Friday, October 30, 2009
-Damn I have been neglecting my LJ lately. Been pretty busy recently, just got back from my vacation a few days ago, I got a lot of stuff to catch up on, so I will try and breeze through what has been going on since my last update as swiftly as possible.
-I have been trying pretty hard to line up a job following my career. Really need to since I have to start paying back student loans pretty soon, which coincided with me starting back up for my yearly holiday help at Gamestop now for the sixth straight season. I went to a job fair and applied at the local radio station, and sent out a few more resumes. Last week I started writing for hardcoregamer.com. They use to have a magazine for a few years until a year ago, and from what I understand it will be coming back to print soon. In the meantime you can check out my first two reviews for them - Borderlands & Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. So far writing there has been going smoothly, and this is the first time I have committed to writing for a videogame site in a major role since the VGpub days (I have been occasionally freelancing for other sites since then). Here's to th future!
-October is a burden for birthdays. Our family has three to celebrate in one week. My father had his birthday first on the 11th, then my sister Ann on the 13th and finally my nephew Bryce on the 16th. Lots of running around to various restaurants and lots of gift buying ensued. Not that I mind that kind of thing, but that many so fast sure does know how to take a hit on the wallet. Highlight of the festivities though was for Ann's birthday we went out to The Phoenix, which I consider Shan-gri-La 2.0. Shan-gri-La was an old Chinese joint in town that our entire family loved that regrettably closed down in 2007. Last year however, a lot of old management and cooks collaborated and opened The Phoenix across town and it essentially is the same menu with the same great food!
-Here's a crazy one for the books. A few weeks back I get a call from my mom waking me up, she sounded like she just saw a ghost and was super terrified, but at the strangest of things. She called to tell me there was a squirrel, yes a squirrel, dead in the toilet and wanted me to come by and get it out. I was still half asleep and had no idea what to make of it in my state of mind and recalled saying something like "what are you talking about, that's crazy, I'm going back to bed?" I wake up a few hours later, and after taking in what she had to say again I thought I better call her to see if what she said was true and if she still needed the rodent to be taken care of. By then she found someone else to remove Mr. Chip 'n Dale from the pool.
I thought that would be the end of it, but I should have known better because knowing my mom and family and the way they tell stories, some things kept getting retold and minconstrued slightly different the next time around. Next thing I know, I had some of family getting ahold of me about how I'm a horrible son by refusing to come over and get that damn squirrel out. Of course they won't hear my side of the story, so thus I turn to Livejournal. Yayyy
-Dick made a visit up to Grand Forks in early October. Got a chance to grab some drinks with him, Dave and a couple of their friends at O'Reillys. Good times, and just like old times I had both of them and Paul and Chris over to watch the Hell in a Cell PPV. A PPV with three Hell in a Cell matches sounds worth chancing for me, and it ended up all right with Cena/Orton and DX/Legacy having pretty good matches.
-Everclear released a new CD a couple weeks ago, In a Different Light. It is an 11 track acoustic album, with only two new songs. Not all the songs are straight up acoustic, and some still contain a lot of their background instruments like accordians, etc. Art said on his website this album is indicative of how Everclear plays most of their past hits today. That is fair, as "Fire Maple Song" and "Strawberry" have a more distinct sound this time around, yet others sound almost identical as before. Cannot help to think this seems like a quick cash in with its paltry track selection.
-So how about them Niners!? Well, that is how I would have been come week four and them starting 3-1, now it is creeping up on week 8 and they are 3-3 and facing off against the undefeated Colts. I do not like the Niners' odds. I was a little surprised to see Alex Smith get subbed in and perform like an all-star from out of nowhere, throwing for over 200 yards and 3 TDs in just one half of football. I was a little optimistic for the Niners, but not anymore, thank goodness they still are in one of the worst divisions in the NFL.
-Some major wrestling news for those that haven't heard. Hulk Hogan and Eric Bishoff have signed with TNA. It appears Hogan will have some onscreen role, but him and Bishoff are primarily there as business partners and to help get TNA a second show on Spike with the goal to reignite the Monday Night Wars and go head-to-head with RAW. Interesting they want to attempt to try this again with almost all the people in TNA now that were in WCW in 1999 and 2000 when it went on its landslide into oblivion.
-On Tap's website is backup. If you tried going there within the last two month up until a couple weeks ago the site was down while we looked for a new server. We finally picked one out, and are back up online. Check out Ontappodcast.com for links to subscribe through iTunes, RSS and Zune. We have already posted a few new episodes too, including episodes that feature reviews for recent games like Wet, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Williams Pinball, Magna Carta 2 and Uncharted 2.
-I attended my second ever midnight launch for a game, with the game in question being Halo 3 ODST. Did not plan to have that night off in advance, things just worked out that way and I happened to be hanging out with a buddy who lived near the Gamestop I had it pre-ordered at and figured why not take the two minutes to go and pick it up. Of course I had to go there in style and rocked my KillZone 2 t-shirt when I got to the store a couple minutes shy of Midnight at the end of the line to a few surprised faces. I was hoping to make Uncharted 2 midnight launch game #3 for me, but to my sh'grin neither Gamestops in town had one because both stores did not have even 20 perorders each which I find shocking since I thought it was one of the top franchises on PS3.
-Since my last update I have quite a number of games to add to my games beaten list this year, seven total making a total of 28 games completed this year.
====#22 & 26 - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - The first time I beat it in online co-op with coworkers after playing it almost straight through within a week of its release. The second time was local co-op with Jake & Joey after playing it with them every Saturday morning for three weeks straight. Awesome game all around, maybe will classify it just a nudge under its predecessor. Something seemed missing to make this one seem superior.
====#23 - Guitar Hero Metallica - I picked away a few songs here and there throughout the career since it came out in April. Don't know why it took me so long, but it definitely did an awesome job at catching the Metallica feel. I want to go through it again one day on drums.
====#24 - Bioshock - Chris & Lyzz borrowed me this one, and I had a fantastic time with it. Went through it on easy just to plow through it and beat it after hearing so many good things about it all these years, and damn does it live up to the hype! After getting use to games that had IMO tougher "easy" difficulties like Resistance and Uncharted, I was a little surprised to find an easy mode that lived up to its name in Bioshock. I only died once, and that was because I was getting careless taking pics of a Big Daddy and not watching my health because there are health and ammo pickups all over! Even with that, this was awesome through and through and it has been awhile since I have played an FPS that has had this high calibur of storytelling. Everybody needs to play this game!
====#25 - Halo 3: ODST - Did this in online co-op with Chris & Lyzz. Joey & Jake told me they beat this in just under four hours, so Chris, Lyzz and I figure why not go through this on Legendary after recalling it not being so bad beating Halo 3 on Legendary. We did beat ODST on Legendary, but it took us much longer than most with a total playtime of around 9-10 hours, played out over several days. I wouldn't rank ODST right up there with past Halo campaign experiences, but this was still a fun playthrough and the Firefight mode and complete Halo 3 multiplayer disc makes ODST a good value.
====#27 - Uncharted 2 - Holy crap what a game, this will go right up there with RE5 in deciding my game of the year! I loved the first game, and convinced myself to play this one on Normal. I died dozens upon dozens of times misreading a jump and on other screw-ups, but it was worth it in the long run. Other than a few small nitpicks, there is a ton of variety in gameplay and it is fun throughout and that narrative is something else! I hate to admit it, but like the commercials boast it almost feels like you are watching a movie. I could not help but get a craving to watch National Treasure again after beating Uncharted 2.
====#28 - TMNT Smash Up - Matt picked this up on the Wii, and it is developed by a lot of people who worked on Smash Bros., and you can tell because Smash-Up plays exactly like Smash Bros., but with the TMNT license. It was pretty fun too, and like past Smash Bros. games, I was able to smoke through the "story" mode within 20 minutes.
Aside from those games that I have beaten, here is what else that has been consuming most of my game time lately
-Phoenix Wright: And Justice For All - Finally beat the third case, only one more left!
-WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2009 - Yesterday I finally got the last achievement (induct 5 superstars into Hall of Fame, a major time sync!), which makes this the fifth disc based game I got 100% gamerscore for.
-Buzz Quiz TV - Still creating a lot of quizzes for Buzz, and I can easily loose track of time playing the "what's popular" section of user-created quizzes.
-Borderlands - Check out the link at the top of this blog for my review, Borderlands is fresh, different and an absolute blast to play in online co-op! Must buy for any lootfest fan!
-Flower - I cannot help but bask in melloing out to this game.
-Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection - I am still hooked to Zen Pinball & Pinball FX, but this disc based collection of 13 tables is wrapping me in even moreso. Great representation of pinball physics that sets it apart from the crazy fast paced speeds in the Zen games.
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Check out the link to the review above. Played this a ton on downtime and during my airfare on my vacation to Georgia and South Carolina, which will be completely detailed in my next blog update because this one has already went on for far too long.
-That's all I have for now, later!
-I have been trying pretty hard to line up a job following my career. Really need to since I have to start paying back student loans pretty soon, which coincided with me starting back up for my yearly holiday help at Gamestop now for the sixth straight season. I went to a job fair and applied at the local radio station, and sent out a few more resumes. Last week I started writing for hardcoregamer.com. They use to have a magazine for a few years until a year ago, and from what I understand it will be coming back to print soon. In the meantime you can check out my first two reviews for them - Borderlands & Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. So far writing there has been going smoothly, and this is the first time I have committed to writing for a videogame site in a major role since the VGpub days (I have been occasionally freelancing for other sites since then). Here's to th future!
-October is a burden for birthdays. Our family has three to celebrate in one week. My father had his birthday first on the 11th, then my sister Ann on the 13th and finally my nephew Bryce on the 16th. Lots of running around to various restaurants and lots of gift buying ensued. Not that I mind that kind of thing, but that many so fast sure does know how to take a hit on the wallet. Highlight of the festivities though was for Ann's birthday we went out to The Phoenix, which I consider Shan-gri-La 2.0. Shan-gri-La was an old Chinese joint in town that our entire family loved that regrettably closed down in 2007. Last year however, a lot of old management and cooks collaborated and opened The Phoenix across town and it essentially is the same menu with the same great food!
-Here's a crazy one for the books. A few weeks back I get a call from my mom waking me up, she sounded like she just saw a ghost and was super terrified, but at the strangest of things. She called to tell me there was a squirrel, yes a squirrel, dead in the toilet and wanted me to come by and get it out. I was still half asleep and had no idea what to make of it in my state of mind and recalled saying something like "what are you talking about, that's crazy, I'm going back to bed?" I wake up a few hours later, and after taking in what she had to say again I thought I better call her to see if what she said was true and if she still needed the rodent to be taken care of. By then she found someone else to remove Mr. Chip 'n Dale from the pool.
I thought that would be the end of it, but I should have known better because knowing my mom and family and the way they tell stories, some things kept getting retold and minconstrued slightly different the next time around. Next thing I know, I had some of family getting ahold of me about how I'm a horrible son by refusing to come over and get that damn squirrel out. Of course they won't hear my side of the story, so thus I turn to Livejournal. Yayyy
-Dick made a visit up to Grand Forks in early October. Got a chance to grab some drinks with him, Dave and a couple of their friends at O'Reillys. Good times, and just like old times I had both of them and Paul and Chris over to watch the Hell in a Cell PPV. A PPV with three Hell in a Cell matches sounds worth chancing for me, and it ended up all right with Cena/Orton and DX/Legacy having pretty good matches.
-Everclear released a new CD a couple weeks ago, In a Different Light. It is an 11 track acoustic album, with only two new songs. Not all the songs are straight up acoustic, and some still contain a lot of their background instruments like accordians, etc. Art said on his website this album is indicative of how Everclear plays most of their past hits today. That is fair, as "Fire Maple Song" and "Strawberry" have a more distinct sound this time around, yet others sound almost identical as before. Cannot help to think this seems like a quick cash in with its paltry track selection.
-So how about them Niners!? Well, that is how I would have been come week four and them starting 3-1, now it is creeping up on week 8 and they are 3-3 and facing off against the undefeated Colts. I do not like the Niners' odds. I was a little surprised to see Alex Smith get subbed in and perform like an all-star from out of nowhere, throwing for over 200 yards and 3 TDs in just one half of football. I was a little optimistic for the Niners, but not anymore, thank goodness they still are in one of the worst divisions in the NFL.
-Some major wrestling news for those that haven't heard. Hulk Hogan and Eric Bishoff have signed with TNA. It appears Hogan will have some onscreen role, but him and Bishoff are primarily there as business partners and to help get TNA a second show on Spike with the goal to reignite the Monday Night Wars and go head-to-head with RAW. Interesting they want to attempt to try this again with almost all the people in TNA now that were in WCW in 1999 and 2000 when it went on its landslide into oblivion.
-On Tap's website is backup. If you tried going there within the last two month up until a couple weeks ago the site was down while we looked for a new server. We finally picked one out, and are back up online. Check out Ontappodcast.com for links to subscribe through iTunes, RSS and Zune. We have already posted a few new episodes too, including episodes that feature reviews for recent games like Wet, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Williams Pinball, Magna Carta 2 and Uncharted 2.
-I attended my second ever midnight launch for a game, with the game in question being Halo 3 ODST. Did not plan to have that night off in advance, things just worked out that way and I happened to be hanging out with a buddy who lived near the Gamestop I had it pre-ordered at and figured why not take the two minutes to go and pick it up. Of course I had to go there in style and rocked my KillZone 2 t-shirt when I got to the store a couple minutes shy of Midnight at the end of the line to a few surprised faces. I was hoping to make Uncharted 2 midnight launch game #3 for me, but to my sh'grin neither Gamestops in town had one because both stores did not have even 20 perorders each which I find shocking since I thought it was one of the top franchises on PS3.
-Since my last update I have quite a number of games to add to my games beaten list this year, seven total making a total of 28 games completed this year.
====#22 & 26 - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - The first time I beat it in online co-op with coworkers after playing it almost straight through within a week of its release. The second time was local co-op with Jake & Joey after playing it with them every Saturday morning for three weeks straight. Awesome game all around, maybe will classify it just a nudge under its predecessor. Something seemed missing to make this one seem superior.
====#23 - Guitar Hero Metallica - I picked away a few songs here and there throughout the career since it came out in April. Don't know why it took me so long, but it definitely did an awesome job at catching the Metallica feel. I want to go through it again one day on drums.
====#24 - Bioshock - Chris & Lyzz borrowed me this one, and I had a fantastic time with it. Went through it on easy just to plow through it and beat it after hearing so many good things about it all these years, and damn does it live up to the hype! After getting use to games that had IMO tougher "easy" difficulties like Resistance and Uncharted, I was a little surprised to find an easy mode that lived up to its name in Bioshock. I only died once, and that was because I was getting careless taking pics of a Big Daddy and not watching my health because there are health and ammo pickups all over! Even with that, this was awesome through and through and it has been awhile since I have played an FPS that has had this high calibur of storytelling. Everybody needs to play this game!
====#25 - Halo 3: ODST - Did this in online co-op with Chris & Lyzz. Joey & Jake told me they beat this in just under four hours, so Chris, Lyzz and I figure why not go through this on Legendary after recalling it not being so bad beating Halo 3 on Legendary. We did beat ODST on Legendary, but it took us much longer than most with a total playtime of around 9-10 hours, played out over several days. I wouldn't rank ODST right up there with past Halo campaign experiences, but this was still a fun playthrough and the Firefight mode and complete Halo 3 multiplayer disc makes ODST a good value.
====#27 - Uncharted 2 - Holy crap what a game, this will go right up there with RE5 in deciding my game of the year! I loved the first game, and convinced myself to play this one on Normal. I died dozens upon dozens of times misreading a jump and on other screw-ups, but it was worth it in the long run. Other than a few small nitpicks, there is a ton of variety in gameplay and it is fun throughout and that narrative is something else! I hate to admit it, but like the commercials boast it almost feels like you are watching a movie. I could not help but get a craving to watch National Treasure again after beating Uncharted 2.
====#28 - TMNT Smash Up - Matt picked this up on the Wii, and it is developed by a lot of people who worked on Smash Bros., and you can tell because Smash-Up plays exactly like Smash Bros., but with the TMNT license. It was pretty fun too, and like past Smash Bros. games, I was able to smoke through the "story" mode within 20 minutes.
Aside from those games that I have beaten, here is what else that has been consuming most of my game time lately
-Phoenix Wright: And Justice For All - Finally beat the third case, only one more left!
-WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2009 - Yesterday I finally got the last achievement (induct 5 superstars into Hall of Fame, a major time sync!), which makes this the fifth disc based game I got 100% gamerscore for.
-Buzz Quiz TV - Still creating a lot of quizzes for Buzz, and I can easily loose track of time playing the "what's popular" section of user-created quizzes.
-Borderlands - Check out the link at the top of this blog for my review, Borderlands is fresh, different and an absolute blast to play in online co-op! Must buy for any lootfest fan!
-Flower - I cannot help but bask in melloing out to this game.
-Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection - I am still hooked to Zen Pinball & Pinball FX, but this disc based collection of 13 tables is wrapping me in even moreso. Great representation of pinball physics that sets it apart from the crazy fast paced speeds in the Zen games.
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Check out the link to the review above. Played this a ton on downtime and during my airfare on my vacation to Georgia and South Carolina, which will be completely detailed in my next blog update because this one has already went on for far too long.
-That's all I have for now, later!
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