Yup, Rock Band was my big Birthday present this year, Monique got it for me. If you don’t know what that is then here’s the skinny: Rock Band is a game that lets one person play drums, another person play bass, yet another play guitar and a fourth person sing, all at the same time, it’s like Guitar Hero x4! There’s a bunch of great songs that come with it, and more available to purchase via download.  It’s a ton of fun and last Saturday night we had a bunch of family over to mess with it and celebrate my birthday some more.

Check out the pics!

Last night we had a bunch of friends over to play some Halo 3 for our second “Halo Nite” event. The last one was back in 2004 and it was a generation ago for the game as well as the Xbox. This time we had about 20 people show up, 13 of those were players. Add to that two players in Colorado via the magic of the internet. We played from 6pm until 3:30 in the morning! (although we took quite a few breaks for pizza and other socializing) It’s incredibly fun to talk about the map we just played, and Halo 3 has a cool theater feature where you can watch the entire battle you just had, it’s great!

Again for this Halo Nite, I made some “dogtags” for everyone. Here is a sample:

Another thing we stopped playing for was something I’ve been working on for some time. It’s a green screen studio in our garage! I’m still learning, so these photos aren’t all that clear, but it was really fun to mess around with between fights.

view the slideshow!

As was the case last time, Halo Nite was a lot of fun. Thanks to all that came and made it such a great time. It was nice to get the gang together and blow stuff up before our bundle of joy arrives. I’m not sure when the next chance we’ll have for something like this!

So anyway, about the Halo 3ness: It’s pretty good so far, nothing ground breaking game-wise so far in the single player. It looks incredible, it’s fun, and there are some cool new features, but it’s just the right sequel to have — it’s not something that made my jaw drop too far. Where it really shines is its multi-player abilities and statistical muscle. Bungie.net tracks everything you can imagine from multi-player games. I love wading through the data after a good fight. You don’t have to be limited to raw data this time around though, there’s a great DVR-like feature that lets you review every battle as it happened with a free-roaming camera!

In preparation for the next “Halo Nite” coming this fall, I’ve constructed a green screen studio and we plan to have some fun with it in a Halo kinda way come the party. More on that later.

I recommend you check out the very cool Halo 3 web site. There’s this incredible battlefield “fly-through” that was made with tiny figures and models. Then if you’re thrilled with that, and you’re still reading, check out the cool commercials they’ve made. Nice way to keep it fresh.

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Not related: I think Chuck Mangione looks like Johnny Depp’s character from Benny & Joon.

So I get to the Glendale office on Tuesday and decide I need a lanyard for my nametag and ID, I found one that said Playstation 3 in my bag so I put that on and wear it. That night I come home and fire up the Xbox 360 after Monique went to bed. I play a game, then go to swap out the disc for another and the drive makes this REALLY awful sound. Blammo! Karma. It’s weird enough that my Xbox has it’s own blog, but it’s obviously a big white jealous monster as it crippled itself onna counta I wore that PS3 lanyard.. right?

Well, the good news is that I bought the replacement warranty and I’ll receive a Best Buy Gift Card for the price I paid for the 360 back in May. Now do I go buy a PS3 with that Gift Card? That’s a big NO. I won’t be hoppin’ on that bandwagon until there’s a “killer app” in their stable, and even that’s not a sure thing once they do. This Gift Card will be picking up another Xbox 360. I can’t express how happy I am with the platform, I gotta give Microsoft a lot of credit for that.

I’ve been all over the map on my views of what “next generation” game console you should have in your home. Ideally it would be wonderful to own them all. The PS3 has a lot of bells and whistles that might even justify the cost, the Wii has all kinds of originality that makes it attractive to everyone, and the Xbox 360 has a year head start on both of its rivals. With all the holiday hub bub, I thought I’d just let everyone know how my experience is going.

On June 5th of this year, I bought an Xbox 360. I have since logged many many hours on it, and I have actually found my self complimenting Microsoft for its work on more than one occasion. I’ve found that that online portion is so well done, and so seamlessly intertwined with the offline experience (Leaderboards, Achievements, Friends, etc.) that it’s a totally different experience than yesterday’s consoles, PS2 and the original Xbox included. I can’t speak enough about the online community that is built and waiting for anyone who gets a 360, and most of the online features are free! The only thing you have to pay a small monthly fee for is the ability to actually play online with friends, all of the stats and the chatting is free.

One thing I’d like to see improve on the Xbox front is the variety of games offered. Sure, there’s a wide variety, but the ones I miss are the crazy-artsy-clever titles, like Katamari Damacy, Ico, and Shadow of the Collossus. I’m sure they’ll get there, but they’re not there yet. It also wouldn’t hurt to at least attempt to tap the party console market that the Wii will certainly enjoy. It’s something that the Live Arcade games seem to accomplish a bit better than the store-bought games.

Now it’s important to keep in mind that I haven’t spent a whole lotta time with the PS3 and the Wii, just a little in store experience and even less at last year’s E3. But I have read a whole lot on both of them and it doesn’t seem like they’ve paid attention to building an online community as much as the Xbox has. Not to mention some blockbuster titles that are heading the 360′s way (Mass Effect, for one, looks amazing!).

I don’t think you really can lose with any of these consoles, but I would certainly recommend the Xbox 360 based on my experience with it over the last 5 1/2 months. Choose whichever you want, but if you get an 360, look me up online!

While not graphically stunning, the game will be in High Definition, and will enable you to play head to head against people all over the world through the Xbox Live service. Gamer’s identities will now include a chip count that will add to the reputation that the Gamerscore already does, and the rumored inclusion of some webcam functionality in the fall will bring a cool twist on reading a tell from an opponent. The Xbox Live version of this game will be a sure hit as Hold’em is addictive as all heck. Read the whole press release.

Don’t get me wrong, the PS3 is going to be amazing, and I’ll have one someday, but it won’t be the day it comes out. I think it would be a smarter move to give them some time to work out some bugs and get some great games put out for the system. Then maybe the following summer I’ll pick one up, but we’ll see how it’s received and how the luanch goes. $600 is a lot to throw down for a system, blu ray or not. The PS3 purchase may slide to when I have a TV and there are games out there that utilize 1080p.

I’ve been really impressed with the 360. There still aren’t a lot of games available, I think there are 30-40 or so that are out right now (more if you count the ones you can download online), but there should be close to 100 out by the holiday season. More impressive than the horsepower of the sytem, the gorgeous graphics and great gameplay is something that is expected. What has impressed me more is the way that it’s all tied together in the community called Xbox live. This was one of the things that I loved about the previous generation, and it got a whole lot better this time around. You can download all kinds of content through the service including: demos of games so you can “try before you buy,” full versions of old-school arcade games that have multi-player aspects added to them, movie trailers, and more. The downloadable games are in something called the Xbox Live Arcade, and it’s pretty addicting. I’ve been playing Uno with some friends online as well as some complete strangers. Yeah, I know… Uno. Go outside Joe! But really, it’s pretty cool with teh sense of community that’s built into it. Two things specifically make it great: Achievements and Gamer Score. Every Xbox 360 title has certain achievements that you can do that have a point value assigned to them. For example, if you play 40 “draw two” cards in Uno over the course of your playing career, you unlock an achievement and you get 15 points added to your gamer score. My Gamerscore is currently 410. My “Gamercard” is pictured to the right.

Being a mac guy, I had my concerns about how the 360 will interact with my computers over my network, if at all. Luckily, I have found quite a few little apps that make the 360 talk to macs. With Connect360, I can stream music from any mac on my network, listening to anything in iTunes, including playlists, while I play games both online and offline. It also lets me view photos that I have in iPhoto. Pretty slick for quick slideshows on the big screen.

There’s also some really cool 3rd party web tools that interface with the 360, but one in particular I have to point out. My 360 actually has a blog about me! It makes an entry daily (which is more than I can say for me on this blog) re-capping what I’ve played and how my Gamerscore is progressing. Check it out!

If you ever end up with a 360, send me a friend request! I’m known as “The Chickening” on Xbox Live!