So I finally had time to play some games this weekend. I decided to start playing Battlefield: Bad Company (360). I got the Gold Edition which had some interesting changes when it comes to special or limited editions. It seems all the bonus content mentioned on the box is in the game disc itself. We usually get a second disc along with the normal game disc so this was a surprise. I thought I lost a disc or something. I like this idea because I won't need to open up another disc just to check out the special features. The map is pretty lame but I love the shiny gold slipcover, hehe.

So far the game has been fun and rather challenging. Even on Normal, the enemy can really dish it out and kill you fairly quickly if you're surrounded. But the game is easy on the other hand cuz certain sections in a level allows you to respawn when you die just like in Bioshock. Considering how tough certain levels can get, it's not a bad idea. The new ability to heal whenever you want was also really cool. You don't need to worry about hunting down for healing items or waiting for your health to regenerate. It's a cool twist from the usual FPS function. It might make the game too easy for some but even the healing needle requires a quick recharge and it doesn't quite save you when a tank or rocket launcher hits you.

The levels are nice and big and you can use various routes to complete a mission. You can also drive pretty much everything which is great. I'm not a fan of some of the camera views for the tanks because most of them don't really give you a good view of what's going. Even the default third person view isn't very good when you're going downhill. Ah well.

The story is rather bland but the writing and characters are great. You really like them even though you've seen these types of guys before in other games and movies. The humor is nice and subtle and I like the minor twists here and there. At least the story doesn't take itself too seriously like in CoD4. Overall, the game is still fun and addictive. The graphics are really nice and detailed even with all the screen tearing in certain sections. The sound and music is decent but not quite as good as other FPS games.



I also got Soul Calibur (360) on the XBLA. I wanted to test out my new joystick and I wanted the achievements. This port is extremely good and the suped up graphics look great. They might not look good in screenshots but the game moves just as smooth as ever. It still plays great and is extremely fun. I'm not a fan of the audio quality for the voices though. They sound a bit muffled and compressed compared to the music and weapon sound effects. It's not a big deal. People might complain that it's missing the mission game from the DC version but this was based on the arcade version and it had none of those bonuses so I could care less. It also has the entire art gallery and battle demos unlocked which is really nice. The art galley looks especially nice in HD. I'm a lil disappointed that we don't have the ability to play online but I assume Namco Bandai wanted people to play SCIV online instead. I hope they come up with an online patch in the future so old school SC players can battle online. Anyways, the game fits like a glove and I got a ton of the achievements fairly easily. This might be the first XBLA game I can score the full 200 points, hehe.