I've spent a lot of time here but I think it's starting to interfere with my actual quality game time. I'm going to reduce my visitation a bit so I can get back to playing all these games I own in the evenings and weekends. You'll probably still hear from me more than you'd like though. :-)

That's right. Now you can own an Xbox 360 for $200 bucks.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=201975275&adid=17654&dcaid=17654

Need to go laugh at this person after/if Spore succeeds. He says it's going to be crap. I say it isn't. Need to be there to tell him so when it happens. :-) User: xgalacticax

His exact words:

"It will really be funny if little big planet and spore turn out to be rubbish. The things u can do in them seem like fun but a couple of hours or days after, ud get bored of it. I remember how everyone was like ...Assasins Creed is the best game ever...before it came out. And I was like "It will probably be crap..I mean, how can u say its the best game ever when u havent played it". I was there to laugh when I heard all the tales of disappointment when it came out. I liked Assasins Creed and completed it but I think its because I wasnt hyped on it b4 it came out. When ur hyped on something, even the slightest flaw can make u hate it. I see Little Big Planet and Spore suffering the same fate."

This gamespot user gave it a 7.5. Maybe he was on to something? Here are his thoughts:

"The story seemed kind of dry, bad acting as you would expect from a game, and a somewhat lame story. The story from the grand theft auto series is much better. The fact that the GTA series used actual actors made it fun and more enjoyable. The people in this game seemed kind of dull and not memorable. Snake? Yikes could they have come up with a less goofier name. (anybody remember Snake Plisken from, Escape From New York, wow how original of the character development). These guys took the time to really make their character unique (notice the cynicism). The fact that Snake can carry 10 guns at once when he only has room for probably 3 on his body makes the game worse. Where is he storing these weapons? If your going to make this game dramatic and over the top then at least try to apply some common sense on the character. I'm glad I returned this game, cause I got Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Call of Duty 4 for PC, and got Burnout paradise for ps3."

--riiaku, 7.5

You could probably say this about Mass Effect being better as well. It used real actors (Keith David, Lance Henricksen, Seth Green, Marina Sartis), but I digress...

Anyone playing this? It's a lot of fun. You need to create a facebook account to play. It reminds me of those old BBS games from the 80s and 90s except it updates every few minutes, instead of one turn per day only.

http://apps.facebook.com/mobwars/

Let me know if you join and we can exchange name information. :)

I've never seen anyone with such nazi-like moderation for their message boards. They continuously lock posts and if you complain about it, they knock points off your account or suspend you for a day. It's ridiculous. Don't the moderators have real-life jobs they can do besides reading message boards & locking users? Why have an account at all at this website? I'm about ready to scrap my entire account & just read reviews. Boards, comments, what's the point in saying anything when some Gestapo staff member will censor you or knock off points. How about removing my score system altogether? It makes no sense having one if I have to constantly be "punished" by the incessant BS moderation!

It looks like it's time to find a new home where they aren't so anal retentive about what people write. It's absurd.

So over the last 3-4 weeks after class was over, I went out & ordered several new games on the used market & two new ones with some help from a Best Buy Gift certificate card. What I've found is that having all of these games does me no good. I can only play one at a time. Splitting between different games every other day is a problem. It's like reading two different books, you train your mind on one & then you're ditching it the next day for a new book & rotating...Your memory has to pick up where it left off two days ago & what you were reading the day before is a bit weak.

I haven't figured out a way to combat this other than only play one game at a time until I feel I've finished it. I'm not an achievement whore so I hate the idea of spending too much time on a game just to get achievements, but I do want to feel that I have spent my money wisely. This is one of the main reasons I like to buy my games used. If I get too many, then at least the price has already depreciated. It's wasteful to pay $50-$60 for a game & then sit on it..by the time you get around to playing it, the price would've already come down.

So I did pay full price for COD4 and Bully: Scholarship Edition...so why am I not playing these more? It's a toss up on interest I guess. Now that I'm going back to one game at a time, I'm focusing all my efforts on Mass Effect. The others will have to wait for as long as it takes. In summary, I think they're just putting out too many damn games all the time which keep you from enjoying the games you have.

I'll figure it out somehow...any advice would be appreciated. Maybe I'll go ask the forums.

Well, I just started Mass Effect last night. I think I played it for 2.5 hours and spent about 40 minutes of that time building my character's grizzly looking appearance and background info. This is one of the first games I've played that didn't have an update/patch to download for it.

The game is chalk full of data from the start. It keeps a journal for you as well as a database of information in case you need to go look something up. The voiceover that reads the data to you sounds like the guy from Crackdown. It gives you maps of your area so you can at least see where you need to go & what to do next. In fact, the coloration of the game reminds me of Crackdown somewhat.

It's like watching a movie on the conversation sequences. They put you in a conversation and then you get choices on what to say. Your PC doesn't say exactly what is written either, he says what you choose him to say, in words that fit in-game. Which is cool since a lot of RPGs don't give your PC a vocal role in the game at all.

Moving around is 3rd person. Surprisingly, the look & feel of the game is likeHalo. Keith David is your commanderthis time around(he was the alien in Halo). Lance Henricksen and Seth Green are also in the game as well as Marina Sirtis (the empath from Star Trek: TNG). I recognized Keith, Lance, and Seth but I haven't heard Marina or others, I went to look up some of the names since I forgot them & found Marina in the cast list.

For my PC, I chose a multi-clas'sed Soldier/Hacker called a Sentinel, he basically specializes in Sniping. Though the combat and movement is 3rd person and seems a little strange, you don't really treat the game as a shooter. From the reviews, they said if you treat the game like a real time shooter then "prepare to die a lot!" I decided I really didn't want to play a Shooter game, so I chose the combat difficulty of"Casual". If I have to do a lot of fighting, I'll let the Squad do it while I stay in the back & snipe. For whatever reason,finishing Halo 3 in Legendary mode has kind of turned me off of shooters. I don't want to spend time being frustrated when I'm playing a game as the sense of completion after getting through it just doesn't feel as powerful as the sense of frustration. Walking10 ft & getting sniped in the head every 5 minutes doesn't do it for me anymore. Moving on, you pick up people in the game that become part of your squad. You can level them up in different areas, such as their guns, armor, biotics (aka, "The Force"), or hacking ability. You can also find armor and weapons that are improved over your own just lying around like treasure to be utilized andconverting your old stuff to omni-gel, a mechanical repair like goo.

The equipment has ratings and I guess the feel of the weapons when aimed and fired must change based on those metrics along with your own skill when used on them. Thehigher your metrics and the metrics of the weapon, the easier it must be to fire and move the weapon. I like to think of the Squad as your Away Team(like Star Trek), as you can only take 3-4 of them on each mission, so I assume you get a ton of them on your starship to choose from to build your Away Team.

I've just barely scratched the surface of this game, but it feels huge...the funny thing is that people say it's only a 40-hour game, which is a long time to me.I onlyplayed for 2.5 hours to set everything up, go through the details, & the first mission! I wanted to continue but it was already late, which irritated me. I had to ponder whether I wanted to stay up late to enjoy it & call in sick for work. Reluctantly, I decided I would have to come to work.

Jknight

I just read that the guys who made the new Shadowrun shooter
game that is cross-platform between 360 & PC has been killed
off. I was actually planning to pay the full $60 for that game when
it came out & would have, had my 360 not died on me. I've played
the demo later on & I figured I would wait for the price to drop,
currently you can get the game in used, near-mint condition for
about $26, which I consider a steal. Hopefully there will be
enough people still playing it for it to be considered worthwhile
(you just gotta hate the considerable amount of disposability
of online-only shooters because when nobody plays, the game
is done).

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6178722.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;3

Here is my take on what probably happened:
Ok. So probably a year or two ago, Mr. Softy sat
down with FASA Studio & told them they could make
one more game & then they would close the lab. I
doubt anyone at FASA Studio wasn't already aware of
their fate going into the Shadowrun R&D phase.
However, that being said, there is no incentive for
FASA Studio to make a great game under such
depressing circumstances. Someone looked at the
licenses & saw they paid $X million for the
Shadownrun name & figured they should try to make
some money on it before the meltdown. The quickest
way to recoup that license expense is to make a
shooter. An RPG would take longer. Even a single-
player campaign added to the shooter, as done with
Halo, would simply take too long. The only
experimentation being to try and make it work cross-
platform (possibly the only incentive here, to show
that it could be done).

I hope someone will make a Shadowrun RPG one of
these days, or perhaps something similar but under a
different name and that if Microsoft isn't going to
make games with that license, they should sell it to
someone who will and not just bury it, that would be
the most awful thing that could happen.
I've played the Shadowrun demo and I thought it was
alright. I'll likely buy a used copy of it in the
coming weeks, as I've been waiting for the price to
come down. I just hope there will be enough people
online that are still playing it...which is one of
the problems of games that rely solely on multi-
player you get on an old one and chances are nobody
else is there!

Here are a few comments I liked about the article. It's
amazing reading people's comments and seeing how words
like swag and tea-bagging have become part of everyday
speech or write-up conversation lately:

"Wow, I saw this coming. They should have listened to
the massive uproar from dedicated fans who told them
that making one of the old SR games, beloved 80's RPG into an xbox
live tea-bagging orgy was a huge mistake. Shadowrun
should have been an RPG. If they didn't want to make
an RPG, fine. But at least stay true to what
Shadowrun is. It should have been a co-operative
game with types (like street samurai, rigger,
decker, mage) with different shadowruns
(missions/levels) that you go on and rise to fame
(or infamy) as a Shadowrunner."
---SentientGames

"Ok, FASA is gone. Kind of sucks as I grew up with
them, but I grew up with TSR as well and didn't get
a decent DnD game until WoTC bought them. Some
little developer made this amazing Neverwinter
Nights game. Maybe Microsoft should give them a shot
at Shadowrun. I think Mechwarrior should become an
MMORPG and have a turn-based strategy game released
for LIVE. I want an Earthdawn RPG as well but that
will most likely never happen. In a perfect world I
would have had Black Isle Studios make all of these."
---darius_danze

Hello all,

Just putting together a blog of a few thoughts on Gamespot. Right now, I have an interest in emblem design as well as userbars. I've made a few & will put them out real soon. Using Gimp at the moment to make my graphics. For my Avatar, if you are wonderig, the image is a pic of Lazarus Churchyard, one of Warren Ellis' old comic heroes. Now that I've learned more about how to make userbars, I may go & make a few changes at least add a frame or something to the avatar.

As for games, I spend most of my limited time playing 360 games. I sometimes will play a very long PC game, such as Neverwinter Nights 2, which took me about a month to complete! 360 games don't seem to have the same depth as games like NWN 2 & I hope that the single-player CRPG genre will continue into the future. It's very satisfying when you finish it (but disappointing that I can't get an achievement point for the PC games).

I work full time & am working on a Master of Science in Futures Studies part-time. That's all I have for now, will blog more when I have a few good thoughts (kinda drawing a blank lately. :( ).

Best,

jknight5422