This past weekend I went over to a friends house to play some games and work on getting some achievements. I brought my 360 over and we plugged my 360 into his tv and we played on his 65" tv. Now he has a 360 too so what we did was us his tv's split screen function to have both consoles showing up on the screen. Only one display had audio and the tv only displayed on in true HD. It was interesting to play the same game in SD and HD and see how it was noticeable but not that big a deal. We where both connected to the internet so we played a few games on Xbox Live against each other. That showed another interesting fact. When we played ranked online matches I could find the games he setup but he could not setup games that I setup. Microsoft uses it's own mechanism for ranked games that uses TrueSkill to put you in matches. This crosses all games and makes sure you don;t play against people you can't compete against. I'm guessing since I play a ton of ranked matches online and he doesn't so they would not let him join my matches even though I was a preferred player and on his friends list.

We ended up playing a ton of RainbowSix:Vegas racking up the multiplayer achievements. I think I got 145 points and we took turns letting each other get wins and kills. We did get to play some competitive games and had some fun. I like to think his military experience made him a little better at RS:V since it's a military shooter. We also played a little Gears of War and Crackdown. We both have super high characters in Crackdown and did some orb hunting. In Gears we couldn't manipulate the online achievements so we only played a couple games. I'm a bit better than him at this game and splattered him a few times.

I downloaded Centipede from the XBL arcade this week. I didn't bother demoing this game and purchased the whole game right away. I loved this game growing up and it's everything I remember. The game comes packed with Millipede as well but i don't remember playing that version of the game. The great thing about XBL Arcade is you can download trial version of these games unlike some other game consoles.

Speaking of which I saw several Wii consoles this week. There where two at my local Target and several at Costco on Saturday. I'm kind of convinced that the demand for this console is finally slowing down. Sales have dropped month after month and now you can see them in stores. Seems they are in everyone's weekend ads now too. Right now there are only three worth whiles games for the system but people really love that Wii Sports game. The Costco Wii comes with Legend of Zelda bundled with an extra controller. That right there would give you two of the games worth playing since Wii Sports is already included with the console. Now I would like a Wii just like I would like a Ferrari, it would be fun to have and maybe drive around on occasion but it's not my everyday car. The Wii will not have the games I really love to play on it and the ones that will go to the Wii will be the gimped versions. For me to buy a console there has to be several games I will want to play on it either out or coming soon. Zelda is a compelling title to me and the Resident Evil game looks good too but I'm past playing Mario games. The compelling games for me are on the PS3 and the 360.

On Sunday I did some homework online and found a way to get some easy points in Madden. Managed to rattle off 335 points simulating seasons. I just selected all teams and managed to get most of the game/season achievements. I also managed to level up my profile too. In three hours I went from a a lvl 20 to lvl 50 by simulating seasons. This can get a bit boring. I tried to do this split screen but I guess I can't use split screen with RBG and Component. I only had the option to use RBG with HDMI and I have no HDMI devices. So I listened to podcasts and read the paper.

I got A History of Violence this week and watched it on Sunday. The movie starts out really well but fades at the end. I really was disappointed with how this movie turned out because the beginning was really good. I have also been watching the Sopranos and it's been another disappointing season. They should have ended the series after season five. Nothing of interest has happened and they are spending too much time on minor characters.