My 360 is still down in Texas for repairs and I have no idea how much longer it'll take. This really sucks too cause Streets of Rage 2 was released on XBLA and Fatal Fury Special comes out next week. I've been looking forward to both of these games and they just happen to be released when I don't even have my 360. That's not all. Microsoft is having a Labor Day sale on 4 of their XBLA games. Gauntlet, Dig Dug, Small Arms and Zuma Deluxe, all of them are half off. I would have gotten Gauntlet and Dig Dug for sure, I have no interest in Small Arms and I have Zuma since my girlfriend, Liz, picked it up.

I picked up BioShock today at Toys R Us. I ended up paying $39.01 for it too!:) I was able to use two 15% off coupons and Lizzy's employee discount . She had this on hold for me since the day it came out. TRU only got 6 copies in on release day, and they still haven't gotten any more. You'd think a game like this would be stocked in large numbers like Halo or GTA since its been getting such great reviews, but it makes me wonder if BioShock will go down like Psychonauts. A fantastic sleeper hit that no one picked up on.

Don't mind the dust.....

While I was at TRU I picked up Pursuit Force for PSP. I now have 4 PSP games, even though I dont have the system yet. I received a bonus check at work and I'm planning on using some of it on the redesigned Silver PSP that comes out the week of September 10th. I also have Infected, Me and My Katamari and Ultimate Ghosts N Goblins. I also won X-Men Legends II on PSP from Ebay this week as well.

Time to go play some more Luminous Arc on DS until I get my 360 back....

Sending off my 360 for repairs...

I dropped it off at the UPS Store tonight. The repair center (in Texas) should have it by Monday at the latest, then the waiting game begins...

Funny thing happened when I brought it in. The guy at the UPS Store said, "Oh, another Xbox." I asked him if he sees a lot of them and he said "oh yes, all the time." That's really really sad. I didn't ask him how many he sees a week, I should have, but it really makes you think. Microsoft has a serious problem on their hands. I bet you if your system hasn't failed yet, it will in the next 3 years, and then you'll have to go through all this B.S. that I'm currently dealing with. I purchased my system on December 3, 2006. I've only had it for a little over 8 months, and I've already had a system killing hardware failure (it failed on August 16, 2007). I've never, ever owned a system that has failed this quickly. This is really pissing me off. Sure Microsoft is taking care of it, but this shouldn't have happened in the first place.

She's dead, folks....

No BioShock for me!! Man, this sucks......

UPDATE: I called Microsoft Support today and it will take 7 to 10 days just to receive the damned box to send my 360 in for repairs. Is this normal? It looks like it might be a whole month before I get my console back. This really bites. At least its free.

Saw this at my local grocery store on Sunday, decided I'd pick one up for the hell of it. Man, this stuff is revolting. Tastes like cherry pixie sticks, or at least some sort of candy. Way too much sugar.

[video=IHQyxmat5b8Oszfd]

Fall 2007

Coming to a blog near you

If you haven't already heard, last night at about 6:00 PM Central Time, a bridge on Interstate 35W crossing the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed with 50-60 vehicles on it during the height of rush hour. I was not involved in the disaster, and so far no one I know was involved. I rarely ever drive into Minneapolis, so I wouldn't need to cross that bridge. I work in St Paul. I won't give you any links to the story, it's all over the news and all over the internet, not just in Minnesota but across the country and across the world. Just turn on your TV for all the details. They are still doing recovery and rescue efforts and do not know the cause. They don't think this was a terrorist attack.

The bridge was undergoing construction and traffic had been reduced to one lane on each side that evening. Some are speculating that the increased weight may have lead to the collapse. Apparently inspections of the bridge in the past said there were cracks that needed to be repaired but the bridge itself was in no immediate danger of failure and did not need to be shut down at the time. As further investigation continues we will learn the real cause of this disaster. As of this time the death toll is at 4, but 20-30 people are still missing. Let's hope that number doesn't rise too much and that everyone else makes it out alive.

If you read my previous blog post entitled "easy points", you'd know I re-subscribed to the online video game rental service, Gamefly. Well, I've had the service for a month now, and I'm starting to have some second thoughts. This is mainly due to how Gamefly is shipping out their games. Not the lack of games or how long they take to arrive (which is still a long time btw).

My first two games were Need for Speed Carbon and TMNT, both on Xbox 360. I played NFS for an hour tops. I liked it enough and decided I'd rather own the game instead of renting it until I've had my fill, so sent it back the next day. I finished TMNT and got all 1,000 points in it and sent that back a few days later. There were 3 or 4 games at the top of my queue with long waits, (which I wasn't expecting to receive), Transformers, The Darkness and Earth Defense Force, and then there were 3 or 4 games that were listed as available now; Spider Man 3, Crackdown, Bullet Witch and Phantasy Star Universe. You would think that they would send me Spidey 3 next, right? Nope. Ok, maybe Crackdown or PSU? Wrong again. I was sent two games that were way down my queue, at about items 12 or 13. Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime and Elite Beat Agents.

I was a little steamed that I couldn't play Spidey, PSU or any of the other games that were listed as "available now" and were several items above the DS games. I thought it was a computer error at first so I didn't think much of it. I played Elite Beat Agents for like 15 minutes, and completely sucked at it. I mean completely sucked. Even on easy. I said, "ok rhythm games are not my thing, even though it looked cool on On the Spot." I sent that back right away. DQH: Rocket Slime is really fun and I want to purchase that game instead of just rent it so I sent that back after I played it for a couple hours.

My queue was exactly the same as it was before, 3 games on long waits, then 4 games listed as available now. Guess what happened again? Yep, I got two more DS games that I had way down on my list. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales and Hoshigami Remix: Ruining Blue Earth. I thought WTF?! I sent an email to customer service asking them what the deal was and I get a response a couple days later. They said that Gamefly customers have told them that shipping times are very important. So Gamefly sends the next available item on your queue that is at the closest warehouse. Hopefully that doesn't sound too confusing. GF has two warehouses, in California and Pittsburgh. I guess they send out the next available game in your queue, depending on which warehouse is closest to you. So if the top 10 games in your queue are only available at the CA warehouse and you have a game at item 11 that is at the PA warehouse, they send you that game. That completely defeats the purpose of having a numbered game queue. I might as well just have a random list of games I want to rent and hope they send me the one I want to play the most. This system makes absolutely no sense.

I think what I'm going to do is remove all the games I don't want to play right away, and keep only the games that I'm dying to play. That way I'm sure to get a game I really want. Even then I shouldn't have to do this. Gamefly really needs to open up more Distribution Centers across the county. They really need one in the center of the US, like Chicago.

FFF: Chocobo Tales was kinda fun at first, but then the minigames got real boring. The music is great though, it uses a lot of cl@ssic FF songs. I sent it back right away, and I don't think I want to play it again. Hoshigami Remix was absolute crap. It tries so hard to be like Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre but fails miserably. After the last two DS games I finally got a game I wanted to play, Lost Planet. That game is awesome. I loved every minute of it. Until the worm achievement that is. I sent it back after a few days because I want to buy it at some point. This week I will be getting Spider-Man 3 on 360.

Let's take a look at how many games I got in one months time. I received 3 360 games (Spidey doesn't count since I haven't got it yet) and 4 DS games. It costs about $24 a month for the 2 games out at a time service. If I were to rent all these games at a Blockbuster or Hollywood video it would cost me approximately $45.00. That's a pretty good deal but you have to consider the fact I barely played several of the games. I really only played TMNT and Lost Planet. I think I'll give the service another month and see how many games that I'm looking forward to playing right away, arrive in the mail instead of other games I can wait on.

Has anyone else tried out Gamefly? If so, what are your experiences with it?

I went into my local Best Buy on Sunday and I noticed a great deal they are having this week. A lot of the DC animated DVDs are on sale for under $20. The entire Batman the Animated Series is on sale for a total of $75 for all 4 volumes. Batman Beyond seasons 1, 2 and 3 are all on sale for under $19.99 each. All the Justice League animated series DVDs are on sale for $19.99 each. I didn't see any but I believe the Superman animated series is also on sale for under $20 each as well. If you are a fan of the Timmverse like I am, this is a fantastic sale. For example volume 1 of Batman:TAS sells for $40 normally, and it's on sale for $14.99. I will be picking up Batman:TAS today after work. If you don't believe me, I'll take some pics later!

Pictures are HERE

Everyone seems to be doing some sort of E3 blog, so here's my two cents. First up is my impressions of the press conferences. I'm pretty much in agreement with the majority on these so I won't go into too much detail.

Microsoft's press conference was flashy, a lot of numbers talk, which is unusual since Sony has always talked a lot of numbers. They didn't show a whole lot of new stuff but that Halo 3 live action clip was pretty cool. Looking forward to RE5, GTA IV, Halo 3, My Beautiful Katamari, Eternal Sonata, Lost Odyseey and Mass Effect. Overall it was a good press event and I didn't have any real problems with it except for them talking up the numbers and making Microsoft's products seem like they are the best thing in the world, but they didn't do that as much as Nintendo did...

For the Nintendo press conference, I agree with the majority of GS users on this one. Worst press event of them all, one of the worst Nintendo has ever done. Seems like the whole thing was geared towards your casual gamers. I got really sick and tired of those stupid "commercials" or family montages, saying how awesome the Wii and DS are every 10 minutes. I kept thinking, yeah I know the Wii and DS have been selling like hotcakes, get on with the press event already and show us some games! The only game I have even the slightest interest in on the Wii is Metroid Prime 3 Corruption. Seems cool but I'm not in a hurry to get it, after all I haven't even opened my copy of Metroid Prime 2. The Phantom Hourglass looks interesting but it seems like it's a dumbed down version of Zelda. I mean you practically play the whole game with the stylus alone. They even mentioned how they made it so casual players can enjoy the game and progress in the game as easily as your core gamers. Wii Fit? Wow. Completely unexpected and completely lame. Obviously this is geared towards the casual gamer and the entire family. One the dumbest things I've ever seen on a video game console. I think Nintendo lost some of their fans with this press event.

Finally, Sony's press conference. From the very beginning, this conference was the best of all. The whole thing was put together really well. Instead of talking a lot of numbers like Kaz usually does, they were like "we got GAMES" The presenters also sounded like they were talking to you like a normal person, not someone reading a cue card and sounding all forceful and saying we're the best all of the time. The redesinged PSP and the lineup finally gives me a reason to pick up that system. So with the video out capability, does this mean I could play PSP games on the TV?? OOOoh silver PSP looks great. Chewy! Awesome. Echocrome looks very interesting, not my type of game but it seems really innovative. Pain looks to be a lot of fun with rag doll physics. I'm really disappointed Warhawk is multiplayer only. I remember playing the original game on PSX right when the system launched and that game was a lot of fun. Playstation Home looks to be really neat. I especially like how you can play music in your "pad." That makes it really easy for me to force my friends to listen to music they've never heard of before :p Haze looks ok but nothing special. I've never been a fan of the Unreal Tournament series but since UTIII has single player, I'm looking forward to checking it out. Burnout Paradise, wow! The trailer in the press event didn't look all that great but the brief live demo on GS looked fantastic. Not sure about the whole open world thing but the crashes look absolutely amazing. The Simpsons game looks really fun too. MGS4 looks fantastic. Too bad I have yet to play the third game. I better get on that:p Ratchet and Clank isn't my type of game, I don't play platformers, but it looks extremely cool. Folklore looks pretty nice. I don't think that trailer did Heavenly Sword justice but the game looks beautiful and animated very well. Little Big Planet isn't something I'd play but the game looks very innovative and has a lot of personality. Infamous looks like a new comic book character or something. Seems interesting though. GT5. I doubt any of that was real time but if it was, holy frickin crap. Killzone 2? It looks almost as good as the trailer in 2005. Can't wait to play this game. Looks mind blowing.

Out of all the press events, Sony's was the best in terms of presentation, games lineup and just the whole feel of it. I'm really glad Sony didn't have another crappy year at E3 like last year. I'm looking forward to picking up a PSP this year and finally getting a PS3.

I went through the entire E3 games list on GS's E3 page and compiled a list of my most anticipated games. I wanted to embed video of all the games but for whatever reason, GS doesn't allow embedding, even of their own videos. So I'll just put up links to the best trailers, gameplay footage, interviews, or stage demos.


Beautiful Katamari

I'm a fan of both the PS2 games and I'm looking forward to the online play and the sharp graphics on the 360. I hope the soundtrack is just as crazy as the first two.

Trailer

BioShock

At first I didn't care much about this game, but after checking out the stage demo it got me pretty excited for it. The story is interesting, the graphics are great and the gameplay seems pretty innovative.

Stage Demo

Burnout Paradise

This is one of the few games from this year's E3 that made me say "holy sh*t!" After seeing the crashes for the first time in the stage demo, I am really psyched to play this game. I'm still unsure how the open world setting will work for Burnout but hopefully they will explain it more in the coming months.

Stage Demo

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles

Looking forward to playing Rondo of Blood, which is the prequel to Symphony of the Night that was never released over here. It's cool that it also has SotN but I've recently finished it on 360 again so I don't think I'll be playing it on PSP unless there is some new stuff added to it.

Trailer

Contra 4

The game looks to be a direct sequel to Contra III and the gameplay is what you'd expect and hope for from a new Contra game. Cl@ssic 2D sidescrolling action, and Super Spread? Awesome!

Stage Demo

Dark Sector

When I first saw this game it didn't look like anything special but after watching that stage demo I'm really looking forward to it. Gears of War meets Krull? Sign me up!

Stage Demo

Dynasty Warriors Gundam

I'm a big Gundam fan and this game looks and has been considered one of the best Gundam games ever made. Looking forward to destroy some Zakus with all the playable Gundam units.

Trailer

Eternal Sonata

I've already played the demo of this game and it was a lot of fun. It's an action rpg similar to Star Ocean but it's turn based, not real time. I like the whole light and dark elements and the music is really nice.

Interview

Fallout 3

I've never played a Fallout game but from the preview GS put up and that amazing trailer I'm really looking forward to this game. I want to see some gameplay footage damnit!

Trailer

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

Another reason to pick up a PSP. FFT with new jobs? Sweet!

Trailer

Fracture

This is another game that made me say "holy crap this is fricking amazing!!" Check out the stage demo if you haven't already, you won't be disappointed. Fracture was completely unexpected. I knew nothing about it but after watching the demo I can't wait to play it.

Stage Demo

God of War: Chains of Olympus

God of War on PSP, sign me up. Yet again another reason to buy the system. The graphics look really good considering it's on a hand-held.

Stage Demo

Grand Theft Auto IV

Finally a GTA game I want to play. I haven't played a GTA game since Vice City. Really looking forward to this, but who isn't?

Trailer

Half Life 2: The Orange Box

HL2 plus Episodes 1, 2, Portal and Team Fortress II? Awesome! I will finally get around to playing HL2 now even though it's been out for what seems like forever. One of my top 5 most anticipated games.

Stage Demo 1

Stage Demo 2

Halo 3

Looking forward to completing the story of Halo. Don't care about the multiplayer as much, if at all.

Trailer

Killzone 2

Wow! Looks almost as good as that trailer from E3 05. This could turn out to be the Halo killer as it's been called in the past, and a system seller for PS3. One of my top 5 most anticipated games.

Gameplay video

Lost Odyssey

This is probably my most anticipated game of the entire list. It looks like ****c FF gameplay, a cool story and amazing graphics. Plus the original creator of FF and music director are on board. Literally can't wait.

Trailer

Luminous Arc

Looks like FFT but with anime inspired characters. very cool.

Stage Demo

Mass Effect

Another of my top 5 anticipated games. I don't know what else can be said about this game, it seems like it's on everyone's most anticipated list.

Stage Demo

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Never played the first game but the fact you can blow almost anything up and the amount of vehicles in the game sounds like a lot of fun.

Stage Demo

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice

Another reason to get a PSP. Watch the stage demo, this game looks like a lot of fun. I like the idea you can jump out of a moving car, into another car and shoot the driver then take over that car. Very cool.

Stage Demo

Resident Evil 5

Don't know much about it but it looks to continue the sty1e of RE4.

Trailer

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon

I've never been much of a fan of Harvest Moon but I like the idea that in this game you go into dungeons and fight monsters besides farming.

Soul Calibur IV

Graphics look amazing, the characters are animated very well. Looking forward to finding out more about this one.

Trailer

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Ever since that infamous video was released a few years back, I've been dying to play this game. The psychics are absolutely mind blowing.

Trailer/Interview

Turok

Brutal. Watch the stage demo, those "fatalities" on the dinos are freakin awesome. Haven't played a Turok game since Turok 2 on N64. Looking forward to some dino slaughtering action with great graphics.

Stage Demo