The skate. demo just went up on Xbox Live Marketplace a couple of days ago, and last night I had my first chance to try it out. Probably unlike most folks following this game, I’ve seen next-to-nothing of it as far as videos or screenshots, just a few little clips on ad banners and such. So I got to go in with no real expectations. My first impression is that it’s hands down the best skating game ever made… maybe even the best sports game ever made (and by “best” I mean “most fun to play”). The clever Flickit control scheme allows you to do all ollies, nollies, and flip tricks by flicking the right analog stick in various different patterns. I love the fact that doing a nollie trick just means performing the mirror image maneuver you’d do for a normal ollie trick. Manuals are done by tilting slightly back or forward on the right stick, so it’s fairly simple to manual into and out of tricks, but not like Tony Hawk’s “press down when you hit the ground” simple. Grinding entails ollieing onto an edge or rail, the character grinds or slides on his own depending on the direction you’re facing.

I guess all these new features really tell us is that a very analog type approach to gaming can work amazingly well, especially in a somewhat open-ended sport like skateboarding. It allows the player to sort of craft a series of tricks that feels more like an accomplishment, and is actually doable in real-life as well… simple runs like kickflip-nosegrind-kickflip-out actually look impressive. We’ve been inundated for the past 10 years with Tony Hawk games, where nothing is impressive in the least. It’s just a giant two minute long combo. The whole game becomes points and multipliers instead of skateboarding.

The open environments are cool, but not necessarily innovative. But as far as this genre goes, I think an open world is a must-have. The challenge system shows promise, too. You skate up to various characters in-game and they assign you a challenge to complete, like manual-flip trick-manual, or to do a certain combo under a time limit.

I’m eager to get my hands on this full release. I just hope I don’t get bored in this game as quickly as I normally do with sports games.

Last week I downloaded the Shivering Isles expansion pack for Oblivion. After a lengthy download (it clocks in somewhere near the 1GB mark), I played for a solid 6 hours or so over the weekend and needless to say, I’m impressed. Bethesda has really hit the nail on the head in the downloadable content department. And they’ve managed to release an expansion that serves as a great supplement and compelling extension of the story to one of the greatest games ever made.

After the purchase and download, nothing is immediately different as you load up the game except for the “Loading additional content” message, which now takes a solid minute if you’ve got all the downloadable extras. As you approach Niben Bay in the game, you receive a message about a strange door, the head-shaped gateway to the Shivering Isles:

As you pass through you’re taken to a place called “The Fringe” on the edge of the Isles. At this point you’re tasked with investigating the town of Passwall and figuring out how to eliminate “the Gatekeeper”, a giant ogre-like creature without a face. From there is where you enter the Shivering Isles proper. You have two places to explore: Mania, land of euphoria and Willy Wonka-esque landscapes; or Dementia, a dark, sinister environment that feels like that sheisty swamp in the Neverending Story. The Swamp of Depression or whatever it’s called.

The conversations with the NPCs in Shivering Isles are all pretty hilarious. Since most of the inhabitants are some sort of insane, this makes the quests rather interesting. You’ll have to deliver tongs and calipers to a homeless guy that’s trying to build a skyboat. But since the boat requires water, he’s having a hard time getting the water to fly through the air so that the boat may also fly through the air. Crazy, I know, but don’t worry… the tools will help him accomplish said goal. In another quest you’ll have to help a man find a safe place to sleep outside because he’s too scared the walls of his house will collapse on him. Your job is to find him someplace to sleep away from all that danger. Oh yeah, and dialogue with Sheogorath is utterly ridiculous.

My favorite addition, however, is the inclusion of numerous new enemies, armor types, weapons, and plants/potion ingredients. Enemies have different animations and combat styles and it becomes easier to create some sweet new potions and poisons.

The Shivering Isles is without a doubt the most striking piece of downloadable content for any game yet released on the Xbox 360. Well worth the price (2400 MS points, translates to roughly… who knows, I suck at math). My next download better be for Crackdown. I know you’re reading this, Realtime Worlds. So please make it happen. For the children.

A few days ago Microsoft their blacker-than-Wesley Snipes Xbox 360 Elite to the non-surprise of gaming nerds everywhere. I think Microsoft actually refers to the “Zephyr” project (as it was known to the press) as the “worst kept secret in gaming”. Since everyone else is talking about it, I though I’d drop my uncalled-for 2 cents here.

First of all, features. Not very many, but a couple. The Elite comes packaged with a 120GB hard drive and an HDMI port (the regular A/V port is still there). Now the 120GB drive is nice. I almost considered holding out on buying my 360 until MS dropped a larger drive, but I couldn’t wait. And it turns out I’m not heartbroken about it. This larger drive is obviously to support the success of the Video Marketplace, which I fully support… I’ve even bought a movie or two on their. But I watch nearly all of my content on my old Xbox with Xbox Media Center or on our new media center PC, even the HD stuff. It’s still nice to see Microsoft staying way ahead of the pack in the realm of features that people actually want. Not like the feature-bloated PS3 which is yet to even take advantage of its own built-in features (and doesn’t even ship with the HDMI cable).

Now the HDMI. This is a feature that everyone’s been whining about since day one and they’ve finally got it. On Major Nelson’s podcast earlier this week, he discussed the Elite with Albert Penello, director of platform marketing. When Major asked “How does the HDMI look?”, Albert respoded, “Just like the component.” Many people don’t seem to understand that just because it’s an all-digital connection, that doesn’t mean it’s going to look amazing. Sorry for the mini rant, it just annoys me. I don’t disagree with Microsoft’s decision to include the HDMI. I’m fully in support of their adoption of the new standard and I would use it if I had it.

The only other notable features are, well, blackness. Everything is black; the hard drive, controller, headset, and console. I guess this is a nice feature if you really care to have your whole entertainment center the same color. Or if you’re a goth or something. On the Major’s podcast, they also touched on complaints about the Elite not having and integrated HD-DVD drive. Here’s one obvious reason: the PS3. The price point of the Elite with HD-DVD would be in the ballpark of $600, maybe even more, putting it up there with everyone’s favorite Console/George Foreman Grill. Also consider that right now probably 20 to 30% of 360 owners have HDTVs (and that’s one assy guess on my part). So that would mean 70 to 80% of Microsoft’s market is instantly eliminated on this new unit. On a side note, the external HD-DVD drive looks sexual, so why build it in?

All in all, the only thing that might affect me in the near future with this release is the larger hard drive. If for some reason I started downloading tons of content from Marketplace, I could see the need for it. But as a media center PC owner, I enjoy that experience much more than having my console performing triple duty as a gaming platform/content distributor/DVR (eventually). That’s just my 2 massive cents.