Dylan Greene dot com

Halo 2 has some amazingly cool features.

1. In Campaign mode, there are never any "loading" screens besides a brief one when you first start the game. New levels and cinematics just fluidly happen without any pause. It's magical.
2. On XBOX Live, choose if you want a team game or every-man-for-himself and Halo 2 will find people for you to play against.
3. Halo 2 matches with with people at or around your skill level. 1 is the lowest, 50 is the best.
4. Up to four people can play on one XBOX, even on XBOX Live.

Halo 2 has some amazingly uncool features.

1. Right now there are 68,831 people playing Halo 2 on XBOX Live. Despite that (or because of that?), it takes 2 to 5 minutes to find people and start a multiplayer game. After finishing one round, which usually last about 5 minutes, you're back to the selection screen and have to wait another 2 to 5 minutes for the next game. You cannot continue on the same "server" with the same people. I've read that this was done to make sure you play against a variety of people so your stats will be more accurate, but I'd much prefer to spend more time playing, less time waiting, and make friends with people I'm playing against rather than have a new bunch of strangers every five minutes.
2. For ranked games (which is what everybody seems to be playing), you cannot choose any details besides team game or not. You love King of the Hill but hate Slayer? Too bad. You have a favorite map? Too bad. You want to join a game in progress that your friend is playing? Too bad. You want to increase or decrease the number of players? Too bad. While you can create custom games, there's no way to search for them, so the people that play on your custom server are going to find it randomly.
3. Everybody starts at Skill Level 1, even the Best of the Best. That means for somebody who doesn't play very much like me, I'm getting my ass kicked by all the really good players who are new to XBOX Live. There really should be an option for experienced players to "skip kindergarten" and start right at level 10.
4. If you're buddies don't have XBOX Live accounts, or if they do have accounts but they don't have a copy of their account on your XBOX (which requires a XBOX memory card to do the copy), then you can't join ranked games. This is good for keeping track of the stats, but sucks when friends come over and you just want to play a game. I'm also having the same problem bringing my "Party" into a ranked game.

Ranked games are nice because they effect your level (so that you are playing against people at your skill level) and because all of your stats are tracked online. For example:

• My overall stats
• Every game I've played
• Stats for one of my better games
• Screenshots of every kill in that game (cool, but is there a purpose?)

Some helpful info:

• XBOX Live Matchmaking Playlist details and explanations.
• Find an XBOX Live player to see his or her stats.
• Stats and ranking overview.
• Halo 2 FAQ relating to XBOX Live.
• Explanation of the medals you can earn (but there's no running count so I don't know what the point is.)

The estimates are at $100 million for the first day of sales of Microsoft's new XBOX game.

By comparison, Star Wars: Episode 1 made $64 million in the first weekend. The first Lord of the Rings movie made $66 million the first weekend. The Incredibles made $70 million over the weekend. No other video game has come close to Halo 2's sales numbers.

In addition to 1.5 million pre-sold units, Moore said one retailer sold 8,500 units in the first 11 minutes of sales, while another sold 200,000 units by daybreak Tuesday.

Analysts expect "Halo 2" to sell a total of about 10 million units, with some projecting up to half of those sales coming in November. The original "Halo" sold 5 million units and remains the best seller on the Xbox to date.

At the EBX at the Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax Virginia near my office, the manager told me they had 200 people in line last night at midnight to get their copies as soon as possible. I opted to stay at home and get some sleep, but now that I have my copy I'm going home to play some Halo 2.

• A non-reviewer's point of view: foO's Halo 2 experience
• Online Stats: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/ (49,000 players on Live right now!)
• My Stats: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/PlayerStats.aspx?player=dylan

One other thing... Halo 2 will not be coming to the Playstation 2 or Gamecube any time soon. Halo was made by Bungie. Bungie happens to be owned by Microsoft. And Microsoft owns the XBOX. It's for that reason you won't find Mario or Metroid games for the XBOX or PS2. It's video game economics.

The pre-orders: Halo 2 has already broken records as the most pre-ordered game ever, with 1.5 million copies pre-ordered.

The reviews:
(from EvilAvatar.com)

Electronic Gaming Monthly: 10, 10, 10
GMR: 10
Game Informer: 10
Official Xbox Magazine: 9.7
IGN.com: 9.8
OXMUK: 10
XBN: 10
TeamXbox: 9.9
Gamespy.com: 5/5
Gamepro: 5/5
1up.com: 10
Extended Play (TechTV): 5/5
Gamespot.com: 9.4

Midnight Madness: 6,500 stores across the US will be opening their doors tonight at midnight so that geeks across the nation can get their game on as soon as possible. Store Locator

Why all the hype? Halo 1 came out three years ago and is still fun to play. The theory is that Halo 2 should be at least that much, if not more, fun to play.

The draw for it is multiplayer games. Halo 1 and 2 support up to 16 players, with up to 4 players per XBOX. Because it sucks to have your ass handed to you every time you play online against anonymous kiddies, Halo 2 has an automatic ranking system which ranks you as you play online. You are automatically assigned people to play against that are at your skill level, so in theory, the anonymous kiddies you are playing against are just as good or bad as you are. Of course you can ignore all that and just play against your friends, and XBOX Live has an IM-like friends system that shows you when they are online and lets you send voice messages, join their game in progress, and other cool tricks.

My XBOX Live Gamertag is Dylan. See you online.

Microsoft's Bungie office has announced that Halo 2 is complete, tested, certified, and officially blessed, and will be in stores on time and in massive qualities on November 9th exclusive to XBOX.

To celebrate, they've put out a 87 MB video: Direct Download, BitTorrent.

Wish you could use a mouse and keyboard in games like Halo, Halo 2, Rainbow Six, or any of the multitude of other first person shooters on the XBOX? 

This $29 device lets you plug in a normal PC keyboard and mouse into your XBOX controller port.  It lets you map the keys and mouse buttons and mouse-wheel however you want, and even supports the XBOX Live headset.

This could be a great thing for people like me who just can't aim worth anything using a controller, and wouldn't mind dedicating some space on the coffee table for the keyboard and mouse setup.

I haven't seen any reviews of this device, called the SmartJoy FRAG for XBOX, so there's no telling if this will actually work.  XBOX games expect the analog pressure-sensitive buttons (the harder you push, the faster you shoot, for example), and that feature and others cannot be reproduced with a keyboard or mouse.

• Connect PC Mouse and Keyboard to your Xbox®
• Especially designed for First Person Shooters
• Supports all keys on Keyboard and Mouse (including Scroll-Wheel)
• Pre-Installed configurations for most FPS Best Sellers
• Fully programmable including advanced features such as Deadzone and Mouse Control Inversion
• Built-in Memory Card slot for compatible peripherals (incl. Headset)
• Works with any game, even without built-in Mouse + Keyboard support
• Compatible with all Xbox® consoles (US, JPN, PAL)
• Compatible with standard PS/2 Mice, incl. USB Mice with USB to PS/2 Adapter
• Compatible with Optical and Wireless Mice
• Also available for PlayStation®2
• Patent Pending
  

Games are more than pretty pictures - they has to be fun.

This humorous and "offbeat" review of Doom 3 sums up what a lot of people are now saying about the apparently much-hyped beautiful yet boring game.

Glad I don't need to spend time or money on that game. Now I can go back to waiting for Half Life 2 and Halo 2.

Here's a quote from the review:

Although it's built from an impressive engine, Doom 3 is ultimately a soulless derivative rehash of tired, tried, and true motifs. It is a bauble that reminds us of id's triumph when it comes to technology and their abject failure when it comes to imagination.

I found the review at my favorite bipartisan gaming site, Evil Avatar.

Microsoft now has one million XBOX Live members. I think XBOX Live is one of the least understood and most under-marketed features of the XBOX, partly because it's kinda hard to explain what it is... Here's my try:

The XBOX includes an ethernet connection. This can be used hook your XBOX to the Internet, but you still need some way to find other gamers to play against. That's where XBOX Live comes in.

• Play XBOX games online against people from all over the world, or just your friends.
• Use the included headset to talk while you play. It's telephone quality, up to 16 people at once, and while there are sometimes annoying kids who won't shut up, it's incredibly helpful to be able to talk to your teammates during the game to formulate strategies and nice to be able to ask where people are from. You can mute people that won't shut up, and you don't need to press anything to talk. There's a mute button on device that plugs into the controller, and most games have the option to have players voices come out of your TV's speakers so everybody can hear what's going on.
• Everybody has a unique Gamertag ID. Mine is Dylan. Yeah, my Gamertag is boring, lame, and lacks all creativity. I created it during the XBOX Live Beta, and once you create your tag, you can't change it. People call me "Die-Lan," which almost makes it cool because then it doesn't sound like my real name. After a few days of playing you'll start to recognize some of the regulars. I always laugh when SluttMonkey or FistingBritney joins a server I'm on.
  
• You can add people you know (or meet online) as "Friends." Like your IM software, you can see when your friends are online, what games they are playing, and can send them invites to join your game, even if they are playing something else. You can also tie your Gamertag to your MSN Passport so that MSN Messenger shows all that info too. Personally, I don't play XBOX much, but if I get an invite from a good friend and I have some free time I'll try to join their game.
• Since it's no fun having your ass kicked every time you play, many XBOX Live games rank the players, and you can make sure you're only playing against people at your level. Here's my online ranking for Rainbow Six 3, which I'm not too great at, but had a lot of fun playing when I rented it.
• The final cool feature of XBOX Live is something PC gamers take for granted - downloadable content. Since the XBOX has a massive hard drive, many XBOX Live games have downloable levels, characters, game modes, and more, often for free, but sometimes for $4.99. When you sign on, the XBOX will automatically download patches kind of like a Windows Update. It's nice to know that the game makers have the ability to release patches and it's guaranteed that every player will have that patch.

XBOX Live currently cost $69.99 for the first year's membership. That includes an XBOX game (either MechAssult or Crimson Skies, or maybe both) and the headset for talking. A lot of XBOX Live games include free 3-month trials, but you definitely want the headset.

More links:

• XBOX.com/Live
• I love XBOX Live (kinda cheesy)
• About XBOX Live
• XBOX Live Start Kits
• XBOX Wireless Adapter - Use your neighbor's open WiFi network for your XBOX Live connection, with their permission of course, or just use your own. B, G, and WEP are supported as you'd expect.

Some great XBOX announcements today, including EA finally adding support for XBOX Live across all of their popular sports and action games, a new digital camera peripheral for multiple-person video chat (and hopefully in-game support as well), and Doom III will be an XBOX exclusive.

However, the most anticipated news is about Halo II.  Halo II now has an official release date of November 9, 2004.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a video of a demonstration of some of the new features in Halo II.  All videos are WMV and may require Windows Media Player 9.

These videos require you to right click on the link and choose Save Target As...

• Halo 2 E3 2004 Video Part 1 
• Halo 2 E3 2004 Video Part 2
• Halo 2 E3 2004 Video Part 3
• Halo 2 E3 2004 Video Part 4
  
  If those video links don't work, try this TeamXBOX page instead.

That's not all, here are some more cool E3 videos:

These videos require you to right click on the link and choose Save Target As...

• The Novice - A funny Apprentice spoof putting the XBOX senior management team against the Playstation senior management team.  Some funny cameos you wouldn't normally expect in a spoof like this.  A must see for any Apprentice fan.
• Doom 3 - You know what this is about.
• XNA Crash Demo - XNA is the new framework MS released for building XBOX games.  This demo shows off what can be done with two detailed Saleen car models smashing into each other at high speeds.  It's an impressive technology demo but will the games really look that good?  It might be done using XBOX 2 technology.
• EA announces Live support - EA brings out the big guns for this announcement! 

I got all these video links from TeamXBOX.com's E3 2004 web site.  If any of the video links stop working, just go there and you'll find those videos, screenshots, and more. 

An unconfirmed report from excellent gadget site Engadget:

Regarding the Xbox 2 hard drive, I was snowboarding in Whistler, B.C. from February 19 - 26, 2004. We were in a bar called the Amsterdam Cafe in the village one night and J. Allard, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division was in the bar with some friends. I recognized him from a recent Business 2.0 article and we started talking. (He bought my friends and I a round of drinks he called “Hey Zeuses” - they were Red Bull and tequila and they were nasty.) Anyway, we were talking about the Xbox 2 and he said their current plan was not to include a hard drive in the Xbox 2 itself, but to offer a portable hard drive as an accessory you could buy separately. Here’s the kicker: He said what they were trying to do was to incorporate MP3 (and WMA, obviously) functionality into the portable hard drive and turn the thing into an iPod killer. Basically, the idea was to come up with an MP3 player that was as good or better than the iPod that would also serve as the hard drive for the Xbox 2. And he said they planned to sell them as a loss leader at $100 each.

I personally doubt it's going to the an iPod killer.

First, XBOX and iPod owners are different audiences for the most part, so I doubt any XBOX 2 accessories, no matter how cool, will do any damage to the iPod sales numbers.

Second, there are over 500 MP3 devices available that play Microsoft's WMA alternative to MP3. I'm guessing the companies that make those devices pay a licensing fee to Microsoft. Would Microsoft want to compete with it's own license holders?

And third, why not just put a USB port on the XBOX 2 and let gamers use their own MP3 player of choice as an external storage medium instead of locking users into just that one solution? Oops, I can hear you saying: "Because that's the sort of thing Microsoft would do." Hehe, guess we'll just wait and see...

XBOX marketing manager John Porcaro liked my Microsoft campus photos so much that he is using one of the photos in the banner on his blog.  Very cool!

John recently sent XBOX Realm (an XBOX fan site) several free XBOX games to review. 
John: I, too, happen to like free XBOX games.  :)

And speaking of XBOX, after seeing some of my XBOX Live ideas and feedback, Major Nelson, XBOX Live Director of Programming, contacted me about joining up for a game some time to talk more about my ideas.  Unfortunately I don't have any recent Live games, so I haven't been able to take him on that awesome offer.

Hard drive or no hard drive, the XBOX 2 will likely have some sort of large local storage for storing downloads, game data, and saved games. 

Here's two idea I had that would further take advantage of the XBOX's local storage: 

Instant Game Swapping:

You're playing a game, and then your friends come over and watch to play some other game.  You aren't near a save spot and you don't want to loose your progress.  Instant Game Swap would copy the current memory contents to the XBOX hard drive so that when you put that game back in, it loads the memory from the hard drive and you can continue from exactly where you were.

Instant Hibernation:

You're playing a game and it's time to go to school, work, dinner, your wedding, whatever, and you're not at a convenient point at which to save.  Instant Hibernate would copy the memory contents to the hard drive so you can comfortably know that your game will be exactly the way you left it.

These features are not new in the PC world - Emulators such as Virtual PC and VMware let you do the equivalent of Instant Game Swapping to swap operating systems, and laptops have been doing hibernation for years.  Car and portable CD players have these same features so that you can turn your car off and on and not loose your place on the CD.  The fact that it is automatic part of what makes it so nice.

I don't think these features will make or break the XBOX 2, but I bet they would raise the bar for expectations of all gaming systems.

..baby seals!

No, just kidding....

It's been rumored the the XBOX 2 (also known as XBOX NEXT, XBOX II, and XENON) won't have a hard drive, making many gamers worried that some of the coolest advantages of the XBOX over other gaming systems will be lost.

Today the XBOX has a hard drive that is used to store saved games, store game data which greatly speeds up game loading, for storing downloads from XBOX Live, and for storing MP3s and WMAs which can be used as background music in many games.

Today M-Systems CEO Dov Moran has confirmed in an interview with Israeli business journal Globes Online that the "XBOX 2" will not have a hard drive, and instead will have a solid state flash card made by his company.

M-Systems, which many of us have never heard of, is the the Israeli company responsible for inventing flash memory. Flash memory is what digital cameras use to store photos. Unlike the memory you use in your PC, flash memory does not require a power source to remember the data, and unlike a hard drive, there are no moving parts and it makes no noise.

This is great news - it means the next XBOX will be smaller, quieter, and lighter. This could also open an opportunity for Microsoft to build a portable XBOX, although shrinking down the top-of-the-line video card and cpu's will still be a hefty challenge.

Today's XBOX hard drive is about 10 GBytes. Today most digital camera owners use memory cards less than 1/2 Gbyte, however M-Systems makes Fast Flash Disks up to 47 Gbytes, so there's no telling how much memory Microsoft plans on stuffing in the XBOX 2.

Do you attend lengthy conference calls that tend to put you to sleep?

Microsoft has created an awesome solution for this: XBOX Live

Now wait, hear me out...

1. Talk for Free. XBOX Live has free full-duplex voice chat. Unlike telephones it's digitally encoded so you have a better quality call and no worries of outsiders listening in. Comparable TelCo conference call plans cost about $5 per hour per person and still aren't going to be digital quality.
2. Free Meeting Rooms. XSNSports.com (XSN stands for XBOX Sports Network) is a web site Microsoft has built for all of their sports games. Here you can set up tournaments, ladders, championships, or in the business world: public and private meetings. There's a public "meeting" called "Road 2 Longhorn" where Longhorn developers and independent software developers meet and talk about the the future of Windows.
3. Have fun at the same time. During the meeting you get to play golf. When you join this "meeting" you are on the same course as everybody else, with the same weather, rules, and other settings, all set up by the meeting host.

With up to 64 people able to join each "meeting," the lure of a golf game to entice people to join and keep them there for the duration of the meeting, it seems like XBOX Live and Links 2004 would be marketing gold. Right? Wrong, it seems....

Well it seems that Microsoft is doing as little as possible to publicize the fact that Links 2004 even has online play:

• No mention of Online Play. Microsoft's Links 2004 home page never mentions playing online, online public and private tournaments, stats tracking or the multitude of other features Links 2004 has. There's no screenshots of online play either, and videos seem to only show cut scenes and not actual game play.
• No mention of significance of XSN Sports. There's a link to "What is XSN Sports" but it doesn't say on the Links page why I should even care enough to click it to find out what it is. The What is? page doesn't really say much either.
• Old videos with no game-play. There's two videos on the site, and like all videos on XBOX.com, they are really really old and don't show what it looks like when you actually play the game.

XSNSports.com, which is the free online network for Microsoft's sports games has issues too:

• The web site is too hard to use. Way too much focus was put on "use Flash to make it cool!" and not enough on "give easy access to what the user needs." I still haven't figured out how to join "Road 2 Longhorn" because the "Join Competition" link brings me a to new page that lists all of the competitions going on, and for whatever reason Road 2 Longhorn no matter what I search for.
• Too many tabs! Tabs are everywhere. Since I can easily scroll the web page with my mouse wheel, why not just make the page longer rather than requiring me to click on each and every tab to see what's changed? On my personal stats page there are 26 tabs!
• Terrible message board. The Message Boards are using message board technology from the Internet stone ages. There's 8,000 messages in the Links Form alone and they are only available as one huge flat list of 15 titles per page. The only way to read them is clicking one title at a time, and each time you do that it reloads and displays this annoying flash animated menu.
• Not enough personalization. Your personal profile doesn't let you give a picture of yourself. Seeing who you are meeting with (and playing against) adds greatly to the overall experience.
• Why require an email address? When you modify your personal profile it requires an email address. Why? Your XBOX Live already has to be associated with a Passport just to view the page. Oh yeah, last one:
• Why require a Passport account? A Passport account is required just to view the pages. Passport should only be needed when trying to join a competition or modify your settings.

Well the potential is there, but the problem is that Microsoft doesn't seem realize the goldmine that they're on and my bet is that full capabilities of XBOX Live are never understood by anybody outside of their Redmond offices.

Maybe XBOX marketing manager and fellow blogger John Porcaro will fill us in?

Here's a review of Link 2004 with a more information and screenshots than you'll find any Microsoft site.

My Gamertag is Dylan.

The concept of using Links 2004 and XBOX Live for online meetings was not my idea. I first read about it on Scoble's blog. Scoble saw it on Newsgator author Greg Reinacker's blog. Greg saw the idea on Microsoft blogger Jeff Sandquist's blog.

I have some Save Game related suggestions for improving the XBOX:

1) Shared Local Player Profiles Across Games: In Halo, I have about a dozen user profiles. When a friend or family member plays Halo on my XBOX, I set up a new user profile for them so that they can customize their player's name, colors, controls, and other settings. The problem is that I have other games too. Why must I set up new user profiles for every game, with the same name and typically same settings? Instead, User Profiles should be shared across all games. Settings such as Inverted Look, Vibration, should default to that user's global setting, but still be customizable on a per-game basis.

2) Associate Saved Games with a Local Player Profile: When multiple people share one XBOX (such as roommates, or when friends come over), they shouldn't ever worry about saving over somebody else's progress, especially in games that only let you have a finite number of saved games. Lord of the Rings Return of the King is a typically offender: It has only 10 saved game spots. After you use all 10 spots, you must overwrite your other saved games. If you and your buddies are taking turns trying to beat the game, how do you know which saved games are his and not to overwrite them?

3) Allow Uploading Local Player Profiles and Saved Games to Live: The primary reason I suggest this is because Memory Cards are a waste of time and money. If I want to continue a game at a friends house, the ideal way to do it should be to load my profile from XBOX Live. This should also be how I get my Local Player Profile onto other people's XBOX. Once I set up my Local Player Profile on my personal XBOX, I should never have to create a new player with my name, controls, and other settings on any Live-connected XBOX.

4) Create a Common Save Game Interface: In Windows, when you save a file, you typically see the same Save As dialog and you know what to expect. On the XBOX, no two games save games the same way, and many games make the process unnecessarily tedious because of tradition from programming for the Playstation 2, which does not have a hard drive and uses slower memory cards with less space than the XBOX.

How saved games typically work today:

• First they ask if you want to save, as if there's ever a time you don't want to save, assuming you can always load up old saves if you aren't happy with this one. Sometimes they ask "Are you sure you want to save?", as if they think you've been doing so poorly perhaps it would be better to just not save your progress.
• Then they ask where you want to save (hard drive or memory card), even if you don't have any memory cards plugged in, so the hard drive is the only option and this question should be skipped.
• Then they ask which "file slot" (of 10) to save to, even though the hard drive has 6 to 10 gigs of space and could hold thousands of saved games.
• Then they ask "Are you Sure?" you want overwrite the previous save, which you have to do after the first 10 saves.
• Then there's a warning message about turning off your XBOX while saving, even though it takes less than a second to save to the hard drive, so there's no way anybody could turn off their XBOX during that moment.
• Then there's a message that says the game has been saved, even though it's pretty obvious that's what just happened.
• Then, if you are playing a rare EA game that allow for saving during multiplayer, it repeats that whole process again for each player!

Games from EA especially, such as SSX 3 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which are otherwise both great games on XBOX, do everything bad that I listed. I'm guessing EA games have this problem because EA also makes their games work on the Playstation 2. The Playstation 2 not only has no hard drive built in, but the PS2 memory cards hold less and are slower than the XBOX memory cards. Perhaps that is why there are so many warnings and limitations, but that is no excuse for the XBOX version.

How saved games should work:

• When you start the game, ask which Local Player Profile to use.
• Automatically save at during game play, but don't stop the game to save, just show "Game Saved" in the corner.
• Allow for saving at any time during the game, such as when you realize you're late for work and need to save it right away.
• When saving, don't ask anything. Just save it. Put a message in the corner of the screen saying "Game Saved" but don't require the gamer to dismiss the dialog or press Ok. Just save it and get back to the game.
• When loading games, show only the games for that Local Player Profile. Allow users to switch Player Profiles at any time since it's nice to be able to switch back and forth. (It can make a boring single player game into a fun race-to-the-finish.)
• List games in save order. Show details for each save, and importantly, a screenshot of what that player saw when that save happened. A date and time is not enough. A level name is not enough. A screenshot is not enough. The Load Screen needs to show all of these details.

XBOX Related News: Bill Gates announced today in his CES keynote address that you will be able to use your XBOX to play videos and mp3s, show photos, and TiVo-style play and pause live tv by streaming the data from your PC using the built-in XBOX network jack or WiFi. Of course I don't know the details because XBOX.com, the offical XBOX web site, makes no mention of this yet. Common Microsoft, XBOX.com should be full of screenshots and videos just seconds after Bill made the announcement. Take a clue from Apple's awesome PR machine once in a while.

I got a new game... This one is kinda freaky...

Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix.

This is one of those games that comes with a mat that you jump on to the beat of the music. Arrows scroll on the screen that point up, down, left, or right, and sometimes more than one direction at once. You have to move your feet to the correct arrow or arrows on the mat.

I suck at it right now. I have no beat and I can't dance worth crap, but I'm still enjoying it. There's a ton of songs, and you can download more via XBOX Live. (you can't use music you've copied to the XBOX harddrive I guess because the game needs to know the beat of the music to be able to sync up the steps). My favorite mode so far is Workout, where you choose either how many calories you want to burn or how long you want to exercise. After each song it shows you how your workout would have compared to jump roping, jogging, or swimming, and it keeps a record of all of your workouts along with a fitness chart. About time exercising came to the XBOX.

I've only played this game for about 10 minutes, so I can't give it a good review yet, but so far it's all positive. It's fun, physical, addictive, and especially fun(ny) to watch other people play.

Here's a good review of DDR Ultramix from TeamXBOX.com.

One more thing: XBOX Night tonight at Pender 2. We have four XBOXs, four projectors, and lots of controllers. 16 player Halo? Only if we have enough players. We start around 6. This is for webMethods employees in the Fairfax office, but if you are in the area and want to join, let me know, maybe we can work something out.