Yup. I haven't been achievement [word that sounds like a mash up of horse and boring] for a long time, choosing instead to give a shot at playing video games for the simple love of playing them, something that has taken me nearly a year to rekindle.

Achievements became my primary goal. My 'next to get' game was no longer the best game out there, but rather the game with the easiest achievements, as rated by my peers on achieve360points.com. After a year or two of this, and tens of thousands of gamerscore, I realized that I actually did not enjoy playing video games any more. And this was in the height of last year's awesomeness, including Mass Effect, Gears 2, and Fallout 3. I would go through the motions with them, but not really enjoy my time playing. My biggest realization that I had a problem was when I went to PAX 08, and got little excitement from the expo hall, or from much of any of the show. '08 was the weakest year for me, because it was the year that I wasn't really into gaming, anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I still go out of my way to get additional achievements in a game, I don't think anyone with an over 50,000 gamerscore could say otherwise; but achievements aren't my main goal, anymore. After realizing my problem, and deciding that I wanted my gaming passion back, again, my first course of change was my Gamefly queue. Your 'Q' on Gamefly says a lot about your gaming style, and mine was absolutely LOADED with games (many from 2006, when achievements were generally easier to come by) with an achievement difficulty rating of 1. So many horrible sports games I HATE VIDEO GAME BASKETBALL, IT HASN'T BEEN GOOD SINCE THE DREAMCAST!!!

Now, I've been on the road to recovery for about 9-10 months, and feeling much better. I just finished up Godfather 2 in 3 days. It felt great working to take over neighborhoods, and overcoming the challenges presented within. I never would have put down 17 hours in 3 days during my [that mashup word, again] days. I'm also playing Shadow Complex, which is incredible! If you ever wanna bring back your classic love of games (not just your love of classic games!), play Shadow Complex (Xbox 360 XBLA). It's so amazing, I just want to play it constantly, and it only has 200 gamerscore potential!

So, I'm back, deal with it. (feels really good to be back)

Ok, haven't posted much lately, and missed a few 1,000 gamerscore updates, but this is big: The 6th annual Penny Arcade Expo is this Friday, and I'll be working it as an Enforcer. If you're attending, please stop by the Main Theater and say hi!

So, the video explains it pretty well, but this is the Roadie2 double bass coupler for rock band. If you have it (it lets you use 2 kick pedals, and is just about the only one out there that works properly), then you've probably noticed how fast it goes through 9-volt batteries, and there is no plug in for external power.

This video shows a very simple way to wire in an external power supply. I did it a week ago, have been playing it for about 25 hours since, it it works AMAZINGLY! Seriously, so good, I don't even have to turn it off now! No heat issues or burning or anything. If you have this thing, do yourself a favor and do this mod!

(since GS blog editor won't let me post the video in here, the link for the GS hosted and youtube hosted ones are below: (both are the same video, but the youtube one is higher resolution))

Gamespot hosted

Youtube hosted

Check this out

Those who read Penny Arcade will recognize the above panel, which came out yesterday. If Gabe and Tycho are making a comic about it, then it must be at least somewhat legit.

I want this thing to work, I REALLY do, but I just don't believe in it. I've never had a gaming quality computer (hell, I use a mac!), but I've always wanted to play quality games on there. I think onLive might work for me, but not you. That is, I believe onLive can work well with slower games, such as RPG's, puzzle games, and tactics games, which are my kind. However, the typical gamer these days prefers the shooters, fighters, and racing games, which simply require much less latency than onLive can possibly deliver.

It's really not a matter of opinion, it's simple physics. Unless these guys can open a worm hole between their server locations and your home, as well as slow time everywhere outside their server location, the delay would simply be too great between your button press and the stream of the video coming back to you from their computing location. This being said, I'm sure I'll get one, and I'll probably enjoy it. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to use it at school, as we have an awful 1/2 Mbps cap on our internet (and onLive recommends at least 1.5 Mbps). Luckily, I rock around 20 Mbps at home, so that's where it will stay.

Btw, if you want to determine if your internet is fast enough, 1.5 Mbps = 187.5 MBps, which will get you low definition through onLive, and 5 Mbps = 625 MBps will get you high definition through the system.

Please tell me this is just an early April Fools joke! There's no way that thing can possibly work.

Basically, it's saying you have a controller and a screen, but all the computing is done at their central location, then the video is streamed back to your tv. Come on, I don't even like using a wireless controller because of the latency, and that's only 10-20 feet, this is talking about hundreds of miles there and back! With the distance to travel, data relays, dropped packets, the time for their computer to process, render, and return video, then for the stream to get all the way back to your tv, that would be a catastrophe for action packed games.

So, come on, this is a joke, right?