Friday I borrowed Fight Night Round 3 from one of my classmates. I was looking forward to a quick playthrough to gather an additional 1000 points. After finishing the first belt on Medium I was surprised how quickly the difficulty ramped up during the second belt match. I then switched to Easy and raced through the subsequent matches. By the time I got to the Everlast belt match I had gotten into a groove. Unfortunately my reprehensible adversary suddenly became incredibly durable and powerful. I played through three or four 6-8 round matches in an attempt to defeat this once unimpressive opponent. I became very frustrated by the process, but in the end I won.

I'd like to say I honorably won my fifth attempt, but I resorted to the low hits. While I am a generally empathic person, I felt neither pain nor remorse at racking my opponent with a viscious attack with a knee. In the end, the four hours I spent battling this person came down to a very satisfying victory. I left him as he left me, a crumpled mass on the mat. That's what happens Brewer. Don't mess.

After victories like that, I just want to be held.

At the behest of my wife, I closed my search for the last agility orb in Crackdown. I had no problem scouring the three districts for 7 of the remaining 8 orbs, but that last one seems to be far more elusive than I originally anticipated. At this point, I am wandering the city, bounding between buildings, looking for any glowing green lights.

I scaled the highest skyscrapers, double-jumped onto Epcot-like spheres, explored the most remote mountain ranges, and hit the FAQs and the maps. When I finally get it, I'm pretty sure I will curse myself in retrospect for missing it. Nevertheless, the search goes on. During the process I have also amassed roughly 2/3 of the hidden orbs; a decent-enough feat without a map.

A lot of people have asked about Meet the Robinsons. Yeah, I played it. Unless you are feeling lucky, I'd seriously recommend waiting for a walkthrough. You can blaze through the game (if you know where you are going) in a scant 4-5 hours. In my book, that's an easy 1,000 points.

I need to go pick up my copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Based upon the recent problems associated with the downloadable content, I'm not sure I am in any hurry to play that game. Heck, I still have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) sitting on my hard drive. For that, I have been waiting for four-player local play. It's the only way to go. Besides, I don't want to ruin my completion percentage. I've managed to get my completion back up to 82%, no thanks to MotoGP 06 or Chromehounds.

. . .and in other news, I am going on the fourth night of sleep loss. Who would have thought I could function this well without Coffee, Tea, or other stimulants to keep me going in the face of sleep deprivation? The reason: baby had the flu, and is now incessantly screaming due to cutting molars. I hear it hurts. Just wait until she gets braces.

Back in 2001, there was this Basement Jaxx song that came out, entitled Where's Your Head at? It was a fun song with an appropriately creepy video. The best part was definitely the catchy hook looping throughout the song. There was just something hauntingly familiar about it. Today, six years later, I finally figured it out. That hook came from M.E., off of Gary Newman's 1979 album, The Pleasure Principle.

I didn't expect others to know that, much like many of my friends were initially skeptical when I revealed the hook from Travis' hit song, Side, was borrowed from a little song by Rush called, Leave That Thing Alone.

. . . Speaking of Travis, their new song Closer appeared on my radar today. I doubt it could have come at a better time. This morning my wife had one of those conversations every couple has when both are faced with a demanding, busy life . . . How can we be closer?

Not that you needed to know, but I sent the song to my wife with a tender note attached. If you need an excuse to be closer to that special someone, check out the song. Now to get back to trying to figure out where I've heard those delicious Weezer hooks before.

I've finished Symphony of the Night twice now on the 360. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get all 200.6% in my clear save. I've consulted the normal castle and inverted castle maps posted on GameFAQs, and they totally match the maps I have in my clear save. I'm not sure what I am missing, but I have been searching for quite some time. I'm not giving up, but I am certainly going to bed.

A while ago I blogged about the many pulls on my time.

School, work, family, and the like were very much a drag on discretionary time. These days I wonder what it would be like to go back to those carefree days.

I have this awesome supply-chain paper to write, calculations for just-in-time deliveries, days of work, and plenty of forum patrolling. Perhaps that explains why I haven't even had a chance to listen to the latest ish-dition of the HotSpot. It turns out that my daughter was able to listen to the podcast without me.

While I was laboring yesterday, my wife called me and asked me to listen. On the other end I heard Alex, Jeff, and Rich talking. After about a minute, my wife told me what my ears couldn't see: My daughter had settled down for an informative session from the March 27 ish-dition of the HotSpot. My toddler--on her own--had evidently scaled the furniture boundary we had erected, opened the laptop, started iTunes, and selected the podcast to play. After commencing the playback, she then sat contentedly, listening for the pearls of wisdom to drop from the mouths of the GameSpot staff.

I was jealous. That was a priceless family moment, worthy of a commercial, and I wasn't there.

To my European friends, I say, "Welcome to the next generation of gaming." With the PS3 on store shelves, all three of the consoles are now available for purchase.

For all of my international compatriots grappling with the loss of the emotion engine, let's remember the PS3 successfully shipped worldwide. The loss of exclusive titles has put many a devotee and industry observer on the edge of their collective seat. Some are even speculating about exclusivity losses being the straw to break Sony's back. They should instead worry about defaulting sub-prime loans placing them on the street.

The idea that Sony would ever get out of the console market is proposterous, for lack of a kinder word. Microsoft may be able to beat their competitors at their own game, but they'll never drive them from the market. Sony is not Sega. Similarly, Sony has never left a hardware space they have once supported (I said nothing about the trail of failed media). Lest I be erroneously labeled a fan boy, one could argue that given Sony's persistent financial shortfalls, they might decide to abandon some of their product lines. To this point the games space has been one of the rare segments that has stymied the hemmoraging finances of one of the world's largest entertainment hardware and media providers. Games aren't the only media Sony has within its portfolio. Sony owns many movie studios, publishers, and distribution networks. That diversification shields them from many of the risks inherent in releasing a costly consumer electronics product.

Despite being protected from outside risks, Sony is not invulnerable. Much like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, failure does not come from outside a company, but from poor management within. Internal strife is not new. Sony suffers from it, along with most of the bloated corporations reaching around the world.

If you guys want to talk numbers and Dollars (or Yen, or Euros, etc) we can do that. Sony needs smart pricing and the power to suitably convey the rationality of that pricing to consumers (such as ourselves). When you maximize your install base, you maximize the publishing benefits to your partners (third-party publishers). The question at the heart of this topic shouldn't be where Capcom's commitment is, but where Sony's commitment is. If third-party publishers go elsewhere, you shouldn't blame those publishers. You should point the finger at Sony, or whichever first-party pact you have entered into.

Sony gave the PS2 a straight shot of the super-soldier syrum to make it the highest definition console on the market. Then they let it loose like a high-end, digital-entertainment Kracken, more likely to appeal to video enthusiasts than the PS2 was able to do. The DVD playback within the PS2 was a movie player for game players. Sony isn't looking to merely capitalize on core game players, but on fundamentally devoted videophiles! The PS3 is a game player for the most demanding content consumer. The pricing was genius. Sony sent signals to two important groups:

1. The competition
2. The high-end enthusiast

Had Sony priced the PS3 lower than they did, Microsoft may have felt threatened by an encroaching enemy and started a price war Sony never would have won. They signaled a long way back this device would be expensive. Sure they dropped a few features, but they still delivered on the pricing and positioning. Back in the 80s Sony was known for premium products at the zenith of quality. Against the PS2, nobody can doubt the PS3 is a premium product capable of feats that would make Dionysus drop his wine.

The blu-ray technology only offers fringe benefits to game players, developers, and retailers. This lack of single-minded technical support is what delivers the resonance to the video gurus. Now that the government legislation has provided increasingly plentiful HD content, hardware sales can gather momentum. Those hardware sales become more powerful by the day primarily because Sony pushes with the momentum of its own portfolio.

Sony sells more displays, more movies, more television programming with every PS3 in place. So why is everybody getting all surprised when the third-party game publishers are hedging their own bets and maximizing their own revenues by selling across multiple platforms? Sony made a smart move vis-a-vis Microsoft in their product and pricing. Why get angry when your favorite publisher does the same thing? Most of them have had to diversify into ancillary interests anyway.

Last night I went back to Carbon and picked up another achievement. I was so stoked at making progress in the bottomless online tasks that I disconnected from Live and simulated the last of the 1000 deathmatch sessions in PD0 before going to bed. Now all I have left on my achievements to-do list is finish off the 1000 sniper kills. I am guesstimating I am at least half way there. I really don't have any way of measuring, but I know I have played at least six 50-kill matches. Add those matches to the existing 100, and then expect I have another 100 somewhere, and I can delude myself into thinking I only have 10 more 50-kill matches to go.

:cry:

That just might be the last achievement I pursue in that game. I do have a few other games with only one achievement left to harvest. I really need to collect these:

Pocketbike Racer - Career King

Alien Hominid - Mad Hatter (may be broken)

Time Pilot - Perfection

Paperboy - Easy Week

Burnout Revenge - Should Be Autographs! [sic]

Alaskan Adventures - Southeastern Platinum medal (curse you indestructible squirrels!)

Lego Star Wars II - Death Star II- undefeated (Not even Lando Calrisian could escape unscathed)

Scramble - Perfection

Pac-Man - Perfect (maybe listening to the Smashing Pumpkins song of the same name would help)

 

Oh, the pains of being a completionist!

Never fear, I am still here.

I completed my finals on Friday. Just when you thought you knew macroeconomics, you realize: you don't know jack! It was a really great class. I have found the insights to be not only useful, but also very stimulating. During the course, I began to give careful consideration to whether or not I wanted to pursue an advanced degree in economics. By the end of the quarter, I just wanted to take the test and be done. It was seriously interesting stuff.

Work has been keeping me busy as well. Now that school is out, I don't have an excuse for leaving early. . . not that I was anxious to study during the evenings.

Saturday I got together with a bunch of chronies to play Wii games. We watched in amazement as one of my buddies (a game tester at Activision) completed one of the most difficult operations in about one minute. Then we pushed the mighty Wii hardware with some 5-player Bomberman '93. Seriously, nothing says 2007 like a Turbografx 16 game.

Saturday night I returned in hopes of watching a movie with my wife, but she played games online with her brothers. Who would of thought? I then drowned my sorrows by playing a couple Burger King games. GUS joined me for some online achievements gathering and a rousing discussion of Midnight Brown songs. After that, I was convinced I need to run for President of the Mall.

Some of you may picture the 80s like I remember most of the 70s, an elusive collection of years that passed prior to my birth. As such many people think the Bourne Identity was first translated from book to film with Matt Damon as the titular character. Turns out Richard Chamberlain (Three Musketeers, King Solomon's Mines) first played the amnesiatic agent in a 1988 made-for-TV movie. It was decent; three hours, but decent. In retrospect the fashions look horrible, but the drama is certainly exciting. Jaclyn Smith (Charlie's Angels, 1976-1981)

I would expect the movie to be rated at least PG-13. Not because of the shag rug Chamberlain has on his chest, but because of other scenes. The action is 80s television campy, but that isn't what requires the suspension of disbelief. The sheer volume of abuse Chamberlain's character absorbs would be enough to kill ten normal men. Somehow he not only survives but dispatches a score of opponents throughout the course of the drama.

Should you see it? Only if you remember the 80s. 

Tuesday morning means Heroes. TV.com's squishyhippo supplied the new user icon. Peter Petrelli is definitely the character I identify the most with on Heroes. Thus, the coolest scene of Peter is the coolest user icon I could choose. Check out my TV.com profile to see.

While I wasn't uber stoked about this week's episode, I can see the writers are continuing to keep the watchers off balance. So far so good. This week, the entire cast has been left hanging in precarious situations, no pun intended.

My biggest gripe is Sylar. I thought we had all the head-sawing behind us. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. With the sheer body count in the first season, I am wondering how much of the core cast will be left for the second season. I don't want to spoil anything, but I am still wondering.

I need to post some more in the Heroes space over in TV.com. Something has to tide me over for the next month.