BLUNDER-COVER INVESTIGATION
Four of the past five issues of your magazine feature an exclusive review as the cover story! First it was Gears of War, then Lost Planet, then you  actually gave us a real cover story will Elder Scrolls: Shivering Isles. But then the reviews continued with Guitar Hero II  and now GRAW 2.
    The whole point of a cover story is to give us new info about a new game that is coming out. I’m fine with an exclusive review as long as it’s not what the entire issue is centered around. This needs to stop. I don’t subscribe to your magazine to get a review that I could get online next week. (With the exception of Guitar Hero II, of course.)
— Sean Miller

We say: What’s the most important game in the world? The one you’re about to buy. Maybe you know how you’re going to spend your money from previews, but that’s dangerous: Ship dates slip, game features disappear, and before you commit your cash, you have to cut through the hype and see whether a game delivers on its promises. When the game’s just about ready to hit retail shelves, that’s when you really need that information the most — and we like being the first source for the last word.

RARE HONESTY
Geoff Keighley’s column on Rare (OXM, April 2007) was a great revelation. Finally — after hearing how “great” Rare is from your magazine and from Rare itself — finally some recognition of the studio’s lackluster performance as of late.
    I take issue, however, with the suggestion that Rare should back away from what they do best. I think it’s a shame that they would have to rely solely on mature content to appeal to so-called “mature sophisticates.” Kameo was a great fairy tale, and fans are eager for a new Banjo game. In a sea of Halo clones and me-too shooters, Viva Piñata was a breath of fresh air. I commend Rare for doing something different — how many times have you heard people whine about lack of originality? So why scrap it in favor of more games that look and play the same just to appeal to teens who want to appear to be older?
    There’s no doubt, though, that Rare really has fallen from what made them great. They screwed up Conker’s multiplayer, they made a Perfect Dark game play like a Halo clone, and Rare’s recent games have contained noticeable bugs. I suspect Microsoft’s meddling. The censoring of Conker was awful: so, a game on a supposedly more mature console shouldn’t have the “mature” content it had on a supposed younger game console years before? And the rushing of Perfect Dark to the market left a bad feeling. Nintendo never forced Rare to rush a game before it was tested and ready. Microsoft needs to let Rare have the time they need.
    In the end, both Rare and Microsoft need to stop living off the accolades of past Rare work and names, and make the new games Rare develops actually live up to them.
— Jonathan

We say: Geoff’s column ran right around the same time we found out that Jetpac was being revived and “refueled” as an Xbox Live Arcade game, which probably won’t make you happy; it’s another celebration of Rare’s past instead of a  statement about Rare’s future. We know they’re not done with Viva, but otherwise, the tough-love advice from both you and Geoff sounds right to us.


NO PAY, ALL PLAY
OXM, please hear my cry! I’m probably the biggest Oblivion fan on earth (I’ve put just over 450 hours into it), but I live in a rural area and have no way of getting Xbox Live and all those juicy downloads. Even if there was a way for me to have Xbox Live, my parents won’t pay for high-speed internet. When you put those two Oblivion downloads on your February 2007 disc it was like, well …there are no words to describe how happy I was! So please, please put more content downloads on your discs (Oblivion downloads especially!). I would be eternally grateful!
— Kyle Hinchy

We say: We were thrilled to be able to offer the Wizard’s Tower and Thieves Den downloads on the February disc, and then follow them up with the GRAW Chapter 2 content on our April disc. Obviously, we don’t deserve all the credit; you should also thank Bethesda, 2K Games, Red Storm, and Ubisoft for their generosity.
    We know that a lot of broadband-less people still rely on the disc for fresh 360 content, so you have our word — whenever we can give away the goods, we will. And obviously, if something like that gets players to pop in a game they haven’t played for a while, it’s a good thing for the publisher, too: suddenly it shows up as the active game on friends lists, and the word spreads from there. From our perspective, everybody wins.


PREPARE FOR GLORY
I just saw the movie adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300, and I have to say it really gave me some insight into the Halo universe, as well as some inspiration for my next Covie-fragging fest! The parallels are really interesting: a small force trained in the arts of war uses sneaky, creative strategies to seriously pwn the enemy while holding them at bay. Heroic? Yes. Futile? Maybe. But the tide of war ultimately turned against the enemy.
I wonder if the Bungie crew have read Miller’s graphic novel? Could Master Chief be the equivalent of King Leonidas? Also, the Halo novels do mention the battle at Thermopylae a couple of times when the Chief is meditating on military strategy. Oh yeah, that reminds me — “hot gates” and “Bill Gates”? That one’s just too good to resist! You just know someone at Bungie was giggling!
— Valerie Roberts

We say: Did 300 inspire Halo? No, but they’re both getting water from the same well. Bungie Studios content manager Frank O’Connor points to Greek historian Herodotus, who chronicled the Greco-Persian wars in The Histories, including Book VII’s account of Xerxes vs. Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae. Both 300 and Halo were inspired by the events of 480 B.C. to various degrees, and while there’s no direct link between the two works, Halo’s bred-from-birth super-soldiers aren’t called Spartans for nothing.


SUNNY SIDE UP (YOU JERK)
Regarding letters in Message Center (April 2007 issue) discussing Rep over Xbox Live: I think those readers may have an altered view of the “rating” system. Rep isn’t just something to show how others rated you; it’s also a more personal “prefer” or “avoidance” of that player. If someone left a negative Rep, your “rating” goes down, but that’s one more person you likely won’t be matched with again. And if they gave you negative feedback for no reason, then they’re not really someone you want to play with, right? Or am I just looking too much on the bright side?
— Steven S.

We say: No, we like your outlook, Steven. Rep is really just a preference, and if someone’s going to be petty and slam you for the sake of slamming you, well, there’s nothing you can do…but clearly, you’re not going to miss anything by not crossing paths again. Make sure you read Frank O’Connor’s column at the end of this issue regarding behavior on Xbox Live and what every gamer can do to improve it.


THE PAST BUILDS THE FUTURE
I know OXM isn’t covering original-Xbox games much any more because of the lack of new games to cover. But even though “next-gen” is here, it seems that the PS2 is still getting a lot of love from developers releasing new games at budget prices. They’re making money on it because of the number of systems out there and the number of people that haven’t jumped on the next-gen ship. Sony was the first to admit that it gave up on the PlayStation too early, and it seems that Microsoft is destined to do the same thing with
the Xbox.
    With OXM’s game disc and the Burger King games, we’ve seen that developers can make games playable on both systems (complete with Achievements on Xbox 360), so why not continue making dual-system discs, ensuring you won’t alienate the original-Xbox loyalists who might buy a 360 later on? And if retail games offer 1,000 Gamerscore and Live Arcade games can net you 200 Gamerscore, why can’t backward-compatible Xbox games give you, say, 500? Just a thought.
— Kagey K

We say: In February, the PS2 outsold the 360 — not by a ton of units, but still a clear margin. By contrast, the original Xbox is nigh impossible to find on store shelves, so it’s not even in the running. If it were still freely available, the fact that 360 offers Achievements and older games don’t still kind of trumps it. And while we really like your ideas of hybrid discs and dual-platform Achievements, Microsoft hasn’t instituted any Achievements for backward-compatible games to date, and we don’t have much hope of it happening at all. Even with its new maps, Halo 2 will continue to be Achievement-less on 360, although its Vista counterpart will offer Gamerscore boosts for PC players. Life is unfair.


CRY, CRY AGAIN
I’ve listened to your podcasts where you complained about the potential problems of replacing a 360’s hard drive with a larger unit — specifically, how would users move their data from one drive to the other? I have another question: Why was everyone so worried about shifting data between the 20GB drive and the larger 120GB replacement drive? Use a memory card to move over your game saves. Re-download map packs and other content from Live. (If you paid for it, you can always re-download.) Even if your older drive is full, the download to the new drive wouldn’t take that long. 
Still, you crybabies got your USB transfer cable, so you can directly connect the two drives. Can someone explain why everyone was so bent out of shape as far as moving data? It’s not like a genie will appear out of the USB cable and do it for you. If you plan to sell your 20GB drive, you’re getting a mere pittance with the new drive available. I guess no matter what Microsoft does, someone will find a reason to complain.
— Maximegalon

We say: The last rant we made about the potential problems of moving your data from an old drive to the then-unconfirmed new drive appeared on a KOXM podcast in late 2006. Back then, even though Microsoft said things like “We are looking at what consumers want” whenever we asked about a bigger drive, no plans were in place and we felt that data-transfer issues needed to be addressed for 360 gamers who were not technically savvy. A USB cable was always an option, but it was just a guess then.
    The bigger problem that hasn’t been solved at press time: The issue with downloaded content being tied to machine IDs, as discussed in depth in the March 2007 edition of Message Center. If you’re swapping in a new hard drive on your old 360, this restriction won’t be a problem. But if you replace your 360 itself, either as a victim of the Three Red Lights of Doom or if you decide to take your existing drive to a new Elite system (see story, page 82)...big problem. You need to be connected to Live to have that content validated. Granted, Microsoft has said they are working on a solution, but we don’t yet know what that solution is, when it will be rolled out, or how it will work. So there’s still room for some healthy skepticism on this issue. The Elite may be a good (or great!) option for new users, but for existing customers with a legitimate need to transfer protected data, it’s still a work-in-progress.

PAST MASTERS
While reading through your April 2007 issue, I saw this footnote: “We’re stoked to see more interesting fare like Minigolf populating Live Arcade: Retro ports are getting a bit, um, old. Agree/disagree?” I have to say, I disagree with you guys on this one. While new Live Arcade games like 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures are fun and a nice way for independent, low-budget companies to release their games, there’s a lot to be said for the retro classics.
    For example, I’d be incredibly stoked (and willing) to drop 10 bucks on an Xbox Live Arcade version of the original X-Men or The Simpsons coin-op games. They were staples of my childhood, and to be able to finally beat the games that swallowed so many of my quarters back in the day would give me some closure. I’d love to have a 360 controller in hand, tearing it up with friends over Live.
    On that same note, when a retro title is released with updated graphics and stuff, I think it’s no longer a retro port. They need to keep these translations consistent with the originals, or at least offer an option to play the game with the original graphics. When Nintendo released Mario All-Stars on the Super Nintendo, I was excited to see all my favorite original titles. But when I found out they had all upgraded graphics, I was much less pumped about playing them. It’s all about memories, and you can’t ruin those by changing a bunch of things around.
Anyway, sorry to go on for so long, but the retro arcade thing is a big deal to me.
— Bobby Rigg

We say: It’s not that we don’t like the retro titles; it’s just that they’re, um, amply represented in comparison to other offerings. That said, we don’t really expect to see retro offerings go away; in fact, the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may pave the way for Konami’s other go-right brawlers of yore. What old-school gamer wouldn’t want that six-player X-Men behemoth from 1992? And, of course, the thinking behind the “enhanced” editions on Live Arcade is to give you a reason to buy the game again if you already have it in another form, and to help leverage the 360’s high-definition nature. As long as developers keep the original graphics as a user-selectable option (which they have so far, without fail), we won’t complain.


OFFENSIVE MANEUVERS
I would like to bring to your attention — and hopefully the attention of those who moderate Xbox Live — a matter regarding trash-talking. It seems unnecessary to me that trash-talking is considered a reportable offense and included in the list of reasons for giving someone bad feedback or complaining against them, especially when trash-talking is encouraged for those who choose to be registered “Underground” residents, such as myself.
    I understand that people get uncomfortable and offended by bad language, and that Xbox Live is designed for everyone, young and old, so profanity is a justifiably intolerable behavior. However, trash talking and just being plain rude or inconsiderate are two totally different things. Trash-talking is done in the spirit of the game and usually includes very little, if any, offensive language, while using bad language is just plain stupid and disrupts the game. I just want to make sure that there’s a distinction between the two – and I wish Live could distinguish them, as well.
— Zhewar Rostam

We say: It all depends on the context, doesn’t it? If it’s trash-talking in the spirit of challenging your opponent, getting inside their head and trying to mentally distract them — the way, say, Michael Jordan was famous for rattling opponents on the court — then it doesn’t mean you don’t respect your fellow players. It simply means you’re looking for a psychological edge, which every competitor would like to have. But when the trash-talking happens without that respect — and you know it has if you can tell the difference between “Aw, that’s a tough shot, man, I don’t think you can’t make that one” and “You suck, jackhole” — that’s when it becomes potentially abusive, not to mention uncomfortably personal. And we’d say that’s when a player has a right to report when someone has crossed that line.
    Granted, every gamer on Xbox Live may draw that line in a different place, but it’s assumed that if you do your gaming in the wild and lawless Underground zone, you’re ready for anything — including getting unfairly earned negative rep ratings from defeated, petty players nursing bruised egos.