Entries Tagged 'games' ↓

–pt_BR

Nesse feriado fiquei em uma situação quase desesperadora. Meu Xbox 360 pifou com as famosas “três luzes vermelhas“. Quase entrei em pânico, pois isso aconteceu na quinta-feira, feriado aqui em SP, quando não tinha como resolver. Pra piorar, entrei em contato com a Microsoft Brasil, e apesar de eles darem garantia de 3 anos sobre esse problema, a garantia só cobre aparelhos comprados no Brasil (não, o meu não é contrabando, mas eu comprei nos EUA, e entrei legalmente no Brasil).

Mercado Livre ao resgate! Pesquisei bastante, e achei um carinha que dizia resolver o problema, e melhor ainda, por um preço justo. Fechei negócio, e levei lá no dia seguinte. O cara abriu o console na minha frente, mostrou onde era o problema, e resolveu na hora. Tudo ficou pronto em 2h!

Salvei meu feriado. Não joguei muito, mas pelo menos não passei o fim de semana preocupado em perder meu console que me custou tão caro. Viva!

–en

Last week I found myself in an almost desperate situation. My Xbox 360 busted with the famous “three red lights“. I almost panic, because it happened Thursday, when it was a holiday in Sao Paulo, when there was no possible way to find someone to fix. Worse, I called Microsoft Brasil, and even though they have an extended 3 year warranty for this problem, the warranty covers consoles purchased in Brazil only (I bought mine in USA).

Mercado Livre to the rescue! (Note: it’s an e-Bay-like site in Brazil) Searched a lot, and found someone who calimed to fix the problem, and best of all, for a fair price. Done deal, took my console there in the next morning. The guy opened it while I was watching, showed me the problem, and fixed right away. Everything was good in 2 hours!

Saved my holiday. I didn’t play much, but at least I did not spend the rest of the weekend worried about losing my console, which cost so much. Hurray!

I had an excellent weekend, and I’m very thrilled with everything that happened! It was just another Saturday, with housing duties, but I took some time to go take a look at the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2008 (FIWC 08) that was going to happen in São Paulo. So close to home that makes me think: “why not taking a peek?”

<Flickr gallery>

My intention was just to go there and take a look, but when I came to the place the subscription line was not so big, so I decided to subscribe myself and have some fun. Well, it didn’t look so bad: even though it was based on PlayStation3, the game is FIFA08, which I play regularly on my Xbox 360 at home. The only thing that seemed would be a problem was the controller, so I was completely OK with the fact the I was not going further than the first round knockout.

Overview of the competition:

• 200 participants
• Single-elimination tournament
• FIFA08 on PlayStation3
• Few people from other states, only two foreigners (Mexicans)
• Qualifier to choose the Brazil representative for the world cup in Germany

As I said, it was just fun for me, but at the end, I went all the way through the eighth-finals! That’s awesome! This puts me among the 16 top FIFA players in the country. Who would imagine that?

Well, apart from what happens to me, that was a very interesting and thrilling competition, and also very friendly. No problems with competitors, no disqualifications, everything seemed to work pretty well.

It’s unfortunate that the winner was a Mexican. I think the official FIFA note would explain better than me:

“Ruben Morales Zerecero from Mexico was crowned the champion of the Brazilian FIFA Interactive World Cup Final 2008 today after defeating previous champion Andre Buffo and new challenger Richard Riviere in a sensational event in Sao Paolo. ” (read more)

Never the less, this was a great weekend. I’m still waiting for the official record of my final position, so I will write a little more about it in future posts. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, take a look at my gallery on Flickr!

[Apr/01]
- I found a website with press coverage. That’s me on the second photo. You can see some videos too.
- Another one, with me on the 4th photo.

I know it’s old news, but I decided to write something here after I received a newsletter from Sony with the title “The world has decided”.

In 2006 I said that I would go with PS3 (if I could afford it). Well, by the time the opportunity came, I could not, so XBox360 was the obvious choice. So, what does that all matters? If you read my post about PS3, you’re going to see that back in 2006 I was already prising Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, because by that time I already made my choice of format.

No, I’m not saying “I knew it”, I’m just writing this post to say that Microsoft lost this war.

Nobody knows for sure why M$ was going against the obvious (some have a few ideas why), but the fact is that the battle has come to an end, and the obvious has come to surface. Search around the web, and you’re going to see how many sites talk about companies declaring HD-DVD EOL. Even M$ did it already.

On Wikipedia, the official death of HD-DVD has been marked as February, 19, 2008, after Toshiba decided to EOL it’s production.

That’s it. It’s over. Good luck. Bye bye. Now let’s move on to the next format war.

[Update on Mar/13] Microsoft publically stated their Blu-Ray support.

Halo 3 está à venda no Mercado Livre.

Oh yeah! First rant of the year: Halo 3 sucks (in my personal opinion). I have bought the Halo 3 Limited Edition, and I am very glad that I haven’t spend my money in any of the other “cool” items they sell (like the “Xbox 360 Halo” console).

After trying many times, played online, watching the extras, reading the history behind the saga, and even playing Halo 1, I can’t make a connection to the game. I can’t see anything in the game that interests me. Nope, nothing, not even the weapons (they just feel lame compared to any other FPSes I’ve player before).

So I decided that I’m selling my copy of Halo. Sorry anyone outside Brazil, but it would be a pain to ship to other countries, so I’ll offer to locals first.

And if you’re thinking “what? how could he not like it?”, it’s simple: even the engineers admit, “if we please 90% of the games, that would be enough” (saw that on the extras, when the engineers were talking about the release process). So I’m one of the 10%. Period. Bye bye.

I was reviewing my posts, and found one I had to do a follow up. Once I said that I would go with PS3 if I could afford it. Well, I can, but when it came the time to buy, it was not worth it.

There is a big price difference between the PS3 with no accessories, and the XBox 360 with extras (controller, DVI, 1 game, remote control, etc). In the end, the XBox offered a better price/benefit rate, and I decided to go with it.

Also, the price of the games in Brazil is also huge, and it’s easier to find good titles for the XBox than the PS3. The amount of PS3 games selling in Brazil is lower than XBox, and even if I would go with legacy PS2 games, what good would be to have PS3 and run legacy? In any case, XBox also runs legacy games from the original XBox console.

So, now I have an XBox 360, with a few accessories and some nice games. The graphics look fantastic on my 32″ LCD TV, connected using the HDMI cable (1080i) Well, let’s be honest, that’s all Windows is good for: games.

Today I just finished playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Very good game. I like the game mode much better than Call of Duty. Not that CoD is lame (it’s still awesome), but they’re very different. CoD is more like “knife in the mouth, let’s go to war”, also called as “Rambo method”. On the other hand, GRAW is more like “think before you go”. There is tactics, team work, methods, hiding, sniping, just like modern wars are supposed to be. Next on list: GRAW 2.

I don’t have a proper answer for my own question: ‘why americans don’t like soccer?’. Well, one thing I can tell you for sure: narration of soccer games on American TV is BORING, I noticed that pretty right when I was in the US. Yesterday I received a copy of FIFA 08 for my XBox 360, direct from USA. In the past I used to play the FIFA series on the PC, with Brazilian narration, and the feeling of the game is waaaaay better. You can feel the emotion and the passion through the announcer on the Brazilian version, while on the American copy it’s booooring. I guess that’s the reason why they don’t like it.

I usually don’t comment the games I play, but this one sure deserves an exception: Call Of Duty 2 (official site / wikipedia info). I have one word for it: awesome.

War games are very interesting, specially when they relate to something real and has a very interesting history behind them, and that’s the case of this game. Added to that it has great graphics and physics, playability is smooth and guns feel very real (they react different depending on the situation, position, etc, and you really feel the difference from one gun to another).

The AI (artificial intelligence) is incredible. After you die, don’t expect them to react the same way, or be in the same places as they were when you were shot. They really act different every time you come back to the same spot or situation. And they don’t sit on a single place waiting for you to shot them. Also, regarding your fellow soldiers, it’s the first game I get feedback from the team. Except from the fact that you can’t give them commands (IIRC, there is only one mission where you lead) they cover you very well, and if you analyse well your strategy, you can even have them do most of the job for you, or act alone, it’s your choice.

The end is touching, with very cool music that makes you feel like watching the end of a war movie.

It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. Well deserved all the time spent. Let’s see how can I follow up on the series (official site).