A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the Army of 2 demo (Xbox 360), played it a few times and thought I need to get this game! The demo was cool and I thought it was going to be a great game.

I finally got the time to pick up a copy this weekend and started playing. After a quick update it became apparent that we had to go through the whole demo again since there is no way to bypass the training.

What really makes this game unique is the fact that you need to have two players and the dependence you have on your teammate. While I have played several online games that are multi-player like Call of Duty, Halo and Rainbow Six they are usually a bunch of individuals on the same team. Army of Two makes you depend on your team mate to cover you and to distract the enemy.

The graphics are good and the videos help to tell the story as you move through the campaign. It’s a little frustrating to have to go through the videos after each mission and not be able to bypass them, but they aren’t as long as some games like Assassins Creed which drives you nuts.

One of my favorite features in the game is Overkill, this is when your teammate has all the Agro for an extended period of time the game prompts you to click into Overkill mode.

Overkill mode changes the speed of the game to a crawl and doubles your killing power which leads for some cool effects when you shoot the enemy. This is critical during certain parts of the game when you are fighting 20 enemies at once. L’Abattoir and Running Man are a couple of unlockable acheivements that you can get by getting kills in Overkill mode.

After about 6 - 8 hours I made it through the game, I thought it was a bit repetitive and needed some more challenging game play.  Going back in the more difficult modes was much harder and playing with the recruit partner became a little difficult as he would abbandon you going towards the mission and leaving you to battle with the current attackers.

I was thinking that the on-line play would be interesting, but the couple of times I tried to play there was nobody on-line, so I’ll have to get back to you on that!

I would probably rate the game an 7.5 out of 10.  Hoping to get some online game play going….

“Grand Theft Auto IV” raked in more than $500 million in its first week in stores, selling more than 6 million units worldwide, the video game’s publisher said Wednesday.

The highly anticipated title from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. has received stellar ratings along with criticism for its violent content. The game follows Eastern European immigrant-turned gangster Niko Bellic on crime missions around a fictional Liberty City.

The title sold about 3.6 million units on April 29, its opening day, bringing in roughly $310 million. This is $10 million more than what Microsoft Corp.’s “Halo 3,” another blockbuster game, took in during its first week last fall.

New York-based Take-Two is the subject of a $2 billion hostile buyout from larger rival Electronic Arts Inc., which Take-Two has repeatedly rebuffed as too low.

Take-Two’s shares were recently trading at $26.39, above EA’s tender offer of $25.74 per share, which expires May 16. Unless EA is willing to offer more, it seems “increasingly possible” the acquisition attempt could unravel, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey said in a note to investors.

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter disagrees, however, saying the game’s sales were well within his expectations.

“I don’t think it changes the value of the company,” he said. “I think we are going to end up with a Microsoft-Yahoo situation,” with Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick believing the company is worth more and EA chief John Riccitiello disagreeing.

Three months after it first made an offer, Microsoft dropped its $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo Inc. over the weekend after the companies couldn’t agree on a price.

Pachter said he expects the game to sell 12 million copies by the end of 2008. GTA’s previous versions have sold more than 70 million copies worldwide.

Already, the game seems to be living up to its juicy past, which includes controversy over hidden sex scenes, sharp criticism from Hillary Rodham Clinton and a 2006 lawsuit that blames the game for three New Mexico murders committed by a 14-year-old.

For one, Take-Two sued the Chicago Transit Authority on Monday for removing ads for the game because of its “Mature” rating, which means it is not suitable for people under 17. And the game also caught the ire of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which seeks an adults-only rating because it lets players drive after imbibing in virtual liquor.

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My original Xbox 360 has broken a few times, three to be exact and I can’t say it’s ever a good time to be without a console. First I have to tell you that Xbox ( Microsoft) is without a doubt a pleasure to deal with. They are always polite and professional and they have the whole support/repair process down to a science. They ship you a box that comes with a shipping label, anti-static bag and padding to ship your Xbox back, they even give you a perfect piece of tape to seal the box with.

Having said that, I can also say it’s frustrating to be without your game console for anywhere between 3 to 4 weeks. What’s even more frustrating is when you receive your console back from Xbox (they actually gave me a new replacement) and it’s broken within about 30 days of getting it. They do consider the fact that you loose your console for about a month, when you receive the console back from Xbox repair they also include a free 30 Day Xbox Live prepaid card. In both cases I believe my problem had to do with overheating.

If having my console break 2 times wasn’t enough my console started overheating again, and yes you guessed it, it went back for a 3rd time. This time I received an older console and wasn’t too thrilled about that, however all I really care about is that it works.

I’m also wondering if my 3 year warranty which ends this December will be extended due to the amount of problems I have had and the amount of issue Xbox has had with these consoles.

Has anybody else out there had the same amount of problems with your 360 consoles?
Let’s hope mine keeps running! Time to go play some LIVE!

I won’t mention the name of the store I was at the other day looking for a new Xbox game, when I came across this demo Xbox console. I started laughing to myself and thinking doesn’t anybody that works here walk by this console and see that it’s not working? At least turn it off.

This can’t be sending a good message to potential buyers. Has anyone out there seen the same thing? If you have a picture send it to me, I think we can build a collection. I myself have sent my Xbox in for repair many times, and will post something about that experience as well.

One of the great features in Halo 3 is the ability to capture video from your game or even take a screenshot of your favorite scene. We’ll talk about capturing a screenshot here.
First you need to enter the theatre option from the main menu. At that point you are have entered the theatre lobby and should be able to click on "start film" in order to start watching the latest game you played. You will be able to press the start button at any time to see the controls within the playback of the film. While watching the film you can hit the Y button in order to detach the camera from the player, and you can fly the camera around at any angle height etc. When you finally find that awesome shot, you simply press X and look at the pop up menu. On the left side of the options you will see picture, click X and it will automatically take the screen shot and upload it to Bungie.net. It does give you the option to also name the screenshot if you like, or simply click the automatic name and upload option and your done!

The Heroic Map Pack is available for free from the Live Marketplace. To get this download sign into Xbox LIve and go to the Marketplace blade. From there select the Game Store and then select All Games. You’ll get back a big list of all the 360 games so instead of just scrolling down the list you can hold down the right trigger to page down until you get to HALO 3. After clicking on HALO 3 you will see towards the bottom the Heroic Map Pack , seclect that and confirm the download and you’ve got it.
The 487Mb file took about 35 minutes on my 3MB DSL to download.

You Xbox is connected to Xbox Live, but you keep getting errors and can’t play a game. The problem might be that your Xbox requires certain ports to be open on your router in order to communicate with XBox Live. To accomplish this task follow these steps:

Click on the Save Settings Button, and start playing on Xbox-Live!

The packaging on this game is great!  Since my Xbox is broken, we toss the box around and try to catch it with our controllers.