Ryan & Amanda Keefer's Personal Site: Cycling, Family, Tech, Music, Software & Game Reviews, etc.
// June 4th, 2012 // No Comments » // Gaming, iPad, iPhone, Tech, TV Talk
This is something that can and will get some use in our household. Between this announcement and the recent announcement of Amazon Instant Video on Xbox 360, our Xbox 360 in the living room just got a lot more useful.
// June 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
I haven’t had the time, nor energy to play my two consoles any time in recent memory, but love the organic transition the third installment is making. I’m definitely interested in trying it out upon release!
// June 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Apple, Computers, Gaming, Internet / Web, TV Talk
On the heels of my post last week about trying to find alternate ways to watch our favorite shows on an alternative to cable, I’m excited to read rumors that Hulu is looking to the Xbox 360 and the iPad. I don’t really care about the iPad, but I am very excited to see the possibility of it coming to my Microsoft console. I’m guessing, that like Netflix, it will requite an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Guess I’ll be renewing that at some point if Hulu comes to fruition.
// April 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Gaming
When I first bought my Xbox 360 several years ago, I assumed I could throw content onto a thumb drive to port it to another location — friends house. No such luck. You’ve got to use the Microsoft-branded (or some off-brands) that are available at highly overpriced dollar amounts.
Well it seems, Microsoft has finally loosened the reigns slightly and are allowing USB storage devices (from 1GB to 16GB) Now if they’d only cannibalize their HD markets and release that cap, I could have specific drives for all my Rock Band, Guitar Hero, etc. content. Plus, we could all run every game off the harddrive to speed up the game, cool down the console and quiet the damn DVD drive.
// January 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // Film, Gaming, Internet / Web, Tech
Here’s a great behind-the-scenes technical look at the Netflix application built on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming platform. The site this article is on — HackingNetflix.com is great BTW.
Xbox Engineering Team Shares Tips & Tricks for the Xbox 360 Netflix App
// December 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gaming, Music
All of this articles’ suggestions are great for where the original full-band series needs to take it. New music isn’t enough for a sequel anymore. I really hope Harmonix is thinking along the same lines as the IGN author, or they are after seeing this piece.
// November 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Funny Stuff, Gaming
A few years back, Microsoft made it a requirement for all of its Xbox 360′s games to have a set of achievements — a list of goals and tasks in-game to strive to complete, rewarding usually only with bragging rights points, also known as your gamerscore. Sony later copied this concept, calling them awards, I believe. Regardless, the achievements have personally added a lot to the games, setting up goals and forcing me to play extra hours of a given game to try to unlock some of these achievements.
Game-to-game, and even within a single game’s list of achievements there’s a huge continuum of difficulty and practicality in the achievements. Screwattack.com highlights seven that border on the unrealistic and tear-inducing:
// October 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Computers, Gaming
The article below gives you some screen shots of the upcoming Xbox 360 software update that will allow you to connect to Facebook, Twitter, etc. via your Xbox 360 console. I just don’t get it. I’m thinking most people won’t utilize these new features too much. Even with a keyboard or keypad, it seems like it would be slow, inefficient and clunky to both review and post to the given social networking.
Unless there’s something I’m overlooking, I’ll be sticking to my computers and iPhone to interact with Facebook and Twitter.
// July 20th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Gaming, Personal Crap
So the wife isn’t really what you’d call a gamer. She’s perfectly content to sit and surf the web or nap with the Beagle as I play the Xbox 360.
Right after Christmas, we got a Nintendo Wii with Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Play. That got Amanda playing for a bit, but like a lot of Wii owners, those couple games eventually grew tired. So for months, our Wii has sat idle, collecting dust and neiher Amanda nor I played the console a bit. I’ve played a fair amount of 360.
But I’m a bit psyched as I’ve found a pair of games that Amanda will actually sit and play with me. The first is on the Xbox 360 — an Xbox Live title called Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, a space-based puzzle game. I’ve actually gotten Amanda into the versus matches in the game and she’s also gotten pretty good.
Then, this past weekend, we got the first new game for the Wii since we got the console — the newest in the long line of Nintendo racers: Mario Kart Wii. Amanda’s picked that one up quick, and the Grand Prix team mode is especially fun to play in two player mode.
Hopefully, we’ll get some more quality two player quality gaming in out of this pair of games, and maybe even more down the road!
// June 29th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Gaming
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the rhythm game genre on my Xbox 360. I personally own Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica and Rock Band, and this list will only continue to grow (Can we say, Guitar Hero: Van Halen?).
Ars Technica has a great list of five rules all these games and future ones should follow. They’re all pretty simple and make total sense. Activision, Red Octane, Harmonix and everyone else involved in the video game genre need to take these rules as gospel as well.
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