buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

xbox 360

Watch someone else play the Halo 3 beta

by 2 Comments

If you’re like me, you’re sitting at work, watching the clock click down to quitting time, so you can rush home and download the Halo 3 beta. While you wait for the whistle to blow, you can watch a live feed of “The Outlaw Master C” play Halo 3 live.

(I know that URL looks scary, but it’s “Outlaw’s Cam” not “outlaw scam”. I promise!)

Thanks to my buddy Dark Reyule for this one. I need to play this game, like NOW.

Update: And, of course, just like Mike points out in the comments, there are still problems. Those of us trying to get in the Beta via Crackdown are still waiting. Bummer. With the Cavs playoff game and Lost, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting to play this until much later than hoped. Double Bummer

Crackdown Maps (Agility and Hidden Orbs)

by 5 Comments

I haven’t mentioned Crackdown recently, but I’ve been getting a lot of people looking for Crackdown Maps for both the Agility Orbs and the Hidden Orbs. I haven’t begun my orb quest in earnest yet, as I still have single player missions to complete, but I’m torn on whether or not I want to use these maps. Nevertheless, there are people who are looking for them, so here you go. Actual images after the jump.

Agility Orbs Map

Hidden Orbs Map

[Read more…] about Crackdown Maps (Agility and Hidden Orbs)

I am an idiot.

by 10 Comments

Okay, so that will probably not come as a surprise to many of you, but it’s true. Fortunately, I’m not completely crazy, there is actually a method to my idiotness.

It turns out, there was nothing wrong with my saved game.

I was thinking about Crackdown today at work (yeah, I have exciting days at work) and it dawned on me — when I was playing with Bobster, we located the Volk Kingpin, we just never went after him. He was out on an oil rig in the ocean. Turns out, I was looking in the wrong place last night. Argh!

I did a little search and found a Crackdown map and sure enough, I was right. There he was, the Volk Kingpin, happily tucked away on his little oil rig out in the water, not where I had initially thought he was. In my defense, here’s what threw me off. Look at this portion of the map:

Crackdown Map

As you can see, I killed General Natalya “White Fox” Gryzunova in one portion of the map, but she’s actually located at another spot. So I don’t know if she was supposed to get away in a car or something and I killed her too quickly or what, but it was driving me crazy that she wasn’t showing up where I actually killed her.

So all is well in Pacific City. I’ll be heading back to Crackdown after 24. I can’t wait.

Hallelujah!

by 1 Comment

EA has said that Mercenaries 2 will be released on the Xbox 360 (and the PC and PS2) along with the Playstation 3. So says Evil Avatar. Initially, this was going to be a PS3 exclusive but now that doesn’t look to be the case. Thank goodness for that.

If they can do Live co-op this could be one of the best games out there. Mercenaries was such a blast, I can’t wait for the sequel.

In my hands

by 7 Comments

CrackdownI know I just started playing EQ 2, but I had too much fun with this game’s demo to pass it up.

As always, quick impressions to follow.

Update: Well, I didn’t update this last night because I played Crackdown too long and it got too late. I guess that should count for something.

I’m not sure what I think about Crackdown yet. Yes, it is a fun game to play. Very fun. It’s a lot of fun to just run around and power up your super cop. I’ve already earned 3 stars in strength and I’ve almost got my 3rd star with agility. So I can lift cars and jump twenty feet in the air. Both of those things are extremely fun to do and doing the rooftop races are a blast. Jumping from one rooftop to another across the street feels fantastic. They really got the feeling of vertigo and height perfect. I actually feel it in the pit of my stomach if I’m about to miss an extra high jump.

But the actual meat of the game has left something to be desired. I played for about 4 hours (which flew by) and I am just about ready to take down the first boss. If I had solely done the missions and ignored the races and the hunt for orbs, I could have taken the first boss down in 3 hours. If the other two bosses are equally easy, I’m looking at 10 hours of the main game. That’s borderline unacceptable. I had hoped for more.

Sure, I’ll have fun searching out the 500 agility orbs and the 300 hidden power-up orbs, but that will be tedious as well. So while I’m enjoying the game, I’m nervous that it will lose its sheen quicker than I hoped.

Surviving a Dead Rising

by 8 Comments

Contrary to the immortal words of Gloria Gaynor it appears that I will not, in fact, survive. More succintly, my Xbox 360 will not survive. It appears that asking it to perform its duties for longer than a few hours results in a hissy fit involving red lights:

It's hot in here!

That’s right, the red rings of death. Luckily it was only two red lights, which effectively means “I’m too hot, I’m shutting down.” In hindsight, I should have opened the doors on the entertainment center to allow for a little air circulation, but with little kids that are ever pressing green buttons, I couldn’t take my chances. So mid-way through my third day of survival, having just survived 24 hours outdoors, the 360 died, rather unceremoniously. Seven hours of Dead Rising down the drain. Son of a!

So it appears I’m once again done playing Dead Rising for the foreseeable future. I got a couple more achievements before everything died, so it wasn’t a total loss, but I didn’t accomplish the end goal. Thanks to everyone who sent me well wishes on my quest. If everything had gone according to plan, I would still be playing. But it was not to be.

Since Dead Rising is no longer going to consume me, I decided to take the plunge in Everquest 2. I’m currently designing my first character. I’ll have a little blurb of my first experiences later. This is probably a mistake, as my EQ time will be immediately diminished on Tuesday when Crackdown shows up. We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get there.

What I’m playing (this weekend)

by 2 Comments

Sure, I could be playing any number of games this weekend, but I’m doing something I promised myself I wouldn’t do — attempt the 7-Day Survivor achievement in Dead Rising. I know I poo-poohed it a few months back, but I can’t help myself. Not only am I an achievement whore, I’m a Dead Rising whore. I find myself going back to the zombie smashing more and more. So I’m going to eat crow and attempt the insane, 14-hour Dead Rising marathon.

I’ve got it all worked out. I’ve already okayed it with Mrs. buttonMasher and she’s fine with it. She understands the gravity of the situation and has agreed to help keep the kids away from the 360 (the little one is attracted to the green button) for the weekend. I’m a little nervous for the health of my 360, as I will have to play in chunks of time to achieve the ultimate goal, while my 360 is generating enough heat to warm our living room for a month. I guess I can consider this a stress test on the Xbox. If it can survive 60+ hours of non-stop running, it should be able to handle anything.

I also have a plan for sucess. I’ll immediately seek out the necessary power-up magazines to make my survival easier. I’ll get the ones that increase the potency of my food stuffs, along with the construction magazine, effectively powering up my weapon of choice, the two-by-four. Then I have plans to judiciously ration my food as I go from place to place, keeping myself safe for extended periods of time. Along the way, I plan on cleaning up some of the other achievements, like the Karate Champ (killing zombies sans-armaments), killing 10k and then 53k zombies, and hanging outdoors for 24 hours. It’s going to be an achievements clean sweep!

I don’t know if I have the dedication or fortitude to see the plan through, but if you see me on Live, drop me a message a see how am doing. I may need the moral support. Let me know what you’re playing this weekend.

Viva Pinata – First Impressions

by 7 Comments

Viva PinataI’ve now spent a few hours with Viva Pinata and I like what I see so far.

Visually, it’s very pleasing and really entertains the two little mashers. My daughter loves naming the pinatas, which is a lot of fun (but I must admit that I was hesitant to name two pinatas of the same type with my daughter’s name and my name. Seeing “[Daddy’s name] and [daughter’s name] are romancing” was disturbing. If you’ve played the game, you’ll know what I’m talking about.) The sound and music are also pleasing. I’m getting a serious “Zelda” vibe from the music. That’s not a bad thing.

I love the variety of the new pinatas and watching the bigger pinatas feast on the smaller ones is comical. I think my garden is getting cramped, because my pinatas are getting testy. Fights break out among the same pinata type all the time. Getting them to “Romance” and do other things isn’t always straightforward, but the in-game “encyclopedia” answers just about question you have, and once you get the hang of it, it’s not a big problem.

This is definitely a “kids game” (plural, not possesive) as in, “I can play it with the kids.” That is a very good thing. It’s slow enough that they can follow it but deep enough that it keeps my interest. It also get a thumbs up from Mrs. buttonMasher. I’m looking forward to lots of fun in my pinata garden.

Dashboard Themes

by 4 Comments

If you’ve got an Xbox 360 and you’d like to pick a new “Dashboard Theme” for your Xbox Live Dashboard but you’re not sure how it would look, check out Dashboard Themes, a new site from Matt Brett and Andrew McTeer. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Xbox Live Dashboard is the “hub” of the 360’s online service. It’s where you access your friends list, your gamer profile, Xbox Live Arcade games and pretty much everything else you do on the Xbox Live service. It’s also customizable. You can purchase “Themes” for your dashboard to personalize them. Unfortunately, there’s no way of actually previewing themes to see how they look, before you buy them. You’re making a purchase before you ever see what it would look like. Not exactly the best set up.

With Dashboard Themes, you can preview all the current themes available for purchase. You can browse and rate them with an easy interface. It’s very cool to see some 360 fans make something this useful. Make sure you check it out!