I'm playing the new Bionic Commando remake and loving it. It's hard, just like the original, but once you get the hang of it. You know, get into the swing of things. It's a great experience!

And I noticed my current GS rank is 'Bionic Commando' as well, which just seems appropriate!

The following is satire, I think it's satire atleast. No, I don't pirate.

From some random rant aimed at a random admited pirate, I saw this on GS today: "are you happy now that you taking food from someones table"

I would have said:

Yes! I am soooo happy! As a matter of fact, that's the only way I can get off anymore. I spend all day pirating software knowing it is actually removing food from forks en-route to mouths and when the day is done I am able to have sexual relations with my many wives. It is like candy to me, sweet sweet candy.

Once upon a time PC games came on floppy disks and games were expensive. Then CDs came along and the game developers said "Yay!" for there would be no more pirating and they could lower the cost of thier games. But the day did come when most all games came on cd and yet the prices stayed the same!

Later on, as people started to pirate cds, the game companies were all worried because the profits that had been increasing since the media switch were now showing the same pattern as before. But they couldn't raise the prices again, atleast not too much, so what they did was enact the Omega Gaming Sattelite Network.

The OGSN replaces all media by using lasers instead to send games to your home. By simply burning a hole in the roof of your domicile these OGSN lasers use incredible amouts of power to etch the binary code directly onto your eyeball! This, of course, blinds you. Plus, it just started raining and your laser pocked roof is leaking.

The end result is that games become so cheap, we actually give them away to other countries we don't like.

Wow, what a year for gaming. I ended up having a crazy schedule this year, I didn't get to go out much or do much with friends because of my work schedule, but every night from midnight until around 4am or 5am I had all to myself for gaming goodness. (And not too much else to do!)

And there was alot of goodness! My prediction that this year would be a good one was spot on. And when the year came to a close, when I was looking at some leftover holiday money and wondering what to do with it, I found I had pretty much all the greatness I could have gotten! I'm still holding off on a PS3 until much later this year, so I don't have any games from that platform represented, but the Wii/PS2/360/DS camp covered the majority of the excellence this year anyhows. I also completed a record number of games I started, some of them even getting multiple full playthroughs like Mass Effect.

This year should be another very interesting one. Not the gold standard year we just had, but it should be good. The world economy has really woken up to video games, and the massive success of games like Halo 3, WoW and Mario Galaxies means that there are more people playing than ever. There is bound to be some real stinkers this year as games are pushed out to cash in or just don't meet the expectations of thier developers, which is normal for any year but this year I think there will be alot more of it. More people playing means more people making and there is an evolution to these things. With a year like 2007 behind us, 2008 is bound to be alot more hit and miss, but what games end up really shinning through will be something trully special.

2008 holds a new job and a new schedule for me. I should be able to catch most of the Gamespot live shows before they end, so it's nice to see a few familiar people in the chat rooms from a year ago. I still have time to game, but this year I'll be sharing this time with other normal-evening type activities. I won't be able to play super-obsessively for 4+ hours every night, but I'll still be playing every day and I'm sure I'll still get a ton of gaming in before I fall asleep at night. Plus, weekends actually have a meaning for me this year, so those are opportunities to really dive into titles like MassEffect and other games that seems to be better when you can devote large chunks of time to them.

This looks like a good year coming up all around. Wishing everyone the best for 2008!

Happy New Year Eveyone!

I think this is going to be a good year for gaming. Especially if you have a 360. And if you don't have a 360, they are supposed to get cheaper this year, so you can get yer'self one! It's a good system, and makes an excellent stand for my PS2. Getcha a black faceplate for the 360 and they just blend together. :-D

Happy New Year!

The last week was spent sick, lousy stinkin' germs. But luckily I had Viva Pinata, which it turns out is pretty awsome medicine. I wasn't quite able to keep up with Gears of War or Guitar Hero 2's hard mode in my medicated condition, but wouldn't you know that the pacing of Viva Pinata was just PERFECT!

I played the game for a few days straight and unlocked all but the last achievement, which you get for playing 50 hours of in-game time. I was alittle suprised I didn't get that one, but 50 hours is fairly lengthy. Other than that, I did it all. Once I figured out the depth and width of the game, so to speak, I started leveling up and getting chocolate coins like crazy. At one point I remember going up about 15 levels in just a couple minutes! Catalyzing plants is definately the way to go. And what's up with that trader's brand of 'special' fertilizer. He says there's a funny story behind it that he'll tell me later. I'm not sure this is a story I want to hear! Or one he should be repeating!

Now that I'm feeling better I was drawn back to Gears of War like a Mothdrop to a flame. I mean a moth. I said moth! Anyways, the time away did me some good and jumped back in with both boots covered with blood and locust gray-matter. I finished up the single player mode on Hardcore (without having played Casual) and it was a really nice satisfying run. After the credits I kept up the pace and hosted a multiplayer game, by 4am we had some great action going with 2 full teams and I was starting to learn my way around the levels. The multiplayer on this game is really incredible. I could have been playing a lan game for all I knew, and the silky-smooth conditions were share by the other players. For my first real multiplayer experience with Gears it couldn't have gone better. Another run through the different maps and I'll be ready to get my ass handed to me in the ranked matches for sure.

Guitar Hero continues as always, probably being the #1 thing played on the PS2. After almost completing GH2 on Hard mode (Psychobilly Freakout and Carry Me Home will not let me even get past their start!) I went back to GH1 since I had never actually played Hard mode on that one. Wow. Talk about easy! The Hard mode in GH1 is like the medium mode in GH1 or GH2, a combination of the main, rythm and bass guitars are used to created a good stream of music to play. The hard mode in GH2 is only the lead guitar with a note-by-note reproduction. The difference in difficulty is rather astounding. After getting pretty much all 3 stars on GH2 Hard, with a smattering of 4s and some 5s in the bonus tunes, I returned to GH1 Hard and started getting 4s and 5s on pretty much every song. So my new plan is to take a short break from grinding GH2, play all the GH1 songs on hard, and hopefully my hands will have limbered and learned enough to get me past the 7th set in GH2!

I still have multiple people who want to teach me real guitar, I still haven't taken any of them up on it. I really should do that, some of these folks actually get paid to teach normally so it's pretty nice of them to offer lessons for free. Hmmm...

Other than that; .hack//GU:Rebirth, Final Fantasy XII, Godfather... what else? Quite a few games are currently in 'orphan' status, waiting patiently for me to pick them up and finish completing them. Thankfully the season for new game releases has mostly passed until probably around March of next year, so I should have plenty of time to finish up. Guitar Hero may also soon be ready for a 6 month or so hibernation, last time I did it for GH1 it resulted in my increased ability when I returned, so maybe after this one I'll be ready for Expert mode? Who can say! The 360's upcoming version of GH with downloadble songs might prolong the expereince, whenever it actually arrives.

And on the hardware front:
PS3, didn't get one. Tried a bunch!
- Our Costco had 8 on launch day, but then they had to send them back since they were only to be sold through the website. Scratch that opportunity with a friend who worked there.
- We had a Circuit City open the day before launch day, they said they had 20 units to the people lined up outside. When morning came, they 'mysteriously' had 8. :-P
- Lastly, Costco.com was not ready for the web traffic it seemed! Even though I was one of the first people to get the PS3 in my online shopping cart, I was never able to complete my order due to thier server's repeated crashing. I tried for quite a few hours until the item expired in my cart.

Wii, also didn't get one. But I didn't try that hard. Sorta worn from the PS3 ordeal I just decided to wait till I could get my hands on one through my local game shop. It's looking like I should have it early this week. Excellent!

One last thing, I'm gonna say it's hardware related. I managed to land a un-opened FireBat action figure from the StarCraft series off eBay for $2.99! This thing is even more awsome than it looked back when I didn't buy one from Blizzard's website! It's big, it's heavy, it's been hand painted (atleast the highlights) and just oozes quality. It's got tons of articulation, and seems likely it would break anything it was thrown at rather than the reverse. This is the type of heavy toy that I miss from being a kid and I've been fooling with it non-stop, talk about happy!

And with that I'm off. Till next time, or next chat!