Pinata Party!

So, I've been playing Viva Pinata to death. There's been literally thtree things in my life since I got the game. Work. Girlfriend. Viva Pinata. I just cannot put it down. It's on my TV right now, I've just bred two Whirlms.

So, I'm getting quite good at it and have decided to put my talents to good use and start a small Pinata Trading business! Based on the BXB Trading Forums I'll have a thread which will feature my latest Pinata sales or trades.

Check out my first sale here in the form of five Barkbarks!

I really hope this idea takes off on BXB as I'd love to start trading Pinatas when the game is release over here tomorrow!

Region Free Pinata Collecting Action!

So, my copy of Viva Pinata just arrived all the way from Canada and I've already spent most of the morning playing on it. Just to confirm to everyone that it is an awesome game!

I spent a mere £35 and got the game around two weeks before the release in the UK! The only downside is that the DVD that came with the Special Edition version I bought is region encoded and doesn't work on my 360. However, just slap it in a region free DVD player and the job is done.

I think it's a sad state of affairs that despite the fact Microsoft are championing the fact they treated all three territories equally at launch, they still held back Gears for two weeks and Viva Pinata for a month from Europe.

Further to that, it's actually cheaper to buy and import the games from America than it is to buy them in this country.

Finally, it's a total joke that sites like BXB (and Hexus.net), that are well established and reliable, didn't get copies of these games to play on when they were released in the States - REGION FREE!!

I could have had the (shining) Gears of War review I'm currently writing up in time for launch to sway those people that hadn't decided whether or not to buy the game and I'm still in two minds about publishing the Viva Pinata review before launch.

Microsoft claim to treat each territory equally but actually don't in terms of both consumers and press.

Anyway, I'm going to chase up that bloody finance company that lost my documentation meaning my sodding HDTV hasn't turned up yet!

If you'd like to get a copy of Viva Pinata early and cheaper than in the UK then go to http://www.videogamesplus.ca/ and if you'd like to hear more about Viva Pinata's awesomeness we have a thread on BXB here.

Full of Goodness!

Well, I'm currently working on my review for Gears of War and while it's definately a little late compared to other sites, I'd much rather it be done properly than not and hence I've been putting plenty of time into Gears.

As suggested, I've been playing it on hardcore difficulty on Co-op and it's certainly quite challenging this way. I've spent most of the day on the game and completed chapters 3 and 4 with the fifth and final saved for tomorrow.

It's an incredibly intense game that keeps surprising you over and over and never really gets boring. The story line really isn't up to the quality of the Halo plot but it's good enough for the game.

It's getting closer and closer to Xmas now and naturally BXB is just getting busier and busier! We're just concluding our F.E.A.R. competition where the first place winner lands a copy of the game plus an exclusive faceplate and there's another copy of the game up for grabs! It closes tomorrow but you can still enter here.

The XCN have continued their great work this week as well with a cool Bungie Q&A session available for you guys to get involved in, we've been looking over some of the questions already submitted and my personal favourite was "Do you realise that the term "Man Cannon" caused quite a few sniggers among British gamers?"

While someone else submitted the rather worrying: "Will there be any female Covenant in Halo 3, and if yes, will you be able to choose what sex to play in multiplayer for Spartan or Elite?" Definately thinking WAAAAY outside of the box with that question. You can still submit your own questions until November 21st by clicking here.

And we've also got another great competition up and running at the moment which is to win a copy of Tony Hawk's Project 8 which you can enter by clicking here.

And one thread thats worth a look is the Ghosts of Onyx Discussion Thread which also features my review of Eric Nylund's latest Halo novel. Some serious Halo fanatics feature there!

We'll also have more reviews coming up soon including the awesome Viva Pinata, World Championship Poker and Sonic the Hedgehog...

Viva Pinata

So, Gears decided to finally turn up and it's great. 9/10. Review done.

Sadly, I now have no excuse for what I'm really, excited about this Christmas and that's the awesome Viva Pinata.

So excited that I'm risking the Import Tax Lottery and the paranoia of buying a "Region Free" game for the first time in my life. Maybe, if I had been more excited about Gears I would have imported that too. I was very excited about Gears but I must be MORE excited about Viva Pinata.

Well, I picked up the Special Edition of Viva Pinata for a mere £36 from an American website which exports games out. So, I end up spending less on the game than if I'd bought it here and got it early and all the way across the Atlantic.

No wonder Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo like this whole Region thing, it lets them charge Europeans (and mainly British people) stupidly large amounts of money for the same game as everywhere else in the world.

So, I think I'll skip the Ebay whoring 10k PS3s this Xmas (and indefinetly) and stick with Gears of Pinata!

Gears of War

God Dammit! I still haven't got this yet. Despite the fact I could have imported it from the States last week!

I, once again, made the mistake of relying on someone else (e.g. Microsoft's PR people) to get the game to me at least five or six days before release so I can get the review done. They've done it in the past with numerous games but haven't this time.

What annoys me is that despite me asking TWICE when I'll be getting a review copy they haven't even bothered to reply. Yet they replied to my mail about Peripherals. So they obviously read some of my mail and ignore choice sections.

If I'd have know I'd be waiting this late to get it, I'd have imported it from America.

Now, I wonder if Viva Pinata is region free!?

2006 Winning Console Innovation...

If you've not been following my blog then you'll probably not realise that the BXB DNA 2006 Console Innovation Award is something that I've only just made up on the spot and might think I've had some form of nomination process or voiting scheme going on...

Well, I haven't. I'm just making this up right now. Right, the winner of the BXB DNA 2006 Console Innovation goes to the Xbox Live Vision Camera for it's brillaint "Remake Early 90s Rave Video" feature upgrade to the visualiser which can be seen in action below!



Oh my God, I put another Youtube video on my blog, soon I'll be whoring them as badly as UKR are!

We love Youtube!

On a slightly more serious note, I've still not got Gears of War and it's royally annoying me. If I'd known I'd have to wait till this close to release to get my press copy I'd have just imported the bloody thing and then traded it for cash at Gamestation!

*Spoilers* Ghosts of Onyx

Eric Nylunds latest Halo novel has been keeping me away from my 360 recently. I've read all four of his Halo novels now and really enjoy the extra insights they give into the universe even if they're not the most beautifully written novels I've read.

I like to try and gleam to interesting tit bits of information about the Halo series from his novels and with both Halo 3 and Halo Wars on the horizon it's certainly time to begin uncontrolled speculation!

First up, we can probably make a whole bunch of assumptions about some of the new units which will be appearing in Halo Wars. Plus, the potential of having humans, Covenant and new Forerunner forces for us to control which would be really cool.

The new Spartan III's are awesome with their reflective stealth armour and could take the role of scouts and the new Forerunner Sentinels that can fuse together and make increasingly large Forerunner units have a lot of potential for some interesting gameplay elements.

Onto the main plot of Halo. It's pretty easy to determine that Onxy was meant to be a place to hide from the effects of the Halos for the Forerunners but obviously something went wrong there and none of the Forerunners survived.

The massive structure we see in the Halo 3 trailer is "The Ark" and is probably another safe haven for the Forerunners to hide in as the controllers of the Halos would be pretty useless if they were killed as well.

So, Halo 3. Potentially, we could see John fighting his way down into The Ark and perhaps finding another Slipspace portal thing into another mini-dyson sphere suspended in slipspace which was inhabited by the Forerunners.

Personally, I think the Forerunners left The Ark after the Flood was gone (lots of great biblical references here) and started their lives again on Earth. The one big flaw in this theory is that why aren't humans really technologically advanced? Perhaps, they stored genetic material in the Ark!? I dunno.

Again, I found the climax to the book all together too fast and not detailed enough. The end of "First Strike" when they took of the Unyielding Elephant or whatever it was called was just too fast and gave now real insight into the Covenant and the end of this book was the same.

If you're a big Halo fan then it's well worth picking this book and his other three up!

Catching Up with Duties!

Well, Call of Duty 3 landed through my post box on Friday and I've managed to put a couple of hours in on it this afternoon and generally have quite mixed feelings about it.

While it's as intence and dramatic as Call of Duty 2 (and as tough), it feels more like a high definition upgrade rather than a true sequel. They've added a couple of interesting gameplay elements like hand to hand combat and the ability to cook off grenadges but (so far) there's not been much more than COD2 offers.

I'm about to shoot off and get some more time on it and we'll be posting our review as soon as possible as we've got the game well early!

Also, I finally did my duty and ordered a HDTV today. I'm over a year late but until now I've not really been noticing that much of a difference between my SDTV gaming and my brothers HDTV gaming. One game that really struck me as looking much better in HD is Dead Rising and that planted the seed of doubt.

So, I've picked up a Samsung 32" HDTV from Dabs. Most impressively, under £700 and a model up from the one my brother has. So, I think waiting 12 months has been a good idea as I've landed myself a more refined model for a lot less than I would have paid at the launch of the 360.

I reckon it looks swish and it'll look even better wall mounted, in front of my brand new double bed!