litheon

Thanksgiving in a nutshell

So I've been off the grid for a while during Thanksgiving. Overall it was a great time, especially to get back to the usual routine for a week. There are a few things during my travels that are worth a note however.

The Travel

Going through aiport security on the way back home was quite interesting. It turns out that you are now required by the TSA to take video game consoles, in addition to laptop computers, out of your carry-on baggage to place in a separate container. Lesson learned I guess, but it was quite irritating to dig my Xbox 360 out of my duffel bag when it is packed tightly at the bottom not to mention all of the people behind me that were held up because of all the stuff I had to dig out of my bags in addition to taking my shoes, belt, wallet, and coat and placing them in separate containers. Despite the inconvenience it wasn't all that bad, I got through security without issue in a good 6 or 7 minutes (including the time I had to wait in line).

he part I enjoyed throughout this though was going through security on my return flight. I packed accordingly this time by placing the console at the absolute top of the duffel bag so it wasn't really an inconvenience. However, the interesting part was the TSA sign indicating the need to take all consoles out of baggage actually had a picture of an Xbox 360 console sitting in one of the gray containers. It wasn't a generic console, a Wii, or a Playstation 3 but rather an Xbox 360.

The Games

The other noteworthy part of the trip was a little Thanksgiving party I had on Thursday night. We had Rockband, Guitar Hero 3, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and Scene-It setup on a myriad of TVs and computer monitors. Rockband, Guitar Hero 3, and Scene-It were a hit amongst everybody although Rockband was what everybody wanted to play. I will say just about everybody was very disappointed with the guitar that comes with the game. It may not make as much sound as the Guitar Hero controllers, but it was also very inconsistent with strumming. While playing most people were forced to strum upwards because the guitar started malfunctioning after only a few days use. The Guitar Hero controllers on the other hand however feel so much more sturdy and well-constructed than their Rockband counterparts.

Still, despite the issues with the guitar, Rockband was insanely fun to play. Hitting the fretts on the pseudo-frett-board was a little more difficult than Guitar Hero 3 due to the markers on the frett board being significantly smaller but it was still pretty easy to pull off consistently. The drums were suprisingly a lot more difficult than I had thought it would be. Even on easy I found it pretty difficult to hit every single note, but compared to medium it was still playable. Despite being so difficult, the drums are still insanely fun to play. The singing was probably the worst part of the game however, not because it was incredibly difficult but it's incredibly easy to show everybody present how much I suck at singing.

Zunetag Gadget

With all the buzz regarding the Zune update today I figured it would be appropriate to write a nifty little gadget that will display your Zunetag in the Windows Vista sidebar. You can download the gadget at http://www.litheon.com/Zunetags.gadget. By default the gadget includes all the cool folks, that made Zune what it is today.

To use the gadget just install it, and click the little wrench icon. Type the number of seconds between switching Zunetags, and the number of Zune tags you want to use. Once you do those a text box for each Zunetag you want to display will appear. If you only want to display one Zunetag (i.e. yours) then type the number of seconds between refreshes (the tag doesn't update that often, so probably choose something like 600 seconds) and a one in the number of tags.

Note, if you're running the x64 version of Windows Vista you should close the sidebar and open "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe". Flash, for some reason, doesn't like 64 bit browsers at all and as such won't display anything but a red x if you're running the 64-bit version of the sidebar. Also as you probably guessed you're going to need flash in order for this to run properly, as the Zune cards use flash.

Enjoy!

I've Scene It

If you haven't heard of Scene It, it has been out there for quite a while in the board-game version. As of last week it reached the virtual space when Scene It: Lights, Camera, Action came out for the Xbox 360. I've been playing it over the weekend, and last night; and I have to say it's a very fun (and unique) game.

If you check out the unboxing photos you'll notice it comes with four new "Big-Button" controllers along with an infrared receiver. The controllers feel very natural in-hand especially considering all of the surfaces are rounded. Setting up the game is very easy, just plug the infrared receiver into a USB port on the Xbox 360 (the one on the back works nicely so you don't have it sticking out the faceplate on the front of the console), pop the game into the tray and you're ready to play the game.

The game plays very well, and if you know your movies (which I don't) you will definitely be rewarded during the game. On the main menu there are options for "Play Now" and "Party Play". Party play is just what it sounds like, if you have any sort of party and you want to leave the game running in the background for anyone to pick up you can. It will continue to cycle through the different types of puzzles even without having to answer it. Play now is the competition-style option. This is where the point of the game is to get the most points and beat everybody else out for the top spot. The premise behind the competition is to get "hired" by a big shot executive for a production company, and as such he continues to narrate certain aspects of the game. He also has a knack for praising players that are doing exceptionally well, and insulting the ones not doing so well. Most of these one-liners are pretty funny, although some of them are a bit lame.

I had an awesome time playing it with some of the people on my floor, and this is also where I realized I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable person when it comes to movie trivia. If you get a chance to pick this up I highly recommend it, it's a blast to play and for those out there looking for some easy gamerscore it's pretty easy to get an achievement within the first few minutes of play (as long as you have some other people to play with you).

And the winners are...

I just calculated out all of the winners to the arcade and live subscription contest, so here they are:

If you won you should be getting a message with your code (or in the case of ThunorX codes) shortly. Thank you everyone for entering, and if you didn't win this time don't fret as there will be more giveaways to come.

The Zune update coming November 13th

Just got this in my inbox:

"We're expanding our family of devices with the addition of three new digital media players: Zune 4GB, Zune 8GB and Zune 80GB. The sleek, black Zune 80GB hard-drive model has a bright 3.2-inch screen and comes with new Zune Premium Headphones; the ultraportable Zune 4GB and Zune 8GB flash models are both available in pink, green, black and glossy red.

All new media players feature:

• Wireless sync
• Extended wireless sharing
• New innovative touch controls
• A built-in FM tuner
• Recorded television content to go
• And more…

The Zune Social
Launching this November, Zune Social is a beta online community that’ll give members a place to share their music tastes with others.

Zune Marketplace
Zune software and Zune Marketplace get a dramatically different new look and feel this November, too.

New Accessories
Zune will be offering a new line of accessories to help consumers get the most from their Zune. Original Zune accessories will work with new Zune devices and new accessories will also work with the Zune 30GB. View new accessories.

Current Zune Users
Current Zune users will be able to upgrade and enjoy the new Zune software and Zune Marketplace on their PCs, plus new firmware for their devices as well. We will notify users in November that they're in need of an upgrade.

Available at stores in November, the new Zune devices are priced from $149 to $249."

It's nice that Microsoft is taking the initiative to update their older hardware with the features of their newer devices. Hopefully Apple will do this with the future releases of their iPod products.

Reminder: Today is the last day to enter the arcade game giveaway

If you've been puting off entering the giveaway, now might be a good time to enter. Later tonight I will be pulling all of the entries, and sifting through them to make sure they are all legit and then write a little app to handle the hard part of deciding who gets what.

So as I said, if you haven't entered; do it now. Good luck!