Halo still rocks. Despite the disappointing Halo 2 single player, the constant cheaters, and the annoying drive to get a higher rank, Halo still rocks. Try to argue against this after having over twelve of your best friends for an all night Halo 2 frag fest in your basement. Sure this game can irritate many, including myself, but at the end of the day Halo 2 holds a special place in everyone’s heart.

Why so sentimental? Well a good dose of Halo 3 news has just been released onto the net. I won’t spoil it for you. Go find it yourself, half the fun is the elation of finally stumbling across the magazine scans. All I will say though, is Halo 3 will rock it just like Halo 2 did. I’m already excited.

The game doesn’t even have a release date and I’m still excited. The new weapons (some even old favorites from Halo), and new vehicles (like those missing in action from Halo 2), are going to make Halo 3 just as good if not better than Halo 2. It is awesome to be an Xbox 360 owner.

So live it up Halo fans, Halo 3 is coming.

World of Warcraft is a double edged sword. On the one hand it is an excellent MMORPG, if not the best. It’s fun, easy to get into, and presents a great world for gamers to get involved in. However, WoW can steal one’s life away. Terribly. Marriages have been lost, opportunities broken, and lives completely torn away thanks to this addicting game. If there was ever a poster child for how games can destroy a life, WoW is it.

But there is a way to fight this, a way to survive WoW. Follow my simple list and you should be fine and still find World of Warcraft satisfying.

Realize Friends Will Progress Faster Than You
The ratio of those with a life versus those without is very slanted in WoW. As a result, many friends are going to surpass you in terms of level, items, mounts, and so on. Don’t let this get to you. Don’t make it a competition to see who is the most powerful. Do this and WoW will suck unnecessary hours out of your life. Give yourself, your own timeline of progression and stick with it.

Plan To Do Instances and Raids Ahead Of Time
Both of these take a long time to complete. Don’t randomly say “ok” to invites to either of these. Instead plan on doing one, once a week. Usually weekends are the best. This is when a majority of players are on and it is easy to find a group to get into.

Being Offline Isn’t Bad
Remember, the longer one is offline, the larger the double XP bar. Stay off long enough and gaining a level could take two to three times as fast as opposed to doing it the old fashioned way. WoW rewards those who stay offline.

Follow these three steps and World of Warcraft should be a much more fun experience.

It is something we as gamers do every single time we put in a new game. We adapt, learn the ropes, and ultimately beat the game. This is what makes us special. Why bring this up? Well lately I’ve read in a few places online where some feel the Gears of War control scheme isn’t as fluid or polished as Microsoft is leading us the believe. My response? Give it time. Think back to when the PSX or the Xbox launched. Was using two thumbs ticks easy at first? No. We all loved the N64’s single thumbstick. Could we live without our dual thumbsticks in today’s world? I doubt it. I specifically remember picking up Halo for the first time, and for about the first week or so I struggled. Grenades where thrown when a melee attack would have sufficed. I died happened often. Fast forward to today. Halo’s control scheme is almost the standard for a FPS. Gears of War could easily set the standard for how a third person shooter plays. Don’t base opinions on short sessions. If after year Gears is still hard to play then the conclusions were warranted. Just give it time.

This is what I don’t get. Why the heck would EA put spyware in their game? Does this make any sense to anybody here? I mean, that is like…I can’t even compared it to a real life example because it is so stupid. Sure it might not be terrible spyware. But spyware is spyware and frankly the whole idea of buying BF 2142 now seems pretty low on my list. Yeah EA, I was going to spend my money to purchase your product, but not anymore. I’ll save it for the companies who haven’t gotten so big that they decide to squeeze money out of gamers and then throw it in their face by putting spyware in their games. There is a picture online of the note that says basically “if you don’t want spyware don’t install this game.” Which is fine…by….me. As anyone can tell, this has be really mad.

Before people star going "WTF, this is just like GearsOfWar890's" let me explain. This is IS GearsOfWar890. I had to change my name for a number of reasons.

While I love Gears of War, my name made me come off as a total Xbox fanboy, which I am most certainly not. The old name just limited me in Unions to join and thing to do. Does it make sense to have a Final Fantasy VII banner when my name is GearsOfWar890? Not really. So a change was needed and after careful consideration Omnieinherjar is the final choice.

What does Omnieinjerjar mean? Well the Omni is a throwback to Cloud’s best Limit Break, and the einjerhar is the Norse name for the perfect soldiers of Norse mythology who fought along side the gods during Ragnarokr. So yeah, I like the name. Hope you guys do to.

Hope everyone likes me new banner. I didn’t delete the old one. I figured I’d keep my page more interesting by periodically rotating the graphics. Think of them as themes. So far just this one and the Gears of War banners are the two I have created in Photoshop but I do have plans to make a Halo banner as well as an Assassins Creed and maybe a World of Warcraft one. Hopefully I’ll have blog banners to go along with the themes. We will see how much creativity I have before I burn out.

With videogames today, I find it very hard to actually get excited about a movie. Movies, unless they are on a franchise I’m familiar with like Final Fantasy, Halo, Spider-Man (you get the idea), are just boring to me. I need to interact and be part of the story. Yes, videogames and the few with excellent stories have ruined me. But with the release of the 300 Trailer, I gotta say I don’t know one damn thing about this movie but I am hooked. I’ve already watched the trailer a dozen times and each time gets better. Does the fact that it is based off of one of the best comic book writer’s graphic novels help? Yes. Frank Miller is amazing. If you haven’t checked it out, go right now. I’m serious. This movie is going to be awesome.

All I can say is let the madness begin. It is all over the net. The rush for the PS3’s has officially started and in some ways also ended. One day? Yeah it only took one day. That is what happens when you only promise 400,000 units per launch. Today and only today EB Games and Gamestop stores allowed customers to preorder their PS3 with a one hundred dollar deposit. All the PS3s are sold out. This is all well and good except for a few rather disturbing rumors: - Reserving it doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a unit come launch day - Some sources say that names will be randomly drawn from a hat (oh like that will work) - Some EB and Gamestops aren't even giving out preorders because all the employees are buying them (Ebay anyone?) I thought the Xbox 360 launch was a disaster but this is just plain ridiculous. It isn’t all Sony’s fault by any means but suffice to say I’d stop bashing other system launches when you don’t have the potential to pull off a better one. The conduct of EB and Gamestop is what is really shocking. I would think Sony would be upset with this. I guess money is money. I’m not a MS fan boy or a Sony hater. True Sony has seen better days in my mind and I do own a 360 currently, but I’m getting a PS3 too. I can’t wait until they are filling the shelves with amazing titles to make my mind go spinning in delight. Now if one company could just launch a system correctly….:?

For those who have wandered onto my part of Gamestop's website and scolled down to see my gamer tag, probably everyone has had the same thought run through their head, "Only a thousand odd points? Does he honestly considered him a gamer?" I have an explanation. Back when I bought the Xbox 360, I was not fortunate enough to have broadband at my house (yeah 56k people, old school and terrible). I did however have the Swimstrong gamertag which I had bought so I could play Halo 2 matchmaking when at a friend's house (ranked games).

Long story short, my Xbox 360 didn't go online "officially" until September, and with college my desire to get all the Oblivion and NFSMW achievement points again is rather small. Thus while my gamertag score is pathetic, my actualy score is in the 3000+ range. Someday when I find the gumption and time I might go back and play the old games but not any time soon.

Well another day has come and gone in my tiny little world and suffice to day it didn’t disappoint. On the reality side of things school is going great (finally doing something I like which is a nice change), and now my grandfather and I are 4-0 for taking down trees exactly where we say they will go (long story, don’t ask).

On the not so reality part of my life (i.e. videogames), the progress has been slow. World of Warcraft is taking up the majority of my time, but now and then I manage to squeeze in some Halo 2 or UT2K4. It’s amazing after spending so much time in WoW how rewarding a simple match of Team Swat can make you realize how much fun fast paced games are. Beyond that everything is going great.
Just counting down the days until Gears of War.:P