Malaki-LEGEND.sys

I have an interesting predicament. While I'm playing a DVD on my 360, the volume is relatively low on what I'd call a normal setting for watching a downloaded video or playing a game. This didn't happen on the last TV I used my 360 with(although that was a whole other 360 ago), although it seems strange that only DVD playback would be affected. Any ideas?

I've noticed a small decrease in load times, and as most have said, I kind of don't like my game system to sound like the flight prep of an F-16 on the tarmac. It also lowers the wear and tear on the disc drive.

Guitar Hero 2 is great, I feel Guitar Hero 3 is relatively lacking and just feels unpolished. As long as it isn't CoD3, you should be fine. Those other games are pretty ass though. 20 gigs would give you 13 gigs free, and it would be enough for some XBLA games, demos and videos, but if you want to put games in that thing and high def vids, you're gonna need to up it to 60 at least.

Which is why I put the word out on the forums so that more people will be aware of otherwise great games that go on forgotten. Also, if that 360 you're buying is refurbed, i think it has a high success rate. My first one(didn't RRoD, I just sold it to my little cousin so I could upgrade) was a refurbed one and had been through a pretty nasty water leak in which the bottom was actually submerged, a fall, a few airplane trips and more than a year later is still working perfectly. Take that as you will.

Quoted for massive truth. Welcome to the mid-nineties when optical disc media like CDs was introduced. Unless you're running that shit from a 7,200 RPM drive, that shit is gonna take awhile.

I thought Eternal Sonata was good, and it has local multiplay, although it's not quite as good as ToV, it's still fun.

Tropic Thunder was pretty fucking terrible, as was The Love Guru. The only movie I ever walked out on with my group of friends was Fun with Dick and Jane. God that movie pissed me off.

First off, happy holidays to everyone. I hope it's been a safe and sound(and relatively painless as far as family reunions go) time for all. Anyway, I've been slacking lately, so it's time to give out my impressions on the RPG I've been playing a lot over the past week: The Last Remnant First I'd like to get the cons out of the way. There's really only one that I've seen thus far in my 10 or so hours of gameplay, and that has to do with graphical issues. Yes, they're there. I don't blame the designers of the game(although make no mistake they have a part of it) as much as I blame the Unreal Engine for sucking in general, and only the people at Epic games have the power to make it not suck. I have the game installed to my HDD as was recommended to me, so I can't really comment on how it is without the install(which is about 6 gigs per disc), but while there's definitely some framerate issues and texture popping, it's not as unbearable as the media would make it seem. Now then, on to the game itself. At first glance, it seems like there's no substance to this game other than some pretty graphics and an interesting story with some decent voice-acting and great music, but play on for about an hour and you'll really start seeing how good the combat really is. For starters, you will use what are called "unions" which is basically just one big party that shares the same general commands, as well as HP, AP, etc. Although you won't be able to control that many in the beginning of the game, you'll eventually be controlling up to 5 unions at a time with 5 units each(made up of leader characters and soldiers) for a total of 25 fighters at any given time. Right now I have a max of 12. Combat is turn-based and has traces of the CTB system used in Final Fantasy X. For the most part, the game selects which attacks/spells that will be used in each of the many commands available to you. Make no mistake, the game doesn't "play itself" like some think. While there is a lot left to chance, things like critical offense and defense triggers, flank attacks, deadlocks and rear attacks play a lot into it. Formations of unions also play a key role in that some will increase overall attack, magic attack or defense just by equipping them. Maybe you want a mystic art heavy formation with a few bruisers on hand to defend the flanks, maybe you just wanna go all out with combat arts. The options are there and the combat is deep. There are plenty of other things involved in combat in relation to morale, capturing monsters, collecting crafting components, learning new arts, etc., but I think I'll leave it at that for now. The designers like to hail the game as being an "RPG for the world" quite often. I don't know how accurate they are, but I definitely see a few things that are unconventional in most JRPGs I've seen. For one, the ability to save anywhere(ANYWHERE) is a huge boon, as well as having your stats recover after every battle. The cutscenes have characters with lip movements that are in sync with the English language, so I guess that's cool, and the dialogue is pretty well done. As I've said before, the graphics are quite pretty(the Unreal engine doesn't fail there), and I believe the music is done by The Black Mages, who are responsible for many rock arrangements of FF tunes. I think my favorite aspect about the music department is the fact that there are MULTIPLE BATTLE THEMES. I think I've counted about 5 or 6 thus far, including 2 themes that will appear randomly in battle based on current conditions. All in all, I think the game is definitely worth a try if you're looking for a spin on turn-based RPGs. I don't know if it'll win any awards for best RPG of the year or anything, but I haven't been able to pry myself away from it if that says anything. But enough talk, go play it. Happy gaming all. tl;dr: The Last Remnant is good.

So I finally bought my new HDTV(and I love it), and my games look beyond awesome now. There is a tiny bit of lag in the controls though. Any help on how to fix this?

There's a simple solution to all of this. Don't pay attention to this Soulja Boy. Don't give him coverage. Don't give him the satisfaction of knowing that you care(or don't apparently). Don't give him any hits on his web blogs or whatever the hell he's doing on the internet. Don't buy his albums. When someone says Soulja Boy you reply with "Excuse me, I believe you meant to say 'soldier boy'". If I was ghetto, I'd probably use that as my Live gamertag though.

You seem to have a group of suspicious penguins trespassing on your property.

Let's not forget that Kojima's also a lying son of a bitch and Konami's insatiable need for money. Also Animae, I wasn't referring to you.

You're right. Excuse my hasty remark.

I thought we were above fanboyism in these forums. Guess not.

So I don't know if this is old news yet, but there are people hacking 360 version games of Left 4 Dead. I tried creating a versus lobby with a friend of mine, and one of the other 6 players had apparently fucked the game as there were about 4 tanks right on the start of No Mercy, witches everywhere, boomers and hunters, and a pretty bad text message at the top of it all. My game was somehow hacked, and I'm pissed off about it. If Valve wants me to buy another one of their games, this shit better be addressed by either them or MS. Yeah I filed a system tampering complaint against the guy, but as it stands I don't even wanna touch the game now.

You totally read my mind. Go us.

The whole soundtrack to FFVIII was great. I shouldn't have to explain why this was a great game, and I think that playing it will be the first thing I do when I get back home.

Who knows? I'm cautious about it, but I'm willing to bet it's just another little nudge to MGS4 on the 360.

Final Fantasy VIII, Eternal Sonata, Soul Blazer, Wild Arms 2, Majora's Mask, Guilty Gear X2(does this count?), Lost Odyssey.

That's good to hear as I'm grabbing Netflix as soon as I get my new credit card when I get home. Have you tried using it in a Live Party yet? And speaking of which, have any of you been getting disconnected randomly and often from any of your parties? Also, Left 4 Dead is an amazing game. I can't get enough of it. Some friends and I tried going through No Mercy on expert however, and must have tried for about 2 hours to get past that finale. We're SO CLOSE to having it done, but something always goes wrong at some point. For all I know, they're probably still trying. I had to stop after I started feeling mental fatigue. Still an amazing game though, and once we get enough people together at once, we're definitely gonna be doing versus more often. As of late, I don't really like playing it with other people online due to the online douchebag epidemic. Also, Mega Man 9 and Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Can I get a fuck yeah?

Mario and Sonic in a fighting game? That would never work.

I've got it for the 360, and it's hella fun. For serious.

The above is true, as I sold my old 20 gig pro to my younger cousin, and just by signing up with silver he managed to score a month of gold free as well. Also, important to note if you or family members are still on the fence that the arcade pack is just simple $199 and Microsoft still has the sale of a 20 gig HDD AND 3 months of Live Gold for $30 bucks more. For 230, you can get some serious gaming started. For the kids, there are plenty of games like Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Piñata, the LEGO games(Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman), Beautiful Katamari, and a host of others. For guys like us? Well, we've got a DELUGE of crap coming out this holiday, which is turning into yet another wallet killer, with games like Left 4 Dead(yes!), Gears of War 2, Tales of Vesperia, Last Remnant, Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge, etc. The Xbox Live arcade already has a flurry of casual games on it like spyglass board games, uno, puzzle games, and MS is starting to push out even more and more casual stuff like Lips(which I bet I could get my mom and step dad to play), more Scene it!, etc. I know at this point I've just started to sound like a billboard for Microsoft, and I'm not trying to leave out the other 2 systems which have their own strong points(I guess...), but I honestly feel that the Xbox 360 is turning into the next best system since the SNES, an I'm a HUGE PS2 fan. Happy gaming this holiday season, everyone.

Just installed Left 4 Dead to the HDD, fast install, fast loading, and holy shit literally no sound whatsoever. Made my avatar, tried out the party system. Once I get my credit card back I'm gonna get netflix. Microsoft for the motherfucking win.

Well I just got back from a 7 mile round trip walk to Gamestop, and now I'm going to install the game on my 360 HDD. Hurray.