King Keepo

Still playing N3 as I keep accidentally wiping over character saves while trying to grind out the last achievements. Gah.

Yeah Joe, I know your pain. I'll be trying to bring my 360 when I move back to England in spring, and I'll just hit up Play-Asia and eBay for games.

It's a nice cheap bundle though, I wonder how many they're going to sell over the Thanksgiving period to disappointed PS3 buyers?

Yup, it was a long term strategy to drop a bunch of cash on the XBox. Besides, all the money is made in licensing the games, peripherals and subscriptions to the Live service.

And I definitely agree on the d-pad situation. I really wish they'd up the build quality on them so that they worked properly.

I heard they were thinking about releasing "premium" controllers with better d-pads, but as a fundamental part of gaming they should be tight right out of the box.

The only arcade stick I'd pick up is one similar to the DOA one - this looks a little flimsy to me.

The trouble with getting the developers to create their own online variants is that you'll end up with a bunch of fractured experiences where things aren't quite the same.

A bonus of having Live run through one place is that you get the same UI and the same experience. It also reduces development time as you don't have to set up your own system (although I don't know what Sony and MS provide regarding their online development stories)

Amped 3 was really enjoyable IMO, great game (but I loved Amped 2 on the original Xbox too).

The titles listed all look like they should be Platinum Hits anyway.

Bah, still haven't picked up GOW or Viva Pinata. Going to knock out a few achievements on N3, and have another crack at Lumines.

Speaking of which, I take everything back about the Time Challenge achievements being a breeze which I said last week. I hadn't spotted the second tier of ridiculously hard achievements which have been forcing me to eat humble pie ever since.

Do you know how hard it is to innovate in a genre like this that's been done to death in the last 5 years? Everyone wants the moon on a stick with every new game and it clearly isn't possible. How many times has Tom Clancy basically told the same story in his books? Stephen King? Despite being formulaic they're still bestsellers.

I really don't mind a re-hash of a genre as long as the graphics are great and the gameplay is tight.

Interesting that it's almost impossible to make out any shape or detail on a PS3 because the things are so damn shiny.

I have my 360 set vertically and have never had any scratching problems. Apparently the scratching occurs if you move your console around while the disk is in there and spinning.