Magic: the Gathering has come to the Xbox 360… my life may be over.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Magic: the Gathering was a customizable card game that was introduced in 1993  The basic concept was that you and another wizard did battle with cards that represented creatures and spells.  Each player had 20 life points and the goal was to drain your opponent of all 20 points by various means.  This is a highly simplified explanation of the game, but you get the basic idea.

I started playing the game in early 1994, and I was instantly hooked.  The ability to customize the decks, to build theme with themes (speed… land destruction… defense… etc) was intoxicating.  You would tweak your deck and test it… tweak… test… tweak… test and then head off to a tournament to see how you stood up against others.  You could get national rankings even, and it became an all encompassing past time.

My retail store was one of the first in the country to get the idea to sell the cards individually, and that turned into a new insanity all in itself.  Cards could sell for anywhere from a few pennies up to a could hundred dollars depending on the rarity and power, but during the height of the craze we could barely keep the three ring binders stocked, and I was one of my own worst customers.

I quit playing in 1996 as Wizards of the Coast, the company behind the game, started giving in to the whiniest of players and changing numerous rules that just made the game maddening.  As soon as you got used to a new rule, it would get changed, and keeping up with the constant changes was driving me insane.  The worst change was that they changed tournament structure to where you couldn’t use the oldest cards any more because players had been priced out of the market.  The original concept, as told to me personally by the president of the company, was that they enisioned a day where someone would play with a 15-year-old card and people would be all amazed by it and not know what it was… that theory lasted 3 years before players whined the concept out of existance.

Well, even with a 13 year abscence, I still think back to the height of the game with fondness, and I do miss it at times.  Well, someone decided it might be a good idea to put the game on Xbox 360 as a downloadable game.  Priced at only $10, how could I not give it a try?

While the game captures some of the old… well… magic of the game, I am not thrilled with the decks being locked in their construction and limited to only one color (the magic is divided in to five colors – black, blue, green, red and white – with each color having a ‘theme’ to what it does), and I was a heavy, heavy two color player back in my day (red/green was my choice, speed plus powerful spells).  You can unlock more cards by winning games, but even that is limited to only 17 cards at this time.

Wizards of the Coast has said they have not yet decided if they will release more cards for the game, since there are over 10,000 cards in the physical game now they have no lack of cards to draw from, but no word yet on the Xbox version.  I am hoping they do expand it, because even though I am not 100% happy with it, it is one easy way for me to revisit an old addiction withough breaking the bank or dealing with rules changing every five seconds.

In short, is it perfect?  No.  Is it still worth the purchase?  Yes!

Who needs some silly remote controls you wave around to control a game when you can turn your entire body into that silly remote?

Microsoft has announced at the annual E3 gaming conference that they are working on a new addition to the Xbox 360 gaming system called "Project Natal".  While small details like pricing or a arelease date are missing at this time, what is known is that this could completely change how we play video games and interact with technology.

Imagine a camera system bar under your TV, and when you walk in to the room, it recognizes your face and automatically logs you into Xbox Live.  From there you can control your Xbox dashboard with flicks of your hand like the computers in the movie Minority Report.  Don’t feel like waving your hands around?  Talk to it.

Check out the video below for more of what this this will supposedly do.

I have a real hard time believing it will be able to do true full body motion capture, but if it does, then things will change in electronics forever.  Why would anyone ever need ot buy something like a Wii Fit again?  Why buy any seperate controller again when you can simply do the motions?

One of the demoed pieces of software at the show is Peter Molyneux’s ”Milo”.  From the description, it is a virtual friend that will interact with you and other members of yoru family.  He, or his female counterpart named Millie, will know each member of your family by facial recognition and will react to each person differently.  He will also hold conversations with you by relating things he or she discussed with you earlier.  (… anyone else think that could be hugely embarrassing?)  The other thing intriguing about this is the mini-review mentions Milo throws you a pair of goggles, which you catch with a motion, and then the system instructed the reviewer as to what motions to make to put the goggles on.

In short, this is about as close as we are going to get to virtual reality for a while, but there is doubt that lingers in the back of my head.  I have seen numerous game peripherals over the years that fall short of their promises, and this one is promising a heck of a lot.  I am hopeful that it will deliver on everything they are listing, heck, I really want it if it does deliver, but until I see it in person, I am going to have to remain somewhat doubtful that they can really pull off such huge leaps in technology.  If they do… Sony who?  Nintendo who?

Mark your calendars boys and girls for November 10th, 2009!

I’ve blogged a few times about my love of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and I have to say my love for this game hasn’t diminished one bit in the 13+ months I’ve had it.  The only time it has left my Xbox 360 was to give Gears of War 2 a spin, and… well… I’ve sold that off and I’m back to good old CoD 4.  I did give Call of Duty: World at War (notice they dropped the numbering) a spin via its demo, and while it was cool to hear Keifer Sutherland barking orders at you, using World War II weapons just didn’t do it for me.

So, back in the world of CoD 4, I had heard rumors the next version of the game would be back to the modern age, but it was just the usual rumors that floated around.  Then this week the gaming community finally got the confirmation we wanted.

I have to admit this is about the oddest promo video I’ve ever seen as it reveals, well, pretty much nothing,but at least we know Modern Warfare 2 will be out on November 10th, 2009.  And, yes, they have completely dropped the Call of Duty name from the title, apparently they think “Modern Warfare” became enough of a brand on is own.

Hopefully I’m not getting my hopes up to high for this game.  The last time I fell in love with a game like this was SOCOM II: U.S. Navy Seals on the Playstation 2, and when SOCOM III came about it, well, to be blunt, it sucked.  They over complicated things by adding vehicles, making the maps too big, making things so the snipers were way over favored, etc.  I couldn’t stand the game.  I am hoping beyond all hope the same fate doesn’t befall Modern Warfare 2.

My fingers are crossed, and I will be waiting patiently on November 10th… okay, maybe not “patiently” for Modern Warfare 2 to rock my socks off… oh please rock my socks off!

Netflix added the ability to stream movies some time ago, and after taking the plunge to try it out, I have to say I’m sold on the concept.

At first I was hesitant to give it a try because you could only do it on your computer, and I didn’t feel like going through the trials and tribulations of watching Internet videos on my TV.  Eventually a company named Roku brought a Netflix set top box to market, but, I also didn’t feel like plopping down $99 for a dedicated device.

Then, in November, Microsoft updated the Xbox 360 dashboard and added the option to stream Netflix to your TV without any more equipment then I already owned.  With the temptation being too great, I finally gave in and reactivated my Netflix account and decided to give it a shot.

For as little as $8.99 a month (we’ll ignore the $4.99 option as that only gives you 2 hours of video streaming a month), you get one DVD rented at a time, but you get unlimited video streaming to your Xbox.  Quite a bargain if you ask me since they have over 12,000 selections for you to choose from.  True, the movie selection is mainly older films, but for a film buff like myself, I’m thrilled.  They also offer help a very healthy selection of older TV shows, all which are available on DVD, but for three months of streaming, you can save your self buying a DVD set you may not even like, and you will save room in your house.  I finally can try out an older British comedy I have been dying to try for years called Yes, Minister without rolling the dice on an expensive boxed set and risking not even liking the show.

The only drawback to the system is you have to go to the Netflix site to add more videos to your queue.  You can only have 6 active selections show up in your Xbox dashboard at any time, but that is plenty for a night of video watching.

My biggest fear was that you were going to end up with heavily pixalated veiwing since it was streaming over the Internet and being blown up to the size of a TV screen, but I am pleased to say I was totally wrong about that.  Last night my father wanted to watch a movie since he is laid out on the couch recovering from knee surgery, and he chose The Illusionist from 2006.  What little I watched of the movie since I had work to do was just stunning in its quality.  It might not be true high def, but coming over an HDMI cable to our 42″ Toshiba Regza LCD, I noticed little to no “image noise”, no buffering except before the film started, and an overall better experience than a standard definition DVD played on a standard DVD player.

I would still like to see a broader slection of films to watch, and also the ability to add new things to your queue on the fly, but overall, if you have an Xbox 360 already, or feel up to getting a Roku device, this is well worth $8.99 a month.  Also, keep an eye out, but some Blu-ray DVD players are starting to add the ability to stream the videos also.

With another year under their belt, why does Blu-ray still seem to be another “also ran” in the home media market?

It was one year ago today that I announced that I had decided to go with HD-DVD, and I knew full well that probably meant I had picked the wrong format in the high def war.  I was proven right in February of this year when HD-DVD threw in the towel, and it looked like a lock that Blu-ray would become the dominant format.

So, why hasn’t it happened?  Blu-ray is still languishing with only a single digit percentage of the home media market, and it doesn’t look to be gainging more traction with the economy in its current uncertain state.  As I see it, Blu-ray is fighting a multi pronged fight that it didn’t even ponder it was going to have to.

• As people have said everywhere, DVDs still look too good on a high def television to warrant people running out and buying yet another format.  With upconverting DVD players pushing standard definition discs to near HD quality, and those players still selling for less than a Blu-ray player, it’s hard for people to make the justification for going with Blu-ray.
• Even when people do go with Blu-ray, they are not buying films in the numbers they were with regular DVDs.
• Streaming media is becoming more common, and on numerous devices people already own.  For instance, the fact that you can stream Netflix films via the XBox 360 now.  Why purchase what you can stream, and be out more money and space in your home?
• The prices for Blu-ray players and their accompanying discs are still just too high compared to their standard definition counterparts.

You add up all of these problems, and it doesn’t look too promising for the high def format.  Yes, I fully admit that this may sound like sour grapes over me goign HD-DVD, but it isn’t, because I have been very close to throwing in the towel and buying a Blu-ray player several times since February.  At this point I don’t think buying into an HD format is a wise choice for any one.  Streaming is becoming more and more prevalent, and I don’t see standard def DVDs going anywhere, so I’m thinking it may be wise to just sit out this home media iteration and see where the chips land.

In short, don’t be me and put all your money on what could be a losing horse.

In what seems to be becoming an annual event, it’s time for a new entry in the Call of Duty franchise of video games.

This year’s entry is going back to the roots of the series by moving the setting back to the days of World War II, with a heavy focus on the Pacific Rim theater.  There is also a change up in that last year’s mega-popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) was by the design house at Infinity Ward, and this year’s version (Call fo Duty: World at War is the full title) is by a group named Treyarch.

Everyone on XBox Live has been able to download a demo for a few days now which allows you to play on three of the multiplayer maps.  As long time readers of this blog know, I am a huge fan of online first person shooting games, so I downloaded and gave the game a try.  To be honest, Call of Duty 4 has literally not left my XBox since the day I inserted it, which has been about 8 months now, so me playing anything else is a novel concept.

First impressions tell me… I’m not going to be nearly as addicted to this game, and that is if I even buy it.

To be completely honest, this game is so similar to CoD4 that it feels more like an expansion pack than an entirely new game.  I almost wonder if that is why this game doesn’t have the number “5″ in its title, it almost feels more like a “4.5″ than a wholly new game.  Sure, there are some new aspects such as the addition of vehicles in at least one level of the three they let the public sample, and at some point in the game there is the inclusion of flame throwers, but otherwise the basic mechanics of the game just feel far to close to the last game.

I will say they did add far more details to what weapons damage could do to you, which I am not sure is such a wonderful idea.  I noticed after shooting a guy with a shotgun at fairly close range that I could see his rib cage clearly where the blast hit.  At another point I got hit with a grenade and as my character fell backwards I could see his left leg was missing.  Not to mention the amount of blood that gets splattered on the “camera” when you kill people at close range.  While I understand thay are going for a realisitc approach, I’m not sure I need that much gore in a game I play to relax after a long day of work.

One of the largest annoyances, and I know this is minor, is the inclusion of the attack dogs.  In CoD4, after you would get 7 kills in a row, you could call in an attack chopper.  Well, seeing as this is WW II, they couldn’t have coptors, obiously, so they replaced them with attack dogs.  As an animal lover, I’m not thrilled with haing to shoot dogs to save myself, and my 3 real life dogs are not thrilled with the barking coming from the TV whenever they show up.  Again, minor, but annoying.

True, I am judging this game by only a small slice of it, but the basic mechanics are there, and the actual character movement even feels a bit clunkier.  I mean the way the character itself moves, I expect the weapons to be clunky and harder to manage, but the actual physics of the figure you control just doesn’t feel smooth for some reason.

Will I end up buying it?  I don’t know, I’m tempted, but I may just wait for Infinity Ward to come back to being the designers with the next installment before I once again answer… the Call of Duty.  (Stop groaning!)

In a move that is sure to leave me scratching my head for days, Microsoft has partnered up the Xbox 360 gaming platform with Rock the Vote.

In a press release put out today, Microsoft revealed that as of today, users of Xbox Live will be able to take polls about the upcoming presidential election, participate in forums and… oh, how this scares me… register to vote.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for people registering to vote, and I actually went and did it the day of my 18th birthday I was so anxious to have the right.  What scares me is, and I know I will catch flames for this, is the goofballs on Xbox Live messing this up.

I’ve written a couple times this year about the intellectual titans I run into playing some of the games online, and it worries me that some of these folks, for laughs, may try to register fake people or some other way gum up the works.  I have not looked at the process yet, but I am hopeful there are multiple safeguards in place.  I asked my mother for her feelings on this since she used to be the president of the local League of Women Voters chapter, responsible for many people being registered to vote, and her reply was simply, “this troubles me.”

Hopefully this will lead to legitimate sign-ups, and hopefully it will also lead to people actually going to the polls come election day, but it still makes me a bit nervous to see it done in this fashion.  Going to the gamers is a great idea, but why not set it up around the release of a major game?  Madden ‘09 just came out with a huge push for midnight releases, wouldn’t it have made sense to set up at some stores and do it there?  Yes, there is a certain convenience factor to doing it at home, but I worry about faked names, hacked accounts and any other number of potential problems.

In my heart, I hope it is successful because I think our freedom to vote is one of the greatest things in this country, it is just the method of registration that is worrisome to me.

Just the other day I spoke about how a social network, Faceparty, had decided it was best to delete people over 36-years-old because they may be sex offenders.  Well, this made me think of another situation I have been running into a lot more lately: ageism in video games.

I have spoken before about some of the… “stimulating”… conversations I have while playing games like Call of Duty 4 online, but now it is becoming a regular occurrence for me to be slammed on for being 36.  In the past it has been insults of everyone being “gay”, or “you suck” or just general stupidity, but as gamers are trending to be older (the average age of video game players is now 34), the teens are getting more insulting about people in my age range being “losers” for still playing video games.  As I so kindly tell them, if it wasn’t for people like me having played video games since they came around in the 1980’s, they wouldn’t have their games today, so… stuff it.  (I have no patience for these kids… I’m sure you all are shocked since I’m normally Mr. Cuddly)  This is usually all followed up with I have no life… I must be on welfare (… how did I afford the game…)… aendlessly with the same insults over-and-over.

I have to wonder where this animosity is coming from.  What possible difference does it make to some kid if I’m 16 or 36, so long as I’m doing my “job” in the game, what does it really matter?  It doesn’t, but I think it speaks to a common distrust of “older” people I see creeping back into the social consciousness.  Ever heard the saying from the 1960’s of “Don’t trust anyone over 30″?  Well, from what I see, it’s happening again, but this time I think it’s for very different reasons… just plain snottiness.

At least when this saying popped up originally, we were engaged in a highly questionable war, with a country still reeling from an assassination that no one understood.  True, we are engaged in another questionable war, but somehow, I don’t think these kids are even remotely aware of it.  These are “the mellinials” and their only concern is themselves.  You thought Generation X, my generation, was bad?  We have nothing on this group.

Honestly, their actual words don’t phase me in the least, but the general attitude is disturbing.  I’m not sure where it came from, what causes it or if there is even any way to stop it.  Hopefully it will disappear with time, and for now it is just generally annoying, lets just hope it doesn’t get any worse.

Somehow I doubt this will be the last time I touch on the “old people suck” attitude I’m encountering more and more.

Okay, no one pass out… I’m actually going to praise something.

Inifinity Ward, the makers of Call of Duty 4, released four new maps for the online version of the game on Friday.  After some errors with buying them (it was the fault of Xbox Live, not Infinity Ward), all was well and you could purchase the new release.  Now, in the past when I’ve bought maps for other games, you have to hope enough people buy them for them to show up in normal rotation.  Usually this leads to frustration, cursing and wondering why you bothered to buy the maps because not enough people got them for them to show up in the playlists.

Well, in a show of forward thinking, Infinity Ward set up special rooms just for people who bought the maps and, for this weekend only, are offering you double experience points for playing in them.  All I can say is kudos to them for thinking of this very situation and I can say I’ve already gotten my monies worth out of these new arenas.  And, bonus, the new maps are kick-ass.  I never thought I would say, “Wow, this map is TOO big!”, but the map named “Broadcast” really is!

Take note other game makers: this is how you handle an expansion release.

While playing Call of Duty 4 last night, I had a conversation that made me actually question humanity.

Sitting in the lobby, waiting for the next round to start, we got notified the next map we’d be playing on would be “Bloc” – a set of decaying apartment buildings in post-nuclear accident Chernobyl. This isn’t a huge fan-favorite map, but it did generate the following conversation.

Male player: Ugh, I hate this map! Everyone vote to veto it.

Me: I agree… although I was surprised the other night when I found the pool building! I never even knew it existed!

Male player: The what?

Me: It’s in the back corner, there’s a whole other building with a pool. I never knew it was there.

Female player: pfft It’s not a pool.

Me: Uh, yes it is.

Female player: There’s no water in it, so it’s not a pool.

Me: …

Male player: If it doesn’t have water in it, it’s not a pool?

Female player: Right.

At this point the game started, on a different map as we had vetoed “Bloc”. The girl was on the other team, but the other guy was on my team so we could talk to one another.

Me: Was she serious?

Male player: She sure sounded like it.

Me: What do you do when you call someone and want them to build you a pool, but it’s not a pool until it has water in it?

Male player: Hi! I’d like you to build me a large cement hole in the ground, shaped like a tub, and water proofed in case I want to put water in it someday.

Me: -gets shot by an opponent as I am choking from laughing so hard-

I played a couple of rounds with the girl, and considering her general attitude, yeah, she wasn’t joking, and she had many opinions on a great many subjects… all of them of equal intelligence.

Do you ever wish you could slap a sticker on some people’s foreheads that say “Do Not Breed”?

I can’t believe it, but I think I’ve been swayed from my love of playing nothing but Halo 3 on Xbox Live.

Triston McIntyre, of GAMER.BLORGE.com, told me while we were co-workers that I should give Call of Duty 4 a try. I mumbled and grumbled that I was fairly loyal to Halo, but since he was such an ardent supporter that I decided to trust him and give it a try.

Well, Halo 3 has not returned to my Xbox since.

This is strictly about the online portion of the game, as I found the COD4 off-line portion too short, just like I did with Halo 3.  I think game makers are starting to ignore the single players games a little much, and need to remember that not everyone gets online all the time.

That aside, I’m loving the online version of COD4 far more than Halo 3, like a lot more.  For those unfamiliar with either,both are First Person Shooters (FPS) where you are placed in to the role of someone fighting some form of enemies: in Halo it is either other soldiers or aliens, with COD4, it is alway some form of soldiers.  The perspective is always that of looking from behind the gun, or just slightly behind your character depending on the weapon you’re using.

So why is COD4 winning me over?  I feel like I’m accomplishing something as opposed to just going around shooting people.  Yes, they are both video games, but Halo 3 gives you medals and ranks that earn you nothing but shiny things to look at; COD4 unlocks more weapons, special weapons, and challenges as you increase in rank.  So while you’re going around fighting your enemies, you’re also thinking, “I need to get another headshot to finish off that Marksman achievement.”  It adds another layer of fun to the game and extra value.  What do you do when you max out your rank, and finish all the goals?  Well, when you hit rank 55, you get to start all over if you like, but with new rank badges that indicate this isn’t your first time through the game.

The biggest selling point to me, and one I can’t even begin to guess why it happens, is that there aren’t nearly as many idiot running around shouting how “gay” something is, or how wonderful it would be to be raped.  It’s not that this is some sort of intellectual game, but there certainly does seem to be a higher maturity level in the players and how they act inside the game.  My theory is it has to do with the game being far busier than Halo 3; you almost always have a vulnerable direction you could be shot from, or your thinking about finishing your challenges, you don’t even have time to talk, let alone be annoying.

Overall it is a far more satisfying experience in the multi-player game than Halo 3, and that is something I honestly never saw myself saying.  I have been a die-hard Halo fan for some time now, and now it just seems like a far less satisfying system.

So, if you’re looking for a game, RUDEBOY71 is my handle and you can join in a game and you can promptly kick my behind.

While playing a quick game of Halo 3 (you can see my lousy service record here) the other night before bed, I somehow ended up with seven teenagers on my team. Considering the hours I play, that was fairly odd, but no big deal. The problem was 2 of them were female, and that just made it that much more difficult to play.

See, when you stick 5 teenage boys in a “room” with 2 teenage girls, all that gets accomplished is flirting. And let me tell you, there was plenty of that! I tuned out listening to them when one boy kept insisting the girls prove they were really girls by sending him pictures of thmselves, which they refused to do. As the game progressed though, and we were getting our asses kicked, I finally started listening to them again and… they were discussing where they would like to be raped.

Yes… rape.

“I think I’d want to be raped in a hot tub!”

And I thought, “Okay, they just don’t know what the word means. It’s disgusting, but they don’t know what they’re discussing,” but then one of the two girls says, “I think I’d want to be raped in the bathroom… it’s already dirty.”

After I picked myself up off the floor, though my jaw was still down there, I couldn’t help but finally make some comments to them about it.

“DEAR GOD! Do you all know what you’re talking about?!? Rape is not something to be joked about! Wait until you get older and you’ve known people who have been raped and then see how funny you think it it is!”

To which one of the boys said, “… you’ve been raped? What was that like?”

Cue sound of me repeatedly slamming my head against my controller.

I think I have finally reached that point in my life where I have to wonder, “These kids today, what are they thinking?!?” Which, I guess officially makes me ‘old’, but I’m okay with that in this situation because I don’t think I would be mentally right to not wonder this time.

Hopefully none of these kids will ever suffer such a fate, but I certainly wish they get a clue about what it they’re saying, and soon.