So I stumbled across Jolicloud last week and after spending a few days playing with the Live CD I went ahead and installed it on my laptop. Technically Jolicloud is an OS designed for netbooks, but I’ve not had any trouble with it running on my Dell Latitude D630. A couple of features caught my eye quickly and were the reason I decided to check it out. First, Jolicloud does not need its own partition (although it can be setup that way). You can just run the Jolicloud install in Windows and it automatically sets it up as a dual boot system with a dedicated amount of space on a drive of your choosing.  If I get tired of it or don’t like it I can just uninstall and everything goes back to normal. The other thing that I like is the simple, clean interface. You setup the apps you user regularly for things like web surfing, social media and checking email and then you’re set.

For basic web browsing I see myself using Jolicloud fairly often on my laptop. Then if I need to do something work related or more involved I can just boot Windows instead. There are over 700 apps currently available and more getting added weekly.  So far though I’ve not ran into anything I wish I could do that was missing.  VLC, Firefox, Google Docs and Twitter cover my main items. Another feature I like but don’t really use yet is that your settings and apps are saved to your Jolicloud account.  Then, if you log in on another system that has Jolicloud it will set everything just how you left it on the first system.  This cross system syncing will come in hand when I do get a new laptop or netbook.  It also allows for my wife to setup her own layout without effecting my stuff by creating her own account.

Oh, did I mention it is free, it boots fast and the apps install almost instantly with just one click?  All very nice features. Jolicloud hasn’t replaced my Windows 7 install, and I doubt that it ever will, but for day to day normal usage I’m starting to really like it.

So I played through the Army of Two: The 40th Day campaign this last week.  It was not especially long. I think there were only like 7 levels/missions.  Each one was over an hour but still not that long of a game.  The game play itself was fun.  I liked being able to tell my partner to move forward, stay in place or come to me and then using his position to flank or snipe enemies. The aggro system from the first Army of Two still works well with the teammate who is doing the most shooting getting the attention of the enemies.  Upgrading weapons with the money I earned was pretty strait forward. I found the couple guns I like and then upgraded them to be the best they could be.

The only thing I found annoying was the “morality” choices that you had to make throughout the missions.  You would get to set spots in the story and it would make you decide help someone or not.  Only most of the time helping the person resulted in some really bad thing happening down the line.  I’ll not spoil it completely but the ending of the game was like this as well.  I made my choice and the outcome sucked.  So I replayed the last level and tried it again picking the other option.  The outcome still stunk.  To me this is annoying.  Don’t have me make “moral” choices and them make the resulting outcome be bad either way.

While the game play itself was alright the story line was really frustrating.  It is probably worth a rental if you want to play co-op with someone. You can probably finish the whole thing in a weekend if you wanted to.

So I signed up for the first free year of OnLive because I was curious if it would work without lag and other delay based issues. I always intended to play through Trine after trying the demo a while back and when I got a free game for signing up with OnLive I decided to finally do just that. Trine has been out long enough now that I think most people are at least familiar with it. You play as three characters are magically merged together that you can switch between at will.  There is a wizard, thief and knight.  The wizard can create boxes, floating triangles and flat panels. The thief has a bow and the ability to use a grappling hook. The knight has a sword & shield as well as a massive war hammer and the ability to pick up and throw items. The game itself is a platformer where you have to use the three characters abilities to traverse the levels and puzzles. The game is a lot of fun and while a few of the jumping based puzzles were a bit frustrating (for me) at times there are plenty of checkpoints that you don’t have to redo major portions of levels very often. If you have not played Trine I would recommend checking it out. It is really fun even and nicely made.

One of the main reason I chose to play Trine via OnLive is because it supports using the Xbox 360 controller.  Actually, I believe that every game on OnLive supports using the controller.  I play a lot more console games so I’m far more comfortable gaming with a controller than with mouse and keyboard. I probably could have made it through without the controller because I played the demo that way, but once I started using the controller there was no going back.  Trine 2 has been announced already and if it is not on Xbox Live Arcade I’ll probably not play it until I get confirmation that the PC version supports a controller.

The OnLive interface it pretty nicely made.  The main screen that loads has quick links to the main categories. It is quick and responsive to navigate once it starts up but the actual start-up takes a few seconds. For the most part I did not notice any input lag in playing Trine.  I need to play the demo for something like BFBC2 to see if there is input lag there but for the single player games I’ve tried there has been no issue.  However, there have been multiple times where the graphics get all blocky because of a “network issue”.  90% of the time the graphics look great but occasionally, and seemingly randomly, a little network warning would appear in the lower right corner and the graphics would get all choppy.  Sometimes even without the warning the game would suddenly pause for a second and then restart with my character moved a few steps to the side. Those were mostly minor annoyances, but twice I could not even get the game to start because of network issues. Every time I immediately did a network test and it was always fine so I’m assuming the network issues and errors were on there end. Hopefully those types of things will get sorted out in the coming months.

OnLive’s list of games is not very big yet but the titles they do have are pretty big ones.  I assume they have more games lined up that they will be adding.  The main issue is not really the small game list as much as the pricing.  With Steam regularly having 50 to 75% off sales it is hard to see how OnLive can compete without having similar sales.

One feature I find interesting in OnLive is their Arena. Basically anyone playing a game via OnLive you can go into the Arena and see their game live as the play it.  You can spectate and watch them play and give them a thumbs up/down.  More than once people joined my Trine game to watch for a while.  Frankly, I don’t see why people would watch someone they don’t know play a game other than to see if the game looks fun or interesting. However, for people interested in that the Arena did work smoothly when I tried it.

So, while OnLive has been out only a short time I can see it doing pretty well if they can continue to improve their infrastructure, put games on sale and add to their catalog. I don’t see it replacing Steam or consoles for me but it is a nice additional way to game since I like using a controller.

Hydro Thunder Hurricane releases on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow. I got the chance to play Hydro Thunder Hurricane for the last week and it has been a blast. I’m most of the way through the single player campaign and really looking forward to trying the multiplayer.  I love playing Hydro Thunder in the arcade any time I happen to be in one.  This remake/sequel is very true to the original but with great new graphics and dynamic water.

I’ve got my full review up on XBLA Ratings (here) but if liked Hydro Thunder on the console or arcade before this version will feel quite familiar.

If you are new to Hydro Thunder check out the trailer below and if it looks fun, which it is, I’ve got some tips for beginners (here).

I really enjoy open world games, for the most part, and Crackdown 2 is no exception.  I can see why some people are complaining that is just like Crackdown and not enough changed, but I don’t care about that.  Yes, it is pretty much just like the original with a few additions and new enemies, but the game is fun and that is what matters.  The four player co-op is  riot.

The story line in Crackdown 2 picks up years after the first game with the city overrun with Freaks (aka zombies) and the Cell violently opposing the Agency. Your job, as always, is to clean up the city.  The story is a little vague but if you listen to the audio drops throughout the city you get a little bit of an idea of the back story of the game. Really though, the story does not matter too much.  The point of Crackdown 2 is to run around the city killing enemies and having fun. The game looks a lot like the original Crackdown graphically but I don’t mind that really. Sure, there are better looking games out there but it does not look bad or anything.

Frankly, Crackdown 2 is a great summer co-op game.  Running around with your friends causing the biggest explosions and jumps in the world is a blast.  Plus, orb hunting now is co-op since there are orbs that require two people pick up.  Is it a prefect game? No.  Is it a lot of fun with some friends? Yes.  I could talk more about it properly I’m going to go look for the last few orbs instead.

There have been quite a few fun Xbox Live Indie Games released in the last two weeks.  I find myself continuing to go back to Radiangames Crossfire.  I’m stuck on level 49 for the last couple days.  If I was just more patient I could probably get past it, but so far no luck.  I have a lot of fun playing it with Shorty since he can just hold the trigger down and then move around.  I also am working my way through Lumi and Jurassic.  Both are really fun games.  I’ve got a breakdown of all three in a little more detail here.   Also, if you’re into vertical shooters I’ve got a post on EvilAvatar about some fun one on the Xbox Live Indie Game channel here.

I finished playing through the Transformers: War for Cybertron campaign last weekend.  I really liked how the story was laid out.  The first five missions you play as the the Decepticons and then the last five missions you play as the Autobots. Ten missions seemed short when I started the campaign but the missions are long so it was not as short as I thought it would be. Overall I enjoyed the story and the campaign. The only thing I had issues with is that you die a lot in a few specific areas.In talking to some friends they had similar experiences with dying repeatedly. So, I put together some tips for anyone who is going to play the campaign on the hard difficulty. Linky If you’re looking for a solid single player (or co-op) campaign to play for a long weekend Transformers WFC is a good one to pick.

I finished off the Supreme Commander 2 campaign this week.  I played the demo in PC originally but went with the Xbox 360 version for the full game.  I had a lot of fun playing through the three parts of the campaign.  They tied together really nicely at the end. The three races were similar enough that the units and tech trees were easy to switch between but different enough that playing each one felt unique. One thing I did not realize in the demo but found out quickly in the full game is that getting a lot research centers going early is the key to winning.  Because there are separate tech trees for Land, Sea, Air, Structures and your APC there are a lot of places you’ll want to use research points.  Personally, I would use all my tech points at the start on making buildings cheaper and faster, and then go on to upgrading units. But, my generally preferred RTS strategy is to turtle at the beginning, build up a massive army, and then wipe the board in one large sweep. So, getting a lot of tech going fits well with that.

The story overall was a little cheesy, but I enjoyed it like a made for SciFi channel movie.  The ending battle was satisfying and quite massive.  I ended up having to do it twice because the first time the game froze going into the final cut scene.  That was the only time it did that so I’m not sure if it was the game or my Xbox 360. Either way, when I replayed it a second time it finished without issue. The missions were not overly long either, which I find RTS levels tend to be especially later in the game, which was nice.  They averaged around 45 to 50 minutes I think.

My only issue with the Xbox 360 version is that I never did figure out all of the controls for more advanced things like setting up patrols and teleporting. All the basics were easy enough and I never had an issue winning because of the controls. It just would have been nice to setup patrols on a few of the levels.  Also, there was one level that required teleporting troops to win.  It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out how to do the teleporter once I had the troops ready.

Overall, Supreme Commander 2 was a pretty fun game. It is not the best RTS available or anything, but if you are a fan of RTS games it is worth playing through.

Splinter Cell: Conviction got its first paid DLC with the Insurgency Pack a few weeks back. I was luck enough to win a copy from Ubisoft’s Twitter account. Normally it is $10 (800 Points). It contains 4 new maps for the deniable ops game modes and 8 new achievements. The maps are fairly large. Each one has three sections for Hunter/Infiltration mode with 12 enemies per section.  So, less areas but more enemies per area than the maps that game with the game.  I liked this style of map layout because the size let me find multiple strategies for each level.  I was able to get all of the levels completed on Realistic mode in Hunter by myself, but one of the achievements does require co-op play so I’ll need to go back for that one.  All the other achievements I got solo.

While I has a lot of fun with these new maps it is hard for me to recommend people get them for $10.  If they were $5 it would be a must buy, but $2.50 a map is a little much unless you plan to play them over and over with friends. I tried playing them co-op a few times with anyone playing on Live at the time and I never did find anyone else playing Hunter mode on Realistic.  Maybe that was because of the times I played, but it was a tad frustrating.  I had a lot of fun with the Splinter Cell: Conviction Insurgency Pack and if it is ever on sale I would recommend picking it up.

Last week was E3 and I was able to attend Tue afternoon – Thursday this year. I got a lot of hands on time with some games and got to see demos of others. I’m nearly done with the articles I’ve been writing about it so I figured I’d put them all on one place since the are spread out across different sites. Makes them a bit easier to find.

Rock Band 3 Hands On Impressions

Xbox Live Arcade Hands On Recap

F1 2010 Hands On Impressions (Video)

Power Gig Rise of the Six String – Hands On Impressions & Developer Interview

Star Wars The Old Republic Hands On Impressions (Video)

Bodycount Hands On Impressions

Brink Hands On Impressions

Here are the Xbox Live Arcade games individually that I got time with.

DeathSpank

Bionic Commando Rearmed 2

Hard Corps: Uprising

Hydro Thunder Hurricane