Author Archive

Just Cause 2 – Xbox 360 Review

I’ll be quite honest. I downloaded Just Cause 2 demo off of the Xbox Live Demo section last weekend. I mean, first off, the Just Cause 2 Demo was enough to make me orgasm my pants time and time again. The content provided in the demo itself was enough to keep me occupied for a very long time. And that it did.

See, I have a hard time paying $59.99 for some underdeveloped piece of shit. And Just cause 2 for the 360 was the exact opposite.

The Skill Levels
When you first start the Game, fresh off of the Xbox Landing page your given the option for different types of game play. Now mind you, this is completely normal, but Just Cause 2 offers a new method lower than “easy mode” called ‘Casual’ it caters to us who want to play the story. We just don’t want to die, and we don’t want a challenge. It this method of game play literally walks you through the game, but allows the player to enjoy all the content in a safer setting.

The world
Now I know alot of people criticized grand theft auto 4 and the whole series for catering to stories more than the actual free-roam aspect. If you’re like me, you wanna wreak havoc! You want to destroy everything, you want to steal cars.

Well your in luck. Just cause 2 allows you to walk out of any mission. Yes, just walk right out. Relinquish your duties, go steal a car, come back, and continue. This is followed by the “Heat Level” a skill point percentage tally based off of the damage you do to stuff. It’s similar to the 1-5 star rating in GTA but not as harsh. 5 stars in GTA is some hard shit to pull off, but Just Cause will allow those that actually want to achieve it, to do so not necessarily with ease, but in a fun and challenging manner.

This being said, go out and buy Just Cause 2. But hey, dont take out workd for it. The demo is up on Xbox Live in the market place 100% free of charge.

As always, you can check out these, and other game demos at http://www.xbox.com/live

Featured Blog

A new TLG segment we are going to start sharing, is the featured blog! This weeks feature is http://www.aaronbartholomew.com/ – He’s the owner of this website, and he gives me a place to write. So go check out his!

Earthquakes, Haiti, and MMORPGs – What the internet is doing to help!

The tragedy in Haiti has driven a pick into my chest. Not only because of the hundreds of thousands dead, or the thousands homeless and injured, but the fact that so many people are going on with their day while a part of the world and our fellow humans are living in Haiti with no food, clean water, and life threatening injuries and illness caused by the recent earthquakes.

Our sister site, and host http://www.caliscape.net/ has decided to give 50% of it’s donations, and subscription earnings to assist with relief aid in Haiti.

You, me, and our fellow gamers can now visit sites like TheLoadedGamer, and CaliScape, and know that while we browse the internet, play games, and have fun, we are saving lives.

Thanks a bunch to Aaron and the CS Interactive Administration for running such a stable network, and helping with such a good cause.

Damien “Tweak” Bates
Junior Editor – TheLoadedGamer.com
dbates@staff.theloadedgamer.com

McDonald’s Monopoly Game – The Board of Doom

Special thanks to http://www.bollywood91.com for this!

Several years ago, to my shame, I got hooked on the McDonalds Monopoly Game. My friends and I were eating in there daily to share tokens and hopefully bag that big prize. But the chances of winning were non-existant (certainly on the big prizes anyway) because the whole thing was rigged . However, now that it’s all above board could you actually win the big $1million, or even some of the smaller prizes? Well, yes. But your chances of winning are all based on the odds of finding one particular piece from each set. What are those pieces? Read on…

Like any professionally organized, mass-market game, the odds of winning the big prizes are never in your favor. There is no randomness here, it’s not like McDonalds just printed up a whole bunch of pieces and let them loose on the community. There are very few of some pieces and literally millions of others. When you get a yellow piece, for instance, it will almost never be Ventnor Avenue. That’s one of those pieces that is controlled. The table below outlines the piece from each set that is in demand, the prize for getting it and the number of pieces available in the game.

So, what does this mean? Well if you scour eBay right now, or your local Craigslist, you will see dozens of people either looking for the pieces above, or selling large collections of pieces that contain none of the above. Either way, you should stay away. If you have one of the pieces above you have technically won, as getting the other pieces in the set is very easy. But if you’re looking to buy pieces, unless someone has stumbled on one of the rare pieces without knowing it, you’re just buying worthless tokens.

With this in mind, print the table above and keep it on you if you’re playing the monopoly game. When you get a piece check it against the list and if it’s on there, you’re a winner. If it’s Boardwalk, please, feel free to share your winnings with the humble writer of this story.