I had the fishbowl award (Outlier) and now I don't..

Is it that fickle that it can just come and go like that?

Beta! Get it?

Since the Halo 3 Beta is what will consume my life from May 16th to June something, I might as well talk about it..

First Impressions:

The gameplay really looks a lot more like an adapted Halo 1 than anything in Halo 2. The AR was dearly missed in Halo 2 and even dual SMGs couldn't compare to the power of mowing a guy down with loads of bullets. When the beta comes out I bet there will be a lot of issues with the download. Also, I bet Bungie will reward some of the top ranking players. Of course they won't announce the rewards because that would encourage people to cheat..

I know that video feature is old technology and all but I'm really excited for it to be hooked up to Halo. Finally I won't miss that moment when I no-scope the invisible guy in the face! Plus, anybody can download anyone else's videos so you can watch and enjoy all those legit level 50 players and how they play the game. Goodbye capture card! I bet you will be able to upload videos to your computer too. That's the beauty of having a Microsoft made console.

This might sound a little corny but: "Integration is the Future".

Congrats and good luck to any and all of the people that got to sign up for the big trivia Brain Bust. Does anybody that didn't sign up or isn't a Total Access Member want to maybe team up and be my mental sponsor for the first round? I'll share my emblem with you half of the time. I'll take it Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.. You can have it Tuesdays and Thursdays. We'll have to set up a special schedule for the weekends but that won't be a problem. If we get a Brain Bust team going then maybe we could each get a day of the week.

Go now and register for Brain Bust if you are a Total Access Member.

There are 256 slots and as of 6:40PM EST, 86 are already filled up. I'm number 46 and I registered around 6:10PM EST.

Edit update, it's 12:00PM EST and there are roughly 50 slots still open for the Brain Bust trivia contest. First of all it sounds like a lot of fun to test your knowledge of gaming trivia and second it gives you a really cool emblem:

The first round starts on Monday May 14th at 5:00PM EST and it's on First Person Shooters. Here are some subjects I'm expecting to be quized and trivia-ed on:

Doom
Wolfenstein
Duke Nukem
Unreal
Half-Life (And all of it's mods)
Unreal
Quake
Halo
Max Payne
Medal of Honor
Battlefield
Red Faction
Hexen
Ghost Recon

I hope to get past at least the first round.. Anything after that will be bonus. Oh btw, this will be my first real event with GameSpot and my first real emblem, whoo!

I have been playing a couple of games for Retro Rivial Week but I don't have enough time to go through them so instead here's a joke:

A passenger ship cruises past a small island, and everybody
on board sees a bearded man shouting and wildly waving
his arms. A passenger says, "Captain, who's that?"

The captain says, "I have no idea. He goes nuts every year when we pass him."

And for not posting more on my RRW, a bonus joke:

A book never written:
"How to Make Someone Like You" by Sharon D. Cookies.

They're no muffin joke but they made me smile.

First off, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is definitely my favorite game right now. I love the mechanics and how the side-scroller aspect integrates seemlessly with RPG. I just got to the second half of the game and it's fun to have you mind turned upside down. I don't want this to sound too much like a review and playing this sort of game made me want to talk about some of my older playing history:

I had never played a Castlevania game before this one but I had played many side-scrollers and many RPGs. I was weened on video games with the great Atari 2600. But since I don't have very much memory of those games, I'll move on. The first console I remember was the Sega Genesis. My first and only game for a while was Sonic the Hedgehog 2 . I attribute the speed of that game to my reflexes today. I know this might sound strange but I actually got into running because I wanted to be like Sonic. The graphics are still top notch compared to the 2D games out now. The music was amazing and I can still remember the codes for level select (19-65-9-17 in Sound Check in case you have it on ROM).. Oops, I've written too much about 16-bits for now. The rest to be continued.

Wow, remembering that code made me realize how long I've been gaming.. I'll write more on my video game backstory later.

Everyone has their own story of how they got into Video Games. Don't forget those original games that got you hooked in the first place. (Didn't forget the Aladdin Level Skip code: Pause and press - ABBAABBA.)

My mind did a 180 when I finally got to play the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game from 1989. The freshly downloaded Live Arcade loaded and as I waited, a couple of things went through my mind. Will this game really be as fun as my original NES days when my friends would come over and fight for turns? Or will it be a ho-hum game that won't live up to the original's standards..

Well turns out it was a great game that took me back before the great green team took trips through time. That's right, the game was actually better looking! I love when game designers have the gamer in mind and put in the full effort that is needed for a great lasting game.

The one big issue though? No single XBOX co-op. This completely dashes my original hope of having people come over and fight for the controller. Oh well, I can live with that. So instead my friends will be messaging me over XBL for games instead of ringing my doorbell.

 

Worms for Xbox Live Arcade is coming out tomorrow and the classic TMNT is also going to be coming out soon. Both going to be awesome, both can be played with three other people on XBL (with voice chat!). It seems that XBL is moving up in the world. I find that every move that Microsoft makes increases the greatness of this service. Money that I would spend gladly is going into great games and content. If this trend continues, we might see original XNA created games on Live. This is the beginning of a great era of user created content and a whole world of entertainment that can only mean good things for video gamers all over the world.

Well, tomorrow (technically later today) is the release of Crackdown and I've bought it for two reasons. I want to play the game and I want the Halo 3 Beta. I really hope they have another "ILoveBees" game for Halo 3 because I lost out on the original. I really hope that the beta isn't taking place of a ILoveBees alternate reality game (ARG). If I had to choose between the Halo 3 Beta and another ILoveBees game, I'd pick the ARG.

Man I could use a new game for my DS.  I've completely demolished the New Super Mario Brothers.  The DS is great and all but it does need more online games.  Mario Kart is fun for a while but I get horrible cramps in my hands from playing the DS the way you do with MK.

BTW, whoever came up with the numbers idea for the DS online isn't very smart.  A gamer would never come up with a lazy idea like that.  No wonder Japanese online gaming isn't going anywhere.