Erkki

Hmm... I can't find Guitar Hero II 360 in stock in any European store that ships to Estonia. GameStop seems to have it, and I would possibly be even willing to pay the horrendous shipping rate (WTF? 60$) if I really can't find it anywhere else, but can I trust the info on that site that it's region free? That site only mentions the bundle with the guitar as region free (the unbundled version is not mentioned at all) and the back of the box visible at GameStop says "only" and "NTSC" in the same sentence. But perhaps even the games that are actually region free have those sentences on the back of the box? Nevermind, found it on Play Asia and it said it's region free.

Thanks for the info! PS isn't it funny that (as I just read somewhere) there is indeed no way to change the billing country associated with your gamertag, but they do recommend you to live anywhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Anywhere

Yeah, I actually noticed something like that in a shop. You can buy points in a shop too I think? Anyway, I finally managed to get into LIVE, but now I have two accounts. I set the first to be in US accidentally and could not find any way to change the country later. Since I thought that might affect content somehow (seemed lots of rock band ads with the US one), I created another in the UK. Is there any way to delete the other one or will it always haunt me when I have to choose a profile? Also, if multiple people play certain games, like Guitar Hero for example, they should probably have different gamertags (for achievements etc.), but is the DLC somehow associated with one account? The other account could see the downloaded songs as well, but when I went to the menu where you download them, it didn't show those checkboxes for the ones I already had downloaded with the first account.

The fucking Xbox live signup thing is a fucking horror. And of course, I don't live in any country that actually exists, so I have to pretend that I'm from UK for example. Actually I think I accidentally choose another country. Because for some reason it asks me for State and presents a list of US states. Also, I can't use my credit card because my postal code and country are not cool enough. Fuck them. Ok, luckily there's that one month trial gold membership. [edit] And of course the fucking windows passport servers need to be down right now so I can't go and just change my country.

Haven't played more than a minute yet, but it definitely seems to have some shitty qualities, like for example not synced audio/subtitles (you have to manually click "next" for the subs).

Turns out one of the local stores reduced the price considerably (maybe the UK price reduction just reached us finally). I'm now a happy owner of Xbox 360 with Viking and Guitar Hero III.

Shit, it turns out my order was rejected, because game.co.uk doesn't ship hardware internationally. Most places don't ship to Estonia at all. So I would have to buy it locally for a lot more. Suddenly the PS3 looks attractive again. Aargh. Why can't I just make up my mind.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725112_1723512_1725872,00.html

Actually you almost made me reconsider. I would love a console which has good multimedia capabilities etc. And actually 360 doesn't have many exclusives that I want, but I still decided to go with it for XBLA, achievements and stuff, DLC in GTAIV, earlier Rock Band release, guitar compatibility. But I think I'll start saving up for PS3 and buy it at the end of the year or later.

Thanks. I decided to go with Elite (chose one bundled with Halo 3, because I've never played a Halo game before), I probably will be playing XBLA games and lots of Guitar Hero / Rock Band with DLC.

Thanks everyone, I'm getting the 360. But I'm still a bit torn between Elite and Premium. Is the larger hard drive worth the extra price? (60£) Actually, it seems that the HDMI cable, which I probably need, is worth about half the price difference between the two versions (considering how much it costs when sold separately)

Hmm... I was almost decided on getting an Xbox 360 this month or so, but now I'm thinking about what I'll have to give up or pay for later (compared to PS3): * $45 a year for Xbox live? Doesn't seem too expensive, but still. On the other hand I keep hearing that XBLA is great, PSN not so much * ca $120 for Wi-fi (LAN cable is reserved for digital TV, I can't easily get another cable to where the TV is) * I haven't followed the HDDVD vs. Blu-ray thing, but I rembember some tech site (Wired?) claiming that Blu-ray has won. * It doesn't play movies at all out-of-the-box? or just not HDDVD ones? * need extra battery charger? Hmm... perhaps still not enough reason to go for PS3. I'm curious, are PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band pretty much the same or is one better somehow? For example, do they have comparable number of downloadable songs and do the songs cost the same?

If that's true, I'll be getting it for sure, if enough units reach such a remote place as Estonia. Considering I still don't even have an Xbox 360 (will probably get it around GTA IV launch), that 240 € price would be too much for me. [edit] oh, and I forgot the wuxtry Estonian addition to the price. For example Xbox 360 Elite costs about 380 £ (480 €) here, I understand that it's dropped to around 260 £ in the UK. It's possible that some places have it cheaper, but this seems to be the usual price. [edit2] actually, I found it for 330 £, but seems more sensible to order from game.co.uk for 260 + 3 £ for shipping. Could there be any differences between the versions or are all European versions the same?

I'm currently listening to M83's Saturdays=Youth. Didn't know the band before, checked it out based on a mini review in Wired. Also, some Bob Dylan's early stuff.

The "appropriate option below" bit is a bit unclear, though, and leaves the poor user very confused. I suggest an improvement to the text: To delete this message, check the 'delete this message' checkbox and then click the 'Delete this message' button.

my brain asplode

I don't like monster movies that much anyway (not sure why I watched this, maybe it was mentioned in the recommendations thread?), but I kind of agree, especially with the too much drama, too little action.

Mini review: Pretty good episode overall Could have used more Zombies All the fake accents are getting annoying, even though they are rather accurate I guess

Heh, I was just intending to post this. I haven't played Silent Hill, but it reminds me of those whatchamacallits from Half Life 2 (Ep 2).

Yes, it's an interesting game. But he threw away *fun* as well. Still deserves a wow, I guess. About the different paths, the only thing that bothered me was that you could find a dead end and then had to go back. Somewhy I associated going back with going back in time... So that seemed strange.

I'm thinking of getting a domain name, so I would have a good URL for OpenID that I would own myself. And I could also move my blog'n'stuff there. But I've never had to bother with domain names before and the places that sell them always seemed fishy, so... Since many of you have domains for your blogs (and of course the thumbs itself etc.), I thought I'd ask which are the best places to buy them from?

I played the whole first season in a row. I usually also watch interesting TV series that way -- wait until the season is over, then download the whole season and watch it in marathon mode. So maybe episodic just isn't for me. I played the first S&M episode in Season 2, but something made me stop early in ep. 2 and for some reason it fails to draw me to continue...

I agree, and I think the camera in the 3D games will always be too close to the action to get exactly the same feel as the original GTA. The only way to achieve the same tone is to lift the camera up to a roughly similar angle as the 2D games -- and the game would have to be designed with that camera angle in mind. GTA III had a camera mode like that, but it didn't work as well as the default so I never used it. But I like the 3D games just as much, if not more. Vice City was the high point of the series for me -- it took everything from GTA III and made it better. San Andreas made it better as well I guess, but it also made it a hell of a lot bigger, which gave a somewhat different feel to it, even to the point of becoming a mish-mash of sub-games* instead of a holistic experience. Come on -- riding the bicycle races in the mountains was really fun, but it wasn't really that GTA any more** And because of that, I am glad that GTA IV seems to be going back to the roots into Liberty City. * I don't want to say mini-games as that's a somewhat different concept ** I don't mean that in a negative way -- just that it was different. Actually I would like to see a spin-off game that is big like San Andreas, which doesn't necessarily follow GTA's main theme (whatever that is). Then again, as I've said numerous times, I'd also really really like to see Grand Theft Horse

Indeed, the load times are in some cases non-existent now, an unbelievable improvement. But in my case, it comes with a catch: the game now crashes after half an hour of playing or so (before this patch it only crashed once).

Great smilie! But could it be done so that whenever it's used, the thread will be automatically locked?