Best Buy is having some great Black Friday deals this year. Just too bad that I don't really have any discretionary income right now. You can get a Panasonic Viera 55" 1080P Plasma HDTV for $599. I do kind of want to bump up to a bigger TV in my living room but I can also not and avoid the extra credit card debt. A little more pissed now that my PS3 burned out when it did. PS3 is on sale for $199. You can get an XBOX 360 with two games for $199. Nintendo 3DS has a bundle deal with either Super Mario Land 3D or Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for $179. Plus they've got a bunch of newer release PS3 and 360 games on sale for $29.99. I'll probably be picking up copies of Battlefield 3, Rage, and Deus Ex Human Revolution. They've also got a bunch of blu-ray and DVD stuff on sale along with a lot of other stuff.

This is where my Silver status really pays off. I get early access, the ability to buy online, and free shipping. So guess who doesn't have to be out fighting the crowds this Friday at 4am. I think I'll just sleep in this year. Notice that the point of Black Friday is always marketed as the time to buy holiday gifts for friends and family but everybody always just buys stuff for themselves. :)

Reached rank 75 in Uncharted 3 multiplayer last night. Which means Iactivated Legacy mode for the first time. So all my progress was reset to zero but I get the prestige of showing off my new hexagon rank badge. Working toward my second legacy now and I've already reached level 9. Leveling up is easy when you've got a lot of practice.

Hardcore mode is a good way to show off your skills. Funny how guys who talk a lot of trash when they can instantly spawn an RPG don't have so much totalk smackabout when they have to rely on the weapon set you start with and everyone is on equal footing. This was the mode I loved the most in Uncharted 2 during Lab weekends. I'm glad they included it as a regular mode in this one. Now I just wish they would start doing something like the Lab again for Uncharted 3. Those were always fun weekends when I was playing Uncharted 2.

Sometimes there is nothing more enjoyable than multiplayer gaming when you're on a streak. It's like you can't screw up. Your fingers and your brain are in sync and you can frag other players like the harbinger of death without bothering to take trips to meet the reaper yourself. I've been on fire the last couple nights in Uncharted 3 multiplayer (unless I get into one of those glitchy LAG! matches where I get matched up with players from Mexico or Australia *DAMN those guys have lousy Internet*).

But anyway... Last night I was walking tall like a juggernaut. I managed this super sweet long range grenade kill while hanging, netting myself a Hail Mary and a Tricky. So after the match I wanted to go check the video to see the other guys reaction and possibly submit as a special moment to Best Plays of the Week. And the stupid game didn't record the match because all the slots were full. Now why do they give you the option to go in and protect a video file if the game is just going to keep the first dozen indefinitely unless you delete them? That doesn't make sense.

So at least I was there to see it. I'm sure I'll get some OH WOW moments again but I feel cheated that I didn't get to go back for the replay. I do enjoy watching people scream into their headsets about how I must be cheating or lagging when they run toward me while blindfiring and flailing about like a n00b for the tenth time and I take them down and their buddy who's right behind them and the backup guy who runs into the room half a step behind them. It's called skill people, oh yeah and aim (always more accurate than blindfire). Acquired from countless hours sitting in front of my TV and getting finger memory of the controls and learning the game mechanics. It's also how I can tell when another play is Lagging.

I'll admit when I screw up or am getting out played. But nothing sets me off faster than the unkillable player who can't be put down with an entire clip of ammo at point blank range. Or the bullets coming out ofthin air because from my perspective the other player hasn't rounded the corner yet. Or, as did happen in one match last night, getting neck snapped from behind by a guy whowas chasing me but was completely invisible because to me as he was still 10 feet awayat a 90 degree angle from me around the corner I just cleared. Nothing is more annoying than entering the death animation and then having the player who killed you suddenly pop into existence on your screen because of LAG! But I digress...

In my 25+ years of gaming I have now suffered something that has never happened to me before. I got the RED LIGHT of DEATH. I still have my original working NES from the 1980s for **** sake. And my Super Nintendo, and my N64, and my Gamecube, and my Playstation, and PS2. None of them has ever quit on me. But my PS3 has become a casualty after just 3 years of use. Now from what I've read on the Internet I've apparently had a pretty good run since this current gen of consoles seem to have a bit of an overheating problem (especially the XBOX).

But I spent like $500 on this damn system not including all the games and accessories. That was just buying the original system. Luckily the price has come down a bit since I bought the one that is now gracing the bottom of my trash bin. So tomorrow I get to trapse down to Best Buy and get myself a new PS3 (even though I can't really afford it). I contemplated sending it in for possible repair but since I'd be looking atlikely anywhere up to and beyond 3 months of down time and $150+ for the repairs I figure it was just better to cut my losses and shell out the $250 on a new one. I also hate that this new one won't be backward comptabile but I haven't really gone back to my PS2 library since I bought a PS3 anyway, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be able to.

One of the worst things that happened out of it all was that my copy of Uncharted 3 was in the drive when this horrible travesty went down. I was half a step away from smashing the thing up against the wall at this point anyway, but I eventually calmed down enough to take a screwdriver to the box. Let me just tell you it is a real beotch to take one of these things apart. Sony seriously doesn't want you f***ing with their tech. So I busted the "This voids your warranty" seal (LOL, like it wasn't long past anyway) and proceeded to unintentionally break flimsy plastic and remove screws to get to the Blu-ray drive. Mind you I had already tried all the "Try this before sending your unit back to Sony" solutions and I still got the RED LIGHT of DEATH every time. Long story short (little late for that) I finally managed to get my disc out scratch free and removed the HDD just for good measure (not that I'll likely be able to do anything with it without some additional capital investment).

So I've lost all my save data and game files. I should be able to get back all my downloaded content from PSN but it's still going to be a real pain in the a$$ to get everything set back up. It is a truly sad day and I've got a wasted evening, a headache, and tomorrow a lighter wallet (actually more credit card debt) to show for it all. So in this case I've got to say: "Thanks a lot Sony." You can imagine me with both middle fingers extended at this point. I'm not even surewhat makes me more mad, the fact that my system died or the fact that I'm so ready to get up and by another one.

Now that I've completed my first play through of Uncharted 3 single player I've been focusing a lot on leveling up and unlocking all the multiplayer goodies. I'm currently at level 58 with a kill to death ratio of 1.58. I know I can make that better. My overall ratio may be 1.58 but my current ratio is probably somewhere closer to 2.50. I actually pulled down a round of Team Deathmatch last night with a final count of 15 kills, 2 deaths, and 5 assists. That's better than 7 to 1.

I had another round with 19 kills, and 3 deaths which is still better than 6 to 1. Right now I'm not moving up the leaderboard as fast as I'd like because I don't spend 15 hours a day playing like some of these people with no jobs or real lives have. How is it that the guy who's number one has around 18,000 kills? I've got like 1,100 or something close to that and I've probably put in 20 to 30 hours into the multiplayer (maybe more) counting the beta. I usually play a couple hours a night, more on the weekends and I can't seem to pull out of the 14,000 ranks. When I was playing Uncharted 2 I was in the top 2,000 when I quit playing.

I already think I probably play way too much so how much time do these guys have to be putting into this game? I love the Uncharted series but I've just got other things going on and I honestly don't literally want to sit in one spot playing for 20 hours straight. I mean I wish I was playing right now instead of typing a blog between moments of actual work but still I could be doing other things too.

Just when you think gamers are starting to get some recognition as normal well adjusted regular members of society who just happen to like to play video gamessome bunch of idiotshave to pop up and remind everyone that those stereotypes came from somewhere. Ask non-gamers what they picture when they think about people who game. What you usually get is an image of an overweight twelve to twenty year old who spends their days and nights locked away in a dark room, only socializing via headset, empty pizza boxes and cans of mountain dew strewn about the floor, and no significant other (i.e. girlfriend) to speak of as they have ZERO social skills that don't involve sitting in front of a TV or monitorwith a controller (and hopefully it's only a controller) in their hand.

And while I'm sure we've all met that guy somewhere along the way most of us (at least I hope that's accurate) are otherwise fairly normal people with real world friends and family, jobs or school we attend, and the usual other social situations and obligations that come with being human in the 21st century. Just when it seems we've finally reached a place where enjoying things like video games, comic books, and sci-fi/fantasy isn't perceived as the domain of social outcasts and weirdos you get a bunch of social (I don't want to say retards because it's not PC but I can't think of a better word so...) retards that do creepy socially unacceptable things in public forums that only draw attention to the dorky nerdy socially awkward fringe element that people seem to lump all of us into.

Even on Gamespot for example, any time that Jane appears on Start/Select you get a bunch of fawning pre-pubescent geeks drooling over how HOT she is. Now I'm a red blooded straight male in the 30 - 40 age demographic and I will say that Jane is definitely not hard on the eyes. I would even go so far as to classify her in the HOT category. But do I spend (or should I say waste) my time typing idiotic drivel about how gorgeous she is in the comments section in some idiotic psycho dreamworld hope that she'll notice me and suddenly message me up for a date? Yeah NO. I'm one of the aforementioned fairly normal socially well adjusted people that realizes I have a snowballs chance in Hades of ever speaking to Jane in any kind of direct way much less occupying a physical space within relative miles of her actual location. To these losers (because I finally found a better word) I have to say: grow up, get a life, and put the controller down once in a while. Unless you honestly think that Jane is just swooning over your oh so eloquent comments, just keep it up so that we can all continue to have a laugh at your expense.

That was just an example mind you but this sort of thing is just awkward and creepy, even to fellow gamers.

So I did actually get to sit down for a couple of hours last night with my copy of Uncharted 3 after all. So far all I can say is it's a great game. More of the same that I've come to know and love from Naughty Dog and the Uncharted series. The character development of the relationship between Sully and Drake is the kind of stuff that someone invested in a series can usually only hope to be let in on. It's really nice to be given the insight into how they came to have the friendship those of us who've played the series have come to know and love. The game mechanics are more of what you'd expect from Uncharted with some nice little touches in the form of additions to the attack moves and the little ways with which Drake interacts with the environment that just makes things that much more real.

I know this game is another one of those titles with a campaign that I will not want to end so I'm trying not to just push through the story mode too fast. I'm definitely going to replay it but I want that first run through to have all the magic that it's due. The co-op modes add just that much replayability, that I'm sure to waste endless hours playing with my good buddy who is just as hyped about this game as I am. And I'm well on my way in the multiplayer side of things as well, having been able to keep my stats from the previous beta. So far definitely holding up to the GOTY expectations that I've had for this title. Now I just wish I was home playing instead of not working while typing up this blog. :cool:

Now I am going to carry on like a 5 year old for just a moment...

Responsibility SUCKS! Uncharted 3 (my personal GOTY) is finally out and I have to stay late atwork tonight. On top of that, it's pay day which means I need to go home and pay bills (waste of a couple good hours). Juggling between work, kids, bills, and needing to actually hit the store to pick up my copy means I just might have squat time to actually play this game tonight that I've been dutifully awaiting for the last 2 years. Boo I say. Boo.

On the up side, I should get to flex the hours I work over tonight later this week. Which potentially means leaving early on Friday. It's not much but I'll take it. I forgot to mention that I also have resigned myself to actually start a workout regimen to lose a few (meaning 30) extra pounds that I've put on in the last 5 years. Am I ever going to actually get to play this thing that I'm about to spend $60 on?

End childish rant. Now back to work since that's what I'm supposed to be getting paid for instead of writing blogs on Gamespot. :)

The wait is almost over. 11-1-11 is next Tuesday and I can finally get my pre-ordered copy of Uncharted 3. Unfortunately, I have to work late that evening so I won't get to spend as much time getting into the single player as I would like on release day. I've already been playing the multiplayer, first in the original beta release back in June and now with the Subway promotion beta. I just completed my first story mode playthrough on Batman: Arkham City last night. I've still got to finish all the side quests, finding all the Riddler trophies and wrapping up a few other loose ends. So October/November is moving from one AAA game to another for me.

Uncharted 3 is probably (nay definitely) going to be my GOTY. I've been hungering to taste this offering since I Platinum trophied Uncharted 2. Arkham City is pulling a really close second for me. Uncharted is my favorite game series so that favors it some extra points. I definitely got my $60 worth out of Uncharted and Uncharted 2 so I've got high expectations of more of the same (and then some) from Uncharted 3. Hell I've already tallied up a good 15-20 hours or so worth of multiplayer between the two betas and the game isn't even out yet.

Fanboy squeal of delight. 8)

Time to gripe about spoilers again. What is it with Gamespot lately and the new way they do their video reviews? They run these things out to around 10 minutes now so they fill their videos with totally spoiler filled video and audio straight from the game. They even stop talking for stretches so you can hear the game footage. Really?

I want you to tell me how the game is goodor bad. Why I should want to pick up a copy or stay away. How it was an improvement over previous versions or a let down for taking a step back. I DON'T want to be told orshownmajor plot details or locations revealed during the course of the game. If I do pick up a copy I would like to actually be pleasantly surprised when I see something interesting rather than just thinking, ah just as I saw it in the review.

What was wrong with the old reviews that only lasted about 3 to 4 minutes? They told you the nitty gritty about a game and gave you something to think about. They didn't give you a 10 minute trailer for the game. I guess I'll just have to start reading reviews only if I don't want things ruined for me.