Guilty pleasures - everyone's got them. Some people like food play, others think it to be their birthright to defend negative Battle Hunter reviews on YouTube. My guilty pleasures, however, are a little harder to admit as gamers in general can totally be a unforgiving sort; but I thought I would tackle my inhibitions much like I overcame my stage fright at one of those men's urinals that don't have dividers, I'm going to take it head on.

It might be expected that a guy who runs a site devoted to bad games would have a game collection of AAA titles and only play games by Miyamoto or Kojima. It's totally not true. I'm just as guilty as anyone else of playing my share of subpar games and enjoying them, believe it or not.

Guilty Pleasure #1: Conan. And I'm not talking the MMO.

I know I've mentioned it a couple times before on the site but I'll say it again. I'm a sucker for any game with blood, gore, and/or dismemberment. I can't get enough of it, and I'll buy up any game that flaunts it without prejudice. Yes, that means I'll be first in line when Madworld comes out. Its one thing to experience the serendipity of dismembering baddies like they're insects, but it's another thing when a game keeps a running tally of individual limbs you've severed throughout your campaign of brutality. I'm talking about THQ's Conan released back in March of this year.

What makes this such a guilty pleasure? Well, any gameplay video or tour through the demo game will prove that Conan was nothing more than a God of War rip-off. It wasn't a pretty game by any means, nor was the story any deeper than Conan wanting to get his pimp gear back from some wizard. Maybe he just wasn't cool with the He-Man-esque bare chest / Snuffleupagus pelt underwear combination he was left with.

Moving right along, the game is about as close as you can get to a next-gen God of War until GoW3 decides to come out. The gameplay was surprisingly fun and just as deep as the game it shamelessly mimicked. Conan proves just as Brutal as Kratos when it comes to the unexpected amount of weapons at your disposal. You could even choose to have a one-handed weapon and shield, or you can go all out and go two handed to really watch the limbs fly.

Let's just get to the point. Conan really wasn't a "perfect ten", but Jesus Christ was it fun.

Guilty Pleasure #2: Fallout Thievery

So you've decided to spare Megaton, talked Tenpenny into letting the ghouls move in without anyone getting killed, and freed the children from the slavers; but you're still not satisfied. When good karma just doesn't do it for you, maybe a walk on the proverbial wild side is in order. When I found the game to start to be a drag, all it took was the nerve to show that **** Jericho just how much of a Dudley-Do-Right you really are when you break into his place at night.

Okay, so my Fallout addiction is the only thing right now to rival my addiction to Rockstar fruit punch. As much as I wanted to add a section about logging a ton of hours in the game, I realized that my real guilty pleasure lies within the reason why. After finding good karma was making me lose interest, I decided to get back at those who mouthed off and wronged me by stealing their crap. The joy of stealing random bottles of soda and comic books from those smart asses at the saloon makes Fallout 3 a lot more fun than it needed to be. Ahhh who the hell am I kidding?

Guilty Pleasure #3: Rock Band Karaoke

I've always thought of Rock Band as the partying frat boy to Guitar Hero's studious nerd. While I've always tried my hand at each of the instruments, I never came close to the microphone. That all ended this year when the perfect amount of alcohol met the perfect moment, it was like having an awesome one night stand with a chick with a crazy eye. Nevertheless, I'll go toe-to-toe with any drunken businessman when it comes to screaming some Sabotage.

Guilty Pleasure #4: Amassing a Wii stockpile

When the Wii Zapper was announced, I was skipping in circles giddy. Half of my Christmas wish list was Wii Zapper games, the other quarter of it turned out to be the various third party knockoffs that swarmed shelves afterward. I ended up getting a couple of pistols so I could faithfully play House of the Dead 2 without having to resort some sort of MAME hackery and voodoo. The first three months of 2008 resulted in some sort of trigger finger rickets where the index fingers on my hands were permanently curved and ready to shoot at all times. I ate up any arcade shooting game I could get my hands on, Ghost Squad, Umbrella Chronicles, and even the abysmal Target: Terror. You'd better believe I'm starting an online petition for an Area 51 / Maximum Force compilation tomorrow.

Guilty Pleasure #5: Autoaim

April 2008 will always be remembered as the month I finally got into playing online multiplayer and shedding my devout sofa multiplayer beliefs thanks to GTA IV. I remember abandoning the single player game after an hour of gameplay in favor of the multiplayer, not to return for four full months. Turf Wars, Death Match, Tam Death Match, I was hooked.

If anyone's played GTA multiplayer, they'd know about the constant "auto-aim vs. manual aim" fights that break out. To be honest, I play both sides of the field and have fun regardless. To be more honest, I get so much more gratification out of the auto-aim games. Sometimes, I just feel like sitting back and killing some heads or ending a game with an insane frag count. It's just sometimes more fun that way, I'll admit it. Try it next time with an assault rifle, you just might believe me.

So there you have it. Five of my guilty gaming pleasures out of many more that I could have possibly listed, but decided not to in the interest of not writing another 1,000 word blog.

So feel free to share some of your own guilty pleasures in the comments, or you can ridicule mine. Either way, it'll be a blast.

I had every intention of writing a happy and positive article about the Xbox 360 launch. I had, what I thought, was a foolproof plan on hand and even went as far as calling myself smart for thinking of it! “Those fools…” I cackled from my house atop a craggy mountain during some sort of bad thunderstorm “they’ll be killing each other for their consoles while I fly in with one fell swoop and leave unscathed!”

Yeah, I thought I was clever with my little plan, but as I’ve come to learn over the years, plans almost never go accordingly – especially when I’m the brains behind it. Little did I know that I’d end up getting dug into the trenches myself, almost get beat up, and almost beat up a clerk myself. While the Xbox seamlessly launched over the entire world, the launch for me was far less than perfect. And so begins the weaving of my tale of woe about the worst 24 hours of my life.

Part 1: A Simple Plan

My plan was simple, yet efficient. My target was Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, and what I would guess would be the recipient of the highest volume of Xbox consoles. Turns out the number one answer was Best Buy, but if this were Family Feud, I’d still have a chance of winning ten grand. There are three Wal-Marts in Colorado Springs, which I figured that everyone would be staking out by Sunday. I decided that I would go to nearby Widefield and camp out at the Wal-Mart there, since people wouldn’t be keen to a store outside of city limits. I called the store on Sunday night to see how they planned on conducting things. The guy in electronics told me that they would give out vouchers at 11:30 and wheel the consoles out at midnight. I let them know that I will be coming in early, a full twelve hours, to wait. They said it wasn’t a problem. My plan was finally in motion…all I needed to do was play the waiting game which I was totally prepared to do.

I arrived at the Widefield Wal-Mart at 12pm and after buying a couple of Rockstar energy drinks, a notebook, and a pen, I approached the electronics section ready to journey to kill time. I approached the cashier and confidently stated “I’m volunteering to start your Xbox line”. The cashier retorted with “Management says nobody can wait around. We’ll be giving out vouchers in layaway at 11:30 and bringing the consoles out at midnight.”

No problem I thought to myself. I’ll just have to change up my plan. Not one to just let things go, I walked across the building to the layaway department where I decided to take a different approach.

“I hear you guys are reserving Xbox 360’s”

The lady behind the counter didn’t try to hide the fact she was rolling her eyes. I pretty much got the same response, “tickets at 11:30, console on sale at midnight. That way everyone has a fair and equal chance.”

With that I decided that I’d have to come back later. My plan was now to come back to Wal-Mart at 10:30 and browse until 11 where I’d make a bee line to layaway.

After hanging out with the girlfriend for a while, my mind started to wander. This no waiting rule came from the day manager. What if the night manager changes the rules on me? At 8pm we decided to call the store again. Where the conversation went something like this:

“When are you guys starting the line for Xbox 360s?”

“We already gave out all of the vouchers for them.”

“WHAT?! I was in there at noon where I was told to come back at 11:30! You people turned me away so everyone can have a fair and equal chance! WHERE’S MY FAIR AND EQUAL CHANCE?!”

“We’ve been hearing that a lot. There are 40 people in line right now, you can feel free to wait in case somebody no-shows”

“No thanks.”

At this point I was livid, sure Wal-Mart lead me astray but demanding a manager would have just garnered me some sort of scripted “I’m sorry quantities are limited…” speech. It was time to bring the backup plan into action. Plan B would take us to the small town of Pueblo 30 miles south of the Springs. It’s a small town where the stock would hopefully outnumber the amount of people. With two Wal-Marts in town, the chances seemed good, right? Wrong. Both stores had everything spoken for. I proceeded to call the rest of the Wal-Marts in town for a lucky break, but none was to be found. Some had 300 people lined up in the aisles, others gave all vouchers away at 9am.

For a moment I had lost hope.

Suddenly, I had an epiphany and called the local Circuit  City halfway expecting to be turned away. They said that their plan was to open at 10am on Tuesday and pass out vouchers.

“Do you guys have a line?” I asked.

“Nope. Not that I know of. Just be sure to come down early, like about 6am to get a good spot in line.”

“Screw that, I’m coming down there now!”

And from there, we hastily grabbed what we thought we would need and headed down for what was to be a very cold campout. Things would only end up getting more interesting from there…

Part 2: A Stroke of Luck

We reached Circuit  City at 8:30pm with no line in sight. We sat down right next to the door. We were first in line and proceeded to pat ourselves on the back for it. A lady drove up and asked if we were the line for the Xbox and told us that we were lucky. Best Buy had received 50 and had about 100 people in line. Some had even been there since 1pm on Sunday. The same goes for the Circuit  City up north which also had a pretty hefty line going for it to. The Target next door to Circuit  City only received 8 systems and already had a line. We staked the one store that the entire city had seemingly forgot about.

Well...this picture looked good before I took it off the camera. Here's my makeshift campsite.

At 8:40 a guy and his wife showed up for the #2 spot in line. A few minutes later, #3 showed up. She had come from Denver where there were lines up to 300 people long out in front of stores. She saw that my girlfriend and I were ill prepared and offered us an extra chair and blankets that she had brought. We totally took her up on it. We got word that they had 17 systems available, 14 premiums and 3 cores. People trickled in until about 10pm where only 8 of the 14 premium systems had been spoken for. We knew we were legit when the store closed and the “Xbox Line Starts Here” flyer got posted. People continued to trickle in for the next few hours. Some people drove by the store and drove off not even bothering to inquire about the 6 available spots that were open. Oh well, sucks to be them. At 1:15am the last premium system was spoken for. All that remained were 3 core systems.

A very tired Dr. Swank...not at all being cocky about being first in line.

Everyone in line was totally cool and could really be the best group of people you could ever hope to spend 14 hours of your life with. We all got to know each other throughout the night and essentially became family. Nobody was competing for spots, everyone knew that they would be walking away a winner. I would joke that I wasn’t going to sleep because I wasn’t going to have them steal my spot, but really, there was nothing to worry about.

About 2am we heard gunshots in the distance…we all thought it might have been some sort of line dispute at the Media Play across the street, but we learned on the news the next day that it ended up being some kid getting gunned down in front of his house a few blocks away. Needless to say, this brought out some nerves every time someone drove by the line. The temperature dropped to about 20 degrees between 3-4am and despite the fact I had about 8 blankets on me and 2 hoodies, I was still too cold to fall asleep. Luckily, food was plentiful and the back of the Target next door served as a perfect bathroom.

A not-so-great picture of the line at about 2am.

We all talked until about 4am when everyone fell asleep…I managed to get some heat going by pulling all of the blankets over my head. I woke up again at 5:30 when the girls next to me started talking again, but fell back to sleep. I woke up again at 6:30 and as I pulled the blankets off of my head, I looked to my left and there was a tall, muscle-bound guy standing in front of the “line starts here” sign giving me a very intimidating look.

Part 3: Everything Comes to a Head

My heart sank into my stomach for a moment until my gaze was broken by the girls next to me saying good morning and mentioning how funny I looked with all of the blankets on me. I looked back at the guy who was still staring at me and proceeded to throw the pile of blankets off of me and smoke a cigarette. While talking to the other guys smoking, another guy approached the intimidating guy asking how many consoles they had left. The guy responded with “I don’t care, I’m just gonna get mine and nobody is going to stop me.”

Not being one to rock the boat I wanted to inconspicuously let everyone know what this guy was up to. He was claiming number one in line. Good thing is, I didn’t have to put myself in danger right away…his hot headed attitude pretty much did the talking for me. As we started talking about how well things worked out in terms of numbers, Mr. Intimidating piped up with “You all can talk about the math all you want. I got dicked over at Wal-Mart and I’m going to get what I deserve!”

Of course, this incited chaos as a few other people in line started getting into a shouting match with this guy, which made him blow himself up like some sort of blowfish. I made sure to let him know that everyone in line had been to Wal-Mart as well, he wasn’t any more special than anyone else. He just stood there arguing with everyone saying that he wasn’t going to move and none of us could touch him. Furthermore, he was going to “call his boys” to come down and they’d take all of us on…he wasn’t going to move.

Of course, a few other people in line found another way to get this guy to the back of the line, by means of police intervention. The cops showed up within minutes, took the guy to the side where he attempted to pull his intimidation act with them, but they wouldn’t have any of it. He ended up getting ushered to the back of the line where he would have an awkward three hour wait with the people he threatened only a half hour before. His friends showed up about ten minutes later, but instead of taking us all on, they got in line for the last two core systems. We were a full house now.

At 8:30 the manager of Circuit  City came out to tell us how the vouchers were going to work. We each would receive a numbered voucher for a numbered box. They asked who was lucky number one, I raised my hand and the first 14 premium systems were handed out with the three not-so-cool in back getting the rest.

The proverbial "Golden Ticket"

With voucher in hand, we could finally get out of the cold. A bunch of us went to Target to finally use a toilet, wash our hands, and thaw out. After exploring Target for a couple of hours we came back to Circuit  City right before opening time. The manager came out to let us know which checkouts were for Xbox and which weren’t. They opened the doors and we flooded in. I went over to the accessory table to pick up an extra controller and Condemned: Criminal Origins and headed for the checkout. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes it was finally my turn to get up to the checkout. Twenty-four hours of hunting and fourteen hours of waiting had culminated to this moment.

The rather slim acessory table.

I reached the checkout with lucky voucher #1 and looked at the shelf behind the registers. Panic struck. There was only one white box and two green boxes. I looked to my right, and the older lady who got voucher #14 was coming to check out. The white box was labeled #14…so where was mine? After the cashier had some confusion about whether the white or green box was the good one, I let him know that I’m supposed to get the white box. Then reality hit us both. My premium system had gone to the 15th person in line who had core system voucher #1. For those not keeping track, it was the guy that cut into line at 6am. Just my damn luck.

After some half-baked apologies, the guy behind the counter said he was going to try to call the guy to bring it back. To which I responded with “DO YOU REALLY THINK HE’LL BRING IT BACK NOW?!” The girls I had been hanging out with all morning caught wind of all of this and started yelling at the guy as well. First in line meant nothing at this point and I was pissed. The guy offered to call every Wal-Mart and Target in town to get one for me. Of course I let them know that would be a very vain attempt.

We finally agreed that I would be able to use the core system until they got another premium system in, which they would hold for me and I’d pay the $100 difference then. They claim that they’ll be getting a new shipment on Black Friday, but I’ve also heard Christmas Eve and even as far as February. They signed my voucher and at 11:30am on November 22nd, almost 24 hours after my initial trip to Wal-Mart, I drove home in bumper-to-bumper lunch hour traffic with half the console I wanted.

Compare it to an unplanned pregnancy....

Now I don’t mean to sound selfish, I appreciate the fact that I got a console in the first place. It’s the fact that I assumed that Circuit  City had a system that assured against things like this. Maybe if the vouchers weren’t all green some sort of confusion would have been avoided. Either way, it’s all said and done now. I can tell that I’m getting older because I’m determined to send both Wal-Mart and Circuit  City complaint letters about all of this.

In its rightful place...for now.

Now my system sits amongst the mighty PS2 and Gamecube (thus retiring my old, broken Xbox) like an unwanted child until I can get a suitable replacement. As of now, there is no sure fire way to get something no matter how long you’re willing to wait, it’s just a conclusion I’ve come to. This just goes to show that now matter how great you may think a plan is, it’ll never work out the way you want it to…well, unless you’re me. 

Yeah it's been a long time, like my journal was interesting in the first place . I'm going to try to go against that today and post some topics that have been on my mind lately and I'm just now getting around to voicing.

Yeah, it's old news now, but here's my G-Phoria Rant

Like it or not, I watch G4 on a regular basis because it's fairly neutral. what i mean by neutral is that it's a channel I go to when there's nothing else on and it can mildly hold my interest for about an hour or so before I have something else to do. I know it's half fluff and most of the hosts not named Sessler or Webb have nevr touched a video game in their lives (okay, maybe there are a few exceptions), but I'll take it over CNN because ignorance is bliss and reality can be depressing. So I come home from work where I usually catch the Attack of the Show rerun, but upon hitting G4 I realized it was G-Phoria night, so I decide to watch having taken part in the voting myself. What I saw was, what I thought, a slap in the faces of game developers everywhere on the night they were supposed to be the stars.

I guess I'll get right to the point. G4 came across as a bunch of star struck little groupies rather than a channel for gamers by gamers celebrating gaming in general. Sure, I could look past the lame race to G-Phoria skits, but the majority of the awards were covered in some thirty second highlight reel that showed the developers coming out to accept their awards in a corner of the screen. Only a handful of awards got any kind of attention, and once the developers came out to accept, they'd cut away to another skit or B-List celebrity. Hell, the bands that were playing got more time than the developers of God of War or Halo 2 for that matter, what kind of show is this after all? Definitely not the grammys. Sure acceptance speeches can be boring, but it seems that the channel for gamers really lost focus on who they were idolizing that night.

The culmination of G4's lack of respect came in the after show where hosts who feigned to be gamers in the past were now saying, as one Sarah Lane said, "I'm here for the celebrities". The skits that took up a large part of the after show seemed more like a bunch of bored G4 hosts trying to show that they can be actors as opposed to hosts of gaming shows that were celebrating the best gaming had to offer. One interview with a game developer equaled two interviews with William Shatner.

Sure, I'm all about moving on to better things, but it should have been saved for another night. Gaming is a booming industry that does more business than the movie industry and it wants to be taken seriously. Furthermore, it's hurting for a legitimate awards show that can be taken as seriously as the Oscars or what have you. I'm not saying it won't hurt to be edgy and attempt to look hip and cool, that's okay with me, but at least show the developers some sort of respect instead of taking the focus away from them and having a bunch of G4 hosts oozing how much they love some celebrity that really could give two s**** why they're there. People like Wilbur Valderama are only there to get exposure and further their careers in my opinion. I used to watch the old G4 shows like "Players" and you'd see some b-list celeb talking about how they're a hardcore gamer, then see them fumble around in a multiplayer game of Halo. It's absurd. Next year, make sure that your celebration and recognition of games and the people that make them stays on focus. I'll watch VH-1 if I want to see B-list celebrities.

Games Are Not Meant to Babysit

So my girlfriend and I went to the northend of town a couple weekends ago to the swanky new shopping center that was built up there, which is a perfect place for it since the northend of town plays host to the more financially secure members of our fair city. The stores are all high class and pricey...definitely not a place for a Target guy such as myself. Anyways, she got a gift card for her birthday to a place called Ulta, which for the uninformed is what I would describe as an expensive personal hygeine store that specializes in make-up, designer cologne and perfume, and $30 shampoo made from truffles. As expected, the store was loaded with rich chicks who drive Altimas that their parents bought for them and guys who used enough peroxide on their hair to drown a horse. One group of people that really caught my attention was a bonefide soccer mom with two teenage girls who was acting about as young as them. I for one can't stand soccer moms because they tend to come across as overly hypocritical and easily offended...usually what I see when a group of parents protest games. As I was following my girlfriend around and learning the ins and outs of designers and fragrances, I couldn't help but keep my eye on that mom and those girls....not because they were hot mind you....well okay, maybe a little.

I pointed them out to my girlfriend making mention that while she's out with the girls acting twenty years younger than she really was, I was safe to assume that there was a son at home that she plopped in front of the TV to be babysat by his PS2. I then realized from watching this mom who yearned to be young again and did so by hanging out with what I thought to be her daughter and have sons who are left at home with their consoles to take care of them are the ones that are buying games like San Andreas with disregard to the content and using it to pacify while they try to go out and be young. While I type this now, it really doesn't make as much sense unless it was happening right there in front of me. After walking around the store a little more, I was satisfied with my epiphany and started elaborating on it, maybe to the girlfriend's shagrin I'm not sure since she'll never confess to my annoying her. We got to the front of the store and noticed two small boys running around unattended and I yell "Damn kids being left unattended. Maybe their mom couldn't make it to Blockbuster to rent a game so they wouldn't have to bother with bringing them along". To make a long story short, the boys who had nobody paying attention to them belonged to the soccer mom I was complaining about in the first place to which I didn't even know (since she ignored them the whole time like they were someone else's kids) and I made that comment right in front of her. It felt like half of a victory for me, especially since I was pretty vocal about it.

I feel that mothers like this are the reason games are being blamed for every school shooting and being taken off of shelves because of their content. For the longest time I couldn't even fathom how an M-Rated game would get into the hands of a kid under 17, but I think I know now. Mothers who would rather be one of the girls instead of being a mom and sit their kids down in front of a game while they do whatever with their daughters and friends. These are the women who are in the PTA and these groups that are standing out in front of Rockstar. Just like people in management roles or the government, they don't want to take the blame for what's wrong so they pass it along to something that would be easy. Nobody ever questions how the kids got a hold of these games, which we all know it comes down to the parents in the end. The whole issue makes me sick really and until someone starts pointing the finger at these parents, it will keep happening.

Lessee here, got the God of War review up (finally) and Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity posted as well. You can view them here at Gamespot or at Swankworld.com.

I can honestly say, God of War is one of the best games I've played for a while. It comes at a great time when my faith in the 3rd person action genre was really starting to falter. Nice job, Sony!

I really enjoyed Stella Deus as well...I'd say it's the best strategy RPG I've played since Disgaea and the story is worth the time too. I wish I had more time for this one, but I've gotta move on to other content. Sigh.

Two weeks until E3! I'm totally excited for this year's show with all the next gen stuff coming out and all. I screwed up my plane tickets so I'll be arriving on Tuesday instead of Monday which means I'm gonna miss all of the press conferences as well as the Final Fantasy concert. Nice job me, I'll only kick myself for the rest of my life over that. I just don't have the $300 to adjust the trip, so I'm going to just eat it and be sour.

Lego Star Wars got reviewed at SwankWorld.Com, go read it!

I'm totally digging God of War more and more. I have that and Splinter Cell: CT battling for my time lately. Both are very enjoyable...I've been wanting a Splinter Cell fix since I finished Pandora Tomorrow last year.

Dead to Rights II just arrived, so I'll be starting that up soon. The life of a part-time game reviewer...sigh..I have a bike that I won in November and my skateboard just sitting around. Maybe I should just skip updating the site this week and take them out for a ride. The cold weather looks to be gone for good here in Colorado...about damn time! I start counting the days until Spring come October 1st, so it's been a long time coming!

Anyways, back to work for me!