The Distracted Gamer

Microsoft has announced that the Australian price for the standard Xbox 360 is now $399, matching the price of the Wii.  The non-harddrive Arcade version is now $299, making it now the cheapest current generation console on the market.

So what does this mean?  It means that many people who were thinking of getting a Wii may get an Xbox instead.  It’s a much more powerful machine with a greater variety of games.  It also has the marketing power of games like Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 behind it.  For gamers with limited budgets this is a god-send.  Australian retailers have been quick to jump on this for their Christmas promotions:

• EBGames is selling the Xbox with Lego Indiana Jones, Assassins Creed & Kung Fu Panda for $399
• Game is selling it with Lego Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda & either Gears of War 2 or Fable 2 for $399

The Lego Indiana Jones & Kung Fu Panda games are part of the standard bundle, but it’s the extra game you want to look for.  I think Game has the advantage here with Gears of War 2 or Fable 2.

Hopefully this means more people start playing games this year, which will mean more people to lobby against South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson stand against the R18+ rating for games in Australia.

A number of people are complaining that Fallout 3 ends after you’ve completed the final quest.  Also it seems that if you just do the main quest you’re looking at about 12 – 20 hours of game play (YMMV obviously).

I’m not sure this is a major problem, but if you don’t know about it & you don’t have a save game just before you complete the final quest I recon you’d be a bit annoyed.  Especially when this didn’t happen in the previous Fallouts or in Bethesda’s recent previous RPGs Oblivion & Morrowind.

I’m also hearing & reading that people aren’t fans of the level 20 cap.  I’m wondering if Bethesda will do what Blizzard did for World of Warcraft and release an update that provides a cap increase.  I get the feeling though that the game designers are wanting you to replay the game rather than just keep going doing all the quests in a single game like you could with the other games.  I’m not sure why or whether it’s the right decision (I can’t play the game due to lack of Xbox360, PS3 or decent PC) but it doesn’t seem to be hurting people’s love of the game.  The forums where people have complained about these issues are full of other people defending the design and saying it’s great.

Like I said, I can’t play the game, but if you like extended gameplay rather than just getting is finished, then you might want to avoid the main quest to begin with.  But if you’re short on time & just like the cathartic experience of completing the game, you’ve got the option of doing that too.

The SMH is running a promotion where you can win a PS3 prize pack for signing up for the Digital Life newsletter (for free).  The prize pack contains

• Sony PlayStation 3 80GB
• Cyber-shot 10.1MP Digital Camera
• 8GB Noise Cancelling Video MP3 Walkman
• Earbud Noise Cancelling Headphones

I can’t enter, but you can!

As part of its recruitment campaign the US Air Force has sponsored three free Midway games.  They’re not the newest games, but a free game is a free game.

The games are The Suffering, Area 51 and Rise & Fall Civilisations at War. The US Air Force has in the past demonstrated its willingness to laugh at itself with its continued extensive support of  the Stargate series, and including Area 51 as one of the titles here just continues that theme.

The download site links to the Air Force’s DoSomthingAmazing.com and the games themselves contain ads.  Definitely worth downloading if your connection can cope with the 6GB it will take to get them. Update: note: because they’re ad supported they won’t let you play without an internet connection to load the ads.  So much for my on the train gaming.

Full Spectrum Warrior is also available. It’s not listed on the promo page but it is mentioned on this 1UP article.  You can grab it here (it’s another 1.6GB).   That was a great game on the XBox, I’ve never played the PC version, I’ll have to see if it’s any different.