Category: News

Hi everyone. If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll know that I’ve been busy as fuck building Xbox 360 Fanboy. It’s turned into quite a website and that’s something I’m very proud of. We should be launching our masthead soon and I realized I needed a website to link my name to. Just so happens that I’ve got a perfectly serviceable one right here. Yeehaw. I also realized that blogging about the same thing constantly can be a little tiring. So, I’ll use this space to unwind, as it were. I can write whatever I want, I can swear, and I can end as many sentences with prepositions as I’m inclined to do.

I don’t expect I’ll be here that often, just a few times a month, but there you go. It’s nice to be back (with a new version of WordPress and everything). Anywho, have a nice day and I’ll see you soon.

To anybody who still checks 8bN:

Very soon, 8bN will be no more. I began this site nary 2 and 1/2 months ago with one desire: to write about what I love. It turns out that this very blog helped leverage me into my current position over at Xbox 360 Fanboy. Hell, my gusto seems to have driven us to hire one more writer as well.

The truth is, I started this site by making myself a promise: by next year, I would attend E3. And, believe it or not, it looks like that could happen (I’m a superstitious person, so I can’t bring myself to say that it will happen). This website was very good to me, but X360F is my focus right now. It’s getting bigger all the time and I’m proud to be a part of that. If you’ve enjoyed this site — you know who you are — thanks. I’m glad for your support and I know some of you read my stuff at Fanboy.

Which brings me to the real point of this post: within a month or so, this site will likely be no more. Even as a personal blog, I just don’t have the time. I’ve neglected non-360 related items, for example (did I hear Wii is coming in October?). I haven’t decided whether or not to cancel my hosting altogether, but there probably won’t be any posts here for some time.

If you’d like to keep up with me, feel free to check out my Myspace profile. Don’t get me started on Myspace. I used to think it was stupid to see people wearing Nike swoosh shirts. “You’re paying Nike to advertise their product,” I used to think. Well, Myspace is the same thing ten fold. But, it’s fun and all my friends are there, so, yeah. And, at least I occasionally check it, which is more than I can say for 8bN lately.

Anywho, I’m not going away, just moving next door. Come on by. Sit a spell. Take your shoes off.

Later.

-Sense

Hey,

As you can tell, I’ve been pretty busy with Xbox 360 Fanboy. I’ve been doing upwards of six posts a day, which saps a lot of the time I used to use for posting here. Sorry ’bout that. I promised myself I’d never apologize for not having content on this site, but I feel I finally have a legitimate excuse.

I know it’s annoying to read “sorry for not posting” posts, but there you go. Check out my work over there and let me know what you think. Also, if you’ve got any great news regarding non-360 consoles, let me know.

-Sense

Remember my good news? Well, there it is. Right up there. I’m officially blogging for Xbox 360 Fanboy now. As a result, 8bN will likely see a few changes. One, I won’t be covering the 360 here anymore, unless it’s editorial. For that, you can head over to Xbox 360 Fanboy. Two, I probably won’t be posting here as often.

Overall, I couldn’t be more excited about this. Please, check out my first professional blog post and tell me what you think. Thanks, everyone!

Okay, we’ve all seen the various Nintendo music videos floating around the net. I choose to display this one—I found it on Kotaku—for one reason: This particular acappella features a song from Zelda II: Link’s Adventure, decidedly the most underrated game in the series. It’s refreshing to see people singing songs other than Mario and Zelda standards. There’s also some other fine tunes in there, though I don’t recognize them all.

[gv data=”by5pamLourk”][/gv]

I’m not feeling too hot today, so I skipped work. Well, I went in to work but left quickly anyway. As such, I’m not thrilled about doing updates today. But I thought I should give you all something, so I give you…a movie of Chromehounds! I’ve been looking forward to this game for some time now. If you don’t know, it’s a mech game with heavy customization and team dynamics. Graphically, the game doesn’t look quite as good as the shots that came out earlier this year. Still, it looks like it could be a lot of fun. This is a movie of one of the night missions. Enjoy it after the break. Continue reading “A Chromehounds Quickie”

 

Bungie has a weird interesting article up today.  Through calculations and prognostications I won’t pretend to understand, the folks at Bungie have discovered the “Average Gamertag”. That is to say, they have come up with the one Gamertag that most accurately represents all Gamertags (at least, all the Gamertags that play Halo 2). So, what is the magic ‘tag?

xArKKAAaEX

Roger from Bungie explains it thusly:

“How do I figure? First of all, these are “modal” averages, making use of the most-common values rather than in-between values, since seeing an A and a C doesn’t mean that B is most expected. The most common gamertag length is 10, so that’s what I used here. In each letter position, I found the frequency distribution of letters at that position, blended it halfway against the expected letter distribution in English to call out the statistically significant differences, and took the most heavily weighted resulting letter for that position. The average gamertag starts and ends with X — no surprise there — and after that starts with “Ark”. Coincidence? I don’t know.”

Sounds like someone had a little too much free time today.

Hey, internet, guess what? I have some good news, but I can’t tell you what it is. Not just yet. It’s still “in process” as they say in the disgusting world of business. But you’ll hear about it as soon as I do.

Anywho, I played a little Halo 2 last night. Let me tell you, I am rusty as hell. I did manage to have one good Team Slayer experience which was nice. Turf is by far my favorite map. Nice and tight. Of course, Midship is nice for the same reason. I will say one thing though: I suck at Team SWAT. Maybe I could get better, but probably not. I’d suggest you get a good solid team together if you’re going to play SWAT.

I just thought I’d chime in, as I’ve had no time for real news today. And don’t forget to stay tuned for my good news.

Not too much time to post just now, on account of “real” work, so I’ll make this quick. I got a new computer recently. It’s not great, but it’s lightyears ahead of my six-year-old laptop. As such I’ve been downloading plenty of games that my old hunk-O-junk could never run. To my great dissatisfaction, the F.E.A.R. demo does not run well, even on the lowest possible setting. Oh, well.

Which led me to the only other benchmark I could think of: “Well, can it play World of Warcraft?” Now, mind you, I don’t particularly want to play WoW, but it serves as a valid test of my computer’s ability to play a game that is fun. I am somewhat suspect of my ability to stop playing once I’ve started. However, I think that base is covered by my limited trial period. It’s my hope that I won’t be addicted enough to start paying for it.

Which reminds me, anybody know any decent—and free—MMOs I could try?

I saw a story on Joystiq about some blurry next gen Golden Axe screen shots and decided to do a little sleuthing. Turns out SEGA released two screens during E3, rendering these blurry shots somewhat moot. I guess it’s not gameplay but they look very nice. See one more after the break.

Continue reading “Two Golden Axe Screens”