So, Bungie released a couple new Halo 2 maps today. I figure anyone interested in these maps already knows all about them, but it not you can get more info here. Personally, I’m not going to pick up these 2 maps. I don’t see a reason. I quit playing Halo 2 over a year ago. I did not even know people were still playing Halo 2. I guess if one has not been able to get an Xbox 360 yet, but they still have their Xbox they might still be playing Halo 2. Other than that I don’t see anyone else playing Halo 2. I looked through my friends list (all 97 gamertags) and none of them have played Halo 2 in months. So, Bungie can’t be releasing these maps because they expect to make a lot of money of off them. At $4, yes $2 per map, it seems expensive for a game that has been out for almost 2 and a half years. Why are they even still spending time making maps for Halo 2? Shouldn’t they be focusing on getting Halo 3 finished? If anyone buys these maps post what you think of them in the comments.

I finally completed my first Xbox Reward challenge by getting 1500 achievement points. I took me longer than I thought it would, but in my defense I was out of town for 2 weeks with no Xbox 360. It is nice to get rewarded for something I’m going to do anyway; in this case playing video games. Now, if I could find someone to pay me to sleep that would be cool. I got the free copy of Contra and a free Gamer Picture for getting the 1500 points before April 22. There were more prizes available, but they were in limited quantities. Guess I did not complete the challenge fast enough to get them.

The rewards this time around are ok. There were some decent prizes in limited quantities (like a copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2) so people with more time to play got the better prizes, but since this was the very first reward contest I’m ok with that. Once this contest ends on the 22nd I think it will be easier for future rewards contest to be a lot better because they will have an idea of how many people will complete the challenge and thus offer the right number of rewards.

As far as I know they have not announced what the next contest will be, but I think instead of going off the number of achievement points they should look at doing it off the number of achievements you unlock. That way the points don’t matter, but you still have to hit a certain goal.

Did anyone else complete the first Xbox Rewards challenge? If so, what prizes did you get?

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to download the Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia Demo that was released yesterday. I figured since it was a free demo I’d give it a try. Now that I tried it I wish I had not wasted my time. I knew going into it that the game looked like it was made for the 12-15 age group, but I like a good hack-n-slash so I thought I’d try it anyway. Setting aside the graphical style of the game is not that appealing to me I had a lot of issues.

When you start a game it has you pick one of four playable characters. Each character starts with three available weapons; their hands, dual pistols, and a shotgun. Each character also has a preferred weapon that is suppose to be somewhere on the level that you can find and use. I tried out all four characters, and I was only able to find the preferred weapon for two of them. The game narrator tells you that their preferred weapon with have a little thumbs up symbol next to it, but I never saw that symbol for any of the characters. I just got lucky and figured out two of their preferred weapons from their picture.

Once I found the preferred weapon picking it up was another story. Pretty much everything on the level can be used as a weapon. At first this seems like it would be cool , but because there are so many items on the map it makes it difficult to pick up a specific one without an enemy coming up and hitting you while you try to position yourself right above the item you want. Additionally, all of the items on the level move around when you or the enemies bump into them. There were a lot of items I’d go to pick something up only to bump it further across the room while zombies were hitting me in the back.

The other big issue I had was with the controls. You control your character in normal First Person Shooter style where the left thumb stick moves you and the right thumb stick aims you. This would be fine if the game was in first person, but it is not. The camera sits up above the gameplay showing you a large portion of the room you are in. So, I constantly was having to turn around to try and attack enemies that were behind be. It would not have been too bad controlling the game like this, but to pick up items you have to hit the X button which means you can no longer turn because have to take you thumb off the right stick. Because items were already hard to pick up this became very frustrating. Right as I’d get positioned to pick up an item it would get bumped so I would have to turn around, chase it down, and then hope it did not get moved while I tried to get positioned just right to pick it up.

After about 20 minutes I got tired of fighting the controls, quit my game, and delete the demo from my drive. Next time I know in advance that a game is not geared for me I’m not going to bother with trying the demo. After wasting 30 minutes of my life yesterday I realize there are plenty of good games out there that I don’t need to bother with the ones that suck.

An Auto Update was released for Gears of War Monday that, among other small changes, adds a new gametype to Gears of War. This new gametype is called Annex. Annex is essentially “King of the Hill” where the hill moves after it has been held for a minute. A big difference between normal King of the Hill games and Annex is that in Annex once you claim the hill you don’t have to stay in it to keep scoring points. You just have to keep the other team from claiming it. Additionally, Annex is the only game mode in Gears of War that allows for respawning.

So, the big questions about Annex is “Is it fun?”. That answer to that is Hell Yes! Annex is quickly becoming my favorite gametype in Gears. Execution is still a lot of fun, but at times the game play can slow down as people don’t want to loose their only life right as the match starts. Annex eliminate this in two ways. First, there is always a mad rush to get to the hill area. Second, you don’t have to worry about dying to much because of the unlimited respawns. These two items together make for a lot of intense fighting over the hill. Before the addition of Annex my favorite maps were the ones where the power weapons (ie. sniper, boom shot, and torque bow) are evenly placed in the middle of the map. This causes the game to start with a mad rush to beat the other team to them. Annex essentially takes this mad rush and builds a whole game mode around it. The one thing that takes a little getting use to is that in Annex when you respawn you don’t respawn at your base. You respawn in random locations, but the “random” location is pretty much always at the opposite end of the map from the hill.

The update with Annex also made some other changes. Here is the list of changes:
* VGA Cable Support: Monitor resolution widths greater than or equal to 1280 now render as letterbox. In particular VGA users running at 1280×1024 will now see the game in full 720p (1280×720) resolution in letterboxed form.
* Adjusted Assassination Multiplayer Gametype: Leader no longer has to unlock weapons and now has to be executed to die.
* Adjusted Boomshot: Splash damage to be more effective rendering targets down-but-not-out
* Adjusted Lancer: Increased damage slightly
* Adjusted Hammer of Dawn: Aiming will be more forgiving of moving targets
* Adjusted Roadie Run: Reduced frequency of accidentally grabbing cover while running
* Kill Message Ticker: Ticker can now be seen while down-but-not-out and spectating
* General: Addressed a number of possible exploits in multiplayer

I’m fine with the changes to the Lancer, the Boomshot, the Hammer of Dawn, and the Assassination gametype. I would have preferred they left it alone, but the changes to the Rodie Run are terrible. I did not have to much of an issue before the update with accidentally sticking to things while roadie running. The people I play with each Tuesday were not having issues with it either. After a few hours of playing last night all of us came to the conclusion that the changes to the roadie run are terrible. You stick to everything now. It is a lot worse that it use to be. On Epic’s forums one of the developers made this post about it:

(dozens of complaining threads about this which I believe just from not understanding the change, so here you go…)

Before the update while roadie running the game would automatically check for cover acquisition every frame – looking a short distance wherever the player’s character was facing.

Now with the update the game will perform the same check, *except* that it now looks which direction you’re pushing on the left-stick (the one you’re steering with) relative to the direction your character is facing. If you are pushing no direction on the stick it defaults to the original check. If you’re getting sucked into cover *TRY PUSHING AWAY FROM WALLS WHEN ROADIE RUNNING*.

However, I had read this information before playing on the update, and I tried pushing away from items I was running towards but I was still sticking to everything. When you’re running down a hallway and you push away from one side it sticks you to the other side. It makes it very hard to go around a corner or obstacle because if you try to turn to the right you stick to the corner because you are pressing that direction. In a lot of cases I found it faster to just walk normally through some sections of the level than to roadie run.

So, the update with Annex is kind of a wash in my opinion. The new game mode is great, but the other changes were not necessary. Why do developers feel that they should change core game play features well after a game is released? Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas both did it and in both cases the fans of the game hated the changes. Developers, either get it right the first time or accept your mistakes. If there are blatant bugs, please, fix then, but don’t change core gameplay features. That means don’t change how the weapons work, don’t change how quickly you can move, and don’t change gametype play settings.

Boom Boom Rocket was released on Xbox Live Arcade today. I took some time to check it out this morning. Boom Boom Rocket is pretty much Dance Dance Revolution played with a controller. All of the button presses are timed to the beats of the music so if you have no rhythm this one might be pretty hard for you. I played percussion (drums) for years and I still had a lot of trouble on the Hard difficulty. On Easy I breezed through it. On Normal things got pretty tense, but on Hard I could not make it through the first 30 seconds. The game is simple to play but tough to master. It supports two players on the same screen but no support for playing over Xbox Live. It is probably better that way because any lag at all would kill your ability to effectively play.

Boom Boom Rocket comes with 10 songs. For a game where you play to the music that is not a lot of songs. Sure, each song can be played on three difficulty settings and in two different game modes, but after playing through these songs for the 6th or 8th time the increased difficulty will not change the fact that you are hearing the same songs over and over. When I first heard about this game I was thinking it would have closer to 20 songs. Having only 10 really cuts the value of this game down.

The Achievements for Boom Boom Rocket range from easy to very very hard. You can easily get the first achievement withing the first minute of playing, but the harder ones will take hours of practice to earn.

Personally, Boom Boom Rocket is not for me. With only 10 songs it gets to repetitive to fast. I played for 30 minutes and was already getting board. For an 800 point ($10) game I expect some level of lasting appeal, but Boom Boom Rocket just doesn’t have any appeal for me.

Despite my complaints with Tetris Evolution I ended up renting it because my wife is a big fan of Tetris. We played for a while the other night and the game itself plays fine. I’ve heard some people complaining about the 360 controller not working well for Tetris, but I did not have any issues with it. It plays as well as any version I’ve played on a console before.

The game does offer a lot of play modes and customization. Besides the standard “Marathon” mode, which is the standard playing most of us are use to, there are 6 other game modes that offer different scoring variations. The Cascade and Hot Line modes are not my style, but Ultra and Go Low are pretty fun variations. In addition to the mode and scoring variations there are numerous other ways to customize the game to play exactly how you want. You can turn ghost on, allow for endless rotating, turn on garbage, turn a grid on, and more. Also, you can customize your background with your own pictures or video clips. Personally, I don’t see then need for playing a slide show of my photos in the background as it is just a distraction from the game, but Lumines Live had similar it so I expect other puzzle games will begin to pick up on this trend. I guess you could use the slide show to your advantage by trying to distract your opponents, but other than that I don’t see the benefit of having a changing background.

If your a fellow Achievement Whore then keep in mind that Tetris Evolution is not a quick 1000 points. The achievements are mostly for getting a specific scores in the different game modes. Each game mode has a few different scores you need to reach to get all of the achievements. The lower ones are pretty easily attainable, but some of the higher scores are going to take a lot of work.

That brings us to the multiplayer. I played against my wife for a while on out 32 inch SD TV and did not have any trouble. It played smoothly. We had a good time trying to outlast each other in Marathon and then trying to beat each other’s high scores in Ultra mode. After she got done playing I tried a few matches on Xbox Live and it played just as smoothly. I could not tell any difference between playing online and playing split screen. Given that the most people playing together over Live is only 4 I did not expect to have any issues with lag (like you might see in a 14 player room of Rainbow Six: Vegas) and my expectations were met. Finally, Tetris fans can prove they are as good as they say they are by playing opponents all over the world.

Even though I am having fun playing Tetris Evolution I’m still not sure it is worth $30. Even with all the customizations and online play I still fine myself spending most of my time playing the standard marathon mode. I would much rather pay $10 or $15 bucks for an Xbox Live Arcade version. They should have left out all of the options to play videos and pictures as the background, and then put it on XBLA. If you are a huge Tetris fan, or if you need a version of Tetris to play in HD, then Tetris Evolution is probably for you. For anyone else, wait a few months and pick up a used copy.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica is really split into four parts. For the first portion of the season the remnants of the human race are mostly on New Caprica trying to free themselves from Cylon oppression. There are a few humans on the fleet’s ships who got away and are trying to work out a way to free the rest of the race, but this is only a handful of people. This part of the season lasted for only 4 episodes, but during those 4 hours of television there were some intense moments.

• Tigh’s wife, Ellen, gets him freed from the detention center by sleeping with one of the Cylons and keeps him freed by providing them information about the resistance. When Tigh finds out he kills for being a collaborator by poisoning her.
• Baltar is “president” but is forced at gun point to sign the death warrants for over 100 people. The resistance finds out and is able to save the people from the firing squad.
• Sharon is reinstated as an officer by Admiral Adama and sent to the planet to help prepare the resistance for the return of the fleet and their escape from the planet.
• Kara is held by the Cylons and told that they used her eggs to make a baby. When Adama and the fleet return she is able to escape with Ander’s help only to find out it is not her child at all.
• In their escape from the planet Sharon’s baby, Hera, is found and taken by the Cylons.
• The return of the fleet was one of the best space fights the show has had. They jump Galactica strait into the planets atmosphere , release all the vipers and then jump into orbit. Lee, who was suppose to stay with the Pegasis and guard the rest of the fleet, takes the Pegasis into the fight just in time to save Galactica, but they loose the ship in the process.

As you can see there was a lot that happened in the first part of the season. The episodes moved at a quick pace and they cap off this porting of the season by escaping the planet with around 8000 less people then they originally started the colony there with. Many were killed or captured during the 4 months they were on the planet under Cylon control, but many others dies in the escape.

The second portion of the season show the various members of the fleet trying to recover from their time on New Caprica. During these 6 episodes there is a lot of episodes where they try to display the different character’s responses to the time on the planet. Even though President Roslyn issues a pardon to everyone for anything that happened during the occupation some of the members of the resistance decided to take matters into their own hands and kill the worst of the collaberators. They finally stop when they are about to kill Gaeta and then find out he was their contact on the inside who was feeding them information. The humans discover that the Cylons are suseptible to disease but in the end don’t use biological weapons against them when they could have easily killed the enter Cylon poulation. During this section of the season we also learn that it was the humans who first broke the treaty they had with the Cylons by crossing the boarder they had originally setup with them. Additionally, it was Adama who was in charge of this mission that caused the Cylons to retaliate and nuke all 12 colonies.

The third portion of the season occurs on an alge planet that the humans are harvesting for food. Tyrol finds a temple on the planet that they think points the way to Earth. The Cylons also find the planet and there is a standoff between them and the humans. The humans can’t get off the planet and the Cylons can’t get on it without coming under fire from the other. Sharon finds out that Hera is still alive on the Cylon ships and has Helo, her husband, kill her so she can resurrect and get Hera. She does succeed in getting Hera with the help of Six. A single Cylon ship makes it to the planet with a copy of D’Anna and Baltar on it and a few of the walking toasters. On Galactica, Gaeta realize a star in the area is about to explode. The humans on the planet are able to capture Baltar and get off the planet just in time to escape before the whole place is incinerated by the start exploding. As a result they realize they know at least part of the path to Earth. This portion of the season is only two episodes long, but it marks a critical turning point in the season. The humans now have the start to a pathway to Earth.

The last 8 episodes of the season deal with the lead up to Baltar’s trial for treason. There are a few filler episodes in this section, in my opinion, that did not add a lot to the overall story, but I still enjoyed watching all of them. As Baltar’s trial approaches, Lee joins the defense for Baltar after getting in trouble and being assigned as body guard for Baltar’s lawyer. Lee gets in a fight with his father and steps down/is discharged from his role in the military. He proves to be a valuable asset to Baltar’s defense when he figures out that President Roslin is taking drugs.It turns out this is because her cancer has returned. In the end Baltar is acquitted mostly because of Lee’s testimony. As the final episode ends the humans make it to the location they found out about on the alge planet only to find the Cylons there as well. The season ends as the battle is about to begin.

One underlying theme through out the whole season was with Baltar trying to determine who the other 5 Cylon models are and if he is one of them or not. In the final episode of the season we find out who four of the five are. They are Tigh, Anders, Tyrol and Tory (President Roslin’s assistant). They all find out at the same time that they are Cylons when they follow some strange music they are hearing to the same room. All of them know it to be true and decide to ignore it and get back to their lives as “humans” as the Cylon fleet apreaches their position.

I really enjoyed season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. When the humans decided to stay on the planet they find, with Baltar as president, last season I was hoping it would not be for very long. Even though it was only four episodes the effects of their time on New Caprica can be seen throughout the whole season. The season starts with the humans fighting the Cylons and with the entire Cylon fleet about to attack them, but it ends with them them much closer to Earth.. I’m really looking forward to next season and hopefully some more progress on the trek to Earth.

I heard somewhere this game is what spawned the idea for Zuma. I’m not sure it it is true or not, but I like Zuma so I was looking forward to Luxor 2. I’m not that great at Zuma (I’ve never completely beat the whole game) so I was a little concerned Luxor 2 would be hard to control since I’m use to Zuma and its stationary, rotating turret. However, I was pleasantly surprised with Luxor 2. It is really easy to control. In addition to being able to slide back and forth with either joystick you can also use the triggers to slide quickly. The gameplay itself is simple, but addictive. As rows of colored balls scroll across the screen you have to shoot matching colored balls to form groups of three that then disappear. Seems simple enough, right? Well, it is simple, but it quickly becomes more difficult as the rows speed up and make turns throughout the levels.

The gameplay is very similar to Zuma, but I think I’m going to like Luxor 2 more than Zuma. One thing that Luxor 2 has over Zuma is that when you chain combos together it gives you useful power-ups. In Zuma the only things you can do are slow down, stop, or reverse the lines that are approaching. In Luxor 2 they add power-ups that let you turn an entire section of the row a single color, shoot lightning that takes out entire columns, and shoot daggers that take out a single ball of any color. These power-ups make the game a lot more fun because even when it gets more difficult, as long as you can pull off a few combos, you get rewarded with a power-up to help against the ever advancing rows. I’m also pretty impressed with how they did the Achievements. They are a nice spread of difficulty. A few of them are for beating the different modes of the game, but others are acquired by playing through any level exceptionally well. It doesn’t matter which level; so, I was able to pickup up a few of them within the first couple levels of the game. I like that they did not just do achievements for beating level X, but actually push the player to be accurate and stay alive.

Generally I’m not one to get 800 point ($10) arcade games, but after playing through the demo twice I knew it would have enough replay value to be worth it for me. If you are not a fan of Zuma’s style then don’t bother with this one, but if you are then Luxor 2 is a great addition to add to your Xbox Live Arcade library.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

This past weekend I watched Children of Men on DVD. I had seen the trailer and a 30 minute show about the making of the movie on the SciFi channel so I knew it was a movie I wanted to watch. I liked Children of Men a lot, but not for the reasons I thought I would. I’ll get to why I like the movie shortly.

For those of you not familiar, Children of Men is set in 2027. The entire world has pretty much fallen into anarchy. Only Britain, which is where the movie is set, is able to continue on with any sort of civility. Terrorism is rampant, but the government combats it by deporting illegal immigrants and working in a military state with road checkpoints and internment camps. The main thing they point out is that no babies have been born since 2009. As the movie progresses we find out that no one knows why women stopped having children, but that at the time it happened pregnant women all over the world were having miscarriages and those that were not pregnant were not able to get pregnant. The movie starts with the youngest person alive being stabbed in a fight. He was 18 years old. The main character, Theo, starts the movie by just missing being killed by a bomb in a coffee shop. We learn that he works in the Department of Energy in some nameless desk job. He gets pulled into a plan to help get a girl, Kee, to the coast by his ex-wife Julian. After agreeing to help because of an offer to pay him $5000 he soon finds out this is not an ordinary girl. She is pregnant and he is to help get her to a group of scientist who have a medical ship disguised as a fishing boat.

I thought I was going to like Children of Men because it was an action/sci-fi movie. In reality, the only thing sci-fi I saw in the whole movie was a brief glimpse at Theo’s cubical showing a futuristic looking computer monitor. There were action elements in the movie (car chases, gun battles, explosions, etc) but where an action movie would highlight these points Children of Men shows how they effect Theo and Kee. The movie is not shot like a normal action movie either. Instead of showing a whole scene where a fight is occurring the camera follows Theo around. It reminded me a lot of how the camera work is done in Battlestar Gallactica. It sort of seems like a documentary being filmed about Theo. The camera was always there following him. When their car was being chased the camera was in the car with them showing the chase from within the car. When Theo is running to escape a gun fight the camera follows instead of focusing on the battle. It was different than most movies I see, but I really enjoyed it.

Towards the end of the movie it becomes evident that Kee is going to have the baby before they get where they are going. My only complaint about the whole movie was the scene where Kee gives birth. The whole thing takes place in under a minute. A couple quick pushes and out came the baby. I’m not sure extending the scene would have added to the movie at all, but it would have added to the realism a little. After the child is born there is a very moving scene where Theo is trying to get Kee and her baby out of a building that is filled with rebels and is being attacked by the army. As they begin to head out of the building the baby starts crying. All of the civilians in the building line the halls to see the baby, the first in 18 years, as they walk through. No one stops them as the walk. A few people reach out to touch the child’s feet, but mostly they just look in awe. As they approach the exit the army storms in and the first soldier sees the baby and calls for a cease fire. They walk out through the soldiers who stop fighting to look at the baby. As they get further away from the building a rocket is fired from the building the the silence of the cease fire is broken as the soldiers turn from watching the baby and return fire.

Theo and Kee run from the building to a rowboat they had arranged to use previously. Theo rows out them out and shows Kee how to burp he daughter since Kee has never been around a baby before. Kee sees blood in the bottom of the boat and thinks she is bleeding, but Theo calms her and says that it was he that had been shot. As Theo fades out of consciousness, presumably dying, the movie ends with Kee spotting the scientists’ boat.

Even though the plot of the movie was about Theo helping Kee get to the coast the movie was really about hope. How something as small as a baby can bring hope to an entire country and possibly to the world. My review can’t do justice to how good this movie is. It was the best movie I’d seen in a very long time.

The contest I was running to give away Uno and Robotron on Xbox Live Arcade as well as a month subscription to GameznFlix.com is now over. With a total of 52 entries the top vote, with 10 votes, for most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade game is Worms. TMNT came in second with 5 votes. After that no other game has more than 3 votes. So, at least 15 of you are happy because both Worms and TMNT have been released.

That brings us to our contest winner. oldmanwhistler has won the contest with his vote for Settles of Catan.

oldmanwhistler check your message on Xbox Live for the game codes and GameznFlix.com subscription code.

Everyone else, if you have ideas for future contests, post them here and let me know.