AmazingAaron.com

Okay, so as some of you may know, there was a team meeting for the Xbox Live team, on the 6th of this month. During the meeting they had screens set up, and you could send in feedback about Xbox Live, and features you would like to see on Xbox Live. The tweets had to be hashtagged with #heyxboxlive to show up, and be seen by the XBL team members. Well it seems that something may have come out of this. One of the most asked for features, was a way to rate XBL games. If you head over to the Creators Club website, and check out the latest post, you will notice its entitled “Where to Find Reviews of Xbox LIVE Community Games”. basically its just a post with links to sites that review Community Channel games, but if you take a close look, you will see the following in the opening sentence.

Team XNA knows that user reviews of games on the Xbox 360 Console would be fantastic, but they don't exist, yet.

As you can see I've made bold the main word in that sentence! While I don’t think this post is talking about XBL games in general, but rather the home brewed Community Channel Games, everyone who has been following the Community Channel developments knows, its a feature that is really needed, and if they bring it to the the Community Channel, it might be on its way to XBL games as a whole! There's no way to know (unless they just come out and say it) if this was the user feedback, or just a feature they had planed all along. I do think its cool that the Xbox Live team seems to be become more open with the community, and I hope the team continues to listen to us all, and they get that new rating system up soon!

I've been wanting to make a video update, but haven't gotten around to it. I've been busy doing other things. I haven't even had time to update my twitter profile much! Also my camera, is not working. I think it needs to be cleaned. I've had it about three years now. Its a mini DV camera, and I have never cleaned it, so I'm in the process of finding a cleaning cartridge for it. I should have it fixed and a video up soon! Its starting to really warm up outside, and look like and FEEL like spring, which has been really nice! The only downside is that the grass is starting to grow, which means I'm going to have to cut it soon! Which is no fun, because we only have a push mower. I got some video earlier this week of a tiny wood pecker, eating out of one of my bird feeders, and a video of my goldfish pigging out after I feed them. I'll put it up on YouTube later for you guys. I wrote a few posts months ago about a project I started, making my own video game. I really haven't made much progress lately, what with all the moving, and everything. Plus the winter weather (which was extra wintered this year) really gets me down, and tired :(. The thing is that I wasn't working on just one game project, I had two going on. One was for GameMaker, an easy to use program, that lets you make fairly sophisticated games to play on your computer, and online in a web browser at YoYoGames.com, and the other was for a game for the Xbox 360 Community Channel. If you haven't heard of, or played any games on the Xbox Live Community Channel. Its a place were indie developers can upload there games, and let other members check them out, and even buy them with Microsoft points, if they like them. I don't know what I'm doing with either project. Both take a lot of time and effort. The Game Maker game is about half done, and the other game, for the Xbox Live Community Channel doesn't even have the first line of code. Its still in the planing stage. Making games for the Community Channel is a lot harder than GameMaker, but still pretty easy. I hope to get both done sometime. I just need to get in the mood to start coding, and editing image files :). I'm sure the spring weather will bring me out of it. If you want you can check out my half finished GamerMaker game at YoYoGames. Tell me if you like the concept or not, and what you think I should be doing different. Just remember that it really is only half done!

I got some feedback from the post I wrote earlier about the Xbox 360’s NXE. I wrote that there where only 2 Community Channel Games available, but it turns out that I was looking at the featured list, and not the whole list (oops). It turns out that there are a lot of games already available to download and play. I have been playing a few of them, including one called Being by Jesse Chounard (which is the one who gave me the heads up, Thanks). Being is the only platformer I’ve found so far (and I love platformers), and found it fun to play. So give it a try, along with all the other games available! I’m still playing though them all myself. Below is the trailer for Being. I love the music, and sound effects. <br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=a9e179e9-ed6f-473e-b63d-456c6a77c3b9" mce_href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=a9e179e9-ed6f-473e-b63d-456c6a77c3b9" target="_new" title="Being Trailer">Video: Being Trailer</a>

I’ve been playing around with the NXE GUI on the Xbox 360, and have been loving it. Sure its been a little troublesome getting use to, but its well worth it. Everything just seems to be much better organized, easier to use, and much better to look at. When I first heard about the avatar I did not really like how cartoon like they looked, but after creating my own, and messing around with the different looks (and they say more looks, and outfits are on the way) I think they really have potential. And while some people say that its just a Miis knock off, I have to disagree. I mean they are much more lifelike in there movements, (not to mention they have limbs), and they just seem to be more entertaining, and a better representation of yourself, and your friends. Along with the update came 2 new services, Netflick’s streaming video, and the Community Games Channel. I have not got a chance to try out the Netflick’s channel yet, but I’m sure I will soon. I have however got a chance to play with the Community Games Channel. I was surprised that on launch there were not more games available. As you way know, I am working on my own game for the Community Games Channel (and very slowly at that) that I hope to get uploaded sooner rather than latter (more details on that project latter). The only 2 games available were a shot everything in sight side scroller, called “Weapon of Choice”, and an entertaining, but basic, word game called “Word Soup”. I found “Weapon of Choice” to be to violent for my taste, and “Word Soup” was well, a word game. Also both games seemed to be suffering from a few bugs, that seemed to make them load slower than you would expect. I will be checking back in soon on the Community Games Channel to see if anything else has come available. There is a list available on the XNA Creators Club website, that list all the games that are supposed to be available now. All and all I am very happy with the NXE, and all the new services that come with it. Check back latter and I’ll have a review of the Netflick’s streaming feature, and more on the Community Games Channel, and also more on my Community Games Channel game. Also if you are interested in creating your own game for the Community Games Channel on Xbox Live, then please visit the XNA Creators Club for more details. I would love to play your game, so drop me a line if you decide to create one. Maybe we could even help each other with are game creations!

Well I’m working on my XNA game that I talked about in my last post. I have also bought an Xbox 360 Pro to test it on, and upload it with as well. I’m hoping to get it done in time to be in this years Dream, Build, Play competition. I have also just started doing video updates on a cool new website called 12seconds.tv. Its pretty cool, and as the name says, it lets you post videos, that can only be 12 seconds. It sounds strange, but its cool, and you should try it!