Amazing Aaron

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 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!

I have decided to buy an Xbox 360 Pro. I know I already had an Xbox 360 Elite, but that was like a year ago, and now I want a 360 again. Plus, I have a good reason, I’m going to be making an XNA game. For those of you that may not know what XNA is, its basically just the software, or framework, that you build games for Windows, and games for the Xbox 360 with. I have not decided what kind of game I’m going to make yet, but I have a lot of that’s for sure! On my last post, I talked about how I was making a game for a contest on YoYoGames.com. Well I did begin to make a game for the competition, but like a lot of things with me, it never got completed, for one reason, or another -I don’t even know why I didn’t complete it now :). The game was called ‘Lost Civilization’, and I got it to where it was playable, and was pretty near completion of it, but it still needs a lot of bug smashing to do, among other things. I’ve been wanting to finish it lately, but don’t know when I will get around to it -if i ever will. I might just throw it up the way it is on YoYoGames as a beta -more like Alpha really :). I will however put a screenshot of the game in this post for you all to see! I have made a few new videos, and put them up on YouTube, but nothing great, just me rambling about things. Mostly just about my new iPhone, and no, not the new iPhone 3G, but the first iPhone. I got it when it was the only iPhone, that shows how updated I keep my blog. I will tell you what, I will promise to post more, if you all tell me you want to see more posts, more often. Just leave a comment on this post, and I’ll see it. It will encourage me to write more, if I know someone is really reading it, LOL! Well, I’m going to sign off for now, I hope this was a good enough update for you! Till next post, I’ll C-U!