That's right, for the second time, I've got the Red Ring of Death. It's kinda funny, because it happened while I was watching a lame blooper video from Major's Minute. I was so unimpressed with this video, I randomly got to thinking about the 16% failure rate of the 360. Before I could even get into deep thought about it, the video froze, comically right after someone off screen said to Major Nelson "That's awesome", no word of a lie. Turn my 360 off and on, and boom, RROD. It's almost midnight now and I work tomorrow morning, so I'm too tired to phone MS right now. I'll do it after work, and I hope they will repair it without receipt, as I seem to have lost it. I almost always keep my receipts in my old console boxes, but this one seems to have eluded me since the last time it red ringed. Oh, and if you guys want the stylish RROD shot from my 360, here it is:

On the positive side, I'm really enjoying Harvest Moon on the VC, like I knew I would. Those games never get old and are always fun as long as you take a decent break from them.

I also beat No More Heroes, which was pretty cool. The ending was pretty packed though. For almost the entire game, despite the cool art and direction of the cut-scenes, there is barely any semblance of a plot. Then in the final hour, they throw a handful of plot twists from nowhere, which left me a little confused at first. It did make sense overall though, even if it did feel a little rushed in the last hour or so. Overall a great game that I'd highly recommend to any action loving Wii owner.

Well, I guess that's all I have for the blog right now, seeing as I mostly just put this up to share the bad news. Hope to put another one up soon, hopefully with a better disposition!

So I'm about ready to write my Rez review. I have it all layed out, it's just a matter of typing it out, which I will do tomorrow. What took me so long to do a review of a 2 hour downloadable game? Well, on top of the fact that Rez isn't about "completion" so much as the experience that is. Well, I did what I'm trying not to do. I got into another game, heavily, before finishing my review process. For now though, I don't regret it a bit, because the game came out of nowhere and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. That game is

I played Killer 7 recently, thinking I could get over some semi-lame gameplay, if the story was good enough. I was wrong. I don't think any story could have saved that game from its game-play flaws. No More Heroes, on the other hand, finally delivers what everyone who played K7 hoped for, a playable Suda 51 game. While the game plays more or less like a beat 'em-up, it's compelling enough to keep you playing. It doesn't hurt that the music is great, the characters are insanely wacky (and I mean insane), and the art is genuinely cool. Sure, the graphics aren't amazing, with pretty serious anti-aliasing issues and massive texture pop-in issues abound. Sure, the game-play can get pretty repetitive. Sure, the city of Santa Destroy is pretty bland and empty. All of this barely diminishes the overall experience, though. I keep playing through the game to see the new jobs, weapons, clothes and moves I'll unlock, and which psychopath I'll have to fight next.

Long story short, if you have a Wii, and enjoy fun action titles with charisma, you need to buy this game. If games like this don't sell, the Wii will slowly be relegated to mini-game collections, licensed games, PSP ports and the occasional Nintendo franchise game.

Off the No More Heroes rant, I read just before going to work that the SNES version of Harvest Moon hit the Wii VC today. So I picked up a Wii Points card after work, and I'm about to go download it right after finishing this blog up. The Harvest Moon series has always been a pretty odd series. On paper, it sounds terrible. A game where all you do is farm, feed animals, and buy presents for town girls? Whose idea of fun is that? In practice though, it's one of the most addicting series I've ever played. Almost without fail, everytime I start up a HM game, I play it for about 4-6 hours. It's ridiculous, and I have no clue why it's as fun and addicting as it is. I won't even dare to try and explain it through a text blog. If Wesker or EightBitWarrior is reading this, you guys need to do a legends on Harvest Moon.

Lastly, I finally got my webcam working again. I went back and found some older drivers, and that seemed to do the trick. So, expect to see a Video Blog sometime in the near future. Until then, I looked forward to your comments (please leave them!), and I'll talk at ya next time.

So, I finished Ratchet & Clank Future a few days ago, and I must say I was pretty satisfied with the experience overall. If you want my complete thoughts on the game, I highly recommend you check out the review I did for the site I freelance for.

My current endeavor, which I'm also reviewing, is:

Obviously, I'm not playing the PS2 version. I'm playing the newly released Rez HD for XBLA. I'm absolutely loving it so far, and it's a steal at 800 points. I've "finished" it multiple times already, but I'm still in the process of unlocking stage 5. Even though I've "finished" the game multiple times, that doesn't mean much. This isn't a game that's about completion, it's about the experience. It has a great soundtrack with booming, bassy songs that power out of the system which, along with the vibration (with up to four controllers ;)) really get you into the game. I hope to have my review of it up sometime soon, so look for that in the next couple of days.

On top of Rez HD, I picked up Sonic 2 for XBLA with the extra points left on my Live account. It's quite a flashback to when I was a kid. While I did has an NES, the Genesis was the first system I really owned a good amount of games for. Even as a kid, I had about 30 games for that system, until my parents randomly threw them out:(. They said something along the lines of "You don't play them anymore, you have newer systems!". Apparently, to them, games go bad or something. Ugh, I don't get them sometimes. What would they say if I threw out some of their old DVDs and said "You haven't watched them for 2 years!"? Oh well, people who play games just don't "get it", so why even bother. So where was I? Oh yeah, Sonic 2! Even though I owned a ton of games for the Genesis, Sonic 2 was probably my most played. The only other game that really came close was X-men 2. Sonic still hold up, and it's gameplay is as great as I remember it. What's even better is, the soundtrack is better than I remember it being. The music for the Chemical Plant and Casino Night zones are incredible, as is most of the music throughout the game. It's too bad Sega has lost it's touch with music. Some of these tracks can rival some of the great Mario themes of the past. all in all, well worth the 400 points a sank into it on a whim. I was going to choose Streets of Rage 2, but I figured Sonic 2 would get more play. What do you guys think, did I make the right choice?

Oh, I guess I should mention I'm still playing Blue Dragon, and I still think it's worth a look. It's not the best JRPG there is, but it's still very good, in my opinion. I think a lot of people get into this habit of thinking games that don't live up to the hype are immediately "bad". Just because it isn't the next Chrono Trigger, that doesn't mean it's a terrible game, know what I mean? Anyway, I talked about BD last time, so I'll just wrap this up.

I plan on going back to Yakuza very soon. I was really enjoying it. It's just that, I feel like since I'm trying to get my skills up as a writer, and I'm trying to get bigger, better freelance work, I should be focusing on reviewing recent games. I'm trying to get a groove going of reviewing at least a game every 2 or so weeks, and if I keep this game ADD up, I won't be able to hold up to that. I'm going back to school in the fall for three years to take English so I can become a journalist (hopefully in games). I don't want to waste a huge time and money investment because I wanted to play a ton of games at once for the hell of it. I need to have more discipline than that if I want to make it into the industry, and I think I'm finally ready to make that much of a commitment. Anyway, enough jabbering about my boring attempts to become a Game Journalist.

As always, comments are greatly appreciated, and pretty much any question asked, whether by PM or commenting, will be answered. I'm out for the night!

Also, I'm still playing Blue Dragon, and it's going well. Nothing really new to report on that front.

That's right, I've decided to try to get back into blogging again. Problem is, you guys probably won't see any video blogs from me anytime soon, as my Web-cam has decided that, since I formatted my PC, it doesn't want to work:?. I think this may be a sign that I need to try some good ol' text blogging though, so here it goes.

Games I've bought and been playing is as good of place to start as any I suppose. Well, I have obviously purchased a lot of games since my last blogs, so I'll only point out some noteworthy ones. First off, I picked up this one a couple weeks ago:

I'm almost finished it, and I love it. Yeah, it's still the same R&C we've been playing since the first one, but that's okay with me. I've taken a break from the series for the last couple of years, so it's good to get back into the groove. The weapons are interesting, the worlds are very cool, with a huge draw distance, and the characters are awesome as always. I especially liked the two elderly robots, Cronk and Zephyr. They provided quite a few laughs between the two of them, and a good contrast to the young, witty Clank. Overall, it's definitely a great game, and if you're a fan of the series or platformers in general, and you don't mind playing through a game that is very similar to the previous titles, there is no reason not to pick this game up.

Next on my list:

I'm really enjoying Blue Dragon so far, about 10 hours in. I think it has kind of got a bad rap, because of it's strong lineage. I under the impression that some people were so disappointed with it not being as good as Chrono Trigger (which is my favorite game of all time), that they were overly harsh on the game. Is it the greatest RPG ever? Hell no. But, that doesn't mean it can't still be good. The battle system is fun, with the charged attacks adding just the right amount of strategy to the game. The soundtrack is amazing so far, being typical Uematsu tracks, ranging from sweeping orchestral tracks, to happy little diddies, to the super cheesy, super rockin' boss battle theme. The characters are pretty unlikable so far though, with Marumaro (sp?) being especially annoying. His voice is the equivalent to a rhinoceros raping your ear every time he talks. It's brutal. The story is kind of run-o-the-mill, but it's a JRPG, so that's kind of expected. Sure, it doesn't have any deep philosophical meaning to it, at least if you don't count Shu screaming "I'll never give up!" every 5 minutes. But, along with the great soundtrack and interesting battles, it's engaging enough to keep me playing. So far, I think it's almost a hidden gem. Now, don't take this as me saying the game is fantastic or anything, it's not. But, if you want a solid JRPG on the 360, Blue Dragon isn't a bad choice, especially at it's lowered price, ~$30, which is why I picked it up.

Now, for the last game of this blog:

I picked this one up mainly because Garnett Lee, from the 1Up network, was raving about it on the 1Up Yours podcast. If you haven't heard 1Up Yours yet, you absolutely should. It's the best gaming podcast out there, even better than the Hotspot, especially lately with the loss of Rich, Jeff and now Alex. While some of the major players have left 1Up (though on much better terms than the GS losses :?), it still holds the same fun feel that it always had, mainly because of Garnett's great enthusiasm for what he does. Pretty much, Garnett is Rich, but not afraid to argue his point. Sometimes I think he's completely off base about some topics, but I digress. It's a great show, and a great site really. Check out 1Up Yours here, or check it out on iTunes. You won't regret it, I promise. On a similar note, I also use their forums pretty often. If you're tired of the constant Fanboys and low moderation of the GS forums, give the 1Up Boards a try. The users there are pretty awesome, and quite witty compared to other boards I've been to. Keep in mind though, if you put up a forum topic that belongs in a blog or is otherwise pointless, they will tell you, and you will probably get quite a bit of flak until the topic is locked. But, as long as you follow basic, common sense rules, you will enjoy it. Uhm... where was I?

Oh ya, Yakuza. Right, sorry for the tangent there, haha. Well, so far I'm really enjoying it. It has a great feel to it. The world feels quite cohesive, the characters are interesting, and the story is pretty cool. It starts off quite confusing, with a lot of friends, leaders, captains and liuetenants being thrown at you at once. This cools down after a while though, and the story becomes even more enjoyable when it does. The cutscenes, while they looked terrible on my TV ( they were renedered with the game engine, and then compressed into a video, which looks terrible on an HDTV), are very well directed and voice acted. The game has a cool vibe to it. The main character, Kazuma, is a cool and very likable character. He's the antithesis of a bad-ass, and you'll be rooting for him the entire game.

While the story and cut-scenes are great, the combat is quite flawed. The main problem is the lack of a true lock-on button. This means that there will be plenty of times you will try to hit an enemy with a combo, and you'll end up with a fist-full of O2, and a back-full of lead pipe. Still, the combat is enjoyable enough, and the level-up system, which enables you to learn new moves, combos, increase your health etc., helps keep the fights fresh, if not still a little frustrating.

Overall, at the cheap price it's at, I'd say if you like brawlers and cool, mob-ish story-lines, Yakuza is a solid game worth experiencing, especially with the two sequels coming out sometime this year.

Okay, with all of my impressions out of the way, I have a question for you guys. Do you think someone who plays Guitar Hero 3 on Expert will enjoy the Rock Band guitar parts? I can't afford the full RB at the moment, but I could pick just the game up and use my GH guitar. The issue I think I'd have is, if a song isn't challenging to me, I tend to ignore it. So, most songs lower on the playlist of GH rarely get played, despite how much I may like them. So, with that in mind, I heard RB was quite a bit easier than GH3. Do you guys think that RB would still be a good purchase, or would I simply run through the songs a couple times and get bored? I'd really appreciate your guy's comments on this and my blog in general. Your responses will most likely play a large part in how often I do these blogs, so I'd really love to hear your comments, questions, and suggestions.

With that, I'm out. I hope to have another blog up soon.

I thought this was amazing, so I thought I'd post it for you guys.

Apparently I can't embed non-Gamespot clips, which is lame, but here ya go anyway.

Bioshock Halloween Costume

Tycho from Penny Arcade just posted a link to his new song he created with the game "Jam Sessions". It's truly a great song and already people are saying he should make an album.

Unfortunatley, it's only a streaming file, so you can't download it and put it on a CD or MP3 player... until now..

I just went through the trouble of recording it and uploading it to a filesharing program. A process that was a LOT more difficult than it sounds. At least until I figured out what i was doing. anyway, heres the link.

Tycho Brahe - My Belruel

Mirror in case the above one goes down.

Tycho Brahe - By Belruel (Mirror)

You can thank me Commenting and by signing up for the forums at

Http://www.hackmystuff.com

and listening to our podcast at

http://www.hackmystuff.com/podcast

We're new to the podcast thing, but I think it's definately getting alot better. We're probably going to record #6 today, and #5 was about E3, so, being a PA fan, you should find it interesting.

In a move sure to disappoint video game fans, but delight every other game Publisher on the planet, Take Two announced during a conference call today that the next installment in the critically acclaimed and best-selling Grand Theft Auto franchise, GTA IV, has been delayed until Q2 2008 (think Spring).

Take Two said that is wouldn't be "helpful or beneficial" to go into specifics about the delay, but assured that it was "almost strictly technological challenges" that caused the delay.

This announcement puts in a nice breather for video game fans, retailers, and other game companies alike. While it may be disappointing that you won't get your hands on a surely great game as early as originally intended, some people are most likely grateful for the delay.

Gamers get more time to play the giant stack of games released this Holiday season, and give their wallets a small breather.

Retailers will reduce the Pandemonium in their Stores come this Holiday season. While this may drive their numbers down a bit for the holiday, when the game finally launches in the Spring, it will help revitalize the Stores at that time and probably be alot more beneficial to them at that time, when traffic will be dropping.

Other game Publishers now only have to worry about one other Juggernaut coming this Holiday, Halo 3. With the delay of GTA IV, gamers may look to other games released this Holiday to fill that void.

Finally, Take Two may benefit as well. Yes, the combination of this delay and the Manhunt 2 debacle is probably crushing the company financially right now, but when GTA IV is released in the Spring to gamers without 40 other games distracting them, it'll be nuts. There will be time to actually have a midnight launch in most locations, and Gamers will have the Time and Money to really appreciate the game.

So, while this is ostensibly bad news, it may have a Silver Lining just yet...

That's right, after almost a yeasr absence, I'm back, and with a new haircut to boot! This time I blog about 25 Songs I think should be in Guitar Hero 3. Depending on how well this is recieved, I will probably go back to my regular blogs soon, Whatcha been playin' and all. Enjoy.

Oh, and the link to the podcasts I mentioned...

HackMyStuff.com Podcasts Page 

Now, on to the video...

[video=KnY0wjf85b4KuDXZ] 

That's right, it's almost time for the epic return of my Video Blog! I just got my internet back, and I think I'm finally caught up enough to do a blog! Look for it in the next couple days. In the meantime, if you need a DyslexicChaos fix (and I KNOW you do!) please listen to my friend and I's podcast at:

http://www.hackmystuff.com

Here are directy links to our first 2 podcasts.

HackMyStuff.com Podcast 1

HackMyStuff.com Podcast 2

Please register to the site as well and give any feedback you guys have at all. It's really appreciated! If you don't feel like registering, feel free to leave a comment below. Now, continue waiting on the edge of your seat...

Well, I finally put up my first Video Blog last night. Here it is for you all to enjoy. I tried some basic editing using Windows Movie Maker, but any ideas for a better editor would be greatly appreciated. I heard Adobe Premier is good...

[video=JyY0xjP_5b8EujY]