Wow........thats the first thing that comes to mind. I've been saving for an HDTV for way over a year now. Constantly looking at prices and reading reviews was just making the wait even more annoying. I was on the Best Buy website, when I found exactly what I was looking for for less than what I had saved. The stars must have been aligned, or something was in retrograde, because the nearest store had one and everything worked out, for once. I now have a Philips 42" Ambilight 2 1080p LCD HDTV(yeah, its not a Samsung or a Sony, but c'mon, I'm not spending THAT much on a TV!!!!). I'm running my 360 Elite with the HDMI at 1080p for games, and let me say this, I am absolutely amazed. I have until this point been playing all games at 480p, on a 32" flat-screen projection tv that is 3-4 years old. It looked pretty good, and I really didn't think it would be that big of a bump up in quality, but was I ever wrong.

The first thing I played was Stranglehold, because I had just gotten it earlier in the week, and haven'thad any real time to play it. Some of the effects and destructibility are just awesome to behold, but it wasn't quite as awesome as I had hoped. At this high of a resolution, you REALLY notice minor design and programing quirks, some jaggies here and there. Weird. Well, maybe its just the game,I thought. Hmmmmm?????? Jeepers, if only I had an absolutely beautiful game that was ultra awesome to play and super immersive!!:o Oh yeah, I have Bioshock, I think that matches all the criteria listed above. Brain, would you kindly tell my body to put Bioshock in the 360. And then I once again descended to Rapture.

Before I go on to describe how absolutely beautiful this game looked, and how it totally sold me on HD everything, we need a sidebar. See, I live in a shed. Yeah, thats kinda over dramatizing things, but its a shed. My Dad turned it into a practice space/recording studio(my whole family are musicians, me included, but nothing lame like the Partridge Family, I play Black Metal, for Christ sake), so its sheet-rocked, has a small kitchen, couches and now an HDTV. Its not a regular shed, its one of those sheet-metal round ones, that looks like a small airport bunker, so the walls on the inside are curved, much like the interconnecting tubes between the different areas of Rapture. The walls are painted a dark blue, and there are no windows, so it already has this smothering kind of underwater Sea World tube feeling, other than the Drum kit and stuff like that. Its like a time warp, since you can't see outside, and you never really know if the sun is up or if its the middle of the night until you check a clock. The only window is totally blocked with a window AC unit. Oh, I live in the middle of nowhere in Texas, and its really hot right now, so the AC HAS to run 24 hours a day, no ifs ands or buts. Because of this fact, and the fact that its old, it leaks from condensation build up. We have some buckets underneath it to catch the drippage, and luckily it is far away from all the precious electronic and musical equipment. But after the buckets start to get full, they make a very audible dripping sound. Constantly. I can actually hear it right now as I am typing this. It is much like I am already among the corridors of Rapture itself, but then you add in the the Ambilight feature on my TV. I at first thought that this was nothing more than another gimmick. "Oh, good, my TV is gonna be really bright now......great." But after seeing that you can just turn it off with a single press of a button, I said, hey if it sucks I'll just turn it off. Well, it doesn't suck. It has several modes that alter it dramatically, but the Dynamic mode is the best, hands down. It doesn't just change color with whatever is on screen like I thought. It actually fades and blends different colors. It emphasizes shadows wonderfully. Whenever some thing moves on the left hand of the screen, for instance, the lights shift dynamically to create the effect of something moving in front of the light source.And the left and right lights are independent from each other too, so its not all or nothing.It is really impressive, and a feature that I am really surprised with how it is implemented. I hope you see were I'm going with this. Alone, in this Semi-Rapture like tube that I live in(for another week, at least) with the lights out and the constant drip of the AC unit behind me that is keeping me from dying of heat-stroke, and these crazy shifting shadows and sounds, it is the single most immersive gaming experience I have ever had.

Every little pixel of Bioshock looks absolutely amazing on that TV. I played for several hours, neglecting both food and drink, and nearly wet myself several times. I truly felt like I was this poor puppet trapped in this failed utopia. Every-time a splicer moved or babbled incoherently, I felt as if I had heard someone walking behind me, ready to suck the Adam right out of me. I had almost regretted spending as much as I did on a TV, but I feel from that single experience that I got my $ worth. Not to mention the countless moments of sheer joy and gaming bliss that are primed in the next few months(Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect and CoD 4, I'm looking at you), I think I have totally justified my purchase. When I move into my new apartment next week(finally), and I get HD cable and a super awesome Internet connection, I think this will confirm the money spent also. Whats weird is that Bioshock, a 360/PC "exclusive", has damn near sold me on a PS3. Yeah. Crazy, right? If Sony actually gives it a real price cut, and can really sell me on some exclusives other than Killzone 2(which just looks sweet) and MGS4: GotP(Kojima-San is on that border between genius and insanity, and I like that), I could justify shelling out $500 for a system, but not $500 for a system with 2 games that I want to play(although the Blu-Ray player is a nice feature too now that I have an HDTV). I'm a gamer, so I want to play as many sweet games as possible, and I don't really care anymore who makes them. I WANT Sony to sell me on a PS3, really. I just hope they can do it a little sooner than later. Because as of right now, I'm saving up for a better PC. Way more expensive, but until I'm really sold on it, I'd rather just save up for something I know I'll use more than just as a Blu-ray player. In the words of Jimmy Valmer from the beloved town of South Park "I mean, C'mon."

Well, I just saw in my updates that Army of Two (EA) is set to release on the 15th of Nov. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, its been a-while since any decent games have come out. With the exception of The Darkness, and possibly Overlord(which if everything works out I should be playing later today. I live in the country, and its an adventure to go to the nearest city and buy games.),its been a pretty long summer gaming drought. This seems to be the pattern that all publishers and developers are abiding by, i.e. "lets take our time too finish these really great games(good), but then, lets all get done at around the same time, and release some of the biggest titles of the year in the same month, if not on the same day(what!!). Now, I understand, that its all business. The companies all want a great Q4, and trust me, they're gonna get one. But lets take a different look at Nov., shall we? From the perspective of a gamer.

"Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I can think of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot." And this November shall be no different. I think its a month to gamers akin to there own birthdays. Lets look at the line-up. We have confirmed, that Army of Two, Assassins Creed, and Mass Effect, are all coming in November. Wow! Those are three of my most anticipated games of the year, more than likely no more than a week apart. Lets start with Mass Effect. This game seems absolutely HUGE!! I've seen the galactic map, and at first, I was like "Man, thats pretty big." Then the map zooms out. "Dude, thats even bigger, sweet." Then.....the maps zooms out AGAIN! To a true galactic display of the giant cloud of dust and stars and planets that make up our own resident galaxy, The Milky Way. Its absolutely colossal. And I've heard that every planet you go to, there will be something. Thats a whole lot of game. I've also heard that there are other random things floating out in deep space, like ghost ships and other things, which just makes the game even longer. Cap it off with some crazy looking combat, an awesome dialogue mechanic, and an excellent story, and you have one of the most original sci-fi RPGs I've seen in a long time. Who knows how many hours will be spent on this game. I'm guessing dozens, if not possibly even edging the 60-70 hour limit, possibly more. One of my best friends still play KOTOR to this day, and he has to have put in at least 100-150 hours into all the various characters he has. And thats another thing that makes this game huge. You have a totally customizable character(other than name), and several different classes, so there's definite replay value there, not to mention different endings to the story depending on your choices. So there's a huge chunk of my time. Lets not forget that GTAIV comes out a month before this. There's no way in hell that I'm gonna be totally done with GTAIV in a month.

Then we have Assassins Creed. Wow. Where to start. First off, its a game set in one of my favorite eras in history, the Third Crusade. You get to play a Hashassin, a member of the clan-destine assassins of the time. You get to travel to Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus, not to mention god knows what in between. Social stealth, need I say more? I've been following this game religiously since last years E3, and it just seems to get better and better. The graphics are gorgeous(so what if they had a floating body at the Microsoft press conference. The games not done yet. That stuff happens if you show a game before its finished and optimized.), and the gameplay just looks awesome. I can't wait to see all the different little surprises that are in this game. And the control scheme seems like possibly one of the most intuitive ones I've ever heard of. Then there's the story, which if you've kept up with this game, is not what it appears to be at first glance. There is obviously some connection to modern or future times(Rich tried so hard at the E3 live demo, but no dice. Thanks for the effort though), and alot of things seem to be kept under wraps. Everything in the enviroment that sticks out more than 5 centimeters is interactive, which makes for some of the craziest platforming(if you would even call it that), and intense escapes in recent memory. Oh, and did I mention you get to assassinate people? Yeah, exactly. Plus, there's the leap of faith ability, which just looks sweet. Jumping off a 4-5 story building to gracefully land in a bale of hay and get up like nothing happened is wicked. I can see an easy 30-40 hours going in to this one too, especially since it is free-roaming. If you haven't watched the E3 live demo, you should. Not only do you get to see what was cut from the MS press conference, but you also get 10-15 minutes of just free-roaming. And as an added bonus, there's the lovely Jade Raymond. I've seen alot of people saying that she is acting like its her own original game, and she made the whole thing herself, yada yada yada. Whatever. I've watched ALOT of stuff on this game, and I never got that impression. She is obviously the public voice of this game, and I can soooo see why Ubi-soft made that decision. Would you rather look at some fat hairy dude talk about this game, or Jade? Yeah. And where I live, most females around her don't even know what The Crusades where, much less enough about anything that is more than 5 years old to even have a discussion with them. And I don't know about you, but women hate games around here. I've met 3 women around here that would game. One of them would only play RPGs, My ex-girlfriend who would ONLY play Mortal Kombat and Tekken, and then my old Asst. Manager at EB, who is the only woman I personally know that just liked games, no matter what genre. So when I see an incredibly attractive woman who not only obviously loves games, but is intelligent enough to produce one thats at least to a point historically accurate, I'm all for it. There needs to be WAY more of them. So thank you Jade, and all the other people who have poured their heart and souls into this game. Great work!!

And finally, we have Army of Two. This game looks like a return to the good ol' days of fraggin guys on the couch, right next to your friend. Finally, a game that not only has, but is totally built around, co-op gameplay. I thought one of the defining moments of Gears of War, was playing the campaign in co-op. Reminds me of days long gone when 3 friends and I would spend hours playing Golden Eye, or Timesplitters on my friends old 52 inch projection tv, you know, before HD. I've never heard people talk so much smack in my life. Good times. But with XBL and PSN, multiplayer now means playing with people who aren't there, who you possibly have never met before. Still fun, but not really the same. And some of us(i.e. me) live in BFE where we just can't get fast enough internet to play on-line. Hell, it takes me 6 hours to download an hour and a half movie. So any game that offers split screen, I'm down with. Add fully customizable weapons, some awesome context specific co-op moves, and the chance to play as a PMC who's literally above the law, and I'm sold. Granted, this will be the shortest game of the 3, and I don't see a whole lot of re-play value, but I know, whenever one of my friends comes over and wants to game, I'll actually have a choice other than Gears. And seeing as all of my friends have played Gears to death, I see Army of Two winning most of the time.

So what does this mean for me? It means no spare time for a long time. Between going back to school, band practice, and the other menial task of modern life, i.e. work and cleaning etc... I will have 0 free time. And I'm not the kind of nut that will go out and buy all 3 at the same time. Thats just torture. But, I am a pretty dedicated gamer, when there is something worth playing, so When I'm not doing everything else, I'm on the X-Box. And thats going to be very frequent. Now, I have to ask myself, would things be different if these games were maybe spaced out a little more. I have to say yes. Because this is without a doubt, one of the biggest holiday seasons in gaming history. I've just touched on the 3 confirmed titles for Nov. There will be more. Before the end of the year, we have Bia:hh, Mercs 2, DMC 4, Timeshift, CoD4, Lost Odyssey, Turning point:Fall of Liberty, and World in Conflict. Plus don't forget some of the excellent games that come out in the few months between now and November: There's the double dose of Stranglehold AND Bioshock, released on the SAME day, then Medal of Honor: Airborne a week later. Theres Blacksite: Area 51(another game with a co-op campaign!!), the Orange box(5..count 'em 5 games for the price of one), Clive Barkers Jericho, oh and a little juggernaut we all like to call Halo 3. Then GTAIV comes out a couple weeks later. Thats a whole lot of games, and there are others too, just not ones I want to play as bad as these. Christ, I mean, I really don't have too much of a life, but what I do have is about to disappear.And I know there are people who love games as much if not more than I do, who have kids and spouses and all that. What are they gonna do?If you pick the game that you want to play the most for that month, go ahead and get it, play it, and finish it, its already the beginining of the next month, and 3-5 more awesome games are coming out! So, OK, pick that one you want again, play it and voila, its the next month again, same dilemma. Now, in years past, this only happened 1-2 months in a year, and with never more than 2-3 games at a time. More than enough time to play everything you want, because there was a wait between then and the next time. No longer. There are enough games coming out before next year to keep me playing throughout the summer and far into the fall. Sounds sweet right? Well, there's the problem of all the super sweet games that are coming out next year! There are alot. It seems that this is going to be the pattern for awhile. And this is just about time. I don't even want to think about my poor bank account. Not to mention that Sony still has 3 games that I'm just gonna have to play, so that means smell you later to another $600. Heavenly Sword, Killzone 2, and of course MGS4. Luckily though, I'll have my hands full with all the other sweet games, so I can wait, but even buying all these games used doesn't comfort me much. The price of used games isn't the bargain that it used to be. Hell, Gears has been out for ever, and a used copy is still $54.99. $5 dollars of depreciation in what, just under nine months? Thats absurd. So even going with the pick the one that seems best and wait to buy the others used, I'm still spending alot of $$. And finding the time to play them in is just as valuable. I know what I'm going to be doing in the winter break between semesters, gaming, alot. So like I said , I'm not complaing, but my social life and my wallet are. Maybe if this holiday season is just too intense, the game companies will realize that they need to give us gamers a little break. Keep those excellent games coming, just maybe space them out a little more. I thinkI would not be alone in saying that the whole summer drought thing sucks, and I would definitely like to see more AAA titles around then. I don't mind waiting. I'm gonna have PLENTY of games to play until then.

[EDIT] Of course a couple days after writing this a bunch of release dates changed. Should have figured that would happen, so these dates are a little off. I've just got too much to do to change everything, so don't pay attention to any mentioned release dates. Later, fellow gamers