I’ve been playing around with the Dashboard Update and overall I’m really happy with the enhancements. It is nice to be able to chat with your friends from your computer while they are on Xbox Live, but it already seems like there are some areas they could have improved before releasing the instant messaging features.

First, they should let you use any Messenger email address you want and not just the one tied to your gamertag. For me this is not a big issue as they are one in the same, but for a lot of people on my friends list they are not the same address. This would not be that big of a deal if they would let you change the email address tied to your gamertag, but they will not let you do that either. So, hopefully, your IM email address is the same as the one tied to your gamertag otherwise your just out of luck. Major Nelson posted that they are looking at a way to address this, but for now you’re stuck.

Second, they need a way to add and remove instant messenger contacts on the Xbox 360. Someone really dropped the ball on this one. If you’re going to try and get me to do everything (watch TV, listen to music, chat, look at pictures) on my Xbox 360 that is fine, but don’t make it so I have to use my computer to setup stuff first. Whose idea was it to make it so I had to leave my couch and go to my computer to setup my IM contacts? Whoever that was please smack them on the back of the head for me.

Finally, they need to expand support to include voice and video chatting. Windows Live Messenger supports both and so does the 360 so I don’t see why they did not include that. Yes, the computer user needs to have a microphone and/or a web cam, but a lot of people already do. On the Xbox 360 side everyone pretty much has a headset and the Vision Camera is growing in popularity as more games are being released that support it. I’m guessing whoever decided not to support video and voice chatting over IM is the same person who thought it was a good idea to allow us to see our messages on Xbox.com, but not let us listen to our voice messages on there. I realize that support for voice and video chatting over the messenger interface would have taken more work and back end systems to support it, but if you’re going to add a feature don’t just add part of it. Add the whole thing and do it well, or just don’t bother doing it at all.

With the dashboard update and the Forza 2 demo getting released I almost forgot about the Xbox Live Arcade yesterday. Fortunately, I remembered it in time to check out Double Dragon. Released in the arcade in 1987 Double Dragon is the most classic beat ’em up games from that era. It was the first side scroller to have co-op play and to allow you to take your enemies weapons. Having spent many an allowance playing Double Dragon I’m actually looking forward to playing it on my Xbox 360 for a while. Considering I would spend over $5 playing this in an afternoon when I was younger I don’t think the price is to bad. Yea, I realize I’m a bit hypocritical. In most of my reviews of retro Xbox Live Arcade titles I complain about the price and how lousy the game is, but like any retro title it is the great memories, not the graphics or gameplay, that make it worth playing today.

As retro titles go this one has covered all the basics and added a few additional options. They have done the enhanced graphics like most retro titles are doing now, and they have added support for co-op play both locally and over Xbox Live. Both of these are to be expected by now. In addition to these features they also added the option to change what buttons are used to control the punch, kick, and jump. I’m glad a developer finally took the time to do this. It is such a little thing, but so nice to have. There is also on option that allows you to resize and adjust the game windows location. This benefits all of us who have TVs that either overscan or have larger frames around them. Now we can adjust the screen to fit our TV perfectly. The achievement can all be achieved by playing through the game once or twice if you are careful and don’t have to use any continues (and if you have a co-op partner). Nothing to fancy with the achievements, but that is fine.

So, is the game worth $5? Again, that depends on you. I don’t expect that a lot of teens and children will be into Double Dragon, but for those of us old enough to have wasted many a quarter on it the memories alone are worth the price of admission. For those of you who are not biased by your childhood memories what do you think of Double Dragon on the Xbox Live Arcade?

The Spring May Dashboard Update was released this morning. Here is the list of what is updated from Microsoft’s press release. I’ve listed a few of the key features below.

• Windows Live Messenger integration. Windows Live Messenger on Xbox 360 will text chat using the virtual keyboard accessible on Xbox 360, or by connecting a USB keyboard to the console. This summer Microsoft will launch a QWERTY text-input device, a new accessory that will connect directly into the Xbox 360 controller to support text and instant messaging.
• A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list.
• Enhanced family settings features for Xbox LIVE communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
• A new Xbox LIVE Marketplace blade lets Xbox LIVE members access the content they seek — whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States) — from one place on Xbox LIVE.
• Updates to Xbox LIVE Arcade allow owners to quickly see which Xbox LIVE Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox LIVE members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. Expanded Tell a Friend capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
• A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox LIVE Arcade games.
• New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
• Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.

I’m pretty excited about a few of these updates. The MSN Windows Live Messenger integration is pretty cool , but I’m not sure how much I will use it since it can only be used for chatting. If I could also use it to invite my friends on Messenger to the game I am currently playing then I know I would use it all the time.

The updated Achievement info that pops up when you get an achievement now is great. I no longer have to pause my game to go see what achievement I just got. I never really thought about it before but this is a great little addition.

The new Marketplace blade is nice because it makes it really easy to find whatever content I’m looking for instead of having is spread all over the other blades.

The one update I’m really happy about is the background download option. Now I can turn off my Xbox 360 when I’m done playing and it will keep downloading. Before I would keep my Xbox 360 on while I was at work to do the downloads and then when I got home I would have 20 or 30 invites from my friends list that were sent throughout the day to clean up. Now I just turn it off and it automatically goes into a lower power mode where I am offline so my friends will not spam me with invites, but it still downloads the latest Xbox Live Arcade games for me.

I was playing Rainbow Six: Vegas and the guys I was playing with were discussing why they would use the Wired Xbox 360 Controller. Personally. I can’t see a reason to use one, but one of the guys was adamant that the wired controller is better because he doesn’t have to buy batteries. The rest of us in the room all laughed at him because the convenience of a wireless controller is well worth the small cost of batteries. I personally have 2 wireless controllers. Also, I have the Play and Charge Kit and a rechargeable battery for each controller. This way I can have one controller that I’m using and the other one can be charging, if it needs to be. A lot of the guys I was playing with said they preferred to use rechargeable AA batteries because they can use them in stuff besides their controllers as well.

The discussion got me wondering, what do most Xbox 360 players use for their controllers? I can think of about 5 different possibilities.
– Play & Charge from Microsoft
– Quick Charge Kit from Microsoft
– Regular Batteries
– Rechargeable Batteries
– Wired Controller
If you have an Xbox 360 leave a comment and let me know what controller you use and how you power it.

My wife was playing Tetris on my Xbox 360 (it was her birthday so I figured I’d let her) so I was surfing the internet and stumbled across the game Tactics 100. The site lists this description:

Your goal is to create an army of 100 points and send that army into battle against other 100 point armies. Choose the army suited to your fighting style. This is a fair fight and the winner can only be determined by who has the most skill.

The way you attack affects the outcome, you can attack from high ground, at point blank range, from behind your enemies, and many others. Use this to your advantage against your opponent.”

Basically, make a squad of up to 8 soldiers and fight other people’s squads. Your team can consist of knights, rangers, mages, and clerics.

After playing through a few levels of the single player game I had a team that I thought was pretty good. I had 3 knights and 2 mages. All five of them were leveled up in the attack attributes. So, I started playing people online . The game does a pretty good job of finding opponents who are your same skill level based on how many wins you have. The first two matches I won easily. The third fight was another story. My opponent had 8 archers (rangers). He smoked me with them. He just stood back and picked me off. I did some additional playing and found that a group of 8 archers is pretty much impossible to beat because they have such a long attack range. Because of this I will probably not be playing Tactics 100 any more until the rangers get balanced out. The site does show that the game is still in development and has been update recently. So, I’m hoping that it will get a character balancing update soon. I enjoy games like this where strategy plays a big part of the game, but when one character class is out of balance it takes the fun out of the game.

Give it a try for yourself . It seems like a lot of people have figure out using all rangers is the best so if you find a way to beat them you’re smarter than I am. If you beat a team of 8 rangers let me know how you did it.

[Update] Looks like the the developer heard my complaint (I’m sure I was not the only one) and weakened the ranger. I’ll have to try my team again. If you check out Tactics 100 leave a comment with how you setup your team and how you fared.

I got the June edition of Official Xbox Magazine in the mail Friday. I got a chance to check out the demo disc today and I’m pretty disappointed. While I don’t recall seeing any of these demos on the Xbox Live Marketplace previously it is quite possible they were and I just never noticed. I gave all three demos a chance even though I was pretty sure going into it that I was not interested in them. I was correct.

The Major League Baseball 2K7 looked promising, but the controls were just so complicated for hitting and pitching that after one inning I quit playing it. I’ve never really been into baseball games so the controls were completely foreign to me. I was going to quit after my second batter, but by some random luck I got a single hit and kept playing thinking maybe it was something I did.

The second demo on the disc was Star Trek: Legacy. After waiting for it to load for 5 minutes it was still only at about 75% loaded. I checked in the magazine and they have a note saying it is a 3 minute load. I gave up on the demo and just restarting my Xbox 360. I doubt this demo is worth the time it takes to load so I’m not even going to bother trying it again.

The final full demo is Winning Eleven Soccer 2007. I gave it a try and it went ok. Soccer games are not really my thing, but I was able to do a decent job moving down the field and taking shots. I lost, but only by one point. Maybe it is just me, but the graphics don’t really look that good. I don’t know if the full game looks better or not, but since the game has been out a few months I would think the demo’s graphics would be about the same as the full game.

The disk also has demos for four Xbox Live Arcade games: Alien Hominid HD, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Worms. Since I’ve already tried all of them I did not bother playing them again. However, for the people out there who do not have access to broadband internet access it gives them a chance to get these games.

The one decent thing about the June Demo Disc was that it had an unlockable theme for PGR4. It looks pretty decent and is much better than the stupid unlockable artwork that they normally have.

When I hear a while back that Settlers of Catan was being made for release on Xbox Live Arcade I was pretty excited. Settlers of Catan is one of my all time favorite board games so to be able to play it with my friends over Live seemed like a great idea. I played a couple games today and I’m pretty impressed with how well put together Catan really is. The developers spent a lot of time adding the little customizations that make this a great game. They have an option to learn as you play so if you or your friends don’t know how Catan works you don’t have to try and explain it before hand. They can just start up the demo and learn as the play a game. The addition of Video Chat is a nice feature since the actual game play is turned based you don’t have to just is there between turns. Sure, you may be trading on other people’s turns, but while they build you can chat with the other players. They also included options to customize the rules with your own “house rules” similar to how Uno does. Since I have friends who play with slightly different rule variations this makes it easy for us to setup the game exactly like we would normally.

The computer AI for single player games has three difficulty settings. However, even on easy they are smart enough not to make ridiculously uneven trades. On harder settings they are careful not to trade you the cards you need to win and are much more ruthless in using the robber. Each AI character plays fairly consistently the same way so if you play enough single player games you can figure out the strategies that each character likes to use. I’ve already got a couple of them figured out (at least on easy). I read an interview with the developers this morning and they are going to release some additional AI players. They also are open to adding the expansion packs if there is enough demand.

The achievements have a decent range of difficulty from getting your first settlement to collecting 1000 victory points in online ranked matches. It is going to take some time to get all of the achievements, but if you play that many games it will give you a chance to hone your strategy until it is perfect. Personally, I’ll probably not be getting very many of these achievements. A game of Catan can take 45 to 60 minutes. I prefer to play Arcade games when I have only 20 or 30 minutes. If I have over a half an hour to play I’m going to play Rainbow Six: Vegas.

As a fan of Settlers of Catan I’m pretty happy with how well the made this version for Xbox Live Arcade. If you’re a fan of Settlers of Catan, or board games in general, then this is worth the $10 price tag.

I downloaded Centipede/Millipede for Xbox Live Arcade this morning and had a chance to play it for a while on my lunch break. When I saw this was coming out I was actually looking forward to it because I played a lot of Centipede as a kid. I’m not into most retro Arcade games on the Xbox 360, but after all the quarter I put into Centipede 400 points is not really that much to play it as often as I want. The fact they put both games together for $5 is nice. Sure, they are essentially the same game, but it is still a nice touch. Both games offer the original and enhanced graphics as well as the original and a hard difficulty setting. The enhanced graphics are a nice (but becoming expected) touch. The controls are simple enough. The left thumb stick moves you and the A button shoots. It would have been nice to see the D-Pad also be able to move you and to be able to shoot with the triggers, but that is not really that big of a deal. The controls were fine with the thumb stick and since I tend to hold the button down to shoot the A button worked ok. It is not the same as using a trackball like I remember using in the arcades, but it works fairly well. As one would expect most of the achievements are for reaching certain point totals, but there are a couple unique ones thrown in like “Destroy all mushrooms on the screen Centipede – Default difficulty.” Still, most of them don’t seem to difficult to pick up.

Overall this is a pretty good value if you’re into the retro games. Two games (even if one is a clone), each with enhanced graphics, for 400 points is pretty decent.

I’ve been playing with Joost on and off for over a month now and I’m still enjoying it. I’m still waiting for more channels, but I don’t really expect them to be added until the Beta ends. I did notice today that I can now send unlimited invites so if anyone else wants an invite let me know. I’ve already sent invites to everyone who had previously requested them in the comments on my original review. I’m pretty excited that they are giving those of us in the Beta unlimited invites because since Joost is a peer-to-peer based program the more people using it the faster it should run. I don’t really notice a lot of buffering times as it is, but faster is always better. If you’re in the Joost Beta as well let me know how you like it.

[Update] Wow. There are a lot of people interested in getting a Joost Invite. I still have plenty more to send so keep the requests coming. Due to the number of invite requests I’ve been getting I’ve made a change to comment moderation. I will be approving comments as I send the invites for them. Now, when you see your comment is posted I will have also sent you the invite for Joost as well. Hope that makes it a little easier for everyone. I’ll continue to try and send out Joost Invites as soon as I receive the requests.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I watched Smoking Aces over a week ago, but I’ve been holding off on writing a review because I just can’t decide if I liked it or not. It is not that I specifically did not like the movie, but it is more that the movie’s plot seemed like an excuse to throw a bunch of actors together and then kill them off. Generally I’m fine with action movies that are just a group of action sequences put together, but in Smoking Aces the fights and action sequence just are not good enough to pull it off. There were some specific scenes I thought were cool, but as a whole this movie was not that great.

Here is a basic rundown of the poor excuse for a plot. A Las Vegas magician, Buddy “Aces” Israel, gets in with the mafia and then agrees to to turn on them to the FBI. As a result a 1 million dollar bounty is offered for whoever kills him and brings the mob leader his heart. The majority of the movie is focused around different contract killers trying to get to Ace’s pent house suite to kill him. During this period Buddy “Aces” is in his hotel room high as a kite while his manager tries to get a deal worked out with the FBI. All of the contract killers get to the hotel at the same time as the FBI and a huge gun fight ensues. Most of the contract killers die and at least a dozen FBI agents get killed including one of the two primary investigators on the case. After this huge fight we find that the contract was not to kill Buddy but to bring him in alive so that the mob boss, who turns out to be his father, can use his heart as a heart transplant. Then, the FBI finds out that the mob boss is actually an undercover FBI agent. The head of the FBI helps him get everything ready for the transplant so that he can keep his undercover agent stays alive and they can get info on the rest of the mob’s organization. When the other FBI agent who was originally on the Buddy Israel case finds this out, and finds out that his partner died for nothing, he locks himself in the room with Aces and the mob boss and unplugs both of their ventilators. The movie ends with him sitting there as they die and all of the doctors and FBI agents trying to get into the room.

I did find it amusing at the end when the one cop who spent all movie trying to protect “Aces” was the one who ended up “Smoking” him. Other than that the movie ends with little fanfare and left me confused with the whole plot. Why didn’t the FBI agents know sooner that the mob boss was an undercover FBI agent? Also, how did they not know that Buddy “Aces” was his son? They just happened to find the information right in time to help him get the heart transplant? How continent.

I can’t really recommend this movie. There were some funny dialog portions in the beginning. Additionally, Ben Afflack’s mustache/goatee was a riot, but he’s only in the first part of the movie before he gets killed. So, don’t bother with this one. There are plenty of other better movies you could be watching.