It's here...

Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls, children of all ages, Street Fighter 4 is here. I got my import copy in the mail this past Friday and I just have one thing to say:

STREET FIGHTER 4 IS MUTHAFUCKIN' TIZZITE!!!!

That is all.

It's almost over...

Call me scrooge if you want but I'll tell you..I don't really care for the holidays.

As a child and a young man I thought they were great. The family, the friends and the gifts I loved all of it. It's in adulthood that I began to loose the taste for Christmas. I think allot of it is the commercialism. No wait that's most of it. X-mas is a business theses days. Companies do their best the last quarter of the year to get into your wallet. The crazy sales and 4 A.M. openings are crazy. I absolutely HATE black Friday. I think it's terrible. The only thing I look forward to is seeing how many Walmart trampling took place that day. Which just goes to show you how bad people are to one another to save a buck. Like this year there was a shooting in front of a Toys r us somewhere. The Only good thing was that both people killed each other...two less assholes on the street for next year, right? Okay that might be a bit harsh but damn, violence at a toys r us? What the hell.

There is a slight renewed interest however since the birth of my son. He's still too young to really know whats going on but i look forward to those good years where he gets excited and I see how much happiness I can bring him. I'm still cynical about the rest of what Christmas entails.

Well, I'll just keep my fingers crossed for the next 48 hours or so. I'm going to do my best to keep out of trouble. Until next time my friends....

We're in the fall

Hi everybody! So October has come and gone already and we're left with some great games in it's aftermath. I'd like you to know that out of the six games I bought in October I opened all but two.
I think my favorite so far would have to be Fallout 3. At least it's the one I'm into the most. The game is pretty good. It's the first RPG i've picked up in a long time. It's actually kind of overwhelming at first. The land is so vast and all of it is open to you right at the beginning. I think I've been playing for 10 hours or so and I don't think I'm even close to finishing it. The story is good and the game is nice and violent so I have no real complaints so far.

I started little big planet a few days ago and that's okay so far. I think I'm still waiting to have my "moment" with that game though. Everybody has been really high on the game even way before it's release. I get the feeling that I'm supposed to fall in love with the game right away but so far it hasn't happened yet. I like it don't get me wrong but it just hasn't happened yet. My wife and I even started playing it together and she likes it. In fact She enjoys really playing with me. She might like it more then I do but I don't know.

I just have the same complaint everybody else it having. All these games, not enough time. Like I've spent the last two or three nights up until like 2 AM playing Fallout. It takes something pretty special to make me stay up that late to play anything. I try my best to concentrate on one game at a time. Two tops. It's the best way for me to get through them. The year will end I still won't have them all complete. There still four more games for me to buy this year. Two of them I'm really looking forward to. I'm mostly hyped up for Left for dead. I'm also looking forward to MK vs. DC universe which I had my reservations about at first but after seeing some screen shots and reading some previews I'm looking forward to it. I've decided to pass on Prince of Persia. I'm just not feeling it right now. That and I've given the game industry enough of a donation this year.

You'd think with all these cool games that I wouldn't be so eager to get to next years games so quickly. But yeah I am. Street Fighter 4 comes out in February! Hell if it hits Japan before the US you better believe I'm importing it! I'm not being left out of this one. You can't forget Resident Evil 5 in march. What about the game that I was looking forward to this year more then any other game and got dropped by it's publisher. Thats right, Ghostbusters! Which I guess has been picked up by Atari games yet they have yet to make an official announcement about it.
I really hope they say something soon.

So that's it for now, I have to check back in with election coverage. Until next time...

The Fall is upon Us....

Hello again. Fall is here! You know what that means. More game releases then you can shake a stick at! I've already bought three, and one of them has pissed me off. Fortunately I will have plenty of selection in the weeks to come.

Fall is great after all. I love the weather the most. Tonight it's brisk outside. And when I was cruising around tonight is was about 55 degrees or so. Perfect weather my friends! It gets dark early which is nice too. The one thing I don't like is all these god damn games coming out within days of each other. I've already dropped almost two hundred bucks on new games in about a span of seven days. Uhhh. But as I always say no one ever said being first had to be cheap. Plus I just can't help myself. For years when I was a kid I had to make choices about games I got. Now that I'm an adult and have income, I want it all darn it! Okay, maybe not everything, but the games I want.

So far I've gotten my feet wet in two games, Silent Hill :Homecoming and Dead Space. I got Silent hill last week. My initial impression is that the game is good so far. I don't find it as creepy as Silent Hill 3, which is my favorite even though everyone else swears by number 2, but it's good non the less. Only thing is, I've probably been playing for about 5 hours or so and I've already found a puzzle pissing me off. It's one of those puzzles where you have to slide the pieces around to make the picture but I can't seem to do it. Even though the last time I tried was several days ago. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

See, I have this bad habit of not going back to games. What I mean is that I'll play a game, get to a point where I can't go any further and stop playing it for a long period of time. More then likely shelving it and never touching it again. Sometimes I go back later, but then I have to start over again because It's been so long and that can be discouraging. I own quite a few games, and out of my entire collection, I would have to guess that I've finished about two thirds of what I own. Or sometimes game just keep coming out and rather then finishing one before starting another I open a new one and the old one gets shoved to the bottom of the pile. It's terrible I know. It's not like these things are cheap after all. What other hobby do you spend sixty bucks a hit on something and never finish it? Even worse, I own games that aren't opened at all. What would you say if I told you that I owned a Call of Duty 4 SEALED that I bought on release day and I have the receipt to prove it? Yeah it's that bad my friends...

Anyhow, I tried Dead Space tonight. AWESOME!!!! This game is great. Only played about an hour but let me tell you this game is the shit, plain and simple here. EA has a winner and it's not the Sims or Madden. It's violent, controls well and looks awesome. I can only imagine how sweet it looks in HD. (Sadly I only have a regular TV but it works.) Not too far into that too make a complete judgement but I'll keep you posted. I don't think it will disappoint though.

In some great news, it broke today that Ghostbusters got picked up by Atari for and 09' release!!! (http://www.destructoid.com/aykroyd-confirms-ghostbusters-picked-up-by-atari-2009-release-107736.phtml) All I have to say is fuck yeah man! I was so pissed that this game got cut by Activision/Blizzard in favor of Spyro and Crash Bandicoot. I was looking forward to this game more then any other game coming out this season. Really. More then Fallout 3, more then Gears 2 and more then Resistance 2. To hear that we'll see it eventually is great. I got really worried when I heard that THQ picked up the new 50 Cent game. (Really now)
After all the first one was embarrassing. So I'll sleep better tonight.

Well that's all I got for now. Next week I got like three games coming out next week. Don't know how I'm going to manage. I guess I'll figure it out. Anyhow, everybody enjoy your games.

Post E3 post

Okay, okay so here I am once again. It's been awhile and so much has happened. We're here after the E3. I wasn't that blown away by E3 this year. You have allot of people speculating that after the less then stellar performance of the show this year it might not return next year. Which who knows, could be a good thing.

First off, G4 showed us the press conferences from the big three. And they were commercial free this year, after promising us they would be last year and then having commercials happen. Anyhow, I'd least the least impressive to me at least was Nintendo's showing. They through some facts at us about how Wii is outselling everyone else, showed us a demo of Wii ski which utilized the balance board, mentioned a new Pokemon game for the DS and concluded the show with Wii Music. They demoed that with a bunch of executives playing not hat great. With the exception of Miyamoto which I'm convinced was the ONLY one on stage who knew what he was doing but was drowned out by everyone Else's badness. They also showed Animal crossing for the Wii.

In all honestly some of the stuff they showed was cool, but I wouldn't buy any of it with the exception of Animal crossing and if I had to pick and choose I could go without that for the time being. They just didn't wow me. Most of the stuff was for that casual audience. Oh yes and how can I forget Wii resort. A game along the same line was Wii sports. They're next colossal money maker. Did you know that Wii play is still like one of their best selling games? And it's not that good. Uhh. Everyone was expecting that big break out title. Kid Icarus? Nope. Punch Out!!! nope. Perhaps a mario or Zelda title? In development from what Reggie says. They have allot of people disappointed this year. In my opionion rightfully so. I don't clock in may hours on my Wii anyway. It's a great machine don't get me wrong. However I could go the rest of the year without buying anything Nintendo at retail for the rest of the year. It's sad really.

Microsoft was pretty good. The best of the show. They demoed allot of games, Gears 2, and Fallout 3 stand out the most. Which buy the way the demo of Fallout convinced me to get it.
They also had a fair showing of their casual games. The one demo of "In the movies" sticks out in my mind. Another situation of executives demoing games on stage which they just shouldn't do. It utilizes the 360 vision camera and you like act out certain things with some Friends and then at the end they piece them together and you make like a "B" movie you play back and watch. That was okay I guess. It's nice that the technology has come this far but it's not my bag.
Then the big thing was a new interface coming this fall. That was cool too I guess. I was just bitching about how the current 360 interface like hides the custom themes you can get and almost makes it pointless to have a picture or something in the background because the blades and the ads get in the way too much. Now it's simpler to navigate. Supposedly however I read somewhere that it's ripped off from some other device that uses a similar method.

Sony was the second place holder. They did an impressive presentation with Little big planet which convinced me to pick that game up. They showed a trailer of God of War 3 which didn't tell people anything other than it's coming. They reminded us about the PS2 saying they're still some great games coming out for it. Which honestly I'm picking up one more title for the PS2 before the year is over. Overall I thought it was a good presentation. It gives me faith that Sony still has some tricks up it's sleeve.

I really didn't take much from E3. It only convinced me to pick up one more game this fall which I hadn't thought about. Everything else I knew about. G4 showcased some demos but I really didn't watch them. I'm just happy the whole thing is over. Now I'm just ready form all these great games to come out. Well, my brain is ready, my wallet isn't.

The Red Ring of irritation

Me again. I'll begin by saying that my 360 which I've owned for a year and a half has fallen victim to the dreaded red ring of death or rrod as it's called in allot of circles. At first I was in denial. In my mind i was like, I take care of my consoles. I treat them like children. Hell you could argue they get better treatment then my car. So I would never have that problem with my 360. That kind of thing happened to other people, right? Oh so wrong.

I wasn't that upset by it a t first. I mean, MS has a decent approach to the problem, you call them up, tell them the problem and they send you a box and hopefully two weeks to a month later you get your console back repaired, or a refurb or something. Hell I didn't even have to call them up, if you register the serial number with your windows live account you can request a repair over the Internet so you never have to talk to anybody.

So it's a fairly simple process to begin with. I'm still waiting on the box they're supposed to send but it's cool, I just started the process on Monday. We'll see how long it takes them do something with it once they receive it. From what I've read there are three things they can do, fix the console you've sent them, give you a refurb meaning someone Else's box they fixed or send you a brand new console. I like option one and three, but I don't like the idea of getting someone Else's console. Why exactly? I don't know. Call me weird but getting the box back that I sent would be cool because it's mine. I bought THAT console. (Trust me, I've recorded my serial so I know)
Getting a new box would be cool because well that means it's a new one just for me. I'd still miss my old one anyway. But If I got a refurb that means it's been "fingered" by god knows who. I know they clean it off and all but still. Don't get alarmed, my not a germ-a-phobe or anything I just like my new stuff BRAND NEW. Hell with as much as it cost me, that's the way I want it. If I get my box back then great, it was mine to begin with.

My point about all this is that at first I wasn't upset about it. Truthfully, I don't put many miles on my 360. I had bought Ninja Gaiden 2 recently and was playing that off and on but I had metal gear and was engrossed in that. Before that however, I BARLEY played. Seriously, like I was lucky if I turned it on maybe once a week? And Xbox live arcade was stale and I can't tell you the last game I downloaded there. My good buddy has a 360 and we were playing Battlefield 2 but my disk got scratched a while ago and I hadn't played since. Anyway, I got to thinking about it, and I started to get upset about it. Microsoft sacrificed quality just to be first in the next gen race. That's terrible. I've had allot of consoles and I've never had issues with any of them, until MS started making them. My Original Xbox sometimes had issues with the disk drive but not always. So then here comes the 360 and a year and a half later it craps out on me...what the fuck?

I've even read stories about people having two three and even four different 360s. That my friend is where I draw the line. I decided that when I get my console back if it craps out on me again. I will not but another one right away. I have standards and why the hell should I compromise them? It's not my fault that they built a shoddy machine. I really don't have high hopes that after I get it back it's going to last long but I'll at least let them try.

I'll admit it, I prefer Playstation. Now before you go blasting me, I am not a FANBOY. Far from it. Both MS and Nintendo have some great games on their respective platforms and I think that's great. But I just like my PS more. I but multi platform games for my PS3. I recently have only been buying the exclusives on the 360. Come to think of it I think all my games on 360 are console exclusives. Hmmm...

I just think what they did wasn't right. I applaud them for trying to fix it but hell it took them quite awhile to even admit there was an issue. Keep checking back as I will keep everyone posted on it's progress. until then....peace.

The best game yet....

Alright, so here I am, back from another long hiatus in your face with more thoughts about life and gaming. Allot has happened to me since my last post but the first things I want to touch on, is Metal Gear Solid 4.

What can I say? The game is a masterpiece. I love practically everything about this game. It made me oh so glad I have a PS3. I was a great conclusion to a great game franchise. It wraps up everything story wise and explains it all. I've only gone through it once, but I plan on going back through it again very soon. I decided to go through the first three games and then go back and play it again. Which now I'm at MGS3: Snake Eater which in my opinion is good but I find it frustrating.

They took away the soliton radar! Yeah, that great radar from MGS2 and the original MGS that helped you out immensely when it came to enemy placement and layout of where you were was taken away. Now I realize that it's supposed to be the 1960's and story wise (and I guess technologically) the radar wasn't invented yet, but couldn't you amuse me then? The whole deal is this, you spend allot of time in the Russian jungle, so you rely heavily on camouflage to fool your enemy's and slither by undetected. That's fine, but the radar still would have been a GREAT help.
I mean you get other things to help you out, like a directional microphone to listen for things at distances, and they do give you a motion detector and sonar, but with the exception of the microphone, the other two are battery powered and they just don't work as well. You really have to rely on your senses in the game, which looks great and sounds great too so you really are immersed in the atmosphere. Now combine all these tools well, and you can survive. I don't know if it's me, but even with all these tools, I just can't play this game well. You want proof? I bought the game when it first came out in 04'. I went through it once, and that's it until now. So it's been what, almost four years since I went through the whole game again? I realized though the story in this one is really good it's just a matter of having the patience to play it through that's all. I spend most of the game in alert mode I promise you. And half the time I get so frustrated with trying to hide and creep that I just try to run and gun through certain parts which doesn't really work all that well most of the time. I'll get through it again though unless is pisses me off anymore.

I also took a hiatus from buying retro games. Haven't been into Vintage Stock (a local shop that buys and sells allot of old games, music and movies) in over a month now. I was obsessed at one point. There are three stores close to me and I was making rounds once a week. It was getting expensive too. The store is great though but it's a crap shoot every time you go in there. You might find something really great but allot of times you don't find much at all. You have to go in there often to see what they have. I made a few great finds in the last month or so though but they were on Ebay. (I still hate ebay) I found a top loading NES deck and a copy of Viewpoint for the Neo-Geo. Two things I've been chasing for years with no luck.

So I put classic gaming on hold for a bit because there were allot of current gen games coming out. Last month I picked up three, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit, MGS4 and Ninja Gaiden 2. It was a pricey two weeks for me. Still haven't opened DBZ So I'll let you know how it is at some point.

Next week is E3. The gaming industry's big who-ha of the year. I can't wait for it to be here, so it can be over just as fast. Oh, don't get me wrong I think the whole show is great and all, but that's all anyone can talk about the week before and the week after. Lets just get the games out there, you know?

That's all I got for the time being. I'll do my best to post more often next time. Until then....