McWilliams’ World

Wow. I knew that they were going to be releasing downloadable content for Guitar Hero 2 (360) soon after it’s release, but get a load of these prices.

Major Nelson has all the details and conversation.

What’s available? 3 song packs with 3 songs each (and none of the packs are all that great). Each song pack will set you back a cool 500 Microsoft Points which equates to $6.25. Quite steep for 3 songs. If you got all 3 packs (9 songs) we’re nearing $20. Considering if ALL GH1 songs were available, it’d nearly run you $100!

I’m guessing one or two things are at play here: RedOctane/Activision is either experimenting with pricing, seeing where we as gamers baulk or getting greedy or MS is flexing some muscle with publishers forcing them to price their content at certain levels. I don’t like the second theory. I’d like to believe MS is leaving all content and pricing up to the publishers. That was the promise, right? But apparently there are rumors floating around alluding to the fact that MS is doing the opposite. Gears of War makers are also saying that they’ve been wanting to give away a few maps for a while but MS is forcing them to put a price on them as to get gamers into the mindset of paying for additional content. Not good.

Now, I haven’t bought much off Xbox Live Marketplace (other than a few arcade titles). I don’t mind paying for content and I love the fact that we can download additional items for our games but I also know a good value when I see it – and this isn’t one of them.

I’m passing until someone gets their greedy hands out of my wallet.

Just got an email stating that MS received my Xbox 360 for repair and they’ve shipped my unit already. Should get it this week some time. Pretty quick turn around if you ask me.

Next on my list is to buy the 2 year extended warranty for it. I have it on our downstairs 360 and I need to get this one covered as well.

[Update:3.16.07]

Received my 360 back this morning via UPS and all is well. Different unit, probably a refurb. I will be calling MS to get the 2yr Warranty on this one as well; and keeping the the shipping box.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how things worked out. Thanks MS!

Well, today the kid’s 360 got the 3 red lights error. Apparently it’s some type of hardware error (duh, ya think?!). I tried all the troubleshooting advice and ended up calling customer support. I’m still under warranty (thanks MS for extending the warranty to 1yr!) so I’ll have ship it back and have them repair/replace it. Hopefully it won’t take too long. They stated about 8-10 business days after they receive it…so I guess I’m looking at about 3 weeks to get it back.

I’m not looking forward to having to ship it back as I know I’m going to get raked-over-the-coals if I take it to the UPS Store or FedEx.

I still have my 360 and we still have our original Xbox so I’m sure we’ll be okay ’till then. Let’s just hope for a nice quick turnaround.

[Update 3.4.07]

I ended up taking my 360 to the UPS Store to have them ship it. Cost around $30 for them to box and ship via ground. It’ll go out Monday and should arrive Friday. Any faster shipping (like 3day) would have only got it there 1 day earlier but for about $15 more…not worth it.

I considered taking it to USPS, but I don’t trust them and they tend to act like you’re a bother to them.

“Going insane? Your not insane already,” you ask?

Aside from my mental stability, I’m now playing through Gears of War on Insane mode. I managed to complete it on Hardcore yesterday and I must say, it was pretty hard but very satisfying. Once again, Raam is difficult. However after trying brute force over and over with no results (other than me dying or running out of ammo), I finally switched tactics. Want to know how? Stop reading now if you don’t want to know.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Still want to know, hu? Here’s what I did.

As soon as the level starts, I made a calculated, mad dash for the turret at the other end of the train. I went around the right side, then up the middle, jumped the last barrier and dashed around the right side of the turret platform. Your path may change depending on how Raam decides to move. You have to move fast. If Dom goes down or if the reavers start showing up, you’re going to die quick.

Reaching the turret, Dom distracted Raam enough and gave me enough time to jump on the gun an lay into Raam, splattering him in a matter of seconds. The whole level probably lasted about 30sec. Happiness.

*** SPOILER END ***

Like I said, I started Insane mode and am just about done with the first act. I was spanked down a number of times but learning some patience and staying in cover a bit longer makes things a bit easier. The tactics I may have used when I played casual or hardcore may not translate while I play insane. That’s the great thing about Gears, you can change your tactics a bit to get an edge.

Beyond that, I’m still looking for 6 more COG tags to complete my set, so after each battle, I take a few moments and scour the location for anything I may have missed on previous run-thoughts. Hopefully I can find them all.

Why the renewed interest in plowing through Gears? I’m trying to boost my gamerscore due to the new awards program that Microsoft introduced. Between Feb 15th and April 15th (I think those are the right dates), if you boost your gamerscore by 1500 points, you’ll be awarded some prizes; could be Xbox Live Marketplace points, gamer pictures, Xbox Live Arcade titles, and other stuff. Pretty cool. I can’t think of any other console rewarding you for playing games.

I may have not made it into the Halo 3 beta but I just recieved an email confirming I’m in the Shadowrun beta. Yeah!

I’m not too familiar with the game but I’m pretty good at telling people what I like and don’t like about a game. It’s my chance to help shape a new Xbox game. Sweet!

I’m soooo ready to get Guitar Hero 2 (360) I can taste it. Parker’s friend stayed over again this past weekend and we all had a blast playing Guitar Hero (with the volume turned to 11). I played a few songs on Hard (which were pretty dang hard!). Jonah suggested I try out Ziggy Stardust. I avoided that song since the sample that plays when you select it sounded boring but when I finally played it, it was quite fun. It has that great 70′s rock feel – nice and sweet then it kicks in. Fun!

Anyways…the ever moving target; the release date for the 360 version keeps fluctuating. First I heard early March. EB and GameStop both had it pegged for 3/2/07. A week or so later I saw Buy.com had it available for pre-order with a release date of 3/27/07. Now I checked EB and they now have it for 4/2/07!!! Come on! They really need to nail this thing down. I wanna RAWWWWK!

Team Xbox reports that those that signed up shortly after seeing the Halo 3 commercial will soon know if they’re in. Hopefully I’m one of them.

UPDATE

Email I recieved today:

Greetings Halo® Nation and thanks for your interest in participating in the Halo 3 multiplayer public beta.

Phase one registration is now closed. If you have been selected to participate, you will receive an email notification within the next two days.

For those of you that didn’t make it in – fret not as this phase one was just the first of three ways to secure entry into the Halo 3 multiplayer public beta. The next two paths of entry are:

Qualifying over Xbox Live® via the “Rule of Three” program in early February
Purchasing marked packages of the upcoming game CrackdownTM, which hits store shelves in North America on Feb. 20
To find out more about these opportunities visit halo3.com for detailed information.

We hope this provides additional clarity on this phase of entry into the Halo 3 multiplayer public beta. See you online!

We’ll see in the next two days!

Update 11/25/07:

It doesn’t appear like I was accepted into the beta. Oh well. I just checked out the Crackdown demo and after about 10min of playing, I deleted it. Not my cup-of-tea. Not worth buying to get into a beta. Oh well…I’ll just wait patiently for Halo 3 and hope that it is a truely next-gen successor – I’m talkin’ cooler than GRAW or Gears. In the mean time, I’ll be soon rockin’ out on Guitar Hero 2!

Just got a tip off the Guitar Hero forums stating that you can pre-order Guitar Hero 2 (360) in-store at GameStop or EB. Anticipated release date is 3/2/07 and runs for $89.99 (game + guitar controller).

360 owners will get:

• 10 additional tracks
• Downloadable content (hopefully GH 1 tracks plus new ones!)
• Achievements
• online leaderboards

Heck yeah! I’m going to drop buy after work (screw the snow!) and plunk down my cash (or at least a reserve hold)!

UPDATE:

My plan-of-attack is as such: Get Guitar Hero 2 (360) at Wal-Mart (my wife works there so I’ll use our 10% discount card)…then I’ll trade a bunch of games in at GameStop and get an additional controller and maybe pre-order Halo 3 while I’m at it.

Update 2:

Now available on-line at ebgames.com (or gamestop.com – they’re the same)