This was far from a big thing at today’s Microsoft E3 event, but it’s certainly a good thing to have.

I foresee a future where there won’t be any optical media needed to watch movies, listen to music and play games; well, the first two are already becoming true at a rapid rate, and with things like the 360′s forthcoming new ability to stream 1080p movies, the second can’t be that far off (provided we all get better internet connections!).

As for games, well, sure there are services like Steam on the PC and you can download classic titles on the 360 already, but the ability to download full 360 titles (which you’ll be able to do in August) will be appreciated.

Something I definitely want to see is the ability to pre-order games from the marketplace and have them download before the launch of the game and become playable at 00:00 on the day of release.

Just imagine pre-ordering Halo 3: ODST on the Xbox Live marketplace, having it downloaded progressively before its release, and on the first second of the 22nd of September, having it unlock and be instantly playable.
It’s a lovely thought.

Sure, I like my physical mediums mostly because there’s some nice feeling about actually having something you can see – especially when they have cool boxes like the Halo Wars limited edition or the Halo 3 Limited edition SPARTAN Head!
But, there’s no denying that the convenience of the digital download method is a great one. I really hope that something like what I described will be implemented.

I look forward to the day.

So far it’s just the ability to download 360 games on the marketplace that’s been mentioned. No more details than that really but unfortunately it sounded as though they were planning it to be the same as the classic Xbox game marketplace where a title-a week or so is released after they’re already out physically.

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As for the other Microsoft stuff at E3, it was impressive. I very much look forward to playing Halo 3: ODST in September, the beta for Halo: Reach in 2010 and the game itself later next year.

The motion camera looked amazing; I was impressed by what they’ve got it doing — it looks amazingly responsive and well, it surprised me – I expected something gimmicky; not that I’m saying some of the stuff won’t be, it’s almost certain that there will be silly stuff, but some of it looks cool.
Twitter & last.fm being integrated with the dashboard is cool, especially considering the amount I use them both.

My initial thought when seeing this was “Why?”

Of course, for such a high-calibre game like Gears 2, DLC was inevatible; but should it have come this soon?

Gears 2 has been less of a success than I’m sure they could have hoped for, not with sales, but with multiplayer and Xbox Live popularity – it only remained the most played game on Xbox Live for three weeks; far less than the original Gears.

Primarily, I think this is due to the fact that there have been hideous problems with actually getting into a game. I’ve only been able to get into two, one which was okay and the other which was extremely laggy and ended premeturely. Other than that, I have just spent large amounts of time waiting to be matched into a game only to be rewarded with nothing until I eventually give up.

I’m not alone. Epic has already released a title update which was supposed to help with this issue (I can’t say that it achieved it’s objective though )

So, for me new maps for Gears really isn’t enticing, I’ve not even seen all the one’s that it came with! And personally I don’t see these new maps bringing people back to Gears 2 multiplayer; perhaps fixing the matchmaking?

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September’s matchmaking playlist update does make a few more changes than normal; as promised by Bungie a couple of weeks ago. A summary of the changes appears below:
• Rocket Race is being removed
• Both Ranked and Social Big Team Battle are being removed
• Head to Head is being removed
• Team Doubles now requires all DLC – Heroic & Legendary packs and Cold Storage
• Default Team Slayer games will now have the Magnum as secondary weapon
• Squad Battle – a new ranked playlist will be introduced; it’s 6v6 and will be Slayer / Capture the Flag
• DLC Free For All (new) – 8v8 – Slayer, Objective and Infection!
• DLC Big Team; another new playlist – 8v8 Social Slayer and Objective (just like Social BTB)

Some of the playlists will see Bungie-forged map variants of Sandtrap (they’ll be no elephant), Epitaph (without shield doors), Snowbound (with some shield doors removed) and The Pit (with “with inaccessible spawn hives.” — That sounds annoying). The normal versions of these maps will also appear.

You can read the Bungie update containing all this information and much more here. It offers some consolation in the fact that the Rocket Race gametype will be added to the Multi Team playlist as well as the fact that there will be less objective, SWATGuns and Magnums in SWAT – and the fact that there will be Carbines on the map!

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Also, they confirmed that they’ll be no bots / campaign characters in H3 multiplayer – just to hush those rumours after the thanks video’s.

As you can see in the picture over there —–>
auto update 2 will make it so that you will have a rank for each playlist and it will introduce the bar of progress that others, and I have missed from Halo 2′s matchmaking system.

The bar shows how close you are to ranking up in that particular playlist. It is not currently clear as to whether the bar will show how close you are to ranking up (Recruit, General….) or how close you are to the next skill level (28,29,30…..).

Principally, it seems as though they are just showing how much EXP you have in each playlist (earned by winning, or tying a game).

Quite why this is being introduced, I don’t know. But, they’ve always said that they can’t make UI (User Interface) changes to the game — perhaps this will be a change that will only appear on Bungie.net? That would be very silly in my opinion. But if it does show up in the game, Bungie should be prepared for a fresh influx of people wanting changes to the interface of the game (like pressing X just after a game finishes to save that film – a la H3 Beta(woo!)).

Also detailed in this weeks Bungie Update is the changes to matchmaking that will occur in August (they may already be live – I don’t know!). It’s a fairly boring list for this month (but includes some changes to Team Doubles that I don’t like — the inclusion of Oddball, for instance).

But the last paragraph in the update suggests that there will be some bigger changes to matchmaking in Septembre!

“You may be thinking to yourself “Hey, that’s a pretty short change list.” While a lot of the changes done this month were backend things that players will never notice, you would be right to think that August’s changes feel very minimal. The reason for this is that we’ve been focused on preparing a larger series of changes to Matchmaking for September. Much larger.

Much, much larger.

No, really. It’s huge. You should see how giddy Luke gets when I talk about the tentative plan.”

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Edit:  Auto Update 2 will be released on September 23rd

It can be seen in the picture below or by going to Bungie.net at this very moment; don’t know how long that’s gonna last.

Is it real?

Is Microsoft preventing Bungie from announcing whatever they were going to announce?

Will anything happen at 07:07:07 AM?

I hope so

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EDIT: 07:12:00 AM – Nothing…. I’m just gonna go be depressed somewhere now….

EDIT: September 20th ’08 – he’s back! – click me

EDIT: September 25th ’08 – he’s back in full – click

So… The 360′s gonna get a new dashboard in the Autumn / Fall; To be honest I don’t like the look of it but hopefully it will work ok. On the up side, it will have 8 person private chat w00t! Fortunately, they clearly realised that people don’t like change — the xbox guide (accessible by pressing the guide button!) will take the form of the blade-like dashboard we currently have and you will be able to use it in game and in the dash.

Gears of War 2 looks awesome and will be released on November 7th.

Fallout 3 looked cool but the demo didn’t show enough for me to decide whether it will be worth buying — this is combined with the fact that I haven’t read anything about them in the past so I can’t tell!

A few more announcements… including that Final Fantasy XIII will be on the 360 and it was the end of the conference leaving Halo / Bungie fans severely disappointed.

Not even a mention of Halo Wars and this after the Bungie guys on the Podcast severely suggesting that something was going to happen on the 14th.

AND SOMETHING DID HAPPEN!

GOTO BUNGIE.NET!

THE SUPERINTENDANT HAS TAKEN OVER AND A COUNTDOWN IS SHOWN COUNTING DOWN TO 2:07:07PM ON THE 16TH!

To be honest; no-one really knows what is going on with the Superintendant but it is driving all the Halo / Bungie fans crazy and it definitely shows that Bungie can capture the attention of people without using the Microsoft conference like others do.

If this is the beginning of an ARG like ilovebees.com, it’s certainly trying to get the attention of a lot more people; and I think it’ll succeed.

So, yet another post where I leave you waiting for an announcement or something else from the brilliant company that is Bungie.

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Edit: just been linked to this page http://www.bungie.net/Inside/soffish/Soffish.html links in with that fish on the Bungie Day 2008 theme….

Someone explain it all!!!

Update – click here

Anywho… I’m glad its back as the most played game on Xbox Live

Nothing else to see here

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Lost VERY soon

Damn, it really shouldn’t be this way in my opinion – not that I’ve put much time into Call of Duty 4 multiplayer or single player for that matter, but I really don’t think its a particularly great game. I find the multiplayer rather boring and the campaign OK. I’d much rather play Halo 3 multiplayer, drive round in a hog…. prat about – its much more fun in my opinion.

*goes to play Halo 3 in hope that its status will be resumed*

oh, but can’t…. 2 exams tomorrow, must revise