For the third week in a row there actually was a release on Xbox Live Arcade. It is a retro game, but I’ll try not to hold that against it. I do like the $5 (400 point) price point for this. I tried Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Classic Arcade out and it is exactly like the the original version. The graphics have not been updated like some of the other retro games on XBLA. They are the original arcade version graphics. TMNT is fun for a while, especially if you have fond memories of playing it in an arcade, but after you’ve played for 20 minutes it gets pretty repetitive. However, it is fun to play with friends and it is pretty easy to control since there are only two buttons. This is the type of game that anyone can play and win. It is literally impossible not to beat this game because there is no limit to your lives. Any time you die you can hit continue and keep going. The addition of co-op over Xbox Live is nice, but after you’ve beat the game a few times will you really play it again? You can play through the whole game in about an hour unless you really suck. So, let say you play though it 3 or 4 times; is it worth paying $5 for some 4 hours of entertainment. If the answer to that is yes then this might be a good value for you. Otherwise wait for another week and hope something with lasting appeal gets released.

This is the First Edition of the Entertainment Center Carnival. This carnival will focus on all things related to an entertainment center; including TVs, DVDs, DVRs, reviews, and setup help. For this first edition we have two entries.

First, Praveen presents Branded Interactive Features Coming to DVDs posted at My Simple Trading System. It is a great look at what the future of High Def DVDs holds.

Second, Philip presents Flashback 1998: Saehan MPMan posted at fs-studio blog. It is a nice review of the Eiger Labs MPMan F10; the world’s first MP3 player.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of entertainment center carnival using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I saw 300 today and I have to say that I really liked it. I’m not a movie critique by any means. As long as there is decent action and effects I probably like it, but 300 goes beyond having just a list of fights stringed together. The movie has a unique graphical style that just works. It is by no means realistic, but at the same time it is not over the top with blatant effects and graphics. The graphics are well balanced. The scenes between the fighting are probably there to move the plot along enough to get to the next fight, but I did not really mind them. Without a few breaks in the fighting this movie could have been very intense. As it is, the fights are intense because they make it clear early on that not everyone is going to live through the movie. In most movies you know the heroes are going to win in the end, but with that idea gone it adds volumes to the suspense. A lot of times movies with large battles jump from person to person very quickly to try and convey the speed of battle. 300 instead focus on one or two people through each battle. I love this about 300. The fights actually show people fighting for more than just a half second as they kill their opponent. Sure, some people still die very quickly, but you see the warriors fluid motions as they fight.

My only complaint is the couple of nude scenes that seem to be added just for the sake of putting a few naked women on the screen.

300 will not be for everyone. It is what my wife would call a “guy movie.” It is bloody. It is not really gory. You don’t have people’s guts spilling out, but you do have a lot of blood flying around. Also, it does not have the usual happy ending with the main characters walking off the battle field hurt but able to live the rest of their lives.

I definitely give this film two thumbs up, and I’m glad I saw it in the theater so I could get the full experience. A lot of movies don’t warrant the extra cost to watch in the theater, but movies like 300, with great action and cinematography, are worth the extra few dollars to see in the theater instead of renting it.

Before last week I had not played Worms since I was in high school. Fortunately, an updated version of Worms was released for Xbox Live Arcade last week. The simple, but addictive, gameplay is still there. If you’re not familiar with Worms, basically, you take a team of worm soldiers and attack an enemy team. The game combines arcade and strategy elements very smoothly. The updated graphics look good and fit the game’s fun goofy style.

What really makes the game fun is the weapons. They have the standard guns like the Uzi and Shotgun, but it the unique items that really make Worms fun. If you’re use to playing an older version of Worms you will notice some of the weapons have been removed, but for those people who have never played before your ignorance is bliss. The Banana Bomb, Kamikaze, and Homing Missle are still there but others like the Holy Hand Grenade are gone. The weapons that are available are great fun, but anyone old enough to have played past versions is going to notice the missing weapons.

The game allows for 4 players either locally or over Live. The controls are simple and there is a nice set of tutorials that explain how to do everything. Also, it is turn based so you don’t have to worry about getting beat because you can’t fight as fast as your opponent. These items make this a great game to play with non-gamers. It is not a true party game like Fuzion Frenzy or Mario Party, but it also work in that role.

At 800 points, $10, the price seems a bit high, but with the multiplayer options there is a good amount of replay value. I’m going to give it one thumb up and save the second thumb in case they release some download content that includes more maps and weapons.

I’ve been using the Creative MuVo TX FM for well over a year now. It works very well as a gym MP3 player. It is light weight. It has an optional belt clip, arm band, and a slot to hang on a lanyard. It is flash based so it will be fine getting tossed around during a workout. It supports WMA and MP3 files formats. I think it supports a few other formats, but I don’t recall what they are because all my music is already in these formats anyway. It is USB based so you just plug it into your computer and drag the song files over.

The built in radio works fine. I use it in the gym to listen to games they have on TV. It allows for assigning presets or scanning through stations so it works well in most areas. It has a built in voice recorder that I’ve never used. I’m not sure what exactly someone would use it for, but it is there if you need it for something.

The screen is small, but the menu system works fine. The only time I look at the screen is when I turn it on. Since it is designed for use at the gym or while biking I don’t see that a larger screen would really provide a lot of benefit. It would increase the size of the player, but that does not really benefit small workout style mp3 player like this.

I do have a couple minor complaints. First, the battery life is not very good. The battery looses power even if you don’t have the MP3 player on. Many times I’ll go to use it after having it sit on the desk for a couple weeks only to find it dead. It only takes a single AAA battery so I don’t expect it to last forever, but it should not run down when it is off. Second, the head phones that come with it are not very comfortable. They sound ok, but not as good as a decent pair of headphones would sound. I’m also not a fan of the wiring style where it runs to the left ear and the right ear runs off that.

So that brings us to the Audio quality; probably the most important factor in an MP3 player. I’m not an export on audio quality, but I do recognize if something sounds bad. The MuVo TX FM has decent audio quality. Not the best I’ve ever heard, but just fine for working out.

Over all this is a decent MP3 player for the gym, but if you’re the type of person who listens to their MP3 player all day you’ll want to find something else.

I don’t mind when people smoke. I use to spend a few weeks each summer with my Aunt. She smoked and I have grown use to the smell. What I mind is people who blow smoke in your direction when they could easily go the other direction or who ignore No Smoking signs. I don’t go to their designated smoking areas and spray air fresheners. Please don’t come to my non-smoking area and smoke.

This is especially annoying at my office because people like to smoke right outside the front door so it is impossible to go in or out without walking through a cloud of smoke made by 4 or 5 smokers. The area clearly states it is non-smoking but there is pretty much always someone smoking there. I’m still trying to think of some good ways to get them back, but I’ve not thought of any yet. I was thinking of “adjusting” the sprinklers so that they point at that area and then setting them off at random intervals, but that requires I pay attention to when people are out there and I never notice until I go to lunch. If you have any ideas for a good prank style payback for these rude smokers let me know.

I recently played through Halo 2’s co-op mode on Legendary. I realized a couple things while playing. First, while graphics are an essential part of a game they are not the primary factor in what makes a game fun. Despite the fact the game is a few years old now and the graphics are not as nice as newer games like Gears of War or Rainbow Six Vegas I had a lot of fun playing through the story again with one of my co-workers. Second, Legendary is long when the person you are playing with dies a lot.

The gameplay stands up to these current releases because it is well designed and balanced. There are a lot of ways to make a game fun. Halo 2 does it by giving the player a combination of enemy strength and intelligence to deal with. The strongest enemies are not the smartest, but they make up for that being only vulnerable on a few spots. On the other side, the smartest enemies are vulnerable to attack everywhere . There is a good balance here. The AI in this game plays fairly smart. Enemies roll out of the way of grenades and if they get hurt they will go hide to get their shields to recharge. Overall it plays really well.

Split screen co-op brings a couple extra difficulties. First, it is hard to tell which player the audio alerts are for. Many times I think my shield is down when it is my partners and vise versa. However, the biggest difficulty factor on co-op Legendary is that neither of you can die. On easier difficulty levels if one of you dies then you just re-spawn in when there are no enemies around. On Legendary there is no re-spawning. This makes levels with a lot of Jackal snipers very difficult because they almost always get you with a head shot if you stop moving. You pretty much have to play through those levels a few times and learn where all the snipers are and pick them all off one by one.

Halo set the bar for co-op gameplay and Halo 2 builds on that perfectly. The single player story if fun to play alone, but it is even more fun with a team mate.

In case you had not noticed an update was released for Rainbow Six: Vegas this week. In it there were about a dozen bug fixes and a few major gameplay changes (full list below). It is nice that Xbox Live allows for games with bugs to get fixed, but really I’d prefer that companies test their games better so updates are not needed. I can understand the need for some updates to combat rampant cheating – like Halo 2 had before the first update. What I don’t understand is why they thought it would be a good idea to change the gameplay mechanics. Specifically, why they would change the accuracy of the weapons after the game has been out for months. It is not like they just changed one or two guns either. They changed pretty much all of them. Yes, the shotguns were to accurate at longer ranges, but are easily to combat with grenades. Or, even easier, turn them off in the game setup. Besides the shotguns, the other guns were pretty well balanced. I played a few matches right after the update was released and the Assault Rifles seem a lot more powerful than before and the SMGs are now pretty much worthless. With all of these changes, I’ll have to go back and try them all again to find what works best.

Ubisoft, get it right the first time or accept your mistakes. Don’t make major gameplay changes months after release. Bug fixes are fine. Additional maps and game types are great. But not changes to something that is part of the core gameplay like weapon accuracy.

RSV X360 Title Update
Here’s a list of what’s been changed in this version:

Bug Fixes:
> Optimized the network replication of custom faces. You should see everyone’s custom face much faster in an online match.
> Fixed a bug where you can get stuck on a ladder in Border Town.
> Grenades no longer go through walls.
> Fixed the sound loop on weapons.
> Observers no longer cause a Team Unbalance penalty on experience points.
> Fixed a crash related to throwing an incendiary grenade and then quickly using your snake cam before it exploded.
> Leaderboards are now correctly updating results from ranked matches.
> Fixed a bug where you could lose your weapon.
> Killing terrorists with incendiary grenades now works correctly in Terrorist Hunt.
> C4 explosives are now properly seen by clients when placed on moveable objects.
> Players are now vulnerable to grenades when using mounted weapons.
> Fixed bugs related to the Survivor and Special Operations achievements.
> Host can no longer kick players once the match has started. Players can only be kicked in the lobby, or automatically kicked by excessive team-killing.

Gameplay Tweaks:
The weapons have been rebalanced based on the feedback you’ve given us. Thank you for your patience and continued support in making Rainbow Six Vegas the great multiplayer game that it is. Without further delay, here are the changes we’ve brought to the weapons:

Sub Machine Guns
SMGs are now less lethal at long ranges. The damage they do at long range has been reduced in order to bring them more in line with how this type of gun should behave. SMGs remain very lethal at short to medium range.

Assault Rifles
Assault Rifles are now where we wanted them to be. They’re more maneuverable than before and you can more accurately take aim at your target. The Assault Rifles excel at medium to long range when fired in short controlled bursts.

Light Machine Guns
The amount of recoil when firing light machine guns has been significantly reduced, therefore making them much more accurate than before. This weapon excels when fired from a stationary position. It’s not meant to be a very manuverable weapon.

Shotguns
Damage at long range has been reduced for shotguns. However, they’re still extremely lethal at short range.

Sniper Rifles
Sniper Rifles have gotten the attention they deserve. Sniper Rifles are more accurate and benefit from an increase in damage. The key to being successful with a sniper rifle is to remain stationary when aiming at your target.

Gadgets
Frag Grenade: The explosive radius of the fragmentation grenade has been slightly reduced.
GPS Device: The scanning radius of the GPS has been slightly reduced, along with the number of uses it has.

Alien Hominid was released for Xbox Live Arcade last Wednesday. I finally stopped playing Crackdown long enough to check it out, but I wish I hadn’t. I’m glad to see something getting released on XBLA, and I do like the graphical style of the game. It reminds of the Metal Slug games I played in the past. Other than the graphical style of the game there was not a lot of stuff I liked about the game. I found it very hard and frustrating. The controls themselves are easy enough to pick up, but the lack of any health bar makes it a one-hit-kills play style. This would be ok if you had a way to defend yourself, but you your only defense is to jump, roll, or dig. Basically, the gameplay boils down to shoot as fast as you can and hope you can jump over attacks in time. There are plenty of other games that have this same play style that are fun to play, but the graphical style of Alien Hominid made it hard at times to see the enemy attacks coming at you. I don’t know about you, but I can’t dodge attacks that I can’t see. It got to the point where I just decided it was not worth it and I quit playing. So, Crackdown is back on my Xbox 360 now and it will probably be there until I get the urger to play some Rainbow Six: Vegas. I’m sure there are people who like game a lot, but I’m not one of them.

In my recent review of online word processors I mentioned that my only complaint about Zoho Writer was the inablilty to create folders. Since posting that I’ve had a couple people mention ways to to get around this.

First, Zoho Writer has a built in option that lets you use the tag names as “folders”. The full details on it are available here. It is not a true folder where documents can be stored, but it does add the tag to the left side bar. When clicked it on all of the documents with that tag are opened. This a useful tool, but it does not help clean up my mess of documents.

The second method was mentioned in the comments on the origional post. It is to use OmniDrive with Zoho Writer. You can add folders on OmniDrive and launch your Zoho Writer from there. So, it is not directly putting folders in Zoho Writer, but it does allow for using folders with Zoho Writer. I don’t really have a need for an OmniDrive account currently, but I may have to check it out if Zoho doesn’t add folders in the coming weeks.

Both of these options are nice, but don’t change the fact I’m getting a rather long list of documents in Zoho Writer. I can sort them by name, created date, modified date, or tags. None of these things help me organize them to the extent I’m looking for, but since I’m not paying anything for Zoho Writer I guess I should not complain too much.