Lovin' the red box, oogling Crysis, and bullying the 360.

You've probably seen them sitting outside the Mickey D's locations around town, I'm speaking of the Red Box video rental kiosk.

My first run in with one of these machines was about a year ago, outside of Oklahoma City at a McDonald's location but basically for $1 a night you can rent new release DVD movies with the swipe of your credit/debit card. Seemed like a good idea at the time, and now they've finally trickled into Wichita. According to the website there are 10 locations in the city, and I just realized some of the kiosk are inside the restaurants (I'm guessing because these locations have no parking next to the building at all). While the $1 rental fee is really cheap I've got hooked on this because you can request a free rental code from the web site, and if you sign up for there text message service you'll get a free code every Monday that expires at midnight. Now in a marketing push by McDonald's every large or x-large drink nets you a free code that's good until December this year.

I wish they had some form of HD format available (although it would probably be blu) but my DVD player up converts anyway so even regular DVDs look really good. The only problem I see is there is no catalog titles everything in the box is within the last ~4 months of release probably, but those are usually cheaper or 5 day rentals at other rental stores. On the plus side you can check the inventory currently in 'any' machine from the website before you make a trip, and reserve it through the website then pick it up at the kiosk.

I finally got around to trying out Crysis on the PC this week. First off I love it when I hit the auto-optimize button and it says "All settings set to HIGH", yeah it's not VERY HIGH but hey I'll take it. At the beginning of the game of course it's pitch dark, and having to use the night vision I was like 'this is supposed to be the best graphics on the PC? Then I hit the second part of the first chapter "First Light" when you come up on this beach front base just as the sun is coming up over the water... WOW! :P The sun rises and then you get a good look at the 'world' and it's freaking awesome, crawling through the vegetation is unbelievable the way it pushes away from you as you progress forward, not to mention the ways shadows fall on the ground. If you get a chance definitely check it out, if you have a system that can do it justice it's worth a look.

I was really looking forward to Bully Scholarship Edition on the 360 because I never got around to playing the PS2 version a couple years ago. Moving to HD hasn't done it any favors as it looks fairly blah on the 360, but it's a Rockstar game so I figured I would enjoy it anyway. I'm only about 4 days in (game days), but man some of the missions are so frustrating you don't know how long they'll take, and you also have to try to make it to classes in time. I've ended up missing classes altogether because I was trying to complete a mission, or ended up getting busted because I'm in the building after close, or skipping class. My other gripe revolves around the camera when you get 2 bullies on you, or prefects (school monitors) come after you for a school infraction I've been caught because I'll get stuck in a corner, start running, and then the camera will flip 180 degrees and I'm headed back into the corner again. I've read numerous complaints on the net about freezing, audio glitches, and frame rate issues which Rockstar has acknowledged, personally I've only had a couple frame rate glitches but a patch might be required. At this point I'm glad I rented it, maybe down the road I'll pick up a used copy in a month or so, but then again Grand Theft Auto IV will hit at the end of April so I may just wait for it.

HD DVD RIP, Oscar shorts, and 360 happenings...

Well the Warner Bros. HD DVD announcement at CES back in January (remember... they went Blu exclusive) was the tip top of HD DVD's downward spiral.

Feburary 11th Netflix announced they were going exclusively blu, new HD DVD discs will not be added, and currently renting titles will "rent until the discs' natural life cycle takes them out of circulation in the coming months." Then BestBuy added to the pile by saying they "will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format." Then on February 19th Toshiba announced that they "will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders."

I caught the Oscar shorts yesterday so without further ado my picks are as follows...

Animated short - Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even pigeons go to heaven). A older gentleman cheats death. All of this years animated entries looked good, there seemed to be a claymation-esqe feel to 3 of them, and one that looked like a moving painting. Check out this site for links to some of the animated shorts online.

Live action short - Tanghi Aregentini An office working looking for love must learn to dance the tango in 2 weeks, with a comedic twist ending. Although the winner will probably be At Night a moving look at 3 cancer patients spending the holidays in the hospital.

Documentary short - La Corona a beauty pageant held in a women's prison in Columbia. The academy award though will most likely go to Freeheld a New Jersey county that won't grant a 24 year Police veteran her pension to her lesbian partner.

I'm looking forward to Frontlines:Fuel of War after playing around with the multi-player demo last week. The multi-player feels a lot like a Battlefield game with 5 'control' points on the map the winning team is the one that controls all the points at one time.

Imitation, 360 minibits, Blu-ray additions...

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so they say. Passing the intersection of Harry & Oliver I did a double take seeing the red/white neon 'GameShop' sign, it sure looked like the GameStop logo. After further review it seems that 1 letter, and a color swap is indeed the only difference between the two signs, someone must think they have a good idea. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just additional store front for the A-Ok Pawn shop that owns the building, although it may be a totally separate operation.

On a semi-related note the Game X-change at Harry & Rock Road had a notice up that they were closing at the end of January. Both of the west locations would remain open, and they hoped to have another east side location before the end of the year. I've been in the new 'way west' location two or three times now, and never seen much there (product or people), maybe they'll get the east side inventory.

Hopefully you picked up your free copy of Undertow last week, it was Microsoft's 'apology' for the Christmas downtime of Xbox LIVE. I played around with the tutorial level a bit, it looks pretty, but didn't really grab me at all. There were some new demos up on LIVE over the last couple weeks, The Club was originally available in Europe only (now it's up in the U.S. also), a shoot' em up brawler where everyone is thrown together and last man standing wins. Think Running Man (with Arnold the governator) and you get the general idea. It's was fair, definitely not a purchase for me though, maybe if I hear some good buzz after it comes out, and it's under $20.

Next up was the much ballyhooed Devil May Cry 4, ummm okay, evidently I'm not the target audience for this one either. I never played any of the PlayStation titles, and never felt like I was missing out. I know there are a lot of people hyped for this so I hope they enjoy it.

Then there was Turning Point Fall of Liberty a WWII 'alternate reality' FPS. I've read some about it, and it seemed to have a neat storyline, so I was eager to try it out. It looks pretty good, but it controls like Hour of Victory unfortunately. It has that same weird slow motion turning that really killed HoV when I tried it, way to sluggish. Hopefully the final game will fix it, or have some way to tweak the settings to make it playable because I really think it could be good.

The best demo I've played lately was out way back in early December, Culdcept Saga is a great mix of a trading card game, and a board game. I really enjoyed Magic the Gathering TCG, and this fantasy based game really struck a cord, it comes out next week at $40 I think, and will probably be my next purchase.

I've expanded my blu-ray collection quite a bit (tripled it, actually) when I ran across some used titles at work. I couldn't afford to pass them up even though I don't have a player yet... (tax refund where are you?). I also ran across a website for retail employees where you can take some video courses (about 20 minutes of effort) over blu-ray technology, and earn a free blu-ray movie. There were only 5-6 to choose from, but they were decent titles, and who complains about free?

Cloverfield, the PP bowl, and Blu envy.

I saw Cloverfield Friday night. When it was first mentioned to me I didn't even recognize the name, and had to watch a trailer to figure out what it was about. Turns out Cloverfield is a monster movie produced by J.J. Abrams (also producer of LOST, and Alias TV shows). The entire movie is shot 'handycam' style, it's basically a personal video diary of the events that take place to a group of friends.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, although I do have some gripes. There is a lot of action, suspense, and a healthy dose of comedy (mainly from the guy running the video camera Hud) all from a PG-13 film. My biggest compliant is I wish there was more back story in the film, it clocks in at a measly hour and a half, I think another 30 minutes would have done wonders. I guess some of the 'back story' can be distilled from the viral marketing web sites that were up before the movie launched, but if you didn't see this you shouldn't be left at a disadvantage. All in all it reminded me a bit of The Host a Korean monster flick that came out here last year (I mentioned it back in February 2007).

The final round of NFL playoffs are this afternoon, I'll predict now that Super Bowl XLII is going to be the PP Bowl, Patriots vs. Packers with New England taking it all.

I am really leaning towards picking up a PS3, those blu-ray discs are calling to me. After Warner's bomb shell at CES the HD DVD outlook doesn't look as bad as some were predicting (no other major studios dropped in Warner Bros. wake ie. Paramount and Dreamworks are still on board). There is so much stuff available on blu that I would like to see, and have the freedom of choice in case one format does dry up completely, that I think a PS3 is in my (tax refund) future. :)

New Year new updates, and so much more.

Wow didn't realize it had been so long since my last update, thought about it a couple times in December, but as you can see I didn't follow through. :(

Christmas in retail is an adventure, and with the new position at work it was a little more stressful than I remember year's past being. I survived though most of the time dealing with people that I swear probably only leave their houses in December each year (and never step foot in a video game store the other 11 months).

While November was a really (really) heavy release month for new game titles, the last 2-3 weeks of December, and so far the first two weeks of January didn't see anything worthwhile come out. I'm still playing Call of Duty 4 (online multiplayer only, although I did finish the prologue mission in single player) a lot. I hit level 41 last night (Colonel I) out of 55 before going into prestige mode and starting over at 1 again. :) I picked up a used Wii system (my 2nd, I had one around launch and figured out there wasn't anything I wanted to play on it) just after Christmas mainly because Nintendo likes to butter us up with freebies. Time will tell if I actually start using it regularly this go around, or if it ends up being ignored again.

CES kicked off in Las Vegas earlier this week, and one of the big blu-ray announcements was leaked last week, Warner Bros. had decided to go format exclusive on blu-ray. Rumors have followed saying Paramount will follow suit (thanks to a drop out clause in their contract with HD DVD), and I read today Universal may also. Time will tell, but the future is getting very 'hazy' for HD DVD. I am surprised to see a lot of early adopters dumping their collections on eBay already at fire sale prices. The players still work, and the movies you have already purchased will too why get rid of them at 25% value just to have to repurchase them in a different format? I'm not complaining because it looks like I can pick up some eBay HD titles on average of $10 bucks each. Microsoft has restated they are open to the possibility of an external blu-ray drive (for the 360) if that's the way the war ends. So I wouldn't really need a PS3 after all. :)

You may remember a picture I posted last year of a awesome triple monitor set-up for PC, well that is so passe now. Alienware has a prototype unit on display at CES running at 2880x900 this baby will look nice on my desk.

Back in early December I had found that The Reluctant Agent was coming out on DVD. This awesome made-for-tv movie was originally called Double Your Pleasure (which I guess now sounds like a porn film) in 1989 when it was released. The cool thing about it other that being a dual role by Jackée, is me. The summer of '87 I spent in California with a friend that lives there, and as it would happen his 'job' at the time was an extra. All those people you see in the background of your favorite movies, and tv shows they're paid to be there (and keep there mouth shut). He was able to get me three gigs while I was out there a day long shoot at The Forum for Born on the 4th of July, Two days work on a superhero tv show called Once a Hero it was to be episode 4, the show was canceled after 2, and finally one day on Double your Pleasure. I remember there only being 7~10 extras plus the crew, and actors so not more than 25 people total. We had a catered lunch with swordfish steaks, mmmmm... Anyway it had been ages since I had my VHS recording of the show so the DVD find was awesome. Check out the dude at the counter in the light blue/green shirt (with glasses).

Goin' underground, Zune facelift, and it's my birthday!

Last week I drove up to Hutch with a friend and went on the tour for the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. We had bought gift certificates about a year ago before they ever opened, and finally got around to using them up. There is about a 10 minute video presentation (mostly safety related) and then we loaded in the elevator and descended 650 feet below ground. Once we hit the bottom there was a ~20 min tram ride where they explained the details of the salt mine, as they drove through the corridors. After the ride your able to walk around at your own pace and look at the museum exhibits which was pretty interesting. The last part of the museum is actually more of a promotional brochure for the underground storage facility that is part of the area, sure there were some movie industry related items to see (costumes, and such), but it felt like I was watching a commercial.

Overall a worthwhile experience but now that I've been on the tour I don't know that I'd ever go again.

Evidently some of you may not have noticed, but the original 30GB Zune got a update about 2 weeks ago. After the new flash based models hit the scene the Zune software, and the firmware got a facelift. The 30GB system menu now mirrors the new devices with a larger font, and the addition of a podcast subsystem. There have been a bunch of changes on the PC software front end also, and a Zune Social webpage set up.

I'm really liking the podcast support as I was able to ditch another program I was using (you remember Doppler?) and its all automatic in the Zune front end so I don't have to manually transfer them to/from my Zune plus they show up in a completely separate area instead of my music menu. The social aspect was nifty when I logged in and got my Zune card my 'friends' list was already populated (from the 360 friends list) and was surprised to see that a couple people on my list also had Zunes. The software now allows you to do a wireless sync now too which albeit slow does work well. Now all I need is my car to be sync'd and I'd be set.

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday to me! It's always cool when it lands on Thanksgiving (every 5 or 6 years depending on leap years) I requested a 'turkey' shaped cake we'll see what happens with that. :) Hmmm, maybe I should submit it to Ace of Cakes sometime.

More racing, and TV. LIVE birthday freebies, and other 360 stuff.

The second leg of the Amazing Race is done, and the lesbian ministers we're eliminated. I must say that the dad/daughter Asian team is wearing thin, she's okay, but dad is annoying as hell. Hopefully they'll be gone quick enough. The grandpa/grandson team isn't much better, and I really didn't need to see grandpa disrobe down to his 'bikini' cut briefs on TV. Ewwww. :(

I'm hoping the writers strike doesn't effect my shows too much, I was shocked last night when Heroes mentioned there were only 3 episodes left. I was told that just meant this story arc, and some of the characters will continue on in a new arc this year. Speaking of which last nights episode 4 months ago really should have been the season opener. If they wanted to keep Adam/Kensai a secret we could have heard his voice and never saw his face, and then picked up where the season actually started as episode 2.

I'm shocked there hasn't been more series canned this season yet? The only one I can find is Viva Laughlin (did it even air any episodes?) that got the axe. TV execs may be worried that the writers strike would hamper mid-season replacements and decided to stick it out with what they had? Good news for me as a couple of shows have really grown on me. The Big Bang Theory (sad to say, but it's funny), Journeyman, and Bionic Woman have become more engaging as the season progresses none of which grabbed me in the first episode. Pushing Daises on the other hand I had high expectations for, but every week I care less and less.

and where is Lost?

November 15th marks Xbox LIVE's 5th birthday, and Teamxbox has an official announcement up regarding the birthday festivities, and a new dashboard (coming early December) item.

Microsoft says in the article that

As a gesture of thanks to the gaming community, all 8 million members will have the opportunity to download a free Xbox LIVE Arcade game,* available for downloading between 12:01 a.m. PST on Nov. 15 and 11:59 p.m. PST on Nov. 16.

According to Xbox360fanboy that the free came is Carcasscone. Which is good news for me because I don't have it yet. :) It also goes on to state that any 'active' members who were around in 2002 when LIVE started will get 500 MS Points (Yay! me).

They also announced a new feature of the dashboard update would be the ability to download original Xbox titles to your HD and play them from there (virtual console anyone?) though at 1,200 points ($15) they are not cheap by any means. Sounds like a nice idea, but I haven't played any Xbox titles since I got my 360, and don't have a desire to start now.

Target had the Madcatz 360 Arcade stick on clearance a couple weeks ago, but even at $27.98 I felt it was too much for what I've read is a really crappy controller. I was hoping it would hit 50% off ($14.98) and I would snag one for the three Live arcade titles packaged with it. I never found it again though so evidently someone else had the same idea. 360fanboy had a post this weekend saying that Best Buy also was had them on clearance for the low price of $9.99. Happily I was able to score one Sunday afternoon so I'm getting three new arcade titles, and a stick I eventually try out to see if it's as bad as reported.

The Race, Heroes, and other ramblings.

Amazing Race season 12 started Sunday night, and the 11 teams took off for Ireland in the first episode. Nobody stands out yet as my clear favorite, although we have the normal race pairs showing up Grandfather/Grandson, Father/Daughter, and Sisters all of which usually don't finish well. My pick for the winners right now is Rachel and T.K. a dating couple from Huntington Beach, CA. We'll see if that holds up over the next couple weeks.

I finally got around to picking up Heroes season 1 HD DVD set, off of eBay. Thanks to a Best Buy deal a couple weeks ago (you got it free with any HD DVD player), eBay was flooded with them. I received the set yesterday and watched the 'unaired' pilot (or Tim Kring cut as the box describes it). The terrorist sub-plot was different, and Parkman's wife was a completely different actress, but it's been a while since I've seen the pilot it's hard to compare. I'll probably watch the actual pilot episode today to see if there were other subtile changes.

I'm still playing The Simpson's Game on the 360, but if anything I get more frustrated the longer I play. Some of the platforming stuff is just bad, you think your going to go one direction but the game sends you off a different way. I'm going to play it a little more, but think it's more suited as a rental than a full purchase.
Call of Duty 4 hit shelves this week, and I've heard a lot of positive things about it. Hopefully I can pick it up here soon as I loved the multiplayer beta, and it sounds like the game is full of unlockable stuff as you progress through. It seems as though it was a pretty big hit I know most everyone was sold out of copies on Tuesday this week.
I'm also going to pick up the 360 version of Scene-It at some point. I tried the demo out with my daughter, but not having my vast movie knowledge held her back, and then we figured out that it was the same questions each time you went through the demo. :( The full version is supposed to have 1,800 questions so I guess it will last for a while, now I just have to get a couple other 'movie geeks' over so I actually have some competition. :)

Happy Halloween! and more.

Happy Halloween!


Well it's about that time getting ready to take my daughter, and niece out trick-or-treating. Kind of weird since the time hasn't changed yet (you didn't reset your clocks yet, right?), here it is almost 7pm and not dark outside yet.

Tried out some of the Halo 3 Halloween multi-player this afternoon, Bungie added a special "Living Dead" playlist for today online, based off the Infection game type. It was pretty cool seeing a whole group of black Spartans rushing the base, although the games didn't last very long.

My "new-refurb" 360 seems to be working fine, I've ran some games through it, and a couple of HD DVDs. I don't think it's as loud as my old machine, but it may just be that I hadn't had one for 3 weeks so I forgot what it sounded like. I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I picked up one of the new "Arcade Compilation" disc at Gamestop. Someone bought the new Arcade pack and traded in the disc because they didn't want it, so score for me!

Hallelujah! and a Halloween movie marathon.

I was greeted with the above info checking on my Red Ring of Death 360 today! A beloved 360 is on it's way back to me, the serial number is different than the one I sent in, so I'm guessing its a refurbished unit. At this point I don't really care, If not for dropping back into WoW I think I would have gone mad. :(

Hopefully it will arrive before this weekend, putting repair time (transit to-repair-transit back) right at 3 weeks to the day. I've really been contemplating picking up a second 360 unit in case this happens again, a broken 360 rendered my HD DVD player also so I've had the same netflix disc now for 2 1/2 weeks. I've known about the Xbox 360 Arcade pack for a while now (even though Microsoft has still issued no official word although it is street dated for 10/23/07), and figured I would definitely pick up the disc when we got in a used one (only owning UNO makes it a pretty descent compilation). The more I thought about it though I may just buy the whole package and keep the second 360 upstairs, allowing me to watch HD DVDs there by just moving the drive.

I took part last year in DVD Talks October Halloween Movie Challenge last year, where the goal was (loosely) to watch 31 Horror movies in 31 days (although the top person last year hit 170). I thought this was easily possible, but alas moving took a big toll and pretty much negated 2 weeks of the month. I'm trying again this year, but it's going slow again, we're half way through the month and I'm at 6. I even bought the Masters of Horror season 1 box set since I've heard so much about the series, thinking that would be 13 titles right there. The problem is mainly TV, I watch a lot of shows every night and October is usually early in the new fall season so that compounds it even more. The DVR (as much as I love it) hinders this too making it to easy to record multiple things (I remember when I used to have 2 VCRs to do multiple shows at the same time).

Sniffle.

Born 11-22-05
Died 09-29-07

Well it was bound to happen I guess. This afternoon I was playing with the new Official Xbox Magazine disc after work, when things started getting bad. My 360 decided it wanted to freeze randomly while I was trying the demos. It would just lock up, there would still be a screen, but the controller was unresponsive. I had to shut it off by hand and restart the machine to get back. After finally making it through the stuff on the disc (5-7 reboots later) I was finished, and decided to put it some time on Call of Duty 4 beta. CoD decided it too wanted to just stop during the middle of a couple matches, and lock up once when the game was loading.

Pissed, and frustrated I gave up and decided to take a break. After supper I watched a couple of my leftover DVR shows K-Ville (it's okay, my daughter likes it), and Moonlight (I really enjoyed it, but I don't think a vampire series will stick around (get it?) and decided it was time to try some more CoD4. Unfortunately now every time my 360 turns on I get the red ring of death. :( I've been a firm supporter, dealing with all these customers telling me how they hear 360's are breaking all the time. I always say "sure I personally know people that have been through 4 units, but I've had mine since launch and never had a problem". Alas I guess it may be true, all launch units are destined to die at some point. I now get to see how the wonderful repair process works out, I've always said I've heard good things I guess I'll see.

Halo 3 suxors? 360 deluge... new demos, new bundles, and fall TV hits.

Ok, so maybe Halo 3 doesn't suxors, but man I do. I played a few multi-player matches this afternoon and got thoroughly trounced. :( I've found that during U.S. evenings 5pm (EST) till 12am all of the 'hardcore' players seem to be on, and kicking my ass. I mentioned to someone the other day that I have better luck playing mornings (10am-12pm doodah time) as that is European evening, and I'm usually able to hold my own a little better, not like I'm winning matches but usually huddled in the middle of the list. Halo 3 has this cool world map that shows on the lobby screen depicting where the players are logged in from, earlier this evening it looked like the entire east coast was playing online.

There's been some new demos released the last couple days including Crash of the Titans, and Clive Barker's Jericho which I tried out today. I had seen a trailer for Jericho which looked interesting so I was hyped, until I found out it's a squad based shooter. Use a button to 'hot-swap' between members of your team each with their own unique talents and weapons. Ummm. No thanks. Played about 10 minutes before I decided that it was definitely not for me. Crash on the other hand was kind of fun, it's been a while since I played a platforming game, but it looks good and for the most part controlled well. Not a full price buy, but when it drops in price I may pick it up (I still have Kameo that I need to open and play.)

Opposable Thumbs has a rumor up that we'll get a 360 bundle pack this Christmas. Both the premium, and elite will come packed with Forza 2, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in the box the premium starting October 3rd, and the elite around the 23rd. They also give some new insight on the 'Arcade' bundle (the re-badged Core unit)...

New Xbox Core Sku "at the end of October" that will include a new version of the system with an HDMI port, wireless controller, 256MB memory card, and five arcade games on a physical disc. The games will be Boom-Boom Rocket, Pac-man, Uno, Feeding Frenzy, and Luxor 2. This package is expected to retail for the normal Core price of $279.99.

I've heard this rumor before, but I'm still not buying the 256MB memory card since that size doesn't exist (right now). I can't see Microsoft releasing a 3rd memory card sku, if anything I could see them trying to dump the 64MB with the system. I'm intrigued by the Arcade disc as I purchased the first Arcade Unplugged this one should be fairy cheap used (pack-ins always are) even though I have Uno already, the rest of the titles are cool, and since they're all 800 points the value of this disc is $45.00 (3600x.0125).
They updated this afternoon saying there is confirmation that Best Buy is taking pre-orders for the (premium & elite) bundle packs.

The fall TV season is in full swing and I've been watching a lot of new shows, and some returning favorites. If you remember some of the shows were leaked earlier this summer onto the net, to my surprise when I watched Bionic Woman last night they had retooled the episode. In the 'net' pilot there was subplot that Jamie's younger sister was deaf, but evidently hearing impaired rights groups complained that the actress was not deaf in real life. All the scenes with her younger sister had been reshot with a new actress.
So far I'm really liking Chuck, Bionic Woman, Life, and Reaper. In the so-so category is Journeyman, and Back to You. My guess for the first canceled show is going to be The Big Bang Theory while the pilot wasn't too bad I just don't see it being popular.

TGS, Lets get ready to RUMBLE!, Simpson's schwag, and more.

The Tokyo Game Show kicks off today, so hopefully we will see some cool stuff before it's over. TGS is the Japanese version of (the old) E3, except the way I understand it has a couple 'press only' days, then is open to the public. A lot of the stuff we'll see is not focused to the western audience, but there may be some highlights that are of interest to us.

IGN let the cat out of the bag this morning, when at a Tokyo Game Show preshow press event they noticed Burnout Paradise (PS3) was rumbling. Yes, it seems that the loss of rumble wasn't so 'last gen' after all. The new Burnout game will be the first PS3 title to support it. I think this is a good thing, because the PS3 controller always felt to light to me.

Team Xbox posted that EA had announced the preorder campaign for The Simpson's Game. Certain retailers (GameStop, Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart) will each have an exclusive preorder poster depicting one of the games 'spoof' levels, and include a code on the back to unlock stuff within the game. The news piece is a little vague , but it seems as though the "Homerball" (above) will be available in limited quantities also.

Every since hearing that the game will ship with 6 different covers (1 for each console version) which I thought was a cool idea, after watching numerous videos I'm really excited for this game. I'm definitely getting the 360 version, but finding out the DS version includes a 'pet Homer' function I may buy it as well.

I'm torn now on picking up the Legendary Halo 3 edition set I have preordered. I keep asking myself if I really need a helmet stand, and 3 extra DVDs I'll probably never watch (and if I do never more than once)? Tuesday is the big day and it seems as though a lot of people are really excited, so it should be a fun filled week at work. :)

I caught War last week, the movie with Jason Stateham, and Jet Li. Pretty decent action flick, with some really cool stunts. I feel that they went out of their way to provide a twist ending, that I didn't see coming, but don't know if it was necessary either.

Looking forward to Resident Evil: Extinction this week, and Good Luck Chuck looks funny. Next week TV kicks into the new Fall season Heroes shows up next Monday along with a slew of other shows. Happy days are here again.

Your grades stink, no games for you!, and more.

In a bizarre story WFAA (Channel 8 Dallas/Ft. Worth) ran a story about Brandon Scott manager of a Gamestop store in south Dallas, refusing to sell kids video games unless they bring in their parents, to say they are doing well in school. Um.... Yeah.

Still enjoying the Call of Duty 4 beta on the 360. I really like the skill up unlockables, and challenge upgrades you can 'win' as you level up. Gamestop is evidently giving out tokens now if you pre-order the game. It seems as though you need to give them your e-mail address, and you will receive the code in your inbox. Evidently the pre-order acknowledgement is going to be a new thing, as I got a 'Thanks for your reserve' note on my daughters copy of My Sims a couple days after placing the pre-order.

There is a Spiderman Friend or Foe demo up in the marketplace, and I played through it this evening. It seems to be a big co-op game where one person controls Spidey, and the other controls a sidekick (a select group of 16 villains I believe). You can play solo and use a button to switch between characters, but that got old pretty quick. I had my daughter jump in as Venom and then it plays more like a side scrolling beat-em up. Looks pretty good, but not a must buy for me.

Still looking forward to Eternal Sonata coming up soon. I need to finish my way through BioShock, as a customer came in the other day and almost blurted out the ending. :( I managed to stop him though, I'm guessing he got the hint when I plugged my ears and started mumbling "La-La-La-La-La" :)

We went to the State Fair last Saturday. Nothing too impressive this year, going back this Saturday night for a concert (would've been there Friday night also if Alice Cooper hadn't canceled! boo!).

360 boxes, beta and a PC'un too.

I found that close-up picture of the Halo 3 themed 360, and I must say that seeing the detail (like the worn look around the edges of the machine) it looks a lot better than I originally thought. You wouldn't ever want to change that faceplate though as it would look really dumb with a woodgrain, or Viva Pinata (for example) faceplate on it. I also don't understand why it's not coming with a 120GB drive maybe they figured it wouldn't sell at the higher price point?

I downloaded the Call of Duty 4 beta tonight, and after about 2 hours with it I can say Wow! There are 3 maps available in the multiplayer beta (a la Halo), and I easily prefer Overgrown a bombed out rural farm, buildings, and creek bed which is weird because it's the one that could almost be part of any of the older COD games. My second choice would be Crash which is a Black Hawk Downesqe middle east war torn town, with cobblestone streets, and a downed helicopter in the middle. The close quarters fighting is done on Vacant a delapatated warehouse and the surrounding area, which is probably my least favorite because its so frantic.

The graphics are amazing, and I like the promotion leveling system where as you raise in rank you unlock new classes, weapons, and more. I'm really looking forward to this now as it was really easy just to drop in and play (not that I'm very good at it, but by the time I was done I was getting better). Some shots taken from the Official 360 Hi Def Gaming Pics thread at TeamXbox to make you happy!

I also got around to trying out the demo for World in Conflict a PC RTS game coming out pretty quick. It looks really beautiful (of course I'm still giddy when it sets all my graphic options to the highest levels) and it runs smooth. Unlike C&C where you control your army against an opponent, the first couple levels in WiC your just commanding your squads as part of a bigger picture. You can still call in equipment drops (basically your build menu), and at times support (like air strikes, and artillary), but there is so much going on including objectives, secondary objectives that I felt a little overwhelmed. I'm definitely going to play with it some more before as I really like the premise, and presentation.

Halloween redux...

Just got back from Halloween sneak preview. Um yeah, I haven't seen any of the other Rob Zombie movies and now I may know why. This should have been titled white trash Halloween, I mean no wonder Michael started killing all these people. His mother is a pole dancer, step dad's a crippled bum, and older sister is a slut. This family seems really out of place in Haddonfield Illinois, unless it's a lot closer to Alabama than I remember. I guess it's somewhat faithful to the original (story lines) although there is a lot more deaths, and nudity in this one. We do get a lot more of Michael's back story here, where probably the first 30-45 minutes of the movie deal with him at age 10. It's okay **1/2, do I still prefer the original? Definitely.

I took my son (he's 17 and I debated a while before I let him go) although I know I started watching R rated features when I was probably around 15. What I don't get was the stupid sh*ts that took their freaking 5-6 year old kids, what's up with that? :( Do you not know what the movie is about? or you just don't care is that it?

Airborne, Labor Day sale, movies, and so much more...

Medal of Honor : Airborne (from now on MoHA) has been on my 'anticipation' radar for a while now. I've seen some video coverage, and listened to some podcast (GamerTag Radio, and Achievement Junkie) where they talked about the game. It sounded like a great experience, not having to follow a preset path through the missions. By parachuting in you basically could create your own 'spawn' location anywhere on the map, and then go through the mission however you wanted.

I was eagerly awaiting the demo on Xbox LIVE so I could give it a try, and see if it fulfilled by expectations. The demo finally hit last week (amongst an onslaught of demo goodness) after a snag at Microsoft certification, while the PC demo had hit early in the week I almost grabbed it unsure of when the 360 version would hit.

Unfortunately my expectations were too high, while I did enjoy the demo, I got frustrated by the fact that no matter where I started I ended up in the same alley (getting killed) while trying to get to one of the objectives. I'm hoping I just wasn't grasping the parachute mechanic because no matter what I did, I always ended up in one of four areas of the center of the map. I had envisioned being able to pinpoint where I wanted to go anywhere in the level and proceeding from there, but that wasn't the case.

I also didn't feel that the guns did enough damage. I started with a basic payload (machine gun, rifle, and pistol) for the mission, and could freely swap between them. It would take multiple rounds even from the machine gun, and I couldn't even pull off head shots with 1 round from the rifle (I realize some may be my lack of skill, but come on). I did however like the fact that focusing on a weapon, after using it a while you are granted 'upgrades' to that specific weapon. All in all after about an hour with the demo I was pretty jaded about the whole experience and it had sunk on my must buy list. Then imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from Godfree @ Gamertag Radio saying that I had won a copy of MoHA in their contest from episode #109. :) I'm again looking forward to playing, and hoping that maybe the tutorial will give some insight on the play mechanics or at least I'll be able to go through the manual. As an added bonus it looks like EA/Microsoft are giving away a bunch of MoHA prizes in Operation LIVE Jump the weekend after release, playing against some of the developers, and PMS Clan.

It seems Microsoft is having a little Labor Day Sale on Xbox LIVE Arcade titles. Four titles will be on sale for 1/2 price for 48 hours (7pm Saturday-6:59pm Monday doodah time) these include Zuma Deluxe, and Small Arms for 400 points ($5 regularly $10) and Gauntlet, and Dig Dug for 200 points ($2.50 regularly $5). I'm definitely down for Zuma Deluxe, and probably Gauntlet (played the heck out of it in the arcade). I'm going to have to read up on Small Arms again but I think the reviews were pretty decent when it came out.

Decided to go to a movie this afternoon so I went to see Invasion starring Daniel Craig, and Nicole Kidman. I had caught the preview for it a while back and forgot that it started a couple weeks ago. According to IMDB this was originally under the working title Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and was finished in early 2006. The studio didn't like the finished cut, so in 2007 it "underwent massive re-shooting" with the Wachowski brothers (Matrix ring a bell) to do script rewrites. What were left with isn't a bad movie, but it's not great either, I had the feeling I was watching an X-Files episode without Mulder & Scully. It's a body snatchers movie, but how many of them do we need? **1/2

I'm going to a sneak of Halloween tonight so I'm hoping the Rob Zombie remake fares a little better.

Change of venue, BioShocked!, and locked underachievements...

I changed work venues this week, still working for the same company just a different location. All in all it wasn't a bad move, more money (always nice), just a bit farther to drive, and I knew (or had at least talked to) most of the staff before. I've been used to somewhat of more organized location, so it will take a while to adjust, or hopefully achieve a happy medium.

Have you picked up BioShock yet? The game is amazing, if you haven't already heard me mention that. I assume not quite half way through yet, but with the job shuffle my days off were early this week so unfortunately I haven't had much time to play the last couple evenings. It seems to be selling really well, and a lot of people have been asking about it since Tuesday.

Wow, was my first reaction. Splitreason.com has introduced a '360'centric pair of women's underwear. Would the unlocked version been too sluty?


Achievement Locked underwear design @ © SplitReason.com

More TV previews, and BioShock roxerz!

I got around to watching the first episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles which is a 'flashback' if you will into the Terminator franchise unfolding after the events of Terminator 2 while John is a teenager. I had watched the panel discussion from Comic Con on the LIVE marketplace so I knew what to expect, Sarah and John are always on the run trying to stay one step ahead of a government agent (sent after her escape from the looney bin), and terminators sent back to destroy John. Along the way they get help from Cameron another terminator unit sent back to protect John, but find they didn't successfully stop SkyNet (in T2). I wasn't 'hooked' as with Pushing Daisies or Reaper, maybe because it was really late, but I'll still tune in at least the first couple episodes to see if I like it more.

There was a big 'teaser' over the weekend that the premiere BioShock trailer would be aired exclusively on SPIKE during the Kill Point episode last night. Then they added that there would be a 'special announcement' immediately after the trailer, which had the forums buzzing. As most everyone suspected it was the release of a demo on the LIVE marketplace @ 8:45pm (doodah time). I fired up the console, and when I checked around 11pm I was at 25%. :( I finally gave up and went to bed hoping that it would be done by this morning. Luckily it was, and about 1 hour and half later I had played through the demo. It is amazing! If you have any interest in FPS games download it now and try it out, it has some RPG type elements to it as well. The art style, and graphics are amazing (the water effects are phenomenal) as is the storyline so far. Garnett had 'gushed' about the game on the last 1UPYours podcast, and I thought maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but no. I was already hyped for this game, but the demo sealed it I can't wait until the 21st now.

The fall TV season is like a torrent upon us, yo.

I just got done watching the series premieres of Pushing Daisies, and Reaper (man, sometimes you got to love the Internet).

I was pretty psyched for PD anyway just from the previews, and the content from Comic Con 2007 that was up on Xbox LIVE. It plays like a cross between Dead Like Me, and I even gather a bit of Tru Calling set in a Dr. Seuss colored world. Ned can touch dead people and bring them back to life, but only for a minute otherwise someone else has to take their place, and if he touches them again they die forever. It plays pretty much as I expected with it's glossy candy coating saturating Ned's world, it looks really distinct, but I could do with a little less of the voice over narration. I will be tuning in to catch it again on ABC this fall.

In the other corner was Reaper which I've only recently found out about via an article in the Eagle. Sam just turned 21, and finds his parents made a pact with the devil before he was born for his soul on his 21st birthday. Now he's officially a 'bounty hunter' for Satan charged with returning escaped souls back to hell. Billed as a horror-comedy it plays like Shaun of the Dead, and should not be surprising as it's directed by Kevin Smith it was funny as hell.

Next up will be The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and The Bionic Woman premieres, so stay tuned!