Monday, June 07, 2010
-Well, so much for the consecutive biweekly updates. I have been pretty busy enjoying the first few weeks of summer and an highly irregular flood of superb games coming out this time of year.
-Now I have heard of these going on in the Twin Cities for quite a number of years now, but was recently made aware that the annual Zombie Pub Crawl would be proceeding for its 4th year in Fargo. For those who have not heard of a Zombie Pub Crawl, it is pretty self explanatory where one wanders the downtown watering holes and indulge in alcohol while in the guise of a zombie. Some of the undead go all out with their costumes, busting out the flaky skin and blood that looks like it is really oozing out of them. For the group of coworkers I attended with, we all just slabbed on some basic red and black facepaint we picked up at Spencers. I did not even go for a zombie look and instead put on black paint in the style of the Ultimate Warrior, thus I was Warrior zombie. We all got pretty hammered that night, Dave especially.
We kept finding ourselves hitting up this dance club, now I am not usually a fan of dance clubs, at least the one in my hometown because of the overplayed top 40 music that usually dominates its stereos. This place however had a bunch of unique mixes that I never heard of before so I presumed they must have been a local DJs own home-brewed mixes. They actually had me bopping a little bit. One thing I learned out of the night was if you want to manage some sleep in the night then never, ever have six guys share one hotel room again. The next morning I had iHop for the first time, and their stuffed French Toast was mighty toasty. Oddly enough, a week or two after I went to the Fargo iHop, we finally had one open in Grand Forks.
-A week ago I helped Scott move across town. It was not even that far across town, literally only several blocks from his other place. The only thing that sucked was that it was a third story move to another third story move. Having quite a few pieces of bulky furniture did not help matters much either, but on the flipside it was a blessing in disguise because doing that exhaustive of a move in 91 degree weather was a workout I desperately needed.
-I also got a fair amount of sun camping at Lake Sarah last weekend with my dad, Joe and Richard. A surprising amount of sun actually because they were forecasting scattered thundershowers both days, and we got lucky because we saw them in the distance, with some nasty lightning withing a mile or two of us, and we only managed about 10-15 minutes of off and on drizzling. First night it was just my dad and I and we kicked back and enjoyed a nights fire for awhile, and sucked down some brews. Finished off the night watching a couple random movies I packed along, one being a recent Steve Austin straight-to-DVD flick called Damage where he portrays an ex-con out on paroll, now fighting in the underground circuit so he can pay for a little girl's heart transplant. For straight-to-DVD it was all right, Stone Cold has definitely grew as an actor and has a stronger presence since his last flick, The Condemned. Also seeing Walton Goggins of The Shield having a major role in the flick put a smile on my face. We then finished the night watching In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Why do I own this Uwe Boll disasterpiece? I have no solid answer for that except to satisfy my craving for bad videogame movies.
Second day of camping was fun too. Joe and Rich joined us, and we spent most of the day grilling and drinking and enjoying a solid bonfire throughout most of the day. We did not pay for firewood at all since my dad brought some from home, and throughout the two days both him and Richard kept bringing more spare pieces they scavenged out of the woods. We went inside our cabin for awhile when it started to drizzle and we busted out some NES and Risk. On the NES we played four player Super Off Road, and I forgot how hard the computer AI get in that game. I was the last one left until I was eliminated at race 25. For the first time in a long ass time I won a free for all game. I thought I was going to get eliminated early too because of the luck of the draw of Risk cards I had no choice but to go for Asia, but my dad wanted it too and obliterate most of my armies in the first round with some mighty lucky dice rolls. This resulted in me being forced to retreat to Europe for several turn while I accumulated Risk cards and slowly rebuilt my armies. I was able to have save refuge their because my dad spread his forces too thin trying to take over Asia right away. I kept picking away at a border Asia country each turn to prevent his bonuses, and by the time I cashed in my Risk cards I was able to build enough of an army to move down into Africa and pick off the last of Rich's straggling troops to get his Risk cards. Then, I was able to finish off Joe another turn or two later, and then my dad. That rarely happens, and as a result it was an awesome camping trip!
-Unfortunately Risk did not go that well for me when I met up with Jim, Paul, Mike and Joe to play a few weeks earlier. Joey and I lost right away in our warm up team round of Risk. Mike arrived a little later and we did a 5 player free for all version of Risk. I made a foolish mistake on the first turn trying to attack Paul's stash of armies right away, and my attempts at retreat pissed off the other players and I was left to a handful of scattered armies for a few turns before finally being eliminated. Had a better time meeting up with the same crew, along with Scott when we met up for karaoke last weekend. I did a pretty good rendition of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," but later too much alcohol caused me to do a disastrous attempt at David Bowie's "Under Pressure." Sill had plenty of fun times all around.
-As I alluded to in my last blog, I finally canceled Cable. Bullrun and Lost finished up, and I finished up watching 24 on Hulu and have been keeping up with the latest episodes of the Office on Hulu too. I have been watching RAW at Matt's, and entire episodes of Smackdown, Superstars and NXT on Hulu as well. TNA posts several clips of Impact on YouTube each week, and for as poorly booked as that show is, that will suffice for me! So with that out of the way, I am going to have some quick thoughts on some of the season finales. I commented on the last Bullrun episode on my last blog so I will focus this blog on series finales of Lost & 24. MILD SPOILERS AHEAD
24 - The President's demise I saw coming once they started to foreshadow it with the golden pen. They got that out of the way, but part of me really wanted to see Jack assassinate the Russian President and ignite World War 3. What they did though made sense in the spirit of the show, and I really liked Jack's farewell to Chloe. If 2008's 24: Redemption special was a sign of things on the horizon, I look forward to the long rumored and inevitable movies of 24 to come. Now all I need to do is watch season 3 and 7 and I am all caught up, and play the 24 game that has been sitting in my backlog for quite some time.
Lost - Where do you begin on Lost. This last season has finally addressed many of the questions that have been dangling for years in the Lost universe, especially the last few episodes. They did not address everything, I do not think it would be humanly possible, and some of the things they did address they did not really explain that well or left it up to the viewer's interpretation, especially the ending. My whole theory is that the alternate universe they were in was a form of Purgatory, and Christian opening the door was him allowing them all into heaven now since all of them have now passed, but why weren't Alpert, Miles and LaPeidas there? I really liked the final episode as a whole now thinking a couple weeks back on it. I can finally say I am at ease now that show is over and I do not have ponder over its many, many issues.
-I got my new Triton stereo surround sound headphones in since my last blog. They are tremendous! Playing through all of Alan Wake in them provided the right kind of immersive atmosphere. Overall these are a big step up from the previous set of satellite speakers I had.
-So what have I been playing since my last blog? Let's do some rapid fire thoughts...
-Just Cause 2 - Finally beat this shortly after my last blog. Awesome game, and with its many tweaks and improvements it is superior than the first.
-Alan Wake - plowed through this within a week of its release. Absolutely loved this game, its setting, the core gameplay and the narrative. It all combined to form a great package and is an early game of the year contender for me. For more of my thoughts on Alan Wake, check out my full review
-Zeno Clash - This is a unique first person brawler, published by Atlus on XBLA. Really good looking for a downloadable game, and it features an in-depth story mode too. While it has some faults, I still had a pretty good time with it, check out my full review for more details.
-Backbreaker - Tried the demo and it impressed me enough that I bought the full game. Some things I was not quite sold on, but the unique camera cuts and presentation style were different enough from the same old Madden formula that it motivated me to support this up and coming football game that is going to compete with the NCAA and Madden goliaths.
-All-Pro Football 2K8 - After playing the Backbreaker demo, I finally felt compelled to rock out All-Pro again and finish the last couple rounds of playoffs I had in the season. It's too EA got greedy and went after all the Legends contracts so 2K could not pump out another pigskin game.
-Split/Second - Rented this and it reminded me a lot of the movie Death Race where you activate obstacles and other hurdles to knock your rivals out of the race. The boss battles and survival/elimination races were pretty fun too, though halfway into the season I was starting to get a little bored and also irritated how often one crash can turn your first place position into a last position finish. Still a pretty fun and unique racer, but I had a better time with Blur.
-Retro Game Challenge - Got addicted to this again the past week. Finished up all the challenges for Star Prince, Haggle Man 2 and Rally King SP and am now working on the full featured Dragon Warrior-esque RPG, Guardia Quest. I just love this game so much because it is nearly a faithful rendition of growing up in the NES era and what it felt like to be a kid and play the hell out of each game.
-Gun - Did a speed run through this in anticipation of Red Dead Redemption because I knew once I got into Red Dead, this launch 360 game would feel extremely dated. Still managed to have a good time with it, and it is too bad Neversoft never got around to make a sequel to this and flesh out the foundation they laid down with Gun.
-Red Dead Redemption - Only a few missions into the main campaign, and I spent a couple hours doing some online deathmatch and coop gang hideouts. Even after just putting in several hours I know that this is going to be one of my all-time favorite open world games. Cannot wait to dive in more!
-That wraps up another insanely long blog, this is what happens when I wait more than a couple weeks to update!
-Now I have heard of these going on in the Twin Cities for quite a number of years now, but was recently made aware that the annual Zombie Pub Crawl would be proceeding for its 4th year in Fargo. For those who have not heard of a Zombie Pub Crawl, it is pretty self explanatory where one wanders the downtown watering holes and indulge in alcohol while in the guise of a zombie. Some of the undead go all out with their costumes, busting out the flaky skin and blood that looks like it is really oozing out of them. For the group of coworkers I attended with, we all just slabbed on some basic red and black facepaint we picked up at Spencers. I did not even go for a zombie look and instead put on black paint in the style of the Ultimate Warrior, thus I was Warrior zombie. We all got pretty hammered that night, Dave especially.
We kept finding ourselves hitting up this dance club, now I am not usually a fan of dance clubs, at least the one in my hometown because of the overplayed top 40 music that usually dominates its stereos. This place however had a bunch of unique mixes that I never heard of before so I presumed they must have been a local DJs own home-brewed mixes. They actually had me bopping a little bit. One thing I learned out of the night was if you want to manage some sleep in the night then never, ever have six guys share one hotel room again. The next morning I had iHop for the first time, and their stuffed French Toast was mighty toasty. Oddly enough, a week or two after I went to the Fargo iHop, we finally had one open in Grand Forks.
-A week ago I helped Scott move across town. It was not even that far across town, literally only several blocks from his other place. The only thing that sucked was that it was a third story move to another third story move. Having quite a few pieces of bulky furniture did not help matters much either, but on the flipside it was a blessing in disguise because doing that exhaustive of a move in 91 degree weather was a workout I desperately needed.
-I also got a fair amount of sun camping at Lake Sarah last weekend with my dad, Joe and Richard. A surprising amount of sun actually because they were forecasting scattered thundershowers both days, and we got lucky because we saw them in the distance, with some nasty lightning withing a mile or two of us, and we only managed about 10-15 minutes of off and on drizzling. First night it was just my dad and I and we kicked back and enjoyed a nights fire for awhile, and sucked down some brews. Finished off the night watching a couple random movies I packed along, one being a recent Steve Austin straight-to-DVD flick called Damage where he portrays an ex-con out on paroll, now fighting in the underground circuit so he can pay for a little girl's heart transplant. For straight-to-DVD it was all right, Stone Cold has definitely grew as an actor and has a stronger presence since his last flick, The Condemned. Also seeing Walton Goggins of The Shield having a major role in the flick put a smile on my face. We then finished the night watching In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Why do I own this Uwe Boll disasterpiece? I have no solid answer for that except to satisfy my craving for bad videogame movies.
Second day of camping was fun too. Joe and Rich joined us, and we spent most of the day grilling and drinking and enjoying a solid bonfire throughout most of the day. We did not pay for firewood at all since my dad brought some from home, and throughout the two days both him and Richard kept bringing more spare pieces they scavenged out of the woods. We went inside our cabin for awhile when it started to drizzle and we busted out some NES and Risk. On the NES we played four player Super Off Road, and I forgot how hard the computer AI get in that game. I was the last one left until I was eliminated at race 25. For the first time in a long ass time I won a free for all game. I thought I was going to get eliminated early too because of the luck of the draw of Risk cards I had no choice but to go for Asia, but my dad wanted it too and obliterate most of my armies in the first round with some mighty lucky dice rolls. This resulted in me being forced to retreat to Europe for several turn while I accumulated Risk cards and slowly rebuilt my armies. I was able to have save refuge their because my dad spread his forces too thin trying to take over Asia right away. I kept picking away at a border Asia country each turn to prevent his bonuses, and by the time I cashed in my Risk cards I was able to build enough of an army to move down into Africa and pick off the last of Rich's straggling troops to get his Risk cards. Then, I was able to finish off Joe another turn or two later, and then my dad. That rarely happens, and as a result it was an awesome camping trip!
-Unfortunately Risk did not go that well for me when I met up with Jim, Paul, Mike and Joe to play a few weeks earlier. Joey and I lost right away in our warm up team round of Risk. Mike arrived a little later and we did a 5 player free for all version of Risk. I made a foolish mistake on the first turn trying to attack Paul's stash of armies right away, and my attempts at retreat pissed off the other players and I was left to a handful of scattered armies for a few turns before finally being eliminated. Had a better time meeting up with the same crew, along with Scott when we met up for karaoke last weekend. I did a pretty good rendition of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," but later too much alcohol caused me to do a disastrous attempt at David Bowie's "Under Pressure." Sill had plenty of fun times all around.
-As I alluded to in my last blog, I finally canceled Cable. Bullrun and Lost finished up, and I finished up watching 24 on Hulu and have been keeping up with the latest episodes of the Office on Hulu too. I have been watching RAW at Matt's, and entire episodes of Smackdown, Superstars and NXT on Hulu as well. TNA posts several clips of Impact on YouTube each week, and for as poorly booked as that show is, that will suffice for me! So with that out of the way, I am going to have some quick thoughts on some of the season finales. I commented on the last Bullrun episode on my last blog so I will focus this blog on series finales of Lost & 24. MILD SPOILERS AHEAD
24 - The President's demise I saw coming once they started to foreshadow it with the golden pen. They got that out of the way, but part of me really wanted to see Jack assassinate the Russian President and ignite World War 3. What they did though made sense in the spirit of the show, and I really liked Jack's farewell to Chloe. If 2008's 24: Redemption special was a sign of things on the horizon, I look forward to the long rumored and inevitable movies of 24 to come. Now all I need to do is watch season 3 and 7 and I am all caught up, and play the 24 game that has been sitting in my backlog for quite some time.
Lost - Where do you begin on Lost. This last season has finally addressed many of the questions that have been dangling for years in the Lost universe, especially the last few episodes. They did not address everything, I do not think it would be humanly possible, and some of the things they did address they did not really explain that well or left it up to the viewer's interpretation, especially the ending. My whole theory is that the alternate universe they were in was a form of Purgatory, and Christian opening the door was him allowing them all into heaven now since all of them have now passed, but why weren't Alpert, Miles and LaPeidas there? I really liked the final episode as a whole now thinking a couple weeks back on it. I can finally say I am at ease now that show is over and I do not have ponder over its many, many issues.
-I got my new Triton stereo surround sound headphones in since my last blog. They are tremendous! Playing through all of Alan Wake in them provided the right kind of immersive atmosphere. Overall these are a big step up from the previous set of satellite speakers I had.
-So what have I been playing since my last blog? Let's do some rapid fire thoughts...
-Just Cause 2 - Finally beat this shortly after my last blog. Awesome game, and with its many tweaks and improvements it is superior than the first.
-Alan Wake - plowed through this within a week of its release. Absolutely loved this game, its setting, the core gameplay and the narrative. It all combined to form a great package and is an early game of the year contender for me. For more of my thoughts on Alan Wake, check out my full review
-Zeno Clash - This is a unique first person brawler, published by Atlus on XBLA. Really good looking for a downloadable game, and it features an in-depth story mode too. While it has some faults, I still had a pretty good time with it, check out my full review for more details.
-Backbreaker - Tried the demo and it impressed me enough that I bought the full game. Some things I was not quite sold on, but the unique camera cuts and presentation style were different enough from the same old Madden formula that it motivated me to support this up and coming football game that is going to compete with the NCAA and Madden goliaths.
-All-Pro Football 2K8 - After playing the Backbreaker demo, I finally felt compelled to rock out All-Pro again and finish the last couple rounds of playoffs I had in the season. It's too EA got greedy and went after all the Legends contracts so 2K could not pump out another pigskin game.
-Split/Second - Rented this and it reminded me a lot of the movie Death Race where you activate obstacles and other hurdles to knock your rivals out of the race. The boss battles and survival/elimination races were pretty fun too, though halfway into the season I was starting to get a little bored and also irritated how often one crash can turn your first place position into a last position finish. Still a pretty fun and unique racer, but I had a better time with Blur.
-Retro Game Challenge - Got addicted to this again the past week. Finished up all the challenges for Star Prince, Haggle Man 2 and Rally King SP and am now working on the full featured Dragon Warrior-esque RPG, Guardia Quest. I just love this game so much because it is nearly a faithful rendition of growing up in the NES era and what it felt like to be a kid and play the hell out of each game.
-Gun - Did a speed run through this in anticipation of Red Dead Redemption because I knew once I got into Red Dead, this launch 360 game would feel extremely dated. Still managed to have a good time with it, and it is too bad Neversoft never got around to make a sequel to this and flesh out the foundation they laid down with Gun.
-Red Dead Redemption - Only a few missions into the main campaign, and I spent a couple hours doing some online deathmatch and coop gang hideouts. Even after just putting in several hours I know that this is going to be one of my all-time favorite open world games. Cannot wait to dive in more!
-That wraps up another insanely long blog, this is what happens when I wait more than a couple weeks to update!
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