Get yer mana potions! Get ‘em while they’re blue!

First of all, let me state for the record I love having my Xbox 360 back. The people at Microsoft fixed it and sent it back in record time.

Now that I got that out of the way, I must say, when I heard that they were coming out with a follow-up to Guitar Hero III that dealt largely with Aerosmith, I was waiting in breathless anticipation. I’ve been a fan of Aerosmith’s since I was a wee lad, and as soon as it came out two weeks ago, I snagged myself a copy of it. (BTW, if you don’t want to know anything about how the game is played, skip over this entry and just get the game, since there’s several spoilers written below)

To begin, the game is quite similar to Guitar Hero III in many respects, including the graphics, sound, controller use. In fact, the game is bundled with the same Les Paul Gibson controller as Guitar Hero III for those who didn’t get GHIII already. One item that you’ll notice right away though is that you don’t start off right away playing Aerosmith songs. Oh no, young grasshopper, you have to earn your keep each round. In order to perform Awerosmith songs each round, you have to finish both songs as performed by opening acts. These songs come from sources as varied as Cheap Trick, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Lenny Kravitz, and the list goes on, & on.

Once you beat finish the opening acts, then you can play Aerosmith songs. And I must say, they did a fairly good job overall in picking the songs, as they range throughout their career. However, there wereseveral songs that were quite obviously omitted from the list. Among these were Janie’s Got A Gun, Amazing, Crying, Livin’ On the Egde, just to name a few. Perhaps they were saving them for other Guitar Hero games, or just didn’t include them in the rounds, saving them for individual play )still haven’t gone through all the insides of the game yet), However, the list they did include will most certainly not disappoint the legions of Aerosmith fans out there.

And speaking of Aerosmith itself, the band itself participated quite extensively with the game production, re-recording several songs specifically for the game and having all the band members do motion capture. In addition, between musical sets, they do interviews where they talk about their careers and the different venues they performed as the band’s career progressed. Many of them, including the Orpheum, the Super Bowl, and the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, made their way into the game, so you feel as though you’re to some small degree performing along with the band at the venues.

Overall the style of the game, while cut from the same cloth of Guitar Hero III, does well as a standalone game, and should make not only fans of Aerosmith, but also fans of the game series quite happy, and eagerly awaiting the release of more Guitar Hero titles.

5/5 houses, and available for the PS2/3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii

Just when you thought the world was safe, Tony Montana makes a comeback!

This game, based on the movie that made cocaine the in-drug, 80’s Miami hip, and (at least in my eyes) Al Pacino a mega movie star, picks up where the movie left off in more ways than one. The first level of the game is one you can’t help but talk about, especially if you’ve seen the movie. It quite literally begins at the point in the movie when Tony utters his famous line “Say hello to my little friend!”, which to me was an act of pure genius! You pretty much have to blast your way out of your own mansion and keep from dying and/or getting arrested by the cops.

Once successful in blasting your way out of the mansion, the real game begins, wherein you have to rebuild your drug empire from literally nothing, and this game delivers. You have to cruise around the streets of 80’s Miami, rebuilding contacts, scoring drugs for sale, money laundering, and everything else that goes into creating a drug empire that would make Pablo Escobar jealous.

One item about the game that many people will notice fairly early on is that it’s a game in the same vein as the Grand Theft Auto series. Depending on who you talk to, this is either a good or bad thing, since some people would cry foul and say that this game is mooching off the success of GTA.

However, I’m of the camp that the game stands well on it’s own for several reasons. First of all, you play Tony freakin’ Montana, one of the most iconic movie characters ever conceived. Plus, you get to act in exactly the way you think Tony should act.

Then there’s the matter of graphics & sound. The graphics are nothing short of great, and don’t really leave you wanting. I thought that since the Wii isn’t the strongest in terms of graphics of the 7th gen consoles, the game would push it to the limit, but the graphics are really nicely done and hardly overwhelming, not bogging down the Wii in the slightest. The sound is pretty good as well, and the music comes in at good times, which is a pretty good mix of what was around in the 80’s. The voices are also nicely done, and pretty reminiscent of many 80’s characters you see, especially in Miami Vice. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get Al Pacino to reprise the role for the game, but you could easily be fooled, because the person they found does an absolutely unbelievable Tony Montana rendition.

From a gameplay standpoint, it delivers fairly well once you get used to it, which takes a little it with the Wii controllers. Once you do get used to it, things are fairly easy, and you can do things ranging from talking to and taunting bystanders that get in you way, interacting with prostitutes, paying off cops, and the list goes on. The gunplay is also pretty straightforward, just point & shoot, and one item which I think rocks with the game involves “Balls.” You get Balls points for various actions above & beyond which not only get you extra rep on the street, but also when your health is low and you have a full Balls meter, you can go into a blood frenzy, proceed to declare anyone attacking you to be “Cock-a-roaches”, and any kills you get gives you health back.

Several other things you have to contend with are making sure you earn your money, geting it laundered (the launderers take a cut that varies based on your street rep), and moving the product, so the game can get fairly intricate, but not to the point where you feel you’ll get lost and have to restart. It’s all fairly intuitive, and the game also provides some rather convenient hints.

One item I do feel I have to mention is that the foul language, blood, drugs, etc., is pretty pervasive, so people who have young kids, or people who’d like to avoid such things in the gaming world would do well to avoid this game. However, most everyone else should thoroughly enjoy the game.

So, that all being said, I’m giving Scarface, the World is Yours for the Nintendo Wii, 4.75/5 stars.

Well, it’s official…

Last night, despite several vain attempts over the last couple weeks to repair it, my Xbox 360 finally displayed the dreaded 3/4 Red Ring of Death, indicating a massive hardware failure. It was already out of warranty for almost a year when it started flaking out a couple weeks ago, so I decided to at least try and get it semi working, and it was for a couple of days, so I got some more time in with GTA IV, but it was to no avail as of last night.

I was half expecting this, since I thought it was only a matter of time, but in terms of actually playing my Xbox 360 games again, the only times I’ll be able to do so in the forseeable future will be times when I go visit my family in Cleveland, as there are several in the family with 360’s. Beyond that, I’ll just have to wait until after things happen with the new job and I get settled in afterwards. However, even the best estimates I’m looking at will be somewhere in the late July/early August timeframe, and since I’ve gotta pay for moving expenses out of my own pocket, and the fact I’d like to get a few items first means that I probably won’t be getting a new 360 until autumn at the absolute earliest.

No biggie though, at least I’ve got World of Warcraft in the meantime

Ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls, gamerz of all ages…

This will by far be my shortest review thus far, and by no means will be in a bad way. Go out & buy Grand Theft Auto IV. Do it, do it now! Don’t finish reading this, just do it, because it is seriously one of the best console games I’ve ever had the distinction & honor of playing.

5/5 Housez…. ’nuff said!

It has recently come to my attention that there is an online petition to keep German director Uwe Boll from ever directing a video game-based movie ever again. It stemmed from an interview where Boll himself suggested he would stop making movies if the website petitiononline.com received 1,000,000 signatures. Well, 220,000 signatures and one week later, the petition is going strong.

To put it in context, virtually all of his movies are in the IMDB Bottom 100, and the movies are universally panned for not only poor acting, but also because they bear virtually no resemblance to the games he’s attempting to portray. In fact, the only similarities are the name of the movie, and maybe a couple of characters’ names. That’s about it. In fact, his movies are so bad, even other rather questionable directors are going on record and telling others ”Well, at least I wasn’t involved in a Uwe Boll movie.”

In fact, his movies have done so badly, that Blizzard, the company that created World of Warcraft, is in the early stages of making a movie about the game, and when Boll approached them to direct the movie, they flat out told him in no uncertain terms, they absolutely do not want him to direct, write, or have anything to do with the movie. The company has 10 million active subscribers to World of Warcraft, each paying $15 a month. If you did the math, that means they’ll make in a month what some movies do in an entire run in domestic theaters. They also told Boll that they certainly don’t want to risk that on a Boll-created piss poor effort, and were quoted as telling Boll “We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you.”

So without much further ado, please please please sign the petition, click on the link below to sign…

 http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html

I have a confession to make. I’ve become addicted to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and I’ve got two sore wrists to show for it. I had felt disturbances in the force whenever people played guitar against each other online, and I first got a chance to play it last Thanksgiving while visiting my brother-in-law’s parents’ house, when one of the other guys brought it over for some entertainment. Let’s just say the hype is well deserved! This game, like it’s predecessors, was made by Activision, RedOctane, & Neversoft (who published it). This version of the game is available for the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3. The most popular seems to be the Xbox 360 version, as it took me long enough to find one.

 One of the first things you may notice about the game is that the great bulk of the music comes directly from the master tracks, instead of having been recorded by a cover band in games prior. This heightens the realism of the game quite a bit, because it almost makes you feel like you’re playing right alongside Bret Michaels, Mick Jagger, and the list goes on. The list of songs itself is pretty impressive, boasting everything from the Who, and the Rolling Stones to more recent bands like Rage Against The Machine. So it’s definitely a game that caters to wide musical tastes.

Another aspect I found very appealing was that GH3 serves well as a standalone game. You really don’t have to own the previous two games in the series to jump right into this one. I managed to pick up the essentials in a matter of minues, and before I knew it, I had already passed through the first stage. The notes you hit, both single notes, chords, and ones you hold, give you an increasing number of points as the song progresses. For every 10 successive notes you hit, your score multiplir increases up to 4x. There’s also a series of notes you can hit to earn Star Power. Once you earn a certain amount of it, you can tip the guitar up to immediately double your score multiplier for the duration of your Star Power energy level. Once it drains, you go back to whatever multiplier you had (presumably if you hit all the notes). There are also songs you can unlock if you go for a 200+ note streak, or if you hit 100% of the notes in any song. That’s not as easy as it sounds, and believe me, even though I got the basics of the game down easily enough, it took me a bunch of tries before I reached that, but it was well worth it. And far from being something to discourage me, the fact that you want to reach 100% serves as a motivation to do really damn well on the game, and often the more you try and closer you get, the more you want to get to that ever elusive perfect score. When you get through the songs and earn money, you can unlock songs, newer guitars, even more characters, and clothes & styles for your character. The list goes on and on, and it would certainly behoov you to practice as much as you can to get better and better, as the better you do on each song, the more money & fans you get.

A rather sizeable coup for the makers, aside from the fact they got a hold of a lot of master tracks for the songs, was the addition of Tom Morello and Slash as bosses you can duel against. Both did motion capture for the game, and they’re about as lifelike as you can get without paying for concert tickets. Even on the easiest setting, they’re noting to sneeze at, and really put you to the test. Thankfully, the first of the two you encounter, Tom Morello, doesn’t show up until the end of the 2nd stage, and by then, you should definitely have the basics down.

This leads me to my next little bit about the game. The characters you create are rather lifelike, and some are caracatures of other artists, including Jimi Hendrix and Gene Simmons, while others are generic arechetypes of what you’d expect certain people in rock bands to look like (not that it’s a bad thing, especially in the case of Judy Nailz, who bears a passing resemblance to Pink). There is also a multiplayer setting, where you can go up against your friends down the street or in another state, and either play cooperatively, or battle against them to assert your rock dominance over them. If you don’t know of anyone to play against, you can (at least on the X-Box 360 version through X-Box Live) go online and find a random person to battle against or play cooperatively with. Who knows, you might find tons of new friends on there!

The graphics overall are pretty good, and aren’t too distracting at all, but there’s plenty of it to be seen, so your adoring rock fans can enjoy the show you’re putting on. The sound is also outstanding! On the older tracks, like from the Who, the Rolling Stones, etc., the tracks sound almost as if they were recorded a month ago, including the vocals. The fact it’s also upmixed to Dolby Digital doesn’t hurt either

A nice little perk is in the form of the guitar. If you were lucky enough to get the X-Box 360 or Playstation 3 bundle which included the wireless guitar, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know that the guitar is not just a guitar, it’s a fully functional controller in its own right. If you can play games with it outside of GH3, then you, my good friend, are an incredible player. The controller itself is a replica of a Les Paul Gibson electric guitar, a standard of rocking it out in a band , and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. The buttons and whammie bar are all intuitively laid out, and definitely not cluttered, so you won’tbe as liable to accidentally press buttons you didn’t intend to mid-game, which can cost points), so kudos to the designers for them.

And here’s something parents might actually enjoy hearing. For some reason, there’s a je ne said quois quality to the game where you simply feel as though you have to stand up & move around to play it. Whether the designers did this on purpose, or if it’s just something inherent to rocking out, I don’t know, but I’m pretty darn sure that the game beckons me to stand up when I’m playing. And with the way the guitar is set up, it’s definitely set up to help build your lower arm muscles at least a little bit. And the game itself is also superbly good at build hand/eye coordination as well, as well as buiding musical skills, since one of the essential aspects of the game is timing and keeping witht he rhythm. This also plays into discouraging people from button mashing, which I’ve been guilty of from time to time. And believe me, if you want to get bood off stage on a song quick, fast, and in a hurry, button mash like crazy.

 However, to be fair, you should take it in moderation, because after a while, my wrists, fingers, and lower arms felt wickidly sore after playing it for the first few times. So be sure and rest your weary hands after a while, or believe me, you’ll be paying the price for it later.

Pros

• Excellent sound and graphics
• Much of the music is based off the original master tracks, or tracks re-recorded by original artists
• Motion capture by Slash & Tom Morello… ’nuff said.

Cons

• What cons?

OK, onto the rating, guys & rockers. I’m oficially giving Gutar Hero III: Legends of Rock 5/5 Houses, and anxiously await rocking out with one and all.

Seeing as my last post was about a high-end sound card, it wouldn’t hurt to write a little something about a high-end speaker system I happen to know a thing or two about: the Logitech z5500 5.1 Surround Sound System.

To say this sound system rocks is an immense understatement. The first thing most people notice is that there really isn’t a receiver to speak of. All of the connections for the speakers and the Sound Touch Control Center for this speaker system go directly into the subwoofer. This helps save a lot of clutter, and since you can really put the bass anywhere you please. The reason is that humans are biologically incapable of determining the direction of any bass sounds being generated, so if the subwoofer is a little off center in the room, that’s perfectly alright.

Also, the overall look of the speakers themselves is pretty good. They’re all in a very sleek black finish, while the Sound Touch Control Center sports a more silvery look with a very shiny LCD display and polished dial that’s hard to miss. The satellite speakers each have a swivel stand, which allows you to place them either on tables, or via some rather convenient holes on the stands (which come connected to the speakers), to mount on walls, either flush or with some nails and screws (and for the record, if you’ve never mounted these or any speakers on walls or aren’t mechanically inclined, get an expert to do them, just trust me on that!) The center channel only pivots up and down, but that’s just fine, seeing as you really don’t need to have it go side to side, being that it’s above the TV, computer, or whatever else you’re using the speakers for.

The wiring is also a pretty good deal. The speaker wires are already precut to allow you to have the three front channels (left, right, center), and the two rear channels at a pretty good clip from the connectors in the back of the subwoofer, namely 10 feet for the front channels, and 25 feet for the rear channels. This gives you some room to play with. Since the connections for the speaker wires are pretty much the same as most others out there, namely the requisite + and - connectors, so should you need to get longer speaker cables, you’ve got a great deal of flexibilty to work with if your room dimensions don’t allow you to use the speaker cables provided in the box. Also, if you feel you need to wall mount them, the connectors are in a good location to reach.

OK, enough of the aesthetics. Let’s get to the technical schtuff. This speaker system isn’t a wimp. It has a total of 505 watts of RMS power, which breaks down as follows. 188 watts is devoted just to the subwoofer, while the center channel gets 69 watts, since with Doly Digital movies and high end sound cards, you need a good solid center channel. The remaining 4 satellite speakers all get 62 watts. From an electrical standpoint, they all do about 8 ohms at 1kHz frequencies, which isn’t anything to sneeze at really unless you’re one of those people who scoffs at anything above an ohm. Since most people aren’t, that means that you’re getting a fairly good system. There are a few here and there that go lower than that, but they’re in a clique of their own, and are also ninja masters in their craft, revealing their secrets only hesitently.

So for all the non-engineering types, what exactly does 505 watts mean? Power…. lots and lots of sonic power. The general rule of thumb is that if you want a cleaner sound at higher volumes, you need speakers that are able to handle that kind of wattage. The frequency response is pretty good, to the tune of 33 Hz to 20,000 Hz. While some people might want their bass to go all the way down to 20 Hz, that’s pushing it somewhat, since anything in that range is at the very lowest edge of human hearing, and some people might not even pick up any sounds below 25-30 Hz. So for the rest of us, something with 505 watts of output and a 33-20,000 Hz response is certainly the way to we are to acheive two objectives: 1. To get some kickass sound. 2. Piss off the neighbors but good.

One thing that really impressed me more than anything is just how clean the sound was, not only from DVD’s, but also from my computer, as I have two sets of these speakers, one for my living room, and the 2nd for my computer room. I’ve spent many an afternoon gleefully watching Lord of the Rings, Blade, or any other action flick with big fight scenes, lots of explosions, etc., and I certainly wasn’t left disappointed. I was able to hear not only small nuanced sounds, but that was also in the midst of some pretty action packed and sonically full scenes. Listening to music on this system is also pretty darn good, and depending on the quality of your music, the speakers have a sensitive enough response to where you can even tell in some cases when the individual tracks are stopped and started for guitars, vocals, etc. The system itself supports Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic (both 1 and 2), and also supports DTS theater sound as well, so you needn’t worry about compatibility with your latest DVD players or if you want to be able to upmix music or television inputs.

One item which might crop up if you’re seriously considering buying a z5500 is the number of input connections the Sound Touch Control center has. Essentially, it only has one Optical input, on SPDIF Coax input, and depending on how you set it, either three stereo inputs, or an analog 6-channel input. That’s pretty much it, and there aren’t any additional inputs on the subwoofer. So for those who already have a bunch of items, like DVD players, DVR’s, and anything else under the sun is to consider purchasing a connection organizer that brings all those other connectors to one location, and then send it off to the z5500 as a single connection. Trust me, it’ll save you the hassle of having to reach around in some anatomically impossoble positions just to change connections.

And I don’t know if this can really be considered a complaint, since I’m not much into interior decorating, but as I mentioned earlier, the only color the z5500 speakers come in is black. The satellite speakers can have their faceplates removed easily enough without any tools to reveal the speaker cones, which are silver and have an almost retro 50’s look to them, so that might be an option, but as far as the subwoofer, you’re SOL if you’re trying to match it with something other than black in your living room or computer room.

Conclusion

Pros

• Great power, and excellent sound
• Compatibility both with computers and as a standalone home-theater system
• Standard connections for speaker wiring, in case you need to cut custom speaker wires to length for different size rooms
• Satellite speakers wall-mountable
• Price very reasonable compared to most other systems of comparable wattage. (Approximately $250 online, give or take shipping)
• No extra receiver box, reducing clutter

Cons

• Limited number of input connectors
• Doesn’t come in a variety of colors

The cons for the z5500 are by no means a hinderance in my eyes, since my main concern is with how the unit sounds, not how it looks and the number of connectors has thus far not been an issue with me. Therefore, I’ve got absolutely no problem giving the Logitech z5500 5.1 Surround Sound System 5/5 Houses.

For my first gaming entry, I figured I’d get started with a game I think is extremely underrated… Bullet Witch. This title, for the X-Box 360, is a shoot-em-up game that has some really promising things to it that I feel are highly in its favor.

The backstory of the game involves various disasters befalling the people of Earth beginning in 2007, resulting in the human population falling below 1 billion by 2013, the year this game is set. There is also a rather gaping demonic hole on Earth, spewing out all sorts of evil nasties, referred to in the game as the Geist. Hope isn’t exactly high, and there are demons rolling around everywhere, having gathered the bulk of the conventional military equipment and killing people on sight.

Then there’s Alicia. She’s the main character of the game, and you’ll be controlling her throughout. She’s essentially a post-apocalyptic witch that’s seemingly come out of nowhere with powers nobody can explain, wielding a huge gun-rod (imagine a cross between a rather large Browning Automatic Rifle and a really swank looking broom from Harry Potter) which she uses to shoot things with and cast spells, and who’s fighting off all the Geist she comes across. An inner voice, affectionately referred to as The Darkness, guides her (and you) through the game. She starts off with full health and a mana bar that starts off at about 40% of the max. The more things you kill, the more your mana bar will extend out to the 100% level. She also regenerates both health and mana over time, so you really won’t need to worry about finding health and mana potions if you time your attacks against Geist forces properly. Another little twist is that the Geist forces, while having some aspects of the traditional zombie look, are fast-moving, and provide at least some unpredictability in the game that usual shoot-em-up’s involving zombies usually lack.

Another nice aspect of the game is that Alicia has access to virtually unlimited ammo. I say ‘virtually’ because the one caveat is that she needs enough mana to generate a new ammo clip for her gun-rod once the clip runs empty. However, 99.999% of the time, that will not be a problem, as the mana cost for a clip for your first gun-rod isn’t that bad, and you get 80 rounds per clip, while only needing 10-20 to deal some decent damage to a few of the enemy. Also the mana regeneration is already at a decent clip, meaning you should be alright if you’re just going to spend time blowing things away with your gun-rod.

Then there’s the Physics Engine. One of the best parts of the game in my opinion, is Alicia’s ability to use objects in the game to literally force-push into the enemy. Trash cans to cars, ambulances, even 18-wheelers are not exempt from Alicia’s ability. It can definitely come in handy when dealing with multiple enemies nearby, but the catch is that her push ability rely on her proximity to them, but that’s pretty much a given. The explosions also take advantage of the engine, allowing you to blow up one item, send things flying and turning them into a chain reaction, such as, say, blowing up a car parked next to a gas station. It can also work against you if you’re too close, since if you are, you’ll take damage too.

As the game progresses, Alicia will also have access to an ever increasing arsenal of spells. She’ll already start off with several, including the afore mentioned force-push, as well as Sacrifice, which she can use to heal injured people (and get bonus points when the level finishes), and Wall to block attacks for a few well-needed seconds to rest & regroup. The first one you get after the game begins is Lightning, which you can use to take out nothing less than an APC and an M1-A1 Abrams tank. There are others that you’ll get later in the game, like the Tornado attack, and yes, you can use it to knock out a farm.

In addition, Alicia earns points after every level, which can be used to not only unlock additional weapons, such as a shotgun, 50 caliber sniper rifle, and a Gatling gun (as well as additional power for all four weapons), but also upgrades to spells, addional spells (as well as upgrades), and faster HP & MP regeneration rates. The excellent part is that these upgrades and additions can be carried over from one game to another, so if you restart a game, you’ll have all the little goodies you got with any previous difficulty levels from the start of one game to another.

The levels themselves are as varied as you can get. One level, for instance, has you shooting things on top of a Boeing 747 in-flight, while another involves the ‘burbs, and yet another has you going out on the farm to kill things.

The one slight complaint I do have with them is that the AI of the game does tend to be somewhat predictable after a while, but that isn’t too much of a big deal, seeing as the point is to kill zombies with progressivly bigger guns, right? And besides, who wouldn’t want to blow up gas stations with a Gatling Gun, or send down lightning to demolish an M1-A1 Abrams? Also, the number of levels are slightly lacking. While the game won’t have quite the depth of a Final Fantasy or a Warcraft game though, for more casual playing, it’s alright.

Conclusion

Pros

• Story has some good promise, especially if (slim as it may be) there’s a sequel in store
• Physics Engine rocks, and can promise some good in-game fun
• Anything unlocked can be carried over every time you restart the game
• Graphics are nice, and not too cumbersome (The game simply looks beautiful on 1080p)

Cons

• AI could still use a bit of work as far as predictability
• The number of levels could’ve been increased, allowing for more points to be racked up to unlock things

So without much further ado, I’m officially givng Bullet Witch 4.5 out of 5 Houses. Since it’s been out for a while, the price has come down a bit on it, allowing for more casual gamers to be able pick it up.

I’ve had a long and storied history with Creative Labs, and have been a faithful devotee of all things Sound Blaster, ever since experiencing my first taste way back in 1993 with the Sound Blaster 16. It was one of the first big upgrades my dad had gotten for the computer, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. 16-bit CD-quality audio from a computer was like heaven to a 13 year old such that I was back then, especially since most computers back then didn’t have much in the way of sound (unless of course you consider simple beeping a valid sound), and CD-ROM drives to play music with were hardly standard issue back then.

That being said, Creative Labs did a lot of things in the following years, and one of the big feathers in their cap was to effectively become the gold standard in sound cards for computers, even going so far as having other sound card companies listing their offerings to the market as being compatible with Sound Blaster technology that so many games seemed to like in the ’90’s, and even into today. So Creative Labs latest effort, the Sound Blaster X-Fi (short for eXtreme Fidelity) has a very proud lineage behind it, and even more to live up to.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first. The X-Fi card itself isn’t exactly what you’d call a bargain. Many of these cards will run you at least $50-$75 for the lowest version, all the way on up to a hair’s breadth below $400 for the top of the line Elite Pro edition. Any guesses on which one I got? If you guessed the Elite Pro, you get a cigar!

That being said though, even if you really go for the Elite Pro, let me be the first to tell you that this sound card certainly delivers. There are three modes automatically programmed into the software that comes with the drivers: Entertainment, Gaming, and Audio Creation. The Entertainment mode, as the name implies, is mainly for listening to music, when you watch movies, or anything that involves some form of entertainment, and the card is tweaked largely for that already. This is the mode I’ve got mine set to, even when I’m playing games, because while in it, I can tweak the volume, bass & treble levels, which inputs and outputs are muted, and the list goes on. I can even have the card set for 2 speakers, all the way up to a 7.1 surround sound suealer system. There’s even a graphical interface for you to let the X-Fi know the whereabouts of your speakers, allowing the card to automatically configure itself for the best audio output.

Gaming is fairly obvious, as it’s set to go for a gaming experience as only Creative Labs can deliver, and there are even presets programmed into the software, which allows you to make individual tweaks for individual games, especailly some of the latest and greatest the gaming companies can offer for the PC. Audio Creation is more for those audio buffs who want to record their own music, be able to lay down some tracks and put it all together with the software that Creative Labs has provided, or to work with whatever software people use. Since I’m not much of a music man (haven’t touched a saxophone since 1994 and if I tried, I might be able to crank out the first few notes of the Star Wars theme on guitar), I’ll let anyone who is one, decide for themselves what software they want to use

OK, so how about some technical specs, shall we? Depending on which of the X-Fi’s you get, you’ll either get one with a 109db or 116 db SNR (Signal-To-Noise Ratio). The higher the better, since in english, the Signal to Noise Ratio is the how loud it can get before the sheer power of the noise overwhelms the sound with background noise. This means you can crank it up pretty loud before you get any bad noise coming through. The catch, though, is that you’d have to have some darn good speakers, which is another topic for another time.

X-Fi’s also have the benefit of a stand-alone processor for encoding and decoding the audio signals your computer might experience. The main advantage of this is that it tends to offload a lot of the audio computation from the CPU to the X-FI, freeing your processor up to do it’s thing. The different flavors of the X-Fi also have two amounts of memory, either 2 MB for the lower end models, and 64 MB for the top three tiers of the X-Fi family. This allows more sounds to be stored on the sound card memory for the X-Fi processor to work with, instead of the main processor, and I don’t think I need to explain the benfits of that, now do I?

An additional item is the ports. If you got the Elite Pro version, there’s an external connector box, complete with knobs to control volume and software enhancements of the X-Fi, as well as headphone jacks and digital out connectors for SPDIF coax out and digital optical out’s for Dolby Digital and DTS signals, both of which are also fully supported by the X-Fi. There are also analog ports on the X-Fi itself that range from stereo output to an analog 5.1 outpot, with two channels per wire, those being left & right, center & subwoofer, and the two rear channels. This means that Creative Labs did it’s homework, and covered most of the bases it needs for people hungering for connectors.

Something that’s a big coup for Creative Labs is THX Certification. Not everything can have the stamp of approval of the company that made Star Wars (Yes, THX certification was created by people at Lucasarts), but the X-Fi certainly fit the bill as the thing to have with THX certification. This trend began with a couple of the previous Sound Blaster Audigy family, and continued on through with the X-Fi’s. Nowadays, THX Certification is virtually a must with home theater systems nowadays.

Some of the software enhancements and accoutrements that come with the X-Fi aren’t anything to sneeze at either. One item that’s been something of a staple of Sound Blaster cards as of late is EAX or Environmental Audio Extensions. EAX is essentially a number of presets that simulate certain surroundings, such as an ampitheater, to a small room, and everything else in between. These can be tweaked to fit whatever you happen to prefer, or you can leave it off as well. I don’t use it personnally, but hey, to each their own. These presets simulate the echo, reverberation, and any other settings that simulate these environments fairly well, and can almost make you feel like you’re listening to music or playing gaes while in these areas.

One item I do use extensively is CMSS. CMSS, which stands for Creative Multiple Stereo Surround, automatically upmixes stereo signals up to 5.1 and even 7.1 audio signals. The difference is quite noticeable and quite powerful for those with 5.1 surround sound systems, especially those listening to MP3’s through their computers.

SomethingI was a tad iffy on, and still use only hesitently is the Crystalizer function. This is a software program that (supposedly) upmixes music such that most of the items that were lost in the recording got found again by changing it back to 24-bit. It’s more of a subjective addition, since from a purely mathematical standpoint, portions that are taken out or can’t be picked up by a mic can’t really be added back in. The one thing I did notice with it was that it made the bass and high notes a little punchier, which some people might like. A word of caution though, if you’re like me, and like the bass and treble settings cranked all the way up to begin with, use Crystallizer on a low setting, or turn down your teble especially, because you’ll get a rather annoying crunching sound, something of a cross between the sound of leaves being stepped on and someone ripping a piece of paper, with some songs or games that have particularly high audio frequencies within them.

Conclusion

Pros

• While expensive, you get what you pay for
• Lot’s of options to tweak and work with for people to use for their own audio experiences
• Excellent sound quality output
• THX Certification
• Thus far, the absolute best Creative Labs has come out with

Cons

• Crystalizer only adds a subjective addition to the sound output, and in high frequencies, can slightly distort sounds
• Expensive (but like I said, you get what you pay for)
• For full benefit, requires a high-end 5.1 speaker system to go with it.

So that being said, I’m officially giving the Sound Blaster X-Fi family of cards a rating of 5/5 Houses.