http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:20:15 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/13/123326.php#comment-634604 If your system dies and you send it in for repair, they transfer the license to the new unit. If you get it back and still find a problem playing any of the games, they can transfer the license to your referb. The problem is when you "voluntarily" go out and get an Elite. Yes, the MS support technician said, and I am paraphrasing here, "since you voluntarily upgraded to an Elite, there is nothing more we can do." I emailed my MS rep about this, and am waiting for a reply. I am having a problem with my Sonic the Hedgehog game reverting to Trial every time I play it, yet if I re-download from the "Unlock Full Game" menu in-game, it becomes the full game, until I quit to the Dashboard. It is quite irritating. Like I said, I am waiting to hear back from MS on this. Andy, it is possible for online co-op in these XBLA games, it is just really irritating that they will not take the time to make it work. Especially when they are charging $5 for a game I own many times over. 634604@blogcritics.org Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:20:15 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/13/123326.php#comment-634575 I downloaded the trial version of this and Sonic 1 recently. I'm really not impressed with with the smoothing. It looks pretty crappy, IMO. It makes the letter and numbers look strage and not necessarily difficult to read, but odd enough that it just looks strange and is kind of jarring. And for 400 points each (or essentially $5 each), it really doesn't seem worth it to me. I've already got the Sonic Mega Collection Plus for Xbox, which also became compatible with the 360 a while back with a compatibility update, and for $20 at original retail (you could probably find it even cheaper than that used now), I got pretty much the entire Genesis Sonic Library (including all of the main Sonic Games... the various version of 'locking on' the previous Sonic games with Sonic & Knuckles, and several of the obscure games like Mean Bean Machine, Spinball, and 3D Blast), as well as several other Genesis games that are unlockable, and several of the Game Gear Sonic games. And, if my 360 ever gets the RROD and I have to get a new one, the games will be compatible with it right off the bat without having to hassle with Microsoft for weeks to get the lisence transfered. I'm not totally against the XBLA, but some of the prices plus the inconvenience of what happens when/if your system dies out makes me want to find alternatives to downloading the games from the Live Arcade whenever possible, limiting the ones I do download to a select few. 634575@blogcritics.org Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:04:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/13/123326.php#comment-632869 Ken, the problem with online co-op is that lag would be cause a detrimental effect on the speed of gameplay. The devs of the Sega Vintage Collection haven't got very solid network code implemented into any of their ports (look at Streets of Rage 2 for a good example)...and in Sonic, speed is everything. I guess they tried online co-op on the test network, found out it didn't work too well, and dropped it out of the final release. A shame, yes, but chances are the game would be virtually unplayable online with it included. 632869@blogcritics.org Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:45:54 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/13/123326.php#comment-632175 Not completely, you can also remove the wallpaper. When you resize it the image is also distorted and its not a true widescreen image. When I meant not resizing it, I meant the image is in the native 4:3 ratio. Yes it can be stretched but its not full screen even with that. 632175@blogcritics.org Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:45:11 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/13/123326.php#comment-632165 You can resize the screen in the options menu. 632165@blogcritics.org Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:31:09 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/13/123326.php#comment-632111 It would have been nice to have online co-op, especially considering there is off line co-op. Lazy. 632111@blogcritics.org Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:49:23 EDT