IronMongeR

The best game I ever played on my Gamecube was Resident Evil 4. Make sure you get it!

When i had a Wii, it didn't get played much at all compared to the 360. Eventually I sold it to make a small profit.

The online is what I'm really looking forward to. Forza 1 had a great community, and I used to have some good fun & close races.

I only really got an HD TV for 360 games really, which I'm happy with. It will be good enough for the next few years, until maybe I have more room for something the size of an ocean liner.

If I don't have the proper equipment, perhaps they should stop labelling any HD tv under 46" as HD Ready.

Do you really think Sony (who owns Blu-Ray) would allow MS to release a Blu-Ray drive? If MS really wanted to, they would no doubt have to pay through the nose to get it. I bet their HD-DVD licensing isn't nearly as expensive as Blu-Ray would be. And this is why I oppose Blu-Ray. Do we really want a company like Sony holding all the cards in regards to next gen DVDs? I certainly don't. I'm just repeating rumours. Last year Peter Moore said a Blu Ray drive was a possibility if it the format becomes a clear winner, which obviously it hasn't yet.

This would make the 360 load games too slow, the drive speed is not as fast as a regular DVD drive. Also, since the 360 hardware is shoddy, you don't want an integrated HD DVD drive in there yet, a seperate add-on is less taxing on the console. It's not slightly improved. It's 6x the resolution of standard DVD. The jump in picture quality is actually a much bigger improvement than the jump from VHS to DVD. Not to mention the addition of HD audio into the mix, which is really important to alot of people. Some people seem to be into HD technology more for the audio than the PQ. Granted, some HD DVD's that have been released have had some very poor video transfers, (Traffic, Dirty Dozen) but the majority of them are clearly superior in PQ by leaps and bounds. When I watched my first HD DVD I was completely underwhelmed. The improvement is not significant enough to justify the cost, at least not on my 32" Samsung. Perhaps it makes a difference on a big ass 50" thing.

I think Microsoft plan to release a Blu Ray drive eventually, and as said, they want 360 owners to have the choice of whether they need to fork out for HD. Personally, and this is coming from an HD drive owner, I've found HD-DVD to be a bit disappointing. Yes the image is clearer and improved over DVD, but when you think about the toal cost of the whole setup, it really isn't worth it. £700ish for a good HD TV, £280 for a 360, £120 for the drive and then £20 for a HDDVD. A total of £1120 or something like $2200. Just to watch a slightly improved dvd.

Forza 2 Demo went up on the marketplace about 2 hours ago. Features 1 track - Mugello Short, and 24 cars from 3 different classes. The demo is approx 700MB, took me about 20 mins to download. Very impressed with the AI, physics, 60fps, car models etc. Just a shame the track provided isn't particuarly exciting. Time to start counting down the days till the full release!

Apparently there are also new video codecs included which are H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 2. I think they only affect the image in 1080p resolution.

The spring dashboard update is here! Changelog: Windows Live Messenger Chat via instant messenger with up to 20 contacts in a single conversation, and have up to six different conversations at the same time with people on PCs, mobile phones and other Xbox 360 consoles. Instant message while playing games, listening to music or watching movies or TV shows downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace. View at a glance if friends on Windows Live Messenger have gamertags and add them to a unified friends list. Utilize the virtual keyboard on the Xbox 360 to text chat or connect a USB keyboard to the console. Launching later this summer, the Xbox 360 text-input device accessory will connect directly to the controller to support instant messaging. Messenger is the key feature with this update, but there are a number of improvements to the Live service that of which you should take note. On-screen pop-ups that immediately display the name and gamerscore value of a just accomplished Achievement, allowing gamers to see their progress without leaving or pausing the game. An even safer way to communicate through Xbox LIVE with enhanced family settings that enable different default settings for video chat and voice chat. A new, standalone Xbox LIVE Marketplace blade houses all Xbox LIVE Marketplace content in one easy to navigate space. Xbox LIVE Arcade enhancements that showcase what games friends are playing directly from the friends list. Boasting about high scores, comparing progress and checking out leaderboards are all easier now as well. Faster access to free, trial version of Xbox LIVE Arcade games through an improved Auto Downloads feature. The ability to fast-forward, pause and rewind video as it is being downloaded on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Owners can now set their consoles to turn off after downloading content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace to help save energy, and download speeds have been increased. Also, Double Dragon is up on the Arcade and the Forza Motorsport 2 Demo is apparently due sometime between now and the weekend?!? Huzzah!

The Core system is a waste of time. Don't even think about it!

I'm getting this tomorrow, but only because I have £30 in vouchers, making the game effectively half price. Never played GH before, so I'm probably gonna suck.

I finished the main quest in SI yesterday, took me about 12ish hours. There's still lots of side quests to do though.

Me and my friend used to link up our playstations to play Formula 1. Was bloody brilliant back in the day. Bit of a hassle setting it up though. The only other game we tried was Descent or Descent 2. Whichever it was, it wasn't all that great.

I'm up to mission 19 too. I'm determined to clear all 20 challenges and get the final acheivement.

I got this yesterday, the price was a fair bit more than I was expecting (2400 points), but when you realise how much you're getting it seems justified. I traded my copy of Oblivion about 6 months ago but bought it again just to play this expansion. Glad I did, I forgot just how amazing this game is.

The best thing about CoD 3 is the online multiplayer. The campaign doesn't seem as intersting as CoD 2, but I agree it does look a lot more polished.

It's not bad, though some of the single player challenges are ridiculous. In particular, Challenge 13 springs to mind, which took me ages to finally complete thanks to the insanely accurate AI.

I will only upgrade if/when my current system dies. The 20gb HD is good enough for me as I only really use it for XBLA games, saves and the odd demo. A bigger hd would obviously have been better from day 1, but I don't think it will ever be an issue for me personally. The HDMI support I'm not too bothered about either, as everything looks good enough as is.

The animation isn't exactly rocket science,, but I guess they could have made it simpler.

Turtles popped up on the Arcade yesterday costing 400 points. This is the 1989 arcade game, which I had never played before. Seems like a solid enough game, but the enemies seem pretty hard. For some reason, I had been expecting this release to be Hyperstone Heist.

I like downloading new games on XBLA but to be honest, there haven't been a lot of games I've really liked. I'm waiting for Castlevania & TMNT, and possibly something like Streets of Rage/Sonic or even QUAKE in the future?!?!

It's high quality and free, but didn't seem to be a particuarly good episode to me.