I had a bit of a Xbox flashback on Sunday night as I ended up meeting with a college friend and since both of us had our wives out of town we decided to take advantage of the moment and play a bit of Halo. Notice I didn’t say Halo 3. We were playing the original Halo on the original Xbox.
I was reminded and shocked by a variety of things:

there has been a real improvement on graphics since the first game
I don’t think you could jump as high in the original version
you couldn’t dual-wield weapons in the first one

Even with …read more

I just received an e-mail with some great news. There are two new, revamped maps available for Halo 2 on Xbox and Xbox 360.

Reincarnated as Tombstone, navigate the ancient battlegrounds of Hang ‘Em High (the Halo: Combat Evolved classic), modernized for a newly dedicated Halo militia.
Welcome to Desolation. Originally known as the death match centric Derelict, this restructured combat zone is now faster paced sporting new graphics and effects.

Check-out some small screen shots below of the new map locations:

Was just playing around with Windows Live Local. Sure it’s a lot like Google Maps / Google Local, but the clarity on Microsoft’s Live Local is very impressive. The picture below is a screen capture looking at my house. I’m zoomed in the closest I can get on both services.

Google is on the left, Microsoft is on the right. Pretty clear to me which one wins the clarity contest. I do like Google Maps for the mapping functionality itself though.