Sometime yesterday afternoon, I received an e-mail from Xbox Live support telling me I should try to recover my account one last time, and if it didn’t work I should then call the tech support line. Well, I’m glad to report that it worked and I was finally able to recover my account. Yay! I really didn’t want to have to call and deal with tech support. My account and achievements are safe – for the time being.

On the Guild Wars front, Saturday saw a flurry of e-mails from PlayNC support which ended in my support request being elevated to a “Senior Support Representative”. Which means “wait till Monday and someone will get back to you”. Sure enough, someone finally got back to me this afternoon. According to the Senior Support Representative Johnny, the charges were approved and did go through but, they “will not capture due to the transaction being voided in our billing system.” It appears that they were not simply able to give me access to the content and had to void the sale. Johnny suggested that I try to place my order again. Once the charges are actually reversed – maybe I’ll give it another shot.

I'm still working on my Now Playing hack and still have to write some code so that when posting reviews in the library it is inserted into main blog database.  I figured that for the reviews I'd just write up a quick blurb covering my overall feelings of the game.

Library Link:

• Dreamfall: The Longest Journey 

Well, six hours of game play later and I've finished the story of Tomb Raider: Legend. I still need to collect all the artifacts and do the time trials before the game is 100% but, I doubt I'll bother to do that. I'm a little disappointed that the game was so short and very disappointed with it's "Halo 2" style ending. On the other hand, I don't really have a schedule that it suitable for prolonged gaming sessions so maybe the length is for the best. All in all – pretty solid game for what may be the last in the series.

As I said yesterday the combat mechanics are a bit shoddy. And it gets much more annoying later in the game – I had to consistently run and jump up to where the enemies were standing just to hit them. I always figured Lara for a much better shot then that – I guess I was wrong. The puzzle elements of the game are good and not overwhelmingly difficult to solve. Some of the reviewers didn't like the motorcycle sections of the game but I didn't really mind it. Although, the Kazakhstan (must every game have a Kazakhstan stage these days?) one was a tad to long – made it a bit boring.

I had a good time and was pleased enough that maybe someday I will go back back and 100% it…

Related Links:

• Tomb Raider: Legend at MetaCritic (Xbox)
  
• Tomb Raider: Legend Walkthrough

I received my copy of "Tomb Raider: Legend" yesterday so, I spent a little while this morning working my way through the first level. I haven't played a Tomb Raider game to completion since Tomb Raider 2 – I'm not the biggest fan of the series. So far the game feels like an updated version of the original game. It looks really good on the Xbox, too bad I don't own a 360 to compare the two. The environment looks great, which it should being so late in the life of the Xbox. All of the character animations are incredibly smooth, I didn't notice anything off with the Lara's movement. The game play is very tight – a lot tighter then I expected it to be. There is section of the first level where you have to dodge your way through a trap with "Dragons Lair" type interaction – meaning hit a button when they tell you. I'm guessing that will pop up a few more times throughout the game. The combat seems OK so far, it's nothing great but since this game is supposed to be pretty puzzle/tomb raiding oriented it should do the job. Sorry about the lack of screen shots – my Xbox is hooked up to the TV at the moment, maybe I'll move it back later and take some. Well, I guess I should get back to the tomb raiding…