Saturday, June 13, 2009
-Howdy! After another couple weeks I am back, I don't know it seems like two weeks. I recently got off working nine straight days due to work's yearly inventory madness, and then was rewarded with five of the next six days off so suffice it to say, time has been flying by.
-Made the most with those five days off however. I created a list of stuff I wanted to do each day, and to my surprise, everything went according to plan. Day one I went to my brother Bob’s for a grillout and had some of his killer burgers, then met up with some coworkers for drinks and Paul joined me at a local tavern in town for some awesome karaoke! I made Tom Petty proud with my rendition of “American Girl.” Either I did a good job or I was buzzing pretty good because the bar seem to have dug it and Paul said I was not all that bad either! After having a bevy of drinks and watching other fellow patrons sing their hearts away (including a person belting out “I Can Survive” complete with The Replacements background dancer choreography!) Paul and I practiced up several rounds of Halo 3.
Second night off was a little more relaxed, coworker Mike said we would rock out our yearly session of Starcraft and we got a good session in with him another friend of his as the three of us easily manhandled three comps! Another coworker of mine, Sean met up with me in Starcraft a little earlier and we took out some comps also. Why not dare the online adversaries, well that’s easy, that is because there are probably hardcore Korean Starcraft players hungry for noob blood! I miss the days of playing my favorite map, Shared Bases, and setting no rush limits in the pregame lobby that most players actually honored. No idea if they still do to this date, but the elimination of pregame lobbies in the matchmaking games in Warcraft III didn’t leave me that optimistic. hh
Third night off I threw a bonfire and invited some friends and family over. Always an affordable night of fun with a bonfire! Buy a bundle or two of wood and a six pack of my favorite cheap beer of Keystone Light, and for $8 that will provide three hours of good times. Richard, Joey and Libby & Chris and Lyzz made it over and we all had a few drinks while an occasional sprinkle from the clouds teased ending the fire early. Thank goodness it did not downpour. Day four I went down to Fargo and hung out with Matt & Danielle. We tried out a bunch of old Playstation games for an upcoming Podcast, and watched one of my favorite wrestling documentaries The Monday Night Wars (just try to ignore Briscoe’s and Pritchard’s kissass commentary and this is a very informative and entertaining look at some of wrestling’s most competitive and fascinating years!). Day five Scott and I joined Chris and Lyzz for some Rock Band 2 throwdown and hot podcast action....or something.
-Seen a plethora of flicks since my last update again. Star Trek was surprisingly badass. I know, everyone kept saying how great it was, but I was still pretty skeptical over that trailer. Somehow they made it work with good action and storytelling, and it still felt like Star Trek. Also caught The Hangover, which was freaking fantastic! Totally got into all the characters and nearly and all the jokes had the theater erupting. Also caught Benjamin Button and Bucket List from Netflix. Booooo to both of them.......for having such tear-jerker endings and being so damn great!
-As previously mentioned, we did record another podcast. Episode #99 of On Tap focused primarily on, what else, the system that is creeping up on its 10th anniversary of its 9/9/99 launch, the Sega Dreamcast! Lots of awesome reminiscing for system that had all but too short of a run before having its legs cut off. Plus lots of love for those maracas. Right click to download.
-Anyone keep up with this year's E3? I caught all of conferences off G4 this year, and as much as I am not a fan of G4 as I use to be, I will give them props for airing all of the conferences without commercials. Beat past years hoping for a good grainy stream off of IGN or Gamespot. To no ones surprise, Nintendo's conference was an incredible bore at points. I figured there would be a big emphasis on casual games, where other companies had a segment of their conference dedicated to casual games, Nintendo had a segment for core games, which at least they used to showcase Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. Sony's and Microsoft's both had far more intriguing conferences, because c'mon, they actually have games I want to play coming out.
On the Microsoft side, finally seeing Alan Wake in action and with the trailer revealing some of the basic premise and plot behind the game has me super psyched for this one. I dug the first Crackdown, so the second one will be an instant buy, but hopefully it will have a far more gripping narrative. Thought it did not seem to generate that much buzz I like the trailer/demonstration of Halo 3 ODST and will be buying that day one because I am a fan of the Halo lore and gameplay, and also throw in that they announced that Bungie is adding in their own version of Horde/Survival co-op mode and all the DLC Halo 3 maps I have yet to purchase and it is a surprisingly good value. For Sony, I am all over Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain. Uncharted I finally got around to recently picking up for about $30 used and haven't even tried it yet but after watching people play it for awhile I know I am going to love it. Heavenly Rain is by the people who made my 2005 game of the year Indigo Prophecy, which had a thrilling narrative and QTE/contextual driven controls. Heavy Rain appears to be the spiritual successor, with more evolved and interactive QTE controls, and some of the best graphics to grace the PS3. I believe ModNation Racers also has potential to be fantastic.
The Project Natal and new PS3 motion controller did not do anything for me, and I understand they are trying to cash in on the Wii casual audience, but it is just too late, and by the time it hits the Wii will be out for at least three years and it will be too late for their new hardware to make much of a difference. Other games showcased during E3 that have piqued my interest include Bethesda's Brink, even though no gameplay footage was publicly shown, I know it is from Bethesda who has never let me down so it will most likely not disappoint. Scribblenauts for the DS also has potential to be mind-blowing, if you have no idea what I am talking about Youtube some footage. Finally, Just Cause 2 I am especially anticipating because I really dug into the first one and its crazy off-the-walls approach it did to the sandbox genre, and the sequel looks more refined and appears to deliver its same brand of action.
-As far as what else I have been playing lately. A lot of Gears of War 2, still continuing my co-op campaign with Scott on Hardcore. During my 9 day stretch at work I restarted the game a third time the same co-worker who I beat Halo Wars and Marvel Ultimate Alliance with earlier this year because it has not started Gears 2 yet. And after four sessions we completely knocked it out in Hardcore, making Gears of War 2 in Hardcore difficulty game #10 beaten this year! Still playing a fair amount of Halo Wars, now trying my luck in the online matchmaking world and not fairing so well with only 2-9 record so far online. Joey and I started up a Dark Alliance campaign on Xbox and got a couple of sections in so far. Threw in MGS4 again recently too and am a few hours into chapter 3, which has consisted so far of about 30 minutes of gameplay and nearly 2 hours of cut scenes. I am also almost done with Resident Evil 5, I wrapped up chapter 5 yesterday and am taking my sweet time with it clocking in 12 hours at the moment (friends tell me it is only an 8 hour game). Probably said it on here before, but RE5 is the first RE game I have seriously got into, I like the new action-over-horror direction the series has taken (removing the tank controls is also a huge plus in my book!).
Also got around to trying out a few new demos. Joe and I had a blast putting up our dukes in Fight Night Round 4. Crazy real graphics, and simply fun boxing action, but I still prefer the Rocky games on Xbox as the better boxer. Played the new Red Faction Guerrilla demo and after hearing a lot of good impressions of it, and was delighted to find the new 3rd person perspective gameplay to pretty fun. Finally got around to trying the Infamous demo too, and while I would like to sustain a smidgin' more damage before crawling into safety, this was another crazy fun sandbox game. I will have to keep an eye out for this one too.
-For those that have been keeping up with the latest in pro wrestling, there has been a lot going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately Mr. Kennedy was released after making his long awaited return after being out for a year with a shoulder injury. He was back one night on RAW, apparently pissed off Randy Orton so bad in his match with him that he was fired several days later. That was unfortunate, but that saddening news was followed up with several pieces of great news - Umaga, the quintessential generic monster heel, got released for refusing to go to rehab after a wellness violation! Then Vickie Guerrero gave her notice and left the WWE, who I thought was a fine evil GM, but her stay has ran its course and the WWE went over the edge in how they portrayed her, and it is good to see that she walked away before it got any worse. Finally, Batista, the quintessential generic monster babyface, got injured and tore his biceps for the 38th time after only being back for two months and wil miss another several months of action!
I usually order One Night Stand/Extreme Rules PPV, but decided to pass on it this year after what appeared to be a been there/done that line-up. Of course I ended up kicking myself not getting as nearly every title defended that night changed hands, there were a few stellar match-ups and for surprise of the night CM Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank and won the World title mere moments after Jeff Hardy won it from Edge! What a show!! For my huge pile of wrestling DVDs I am behind on, I am currently almost through disc one of the TNA Kurt Angle set, which is has a far better balance of interviews and matches than most of the recent WWE releases. Also started up the latest WWE Hall of Fame BluRay disc and am about an hour into that.
-That wraps up another needlessly long entry, let's see if I can manage to plow through the rest of RE5 now!
-Made the most with those five days off however. I created a list of stuff I wanted to do each day, and to my surprise, everything went according to plan. Day one I went to my brother Bob’s for a grillout and had some of his killer burgers, then met up with some coworkers for drinks and Paul joined me at a local tavern in town for some awesome karaoke! I made Tom Petty proud with my rendition of “American Girl.” Either I did a good job or I was buzzing pretty good because the bar seem to have dug it and Paul said I was not all that bad either! After having a bevy of drinks and watching other fellow patrons sing their hearts away (including a person belting out “I Can Survive” complete with The Replacements background dancer choreography!) Paul and I practiced up several rounds of Halo 3.
Second night off was a little more relaxed, coworker Mike said we would rock out our yearly session of Starcraft and we got a good session in with him another friend of his as the three of us easily manhandled three comps! Another coworker of mine, Sean met up with me in Starcraft a little earlier and we took out some comps also. Why not dare the online adversaries, well that’s easy, that is because there are probably hardcore Korean Starcraft players hungry for noob blood! I miss the days of playing my favorite map, Shared Bases, and setting no rush limits in the pregame lobby that most players actually honored. No idea if they still do to this date, but the elimination of pregame lobbies in the matchmaking games in Warcraft III didn’t leave me that optimistic. hh
Third night off I threw a bonfire and invited some friends and family over. Always an affordable night of fun with a bonfire! Buy a bundle or two of wood and a six pack of my favorite cheap beer of Keystone Light, and for $8 that will provide three hours of good times. Richard, Joey and Libby & Chris and Lyzz made it over and we all had a few drinks while an occasional sprinkle from the clouds teased ending the fire early. Thank goodness it did not downpour. Day four I went down to Fargo and hung out with Matt & Danielle. We tried out a bunch of old Playstation games for an upcoming Podcast, and watched one of my favorite wrestling documentaries The Monday Night Wars (just try to ignore Briscoe’s and Pritchard’s kissass commentary and this is a very informative and entertaining look at some of wrestling’s most competitive and fascinating years!). Day five Scott and I joined Chris and Lyzz for some Rock Band 2 throwdown and hot podcast action....or something.
-Seen a plethora of flicks since my last update again. Star Trek was surprisingly badass. I know, everyone kept saying how great it was, but I was still pretty skeptical over that trailer. Somehow they made it work with good action and storytelling, and it still felt like Star Trek. Also caught The Hangover, which was freaking fantastic! Totally got into all the characters and nearly and all the jokes had the theater erupting. Also caught Benjamin Button and Bucket List from Netflix. Booooo to both of them.......for having such tear-jerker endings and being so damn great!
-As previously mentioned, we did record another podcast. Episode #99 of On Tap focused primarily on, what else, the system that is creeping up on its 10th anniversary of its 9/9/99 launch, the Sega Dreamcast! Lots of awesome reminiscing for system that had all but too short of a run before having its legs cut off. Plus lots of love for those maracas. Right click to download.
-Anyone keep up with this year's E3? I caught all of conferences off G4 this year, and as much as I am not a fan of G4 as I use to be, I will give them props for airing all of the conferences without commercials. Beat past years hoping for a good grainy stream off of IGN or Gamespot. To no ones surprise, Nintendo's conference was an incredible bore at points. I figured there would be a big emphasis on casual games, where other companies had a segment of their conference dedicated to casual games, Nintendo had a segment for core games, which at least they used to showcase Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. Sony's and Microsoft's both had far more intriguing conferences, because c'mon, they actually have games I want to play coming out.
On the Microsoft side, finally seeing Alan Wake in action and with the trailer revealing some of the basic premise and plot behind the game has me super psyched for this one. I dug the first Crackdown, so the second one will be an instant buy, but hopefully it will have a far more gripping narrative. Thought it did not seem to generate that much buzz I like the trailer/demonstration of Halo 3 ODST and will be buying that day one because I am a fan of the Halo lore and gameplay, and also throw in that they announced that Bungie is adding in their own version of Horde/Survival co-op mode and all the DLC Halo 3 maps I have yet to purchase and it is a surprisingly good value. For Sony, I am all over Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain. Uncharted I finally got around to recently picking up for about $30 used and haven't even tried it yet but after watching people play it for awhile I know I am going to love it. Heavenly Rain is by the people who made my 2005 game of the year Indigo Prophecy, which had a thrilling narrative and QTE/contextual driven controls. Heavy Rain appears to be the spiritual successor, with more evolved and interactive QTE controls, and some of the best graphics to grace the PS3. I believe ModNation Racers also has potential to be fantastic.
The Project Natal and new PS3 motion controller did not do anything for me, and I understand they are trying to cash in on the Wii casual audience, but it is just too late, and by the time it hits the Wii will be out for at least three years and it will be too late for their new hardware to make much of a difference. Other games showcased during E3 that have piqued my interest include Bethesda's Brink, even though no gameplay footage was publicly shown, I know it is from Bethesda who has never let me down so it will most likely not disappoint. Scribblenauts for the DS also has potential to be mind-blowing, if you have no idea what I am talking about Youtube some footage. Finally, Just Cause 2 I am especially anticipating because I really dug into the first one and its crazy off-the-walls approach it did to the sandbox genre, and the sequel looks more refined and appears to deliver its same brand of action.
-As far as what else I have been playing lately. A lot of Gears of War 2, still continuing my co-op campaign with Scott on Hardcore. During my 9 day stretch at work I restarted the game a third time the same co-worker who I beat Halo Wars and Marvel Ultimate Alliance with earlier this year because it has not started Gears 2 yet. And after four sessions we completely knocked it out in Hardcore, making Gears of War 2 in Hardcore difficulty game #10 beaten this year! Still playing a fair amount of Halo Wars, now trying my luck in the online matchmaking world and not fairing so well with only 2-9 record so far online. Joey and I started up a Dark Alliance campaign on Xbox and got a couple of sections in so far. Threw in MGS4 again recently too and am a few hours into chapter 3, which has consisted so far of about 30 minutes of gameplay and nearly 2 hours of cut scenes. I am also almost done with Resident Evil 5, I wrapped up chapter 5 yesterday and am taking my sweet time with it clocking in 12 hours at the moment (friends tell me it is only an 8 hour game). Probably said it on here before, but RE5 is the first RE game I have seriously got into, I like the new action-over-horror direction the series has taken (removing the tank controls is also a huge plus in my book!).
Also got around to trying out a few new demos. Joe and I had a blast putting up our dukes in Fight Night Round 4. Crazy real graphics, and simply fun boxing action, but I still prefer the Rocky games on Xbox as the better boxer. Played the new Red Faction Guerrilla demo and after hearing a lot of good impressions of it, and was delighted to find the new 3rd person perspective gameplay to pretty fun. Finally got around to trying the Infamous demo too, and while I would like to sustain a smidgin' more damage before crawling into safety, this was another crazy fun sandbox game. I will have to keep an eye out for this one too.
-For those that have been keeping up with the latest in pro wrestling, there has been a lot going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately Mr. Kennedy was released after making his long awaited return after being out for a year with a shoulder injury. He was back one night on RAW, apparently pissed off Randy Orton so bad in his match with him that he was fired several days later. That was unfortunate, but that saddening news was followed up with several pieces of great news - Umaga, the quintessential generic monster heel, got released for refusing to go to rehab after a wellness violation! Then Vickie Guerrero gave her notice and left the WWE, who I thought was a fine evil GM, but her stay has ran its course and the WWE went over the edge in how they portrayed her, and it is good to see that she walked away before it got any worse. Finally, Batista, the quintessential generic monster babyface, got injured and tore his biceps for the 38th time after only being back for two months and wil miss another several months of action!
I usually order One Night Stand/Extreme Rules PPV, but decided to pass on it this year after what appeared to be a been there/done that line-up. Of course I ended up kicking myself not getting as nearly every title defended that night changed hands, there were a few stellar match-ups and for surprise of the night CM Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank and won the World title mere moments after Jeff Hardy won it from Edge! What a show!! For my huge pile of wrestling DVDs I am behind on, I am currently almost through disc one of the TNA Kurt Angle set, which is has a far better balance of interviews and matches than most of the recent WWE releases. Also started up the latest WWE Hall of Fame BluRay disc and am about an hour into that.
-That wraps up another needlessly long entry, let's see if I can manage to plow through the rest of RE5 now!
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