I believe this may be the first update I have had a 360 for. The update process worked great. I saw the thing start and just though "Ok, little update, might take a few minutes" then I see the screen go blank and to be honest my first reaction was "Ah Crap!" but alas, it was already done and restarting!

The new layouts look great in my opinion and are definately an improvement. Especially in the realm of the Marketplace, with the newly designed subsections and such. It makes things much more consise and easy to navigate. I like how they applied the new layout to the games library section as well as the mida sections, shiriking those gigantic bars into smaller ones, so more fit on a page! This may be a problem for smaller TVs, I don't know, I play on an 80" or so screen (projector) so it's great for me.

I think my favorite improvement is actually the one "under the hood." I used to always get annoyed at the dashboard for hanging up all of the time, but no more! M$ finally fixed it and now the dashboard is very snappy and the only waiting I have to do is for internet loading. Supposedly some audio codecs were added as well but I don't use it much for streaming video from my PC so I can't really say on that.

I don't have time to write much more of a breakdown than that, but it's a little snippet about the new update anyway. Enjoy!

Earlier today my litle Java Updater thing popped up telling me that a new update was available, but here's the kicker, it's messabe says "Update now and recieve a FREE copy of Open Office!" What made it even funnier was the fact that I installed the latest copy of Open Office on that machine just a few days ago. I'm thinkin so Java is offering me a free program that free anyway in return for updating a completely free thing? Yeah that makes since.

Actually it's kind of sad. For one thing why would Java even think they need to advertise for an update. I mean there's two camps pf people that are gunna see this. Those that no matter what it is just say ok whatever, Update, and those that may be a little more weary of an update. Those that realize that not all updates are all that useful or critical are going to realize that Open Office is free anyway and thus aren't going to be fooled by this "Advertising."

I'm also constantly annoyed by things like this bugging me about updates. Updates on stuff like this usually improve my life in no way. Granted I'm all for external updates when they're useful, and especially when I have to ask for them instead of being bugged constantly about them. On my PSP or iPhone, I have to go to "Check for Update" when I want to see if there's an update rather than having my life paused every 10 minutes until I update the darn thing.

The Java thing wasn't all that annoying, but I got a good laugh out of it trying to advertise an update in exchange for a free prgram.

I've said this many times and been of this feeling for quite sometime, and I've finally decided to put it into text and on the internet. Of course we all know that the ESRB is the board that rates video games for content (as the MPAA does for movies). The problem is, well, they're very bad at it. I think it's great that they try to give parents an idea of what's in a game and what to watch for, but they keep putting out bad representations and strong inconsistencies. Needless to say, it needs some serious fixing.

Halo is one of the best examples of these inconsistencies. The whole series seems relatively innocent to me, compared to many games out there. There is relatively little blood in the game, and where there is it is of a very cheesy and fake style. There is hardly any bad language at all in the series, and sexual immoralities are nonexistant. There are plenty of T rated games that I think take a much more "mature" person to play than Halo does. Call of Duty, even, seems more intesne and such than Halo (yes I know 4 was rated M but I'm talking more about 2 here). It surprised me that Halo 1 was M, but by the time 3 got around I was really pretty surprised that the series was still holding t he M rating. I think bungie got jipped big time on that rating.

Another glaring example against the ESRB is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It was originally rated T byt the ESRB, then all of a sudden they decide to change it several months after it hit the shelves! The reason is even worse. They changed the rating because of a mod to the game that could be added on the PC version to add nudity when the player removes the equipment from a downed NPC. A mod! What's even worse about this is that they changed the rating on both the PC and 360 versions, even though the 360 version was completely unaffected by this. The game also held the rating on its PS3 release. Honestly I think this is incredibly stupid and a glaring demote on the ESRB's record.

My final point in this is what the ratings imply. A T rating should be somewhat analogous to a PG-13 movie rating, should it not? Problem is, the whole rating system seems to be off a level. I tend to see T rated games as being similar to PG movies in terms of content. Likewise most M games seems similar to PG-13 movies, with just a few of them really falling off into that R category. Why is this?

Case in point, the ESRB needs a serious overhall. With so many messed up things I can't believe they still hold as much prestige as they do. It amazes me that sometimes they don't even pick up the game and play it before they rate it. Many games are rated purely by a form submitted by the developer listing things that may be questionable. This is a very bad system that needs to be repaired soon so it can do what it was actually designed to do.