A brief return to the topic of Facebook/web-based gaming starts the show with the crew coming around to the idea as they think more about it. Shawn was struck by the dreaded RROD, and this sparks the ever-green discussion of Xbox 360 hardware issues. Army of Two: The 40th Day gets the quickest of mentions before Cory touches on Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. Bayonetta continues to receive an amazing amount of love with the GWJ after its initial cool reception.
The topic this week centers around how to determine the difference between homage and copying. The guys spend a lot of time talking around the issue, and finally settle on the simple consensus that “you know it when you see it,” or “it depends whether you like it or not.” Emails finish the show.
Covered games and topics: Facebook games, Xbox 360 issues, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, Bayonetta, homage vs. copying, emails,
This week we talk about fine, aged homage.
Runtime – 1:12:04
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Strangely, I also picked up a new Xbox 360 Elite this weekend to take advantage of the $50 gift card at Gamestop (yeah, I'm a little ashamed). I had been using a 3 year old 20GB version and have been looking for an opportunity to increase my HDD space, upgrade the hardware and get an HDMI port. Also, it seemed like there wouldn't be a better deal coming up anytime soon, so I went for it.
Like Shawn, I'm amazed how much quieter the new one is and how nice it is to have 120GB to work with. I've started installing all my games to harddrive, even the ones I barely play because it got to the point with the old one that I wouldn't play anything that made the it spool up, it was just too loud in my small room.
I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my old 360, which still works; but I think I'll use it as a dedicated Rock Band unit for my parent's house during the holidays.
You aren't alone in feeling dirty for taking advantage of the Gamestop deal. My slightly-after-launch 360 red ringed the day before the sale started. I felt it was time to upgrade.
It is nice to upgrade. I just finished transferring all my saves, so let me know if you need a used 360 memory stick.
The only lame thing about the upgrade is that the new Elites don’t have the HDMI cable that Microsoft used to include in their $400 Elites. I wasn’t made aware of this until recently, but if you want an optical audio connection, you pretty much need the little audio adapter that comes in the HDMI pack (which is available separately now, but with the Microsoft peripheral tax that makes it ridiculously priced).
It only really comes to my attention because I’ve considered getting a 5.1/7.1 headset and those require optical connections, which effectively tacks at least $20 to the price of any headset I’ve been considering.
Jon – It's also lame that you have to have a memory card or the Microsoft transfer cable to swap save games between hard drives. I ate up a chunk of my $50 gift 'savings' in order to pull that off, which was annoying.
As for the optical audio, there is a pretty simple hardware 'hack' that you can do that doesn't require the Xbox HDMI cable: http://www.chadledford.com/?p=50. I'm not sure if this actually works still, since it's about 3 years old, but I I'll try it out this weekend and let you know.
I give 60% odds that I stab myself at least twice trying to pry it open.