After playing the Civ Rev demo earlier this week and enjoying it I went out and bought it. I can't stop playing it. It's been a while since I've had this much fun playing a game that's not a shooter. I actually lose track of time while playing. When I do have to stop to go to bed or to go to work I always tell myself just one more turn. One turn then turns into three or four. This game is that damn good. I know tons of people have lost a lot of hours playing the Civ games on PC. I understand how now. I can't remember the last time I was this addicted to playing a game. If you own a 360, PS3, or even a DS and even mildly like turn based strategy games I suggest you at least rent this game. I'm totally loving it.
Watch This Game Trailers Civilization Revolution Video Review For More Info.
Yeah, that's right top 2. Man, 1971 was a terrible year for one hit wonders. I scoured the list from 1971. I even youtubed every song on the list. I have no idea what people were smoking in 1971, but my guess would be skunk weed. The Ten Years After song rules it though. Would you believe that the cost of a gallon of gas in 1971 was 40 cents? A movie ticket was $1.50 Anyway, here they are.
By now you all know I'm a huge fan of 80's music, but I also like a lot of 70's songs as well. Afterall I was born in 1972, and my parents always had the radio on or an 8 track playing. So let's take a trip through the 70's for a bit starting with the one hit wonders of 1970...in no particular order here are my top 5 one hit wonders from 1970. Oh BTW the picture you see above is a 1970 Chevy Chevelle. Man, I love that car!
I've been taking the weekends off from blogging because I'm generally doing things that have nothing to do with gaming. Every weekend I've been hanging out in the pits at the track with my nephew, and watching him race. He stayed at my house last night and we did manage to play some Lego Indy as well as Geo Wars 2. With only two more weeks of races left I'll be gaming like a freak soon enough. On top of all of this it's been pretty dry as far as new games go anyway. Tonight I decided to check out teh Civilization Revolution demo on the 360. It was way better than I expected it to be. I had never played a Civilization game before, so I didn't really know what to expect anyway. I enjoyed the demo, so I will probably pick up the full game soon.
I can't wait untill September and October for all of the games that are going to be released. The NHL season also starts in October, so my plate will be full finally! Summer can't die soon enough!
It's Mac Tonight! Anyone else remember this old McDonalds commercial?
Xbox 360's Achievements are so addictive that if I play games on my PS3, Wii, or PSP I feel like I'm wasting my time. I remember a time when just playing a game on my Sega Genesis, NES, N64, PS1, or PS2 was just fun because the game I was playing was fun. Now when I play a game on the PS3 in the back of my mind I'm kinda irritated that I won't be getting any achievements for the things I do in that game. There have been so many times where I think about what Xbox 360 games I can play to get achievements even though I have a few games that I need to finish on the PS3. Sony did finally implement a trophy system, but it's a case of too little too late. Not to mention not all PS3 games will have trophies. If Sony had started the trophy system from the very beginning and made it mandatory that every game have trophies I may be singing a different tune right now, but that's not the case. As I sit and type this is seems so ridiculous that I feel this way, but hey I do feel this way. I feel like in the future every console that is created will need some sort of achievement system to be valid. Micrsoft may have screwed up with a console that's not the most reliable, but damn did they get so many other things right. I put achievement points at the top of that list of things they did right. What's your gamerscore?
Another Favorite Of Mine From The 80's! I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue.
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about Halo 3. He's the guy who came up with the name for this blog. Anyway he was telling me how the cheap melee deaths and grenade deaths in Halo 3 must have been patched. Halo 3 would piss me off to no end with cheap deaths. For example I'd get into melee combat with another player. I'd hit him a couple times right off the bat then he would hit me once and I would die. This happed to me so many times that I actually quit playing Halo 3. I remember hearing a lot of instances of this happening when the game first came out. Supposedly Bungie fixed this issue. I didn't notice it today at all when I played. The problem is in my opinion this game is inferior to Call Of Duty 4. Yes, I know they are both different types of shooters, but both have been at the top of the Xbox Live most played games list since they were both released.
Graphics are important to me. I won't lie or pretend they aren't. At the end of the day it's all about gameplay, but I want...no I need both gameplay and great graphics. Halo 3's graphics are washed out. They really aren't all that special. I expected more from a game like Halo 3. COD4's graphics are really nice looking. COD4 wins on the graphics category.
The controls for Halo 3 feel floaty comapred to COD4. COD4's controls feel precise and well, just right. Advantage goes to COD4.
For the most part I like every map that COD4 has to offer. I can't say the same for Halo 3. I swear if I want to scream every time Snow Bound comes up on Halo 3. There's nothing to it. It's a small boring map. Advantage COD4.
The ranking and leveling up in COD4 destroys the leveling up in Halo 3. Can you say perks? Not to mention that awesome guitar squeal that comes up when you level up in COD4. Advantage COD4.
The single player and multiplayer modes in COD4 own Halo 3.
COD4 definitely owns Halo 3. It's no wonder COD4 is generally the number one game played on Xbox Live.
I decided to turn on G4 today, and X-Play was on. They were previewing a quad racing game called PURE. The more gameplay they showed the more I wanted to play it. I had never even heard of this game before today. The graphics looked amazing. Not many racing games get it right, but this really looks promising. It looks like they managed to get the feeling of the speed right as well as the look of the crazy tricks you can pull off while way up high in the air. It's not a sim by any means which in my opinion is a good thing. It's looks like total arcadey fun! Official Xbox Magazine has already given it a 9/10. PURE will be on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I'm really looking forward to PURE. The release date is set for 09-16-08. Oh, BTW this game totally reminds me of the SSX snow boarding games, which I love to death. Crazy fun games!
Nintendo leaves me scratching my head yet again. Does the world really need a Hell's Kitchen video game? Let me just state that I am a fan of the "Hell's Kitchen" tv reality show, but I have no desire to ever play a video game based on the show. The people from Ubisoft and Nintendo who are behind this abomination should be locked in a room with a pissed off Gordon Ramsay while he screams at them for hours on end.
The Nintendo Wii is such a joke at this point. With all of the shovelware Nintendo keeps pushing out uninformed Wii owners are buying crap games by the truckload. The Wii doesn't have the attach rate that the Xbox 360 does, but they aren't far off with 5.3 games sold per Nintendo Wii. The 360 has an attach rate of 7.5 games as of April of this year according to Joystiq.
I woke yesterday with a wicked stomach ache, so I took a sick day and stayed home from work. About an hour after calling in I developed one of the worst headaches I've ever had. I was out of ibuprofen, so I had to take tylenol...which didn't work and never does for me. Later that night I finally found some ibuprofen. I took 3 and an hour later my headache was pretty much gone. I feel a lot better today, but not 100%. I'm going to work anyway. The thing that sucks about being sick is that you really don't feel like doing anything, but dying.
Here are the top 5 things I did yesterday...this is not an exciting list.
1) After my headache was gone I played some Resistance: Fall OF Man 2) Watched "Purple Rain" on blu-ray 3) Watched the Paul Newman biography on the Biography channel 4) Read some of the new Official Xbox Magazine issue 5) There really is no number 5. Yesterday sucked!
I saw this at a message board I've been posting at for a long time. I knew Mike was a whack job, but this video really made it all too clear just how whacked he is. Check out this video. It's actually really funny. There's lots of foul language, so I wouldn't watch this at work or around kids.
To buy Madden 09 or not to buy Madden 09. That is the question. I bought Madden 08. I sold it a while after because all of the fumbles and interceptions were pissing me off!
I really need some worth while new games to play. Lately I've been playing XBLA games. I need something epic!
The PSP is a terrible handheld when it comes to shooters. It really really really needs two analog sticks! It's great for the older 2D games though.
I still haven't finished MGS4. At first I thought it was a great game. Then I got bored with it real fast. The PS3 really needs some good exclusives. Little Big Planet better be as good as the hype.
I'm really looking forward to Little Big Planet, Fable 2, Gears Of War 2, and Fallout 3. Those are sure to keep me busy for a while.
I haven't been watching a lot of movies lately. I did finally check out "Lars And The Real Girl" the other night though. Not bad. Not great. On IMDB I rated it a 6/10.
Geometry Wars 2 is an awesome game. I'm finding it very strange that I got my highest scores the first day or two that I was playing it. Now I can't seem to top those scores. You'd think I would be getting better. It's a great game because you can just pick it up and play it when you don't have a whole lot of time to spend playing.
Hockey season is just around the corner! Training camp starts next month! Here's an early GO STARS!
Here's a Beach Boys song I've had stuck in my head for days.
I must have forgotten just how difficult a lot of the 8-bit games were back in the day. My memory of just how hard they were came back after playing BIONIC COMMANDO REARMED. I'm not saying all of those 8-bit games were hard, but a lot of them were. Newer games played at normal or medium difficulty don't have a thing on those old 8-bit games. With most shooters and action games these days you get a ton of save points and regenerating health where you can hide somewhere away from danger untill your health goes back up. Back in the day you only got so many lives and a health bar. Checkpoints were few and far between! If you died you generally had to go back and do a whole lot of things that you already did. I'm thinking it should be mandatory for young gamers to go back and play games like Bionic Commando just so they can see that they aren't as hardcore as they may think they are. Bionic Commando Rearmed is a difficult game when played on the medium setting. It actually reminded just how easy newer games are to finish. This game is obviously a remake, but it totally captures that old school feel. It may take me a while to finish this.
Once upon a time there was this podcast that I listened to called Xbox Podcast. There were three hosts of this show. One by one they started dropping out. Brun left to start the This Xbox Life Blog. He later announced a new podcast. The next thing you know Wingman709 drops out of the Xbox Podcast and joins Brun for the This Xbox Life podcast as well as a guy named Rob who I had never heard of before. He's a quiet guy, but I have a feeling he'll start talking more during the podcast soon enough. Then to my surprise (no not really) MoronicCow drops out of the Xbox Podcast and joins the This Xbox Life podcast for episode 2. All is well again.
I love the format of this show. It's all Xbox related gaming discussion. I've been a fan of what these guys have done for well over a year now. The only difference now is that it's a different format, and they've added another guy to the mix. Though I tend to use colorful language and don't mind hearing it on podcasts this is a family show. That's really not a bad thing though. Check the show out. It's a good one. This Xbox Life
In early 1984 my Father passed away. Cancer took his life. My Dad was a person that I feared. It's not like the guy beat me or anything, but he was a guy that I knew better than to cross. The man could give me dirty looks that would make me cower in fear. All of the kids in my neighborhood that played outside in my yard would bail leaving toys spinning in the yard when he got home from work. The guy wasn't mean. He just had this look and vibe about him. Plus he was mostly quiet, and rarely smiled. You're probably thinking what in the hell does any of this have to do with things you did in the 80's, but would never do now? After my Dad passed away it was like a whole new world for me. I was angry and pissed off at the world. It was just me and my mom now. We were left behind, and I had a whole new lease on life. Can you say rebellion? With no scary dad around I went wild. Grwoing up there were kids who bragged about wild things they had done. 99% of them couldn't hold a candle to the shit I did. Here are just a few things that I did growing up in the 80's that I wouldn't do now.
At a school that I won't name they used to park a large row of busses outside. Me and some friends slashed a whole lot of bus tires as well as pretty much every seat in every bus in that row.
By the 7th grade I was smoking quite a bit of weed, and drinking pretty much any type of alcohol I could get my hands on. I don't do either now. Oh, I was also smoking about a pack of Marlboro Reds a day at the age of 11. I kid you not. I quit by the age of 19 due to sinus issues. On top of all of that I also used to chew tobacco and smoke cigars.
Mooning. For some reason me and my friends thoght it was cool/funny to show everyone our butts. One night me and a friend decided to moon cars coming up the street. Then we would run into the woods. We ended up mooning a cop. He flashed his lights. We ran like hell into the woods.
Pyromania. If it was flamable I'd light it on fire. Me and a friend set the woods on fire once and almost couldn't put it out. We also used to take old newspapers that people would leave in the their yard or paper boxes and light them on fire at night in the middle of the road.
Pool Hopping. In our neighborhood it seemed like most houses had a pool. Late at night during the summer of 1988 me and a friend made it our mission to jump in every pool in the neighborhood. It was a lot of fence jumping, but damn was it fun.
Snowballing cars. I lived by a really busy street. Cars would be driving 55-65 mph down that street. One night me and some friends decided it would be a great idea to throw snowballs at these cars. We hid behind a wall of bushes and just kept nailing cars. Finally one guy turned around a chased us. We ran through a trailer park finally losing the guy.
Theft. I can't even tell you how many car stereo's I stole in the 80's as well as various other objects.
Jail. I went to jail for disturbing the peace on Halloween of 1989 at the age of 17. It was the only time I have ever been in jail.
I'm sure you can guess that I skipped many many days of school. I even had a cop bring me back to school when I was in the 9th grade.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I've done a lot of other things that I'm definitely not proud of. I've already told a bit too much, but it gives you an idea of how juvenile I was. I wouldn't think of doing any of that today. I'd severely beat my daughter if she did any of this.
I blame it all on the Heavy Metal. Yeah, that's it! It ruined my mind! NOT!
Years ago I was a huge fan of horror movies. These days I rarely see a horror movie that does anything for me. I think the last horror movie that I really enjoyed was Stephen King's The Mist. Before that it was The Blair Witch Project. The ending of both of these films really did it for me. In the 70's and the 80's it seems like there were just so many good/great horror films. There were just so many good horror movies before that abomination called "Scream".
Below is a list of some horror movies that I consider classics.
The Exorcist The Texas Chainsaw Massacre When A Stranger Calls Poltergeist The Amityville Horror Misery Hard Candy The Blair Witch Project The Thing The Mist An American Werewolf In London Haloween A Nightmare On Elm Street The Last House On The Left The Thing Jaws The Fly
Nothing Beats The Texas Chainsaw Massacre except for MAYBE The Exorcist.
While I really enjoyed playing Fight Night Round 3 I wouldn't say it was the best boxing video game ever. Ring King was a really fun boxing game as well. You kids probably don't remember that game. It was in the arcades. That was back when we had to get out of the house to play the good games. Ring King was also on the NES. Through the years there have been a lot of boxing video games. Most really aren't worth mentioning, but I'll list a few anyway... George Foreman's KO Boxing, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Boxing Legends of the Ring, and Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing just to name a few.
Out of all of the boxing video games ever created none of them hold a candle to PUNCH OUT! Both the arcade version and the NES version rule the boxing video game world. I pumped a whole lot of quarters into the arcade version, and spent many hours playing the NES version. The fun I had laughing at how easily I could whip Glass Joe. King Hippo was a hoot as well. Get a belt already, fatty! Soda Popinski, we know what you were really drinking, you lush! Bald Bull, dodging your swings was irritating at first, but after I got the hang of dodging I whipped your charging ass! Great Tiger, you had some crazy moves, but in the end you were just another victim of Little Mac's punishing uppercuts! Super Macho Man, I ripped my hair out of my head and swore a whole lot, but I finally took you down! Mike Tyson, when I played your version of Punch Out! I rocked your world after a thousand or so tries as well.
Punch Out! is definitely the reigning boxing video game champion of the world. Don't even argue it because it is!
Gears Of War fans rejoice! You can have your very own replica Lancer! Amazon.com is selling EXCLUSIVE replica lancers for $139.99! If you preorder the lancer you get Gears Of War 2 for free. Offer good while supplies last or until 11/7/08. 140 bones is a bit too steep for me, but I guess if I really wanted it I would get it. If the chainsaw worked it would be a no brainer. Link
Anyone Else Remember Poker & Blackjack for Intellivision? When The Dealer Shuffled The Deck It Sounded Like He Was Farting.
At E3 we learned that Netflix will be streaming movies to our Xbox 360 consoles. At first I thought this was a good idea. Now I'm thinking it's an ok idea. I was kinda geeked about it at first. Now I'm just kinda like whatever. My reason for not being too excited about it is because the movies will be streamed in standard definition. The Xbox 360 is known for being an HD experience. My games are in HD. This was the entire reason why I bought and HDTV. When I DL movies from Xbox Live I ALWAYS DL HD movies. I've heard people say that in the future Netflix will probably offer HD movies, but does anyone really know for sure? Even if they do I'm sure the cost for HD memberships will go up. On a side note I also think that being able to watch the same movie as someone on your friends list is a useless feature. For me it will be anyway. You'll be able to watch the same movie off of Netflix and talk to that friend on your headset. To me that's assinine. Who in the hell talks during a movie? Well, besides annoying assholes at a movie theatre or my 13 year old daughter? I want to scream when someone talks during a movie. I sure as hell don't want my friend talking to me on a headset when I'm trying to watch a movie. Dumb idea!
I picked up Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. Holy crap is this game addictive! It's basically an old school type of space shooter with really nice HD graphics. It's that and so much more. I had never played the first Geometry Wars, and wasn't interested mostly because I hate games where you use one stick to move and the other to shoot. I want a button to shoot, damn it! This game has changed my mind though. It's stick shooting done right. It just feels right. I also love that there are differentr game modes that offer some really great gameplay. The modes really mix things up. The bottom line is if you own an Xbox 360 you really need to spend the 800 Microsoft points on this game.
Braid is a new game that you can DL on Xbox Live. Braid is a game that looks awesome! The screenshots that I saw look really really nice. It's getting some really good reviews. I have heard it's on the short side. I don't mind short games as long as they are really good. I do however mind spending 15 bucks on an XBLA game. This will be the one thing that will hold me back from buying Braid. I'd spend 10 bucks on it, but 15 just seems a bit steep. Look, I'm not some penny pincher. I spend a ton of cash on games. I'm basically letting Micrsoft know with my dollar that I'm not willing to pay over 10 bucks for a game on XBLA. If people start paying these prices on XBLA games it won't be long before all games are 15 to 20 bucks.
My PS3 is basically a dvd player. I've watched a few blu-ray movies on it, but for the most part it's my fancy new dvd player that I can play games on, but pretty much don't. I've found that the PS3 experience is a cold experience. The PS3 is like the retarded distant cousin of the Xbox 360.
My Nintendo Wii doesn't collect dust, but that's because my daughter plays it a lot. I rarely ever play it. This console sells because it's the "in thing" right now.
My PSP is definitely collecting dust.
My Xbox 360 is still large and in charge. There's a reason why I own 60+ Xbox 360 games.
Golden Oreo Chocolate Creme cookies rule the world as do Fisher Cinnamon Pecans.
Summer needs to end soon. I'm sick of the bugs. I'm sick of the heat. Bring on hockey season already!
'Screaming For Vengeance' is one of the best metal albums ever created by any band ever. Once upon a time Judas Priest was incredibly awesome. Not so much these days.
This blister on my toe is driving me insane. Man, it hurts like hell!
With all of that randomness being done with I'm off to download Geometry Wars 2...
I leave you with this video of one of my all time favorite cookies that is no longer available.
Sunburns definitely suck, but I don't get sunburns because I bathe in sunblock. Sunburns make the list. I have no idea how people can hang out at the beach all the time. That's definitely not my thing. I don't care for the heat either. High temps make the list as well. For me the worst part about summer is bugs. My place of employment is pretty much surrounded by a forest. Obviously I see a lot of bugs. I've seen some bugs that I have absolutely no idea what the hell they are. Flies are irritating. Mosquitos are little blood sucking bastards. Bees and hornets make me do crazy dances trying to avoid them so I don't get stung. Just while walking outside at work some type of bug will fly into me. Right now my bug problem is huge hornets that fly around on the front lawn. I'm talking these things are fucking mamoth! In my mind if one stings me I'm headed for the grave. I've never seen hornets this big. From what I can tell they have a nest underground. When I walk by the front law they buzz my head, but never try to land on me, so that's good, but still! Management already knows about these hornets spawned by satan, but won't get rid of them because "they won't sting you". Uh...yeah ok then. I swear if one stings me I'll tie someone from management up and stick them on the front lawn. The worst part about summer is definitely bugs!
I do most of my gaming at night/early morning hours. I work second shift so I'm usually up all night/morning. I've changed my sleeping schedule. I was waking up at 2:00 pm. Now I'm getting up around noon. Getting up earlier gives me some time to kill. What better way to kill time than to jump on my Xbox 360 and play some games? I've mostly been playing COD4. Playing COD4 during the day vs at night is well...like night and day. During the day I don't get my ass handed to me nearly as often as I do at night. It's a whole different world playing games during the day. I actually play a hell of a lot better during the day. That's obviously because all of the hardcore diehard shooter fans are playing at night/morning. There are times when I'm playing at night where it's just hard for me to believe just how damn good some people are. It gets frustrating! The funny thing is that the first time I played COD4 during the day I had myself believing that I was getting really damn good. My bubble was then bursted during the night hours when I would repeatedly get my ass kicked. Needless to say I now try to play during the day as mush as possible. I do still play at night no matter how bad I get owned.
80's Song Of The Day. I bought this on a 45 7" single back in the day.
I'm 38. I'm addicted to Xbox 360 gaming and Dallas Stars hockey. I make a decent living at a boring job where I run two autoclaves and do various other tasks. My escape from this boring as hell life is video games, hockey, and music. I generally listen to Metal music, but I also love 80's tunes as well as 70's tunes. I have an unusual love for the band Overkill. They do it for me for some reason. Blitz is GOD!
