As I've mentioned before here, I live in a pretty small town right now (about 7500 people). It's the size of town where you get anything and everything for your everyday life from Walmart. So it was a pretty big deal for me when we opened up a Gamestop last Friday. I immediately took in about 5 or 6 of my less favored games and traded them in and picked up Shadow of the Colossus and Fire Emblem for the Gamecube.

I haven't really even touched Fire Emblem yet. As a matter of fact my Gamecube has been sitting unplugged for the last week so that I could fit my PS2 plug into my power strip. Let me just put it out there: Shadow of the Colossus is AMAZING!

I can't say enough about just how spectacular this game is. The game world is absolutely breathtaking. The soundtrack is phenomenal. The colossi are awe-inspiring. The gameplay captures just about everything I love in a game. Shadow of the Colossus is truly a work of art. I'll have a review up pretty soon here, but you really don't need to read a whole review to know that I highly recommend this game to anyone who owns a PS2. And if you don't own a PS2, Shadow of the Colossus is a dang good reason to pick one up.

This post was supposed to be about how I was re-prioritizing gaming's place in my life. It was supposed to be about how I was gonna be taking a break to pursue other hobbies (skiing for one). Alas it was not to be.

Between this weeks releases of Fire Emblem, Shadow of the Colossus, and Fable: The Lost Chapters, along with my recent re-acquaintance with Resident Evil 4, the grand opening of the first Gamestop in my area, and the sudden arrival of a 360 demo kit at my friendly neighborhood Walmart (more on that in a bit), my interest in games is reaching a fevered pitch.

I'm still selling my PSP (if anyone ever bids on it that is). And I'm still on the fence about getting a 360 on launch day. For the time though I'll keep on enjoying the multitudes of other great games out there right now. Now I just need to figure out how to pay for lift tickets this winter.

Ok so I got a chance to spend a little time with the Xbox 360 demo kit tonight which was pretty surprising.  I live in a pretty out of the way area and it usually takes a while for anything gaming related to make its way out here.  My biggest impression that I took from the experience was that it's way to uncomfortable to look that high up while you're playing a game for more than 5 min.  I played some Kameo and COD2 and I was pretty impressed with the quality of both of them.  The visuals are nice and polished although I think the cartoony look of Kameo detracts from the otherwise  extremely impressive technical prowess that it takes to render it and COD is a little glossy.

There were about 10 games on the disk, some playable some just movies.  The controller has a great feel to it and the system overall just looks really slick, as does the Xbox interface.  So there are my initial impressions.  Take them for what their worth.

Oh yeah, and hats off to the guys over at Penny Arcade. Keep fightin' the good fight.

Wow, so much to talk about since the forums have been down. For starters I went and saw Serenity on Friday night. Let me just say that if you have even the slightest tolerence for science fiction you need to see this movie. It's that good. I immediately went out and rented Firefly right after I saw it, which I must say is just as good as the movie from what I've seen so far.

Obviously the big news around here right now is the site update. For the most part I'm pretty happy with it. The improved search is great and long overdue.  I like the cleaner look and the ability to track users who aren't your friends is a feature I've been hoping they'd add for quite a while now. The only thing that bugs me is that it seems like some of the community features are a little too far removed from the front page now. All in all though my hat goes off to the Gamespot crew.

Looks like some good stuff is coming out of X05. I was a little disappointed by the Perfect Dark Trailer, but the multiplayer supposedly had a lot better showing so I'll hold off on my judgement. Obviously Splinter Cell 4 was big news, but the biggest announcement of all is now my first official "must have game" of the next gen: Bioware's action-RPG trillogy, Mass Effect. I'll be watching this one closely folks.

I'm back down in Norman this weekend. It's good to be back in a college town. I really miss it sometimes. We're driving down to Dallas tomorrow for the big football game. Oh and in case you weren't aware: HORNS GO DOWN.

I usually try to keep my journal pretty much gaming focused, but this is something that has really caught my attention lately. First off, we have the record labels clamoring after Apple trying to get them to raise their prices on iTunes. This is just out right ridiculous. This whole piracy issue started because the record labels wouldn't provide a viable, legal, working alternative to programs like Napster and Kazaa. Now they want to break the best one they have out there. Not to mention, as Jobs revealed, they're actually making more money per song off of the iTunes model than they do over the CD model. There are also similar reports of the major labels pressuring Satellite radio with the same kinds of threats about upcoming contract renewals.

Next up we have comments by a major music executive claiming that the ability to play CD's on a computer is a privilege, not a right. Sorry I couldn't find the link for this one, but I assure you it's valid. Now it may not be a right in the constitutional sense of the word, but you can't remove a feature from your product that customers have been using for some 15-20 years and not expect some kind of backlash. Just another example of how out of touch with the rest of the world these people are.

Moving on we have a story about the RIAA going after Sirius and XM for building recording capabilities into their radios. I think this one falls under the "haven't we already been through this before" category. With the Beta-Max precedent I don't see how this can possibly hold up. The only reason that Grokster lost their case was because they were encouraging people to distribute the content. These are obviously devices intended only for personal use.

And lastly we have the the RIAA and MPAA pushing for some super-broadcast flag that would basically give them unmitigated control over everything you see or hear over the airwaves.

Keep in mind all of these stories are just in the span of the last week.

This just goes to show you how detached these people are getting from reality. I'm pretty sure that RIAA isn't a term that is engendering a lot of loyalty in America these days, something that they seem to be oblivious of. These people seem hell-bent on making themselves public enemy number one.

Another thing that they don't seem to realize is that their industry is one of luxury, not necessity. They may have pushed their "piracy is steeling" point enough to keep people from going back to file sharing, but that doesn't mean you have a strangle hold to do whatever you want. There comes a point where if you abuse me enough as a customer, I will stop buying your product simply to spite you. I don't need to buy your music. I like it, yes. But I already own quite a bit of it, and there are plenty of other ways to entertain myself in today's media-driven society.

Whatever happened to the old adage, "The customer is always right."

Gaming fever that is. With all the great news coming out of TGS and the fall rush bearing down on us, my interest in gaming is reaching an all time high for this year.

To start things off, I've been getting back into San Andreas and Halo 2 recently. Having the new maps integrated into all of the game types in Halo 2 is like a breath of fresh air for me. I think that splitting the matchmaking up like they did really had me turned off for a while.

While San Andreas is better than my initial impressions had led me to believe, I've been kind of spoiled by other open ended style games. Mercenaries had better graphics and a better all-around control system while I thought that the environment in Fable, despite the load screens, was more fun to play around in. The gangster theme just doesn't hold any appeal for me. Still, it's a good game and I'll give it a little more time before I call it quits for good.

As a side note, my pick for most overlooked game of TGS goes to Kameo. I haven't been all that excited about Kameo but the video tour really sold me on it for two reasons. First is that it's finally starting to really look like a next gen game. I think the art style made this hard to notice before, but the visual effects, especially the underwater scene, really impressed me. Second is that this game looks to be nearly complete. While everyone else is going around showing pre-rendered and game engine videos or small, unfinished portions of gameplay, this game looks ready to play right now.

I ordered Sims 2 the other day and I should be getting it in the mail on Wed. I really like this game, and I've been wanting to get it for a while. I just haven't been able to find a Mac version for sale in my area. Now if only the would move the expansion packs over to the Mac.

With all this excitement over new games, I'm pulling the plug on a couple old ones. The first is World of Warcraft. This is a great game and I love everything that Blizzard does, but it's just not for me. I don't have the time to invest in it. I'm not into the whole social aspect of it. And lastly, I just don't have the patience for it any more.

The other thing is, I'm contemplating selling my PSP. I'm still on the fence about this as I have regretted selling every console I have ever sold. However, I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not a mobile gamer. Even if the PSP had some good games for it, which it doesn't, I still probably wouldn't play it that much.

With 3 movies, 3 games, and a 256mb memory stick, I'm looking at over $300 on eBay. With the Xbox 360 bearing down on us, I'd much rather put that money towards something like an HDTV or surround sound system. Like I said, I'm not sure yet, but it'll probably be gone by the end of the week.

OK, so I take back everything I said about MGS4. I finally saw the trailer and I gotta say, this is probably going to be one of my most anticipated games of the coming generation. That trailer almost even convinced me to go back and give MGS2 another shot. Almost.

Let me start by saying I got my iPod nano on Tuesday, and this is, by far, the slickest piece of electronics I have ever owned. It is truly astounding how much functionality, features, and capacity they crammed into such a small, and light, package.

I've been getting pretty excited about games this week. I think it's just this time of year in general that does this to me. I'm getting back into Halo 2. Now that they have the new maps integrated with all of the game types, I'm finding it to be a much more entertaining experience.



With the TGS in full swing I'm really starting to get excited about the next gen. As much as I tried to play it off, E3 just left me with a lukewarm feeling with respect to all 3 consoles. The Xbox 360 titles being shown are looking a whole lot better than I remember them at E3. Gears of War in particular looks gorgeous.

Obviously the big news here is the Revolution's controller. I'm having pretty mixed reactions to it at this point. On one hand, the thought of playing something like Rome: Total War with full surround sound on a 42" HDTV from the comfort of my couch with this thing has me drooling all over my keyboard right now. On the other hand, I can only imagine how much further this is going to distance Nintendo from third party developers and multi-platform releases.

I haven't really seen much on the PS3 side other than the news about MGS4. Right now I'm getting pretty scared about that game. It's looking to me like this is going to be a lot less like the awesomeness that were MGS and MGS3, and going to end up being a lot more like the utter disappointment that was MGS2. I could be wrong. It could be possible to make a game that includes Raiden and have it not suck, but right now I'm not putting any money on it. Either way, I'll still be following this one closely.

"For fans of Metal Gear Solid 2's Raiden, Kojima confirms that he will be making a comeback in Metal Gear Solid 4."

First of all, as you may have noticed, I'm reverting back to my original method for naming my journal entries, titling them with random quotes that have nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm talking about in my entry. Sure it's pointless, but I get a little laugh out of it every now and then so it works for me.

Secondly, because I am a Mac whore, I'm going to have to take a break from the Fuzzy Bunny awards for one post to talk about the press conference today.

For starters, the Rokr phone is pretty disappointing expecially after all this time that they've been talking about it. I was a little let down that they didn't introduce a video iPod too. That's something I can live without for now though, especially since the only action my PSP gets anymore is watching movies.

iTunes 5.0 seems to have gotten lost amid the other anouncements today, but I like what they've done. It's not really a major overhaul but it adds quite a few small features that improve on an already good product.

Of course the big announcement was the iPod nano. If you haven't seen it yet, this thing is freakin' small. In my opinion, it's how they should have done the shuffle the first time around. The four gig storage size had me a little bummed at first. It's too small for me to fit my entire collection on it, which is now bumping against my mini's 6 gig barrier. That said, this thing is amazing. It's one of those rare gadgets that you take one look at and just have to have one. Go ahead, try it.



You want one now don't you.

After much deliberation, I decided that I don't really need all of my music on one device (especially since a lot of it is crap) and ordered one (black, of course). My mini is, sadly, only 4 months old, so I should be able to offset the cost by selling it on eBay for a decent price. If nothing else, I know it will be a better investment than my PSP was.

With the official start of the next gen now less than three months away, I've been thinking a lot lately about everything that has happened in gaming over the last 5 years. Without a doubt I've played more games this gen than any other before and a lot of them have left an impression on me. So, over the course of me next several posts I'll being giving out my awards to the games of this generation that have left the biggest impact on me (both good and bad).

I'll try to do three or four each post and just keep going until I run out of categories. Bear in mind that I'm only basing these on games that I have actually played, so there will obviously be a lot of worthy games that I leave out. Of course, your feedback and opinions are much appreciated.

Biggest Surprise:



The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay

Seriously, did anyone see this coming? You take a mediocre sci-fi movie starring a bad actor, spin it off into a bad sci-fi movie starring the same bad actor, then spin that off into a FPS from an unknown developer starring the same bad actor. Sounds like a recipe for a good game right? Riddick just completely came out of left field and blew me away. There are some things that I could have liked better about it, but from a critical point of view it's hard to find fault with.

Biggest Disappointment:



Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Ok, I know I'm in the minority here. MGS2 just really missed the mark for me though. Everyone knows that the whole MGS series has and incredibly complex storyline, and I went into this game fully prepared for that (or so I thought). The MGS2 story just left me with a blank look on my face. I don't mind subtle and complex stories, but this was just too much. A lot of it just flat out didn't make sense. It doesn't help that the game dangles Solid Snake in front of you like a carrot on a stick from the minute you look at the box all the way up to the ending either.

Runner Up: Enter the Matrix

Most Underrated Game:



Fable

We all know the story of Fable by now. Fable is perhaps the biggest victim of its own hype that I have ever witnessed. It seems that the reaction has stabilized now after a year has gone by, and some people are finally recognizing Fable for what it really is instead of what they expected it to be.

When it was first released though, the reaction was flat out vitriolic, both from the community and from the critics. Fable is not without its share of flaws but beneath the surface lies an enjoyable and innovative game that I really enjoyed.

Best Game That Nobody Played:

Tie



Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

and



Psychonauts

Not to be confused with most underrated games, these games were generally recognized and appreciated for their greatness by all who played them. It's just unfortunate that, for some reason, an incredibly small number of people actually played these games.

I've already professed my love for Sands of Time all over my journal and these forums many times over. This is perhaps one of my favorite games of this generation. Psychonauts is likewise an amazing game, and incredibly original at the same time. If for some reason you haven't played one of these games you need to go pick them up right away.