Three of my personal favorite combinations in COD4:

Weapon: RPD (Light Machine Gun)
Perks: 1. RPD Grip Attachment (w/iron sights)
2. Stopping Power
3. Deep Impact

The RPD Light Machine Gun might have taken over as my favorite. It's extremely powerful, accurate at long distances, has good iron sights, a huge clip, and with the added grip attachment gives a very strong punch at long distances. Fire off a couple rounds per burst to get maximum effectiveness. I was aiming this beast at random dots on my radar and getting kills left and right with deep impact. It's strong enough to let me make a mistake or two, while still overpowering my opponents with accurate bursts at short, medium and long distances.

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Weapon: M16 (Assault Rifle w/Red Dot)
Perks: 1. Frags x 3
2. Douple Tap
3. Extreme Conditioning

I'll admit, this combination is tough at close distances personally, but if you're good at getting the full burst into your opponent, this one is very strong. I add extreme conditioning to keep a bit mobile since it's a bit more of a medium/long distance weapon.

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Weapon: M4 Carbine (Assault Rifle w/Red Dot)
Perks: 1. Frags x 3
2. Stopping Power / Juggernaut
3. Deep Impact

The M4 is the go-to gun if nothing else is working for me. It's the one I trust the most since it's so well rounded and good at all distances. This one was also my most used until I discovered the RPD could have as good or better accuracy with only 2 round bursts.

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Of course, there's tons of other weapons to choose from, but I keep going back to these three for some reason. Maybe they just fit to my playing style or our gametypes. I had a run with the M40A3 sniper rifle for a while, but eventually I gave up on it because it just wasn't as effective as the assault rifles or light machine guns for me.

Today it was announced that Gears of War 2 is coming out in November. The original Gears of War was a fun game, but had it's problems. What do you expect to be added, changed, or removed from Gears of War 2?

Open thread.

The XBOX press conference at the Game Developer's Conference just ended. Microsoft already has a press release ready. The highlights:

• Gears of War 2!! Coming this November. Continues the story of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad. Developed by Epic Games exclusively for the XBOX 360.
• Fable 2: In addition to the dynamic co-op mode unveiled onstage, Peter Molyneux also announced that Carbonated Games is bringing the “Fable 2” experience to Xbox LIVE Arcade. Before the game’s launch, gamers will be able to get an early taste of the “Fable 2” experience and gain a head start on earning currency for use in “Fable 2” by playing “Fable 2”-themed pub games that will be downloadable via Xbox LIVE Arcade. The currency earned in these Xbox LIVE Arcade titles will enable players to purchase items in “Fable 2” when the game launches later this year.
• XNA games playable on the Zune.
• Ninja Gaiden II: Coming early June, with Ninja Cinema on Xbox LIVE. Tomonobu Itagaki debuted several tantalizing new Xbox LIVE features of “Ninja Gaiden II,” including the ability to capture and share videos of a player’s glorious battles via the Ninja Cinema feature and upload them to Xbox LIVE. “Ninja Gaiden II” launches worldwide this June.
• Xbox LIVE: 1 billion achievements earned!
• Xbox LIVE Arcade: New games coming include Braid, Castle Crashers, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Go! Go! Break Steady, and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.
• XNA Community-developed games: By the end of 2008, Xbox 360 owners will have access to more than 1,000 community-created games. The first seven are available to download now from Xbox LIVE Marketplace: JellyCar, Little Gamers, Dishwasher, TriLinea, RocketBall, ProximityHD, and Culture.

Edit: Less than 24 hours after I wrote this story, another friend's Elite bites the dust. Sorry doughgeek. 35 in 50 gamers have failed consoles.

While 50 gamers is a small sample size for Microsoft, it's the majority of my gaming friends.

According to my friend's list, 34 of 50 gamers reported that their XBOX 360's have failed since purchase.  That's 68% for those of you scoring at home.  That's much higher than the 16% reported last week and 30% reported by retailers in mid-2007.

I posed the question to the 90 gamers on my friends list three weeks ago after my XBOX 360 Elite failed.  50 out of 90 gamers responded and 34 of them said that they have had to send off their XBOX 360 for repair or replacement at least once.

In one case, someone had to send their system to Microsoft 7 times for repair.  Another person reported that her husband also had to send off his system for repair as well.  There were several cases of people having to send off their console multiple times.

I am a heavy user.  My XBOX 360 is in use 10-25 hours a week.  I suspect that most of the gamers on my friends list are also heavy users.  However, the failure rate from my perspective is outrageous.

Is the XBOX 360 supposed to be an appliance or a gadget?

Am I supposed to look past these extremely high failure rates in my social sphere?

40 gamers did not respond to my questionnaire that was sent to their XBOX Live message inbox.  Even if they all said that they have not had to replace or repair their console, 38% of my friends list will have had failed XBOX 360's. 

XBOX 360 and XBOX Live is about being social.  It's about communities of gamers.  In my community, upwards of 60% of gamers have experienced a failed XBOX 360 in response to my survey.

I get that 50 gamers is a small sample. But, 50 friends is a good amount of friends and I've met all but about 10 people on my friends list.

Oh, I'm not on my friends list.  I've owned a Core, Premium, and Elite system.  They've all failed in 6-12 months.

What can we do? 

At least Microsoft is handling the situation by offering extended warranties and repairing consoles at no charge.  But, it's hard to be an XBOX evangelist with these high failure rates.

Joystiq just ran a story with some details on the new Aerosmith-devoted Guitar Hero sequel. I'm less interested in that than I am what's mentioned at the end of the article: their song "Dream On" will be free DLC for Guitar Hero III from Feb 16-18. I plan to scoop it up this weekend.

Sure, I like Aerosmith, but I don't know if their library alone can make a $60 rhythm game worth buying.

I just received this email from Netflix:

"We're Going Blu-ray
Dear ...,

You're receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.

While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.

Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens.

You can click here to change your format preferences.

We're sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call us at 1 (888) 638-3549.

-The Netflix Team"
---------------------------

This saddens me greatly as it looks like my recently purchased 360 HD-DVD player is now going the way of the Betamax. Could this be the beginning of the end for HD-DVD?

COD4 is back on top of H3... looks like this is going to go back and forth for a while. I personally think that COD4 is gonna eventually be the regular leader... but that is solely based on personal opinion.

Source: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/850/850315p1.html

Xbox Live's Top 10: 1/28-2/3
Master Chief is back on the run.
by Hilary Goldstein

February 7, 2008 - It's been a tug-of-war between COD4 and Halo 3. Just a few weeks ago, COD4 managed the unthinkable and knocked Halo 3 off as the top-played Xbox 360 title. Then Halo 3 reclaimed the throne last week. Guess what? Call of Duty is back on top. This is a battle that may rage for the entire year. On the XBLA side, Rez HD was the most-downloaded Arcade title in its first week of release.

The Top Live Titles, as reported by Major Nelson, list ranks unique users playing Xbox games while connected to Live. The Top Arcade Titles list is based on the number of full versions sold in a given week.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles

1. Call of Duty 4
2. Halo 3
3. Guitar Hero III
4. Gears of War
5. Rock Band
6. Devil May Cry 4 Demo
7. Madden NFL 08
8. Turok Demo
9. Assassin's Creed
10. Rez HD

Top Arcade Titles

1. Rez HD
2. Chessmaster Live
3. Metal Slug 3
4. UNO
5. Bomberman LIVE
6. Sonic The Hedgehog 2
7. TMNT 1989 Arcade
8. Worms
9. Marble Blast Ultra
10. Arkadian Warriors

Jasman has quietly rolled out Halo-themed Laser-Tag guns in the form of a Plasma Rifle Laser-Tag and Plasma Pistol Laser-Tag (links to Hushed Casket's Amazon store).  The devices are near life size and have the characteristics of the in-game weapons like overheating, rate of fire, sounds.  These guns aren't cheap. They'll cost you about $80.  But, they could easily offset the cost of paintball gear with next to no lifecycle costs.

Me?  I'm interested in the guns.  Playing Laser-Tag in high school and college was extremely fun.  I could see how these guns could do the same.

But, come on.  The Plasma Pistol and Rifle aren't popular weapons in the Halo universe.  No one is on XBOX Live playing 2-v-2 with Plasma Rifles and Pistols.  I can't imagine these Laser-Tag weapons being much more fun.   I know I don't want to have to pull the P-shooter's trigger a dozen times in 4 seconds to score a kill.

 Where is the Carbine or the Beam Rifle?

I'm sending in my XBOX 360 Elite back to Microsoft for it to be repaired. My optical drive has gone out. My consoles acts as if it has no disc in the disc drive.

How prominent is this problem? Microsoft has a knowledge base article that deals with the error --- so I'm not the only one who has this problem. Anyone else having troubles with your disc drive?

My drive didn't totally go out at once. My drive started to fail in early November after the release of Call of Duty 4. For some reason, CoD4 would fail to boot about 50% of the time. Other games played fine. By early January, Halo 3 and CoD4 would fail to boot 90% of the time. Rock Band (and a few other games) would play just fine. By late January, 99% of the time all discs would not work even my trusty Rock Band disc.

I must have tried two dozen "tricks" to try to get my discs to boot. All of them have quit working. With no more tricks up my sleeve, I called Microsoft. After 10 minutes on the phone, Microsoft issued a repair order. I should have another Elite coming back to me in no longer than 3 weeks (1 week for me to get the empty shipping box - 2 weeks for Microsoft to repair the box and send me a replacement).

This will be my 4th XBOX 360 console.

Before you get too excited, it's just the single master track "Fuel," which is great, but there's no mention of more old school Metallica. A leaked photo of an advertisement for the March issue of OXM has revealed the Rock Band DLC for the month of March. On their forums, Harmonix has confirmed the schedule as "tentative." There's some cool tracks from several rock/metal sub-genres. Take a look:

March 4: Thrash Pack

* Blinded By Fear - At The Gates
* Thrasher - Evile
* Shadow World - Haunted

March 11:

* Shooting Star - Bad Company *Cover*
* Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
* Message In A Bottle - Police

March 18: Nine Inch Nails Pack

* March Of The Pigs
* The Collector
* The Perfect Drug

Mar. 25: Metal Pack

* Wrathchild - Ironmaiden *Cover*
* Supernaut - Black Sabbath *Cover*
* Fuel - Metallica

I expect these will be $2 per track or $5.50 per three-pack, as usual.

Thanks, X3F.