Wednesday, July 02, 2008
-Hello everybody! Doesn't seem like it's been that long since my last update, but a lot has transpired this last week so let's get to it!
-After a game completion time of 38 hours and 65.00% complete, and countless amounts of blood, sweat and tears, Grand Theft Auto IV became game #9 completed of the year! Some of the last missions were a pain and a half, and I found myself craving for mid mission checkpoints. Even having the option to restart a mission right from the beginning now is kind of pointless in IV since it restarts you with no body armor, and doesn't restore the ammo used on the previous mission attempt, so I found myself reloading a save more often than not. Other than that major issue, I had a great time with GTA IV, awesome narrative, though I am peeved at how both endings occured. I still plan on going back and knocking out some of the side quests, and see if I can manage to get up to around 75% complete, and maybe give the online a fair shake too.
-So I played the Top Spin 3 demo going in knowing that the same awesome people who made the excellent Top Spin 2 (developers Indie Built) we're not behind this game. I still assumed a lot of key members of the old games were working on TS3, and this would be another amazing entry in the series. Not so. Don't buy Top Spin 3 at all, they introduce a new control scheme which is bar none one of the worst control schemes to ever grace a tennis game. Whoever thought of timing the swing button along with the ball bounce is an idiot, I can see where it sounds good on paper as it relates to real life but it works horrible in video game execution. Stay farrr away.
-An awesome co-worker, Jamie, lent me MGS4 a few days ago. He said he picked it up, but has been waiting forever for his television to come back from repair and that he wouldn't be playing the game anytime soon. I only found it odd he insisted on borrowing it to me after I told him repeated times before that the MGS games are not up my alley. But I guess he wants to make a believer out of me so I reluctantly accepted MGS4 on loan from him. Haven't got around to putting time into it yet, but hopefully this weekend.
-Remember on the back of instruction manuals, or bundled with games are those registration postcards? I decided to submit around a dozen of them last week. Why? I ran into someone who told me that he got a lot of free swag in the mail for registering his games, and I figured why not take the time to register some games online and mail a few postcards. Doubt anything meaningful will come out of it, but it doesn't hurt to try.
-I sent Haze back to GameFly after only putting about 2 hours in with Chris. I wanted to beat it, especially after hearing it's shorter than Call of Duty 4, but those damn "Nectar Disruptions" kept giving me migraines like no other game before it. Seemed like an average FPS, but with one of the worst conceived story arcs ever. It played fine, but it was nothing to the awesomeness of Resistance.
-We did another console flashback podcast last week, on the Saturn (right click to download). This time Chris's console worked so we were able to roll through his library of games beforehand. Had a good time looking back on the Sega system that couldn't hold a candle to the PSone and remembering classics like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Virtua Fighter 2, and Nights. Next week we're taking a look at the best disc-based platform released in 1993, yes I'm talking about the 3DO! Surely, a podcast not to be missed!
-Here's a few more random video game related tidbits that occured the past week. I put some more time into Eternal Sonata. I'm a little over halfway through act 4 now, and had a great boss fight with an evil female pirate that took me several retries to vanquish...Rock Band 2 got announced, which is awesome, as is that DLC will be backwards compatible. Sucks that the main songs off the original disc probably won't be, but after having them repeat themselves far too frequently in Band Tour mode, I can use the break...I finally got around to seeing that Battlefied Bad Company trailer that spoofs on the "Mad World" Gears of War trailer, great stuff! Definitely check that one out if you haven't already...I was out of MS points for awhile and I finally got around to picking up a 1600 point card a few days ago, of which around 900 promptly went right to Rock Band song downloads like the Disturbed Pack, Boston's More Than a Feeling, the new Offspring download, two Stone Temple Pilots songs and a few others. Angry Video Game Nerd did some awesome videos on Star Trek and Superman games, and he's promising a much awaited review on the god-awful Superman 64 next!
-I got around to watching a DVD I picked up a good two or three years ago I haven't seen yet, Eight Man Out. A 1988 film that tells the story of the 1919 White Sox that threw the World Series. Don't know why I held off so long since I'm a sucker for sports films. I have no idea how accurate Eight Man Out portrayed the events that lead up to, and the aftermath of the World Series, but it did a remarkable job at convincing me to believe the story it told. After seeing this, I made plans to watch another baseball movie I picked up a few years ago and haven't watched yet, the HBO film, 61*.
-Had a lot of people over for the WWE Night of Champions PPV last Sunday. Quite the turnout with Steve, Paul, Dick, Dave, Ryan & Whitney all showing up. Decent PPV overall. I like this theme where every title is on the line, seems like the only PPV of the year where both tag team straps get defended on. I'm not his biggest fan, but it was kind of cool to see Marc Henry win a somewhat major singles belt (ECW Title) after being in the company for 12 years and suffering many injuries, de-pushes, and horrible storylines. Miz/Morrison vs Finlay/Hornswoggle was a surprisingly fun little match. Seeing Kofi Kingston win the IC belt was an interesting surprise too. Highlight of the night though had to be watching Cena lose to Triple H! Yes, I'm a Cena-Hater and proud of it, and I was an ecstatic little HHH fan after seeing Cena get pinned after a leathal Pedigree!
Speaking of new champs, I should have saw it coming, but I was completely caught off guard with CM Punk cashing in his Money in the Bank and using it on Edge to win the World Title for RAW in less than 10 seconds. I feared WWE was going to have Punk lose the belt later that same night against JBL, but shockingly again they had Punk win! World Title rarely gets defended on RAW, and changes hands far less common than any other belt on free-tv, so seeing that title change happen was a big moment indeed that I was happy to witness on live tv!
-After finishing RAW, it got me in a positive wrestling mood, so I made haste to finish up the last disc of the HBK set that came out recently. Great stuff on the bonus disc which consists of matches that weren't released on older HBK DVDs. There are some buried treasures on here like Rockers matches against the Orient Express and Super Ninja & Ninja Go! Finally saw the Angle/HBK Wrestlemania 21 rematch which ruled just as much as their epic WM21 bout. Overall, a great compilation of matches that no wrestling fan should go without.
-That ends another crazy long entry from me. Thanks for reading!
-After a game completion time of 38 hours and 65.00% complete, and countless amounts of blood, sweat and tears, Grand Theft Auto IV became game #9 completed of the year! Some of the last missions were a pain and a half, and I found myself craving for mid mission checkpoints. Even having the option to restart a mission right from the beginning now is kind of pointless in IV since it restarts you with no body armor, and doesn't restore the ammo used on the previous mission attempt, so I found myself reloading a save more often than not. Other than that major issue, I had a great time with GTA IV, awesome narrative, though I am peeved at how both endings occured. I still plan on going back and knocking out some of the side quests, and see if I can manage to get up to around 75% complete, and maybe give the online a fair shake too.
-So I played the Top Spin 3 demo going in knowing that the same awesome people who made the excellent Top Spin 2 (developers Indie Built) we're not behind this game. I still assumed a lot of key members of the old games were working on TS3, and this would be another amazing entry in the series. Not so. Don't buy Top Spin 3 at all, they introduce a new control scheme which is bar none one of the worst control schemes to ever grace a tennis game. Whoever thought of timing the swing button along with the ball bounce is an idiot, I can see where it sounds good on paper as it relates to real life but it works horrible in video game execution. Stay farrr away.
-An awesome co-worker, Jamie, lent me MGS4 a few days ago. He said he picked it up, but has been waiting forever for his television to come back from repair and that he wouldn't be playing the game anytime soon. I only found it odd he insisted on borrowing it to me after I told him repeated times before that the MGS games are not up my alley. But I guess he wants to make a believer out of me so I reluctantly accepted MGS4 on loan from him. Haven't got around to putting time into it yet, but hopefully this weekend.
-Remember on the back of instruction manuals, or bundled with games are those registration postcards? I decided to submit around a dozen of them last week. Why? I ran into someone who told me that he got a lot of free swag in the mail for registering his games, and I figured why not take the time to register some games online and mail a few postcards. Doubt anything meaningful will come out of it, but it doesn't hurt to try.
-I sent Haze back to GameFly after only putting about 2 hours in with Chris. I wanted to beat it, especially after hearing it's shorter than Call of Duty 4, but those damn "Nectar Disruptions" kept giving me migraines like no other game before it. Seemed like an average FPS, but with one of the worst conceived story arcs ever. It played fine, but it was nothing to the awesomeness of Resistance.
-We did another console flashback podcast last week, on the Saturn (right click to download). This time Chris's console worked so we were able to roll through his library of games beforehand. Had a good time looking back on the Sega system that couldn't hold a candle to the PSone and remembering classics like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Virtua Fighter 2, and Nights. Next week we're taking a look at the best disc-based platform released in 1993, yes I'm talking about the 3DO! Surely, a podcast not to be missed!
-Here's a few more random video game related tidbits that occured the past week. I put some more time into Eternal Sonata. I'm a little over halfway through act 4 now, and had a great boss fight with an evil female pirate that took me several retries to vanquish...Rock Band 2 got announced, which is awesome, as is that DLC will be backwards compatible. Sucks that the main songs off the original disc probably won't be, but after having them repeat themselves far too frequently in Band Tour mode, I can use the break...I finally got around to seeing that Battlefied Bad Company trailer that spoofs on the "Mad World" Gears of War trailer, great stuff! Definitely check that one out if you haven't already...I was out of MS points for awhile and I finally got around to picking up a 1600 point card a few days ago, of which around 900 promptly went right to Rock Band song downloads like the Disturbed Pack, Boston's More Than a Feeling, the new Offspring download, two Stone Temple Pilots songs and a few others. Angry Video Game Nerd did some awesome videos on Star Trek and Superman games, and he's promising a much awaited review on the god-awful Superman 64 next!
-I got around to watching a DVD I picked up a good two or three years ago I haven't seen yet, Eight Man Out. A 1988 film that tells the story of the 1919 White Sox that threw the World Series. Don't know why I held off so long since I'm a sucker for sports films. I have no idea how accurate Eight Man Out portrayed the events that lead up to, and the aftermath of the World Series, but it did a remarkable job at convincing me to believe the story it told. After seeing this, I made plans to watch another baseball movie I picked up a few years ago and haven't watched yet, the HBO film, 61*.
-Had a lot of people over for the WWE Night of Champions PPV last Sunday. Quite the turnout with Steve, Paul, Dick, Dave, Ryan & Whitney all showing up. Decent PPV overall. I like this theme where every title is on the line, seems like the only PPV of the year where both tag team straps get defended on. I'm not his biggest fan, but it was kind of cool to see Marc Henry win a somewhat major singles belt (ECW Title) after being in the company for 12 years and suffering many injuries, de-pushes, and horrible storylines. Miz/Morrison vs Finlay/Hornswoggle was a surprisingly fun little match. Seeing Kofi Kingston win the IC belt was an interesting surprise too. Highlight of the night though had to be watching Cena lose to Triple H! Yes, I'm a Cena-Hater and proud of it, and I was an ecstatic little HHH fan after seeing Cena get pinned after a leathal Pedigree!
Speaking of new champs, I should have saw it coming, but I was completely caught off guard with CM Punk cashing in his Money in the Bank and using it on Edge to win the World Title for RAW in less than 10 seconds. I feared WWE was going to have Punk lose the belt later that same night against JBL, but shockingly again they had Punk win! World Title rarely gets defended on RAW, and changes hands far less common than any other belt on free-tv, so seeing that title change happen was a big moment indeed that I was happy to witness on live tv!
-After finishing RAW, it got me in a positive wrestling mood, so I made haste to finish up the last disc of the HBK set that came out recently. Great stuff on the bonus disc which consists of matches that weren't released on older HBK DVDs. There are some buried treasures on here like Rockers matches against the Orient Express and Super Ninja & Ninja Go! Finally saw the Angle/HBK Wrestlemania 21 rematch which ruled just as much as their epic WM21 bout. Overall, a great compilation of matches that no wrestling fan should go without.
-That ends another crazy long entry from me. Thanks for reading!
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