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I just happened to load up the Unscripted 360 blog and happened to see a post about an interesting New Years attraction……Gears of War All Nighter. Call me a nerd if you want, but this just made my day. With 2 kids (and one less then 2 weeks old) we definately won’t be doing anything special for New Years this year. So normally i would probably be just playing what I could for the night - but I am going to make a very large effort to play just Gears and all night!! (with small interuptions to care for my new daughter). As the official posting from xbox.com says - I will probably blog about it here, and submit it to them - hell I wouldn’t mind one of those 10 free copies of Gears signed by Major Nelson.

So if you are looking for someone to kill (or need a partner for co-op) - hit me up tomorrow after 10PM EST, and if you are interesting in seeing if I make it all night - well my The Live Eye will be keeping a watch on me =)

Well once again the Live Eye has broken a story (at least for me). It seems two of our members have recieved a beta key for Shadowrun, and have played a total of 3 hours thus far. Maybe I will get in on one of the later waves =/

Previously we found some activity by Fry playing Pimps at Sea a while back - which gave 360friendspot quite a bit of new traffic, for those of you not aware, this is the working title of the Halo 3 Alpha. Looks like 2 of our members have access to it at the moment - I am jealous.

Hey everyone, just a quick post to let those that read this blog know that I am still around. I just am not gaming very much or on the computer much these days because of the holidays - but also because of our new baby in the house. Read my Family Blog for more details if you want.

I have a few small development tasks for the live eye that if I am lucky I can get done sometime soon - and I just found out that DeaconBlade 360 would like to talk about the live eye on his next show on Unscripted360 blog - and possibly interview me afterwards……I am not much of a public speaker but I have accepted the offer- I hope I dont end up sounding like a complete fool.

As posted in my previous post I played College Hoops 2k6 for about 45 minutes or so - getting 3 of the 5 achievements.

these by far have to be the easiest achievements ever recieved - the achievement system has definately expanded for the better since the launch titles. At least on most more recent games it feels like you actually Achieved something.

I also played a pretty good amount of Gears of War, mostly on Versus. One game it was 1 versus 4 (because my team all quit - needless to say I didnt do so well, and then I ended up teaming with 3 of those 4 on the next game. It was a blast a couple times we did quad curb stomps =)
I also helped out IAmMrTea08 for a small amount of Act 3.
Finally I played Act one a bit working on a walkthrough that I planned on writing - but keep putting off, I ended up with an achievement during that process too

Played some Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - still havent completed this one, but I think I am getting pretty close the end of the story.

Finally I also played Need for Speed: Carbon - mostly on challenge series events, and getting closer to the silver challenge achievement - finally completed the canyon drift race that was giving me tons of trouble too

It was one marathon of gaming - check out my Live Eye Profile to see more details

Last night I played College Hoops 2k6. I rented it because it is one of the launch games that I have never played and I play a launch game from time to time working on the 360 voice Launch King Badge. It is amazing the difference in games these days. I mean I know that sports games are notorious for somewhat simple achievements, but this only have 5 achievements worth 1000 points. If that wasnt enough I got 3 of them by simply playing one game! This is definately a far cry from the more current titles with 50 achievements and ALOT more effort to obtain them. I guess to make an honest comparism I should rent College Hoops 2k7.

I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance for only about 30 minutes while my wife was giving our son a bath. Since it was only 30 minutes I made very little progress, but continued to clear more of the current mission I am on.

Then later on last night I put Gears of War in for a spin. It was about a four hour gaming session, first I joined IAmMrTea08 for a quick co-op session, and then we went over to versus mode and invited Just Jr. After a couple rounds of versus, I finished off with some co-op with Just Jr, finishing Act 4 and Act 5 on insane and getting my final 2 COG Tags.

I finished off the night working on my garden in Viva Piñata. I was kind of torn if I was going to like this game but so far I have been having a blast. Picked up a few new achievements on it last night too.

Well ZaaM and I decided to finally remove the “Beta” tag from the Live Eye project. Due to the nature of the project we are still going to have to have user limits on the system, and grow it slowly. At some point we might hit a physical limit on the number of users we can support, but at the moment we have room for growth. Currently we are allowing a limit of 500 users, so Get yours now!.

Still working on Condemned, about another 3 Hours lat night. Still 2 achievements to go, but recieved the Chief Investigator Award Achievement.

Then it was some time to play some Dead Rising, which I have not really played it very much at all. Only about one and a half hours but I am now up to about Case 4, and unlocked a few achievements.

Well if you don’t all ready know Halo3 started accepting registrations last night around 8PM EST. It was pretty much impossible to sign up (due to server load) until about 3AM EST, no clue if they are going to do a first come first serve, random selection - or even a pay to play beta - so I still registered and will see how it turns out.

North America Halo Gamers!

Register now for future Halo 3 updates and for an opportunity to participate in the Halo 3 multiplayer public beta program, scheduled to kick off in spring 2007. Participating in this beta is an unprecedented opportunity for gamers to be among the first to experience the most anticipated game of 2007.

The Xbox Live multiplayer public beta, which is a pre-release version of the multiplayer experience of Halo 3, is scheduled for availability in spring 2007 exclusively on Xbox 360. This beta also represents an opportunity for gamers to give information that will help in the development of Halo 3. Through the resulting feedback, Bungie Studios will be able to further refine and hone the end result of the game.

Please note that in order to register* for the beta, you must be 17 years or older and a resident of the 50 United States (includes District of Columbia) or Canada. If selected to participate, you must have access to the following:

- An Xbox 360 Pro console (includes hard-drive) or an Xbox 360 Core console with hard drive
- A valid Xbox Live Gold subscription
- A valid Microsoft. NET Passport account with a Xbox Live gamertag linked

European Gamers

Europe will soon have the chance to secure their place on the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, scheduled to start next spring. Keep an eye on your local Xbox community site for more details.

* Limit one registration per person/Xbox Live gamertag. If selected, your invitation is non-transferable and cannot be redeemed for cash. The beta is available in English only.

go ahead and give it a shot here

Also I noticed a small blip in live last night around 10PM EST which caused a Blind eye on my Live Eye Profile. Also xbox.com was throwing errors, and when it came back up all of my friends gamertiles were not showing and everyone had a score of zero, not sure what happened but all looks in order today.

Live Eye Public API:
I have just completed the first 3 public api’s for the live eye, complete with samples here on my blog (here). The current APIs allow you to:

• Get a summary of the minutes spent on each game type
• Get a listing of your most recent activities (max 10)
• and to Get a listing of your overall top activities with the ability to filter out game types that you dont want inlcuded

some final touches, and these will be opened up to any live eye user that wants to use them =)

Voice Plugin now contains:

• Most Recent Blog entry
• Badges
• and Top 5 games

It is starting to take up more and more space on my sidebar - I may end up storing it in a page for demonstration purposes. If I am going to actually release it as a tool that others can put on their blog, I need to include ways to customize which “chunks” are shown, and perhaps even some formatting of those chunks. It will probably be a while (if ever) before I provide the plugin for download - mostly because I am by far no PHP expert, but also this is the first time I have tried to create a plugin - and I definately have a great deal to learn.

it is starting to take up a bit more space on the sidebar then I personally want to give on this site at the moment - so for now I moved it down to the bottom of the sidebar. Edit the plugin has its own page now