So it’s coming.  It wants you to be all social and stuff.  It is the Fall Xbox 360 update for 2009.

This update has had the usual fanfare.  The MajorNelson twitters, updates to his site, Kotaku reviews, podcast mentions, what have you.  I signed up for the Xbox Dashboard Update Preview Program a week or two ago, figured I would give it a shot since I made the cut one other time as well.  I made the cut, but was never notified, even though I know all my contact details are correct in Microsoft Connect (their beta testing portal).  I only discovered that I was in because I turned on my Xbox on Friday and suddenly I had a system update….ok then.

The update itself didn’t take painfully long, I’d say 5 or so minutes.  Upon reboot of the Xbox I noticed nothing different.  Upon searching other context blades, menus, whatever you call them, I discovered under Community two new ones for Facebook and Twitter.  There was also a new blade for Zune Marketplace, which had the Last.fm module in it.  I’ll take them in turn below.

Last.fm – For some reason I thought these would all be part of the update, however I discovered it did require a small download, similar to the Netflix add-on that was released earlier this year.  After downloading the application, I launched it, using my last.fm account credentials for an account that already existed.  It immediately brought up all the stations and artists I usually listen to on the last.fm website.  Seamless.  Navigating was swift and it started streaming almost at once.  This is all over a 15/5Mbps connection mind you.  If you are on old old DSL your mileage may vary.  Overall I was very impressed with the add-on, and it performed well beyond my expectations.  One niggle though, you cannot do anything else on the Xbox while it is running, which I’ll address again below.  Sure you can bring up the center button menu and do stuff in those blades, but you can’t say…go browse something else.

Twitter – Again, download a little app, run it, enter in your account info, and it just works.  I was able to tweet, browse over other people’s stuff, view their details.  What I wish it had (that I’m submitting to MS Connect as a feature request): The ability to tweet from the messaging blade on the center button menu.  Other than that, it worked great, just remember you can only do Twitter and nothing else.  Organization and style were almost identical to the Twitter site.

Facebook – Download the app, run, account info (repetitive much, where’s my Single Sign On?).  Worked good enough, things were sorted in the Xbox Dashboard context menu style.  It dishes out the basic info, and you can write on people’s walls, update your status and such, but overall I didn’t see the attraction.   Given that I already have Facebook available on multiple computers and my phone, there are plenty of other opportunities to get this experience.  It is functional and fast though.

Overall, the update looks good.  I found all the apps to be easy to use, technically sound and speedy, their usefulness in everyday life still to be determined.  At the point of this writing, the beta preview program is closed and as far as I’m aware will remain so until release.  Look for this update coming to an Xbox near you in the very near future.

- Ben Mazhary-Clark

UPDATE (on the update?) 11/13/2009:  Latest reports put the dashboard update as mentioned above will be released to your hot little xboxen on November 17th.

It’s a given.  I love driving games.  Most games involving a car and/or motorcycle I’ve at least booted up once or tried the demo of.  They don’t have to be bad or good, but I usually have to try them.

A little while ago, two separate companies released Baja off-road rally type games around the same time.  These were Baja: Edge of Control by THQ, and SCORE International Baja 1000 by Activision.  On the surface, they appear to be almost identical, but on a deeper dive, THQ’s shone more brightly.  After appreciating the amazing work that was put into DiRT by Codemasters, I thought I would give Baja: Edge of Control (B:EoC) a shot and traded for it on Goozex.

The game starts you off in Baja California, with one class open, the VW Baja Bug.  While this isn’t a bad vehicle overall, at this bottom level in the game it is torturous.  Even after upgrading everything on the Bug, you are unlikely to completely win many events at this lowest class.  Also, the learning curve is rather steep.  Right off the bat, you are being bounced all around on very uneven terrain, having to pick up the controls that were not very well explained in the manual or in-game help.  The gist of taking most hard corners is to e-brake slide into the turn, then pop your clutch on the way out.  Once you have this down and get up into the higher levels, it becomes quite easy to keep ahead of the pack.

After you make it beyond the grind of the lowest VW Bug level, other classes open up and you can buy vehicles to race in these classes as well.  I found that if you re-ran several events in the lower classes, you could completely avoid whole classes and just buy the truck or what have you in two levels up and skip over something not as exciting, say “open wheel”.  Furthermore, when you bank up a whole bunch of money in the game, and buy a new 4 wheel dream of choice, you often will have enough to max out all the upgrades at this level.  If this is done, and with proper e-brake/clutch technique, you should be able to clean up almost all events first time through, making the learning/difficulty curve rather skewed: amazingly hard at the start, a challenging but attainable win after the first two classes.  Classes are unlocked with XP earned in racing, and easily unlocked classes ahead of me as I progressed.  Money can be earned by wining races and splattering sponsorships on your rally vehicle.  Sponsors will pay based on how many body panels you still have left at the end of the race, which for me was usually about half.

Events and tracks are varied enough to keep things interesting.  About half way though you will know a large quantity of them quite well, as many repeat with subtle changes.  Tumbleweeds and small rodents or bunnies (can’t figure out which) do sometimes cross the road in front of you.  Scenery of course looks a bit like a desert, no big surprise there, but it certainly doesn’t have the spice and thrill you’d hope for after hours of driving.  It feels accurate, and we’ll leave it at that.  You can fall off cliffs and run into trees, and occasionally roll.

Damage is modeled well when you run into trees or other cars.  In fact, it is modeled so well that they have damage gauges for many parts on your vehicle: tires, oil pressure, temp, suspension, etc.  As you tool through a race, these indicators will decrease.  When they do, the overall performance of your desert rat will decrease as well.  There is the option to pull off the road into a hot pit stop or helicopter to get repaired, but I usually found that even with a blown tire and steaming radiator I had enough of it together to make it the 3-4 laps on a standard rally without repairing.

Which brings us to race types in the game.  Included for your racing pleasure you can do: hill climb, circuit, point to point rally, open world non-race touring, and more that I’m likely forgetting.   There are also major rally modes for the Baja 250, 500, 1000′s.  These can take hours to complete (4 hours on the 1000 I think?) so I didn’t bother trying them out.  In these long modes you would certainly have to make use of the repair facilities, if not for your truck, then for your thumbs by the end.

Overall I was very happy with playing through it, though I didn’t have the passion about the game to finish every nook and cranny in it as I did with DiRT.  The driving certainly keeps you on your toes at all times, regardless of how much you upgrade your vehicle.  It is a good rental, though hopefully you would have it on long term rental, as the game would only get enjoyable for you after you get past the first class or two.  I personally got it off Goozex and will be putting it back up there soon.  I’m sure it is cheap enough to buy now as well, given that it has been out for a while.  Graphics are decent, gameplay is solid once you figure out what the controls all do.  It makes for a nice aside to play when you want something a little more casual but spirited than another game you might be playing at the time (*cough* Fallout 3 *cough*).  Recommend for those of you who want to feel like you know how to race in the dirty dirty.

- Ben Mazhary-Clark