The Boschmans Account » xbox

Far Cry 2 beginners tips

alex — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:56:39 +0000

Last thursday I bought Far Cry 2 for XBOX 360 from the FNAC.

Once again, the xbox 360 price was substantially more than the PC version (59,99 € versus 39,99 €). Still, I don’t need to buy the latest PC gaming rig to play it on a adequate level, with the XBOX the graphics are more than good enough for me (Ubisoft has developed a new graphics engine).

Far Cry 2 is actually not a follow-up to the first Far Cry story, the only link is the name and what it gives you : unfettered freedom in a large (50 square km’s !) area that is just crawling with bandits, jeeps, houses, more bandit, animals, pipelines and more bandits, all waiting for you to pass by and shoot, slash, fire and bomb them up in ways only limited by your imagination.

There are plenty of weapons to be unlocked, plenty of missions to go through and several ways to reach them.

Bandits are actually very hard to see, you don’t have an augmentation like infrared binoculars or some such to point them out to you. If they are taking pot shots at you and missing, you feel like a fool standing there trying to find them.

You can get an inkling of where they are when you get shot – the streak of red points to where the bullets are coming from. Also your target cursor turns red when it on a baddie (even though he may be hiding behind something).

My tips so far are :

Check your gps/map combo regularly – it’s the key to a little extra income in diamonds, the local currency there. Don’t forget to look up or down !
For the weapon shop missions, which are always on the other side of the map, use the bus ! In most convoy destroying missiles, the bus stop is not far away from the mission and saves you traversing all the manned checkpoints (which quickly become a pain to pass as they respawn).
Use the boat as well – it gets you most everywhere else, in a very quick manner, with only a minimal amount of bullets.
Treat your buddies well – they upgrade your safe houses and will save your bacon when you get into a firefight you can’t win.
When there are too many enemies around, either hunker down and retreat if you are in the jungle, where you are easely conceiled or if in the savanne, toss a molotov cocktail their way – fire is a very effective way of preventing them encircling you and giving them something else to think about than you.
Use the target cursor turning red to scan the areas for baddies.

My favourite weapons so far (I’m only 8% far or so, plenty of weapons to unlock) are :

for my main weapon the sniper rifle
my side arm is an Uzi
my special weapon is the machine gun, but I’m thinking of upgrading to either a flame thrower or a rpg for that special explosive feeling !

Playing Mass Effect now

alex — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:56:42 +0000

Woooo. It’ certainly captivating, making me loose a lot of sleeping hours.

A nice engaging storyline. Lots and lots of side quests, which let you beef up your armour, weapons and technique so the main quest runs easier.Â No rush except if you want to. Save when you want, almost, except for in combat (logical).

I do have a blue light effect which bothers me from time to time, but that’s the only big complaint I have.

That and the time spent of course. I feel guilty spending all those hours enjoying myself with this game

Crackdown for the XBOX 360

alex — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:55:34 +0000

I’ve just finished Crackdown on the xbox 360, and I’ve been stunned by it.

The sheer joy of running faster than cars, jumping higher than small city buildings, creating extreme explosions and generally wreaking havoc on the gangs using a whole arsenal of weaponry while keeping a tongue-in-cheek approach is something worth treasuring this game for.

And this comes from somebody who does not like the Grand Theft Auto series ! Obviously, there are a lot of similarities to GTA, but for me the best thing about it was the superman feeling you get while playing. The sense of being damn near invulnerable or always getting closer to that was a real push to finish the game. The second best thing : the humor of the game, and the over-the-top melodramatic voice that accompanies you throughout the game.

Rating : recommended, even for dads !

Assassins Creed

alex — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:36:51 +0000

Ouch ! The only game where I feel a twinge in my guts from my fear of heights acting up.

Very good story, so far, leaving you lots of liberties on how you want to play it through…

Fable versus Assassins Creed

alex — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:48:38 +0000

I had bought Fable second-hand on Ebay – the original xbox version, since I had heard a lot of things about it. So I just put in the disc to verify that it was okay, just for a few minutes, and then I would go back to playing Assassins Creed.

That was an hour and a half ago. Fable is captivating, full of plot changes and the music, aah the music is especially sublime. It really feels like you are playing a movie. A predictable one, at first, as the begin story faintly reeks of the first few minutes of Conan The Barbarian.

Even though Assassins Creed graphics are way more beautiful, Fable manages to deliver a story, and you can appreciate the care to details that has gone into this game.

I just wanted to express my experience here : that good games can have good graphics, but that it is secondary to their value as a game.

Connect your xbox 360 to your iMac using Elgato Eye Hybrid

alex — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:01:11 +0000

I’ve recently acquired an xbox 360 when MediaMarkt did a clearance sale on a particular package deal. 299 â‚¬ is a very nice price for an xbox with a 20 gig hard disk, only the arcade version is selling cheaper.

I thought it was time to buy one, since almost all the games come out on xbox 360 nowadays, plus the fact that I really, really, really hate rebooting into Bootcamp Windows XP to play a game. All my Firefox sessions gone, all my open files needing to be closed and saved, closing my iMovie project… yes, my mac never shuts down unless it’s for a reboot for a new upgrade or into Bootcamp.

That’s the real power of the mac – it hardly ever crashes, so you keep everything open and keep working on stuff whenever you feel like it.
So I got my Xbox 360, I’ve got an Elgato Hybrid USB stick, and that stick is connected to my iMac to record tv shows. Why not connect the xbox to my iMac via the Elgato Hybrid ? I first tried using the normal cinch cables, but the screen quality is really not good at all, and rather shaky to boot.

The trick to it is using a S-Video cable instead, and while it is not a super-crisp HDMI signal, it certainly makes it look better. It look goods enough to play every evening some Assasin’s Creed, in fact.

Without rebooting.