360 bringing it home (again), a new memory trend, and more!

Microsoft is 'bringing it home' yet again, this time from Comic-Con 2007 July 26-29 in San Diego.

Xbox LIVE® has partnered with Warner Bros. to bring home Comic-Con to you on Xbox LIVE. Go to Xbox LIVE Marketplace and watch the panel discussions, see the footage, and download exclusive themes and trailers, all for a limited time.

So hopefully there will be some cool trailers, and new demos in the next couple days to see. Xbox360fanboy has already had a press release that show attendees that go to the 300 screening will be entered to win one of 10 exclusive 300 themed Elite consoles, this I'm sure to tie in with the release next Tuesday of 300 on HD DVD/Blu-ray/DVD (it sure looks sweet, but I'm still holding out hope for that yellow one).

Charlie Oscar Delta, the website for the new Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare game has a opinion poll going where you get to state which of the 5 'concept' covers you prefer for the new game. The interesting thing about this is all of the covers all include a new icon between the ESRB rating, and the developer logo.

There is a rumor going around that there will be a new 'Core' bundle soon that will add a 64MB memory card in the package, maybe this is helping fuel that speculation? I was thinking this was something new, but after some 'googling' (I know its a word, but my spell checker doesn't) I found that Football Manager 2006 (a European release) required the hard drive, as did Final Fantasy XI of course. I recalled reading an article where Rockstar development mentioned that putting GTA IV on the 360 was a challenge because of DVD based media, and no guarantee of a hard drive. So if a game developer can require the hard drive, why not GTA IV? Hell everyone with a core would be snatching them up.

I forgot to mention last time that I had found Sarcastic Gamer site, where they have put up some great parody songs focusing on gaming culture. I highly recommend I hate this ... (Wii Song), and No freaking games (PS3 Song). The Johnny Cash Red ring of fire knockoff was pretty funny too (only because it hasn't happened to me (knock on wood)).

I just found eBay auction for the first (in the wild) Simpson's 360, already at $1,900 and the auction doesn't end until the 30th.

The Hollywood Reporter has a story (rumor?) up, that Microsoft plans to announce a $50 price cut coming in August on the 360. They were unsure if it was across the board (Core, Premium, and Elite) or just on select models, and of course MS denied the claim. It would make some sense right before the barrage of AAA titles start hitting the middle of August.

Moore's new tattoo, reved up new demos, and Rockstar bullying the 360!

Well it seems as E3 2007 was the last we'll see of Peter Moore speaking for Microsoft he stepped down Tuesday to become President of EA Sports. No clue if that Halo 2, and Grand Theft Auto IV tattoos will do him any good in his new position.

Two new demos screeched onto the marketplace today, the first Juiced 2 Hot Import Nights a honker weighing in a just over 1 GB. I don't know what to think on one hand the graphics were alright, wet neon soaked streets that had neat glow to them although all of spectators felt 2D (a problem in the first Juiced I seem to recall). On the other controlling the car felt lame, it wasn't hard to drive it just didn't feel like you were doing anything. There is no sense of speed what-so-ever even when nitro boosting it never felt like my car was moving.

On the European LIVE marketplace they got a FlatOut Ultimate Carnage demo, and since you can create a Euro account, just like a Japanese one I downloaded it to give it a spin. It has three available levels including 2 race modes, and a 'destruction derby' mode each with one available vehicle. The graphics were easily a step ahead of Juiced:HIN although I don't know if I would rate them above Burnout Revenge on the 360. I guess the game has already been available in Europe since the end of June (with really decent reviews I might add), and is kin to FlatOut 2 which explains why I remembered playing the first race level, because it was on the Xbox version of 2. The first FlatOut game, while it included racing, seemed to be more of a physics demonstration with the human darts , bowling, and distance throwing. This version really seems to melded more with the 'Burnout' type game play in the racing which by no means is a bad thing, but I'm so jazzed for Burnout Paradise it felt like a weak imitation. It seemed to be a lot tougher than 'Burnout' where I can easily finish races (not always in first, but finish at least) here I couldn't keep up with the checkpoints to even finish the race. The shining part of the demo though was the 'destruction derby' mode which was a cramped supermarket parking lot, I enjoyed it a lot and judging from the amount of people that ask for demolition derby games I think it will be a big hit. when it ships in the U.S. in September.

According to IGN Stranglehold blog they have finished a demo and sent it off to Microsoft for approval. Hopefully that means we will get to try it out real soon.

Take 2 and Rockstar announced today that they were releasing Bully: Scholarship Edition on the Xbox 360 and Wii. It will contain everything from the PS2 version of Bully and have new additional content, unfortunately no release date was given.

Buzz Krusty Squishee'os... Movie bonanza, and Clyde R.I.P?

I got my Simpson's paraphernalia from Kwik-E-Mart. If you remember 11 of the 7-Eleven stores nationwide transformed into Kwik-E-Mart for the month of July to promote the the Simpson's movie opening this month. My boss was taking a trip to Denver so I had him go by and grab me some Simpson's themed goodies. I'm now in possession of a 6-pack of Buzz cola, one box of Krusty O's, and a squishee cup. :) Too bad they couldn't find anyone to bottle some Duff beer.

I was bored yesterday so I decided to hit the theater and catch up on some flicks. First off I went to License to Wed which for some reason I was thinking was Chuck & Larry then it started and I realized it was the one with Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, and John Krasinski. This was alright since I had seen the preview, and thought it looked funny (even though I was associating a completely different movie with the title). Basic boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl story that you've seen over and over again. They fall in love decide to get married and find that they have to complete Reverend Frank's (Williams) 'marriage course' to make sure they are truly compatible. There is enough laughs sprinkled throughout to elevate it to 'romantic comedy' and a touching if not predictable ending.

I then decided to switch gears and watch 1408 which I've meant to see, and heard mostly positive word of mouth. I really enjoy John Cusack and would venture to say as he is one of my favorite actors which started with Sure Thing, and Better off Dead followed by Say Anything, Grosse Point Blank, Serendipity, and Identity as most of my favorites. 1408 is based off of a Stephen King short story and follows the 'adventures' of a writer Mike Enslin who travels to paranormal spots and writes about them. He is really hardened and has lost faith in spiritual and supernatural occurrences, when he gets an anonymous dare to stay in room 1408 at the Dolphin hotel in New York. The hotel manager (Samuel L. Jackson) does his best to persuade Mike not to stay, but loses out because he needs the last chapter for his latest book. It turns into more of a supernatural ghost story later in the movie, and while the there are some decent 'jump' and shiver scenes overall at the end I felt let down. It's not that its a bad movie by any means, but it did not propel itself past okay.

I was thinking the Simpson's Play & Win contest went from July 2ND - July 19Th, but after putting in my daily entry today I realized it was through the 17Th of July. So I can now officially quit playing Clyde everyday, winners won't be announced till after July 29Th so my fingers are crossed! On a related note, those of you on my friends list will see my new homemade gamer pic. I found a great shot of the pink frosted donut from the movie and took a picture of it with my LIVE vision cam. :)

E3 conferences uncorked, and giddy WoW happiness!

Well E3 2007 officially kicked off Wed. in Santa Monica, but Microsoft shot out early holding their press conference Tuesday evening at 10:30pm (doodah time), 8:30pm in Cali.

For the first time G4TV was going to televise the big 3 live, so I hurried home Tuesday evening and got ready for the show. It started off pretty good a musical act (that went on a little too long) and then the introduction of Peter Moore. He came out and started his spiel then G4 cut to a commercial break. I was like WTF? I thought well maybe they were just setting up a tape delay and would pick it back up when we came back, nope didn't happy. We instead come back to see the Mass Effect logo on the big screen with a voice over saying "Welcome back to the live Microsoft E3 conference where they just showed a new Mass Effect trailer!" Great rub it in, bitch. I proceeded to watch the hour and half presentation (of which I probably missed 10-15 minutes because I was watching G4's shitty commercials. Not to mention that evidently they didn't teach the camera op how to zoom in, because when they would start a montage on the screen the shot was from the very back of the venue with the big screen taking up a 1/4 of my screen. I didn't think they could go down any further until about the end of the show when they started showing a new Halo 3 trailer and cut out 15 seconds into it. :( I fired off an angry e-mail after the travesty, and thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have to watch the Nintendo, and SONY conferences since I had to work.

It seems that overall (after reading up on the other two yesterday) that for the first time none of the companies went to far out on a limb to show big titles that were scheduled later than the end of 2007. Microsoft announced at the very beginning that everything they showed would be out by the end the year (and later let that rule slide so they could show the Resident Evil 5 trailer). Probably the biggest shock (although it was meet with a timid audience response) they announced a Halo 3 edition 360 that looks to be 'gunmetal' green with brass highlights, and a matching controller. The specs on the Xbox.com site show it has a HDMI port, but only a 20GB hard drive and the normal 'premium' compliments, no word on price yet.

The SONY conference big highlight was the announcement of a 'new' redesigned PSP hitting in September/October of this year. Slimmer, lighter, faster, longer battery life and new colors, including a Star Wars bundle with a white shell and Darth Vader silhouette on the back. I've also heard that the Killzone 2, and Metal Gear Solid 4 trailers are really good, but I haven't got around to watching them yet.

After a couple days of questing, and killing I finally had enough gold to buy my World of Warcraft mount! Yes indeed I hit level 43, and passed the 90 gold threshold about the same time. I'm now broke again, but I have a horse. :)

PS3 price cut, no, yes, maybe? and it gets phat!

Well as I posted a couple days ago it looks like the PS3 price drop is indeed true, although SONY initially denied the claim. Now according to an AP story on KOTV not only is the 60GB dropping to $499.99, but

Sony Corp. announced a revised PlayStation 3 console Monday with a bigger hard drive for storing downloaded content such as video games and high-definition movies.

The new $599 PS3 increases the system's storage capacity from 60 to 80 gigabytes and also includes a retail copy of the online racing title ``MotorStorm,'' a company spokesman said.

Starting Monday, the current 60 gigabyte model will cost $499 _ a $100 price drop.

So we're getting a $100 off the 60GB, but for $100 more you get 20GB of extra storage and a $60 game? It seems like their taking Microsoft's pricing structure into effect $40 for 20GB of space, plus full price for a game? Umm, yeah no thanks.


I have been thinking over the $500 price point on the 60GB mainly as a Blu-ray player (I love my HD movies), and that would open up a bunch of other studios (Disney, Lionsgate, and Sony/Columbia that don't support HD DVD right now). Plus it would really puff up my queue on Netflix, with all the additional movies I'd like to see, and combined with the 5 free Blu-ray disc offer I would be set. Since I already own Resistance Fall of Man and both Pirates of the Caribbean movies, it's only a matter of time before I pick one up...

My 360 is safe (again), Simpsons no love & Kwik-E-Mart, plus the PS3 plumetts

Microsoft issued a press release today that upgraded the 1 year warranty (at launch was a 90 days, then last year was upped to 1 year) to 3 years on all Xbox 360 consoles. The 3 year only covers the 3 flashing red lights of death, but still makes me feel a little more comfortable knowing that my launch unit will be protected until November 2008. Since the red ring of death is the major problem with most systems I'm happy. :)

The Simpsons movie is coming, and the cross marketing is in full swing. I was ecstatic to see that Microsoft had announced a contest to giveaway 5 of those lovely yellow Xbox 360's that I posted a while back. The only catch is to get entered you have to play Cloning Clyde, and after digesting the official rules I found that you had to play a multiplayer match on Xbox Live to get entered (once per day, for 17 days).

This wouldn't be a problem since I have live, and plunked down the 800 points for Clyde (which isn't a bad little platform game) the first day of the contest. My problem came when I started playing and found that no multiplayer games existed on LIVE, evidently it turns out that Clyde (which hit the LIVE arcade 7/19/06) is somewhat of a has been. I logged on about 4 times that first night in the span of ~5 hours, and finally about 12am our time found 1 ranked game, I got stomped rather quickly but got my entry anyway. Yesterday afternoon I actually found a couple games going where both participants knew about the contest so word is spreading. I have added about 4 new friends to my list so hopefully someone will be on to play with everyday to get my entry.

20th Century fox also enlisted at least 11 of the nations 7-Eleven stores to 'transform' into real life versions of the Kwik-E-Mart. My boss sent me this link which goes to a flickr gallery of the new Kwik-E-Marts. Unfortunately the closest ones are Denver or Dallas, although since I know someone going to Denver next week I *expect* a six pack of Buzz cola, and a box of Krusty O's. :)

In other big news today Kotaku picked up on Speedy1961's DVDTalk weekly ad posting for Circuit City which eluded to a $100 price cut on the 60GB PS3 system. Then later this afternoon Gamedaily posted 'retail' confirmation of the price drop on 7/12/07, this coupled with the Blu-ray promotion where you get 5 free BR movies with player purchase (PS3 counts!) makes it an appealing deal.

The 'official' word from SONY will most likely come on July 11th when they hold their E3 press conference. Which reminds me that Microsoft is also 'Bringing it Home' again this year through Xbox LIVE we'll be able to get demos, videos, and other goodies from E3.

Summer movies more than meets the eye...

I went and saw Transformers last night and must say it was explosive. :) It definitely was a Michal Bay film, not a lot of character development just enough to move the story to the next action sequence. I'm not saying that as a bad thing.

There seem to be a lot of people that dislike Michael Bay films, they are all flash and no substance, a popcorn flick. I can say that I have liked all of his directorial efforts including Bad Boys 1&2, the Island, and especially The Rock to name a few. As long as you know what your going to get going in how could you be disappointed? I know that it's not going to be the next Oscar winning drama with a deep intertwined story with rich character development, shit is going to blow up, a lot.

First Live Free, Die Hard, and now this I thought this summer might fizzle after Spiderman 3 but luckily things have taken a 360 degree turn. I haven't seen Pirates 3 yet, but I heard it was good also so maybe just Spidey was the bad apple? I still have Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Rush Hour 3 to look forward to before the end of August. Summer '07 is shaping up pretty nicely.

KC with Dave, Furniture, Cheesecake, Books and more.

Since I had the time off, we (a couple friends, my wife and daughter were available the same day) planned a outing to KC last Thursday. We went up that morning, and stopped by JCPenny Outlet (always a favorite stop), and the Oak Park Mall (which we commented is a really nice mall noting that the leather chairs would be so torn up at Towne East/West). Lunch was at Dave & Busters, and then we went over to Nebraska Furniture Mart (I still love that place), and my friend wanted to stop by the Cheesecake Factory (since he enjoyed it so much in Denver) before we came home (this time I had the Carmel Apple Streusel). It was around 6pm so we hit the dinner rush although we didn't have to wait very long, as the KC location seems to seat a lot of people. We've never ate a meal there (just desert both times) and while the prices seemed a little high, the portions we seen other people with were huge. It was rainy and overcast all day, but we had fun.

Since I hadn't been to work last week I hadn't been up Rock Road, and when I went by Friday I was surprised to see that the Macaroni Grill building was a pile of rubble in the span of 2 days. I found out that Barnes & Noble is building a new supposedly really large building there that will replace both 29th & Rock, and Kellogg & Rock locations eventually.

I caught Nancy Drew last week (my daughter wanted to go) and it wasn't too bad. It actually had a decent mystery although it felt like a TV special rather than a full feature film, at least you wouldn't be totally bored as an adult. I'm looking forward to Transformers, and hopefully will see it tonight so I'll report back then.

Doctor, we have a pulse he's waking up...

Wow. Did not realize it had been that long since my last post, thought about posting 2-3 times but kept putting it off, or something else would come up.

I've updated my sidebar with my 'summertime' TV viewing (although Monk, and Psych are still a couple weeks away) habits. I caught a preview of Burn Notice that starts this week on USA, and looks pretty good so I'll give it a shot.

Some of those missed post I talked about above were movie updates for Surf's Up (good), Shrek the Third (so-so), and Knocked Up (really good). Today though I saw Live Free, Die Hard, and I must say fanfreakintastic! It easily elevated itself towards the top of 'my favorite' list, I'm a big Die Hard franchise fan mostly, I really liked the first two, three was okay but didn't grab me the same way as the first two (not to say I haven't seen it quite a few times though). I don't even know if WOW can cover it, this movie has some of the best stunts and action sequences I've ever seen. I laughed when I seen the trailer originally because I felt that Bruce was getting a little to old to play boyscout (particularly since he was so convincing as a washed up has been in 16 Blocks (another excellent flick)) and seeing they were trying to mix in some younger blood with Justin Long (Accepted, Jeepers Creepers, and Galaxy Quest) I thought maybe John McClane wouldn't be all of the focus, but I'm happy to say he is, and I bought every part of it. I've seen Hollywood take a fancy with Hong Kong style 'acrobatic' action pieces like the opening crane scene in Casino Royale, and Live Free has two sandwiched close to the beginning, and the end. Which in my book is a good thing as both reminded me of watching older Jackie Chan movies.

The previews on Live Free were also added to the experience, War, starring Jet Li and Jason Statham both of which are great action stars. Rush Hour 3, and Simpsons the movie both look great too although I've seen the trailers before. I also caught the trailer for Hitman, now I've played a little bit of the games, but the trailer just didn't grab me.

On the 360 front this was actually a pretty big release week (although 3 of the titles were movie adaptions) Darkness looks really good, but they pushed the demo back until after the game ships and I'd really like to try it first. I'm ashamed to admit that I actually kinda like the Harry Potter game, we got to play it early at work on the Wii and I enjoyed it. I started playing the 360 version today, and I can say that I *really* enjoy casting with the 360 controller rather than the Wiimote. Certain spells I just couldn't get the Wiimotion down on and it frustrated me pretty quickly. Speaking of which I tried out Call of Juarez the other day and either I was missing something or the level design was really unforgiving. It would tell me not to do something (say avoid these people) then 10 seconds later it would happen. It looked really good, but I got frustrated really quick I didn't get a chance to try the multiplayer so maybe it wasn't all bad. Everybody seems to hate Vampire Rain the weird Splinter Cell/Resident Evil hybrid, but I really enjoyed the couple levels I played in the demo. It's actually on my list of things to pick up, especially if I could find a good deal on it.

I had to force some days off this week otherwise I would have lost some vacation days, so I'm heading to KC for a day. Dave & Busters for lunch, and a stroll through Nebraska Furniture Mart, plus some tooling around KC. I'll report back.

360 gettin' Dirt(y), and Halo man cannon goodness.

According to this blog entry the demo for Dirt is supposed to be up on the marketplace tomorrow morning. Although the post states it's for European users, Xbox360fanboy believes it will show up on the US marketplace as well. I'm really looking forward to this, as all of the screenshots, and videos I've seen thus far look freaking gorgeous. It will still probably land in the pile of racers I suck at, but anyway.

I've played a little more of the Halo 3 beta, and while still getting my ass kicked in matches I do enjoy it. Other FPS shooters I can usually hold my own various PC Half-Life titles, Unreal, Quake, and even some console shooters like Lost Planet, and Fear I end up being in the middle of the pack. I'm not the best, but certainly not the worst player in the match. All the Halo titles have been the opposite though I'm always hovering towards the bottom of leader board. I would think it's just PC versus console controls, but since I don't suck at every console shooter I don't know what it is.

If you haven't had enough of the beta Bungie put the Halo 3 multiplayer beta shirt (the one that shows the man cannon) up on the website, so you can be stylin' if you want.

Halo 3 ... finally, 28 Week's Later, and the end is near.

Well I got up yesterday promptly at 6:55 a.m. before my alarm went off, and started my wondrous adventure into the land of Beta software, and fairy tales. Went downstairs popped in my Crackdown gateway disc only to be greeted by the same 'greyed' out option as always.

The first update came on the Bungie.net homepage at 5:22 a.m. Pacific (7:22 a.m. doodah time) acknowledging the problem, and saying they had notified Live and were working on a solution. The next update on the Bungie.net homepage was at 3:55 p.m. Pacific, sure there had been some updates here and there in the forums section, but who wanted to trudge through 10 pages an hour of fanboy hate, and commentary? For a while it seriously looked like it would be 24 hours late, and not hit until 7 a.m. Thursday morning. When the 3:55 p.m. update was posted it said they had figured out a solution and were 'testing' it, and it would be implemented in 3-6 hours.

It finally hit Live evidently about 9:05 p.m. (doodah time), but I was busy watching C.S.I. New York. I was trying every commercial break but couldn't get Crackdown to update, after the show ended I did some more net reading and found that clearing the update cache on the 360 HD was working for people. About 10:10 p.m. (15 hours later than planned...) I finally started downloading the Halo 3 beta. Luckily my download went pretty quick, and didn't have any of the problems that some people were having. Right after 11 p.m. (watched Lost during the download) I started my beta experience. :)

It didn't take long for me to realize that it's been a long time since I played a Halo game. I pretty much suck online, although I did manage to pull off a couple kills in the 2+ hours I spent with it. I also got to play all 3 of the beta maps, and 5-6 different game variations (still like slayer (plan ol' death match) the best, and territory (sp?) not so much). I'm still undecided about the matchmaking setup, it seems to take a little bit to find a game then fill it with players, but it seems like you can 'tag' a group of players and you will move from game to game together. Because of the snafu with the download, Bungie/Microsoft have extended the beta till June 10th now, so a few extra days of Halo goodness.

I had some free time Tuesday after work (didn't work Wednesday (see big plans above)), so I went and saw 28 Weeks Later. I had seen the first one 28 Days Later before it hit theaters here. It was a European release and was already available on DVD over there before it played theatrically here. I had read so many good things about it that I went ahead and imported the DVD, and even watched it again at the theaters thinking maybe I missed something. It was supposed to be a 're-imagining' of the zombie movie (or at least that's what I gathered), but what I got wasn't ... that. It was okay, nothing real special. I thought the story moved kind of slow, and I don't remember it as being action filled.

Anywho I caught the preview for the new one about a month ago, and it showed promise plus I figured it had to be better than the first one. Overall it was much more enjoyable than the first, although it had it's problems. I didn't like the fast action soft focus cuts, that felt like a montage of still photos. I also didn't see that they tied it to the first movie at all (other than basic premise), but there is some grey area there as I know the DVD version had at least one, if not two, alternate endings, and I can't remember what the ending of the theatrical cut was. I think I'm remembering an alternate, and not the real one (damn, now I need to go back and watch it again...). Weeks is definitely a step in the right direction, and the ending poised this one for another follow up, maybe the third time will be a charm.

Seems like just yesterday the fall tv season was upon us, and now some of my favorite shows have already had their cliff hangers, while others have another week to go. Now that the cable channels seem to make their own seasons, at least I can take comfort in the fact that other favorites will be coming back in the upcoming weeks to take the vacant slots. On a side note I noticed Cox has added TNT HD to my box, so something new to watch, oooh maybe The Closer in HD this summer. :)

Even more 360 goodness oozing out...

Got home from work to find there was another demo up on marketplace today, Midway released a 'demo teaser' for the upcoming FPS BlackSite Area 51. What's a 'demo teaser' you might ask? Well it seems that in encompasses about ~5 minutes of game play, just a teeny taste to get you hooked.

I enjoy first person shooters a lot, and had seen some screen shots (and a video I believe) from this a while back so I was eager to give it a shot. I wasn't too far in when judging from the controller setup, I seen words that sent shivers down my spine, squad commands. As much as I like FPS games, squad based games and me just don't jive. I'm lucky to keep myself alive without having to worry about 2-4 other dinks running around. Once I got into the game it wasn't as bad as I feared, you only have the one button for squad commands, and depending on what your cursor is targeting that decides what they'll do when you hit the button. For example if you target a door they will breach the door, if you just target a position on the ground they will move to that location, etc. It reminded me of the mechanic used in Star Wars Republic Commando on the original Xbox. I've haven't spent much time with it yet, but I'm going to mess with it some more tonight.

There's a site called Livecard.net which offers custom gamertags for Live, and over at Cheapassgamer LinkinPrime has a bunch of his custom creations that you can see. I really like the 'super deformed Venom' card and was going to use it in the sidebar to the left, but it's too big so I'll just post it here...

I guess Microsoft let a press release spurt out about a new live arcade title, called Aegis Wing described as a four-player "2-D side-scrolling space shooter that combines epic space combat with fantastic visuals... set to a rich symphonic soundtrack.". The other highlight of the press release was it's free, and supposed to be available next week on May 16th. As of now the press release has been pulled, and replaced with info about next week's actual (overpriced $10 bucks??) title Soltrio Solitaire. You can see the full post that someone managed to copy and paste before it was vaporized via Kotaku.

Updat-a-palooza, Simpsons box Mmmm..., and even more!

Well I've been meaning to throw some post up here, but never got around to it. I've updated my movie sidebar, as last week I played catchup on quite a few. First off I watched Hot Fuzz this is by the same guys that brought us Shaun of the Dead, and it was just as funny. It leans towards British humor (since they are British, go figure) as does all of their comedy.

Next up was The Invisible which looked pretty good from the trailer, unfortunately that was most of the good parts. I thought I was going to see a murder mystery/suspense thriller, but what I got was wasn't even a who-dun-it they showed the murder happen with all parties involved. Not to mention scenes in the trailer weren't even in the movie?! Go see Disturbia much more enjoyable.

Then I finished the week off with a sneak of Spiderman 3 last Thursday. Umm, yeah. I really like the Venom character, and was a big fan of the symbiote story line in the comics. I don't know what happened Sam Raimi did a great job on the last one, and while the action scenes here were good, they were spaced apart by a lot of touchy feely dialogue. It felt drawn out to me, it didn't help that the Venom storyline was only the last ~20 minutes either.

Gamespot posted a first look the other day at the new Simpson's game coming out this fall. I originally thought it was going to be based on the movie, but it seems as though it is "lampooning" different video game genres. Personally I enjoyed Simpson's Road Rage, and Simpson's Hit & Run a lot so I'm looking forward to a new game. Then today I find that Microsoft issued a press release about 360 tie-ins with summer movie releases. The best part of this release was they will be making 100 limited edition 360's to give away in as of yet unknown contest over the summer. Check it out below, I want it.


I think I posted about it a while back, but my new power supply was wonky and I had to RMA it back to the company. I finally got a replacement today in the mail, and happy to say the new one is whisper quiet and my new rig is up and running at full speed. I transferred World of Warcraft over promptly set all the graphic sliders to high, and pushed it up to 1600x1200. It looks nice, and runs so much smoother than it did on my old system. I snapped a picture of the guts below, which don't really do it justice because you don't get the lighting effects.


The new demo for Forza 2 is up now on the marketplace. I tried it out a little bit tonight, and yes it looks really pretty. I still, however, suck at racing games. Forza was always a little to "Sim" for me to get into I like my racers more arcade-y which means I can usually control them a little better. The new spring dashboard update is also available now, I haven't played with it too much yet. I sort of like the marketplace blade, but I wish they hadn't put it back to the left of the main blade. The only other thing I've actually come across so far was the achievement upgrade. Now while playing a game it pops up with the achievement name and how many points it's worth. :)

Doodah, Texas, and a order of Fry's...

Back in Doodah since my 3 day trek to Houston (Dad had a check-up) Texas. I had to help drive because they get tired, and on the way back Dad doesn't feel like driving. It's a pretty grueling 1 day jaunt at about ~12 hours including 2-3 stops, and from Sunday till yesterday was pretty much overcast the entire trip. It only rained on us yesterday going around Dallas, and then coming through OKC.

Saw the coolest billboard heading into OKC, picture of Cartoon Networks Eddy from Ed, Ed, and Eddy I think, and simply had the caption "I Pooted", it made me laugh. I also seen a McDonald's that the exterior of the playplace was shaped like a Happy Meal, and the corners of the building were french fry boxes, although I can't remember where we passed it. Houston was cool, pretty much what I recalled from the last trip down there. The view from the medical center was neat (even overcast) you could see planes coming in to the airport, and the Astrodome too. My PSP got a workout as I played a lot of Puzzle Quest on the road, and surfed the net while stuck in the medical center (I love free wi-fi).

Probably the highlight of my time in Houston was the stop by Fry's there. I've been to one before in California (E3 2005) that was really cool with the interior/exterior paying homage to 50's Sci-Fi movies. I probably mentioned it then too, but Fry's is like 5 Best Buy's, and a Radio Shack all under one roof. This place is huge. We stopped on the way out of town and I picked up a couple HD DVDs, and some PC fan power wires that I couldn't find here in town the last week or so. I really wish we could get one here, or even K.C. it would be worth driving to once a month.


Oh and if you watched Heroes Monday night, Yay! it rocked. If you didn't, why not?

Heroes is coming... 360 in high gear, and movie wrap up.

Well if you forgot (like you haven't been looking forward to it for weeks...) Heroes is back tonight on NBC, USA Today had article about the final five episodes of the season. Sounds like there is a lot of stuff happening in these season ending shows, and it sounds like they will actually wrap up the New York exploding story line.

Is it just me or does the "racing" genre always seem to be the best show off of graphical superiority? I've mentioned before that even though I'm not that great at racing games, I usually always check them out because they are gorgeous to look at. There have been screens posted for Burnout 5, and Dirt which is also featured in the new OXM issue, and part of the Colin McRae series. The screens for both look phenomenal! It's making me miss my copy of Burnout Revenge on the 360 that I traded in a long time ago, that and playing the PS2 version of Burnout Dominator. :(

I forgot to mention it, but I checked out Grind House when it started a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed it. I too sided with the mass populous and liked Planet Terror (Rodriguez) better than Deathproof (Tarantino) and I hear that when it's released on DVD it will be two separate DVDs which makes since, because one DVD won't hold a 3hr+ movie.

I also checked out Disturbia last week, which even though it's a PG13 thriller (usually a mark of death) I really enjoyed it. It was a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be, and highly recommend it.

Introducing PeeCee!

Well what started out as a simple PC upgrade turned into a whole lot more. Originally I was going to replace the motherboard, CPU, and memory and call it good, but one thing lead to another and before I knew it I had all kinds of new parts. The only things that remain of my old PC are the case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor... the guts are all new. :)

I finally got the last pieces I needed for the major overhaul last Wednesday, a couple snags here and there and it was Thursday night before I got to fire it up. The good news is it booted up the first time, albeit making weird noises. I finally tracked the noise down to the new power supply unit, and while it works so far for the brief time I've used it, I'm getting an RMA# to send it back.

On the bright side I got Vista installed, a meager overclock going, and so far pleased overall. The Vista install had to be the smoothest (clean) OS install I've ever done, clocking in at maybe ~30 minutes. My older PC is now a part heap waiting for a spare case to be rebuilt in, so I don't currently have access to some of the stuff I need off the HD. :( I thought I had burned most of it to a CD-R but as normal I forgot some things here and there. So right now my Vista is running pretty bare bones without most of my utilities, and none of my games yet, but Internet is working so all isn't lost.

My other bright spot is Vista gives you a 'Windows Experience Score' which is supposed to help you pick software titles (once they start putting them on the package) by just looking at a number. Example Game A has a experience score of 3.5, as long as me computer scores 3.5 or above it should play perfectly. Your system is 'graded' on 5 areas (CPU, RAM, graphics, gaming graphics, and hard drive) then your overall score is the lowest area (your only as strong as your weakest link type thing). Supposedly the best score available right now is 5.9 based on the current technology, I'm happy to say that my system scores 5.3 with my weakest link being the hard drive (should have dropped the extra couple bucks for the 10,000RPM drive...) the next lowest is the CPU at 5.5 and with a little more overclock I should be able to nudge it up a bit. The final 3 RAM, and both graphics categories already hit 5.9 (Yay!)

The only drawback I've encountered thus far (other than the power supply clanking) is my Zune realized it was just visiting the new PC, and if I want to make it a permanent resident it clears the library (wiped/formatted/music go bye bye) to sync it with the library of the new machine (which of course is empty right now). I of course declined this offer, and just let it visit to grab my weekend podcast.

Uneasy Wii feelings, spring dashboard update, and more!

As I mentioned last time, I put my Wii (system you pervs) up on eBay and sold it last weekend. I sent the package via UPS at a UPS store Saturday morning. The problem is that the tracking number I got comes back with an 'unable to locate package' on the tracking site. :( I figured Saturday might have been too early (maybe it didn't even go to the UPS facility yet) but it's still not showing now (noon on Monday) so I'm off to bitch at the store clerk.

Gamespot let it slip last week with a video which was removed fairly quickly, but Microsoft confirmed all of the new features coming with the spring 360 dashboard update. Since messaging is a big part of this, they also announced a controller keyboard add-on that is supposed to go on sale this summer.


The most notable things to me are the achievement notice (it now tells you the achievement name, and value when unlocked), the marketplace getting it's own dash blade, telling you what disc is in the tray, and the updated video codecs for streaming from the PC.

I saw Shooter last week, first movie I've been to in a while. Although it reminded me a lot of Most Wanted starring Kennen Ivory Wayans (don't know why haven't seen it in years) I enjoyed it. Seemed like they used a lot of blood squibs in this movie (which I have nothing against), but coupled with The Departed there seems to be a lot more of the 'blood spurting' gunshot wounds in movies now. Right now I plan to catch Perfect Stranger, and Grindhouse this week so hopefully all goes well. Were less than a month away from the 'Summer' blockbuster tidal wave starting May 4Th with Spiderman 3!

C&C rox! IV is coming, and rewards inbound.

I picked up Command & Conquer 3 because I knew I would play it on my new system. When I got the package I was actually shocked that the minimum requirements were so low, as I remember Generals requiring a beefy system when it was released. I decided to try the demo since it looked like it should run on my current system, and it does. :) My graphic settings are low/medium but the tutorial and 3 skirmish games I've played have ran okay. I'm really enjoying it, makes me want the new system even more, because I know it will look even better.

Rockstar has released the first trailer for IV what will be GTA IV. The website has regular, and HD versions down loadable, and they just put the trailer up on LIVE yesterday, check it out.

Next Gen Fight has put up a next gen cost calculator, even my price additions the other day were skewed because I didn't add in the cost of HD cables on the Sony PS3 side. I think its unfair to have the 20GB PS3 in the listings because you can't find one new, but it does show that it's a lot closer price point wise.

Last but not least, the Xbox Rewards challenge has posted the rewards. If you successfully completed the challenge log in and go to My Rewards you will have codes listed for your challenge level to redeem on LIVE. Picked up my Contra arcade game, and my Old Spice gamerpic last night.

Elite 360 'officially' announced!

True to thier word Microsoft announced the Elite 360 today selling April 29th for $479.99. The 120GB hd will release seperately for $179.99 (including a transfer cable to move stuff from your 20GB --> 120GB drive). Kotaku has full scoop which includes the following tidbits...

The Xbox 360 Elite will come with a 120GB hard drive, an HDMI port, a HDMI cable, both component and composite cables, an audio adapter for use with HDMI and a black finish for the console, wireless controller and Xbox Live headset.

They also announced 6 new 'media' partners that would be supplying marketplace video content including A&E, Warner Bros., NewLine Cinema, and more. It's going to be a tough sell Elite 360 $479.99 + Wireless Network $99.99 + HD DVD add on $199.99 = $779.99 vs. a 60GB PS3 for $599.99? Double the storage for $180?

Update-a-thon v1.0...

What's new? Lets see since my last posting I took a weekend break and went to Branson. My daughter was on Spring Break, but doesn't like to go with Grandma & Grandpa by herself because no one will ride with her at Silver Dollar City.

Friday (1st mistake), + Spring Break (2nd mistake) was terrible. I think we rode each ride once, and got stalled at three different ones because they were adding additional cars/trains (they didn't know they were going to be busy...). SDC has a new ride, The Giant Swing opening the first week of April. Check out the mock video in the link, looks like it will be pretty cool.

The rest of the weekend was okay, we ate at FuddRucker's one afternoon and the new Joe's Crab Shack one evening. I have ate at Joe's before in Galveston, TX and remember it being much better, maybe I should have went with crab (duh?) instead of shrimp. The food was good, but didn't seem worth what I paid for it. Since my trip to Denver, and this outing to Branson I have found that I really like free wireless access in the hotel.

My PSP got a work out this weekend from watching some TV shows on the way down, playing Luxor : Wrath of Set (a lot, I really like this game (note to self: really need to pick up Magnetica for the DS but not at $30)), to surfing my favorite sites at the hotel. It also allowed me to download the current Legendary Thread, and 1UpYours podcast which I listened to on the way back. I don't remember mentioning it last time, but the DS web browser is finally getting a US release supposedly in June. Now web browsing on the PSP (while a neat feature) is not overly practical but it works okay. The biggest advantage to the DS would be if it brings up a 'touch screen' keyboard for text input, but you will lose the ability to download music/pictures/video and play them back like on the PSP.

It seems as though the black 'Elite' 360 is indeed headed to a retailer near you, Xbox360fanboy posted some candid shots from a Chinese factory that were posted on a Chinese video game BBS. I don't know of anyone taking reserves for the systems yet, but if the early May release date holds (I read somewhere about a Microsoft announcement coming Wed, but now can't find it, where the Elite is to be announced). Unless there is some hidden goodies (other than color/hd size/HDMI) that we don't know about I won't be upgrading. I'll wait till I come across a used 120GB hd and then pick it up.

My computer components are still sitting in the corner mocking me. Command & Conquer 3 comes out today, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. hit the shelves last week. I have come to the conclusion that to raise money for my stinking ram I'm going to put my Wii (console you sickos) on eBay. I don't play it, or much else for that matter (WoW the only game you need) and you know its inevitable big N will announce new colors, or functionality in Wii 1.1. I might pick up another one then, I might not depends if the games get any better. I've got some other stuff to put up too so hopefully I'll get enough to cover the ram, and maybe some other non-priority addons.