Maybe i'm just jaded? Or maybe the games i was looking forward to this year ended up being dissapointments or havent been released yet. Whatever the reason, I found myself buying a Sega Genesis just a week ago. In all honesty, it's somthing i've been wanting to do for a long time, but it's the recent games drout on the 360 that spurred me into this.

That's not to say there havent been any good releases on the 360 this summer. But it seems a lot of those games I was looking forward to (most of which were sequals) were dissapointing or lacking in some way. Too Human, for example, was pretty fun but WAY too short. Also there are the games I want to play that are not out yet, such as Fable 2 and Left 4 Dead. Somthing needed to fill this void before, God forbid, I actualy go out and do somthing non-videogame related

So thats when it hit me. I was in an RPG mood, and what better RPG is there than my all time favorite Shing Force 2. Only problem is I dont own the system to play it anymore, but thankfuly they can still be found on Amazon relativly cheap. I'm playing SF2 now and it's a complete blast and i've come to realize that I should continiue with this vibe. I'm going to hunt down some more Genesis era games that I had fun with when I was younger. So far my shopping list includes Phantasy Star II and Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole, but i'm sure i'll think of many more than that. So if you dont see me on LIVE for long streches of time, that's most likely where i'll be, getting my retro on.

...and it's about time. After so much time and two remakes of the X-box original, a tried and true sequal is finaly on the way. Ninja Gaiden was one of my favorite X-box titles, so i've been wondering for a long time now if they were ever going to make a new one. I was real dissapointed when they said N.G. Sigma was going to be PS3 exclusive, seeing how I have no plans to purchase the console but the sequal news more than makes up for it. I'll be watching and waiting very attentivly for the release date for this one...

Just how good is Bioshock? Check this out: http://bioshockd.ytmnd.com/

Camping last weekend was pretty cool. It's just unfortunate our stay got cut short. On the first night of the trip, most of our food got stolen by one of the other group of campers there at Lake Schlatter. We're positive we know the ones who did it, but when we confronted them about it they (as expected) got defensive about it, claiming they didnt do it. Well i'm sure the other gentlemen there wouldnt do somthing like that. I mean they were 2 older men just there for the fishing; the ones who stole our stuff werearound college age andwere drinkingpretty regularlywhile out there(NOTE: i'm not saying old guys cant steal stuff, it's just we talked with them and were on good terms with those guys).We leftsoon afterwards, seeing how we didnt want to stay out thereand let those guys possibly steal more stuff later. Suppose i should stop thinking about it seeing how there's really nothing that can be done.

Started playing Armored Core 4 recently. It's actually better than I was expecting. My one big gripe I have with it though is all the stat management. Holy $hit was I overwhelmed at first. I think I have the hang of it now, but man you really dont see many games that get into THAT much detail. Once you get around that, the game can be pretty fun. I like customizing mechs and trying new builds out. Anyways, thats all i have to report for now.

Durring the waiting period for my 360 to return (see previos blog post), I did somthing I never thought i'd do again: play Diablo 2 again.  You see back in the day I was a pretty big D2 junkie.  It was what ruled my thoughts back durring high school, and my freinds were just as hooked as me.  But when I graduated high school, I ended up moving out right away.  In my new place I had no computer with which to play D2, so I decided to put it beind me forever.  3-4 years have passed since then and as you can imagine I finnaly got a computer and cable internet.  Durring the excrutiating wait for my 360 to come back, I started getting really bored.  I still have my original X-box, but none of games looked interesting.  I saw a freind of mine playing Diablo 2 recently and the seed was sown.  I came back on B-net, and surprisingly there's still a ton of people playing this game, even though its like 7 years old.  I've been hooked ever since, and even though my 360 came back about 5 days ago, I dont feel compelled to play it right now.  If anyone happens to read this and plays D2 on B-net, look me up.  I'm on US East, profile name Overlord_Fiend 

I could hardly belive it today when I went to turn on my 360 and saw it:  the 3 red flashing lights signaling my console's doom.  At first I thought that maybe it just messed up this one time on start up, no big deal.  So I turn it off and then back on, multiple times, but the lights remained.  My face is starting to bead with sweat at this point, so my mind comes up with another idea:  One of the cords must not be in all the way!  I unplug then replug everything, but to no avail.  After checking the X-box support website, I ended up calling their support line.  To get to the point, looks like my 360 is going in for repairs.  Untill it comes back in around 2 weeks or so, looks like i'm stuck playing my orignal X-box for a while.  NOT that there's a problem with that, it's just I was in the middle of getting my new Oblivion charecter ready for the Shivering Isles.  I'm also going to be without Castlevania SOTN too.  I'll manage somehow. This might be a good time to get back into KOTOR or Ninja Gaiden, somthing to kill the time untll I can get my Oblivion fix again. 

I swear computers are some of the touchiest pieces of equipment ever.  For about a month I was without a computer and unable to check on things, such as the locations of target marks in Lost Planet's story mode.  I guess it wasnt a complete loss.  The new comp I helped spring for is quite sweet, and beats the pants off of the old one performance wise.  I played a lot of Lost Planet multiplayer durring the past few weeks and managed to reach lvl 56 from playing post grab mainly.  I have nearly all of the multiplayer acheivements and am only misssing the ones for getting 10 medals in Fugitive and Elimination.  Those I imagine though wont be easy to get.  However, i'm satisfied playing Post Grab right now (logged over 200 matches playing that alone).  I almost was denied Lost Planet too recently when my copy of the disk cracked down the middle one night while playing.  The warrenty didn't cover the damages, so I ended up buying another copy so I could keep playing.  Them's the ropes I guess... 

I picked up Marvel Ultimate Alliance a few weeks ago, and I must say i'm quite satisfied with it.  Much like Oblivion did when it first came out, it's pretty much all i've been doing every day.  And I still havent played the online multiplayer yet.  There's so much to find and acomplish in the single player.  Just a few days ago, I finnaly unlocked Silver Surfer legit (I refused to use the code to unlock him, it's just not my style).  I'm missing just one or two single player achievments, so i'm going to try and get those first, then hit the online play.  What disturbs me though is that I checked to see if this game is played much online, and I saw absolutely NO games being played at the time (around 4:00 pm)  Everyone's off playing Gears online no doubt.  I wont be deturred though.  I'd still like to get all the achievements for this game.  

There's been some dang swell releases for the 'Box lately.  It started with MKA.  Although G-spot and other publications gave it sort of luke warm scores, i actually liked it quite a bit.  It's especially cool when my freinds and i take turns facing each other's Kreate a Karecters.  I find myself tweaking my guys for long periods of time.  Emergence day hit, and i spent most of my time playing Gears.  I must admit, I'm getting pretty good in multiplayer.  Helps that me and my freind i play with coordinate well.  It's sweet when you can flank unsespecting players.  And as frosting on the cake, Contra was just released over Arcade.  Though it is a little dissapointing that it's not the original NES version i played in my youth, it's still pretty cool.  Doubt i'll ever beat it without the extra lives code though (never was much good at those old side scrolling shooters, though they're still a blast to play.) 

What the heck is an Atomic Punk?  I think I liked being a Pheonix Down better (in name only though).  A lot of moving and shaking since last blog post.  Mainly, DEAD RISING!  Wow, this has to be one of the coolest gameing experiences ever.  Also, the music for the game is just so cool.  Like many countless others, I'm trying to find if there's a place to download any of it.  If Capcom released a CD Soundtrack for the game, i'd definetly buy.