Been over four months since my last blog so I guess it's time. Actually haven't had anything really interesting to talk about lately. Life's been good if not terribly exciting, just staying busy with the wife and kids. One thing that may interest some of you is that I'm saving my money and will combine it with some of my incoming tax $ to eventually invest in a HDTV either this Spring or early Summer. Right now kind of going back and forth on whether to spend all of the $ to get one in the 40" + range to set up in the living room, or to get a smaller one I could set up in the den. That way I'd move the 360 out of the living room (which would make my wife happy) and hook it up with the PC to a smaller HDTV, plus that would leave me $ to get a PS3 so I'd have a Blu-Ray player (not to mention being able to play MGS4). Of course the downer is then we wouldn't have a big screen to enjoy movies on in the living room, just the old 32" SDTV. Well, I've got some time to think about it. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated by HDTV owners as to what HDTVs you recommend for gaming in particular. Keep in mind I"ll be in the $1,000 range.

Now last but not least yesterday I accomplished something here on Gamespot I've been wanting to do for a long time. Finally started a Union for Red Sox fans. I know most of my friends here don't care about baseball but I want to give a special thanks to phoenyx9 and Swimmerking33 for being charter members and helping me get this started. Of course if there's anyone reading this that is a Red Sox fan or just a baseball fan you are more than welcome to check it out and see if you'd like to join. Here's a link - Red Sox Nation

OK, FINALLY got hooked up to DSL yesterday! Was looking forward to checking out XBox Live last night. Was really overtired because of staying up late Saturday and Sunday night to watch my beloved Red Sox win the World Series so my plan was to mess around a bit with Live before getting to bed at a decent time. Of course things never quite seem to work out the way we expect. On my way home from work I picked up my son Dylan (known to some of you as Nelo100) from school because he was at a Halloween party with his anime club. When I picked him up he was clutching his left wrist. Turns out he had a bad fall right before I got there. By the time we got home his wrist had a huge lump and was looking pretty bad so he and I went to the emergency room while Shannon stayed home with the girls. Turns out he did fracture his wrist bone so now he's in a cast but he's doing good - I don't think he minds getting a couple days off from school! Anyways it ended up being after 9 by the time we got home and now I'm really overtired so I just spenta short time on Live to check it out before going to bed. I did download the trailer for Devil May Cry 4 - man that looks sweet! Also downloaded the demo for Eternal Sonata but haven't looked at it yet. So, any of you that have Xbox Live I'm still going with celtic1962 on there. I haven't even looked at how you get people on your friend list but feel free to invite me or send me your names and I'll invite you if that's how it works.

At least now there's something she has in common with Gamespot! Funny name for a level, makes me think of my New England heritage, where everything is "wicked awesome". Speaking of New England, last Friday Shannon and I went to Tampa to see the Devil Rays play my beloved Red Sox, and it was indeed wicked awesome. I'd say about 80-90 percent of the fans were from Red Sox Nation, and it was extremely cool to be with so many New Englanders down in Florida, almost felt like I was back at Fenway Park. Great game for the Sox as they won 8-1 and Beckett got his 20th win. Here's a picture of us.

Also, I topped the weekend off by finally getting an Xbox 360 and picked up three relatively cheap games: GRAW, Dead Rising and Oblivion. Needless to say I'm in videogame heaven while Shannon can't believe I just spent $350 on a video game console.

Time for a new level - Sheng Long.  Cool name, though I didn't know what it was referring to.  Looked it up and saw that this was a hoax created by EGM magazine 15 years ago.  Supposedly he was a secret character in Street Fighter 2 that you could only reach if you used Ryu and got through the entire game w/o taking any damage, and then in your final battle against M. Bison you were not to touch him or let him touch you, ending the fight in a draw.  This had to be repeated for 10 consecutive rounds with Bison!  Then Sheng Long would appear and push Bison off the screen and start a figh to the death.  Was anyone actually able to pull this off, and if they did imagine their disappointment when Sheng Long never showed up!

Anyway, here's a picture of me and my daughters.  That's Heather (7) and Darrah (11) my two little angels (when they're not fighting with other!)

OK, there's still a limited amount of info on this movie coming out in December but here's a bit -

TRAILER - Check this out on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ceXMbMjXfM

PLOT - It's a heroic tale of three blood brothers and their struggle in the midst of war and political upheaval. It is based on "The Assassination of Ma," a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) story about the killing of general Ma Xinyi. The story was filmed by Zhang Che in 1973 as The Blood Brothers.

STARS - Jet Li, Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers) and Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers, Samanosuke from the Onimusha games, of course!)  Here's Lau and Kaneshiro from House of Flying Daggers.  How can you go wrong with these 3?

This movie looks awesome.  If you enjoy movies like The Last Samurai, House of Flying Daggers, Jet Li's Hero, etc. this should be your kind of movie.  Will keep an eye out for any updates.

OK, I guess the first question is...how many people are posting blogs about GOW 2 today?  I picked up my reserved copy on the way home from work yesterday, and while I was there I was in full geek mode as I went ahead and picked up the Limited Edition Strategy Guide

and even the skin for the PS2Alright, seems silly but I will say the the Limited Edition Strategy Guide is incredible, as it includes a good sized art book with beautiful images and the guide itself is very impressive as it also includes many detailed backgrounds on the characters and monsters of Greek mythology.  This is something I'd enjoy even if I never played the game.  The skin is also very impressive, looks great and I'm sure nobody is going to mess with my PS2 now that Kratos is guarding it:P  As for the game itself I got in a couple of hours last night, and the beginning is the same as the demo featuring the Colossus at Rhodes, but that's OK because that's a great battle!  I won't go into further detail right now, I'll save it for my review after I've finished.  Let me just say that the game looks and plays fantastic!  Anyone who knows me knows that I generally do not buy games when they first come out, I usually wait until the price comes down or I can get a cheap used copy.  This is definitely worth buying now if you can afford it.  OK, all for now, review coming soon!

I was shocked and very sad when I heard this news.  Dennis Johnson, "DJ" to his fans, was an integral part of the success that the Boston Celtics enjoyed in the 1980's.  He was the coach of the Austin Torres, an NBA Developmental team, and collapsed after a practice session.  He was only 52.  Back in the 80's I was very fortunate to attend many Celtic games in the Boston Garden, and though players like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale received most of the attention you can be sure that the Celtics would not have acheived their level of success without DJ as their point guard.  "Dennis was a great player, one of the best teammates I ever had, and a wonderful person," said former Celtics teammate Larry Bird.  A five-time All-Star and one of the NBA's top defensive guards, Johnson was part of the last Boston dynasty. He spent 14 seasons in the league and retired after the 1989-90 season. 

Former Boston teammate Danny Ainge, now the Celtics' executive director of basketball operations, called Johnson "one of the most underrated players in the history of the game, in my opinion, and one of the greatest Celtic acquisitions of all time."

I was hoping that DJ would eventually have a shot at coaching the Celtics, but it's at times like these you realize how short life can be, so treasure it!

Wow, can't believe I'm finally a Rescue Ranger!  Let's see, level 20 only took me...2 and a half months to get through.  It was an appropriate name for the rank, if any of you have actually battled a metal slime, hacking away and only doing 1 HP of damage at a time.  I have fond memories of the original Dragon Warrior games (1 - 4) for the NES that I played back in the early 90's.  I was very disappointed that those of us in the USA never had a Dragon Warrior game for the SNES.  Speaking of which, I've just started on Dragon Quest VIII and I'm really enjoying it.  Graphics and voices are very well done, and it's kind of refreshing to have the old school battle and experience system where I'm not confused as to what I'm supposed to be doing to level up my character.  Not that I have anything against the other games that try to introduce new concepts to give more depth to the game, I just like being able to dive right in and start playing without having to constantly consult the manual or charts:D  Alright, time to go and squash some slimes!

Well, believe it or not tomorrow's my birthday.  My Dad fought as a tank commander in WWII and I think he made a request of my Mom to make sure I was born on Veteran's Day:P  I'm going to be 44, and it's true what they say about the years flying by.  It boggles my ming that I graduated from college 21 years ago!  I'm sure my wife will give me a serious, mature type of present for someone my age (watch, cologne etc.) then she'll let the kids get me something I really want (Simpsons Season Eight, video games etc.):P  Like they say, what's important is how old you feel, and I'm glad I can have fun playing video games and watching cartoons with my kids.  Hopefully it will give them good memories years from now.  Anyways, hope all of my good friends in Gamespot have a great weekend!

Ok, here it is.  Awhile back I mentioned that I was going to talk about the amazing series of Metal Gear Solid games, so here are my reviews for the three I played:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/adventure/metalgearsolid2sonsol/player_review.html?id=362500

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/action/metalgearworkingtitle/player_review.html?id=368858

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/metalgearsolid3/player_review.html?id=377235

I know that it's impossible to say that "this game(s) will be enjoyed by everyone"  but I at least have to say that "most" people are bound to really like these games!  I consider Snake Eater to be right up there with Resident Evil 4 and God of War for my all-time favorites, and the Metal Gear Solid series goes right up there with the Resident Evil and Onimusha games as being the best of all time.  I know a lot of you are saying "where have you been, I've been a fan of the MGS games for years".  Well, it's true that I never played a MGS game until a few months ago so I'm behind the times, but if someday I can get a PS3 I'll be jumping on MGS4 along with the rest of ya!  So, how about the rest of you guys and gals, what are your opinions on these games?