Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

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Steady Aim

Being a hardcore gamer across all platforms myself, it's sometimes hard for me to deal with fanboyism and bias in articles. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all have their strong points. For the time being, however, Microsoft just has more of them, and it's all thanks to its loyal fanbase.

So why not acknowledge that fanbase? That's what Steady Aim is all about. It's what bothers you, what angers you, what satisfies you and well, anything that has the capability to evoke emotion; those are the things I want to address. They won't be my qualms (though, believe me, our qualms are shared), they will be yours. Afterall, it's time to give the people what they want!

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Columns List

• FFXIII to 360 = Common Sense

  by Alex Yusupov July 15th 2008 4:31 PM CDT2 Comments

  At the time of this writing, it has been 24 hours since Square-Enix had announced a Final Fantasy XIII port to the Xbox 360. It’s been a single day, and already you can see the Sony Fanboys wallowing in self hatred. It’s gotten to the point where people are starting to
  contemplate suicide and curse out other fans. While I can understand some of the anger and bitter feelings of betrayal (Final Fantasy’s main releases have been a Sony exclusive for over 10 years), there is no reason to lash out at Microsoft or Square.
  
  Microsoft did the right business move; they brought over an amazing franchise to their system, adding another to their huge library of blockbusters. On Square's behalf, they finally made Final Fantasy a multiplatform franchise, and that is something you'd expect to be in in their best interests. Not only will this move bring more revenue to Square's offices, but it will bring more good to the industry as a whole. In fact, games exclusive for a certain console are old news in this new generation.
  
  
  
• Bad Storytelling in Modern Gaming

  by Alex Yusupov July 4th 2008 8:16 PM CDT7 Comments

  Lately I’ve been thinking (not often) about some of the problems with gaming as a medium. I went through several epiphanies, only to discover that we’ve all actually had them already, realized the problems, and set them aside like some dirty shoes we’ve outgrown.
  
  And that’s when I discovered our biggest problem. People, it’s been almost 40 years since videogaming took off as a form of entertainment, and we’ve made very little progress in the way it is presented. Yes, the visual representation has become jaw-dropping, but the same thing can be said for movies. Graphical improvements were a natural growth; it’s actually impossible to avoid the leaps in visual effects. If the technology is available, then it’s only natural that it is utilized.
  Unlike technology, however, creativity is not as readily available, and that’s where we get back to the biggest problem in gaming.
• Five Games the 360 Needs

  by Alex Yusupov June 24th 2008 1:24 AM CDT1 Comments

  Imagine a uni-consular (new word I decided to create just now) world, my friends. One gaming system, one only. One with the capabilities of the Xbox 360, the Wii and the Playstation 3. Gamers could simultaneously look forward to the release of games like Gears of War 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metal Gear Solid 4, and only need to spend a few hundred dollars for a single console. Fanboys would no longer exist, at least not to such a great extent. PCs and consoles would be joined into one mega-plutonium-powered-sex-driven-machine of ultimate gaming prowess.
  
  Now let reality sink in, because we will never see that, nor would we want to. On a practical level, having one console to rule them all (allusions are fun!) would just result in whatever company manufacturing them monopolizing the market. You think paying $59.99 for a game is tough? Imagine having to pay that much for a mediocre arcade title!
  
  However, it would still be interesting to see how some of the most popular games on Sony’s and Nintendo’s systems would look like on Microsoft’s Xbox. (Saying that almost sounds like “Microsoft Sexbox!!) I have compiled a list of five great blockbuster titles from today as well as the days of yore and transformed them to fit the flow and demographic of the 360. Let the countdown begin!
• Are Music Games getting old?

  by Alex Yusupov May 28th 2008 10:33 PM CDT9 Comments

  The Guitar Hero (and more recently, Rock Band) games have come a long way since their introduction several years ago. From the clunky, colorful and wired guitars of yore came new, sleek wireless ones. Thanks to the innovations of Rock Band, we also got a feel for what it was like to sing (albeit badly) and drum (noisily) like rock-stars. And boy was it fun.
  
  However, the formula gets old somewhat quickly. It’s always fun to do a few songs when you’re bored, but it’s the same playlists over and over, and a good 70% of the songs on those playlists you either don’t know, loathe, or a solid mix of the two. And that’s fine, because grinding out some notes was still fun, especially with some friends.
  
  
  
  
  And yet, these games have only skimmed the surface of the pool of potential when it comes to their innovations, for example. For one, why can’t we have some other instruments in our band? Why not a keyboard? What if I want a drum set with two base pedals? Or why not have two guitarists for songs like “Rock You Like A Hurricane?” Rock Band had no problem selling all its peripherals, so adding more wouldn’t water down the experience at all. In fact, a five-member band is very common, and more often than not, I find myself yearning for some fifth instrument to be available because there would be a fifth guy playing with us today.
  
  Whatever, that’s really a very minor issue, so let’s move on to a more recurring, and more prevalent one. I want my own goddamn playlists, and not the steaming pile of garbage offered to me by Red Octane and Harmonix. What if I want to play another song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Disturbed? They don’t care, because they want you to spend precious money on more retarded music from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace! Rejoice!
• Our Industry's Best and Worst

  by Alex Yusupov March 31st 2008 3:59 PM CDT7 Comments

  Games have been around for quite a long time, but in the past twenty or so years, some real revolutionary ideas were borne from the minds of geniuses. Many of these ideas impacted the industry permanently while others were whisked away, never to be remembered. Heck, there were even some that scarred our precious minds with their atrocious schematics. Just what were the most key events, the greatest games, the worst ideas and the most popular concepts? Keep reading to find out.
• Ignorance Killed the Video Game

  by Alex Yusupov March 24th 2008 7:57 PM CDT2 Comments

  I simply love this generation’s uneducated adults. You know, the ones that fail so often, they end up blaming other people for their own problems. Parents are a great example. Their blaming of media for their children’s problems has not only become a force of habit, but a routine. Back in the day, it was movies and music that were the targets of scrutiny. Now, the blame game has evolved into the current ethical "problems" that are present in the video game industry.
  
  
  Why videogames? They’re fairly new, and countless studies have already proven adults wrong in their speculations that rock and roll, comics, and violent movies provoke kids to (well, at least in their minds) become insane murderers. Don’t get me wrong here: it’s not all parents. In fact, it’s a small minority that believes in videogames being “evil” or “Satan’s voodoo.” If anybody is at fault for this huge misconception, it’s the modern news media, which is sure to point out whenever there is an Xbox within a mile of a crime-scene.

  
  What critics refuse to acknowledge is that videogames are now a modern form of art, just like movies, music and books. It can take a team of up to a thousand people to create a single game, and when the media lambastes those people, they’re insulting their life’s work and their passions. But hey, videogames take viewers away from television, reducing ratings. Instead of providing better programming, however, the television media would much rather defame their competition.

  Okay let me put it this way: movies constantly depict bad conduct. That conduct is mimicked in the real world. You may ask, “Why?” The answer is simple: movies attempt to depict real human emotions, and real human reactions. If real humans commit crimes, then movie directors have to show those crimes in their movies. If real people have sex, then in movies, people have to have sex. Same thing goes for books and music.

  God forbid the media uses facts to back up their arguments (but when has it ever?). They spread their ignorance without even having played the games they deride. Not only that, but they completely neglect a little graph that proves every study conducted in their favor wrong. The graph shows that since 1993, youth violence has been at a dramatic decline. More so, ever since the release of Grand Theft Auto III, violence has continued to decline dramatically. None other than the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics, provides the graph.
  
  Parents, stop blaming entertainment and the government for your idiot kids committing murder. You’re the ones raising them; you’re the ones telling them what is right and wrong. Take some time from drinking booze and gambling, and teach your kids. Teach them the difference between what they see on a television screen and reality.
  
• Live Etiquette

  by Alex Yusupov March 20th 2008 3:12 PM CDT5 Comments

  

  I’ve only had Live for about eight months now, but with the amount of time I put into the games compatible with the service, I know what I’m talking about when I say it’s about time somebody teaches a little etiquette to the nubs that think they’re all that.

  Quit your bitching, nobody cares that the same sniper killed you three times a row or that some noob is using a rocket launcher to make your game-time miserable. Instead of complaining, go ahead and put together a team to take that sniper out, or gang-bang that noob. Feel free to tea-bag your accomplishments.

  It’s just a game! This means that if you lose, it doesn’t matter. It really is just a game. If you got stuck in a match where virtually everybody is scores of times better than you are, leave it. Find matches with people who are around your skill level, you’ll have more fun in doing so.
• Freaking Play This

  by Alex Yusupov March 12th 2008 8:18 PM CDT4 Comments

  

  I can’t bear it anymore, a whole city full of novice gamers with idiotic opinions and incorrect facts (if facts are incorrect, they’re not facts anymore though, are they?). Alright let me get to the point here, all of the fanboy gamers can go shove it. I’m so sick of listening to people babble about the one game they played for the past three years and somehow comparing it to every single other title in the industry.
  
  Hell, I remember a friend of mine going on a tangent a few weeks ago comparing the Halo series to the Final Fantasy series. Now this guy plays Halo 3 day in and day out. The only other game he has played in the past three months is Skate, with which he also compared Halo. Apparently, there is so much in common between shooting oddly colored aliens and rolling down a hill using a plank of wood and four small wheels. But wait till you hear what my buddy had to say about Final Fantasy.
  
  Now to those of you who live under a rock and somehow don’t know what Final Fantasy or Halo is, they’re both videogames (no way!). The former is, for the most part, a turn-based role-playing game. The latter, Halo, is a sci-fi first-person shooter. The two could not be more radically different in their content. From game play to story, the series share nothing in common. They’re not even available on the same platforms.
  
  And yet my friend (whom we shall call Bugle, for kicks), rants on and on about how the Halo series kicks Final Fantasy’s ass. I asked him why, and I swear to you the response I got was “because Halo sold more copies.”
  
  Dumbfounded, I decided to do some research. Final Fantasy has been out three times as long as Halo, there was simply no way Halo was doing better. I compared my results, and Final Fantasy outsold the “competitor” four-to-one. Now of course, anybody with half of a brain knows that sales say little about a game’s quality. We all remember the Halo 3 hype, and how it wasn’t even close to living up to it. And Final Fantasy had been out for twenty-something years, so sales figures no longer meant a damned thing.
  
  I reported the results to back to our buddy, Bugle, who was furious with my findings. I told him exactly what I told you, that sales didn’t matter. For some reason, that only enraged him further. “Final Fantasy is just a boring RPG,” was his main argument. Granted, Bugle used a more colorful word choice, but for our sakes I cleaned it up.
  
  Something hit me, as if out of nowhere. “Have you ever even played Final Fantasy?” I said. The answer was “no.” Here we were, arguing about two games for over a week, and Bugle hadn’t ever even touched a Final Fantasy game. At least I played both of the series to death.
  
  After a long conversation, I realized it would not end in any significant result. I mean this guy didn’t even know stuff about his own all-time favorite game. He was befuddled by my usage of “Bungie” (makers of Halo), for example.
  
  I know and agree people have got plenty of better things to do than sit on their asses all day and find information about games, or anything for that matter. Bugle is an exception though. He belongs to the cult of idiots that play a certain game(s) for hours a day, but know nothing about it. They’re the guys that would die before using common sense, logic, or an ounce of their brain matter.
  
  Suffice to say, Bugle and I are no longer friends. It seems like a harsh punishment, but would you hi-five anybody who is determined that Nintendo is a subsidiary of Microsoft (again, his language lacked word’s beyond two consonants, so I paraphrased)?
  
  Tip of advice, fellow gamers, don’t compare RPG with FPS, and maybe look on the loading screen when you startup a game to see what company made it. You have no idea how easy it is to avoid getting embarrassed like Bugle. Oh Bugle…don’t procreate.
• More Orange, Less Green!

  by Alex Yusupov March 12th 2008 7:37 PM CDT0 Comments

  It's been a while since The Orange Box from Valve has come out, but I just recently got around to playing it. Now, I was never a Half-Life fan, and even now, I'm not avidly freaking out about Episode 3. What I am freaking out about, however, is how I just got the greatest deal in the history of videogaming: Five games for the price of one. No scratch that, five amazing games for the price of one.
  
  And what gets me is how there are households that own a 360, but not The Orange Box. I mean come on, Sure the games are short, but the amount of replay you get from TOB triples, no, quadruples that of Halo 3. You can easily spend hours playing through Portal and Half-Life 2, making your weekends seem more like a single weekday. And let's not forget about the never-ending, online death-fest that is Team Fortress 2. All this and a very bright orange box, for only $60!
  
  It's about time other publishers take note, people. Sixty-dollars is overkill for a single game. Limited editions hike up to $70 and thanks to Bungie, $120! It's no wonder gaming is still a closed-off medium for most of the populace, you have to have a solid six-figure salary to avoid not only a $500 console and over $200 in necassary peripherals, but to get a gaming experience worthy of the money you invested into the former, you need to invest another $1000 in games!
  
  It seems alright now, but let's not forget games are climbing up in prices. The sixth generation of gaming saw $40 and $50 games, while the fifth saw cheap $30 ones. If this pattern continues, can we expect $80 games in two-three years? With the economy in the crapper and the dollar becoming more and more useless, people may be detracted from gaming and we may just see another crash.
  
  Then again, more expensive games means that p0eople will be forced to buy less of them, leading to any game that isn't sheer excellence getting thrown in the drain, and forcing developers to make better titles.
  
  And yet, my empty wallet begs to differ.