HoozyerdadE

I love my 360, but the xbox is overpriced when you compare the two systems on a feature-by-feature basis, and that doesn't include the PS3's free online (*a seperate topic - why hasn't microsoft at least lowered the cost of it's Live service?). This should have been an across the board price cut (*including xbox Live and peripherals).

Battlestations Midway - the demo, though difficult to fully understand without full instructions, was fun. The details are impressive (the water, the boat wakes, torpedo wakes, aircraft wigs rotating and unfolding after coming up on the elevators, the movements of the tiny crewmen, etc). We had many battles lasting an hour. Can't wait to try the full game and really learn how to play.

I'll be 48 in March, and I still finish at or near the top when playing BFMC or COD3, and many of my co-workers come over for Halo LAN parties. We are dedicated gamers and I still have an old Magnavox at home, a Atari 2600 (with Starpath Supercharger +games), 5200, Colecovision, Amiga, PS1, PS2, XBOX, GC, and my 360. I will never stop gaming.

@#8 epobir - slightly off-topic, but I didn't expect to run into anyone else with an Amiga background (*I still have my modified Amiga 500 in my closet) - it's wierd, but I had been thinking about some old Amiga games that could be great if 360-fied. Carrier Command, Knights of the Sky, Starglider (which I think would be greatest of all),etc.

I totally agree with CryHavoc...ESPN NFL2K5 is STILL the best football game ever. The gameplay, graphics, animations, and my favorite, the ESPN highlight reel feature are still better than anything EA has. I love my 360, but when I want to play football NFL2K5 is the only one I still love to play. It doesn't matter that EA sold more copies, that happened on name and brand familiarity alone, not because it was better. When I heard EA had the exclusive NFL license, I knew I'd never see a football game better than NFL2K5.

I agree with #9 - I got the "unable to join" about 20 times before any successful entry into a game. Also, if I wasn't host or in their party the postgame lobby was visible just long enough for me to see my score. On the plus side, once I WAS able to join a game, it was excellent! no lag. I too was concerned about the in-game name tags - I thought it would show everyone's position - but it wasn't like that. I would play COD2 all the time if I could join a game session without 20+ attempts - why is it that only Halo2 got this right?

Personally, I agree with most of the review. The one bug that stopped me cold was the first mission without your team. You need to destroy the 2 scramblers. At one point you are told "there's a chopper inbound on your position - special forces..." and I ran up to a fixed emplacement, killing everyone, BUT...when I released control of the machine gun, I couldn't take but a step in any direction - I was stuck. I contacted Ubisoft and they said "they were aware of the bug and working on it. For now, replay the mission and WALK, don't run to the machine gun". And about the multiplayer - it was fun when I could get in, but the waiting was ridiculous.In the end, I went back to playing Halo2 online - no lines, no waiting, just play.