Blowing up and up and up in ‘Splosion Man

There’s a couple more great deals going on over at Xbox Live this week, and so I snagged ‘Splosion Man for 400 Microsoft Points. Yes, I’m using them up slowly and methodically, but I’d like to think I’m putting them to good use. Got Peggle and Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting as well, which I’ve enjoyed immensely and somewhat, respectively. Still need to blow my remaining 400 MP, but I’m not sure just yet. I might wait another week to see what new deals pop up…

But yeah, ‘Splosion Man. It’s a kooky game. You’re a dude that explodes. That’s just how you get around. Press A…and you ‘splode. Press X…and you ‘splode. I think you get it. Guess some scientists thought this would be a fun little experiment to play. Well, I think we showed them another thing:

Get Them Out of Our Schools (10G): Eliminate 10 Scientists and stop them from spreading their filthy lies.

So you use yourself as a self-detonating rocket to get around the levels. You can explode up to three times in a row before having to recharge your juices. The first few levels are rather simple, but they do an excellent job of teaching you some wall-jumping tricks and just how far ‘Splosion Man can leap. The main obstacles are the level pitfalls, with toxic fluid tanks below and closed off barriers. Getting around these is relatively easy to figure out, but still might take a few tries; thankfully, the game has frequent save checkpoints. I’ve only played about the first ten levels, and it seems like I have 40 more to go. Cool, cool.

Also, the sound design is phenomenal. Quirky, rock-n-roll tracks keep you moving through the levels, and ‘Splosion Man himself is just brimming with odd noises and bumbling mumbling. Love it. Reminds me a bit of the good ol’ days when main characters really had personalities that seemed to come out of the TV screen, such as Bubsy and Blasto and Earthworm Jim. Have not gotten to the song about donuts though that I read about many moons ago on the Interwebz, but I’m sure it’s fantastic as well.

Achievement-wise, it’s decidedly odd. There’s the usually “do X amount of times,” as well as one for beating the entire single-player game and collecting cake in each level. Then there’s these:

Master of Contrls (10G): Change the controls around in the “Controls” menu.

Get Over Yourselves (10G): Select “Credits” from the “Help & Options” menu and watch the whole thing.

Like I said…odd. Either way, exploding over and over again is right up my alley. I’m looking forward to it later.

Gift cards, and Microsoft Points, and bears! Oh, my!

I have a love/hate relationship with gift cards. Many people probably find them to be the greatest gift ever in that they can now go out and buy anything. I have the exact opposite problem; with a gift card, I can now go out and buy anything. That anything, in my mind, is really anything, an extremely broad selection that comprises books, movies, games, art supplies, clothes, food, and so on.

That said, I’ve had an Amazon gift card sitting in my desk drawer since last Christmas. You know, that holiday from six months yonder. Yeah, I’m just not good at spending those things, and I guess I was waiting for something to really grab my attention, but it hasn’t yet. So I instead used it to–and here comes the irony–to buy 1600 Microsoft Points (MSP) for Xbox Live. Yes, I used a gift card to essentially buy another gift card. Do you dare ask why?

Well, there’s a special deal going on this week to get Peggle at 50% off, meaning 400 Microsoft Points. This deal is only good for Gold members, which I just currently happen to be. I’ve always been interested in the colorful, bubbly addictive puzzle since I played the trial version, and the deal was too good to pass up.

But now I have a problem. I have 1200 MSP remaining, and just like I had trouble spending my Amazon gift card, I’m struggling to decide what to do with them. I could get three more 400 MSP games, or an 800 MSP and a 400 MSP combo, or I could buy some add-ons to games already in my collection (i.e., Borderlands, GTA IV, Mass Effect). I’m not really interested in wasting the points on TV shows, Avatar items, or silly things like themes and gamerpics. So, any ideas? I heard Braid is pretty good, currently priced at 800 MSP. I guess I could ultimately hold on to them and wait for something else to come out (will LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 have DLC? I doubt it), but then I’m just doing what I’ve always done with these things: procrastinating.

One thing I know is that I most certainly will not be buying the Midnight Show DLC for The Saboteur despite how much fun I’m having with the game. The comment at the end of The First Hour‘s review of the game seals the deal; I’m not playing The Saboteur for the nudity, I’m playing it to blow up Nazis and sabotage the bleep out of enemy headquarters.

But yeah. I need ideas for Xbox Live games. Remember, I have 1200 to spend. Please don’t suggest anything that is solely multiplayer as who knows how long I will keep my Gold account locked in. Thanks in advance! Phooey on you in advance too if you suggest nothing.

DEMO IMPRESSIONS: Snoopy Flying Ace

Peanuts characters and aerial dogfighting. It seems like an obvious and punny combination, right? Well, Snoopy Flying Ace, an Xbox Live Arcade game that is all about chaotic multiplayer and shooting down the Red Baron, puts it to the test.

Here’s the official game description:

“You can’t have aerial dogfighting without the dog! Join Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the rest of the Peanuts gang in the premier online flight shooter on Xbox LIVE Arcade, Snoopy Flying Ace. With simple flight controls and a hangar full of customizable planes and weapons, all you need are nerves of steel to climb the Leaderboards and become a Flying Ace! Snoopy Flying Ace takes addictive, fast-paced airborne combat to new heights, with fantastic solo and co-op challenges testing your skills against the Flying Circus of the dreaded Red Baron. Remember, it ain’t the size of the dog in the fight… it’s the size of the fight in the dog!”

The trail demo offers up a bunch of missions to play, as well as some online multiplayer. The first few are more or less tutorials: learning how to fly your plane, learning how to speed up and make sharp turns, learning the different weapons you have at your disposal, and learning how to hop to the ground to operate anti-aircraft gunnery. Then, after that, you’ll have your first big fight against Lucy and a swarm of goons as you’re set to protect a location with all you got.

I have to say, and I was really surprised here, but the controls are fantastically sharp. You use the left analog stick to steer and direct, and the right analog stick is for flipping upside-down or rolling left/right to avoid getting shot. It handles like a dream, which is a simile I’ve never really understood, but I will just say it simpler then: it handles really well. You’ll be swooping this way and that, firing off rockets and bullets, switching tactics on the fly (more puns!), and you won’t really get dizzy or ever feel out of control.

Plus, you’re doing all of this with Peanuts characters. I can’t stress that enough. They are adorable as they blow each other to smithereens. Take that, General Lucy! Pew pew pew!

I basically only did the single-player missions, as the online multiplayer kept kicking me out. I’m sure that’s fun, too, and probably the true selling point of Snoopy Flying Ace. For 800 Microsoft Bucks, it’s a solid entry. At least give the trial demo a try.

Go to the Game Room for easy peasy Achievements

Game Room…for the Xbox 360. It’s trying to be old-school and “classic,” trying to evoke feelings of nostalgia and quarter-hunting, but alas it does neither. Instead, kind of how the Star Wars prequels were too clean and pretty to be considered “old,” the Game Room is the, more or less, equivalent of Playstation 3’s Home, but with truly silly decorations and a whole lot less to do.

Upon downloading it, you are given 20 free tokens out of the kindness of the developers’ hearts. These can be used to play arcade machines after you’ve used up your “place once for totally free” card. I played some Centipede and Millipede, always a favorite, before growing bored. The games that come in the free download packs for Game Room are, alas, just not very interesting. In fact, I’d say about 75% of them were brand new to me in terms of familiarity.

What’s kind of odder, however, is the fact that Game Room comes with Achievements. Some of them don’t even deserve the honor of being thought as “things one achieves.” Take for instance the very first one I unlocked:

Show Me! (5G): Visited the Showcase Arcade

Yup. Just loading up Game Room is worthy of Gamerscore. Hmm. There’s even a few more for adding themes and decorations to your personal arcade, all of which is provided for free to you with the download packs. All in all, without purchasing anything, I was able to pop 7 of 56 Achievements. I bet there’s a couple more I could get, too, but no single classic game is calling out to me and my Microsoft bucks just yet. We’ll have to wait and see.

But wait, what was that bit before about the Star Wars prequels? Well, Game Room has a lot of shine to it. Just like The Phantom Menace. Everything is polished and reflective, the themes are elegant and elaborate, and your oddly-shaped Avatars all look like they are having a blast, running back and forth from machines. That’s not how I remember Star Wars IV through VI or arcades. They were dirty and darker, full of grit and noise, crap on the carpet. Special effects and hi-tech gadgetry were as best as they could be, which by today’s standards were nothing James Cameron would even blink at. And where’s the jerks that always lined up their quarters on the machine to let everyone know they were next?

Anyways, it was mildly fun to fool around with for twenty minutes or so, considering the gameplay of the glory day games remains absolutely the same, but ultimately Game Room is just a weird mix of old and new.

UNO, fun for all

I already talked about my lackluster experience of online gaming with Grand Theft Auto IV, and now I’m here to balance the act. I loaded up UNO, donned my headset and quickly joined a game of four. That’s three other players, all of them real. None of this ORANGE PLAYER killjoy. Anyways, for the first round, I was the only one talking. Yup, to myself. Just making happy/sad noises as the game went on, and eventually two others turned on their headsets, leading to topics about frustration, how they should add new colors like purple, and why Kanye West was not chatting with us (his avatar certainly looked the part). It made for a calm, relaxing game…even as we were throwing draw 4s on each other!

It’s also more fun to shout “UNO!” to faraway people than the dustballs under my kitchen table. I’m just sayin’.

Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer, home of hostility

Last night, I took advantage of the free Gold access weekend for Xbox LIVE and played a single deathmatch round of Grand Theft Auto IV. It was a pretty terrible experience. Let me break it down for you.

First, I had to use the Internet to figure out how to start a multiplayer game. Evidently it’s via Niko’s cell phone. Makes sense now, but at the time I was just kind of boggled and running around his stupid apartment, dry-humping the fridge in hopes that it would take me where I needed to go. Kind of wish GTA IV had, um, a main menu screen or something.

Second, I decided to see what it was like to use the headset and chat with fellow gamers. Er, big mistake. While waiting for a game to load and get enough players, I listened to what might have been a beached whale moaning out in displeasure. Then someone kept calling someone else a Nazi. Lastly, this little kid just kept screaming, “COME ON! START! STAAAAAAAAAAAART! STARRRRRRRTF*CKERS I WANNA GO!”

Yeah, I remained silent the whole.

Third, the deathmatch itself. I had no idea what to expect…only to shoot other players as much as possible, die, respawn, and try again. And that’s mostly what I did. For 10 straight minutes. Sometimes I’d just die, respawn, die, respawn, die. Every now and then I’d get lucky and take someone out. I guess the goal was to kill as many enemy players and collect as much cash as possible. I didn’t win after 10 minutes, but I unlocked two Achievements and immediately turned the game off.

It was a very…empty experience. The level we were on was an airport (which I don’t think I’ve come across yet in the single-player mode), and you could run behind planes or hide behind boxes or desperately try and survive out on the open-as-all-gets runway. Listening to other players as they made unhuman noises and called them nasty words only made the deathmatch more not-fun. There seemed to be little skill involved the whole time; a lot factored on where and when you respawned, which ultimately would determine if you did or did not get the jump on other players. So you run around, you shoot things, you listen to people moan, and you do it all over again. Um…meh.

Don’t think I’ll try any of the team or racing multiplayer games after this, too. But I guess I’m in the rare here because there were a lot of gamers on last night, all ready to pew pew pew me in the head. To each their own, I suppose.

Free Xbox Live Gold for Silver Members this weekend

Attention fellow poor Xbox LIVE Silver accounts! Microsoft will be allowing us free “Gold access” from noon ET April 1, 2010 until noon ET April 5, 2010. This means you can try out Facebook, Twitter, last.fm, Netflix, online gaming and so forth.

What it means to me is the chance to nab some online-only Achievements.

Alas, as it always seems to happen, these free weekends pop up when I am traveling and can’t console game as much as I’d like. But I’m still going to make an attempt because I’m never going to be rich enough (or social enough) to pay for a Gold account and well, deep down inside, I like playing games to completion (or as far as a completion can go) and that means Achievements, too. So let’s take a look at my collection and what I might try to go after…

UNO: UNO Shark Win ten 4-player games of UNO, in any mode, on Xbox Live.

SEGA Superstars Tennis: There’s seven online-only Achievements, none of which sound very hard to unlock skill-wise. The major hiccup is if anyone else will be playing the game too.

Grand Theft Auto IV: There’s a slew for this game, but I’m really bad at driving and even worse at shooting things. The controls, they are not solid. Hence the reason I’ve not gotten very far in the single player mode. Might dip into an online game once to see how it plays, but I seriously doubt trying to get any of these in the long run. A lot sound really tough to get.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts: Will probably have the same problem with SEGA Superstars Tennis. No one around to play this anymore.

Fable II: The Dollcatcher Collect all the Hero dolls, or see another Hero collect them. Please, someone, anyone…just send them to me!

That’s actually it from my Xbox 360 collection for online-only Achievements. Wish me luck and/or help me out if you feel pity for me. I’m okay with pity help.

Spring draws near for my Xbox Live Avatar

Well, the weather is changing in New Jersey from cold to not-so-cold, and that means it is time for another update to Avatar Evolution. I switched out for some new digs, specifically a button-down shirt I’d sooo wear in real life, some khaki shorts, and moccasins. Also got a free grill prop. Turkey burger, anyone?

And that, dear readers, has been today’s exciting post about…digitial clothing.

9,000 Gamerscore, a billion more to go

I was going to wait until I crossed 10,000 Gamerscore to post about it (because it seemed like a nice enough number, lovingly round and a threshold of sorts in terms of e-peen and gaming prowess), but somehow…somehow I managed to unlock four achievements last night from both BioShock and LEGO Indiana Jones 2 that fortuitously brought me to 9,000 exactly. See?

I’m kind of amused by this. Most likely you aren’t.

Also, since I’m now revealing my Gamertag, feel free to add me on Xbox Live. Just know that at the moment I’m only a lowly Silver account and therefore cannot help you boost or be your co-op partner in SpongeBob’s Truth or Square.

Baby, it’s cold outside

Okay, it’s cold out. Very cold. So cold that I decided that, not only would I start bundling up more, but so would my Xbox LIVE Avatar. I only wish that we could choose different colors and dyes à la Fable II…because those red-and-white woolly gloves look kind of silly. In the end, it was all I could pick.

As is the plan, I’m going to continue tracking how my Avatar evolves over time.