Monday, February 23, 2009
-Howdy hey everyone, as I alluded to in my last entry I was approaching completing my first two games of the year, so now that some time has passed, the original Fable: The Lost Chapters and Marvel Ultimate Alliance are games #1 and #2 completed for the year. Ultimate Alliance I think was the first game I ever completed from start to finish in online co-op. My co-worker Sean and I met up for several grind sessions after work for a couple hours apiece, and it took us 15 hours to knock MUA out. About damn time too, because I think that was the sixth separate time I restarted Ultimate Alliance throughout the years with various friends.
Overall Ultimate Alliance is easily one of my all-time favorite comic book games. Like the X-Men Legends games before it, they're the same addicting hack 'n slash RPGs, but now with the entire Marvel Universe. Fable is an awesome "Western" RPG in the same vein as Jade Empire and Oblivion. I'm still surprised at how well this holds up over four and a half years since its release. I breezed right through the main game, avoiding most side quests within 9 and a half hours, the expansion Lost Chapters content made the overall experience last a total of 12 hours, so while it may not have been the longest RPG ever, it was still pretty damn fun while it lasted.
-For other games I've been playing lately, I picked up Sonic's Ultimate Sega Genesis Collection, and every person reading this should too since it's one of the best gaming values out there at $30, and with 49 games on the disc that equates to well under $1 per game considering one would probably be paying $8 per download if say, all these games happened to be available on Wii's Virtual Console. While not every game is a winner, and I'm having a ball with well over half of these games. Speaking of retro games, Retro Game Challenge on DS is alo awesome. It's a collection of several re-imagined 8-bit titles like Galaga, Mega Man and Dragon Warrior, and the whole premise behind the game is you're stuck in the 80s and have to beat all these challenges for all of the 8-bit games to make it back to your time, all while your "friend" is cheering you on. Also getting some great two player co-op action in with Scott in our Hardcore difficulty campaign in Gears of War 2, and Castle Crashers recently. I think we're nearly halfway through Gears 2, and must be at least over halfway through Castle Crashers since we invested several hours into that game already, and XBLA games usually are nowhere near the 6 to 7 hours we already put into CC.
-I'm still podcasting like a mad man, so pardon that I'm about to shill some of my latest recordings. I was a guest host on the Gamers Only Older podcast on their latest episode, where we talk about the best things to come out of this console generation thus far and tips for budget gaming. I was extremely lucky to have the Drunken Gamers Radio crew of John, Moe and Hilden guest on episode 89 of On Tap, where we paid tribute with a flashback on the TurboGrafX-16/CD, and the DGR guys were the go to guys to spread the love on the TG, and I'm very happy with how things turned out, makes me want to hunt down some more Turbo games. Show 90 just went up yesterday and we review Prince of Persia, Sonic's Genesis Collection and have a hearty discussion on the pros and cons of "Why do we game?" Finally, in the latest Cheap Pop, aside from recovering over the latest hirings and firings, we spend the last hour of the two hour spectacular reminiscing over our favorite wrestling videogames over the years, consider it a cliff notes version of our three part wrestling videogame retrospective we ran in 2007.
-Even though nearly all his material is available for free online, I decided to support the Angry Video Game Nerd by ordering both of his DVDs. If I didn't find him so damn entertaining, I wouldn't of threw down the near $50 on the set of DVDs, but he does add in a slew of exclusive extras to make it worth your while. So while I did end up paying a bit more for those DVDs then I wanted, I partially made up for it by happening to stumble into Best Buy when they were marking down Guitar Hero 3 game and wireless guitar bundles to $32. The Guitar Hero 3 wireless guitar itself runs $60, so I instantly bought the bundle, and traded in the copy of Guitar Hero 3 right away since I already had the game, along with my old Rock Band guitar since I never was a huge fan of that bulky piece of plastic to begin with.
-My brother Joey has been persistent in wanting to do video reviews of some of our favorite videogames, and throw them up on YouTube. We finally got around to doing one last weekend for one of our favorite racers this generation with Flatout: Ultimate Carnage. Here's the links to the videos. We spent a lot longer talking about it then we anticipated, but my brother kept things interesting with his video editing skillz0rz - part 1 - part 2 - part 3
-I've seen a ton of movies since my last blog. Here's some lightning quick impressions. GameBox 1.0 was an interesting take on the "virtual reality game gone haywire" experiment, and even with its B movie production values, I was surprisingly entertained by it, 8/10. Clint Eastwood is simply phenomenal in Gran Torino. He nailed that role, and the character development with his supporting cast is some of the best I have seen in a movie yet, 9.5/10. Taken is nonstop badass! Simple plot premise with ex-special forces agent kicking as much ass as possible to rescue his daughter, and by any (shockingly) means necessary, 9/10. Vantage Point was one I've been meaning to catch for awhile now, and I dug it's concept on retelling the same crime scene from several different angles, always kept me thinking and I was legitimately surprised at the plot twist too, 7.5/10. I hope they do the same thing with Cloverfield and have a perspective from the military's point of view on that crazy night in New York. Finally, I watched My Name is Bruce last night at the recommendation of Bruce Campbell fans all over. I'm not a die-hard Campbell fan so some of the references flew right over my head, but the intentional cheesy B movie effects gave it that special charm that Bruce's past works always manage to deliver, 7.5/10
-I saw the final Late Night with Conan 'O Brien recently. I've been slacking and haven't kept up with the show as much in recent years, but for a couple years straight from around 2003-2005 I was lucky enough to have reruns of that show on every break at work. Can't wait to see what Conan has in store for when he takes over the Tonight Show in a few months, and it was refreshing to hear him say in his farewell that he's not going to tone down his act for the earlier time slot. If you missed the final show, it's on Hulu right now.
-Ever have one of those days where you make so many plans, you have no idea that you'll be able to keep up with them? That was me this past Saturday as I made four sets of plans for the day and was afraid I was going to end up putting a last second kabosh to one of them. Surprisingly, things went according to plan, as I first met up with my bro to record the aforementioned video review, then with Chris and Lyzz to record the latest On Tap, and then Jim and Paul swung by my place and we had a couple brews and tested our minds by playing some Buzz and Scene It trivia. Finally, I met up with my co-workers Dave and Brian and we hit the downtown bar scene, which is something I rarely get a chance to take advantage of. Over the past decade part of our downtown district has evolved into an awesome strip of bars where you can drunkenly stumble into the next bar. I definitely had my fair share of drinks that night, and was buzzing pretty good that I had no idea what I was doing when playing a round of Space Invaders of all things. All in all, was a fantastic day that freaking breezed right by.
-Ok, I'm finally done rambling yet again, latez!
Overall Ultimate Alliance is easily one of my all-time favorite comic book games. Like the X-Men Legends games before it, they're the same addicting hack 'n slash RPGs, but now with the entire Marvel Universe. Fable is an awesome "Western" RPG in the same vein as Jade Empire and Oblivion. I'm still surprised at how well this holds up over four and a half years since its release. I breezed right through the main game, avoiding most side quests within 9 and a half hours, the expansion Lost Chapters content made the overall experience last a total of 12 hours, so while it may not have been the longest RPG ever, it was still pretty damn fun while it lasted.
-For other games I've been playing lately, I picked up Sonic's Ultimate Sega Genesis Collection, and every person reading this should too since it's one of the best gaming values out there at $30, and with 49 games on the disc that equates to well under $1 per game considering one would probably be paying $8 per download if say, all these games happened to be available on Wii's Virtual Console. While not every game is a winner, and I'm having a ball with well over half of these games. Speaking of retro games, Retro Game Challenge on DS is alo awesome. It's a collection of several re-imagined 8-bit titles like Galaga, Mega Man and Dragon Warrior, and the whole premise behind the game is you're stuck in the 80s and have to beat all these challenges for all of the 8-bit games to make it back to your time, all while your "friend" is cheering you on. Also getting some great two player co-op action in with Scott in our Hardcore difficulty campaign in Gears of War 2, and Castle Crashers recently. I think we're nearly halfway through Gears 2, and must be at least over halfway through Castle Crashers since we invested several hours into that game already, and XBLA games usually are nowhere near the 6 to 7 hours we already put into CC.
-I'm still podcasting like a mad man, so pardon that I'm about to shill some of my latest recordings. I was a guest host on the Gamers Only Older podcast on their latest episode, where we talk about the best things to come out of this console generation thus far and tips for budget gaming. I was extremely lucky to have the Drunken Gamers Radio crew of John, Moe and Hilden guest on episode 89 of On Tap, where we paid tribute with a flashback on the TurboGrafX-16/CD, and the DGR guys were the go to guys to spread the love on the TG, and I'm very happy with how things turned out, makes me want to hunt down some more Turbo games. Show 90 just went up yesterday and we review Prince of Persia, Sonic's Genesis Collection and have a hearty discussion on the pros and cons of "Why do we game?" Finally, in the latest Cheap Pop, aside from recovering over the latest hirings and firings, we spend the last hour of the two hour spectacular reminiscing over our favorite wrestling videogames over the years, consider it a cliff notes version of our three part wrestling videogame retrospective we ran in 2007.
-Even though nearly all his material is available for free online, I decided to support the Angry Video Game Nerd by ordering both of his DVDs. If I didn't find him so damn entertaining, I wouldn't of threw down the near $50 on the set of DVDs, but he does add in a slew of exclusive extras to make it worth your while. So while I did end up paying a bit more for those DVDs then I wanted, I partially made up for it by happening to stumble into Best Buy when they were marking down Guitar Hero 3 game and wireless guitar bundles to $32. The Guitar Hero 3 wireless guitar itself runs $60, so I instantly bought the bundle, and traded in the copy of Guitar Hero 3 right away since I already had the game, along with my old Rock Band guitar since I never was a huge fan of that bulky piece of plastic to begin with.
-My brother Joey has been persistent in wanting to do video reviews of some of our favorite videogames, and throw them up on YouTube. We finally got around to doing one last weekend for one of our favorite racers this generation with Flatout: Ultimate Carnage. Here's the links to the videos. We spent a lot longer talking about it then we anticipated, but my brother kept things interesting with his video editing skillz0rz - part 1 - part 2 - part 3
-I've seen a ton of movies since my last blog. Here's some lightning quick impressions. GameBox 1.0 was an interesting take on the "virtual reality game gone haywire" experiment, and even with its B movie production values, I was surprisingly entertained by it, 8/10. Clint Eastwood is simply phenomenal in Gran Torino. He nailed that role, and the character development with his supporting cast is some of the best I have seen in a movie yet, 9.5/10. Taken is nonstop badass! Simple plot premise with ex-special forces agent kicking as much ass as possible to rescue his daughter, and by any (shockingly) means necessary, 9/10. Vantage Point was one I've been meaning to catch for awhile now, and I dug it's concept on retelling the same crime scene from several different angles, always kept me thinking and I was legitimately surprised at the plot twist too, 7.5/10. I hope they do the same thing with Cloverfield and have a perspective from the military's point of view on that crazy night in New York. Finally, I watched My Name is Bruce last night at the recommendation of Bruce Campbell fans all over. I'm not a die-hard Campbell fan so some of the references flew right over my head, but the intentional cheesy B movie effects gave it that special charm that Bruce's past works always manage to deliver, 7.5/10
-I saw the final Late Night with Conan 'O Brien recently. I've been slacking and haven't kept up with the show as much in recent years, but for a couple years straight from around 2003-2005 I was lucky enough to have reruns of that show on every break at work. Can't wait to see what Conan has in store for when he takes over the Tonight Show in a few months, and it was refreshing to hear him say in his farewell that he's not going to tone down his act for the earlier time slot. If you missed the final show, it's on Hulu right now.
-Ever have one of those days where you make so many plans, you have no idea that you'll be able to keep up with them? That was me this past Saturday as I made four sets of plans for the day and was afraid I was going to end up putting a last second kabosh to one of them. Surprisingly, things went according to plan, as I first met up with my bro to record the aforementioned video review, then with Chris and Lyzz to record the latest On Tap, and then Jim and Paul swung by my place and we had a couple brews and tested our minds by playing some Buzz and Scene It trivia. Finally, I met up with my co-workers Dave and Brian and we hit the downtown bar scene, which is something I rarely get a chance to take advantage of. Over the past decade part of our downtown district has evolved into an awesome strip of bars where you can drunkenly stumble into the next bar. I definitely had my fair share of drinks that night, and was buzzing pretty good that I had no idea what I was doing when playing a round of Space Invaders of all things. All in all, was a fantastic day that freaking breezed right by.
-Ok, I'm finally done rambling yet again, latez!
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