saves that I rotated through but you can create as many saves as you want.
- Install the disc to the hard drive to speed things up a bit. It really helps when scrolling through saved games. Load times are still a bit long though.
- Graphics are very good for the most part with crazy over the top gore which never gets old. Yeah ummm don’t play this one in front of the kids.
- Faces are still pretty ugly. It's better than oblivion but that's not saying much. They really need better character artists.
- Common animations look stiff, floaty, and awkward. 3rd person is still NOT the way you want to play this game.
- Sound was good overall. The music wasn’t as good as Oblivion. Then again I’m a bit Jeremy Soule biased.
- It’s oblivion with guns! But I enjoyed it quite a bit more than oblivion. It’s more structured which I like. I really enjoyed the setting though it gets a bit depressing if you play for long stretches. Everything is just so bleak! It’s a nice change to use guns instead of swords. VATS is infinitely entertaining. Most the monster/loot leveling nonsense from oblivion seems to be mostly gone here which is a GOOD thing.
- The ending sucked. I mean really sucked. I guess the overall resolution of the story was ok but man talk about a disappointment. I was expecting a nice movie or something.
- I didn’t get into the crafting a whole lot. I made a few weapons but for the most part the most powerful weapons are the unique ones you find.
- I bought a few items for the house toward the end. The infirmary was pretty useful for free heals and removal of rads.
- I found dog meat. After a battle where he jumped in front of my shot during vats and died I decided to reload and leave him in my house.
- The fps aspect without vats is pretty poor. Get a zero spread weapon like Lincoln’s Repeater or Ol’ Painless and it’s a bit better but overall it still felt pretty clunky.
- Overall quest design was excellent. I thought they were all unique, interesting, and entertaining.
- The last quest starts out with a bang but then you find out your participation feels a bit auxiliary. I expected a bit more challenge (and length and complexity) considering it was the last quest.
- There are still a ton of side quests, crafting, behemoth hunting, bobble head collecting, etc that I didn’t get to.
- Story was pretty good but your reaction to some of the major events in the game seem kind of odd. Like something traumatic happens to you and then later you just kind of forget about it.
- Had about 2-3 crash bugs total. There were a few quest glitches but the wiki covered the work arounds pretty well.

Tips:
- I knew I wanted to specialize in small guns right from the start. I sunk a lot of points into intelligence. I think I maxed it out at 10 right from the start to give me the maximum skill points I would get for leveling up each time. You might want to drop that back to 9 if you plan to go for the bobble head.
- I also put some points into agility for more AP since I love VATS. Some points into luck is good too for increased chance of crits.
- The general strategy is to read the manual and pick out all the perks you plan to get all the way through the level 20 cap. From that you can figure out any pre-reqs needed to get those perks and plan appropriately. Use Intense Training perk when needed to boost your SPECIAL to the pre-req levels of the perks you want.
- I tagged repair, small guns, and speech. There are a lot of speech check opportunities in the game so I wanted that. Speech skill seems to matter more than charisma.
- Repair is great since it does a few things. First you can repair your weapons and armor right in the field. This really helps with weight and inventory since you can combine guns to reduce your load. Also, having a fully repaired item really increases its effectiveness. Finally, repaired items are worth more even when just selling them off, and you don’t need to spend money to have somebody else repair equipment for you. It was the first skill I maxed out at 100. Be careful when repairing unique items. Make sure you select the unique item and hit Y. Example: If you want to repair the Lincoln Repeater. Select the Lincoln from inventory and hit Y. Then repair it with any regular hunting rifle. If you accidentally do it the other way around you'll end up merging the Lincoln into a common hunting rifle and therefore losing your unique weapon forever.
- Keep putting points into small guns whenever you think you need a bit of a damage boost. I leveled this a bit behind repair.
- Next you probably want either lock pick or science. I started with science since I already had such high intelligence. This lets you hack into terminals which can be quite helpful. The easy way to hack terminals is as follows: just go in there and just randomly click on the words, stop before you use up your last try (back out by hitting B), then try again. Usually you will be successful in 3 or less attempts. It’s faster than actually trying to figure out the solution. You want to increase your lock pick or science skills in 25 pt increments. So get to 25,50,75,100. Anything in between is a bit of a waste. I eventually maxed out both lock pick and science.
- I decided to go with a female character and picked up the Black Widow perk. You get the 10% damage bonus against the opposite sex. This helps since most enemies are male. It opens up a few interesting dialog options but probably not enough to make this perk worth getting. Get it if you think the damage bonus is worth it.
- Save any books you get until you get the Comprehension perk which gets you two skill points instead of one whenever you read a book.
- Avoid the here and now perk since you will very likely hit the level 20 cap before the end of the game anyways.
- I pretty much avoided all perks that gave you a skill point bonus in a particular area. The only skill point bonus perk I took was Tag!
- Medicine is a bit helpful with some dialogue options but not many. I had so many stimpaks by the end I never needed to invest heavily in medicine. Same goes with Barter. After about mid point money really isn’t a concern.
- Early on ammo was a bit of an issue. I just bought all the ammo I could every chance I got.
- Go for headshots….often. Close the distance if you can to increase your hit %.
- Save your nuka quantum if you plan to do the related quest that also has an achievement.
- Don’t forget to use chems once in a while to temporarily boost your stats. It’s especially helpful when there is a min stat required to perform a certain action.
- Favorite weapons: Lincoln’s Repeater hands down: zero spread so it has incredible range, great damage, awesome for headshot crits for massive damage! Only drawback is it uses .44 ammo but by the end I had over 200 rounds. Couple that with 129 AP for 5 shots in vats, commando, finesse, sniper, action girl, better criticals, wired reflexes, and Grim Reaper's Sprint you can pretty much take down any target in one round of vats from incredible range with 95% chance head shots with a high chance of crits and incredible damage. Grim Reaper's Sprint then recharges your AP to full and you can just move on to the next target. A close second would be Xuanlong Assault Rifle. Terrible shotgun was a minor bump over the combat shotgun but wasn't as good as I expected due to it’s increased spread. Ol’ Painless is good for using up the plentiful .32 ammo on lesser enemies. Shishkebab is a pretty good melee weapon but I didn’t do melee much. I didn’t use the blackhawk or Sydney’s 10mm ultra smg much.
- Favorite armor: Ledoux’s Hockey mask for the +25 AP and the T-51b Power Armor. I also used the Ranger Battle Armor for a long time before I got the power armor. It’s pretty nice with +5 AP, +1 luck, and +10 small guns.
- Hold down B to toggle your flashlight.
- Make sure you take care of all your side quests before heading back to the citadel. You’ll know what I mean when you get there. Because when the game ends it ENDS.

Final Character stats:
SPECIAL:


Skills:


Perks:


Weapons:


Armor:


Miscellaneous:


some good sites:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3
http://www.giantbomb.com/guides/fallout-3-megaguide/645/

Highly recommended. I loved pretty much everything about this game. It kept me interested longer than most games. 70hrs is a long time for me to spend on a single player game especially considering my backlog.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (XBOX 360)

WARNING: Minor spoilers

- So I finally sat down and finished this game. I did both light and dark endings.
- Difficulty on normal felt just about right for me.
- Some people find the game a bit short but the length felt right to me (or maybe it’s because I’m 70 hrs into Fallout 3 and I’m STILL not finished so I welcomed a shorter game).
- I thought the presentation was great. The graphics, art direction, sound, music were all excellent. The framerate was smooth and even. Animations were mostly excellent thanks to the use of euphoria and havoc.
- Cut scenes looked really good too with great voice acting.
- Story was great. It’s right up there with KOTOR and fits nicely between star wars 3 and 4 (especially if you go with the light ending). Interesting that they let the dark ending break canon.
- To make life easier I would suggest maybe a holocron cube faq so you can grab all of those to help upgrade your character better. You’ll find plenty of red so eventually you will unlock all your combos. You don’t get as many blue or yellow. I focused mostly on grip, lightning (I would get this maxed out early), health (max, amount obtained from defeating enemies, etc) and force related (regen, max) skills. The black crystal is my favorite. UPDATE: I just went back and grabbed the few remaining holocron cubes that I missed.
- Grab the dashing blast combo as earlier as possible to make navigation and some of the longer jumps easier. It really extends your air time.
- Level design is kind of a mixed bag. Some levels are great, others (like the junk yard) not so much. There are way too many invisible walls, and they are way too obvious.
- Most boss fights are exciting, epic, and seem mostly fair except for one. The star destroyer one is just plain broken. I mean as I consider it a bug. Here’s a tip: When aligning the star destroyer and trying to make it go “yellow” sometimes the directions on the screen will show you to leave your analog sticks in neutral yet it will still be red. Just keep moving the star destroyer even further in the previous direction until it goes yellow. In other worlds, the red/yellow color coding isn’t quite in sync with the analog stick directions. The stick directions are a bit looser so you have to fiddle a bit to find the sweet spot before the color will change to yellow again. IMO, they should and need to be perfectly in sync. If the screen says I don’t need to align the star destroyer, then it damn well better be yellow. Once it is yellow then just pull both sticks down and keep them down until your health is around 25%. To quickly take out tie fighters I would stand a bit to the right or left of center. As the tie fighter turns and starts to move horizontal then double jump, aim your stick up and toward the direction the tie fighter is flying to get the little blue targeting indicator to pick the tie fighter and use lightning.
- The force powers and light saber combos are exciting and spectacular. What sucks is the kind of arbitrary auto targeting system for your force grip which you will use often. I wish there was a more manual way to pick what target you want to grip.
- I’m a bit tired of quick time events but they sure do look great. At least the qte in this game is very forgiving often letting you immediately retry if you messed up.
- The easy way to get both endings is back up your save game to another storage device (MU or hard drive) right after you finish the convergence chamber and it saves. This lets you basically get both endings by just repeating the end boss fights.
- Check point save system seems fine for the most part. They seem close enough not to be too frustrating.
- It’s pretty kid friendly. I didn’t mind playing this one in front of the kids.
- You can re-watch all the excellent cut scenes.
- Check out the webdocs and other related free videos in the marketplace. It’s some pretty interesting making of stuff. I’m glad they didn’t make that wookie game!
- I also grabbed the Jedi Temple DLC. It’s basically one level that will take you less than an hour to finish. I found it fun with a great boss battle but over priced at $10. It really should be $5. You do get more achievements though.
- I’m about half way through the audio book novelization of the game. It pretty much follows the game. A lot of text is spent on the action and can become a bit dry and tedious.
- Definitely give the demo a try. If the combat doesn't grab you in the demo, then you probably won't like the full game that much either.

Recommended. Even with all its faults (and there are quite a few serious ones) I still found myself really enjoying this game. It’s just so much fun, has some great characters and story, and you do feel like a really powerful Jedi with force powers that are cranked way up.