Boy Spends £1150 on Microsoft Points

A story recently hit the web about a father complaining to Microsoft after his 12-year-old son spent a whooping £1150 on Microsoft Points over a six month period.

Sam Ghera’s son Nik, claims he didn't know the Microsoft Points were being charged to his father's credit card and had even spent £100 in a single day on the games he loved like FIFA and Call of Duty.

Ghera says ,"He didn't realise it was costing real money, with sites like eBay and iTunes it always asks you for a password before you make a purchase, but with Xbox Live you just press a button and then your money's gone."

Microsoft have apparently been looking into this matter and responded by saying the price of downloadable content is stated throughout the purchasing process.

I might be the only one here but I completely agree with Microsoft – I personally find their content approach fair and clear. Looking into purchasing today I had 4 prompts to tell me how many Microsoft points I required and the price in cash that I would need to pay to purchase them.

The Xbox Live offerings that require cash correctly have no password for any standard ‘adult’ accounts but do have the facilities to accommodate those who allow their children to play online. This includes credit card protection as well as guidelines over what they can play, who with and when.

The services offered are more than adequate to allow anyone to protect themselves from a sometime hostile online community but which can be also used to protect those of a young or innocent nature.

In fact the real problem Sam Ghera is having also has an option on all Xbox Live accounts to protect his own financial interests. There are specific settings within the console and account details to allow ‘over the shoulder approval’ which requires the card holder to give permission before a purchase can be completed either through a password or an email link.

 Despite his son spending money on Microsoft Points for over six month, Ghera didn’t realise the money was missing until he went overdrawn. Ghera explained that he had registered his card so that his son could play Fifa and Call of Duty with his friends.

Let this be a warning to all parents out there – check you children's online authorities before putting your cards to anything. You don’t need a password to pay for things on Amazon so why would an Xbox Live account be any different.

Oh and check your statements every month!

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Mass Effect 3 - The Extended Ending Review

So the Mass Effect 3 Extended Endings DLC was released last week and gave BioWare a chance to right the wrongs for their completely nonsensical original endings. I’ll try not to spoil too much but as I’m sure you are aware there were a few alternate endings but none of them were polished enough to finish a 5 year long story.


The main point for me to throw out here is that the endings aren’t actually different so it’ll depend on what you didn’t like about the original endings that will decide the view on whether you will like these. Inevitably the problem with this is that BioWare have plugged some major plot holes but you can’t really see whether this has been to patch it like a bug problem or because they are cowards about the way the fans felt about the original endings.

There really isn’t a lot of change that has any great importance on the story. There are a few new scenes, new lines of dialogue and some clarification on the completely terrible jumps of the finales plot but nothing that insinuates a rewrite.


For example one of the things that has been updated is an explanation on why the Normandy left Shepard at the end which gives us a little piece of clarity on BioWare’s plan was originally.


One larger addition is the option to now blow the Star Child's head off. It created the Reapers in the first place and basically kills off the Indoctrination Theory floating around. Its an interesting take on the ending but isn’t one of the happiest to say the least.


Granted BioWare have done a fairly solid job of tweaking the endings without conclusively saying that the public were right and they were not. It does show the they didn’t really have an ending that could be easily completed based on the large amount of options the player took on during their 5 year quest. It mi9ght not be the ending you wanted but they sure as hell show us with this ‘patch’ that it is the ending the writers wanted.

The only tweaks that seem a bit wasted are the ending story buffs which seem to have been thrown out with the ‘how do we appease everyone’ card. Yes they give us further clarity but they aren’t really achieving all that much – at least for me in particular. They just feel like a cop-out. I won’t enlighten you more than that but when you see them you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Overall I am glad that BioWare released this expanded endings patch though I can’t help but feel it wasn’t a complete success. The biggest thing for everyone to take note of is the post-release plot changing should never become the norm; this is simply because it takes away from what a developer and writer set out to do – regardless of whether you liked it. I hated Bioshock 2 and mainly because of the ‘improved’ gameplay and prequel storyline but I can completely understand why people loved it.


The point that developers in particular should take note of us that you should know how to end a game and not make a 5 year or even 20 hours excursion feel ‘wasted’ with a ‘downer’. Obviously don’t rush something that all your fans have been waiting to see; especially then that wait it years as opposed to hours/months.


The worst thing to come out of this though has got to be the knock that BioWare has taken ‘again’. First they suffered with Dragon Age 2 and now the ending of one of their most popular franchises ever. Just because you are/were a great publisher doesn’t mean you can get sloppy now. A good reputation takes years to build but 5 minutes to fall over.

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Skyrim Dawnguard Personal Review

The first Skyrim expansion Dawnguard has not been as warmly received online as I original hoped. Most personal reviewers have accused Bethesda of selling out to the modern vampire craze that’s plagued our films and our games of late. I can assure you that The Elder Scrolls series have been sucking blood with lave red eyes for many years now so there is no reason not to have expected a full guild based storyline at some point or other.

The new campaign is accessed once a character reaches level 10 or above where you will start to hear rumours from city guards (particularly in Riften). Early on you will come face to face with the ancient group of vampire hunters known as the Dawnguard – which will lead you onto the choice of fighting for them or biting their necks and sucking their blood. I first choose to complete a run through by helping out this guild as I love my werewolf beast form almost as much as my Nords duel-maces.

Your playtime may vary but as I played with a high level character my trip lasted about 8 hours but I didn’t need to spend much time in any of the towns sorting myself out between missions. I would imagine that this could increase to around 12 hours should you start this questline off earlier in your adventuring career. I have since given this a run through playing from the vampire perspective which holds more gameplay additions but maybe a less interesting story (at least in my opinion). Basically the content could last anywhere between 18-25 hours in total depending on how rushed you play and as long as you give this a go from both perspectives – overall a worthwhile £15.00 investment.

The Dawnguard side of the faction starts off a bit slow but picks up after a quest or two into the expansion. The areas to explore are much more open (even though they are mainly cave systems) and have some nice aesthetical touches to make them unique. The only problem I had with the new locations were that some required backtracking to get out once you’d completed the desired requirements (although again this might just have been me not spotting the quick win).

You get some marvellous adventures along the way with two unique outdoor locations that you can go back to time and time again even when the Dawnguard expansion has come to a close. There are also some wonderful crafted set pieces, one involving a legendary dragon and a Skeleton Horde and the other pitting you against two massive Dragons on an Icy Lake (where they crash in and out of the water). There were also some brilliant set pieces created from the expansion – for example when my summoned Dragon (yes that’s right) caused havoc for a couple of his Frost cousins while I ventured over the bridge into Windhelm.

One of the other advantages of joining the Dawnguard side of the quest is the ability to quickly pick up the new weapon type as well as upgrade it. The Crossbow is an interesting addition to the weapons on offering firing more damaging bolts to the usual bow and arrow combo but with an increased reload time.

Bethesda were obviously pushing people down the vampire half of the questline though as you are repeatedly offered the chance to get turn into one of the hovering bloodsuckers. The new vampiric powers are actually pretty cool thought and the ability to turn into a Vampire Lord makes you feel truly powerful. In fact I actually ended up finding the Vampire Lord a more interesting form to the Werewolf already available in the main game. Both the new vampire and the werewolf transformations have been given a perk tree for you to boost too.

The last few additions to speak of are the new open areas for you to explore. The Soul Cairn isn’t very easy on the eye but has a nice couple of side quests available and a very distinctive feel. The Forgotten Vale on the other hand is an area a lot like Skyrim but largely contained to distinctive looking areas (one being an awesome Falmer Tree House style village). Full exploration can take a couple of hours but in all honesty there isn’t distinguishing this from the standard Skyrim cave patrols.

All in all though Dawnguard is a fair size for it’s price especially if you pick this up with an early game character as the tasks will be a lot more difficult. I would definitely recommend picking this up if you need a reason to return to Tamriel and the additional gameplay content is pretty good too for those already well invested in their characters. Armoured Trolls anyone?

P.S. There is also a brilliant new follower available through either quest path.

8/10

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