Oh wells… Download. Restart. Update. Restart. I sign in and take a look at the features.

Games on Demand

This is a pretty awesome feature they added. You were able to purchase and download some of the original XBox games before, but now they added a few XBox360 games to the library. There are a few games from the Greatest Hits category that I saw on there.

Normally I like to have a physical copy of any game I purchase, but being able to play any game straight from the hard drive would be pretty sweet. You won’t need to swap out discs when you want to change games anymore. Man… this is just going to make players lazier and lazier.

The price for each game are around $5 bucks more than the price you would see it at Gamestop or Best Buy. So what you are paying for is the convenience of not having to go out and buy it yourself. Also, you won’t have the problem of getting your discs scratched or lost anymore.

Avatar Marketplace

Oh god… they added a marketplace where you can buy stuff for your XBox360 Avatar. Wow, what a waste of money (via Microsoft points). Let’s see… 2000 Microsoft points costs $25. So its $5 for 400 Microsoft points. $1 for 80 Microsoft points. That is pretty much all you need to know if you want to convert Bill Gates money into American dollars.

So how much would these Avatar clothing going to cost me? Buying my Avatar hats would cost me from $1 to $2. There are hats with Halo emblems, some with Gears of War emblems, some hats from Fable II. Meh… I’m not gonna spend a dollar to buy my Avatar a Gears of War baseball cap.

Next we have T-Shirts, oh boy! Same as the hats, they come in various designs base on some of your favorite games. Like the hats, I’m not going to bother. There’s shoes too, pass. Rings!? Pass. C’mon, give us something cool!

Hmm… the Big Daddy helmet from Bioshock for 2 bucks. Looks pretty cool, but not for me. COG Armor from Gears of War, 4 bucks for the suit, 2 bucks for the helmet. Looks pretty cool, but not $6 cool. Maybe if you’re a big Gears fan. There is a similar suit thingy for Halo ODST too for 5 bucks. Still not for me.

Oh joy! I can buy pom poms for my Avatar for $2! Or sandals for a buck! Sneakers for 2 dollars each! You could be buying a game for the price of dressing up your Avatar!

Jeez… this Avatar Marketplace thing has to be one of the biggest joke Microsoft has ever come up with. Who in the right mind will ever spend money on something so ridicu- HOLY SHIT A LIGHTSABER!!!

Totally worth the 5 bucks!!!

*ahem* Like I said, the Avatar marketplace has to be one of the coolest feature Microsoft has ever implemented for the Xbox360. Fans of any game will find new ways to show their support for the games they love.

Summary: I got a freaking Lightsaber! That is all.

Do you find yourself at level 70 with nothing to do anymore? Even with end game raiding, I find myself with nothing to do on non-raid days. Normally I would farm for mats to prepare for the next raid, but I already have enough flasks, oils, foods, potions to last like three months. So what do I do now to keep myself busy? I gave myself a reason to start doing dailies again.

Now I have a Chocobo for ground and air!

I bought ["Gigantique" Bag] x 4, and a [Cenarion War Hippogryph]. It was either the mount, or drop 1k gold on that new title from the Isle of Quel’Danas. So the bags were 1200g each, and the mount was 1600g. I think my next goal is to replace all my 20 slot bags in my bank (all seven) with the expensive Haris Pilton ones. After that, then I will get the title.

Video Games:

I’ve been playing FFIV still and am coming close to beating it. I just landed on the moon and am currently making my way towards that crystal castle looking thing. Incoming new party member!

Madden 2009 came out today. Me and my roommate picked up our copy last night at midnight at the local 7 eleven. This year’s graphics look amazing, and the game seems to be going at a much faster pace. The regular football season needs to start already. Guess Madden will keep me busy until then.

Looks like EA Games needs to update their cover.

Real Life:

Otakon 2008 was a ton of fun. A convention full of anime, video games, and thousands of people who share the same interests. I even found some Warcraft players!

A Warlock, a Moonkin, and a Priest walk into a bar…

I’ll have more pictures and stuff in the future. I still gotta sort through all of them, and get more pictures from my other friends who went with me.

New waves of Beta Keys were given out recently, so check your emails to see if you were lucky enough to get one! Sadly I still haven’t gotten one yet. Also be careful of fake emails or scam mails. There is a nice post on the EU WoW Forums that will help you tell the difference between a real and fake email.

Also Blizzard has updated their WotLK Talent Calculator. As of right now, the calculator is up to date with the WotLK Beta Build 8719. You can find the talent calculators here at: WotLK Beta Talent Calculators

PvE Frost: 11/0/60

Right now my new Talent Build for WotLK would be something like THIS. 11 Points into Arcane for Focus Magic, and the rest into Frost.

Video Games:

I’m still tearing it up on Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online on the PS3. I rose up in ranks, and currently at rank 4th Dan. I am surprised there are still many players out there who still play. A lot of really good players too!

Ling Xiaoyu is still my character of choice

I am hovering just above 55% for my win to loss ratio. It is getting more and more difficult as I start playing higher ranked players. I hate Eddy and Christie players.

I took a break from Person 3: FES and started playing Final Fantasy IV on the Nintendo DS. Great game too! The upgraded graphics and added voice made this old NES classic even better.

I kinda wished that my characters would let me know ahead of time when they feel like sacrificing themselves for the greater good. The advance warnings would be nice so I know to unequip some of the good pieces of armor they were wearing.

I also purchased Geometry Wars 2 when it came out a couple of days ago. It is a huge upgrade from the previous version, and it is even more chaotic. The game pushes my concentration and reaction time to the limit, and I find myself not even blinking for long periods of time.

So much stuff going on the screen, it gets difficult to survive.

Real Life:

Spicytunas.com has hit a great milestone in its blog life. We’ve reached to 100,000 marker on the number of hits (according to sitemeter) for the blog. It’s a pretty big step from when I made this blog public and moved it over to a self hosting service back in February of this year. Thanks to magi for pointing it out for me that it was approaching the mark.

Some other bloggers who also hit this milestone recently too. Ratshag of Need More Rage, and Megan of Out of Mana both hit their 100,000 mark just two weeks ago. Hrmm… on the same day, and their blog names are similar too, what a coincidence! Anyways, grats to the both of them.

Thanks again for visiting. It gives me more reason to keep doing what I enjoy doing, and hopefully you will still stick around for more.

With the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), there will be a ton of new announcements, disappointments, and even some release dates. So there is a lot to cover for last week, and I’ll go over a few of them today.

World of Warcraft:

Patch 2.4.3 is out. The latest patch notes can be read here.

The significant changes in Patch 2.4.3 are:

General

• Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
• Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
• Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
• Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.

Mages

• Frost Armor, Ice Armor, Mage Armor, and Molten Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.

Warlocks

• Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
• Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.

Mounts at level 30 for our baby Mages, 22 Slot Bags for our older Mages. Our Armors can no longer be dispelled in PvP, and Warlocks will buff our PvE regardless of the number of Mages in the raid.

Also, if you are using the Evocation macro, if you switch back to your DPS gear too early now, it will cancel your Evocation channeling.

I finally got my WoW Authenticator! It is kind of a hassle to needing to have it on you whenever you want to log in, but he added security is way worth it!

Video Games:

Ah… E3 has begun and there are a lot of exciting news. E3 begins July 14th, and lasts until July 17th, so there will still be more news to come.

The biggest news so far is Final Fantasy XIII will also be released for the Xbox360! This is a huge blow to Sony, and Microsoft has taken the final steps to making the Xbox THE system for JRPGs. I for one, am really excited about this announcement. I have an Xbox360, but no PS3 (although I still want one!). Final Fantasy XIII would have been one of the reasons for me to break down and finally get a PS3, but now there is no need to anymore.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still a PS3 exclusive at the moment, but I guess the “exclusiveness” of any game can be taken away at anytime now. Seems like nowadays, “exclusive” just means “for the time being, will only be for”.

A new Fable 2 trailer was shown, and the announced release date is for October 2008. There was also a new Star Ocean: The Last Hope trailer. The release date for that is Spring 2009. Some new clips for Halo Wars was also released. A release date for that is early 2009.

Microsoft also announced that they have partnered up with Netflix, and you will be able to download the movies you want if you have a Netflix account. My roomate has a Netflix account, this will be nice to have.

The Xbox360 interface is getting a new upgrade too. They’re adding a couple a few features, one which resembles the Nintendo Wii’s Mii feature.

I know that is a lot of Xbox360 news. The Microsoft part of E3 was July 14th, hence all the Xbox360 news. July 15th will be Nintendo and Sony’s day of announcements.

Also, fans of the Sims game, Sims 3 is coming out in 2009. Here is a small trailer for that.

Movies:

The Dark Knight, July 18th, that is all…

Real Life:

I finally joined BlogAzeroth for the first time last week. Crazy (but awesome) group of people I tell ya. Great place to hang out during the day.

WordPress 2.6 is out! I upgraded with now problems. Haven’t noticed any new changes yet.

Sports:

It is the All Star break for baseball, and the Phillies are still hanging in there at the top of the NL East, half a game ahead of the Mets.

2B Chase Utley, and P Brad Lidge have been selected for the All Star game. Chase was also selected for the Home Run Derby, but failed to advance to the 2nd round with 5 Home Runs.

World of Warcraft:

If you haven’t heard yet, [Sunfire Handwraps], [Shoulderpads of Knowledge's Pursuit], and [The Skull of Gul'dan] are mine!

Season 4 of Arena has been announced to start on June 24th. Hope you have your Arena Points and Honor Points all saved up!

Looks like there has been images going around that Blizzard is going to add an Achievement System into Wrath of the Lich King. I think this is a great move by Blizz, and will keep players playing the game. It is one of the main reasons why I play so much Xbox360!

0 for 25 on Baron’s Mount. Almost Honored with Wintersaber Trainers.

Oh yea, if you haven’t done so already, get your monthly bag of gems from the Consortium faction in Nagrand.

Comics:

I have been reading the Civil War series by Marvel Comics. One of the best series I’ve read before. On par with the Age of Apocalypse series.

Video Games:

Starting to play my console games again. Finishing up my “evil” route on Mass Effect. Currently on Disc 4 for Lost Odyseey. I have already put in over 20 hours of gameplay for Persona 3: FES. Contemplating on starting my 2nd playthrough for Eternal Sonata (requires about 3 playthroughs to get everything).

Real Life:

So hot in Philly right now… the Sun… must destroy it…

I thought I would share with you some of the things that happened this past week, which you may or may not care about.  Maybe I will make this a regular thing, who knows. Depends on if there was a lot that went on during the week I guess. Oh well, here it goes…

World of Warcraft:

It is Children’s Week in WoW. Go take your pet for the day out and around Azeroth and Outland, and turn them in for a cool pet! I contemplated on keeping Jaina’s Autograph for myself, and keeping this human child as my pet until he expires. I got Speedy the Turtle instead. I also got Eggbert from the Outland one.

Hmmm… Jaina’s Autograph and Human slave or Speedy the Turtle?

I am now 0 – 20 for Baron’s Mount, and decided to start on my Wintersaber Trainer’s Rep again when I get sick of farming Stratholme. Currently half way to Honored with them.

[Pattern: Sunfire Robe] dropped and I wished I was a tailor. The pattern was won by a Shadow Priest. The Mages and Warlocks which were tailors all cried in unison.

[Design: Loop of Forged Power] also dropped, but the crafted ring is Bind on Equip, so I got myself [Sunmote] x 5 from the guild, and I am now waiting for one more [Primal Might] transmute before I can get this baby crafted.

We decided on a new strategy on Eredar Twins. The strategy overall is much simpler than the last, but relys on everyone to be on their “A” game. One person doesn’t move in time will trigger an instant wipe. Got one twin down to 60% with only 21 people in the Raid during practice runs. We’ll see how this goes with a full raid.

The Epic Gem Vendor on my server is currently at 61%. It is going really, really slow. Come on everyone, do your dailies! I know I know, even I get lazy sometimes and not do them either.

BRK’s Running of da Bulls was a huge success. 373 level one Taurens running around Azeroth starting trouble.

Speaking of Tauren, we got a Tauren Mage in the raid one night. Doesn’t he look cool?

/mooooooooo

Movies:

The first of four movies to be released, Evangelion: 1.0 You are [Not] Alone, was released on DVD on April 29th, and became the best-selling DVD in Japan in 2008 so far. If you are looking for an english Dub of this movie, I highly recommend [Anonymous].

Iron Man was released in theatres this weekend. I watched it, and enjoyed the movie a lot. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, go watch it! And stay til the end, there is more after the credits. If you saw it already and left before the credits finished, now you have another reason to go watch the movie again.

Video Games:

Grand Theft Auto 4 has sold a record setting ~2.5 million copies in the United States on opening day. I am one of the buyers and am currently enjoying the game. First thing I did was run over a few pedestrians, and went straight to the strip club, and I know about 90% of you out there who got the game did the same. My gamertag is Trunks1022 if any of you own this game on the Xbox360 and want to do some multiplayer mayhem.

Finally got to Disc 4 on Lost Odyssey. It is a really great RPG for the Xbox360. You should really give it a shot if you enjoy any role-playing game.

In Real Life:

The Sixers lost to the Pistons in Game 6 of the playoffs, losing the series 4-2. Nobody expected them to make the playoffs let alone take two games from the Pistons. Good job guys.

The Flyers beat the Canadiens in Game 5 of the playoffs, winning the series 4-1. They will now face off with the Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals. A little Pennsylvania rivalry going on here.

The Phillies are now in first place in the NL east. Chase Utley and Pat Burrell are still on fire.

My sister is graduating from Seton Hall next week. Congrats to her! My cousin and trusted sidekick is also graduating from Rowan University next week. Grats to him too!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Don’t forget, Mother’s Day is just around the corner!

The method I will show you will require you to have an XboxLive Silver or Gold account, and we will be using an external hard-drive to view your anime from. I will be using my Western Digital 500gig External HD. Also note, the HD must be formatted as FAT32 and not NTFS in order for the Xbox360 to see it. I use this HD pretty much as my media storage and have my media all sorted out to make it easy for me to find stuff. So grab your external hd and throw some anime or shows on there, and simply hook up the HD to either the front or back USB port on your Xbox360.

Turn on your Xbox360 and log into your gamer profile. Scroll over to the media blade on your dashboard, and go into the Video section. Press “X” to select the source of where you want to select your videos from. Select Portable Device, and you should be able to see all the folders you have on your HD. Select the video that you want to watch, and attempt to play it.

You should get an error saying the content is unplayable and that you require a media update in order to play the file. If you are already logged into a Silver or Gold account, you should be given an option at the bottom to download update. If not, log into one, and try again. You would be taken to a download screen to get the Optional Media Update. After a quick download, try playing the video again. You should now be able to watch it.

Congratulations! You can now watch your favorite anime and TV show in the comfort of your living room. As you can see by the pictures, the quality is as clear as you were watching it on your computer monitor, it is just now bigger you dont have to be all close to your monitor while watching. Also a plus if you have a few friends over who want to watch it too. No more crowding around the computer desk to watch the latest Naruto Shippuden episode!

Now a few things I’ve noticed. You should be able to play all windows media player video formats except for .mkv, .mov, and probably .rm files. Also, I have noticed that even after you download the media update, you will still get the unplayable error if you are not logged into a Silver or Gold account. Wierd. Hopefully Microsoft will address this problem in the next update. Also note, that the pictures you have seen in this post were taken from my cell phone, so excuse the poor quality of the photos, or buy me a new digital camera, your choice.

Well I hope this worked for you, if not, feel free to leave a question and I will try my best to help. Cya next time!

Now for a few more pictures of anime on the Xbox360.

My thoughts on the Xbox360? Overall I am happy with the system. There is enough games out for the system that I am never bored with it, and there are plenty of games coming out for the Xbox360, that I won’t be bored with it anytime soon. There are a few exclusive titles that may be reason enough to purchase the system. Halo 3, Gears of War, Mass Effect to name a few. There is also XboxLive, XboxLive Marketplace, XboxLive Arcade, the Achievement system, and media playback. You can also stream music, video, or view pictures from a networked computer.

XboxLive: This feature allows you to enjoy some of the games that support multiplayer online with others. So when you are finished or bored with single player mode, you can take some games online for multiplayer mode for some more fun. There is support for a friendlist, so you can see whenever they are online, and even join into thier gaming sessions if the game allows. The XboxLive Marketplace is where you can purchase extra goodies (new maps, levels, costumes) for some of your games, or even rent movies that are out, and download them directly to your Xbox360 for your viewing pleasure. The XboxLive Arcade is where you can purchase classic games to be played on your Xbox360. There is also smaller developed games you can purchase from here. With this, you will never run out of games to play on your Xbox360.

For those of you who wish to add me to your friendlist, my gamertag is: Trunks1022. You can probably see me online playing Mass Effect or Eternal Sonata at the moment. So you can drop by and send me a message anytime to say, “Hi”. Also if you feel like teaming up with me to save the world, or even if you feel like challenging me in a football match, feel free to toss me an invitation. You can click on this little gamercard here to view which games I have played, and even see how much I have completed for each game. I will look forward to seeing you online. Remember to bring you “A” game.

The Achievement System: This feature gives all the games you purchased for the Xbox360 some added replay bonus. Each game will give you a set amount of points for achieving goals laid out within the game, towards your “Gamerscore”. Its like an extra bonus you get for beating a game, and you can let other people know your achievements.

There are a few problems for the Xbox360 that many people have. The biggest one being the Red Ring of Death (RRoD). Its basically your system getting a system failure, and stops working. This is serious problem that many people are experiencing, and because of this, Microsoft has extended their warranty to 3yrs, and will repair any Xbox360s which encounters this problem, free of charge. Granted, there is a month or two waiting period until you get your Xbox360 back, but hey, at least its free.

I will leave you with a few pictures I’ve found on the interweb of externally modded Xbox360s. Enjoy!