Let's Talk Xbox 360

You can play multiplayer with other people, and there are free games they give you every month.

Also in the math trade that ended yesterday I got Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Reach, Assassin's Creed 3, Street Fighter 4, Gears of War, Arkham City and Arkham Origins, all for flippin' Key Harvest.

Good haul. Lots of good shit.

I picked up Alpha Protocol and started playing through it today, and that game is really frustrating. When starting I set it to easy since I had no idea what to expect from it, and damn. I can't hit the side of a barn with my pistol and the enemies spot me at 50 feet like it's nothing. Those two things aside, the game seems really cool, I dig the interactive dialouge and the customisation options. I'm assuming I'll get a better pistol at some point.

I played some Gears of War 2 as well, this is just so much fun. Haven't noticed any homoeroticism yet but keeping an eye out.

Gears is my favorite franchise from last generation. I think it's intentional parody, so I found the series quite funny as well.

yeah, the tone of the game reminds me of Starship Troopers.

It's a game lots of people cite as the height of dudebro bad games. I get it... but I feel like they're missing the point storywise.

In addition, the first Gears (to a lesser extent the second) also has an intriguing quality of, I think, being intentionally unclear and arbitrary. You're not fucking Master Chief, and no one gives a shit about you knowing anything. Marcus and their team basically get told to do stuff without being told why or what is going on---they just have to do it. There is some stuff in the background that implies what exactly is going on, but you have to pay some attention. I like this about the game because it's an interesting commentary on the character you play in most FPS/action games.

Anyway, I've talked a lot about Gears and Gears plot before here, sorry to go into again...

Gears gets shat on because it's the epitome of a dudebro game, but it was innovative and requires more planning and positioning than many shooters on the market. It and Crackdown were two amazing franchises that MS started this gen, it's too bad they lost that creativity as the console aged. The X1, so far, looks to be heading back to that feel, but they have new blood at the head of the division.

Bull Nakano wrote: I picked up Alpha Protocol and started playing through it today, and that game is really frustrating. When starting I set it to easy since I had no idea what to expect from it, and damn. I can't hit the side of a barn with my pistol and the enemies spot me at 50 feet like it's nothing. Those two things aside, the game seems really cool, I dig the interactive dialouge and the customisation options. I'm assuming I'll get a better pistol at some point.

Alpha Protocol is a bit odd in that, instinctively, you want to play it like a straight shooter, but in reality the actual shooting mechanics are abstract and RPG-like. That's why each weapon class has its own skill tree, and some of the powers are really abstracted - like Chain Shot for pistols and Bullet Storm for SMGs. All of the weapons suck at the outset, and you should really pick one weapon class to focus on each time you go through the game. The pistol is arguably the best weapon in the game if you level your skills high enough.

I'm glad you're liking everything else. The first 2-3 hours are a slog, but get through Saudi Arabia and the game really opens up with more mission variety, more interesting storytelling and you have more agency w/r/t the order you want to approach things.

Why is he playing Alpha Protocol when there are actual good and amazing games to be played instead?

It's like when I started playing Bullet Witch for no reason at all