Oh Bon Jovi, I've waited many moons to use that line somewhere in real life hahaha

Well to the matter at hand.. In my previous blog post I lamented about how I literally have nothing to play and I am "goin' out of my frackin' mind" but that issue has BEEN RESOLVED! Ladies and Gentlemen, I bought Orange Box for Xbox 360! :)

Now some of you will say "but Maxx you already own Orange Box on Steam... what gives?" and I'll reply "I'm addicted to Achievements, and I have cash to kill"

So there you have it.. I now own a game twice for the soul purpose of collecting numerous Achievements.. but at the same time I will no longer be bored out of my mind waiting for the next big game, Ace Combat 6.

On another note, I preordered Assassin's Creed finally. I ordered the pack that comes with the super badass resin statue of Altair.. OMG, so hot. As a result of my pre-order I got an Assassin's Creed T-Shirt!! Speaking of t-shirts, we keep getting more and more Grand Theft Auto IV t-shirts here at our studio... They're so cool.. Thank you Rockstar NY for being nice and giving us more swag :P

Anyway I'm going to wait patiently to finish up work here today and go home and enjoy a weekend of chilling with my lady and playing some Orange Box... again. Hey, it's a different platform so technically it's a different game.... Sort of... :P

Listen, I know that Halo 3 is a big game, and it's pretty awesome don't get me wrong, but after beating the campaign and playing some co-op and playing some forge and doing some Slayer, I'm honestly kinda bored with it now. I own about 50 xbox 360 games, not to mention countless Xbox, PS2, Wii, PS3 and a nearly endless number of PC games. But the problem with being a hardcore gamer is just that, you become HARDCORE. The dilemma I face is even with my full time job here in this industry, even with constant exposure to videogames (and obviously development) through my job, I am not saturated at all in this! I get home, and all I want to do is kick back and play a good videogame. the problem that arises is that I play way too damn much, and as a result, I have run out of games to play. Literally.

I know that sounds a little ridiculous, trust me if someone else wrote this blog I'd say "dude you're nuts" but I'm being absolutely frank. I work full time, I have a heavy social life, and I do all kinds of things outside of work and my apartment. nevertheless, I buy every single game as they are released and I have played every game I own almost to death. There are a bloody ton of games coming out right now, well, as of the end of October there will be. My problem is that I am currently bored to **** right NOW. I need something to play right now.

After all I could finish Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, or play more Warhawk, or finally play Metroid (I keep putting it off, I'm not compelled to even start the game), and I am also playing Dark Messiah on PC. I recently beat Half-Life 2 Episode 2 and now that it is done I feel an incredible emptiness overtake my soul... I love Half-Life, ever since 1998 it has been my all-time favorite videogame franchise, EVER.

The only hope I have is somehow surviving, holding off until October 23 for Ace Combat 6... and for that to hold me over until Need For Speed ProStreet, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Army of Two, Kane & Lynch, etc... Man, I'm going out of my mind...

Any games you guys could recommend at ALL for me to play? bear in mind I own every platform with the exception of my Gamecube which my brother currently has.

So we all know what the lineup for the final stretch of this year is like.

Games like Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, BioShock, Two Worlds, Halo 3, Warhawk, SKATE, NFS Pro Street, Kane & Lynch, Project Gotham Racing 4, Heavenly Sword, Half-Life 2 Orange Box, Metroid Prime 3, etc... These are the games that are going to murder me by December 31.

Some of you know what I do for a living, for those of you that don't I work in this fair industry as an Environment Artist for a reputable, badass company. I make a rather good salary doing what I do, too. Nevertheless I am going to be more broke than ever before. This lineup is amazing don't get me wrong and I am surely not complaining, but releasing so many AAA titles in such a short period of time is going to wreak havoc on many of us gamers!

It is a brutal, double-edged sword. Great games on one side, no money on the other.

That's ok, I can work off my debt :D

Having trouble sleeping? Watch one of the three conferences that took place this week, that'll put you to sleep!

Now, there are a few problems with this years press conferences. To start, there was nothing new. The point of E3 for us as gamers, and the whole point of the conferences, is to learn about what new games are coming out. to unveil the new franchises and sequels and new consoles and new accessories that will blow open our wallets by the end of the year.

With E3 having taken place so late into the year this time around, the result was that most studios had already announced and/or unveiled their games well before E3. As a result we have already seen trailers, screenshots, read previews and articles. With the conferences this year each one felt more like a montage of videos we'd already seen (or ones similar to them) overlayed in with an hours worth of dialogue and background music.

The problem here, is that no one was truly blown away. We watched Sony's conference while at work today, and when it ended, we all kind of sighed in relief because it was so boring. Nintendo's was even worse. what a joke of a conference, please. Enough to make any hardcore gamer, even the most diehard Nintendo fanboys shake with disgust (which many of my Nintendo loving friends did). Microsoft was the only ones who had a conference that was even tolerable. lots of nice footage, some good statistics, first glimpse at the new Resident Evil 5 trailer, and a couple of other treats made it worth watching for the most part.

When Sony's came around, I was actually expecting them to whip out the big guns, have a super impressive secret lineup ready to blow us all away and make me praise science that I won my PS3. But it didn't happen. Enough about Home! Enough about the 19% slimmer PSP! show me some whicked exclusive titles! nothing knew to show, at all, except Killzone 2, and that looks like the only game even worth spending money on.

Don't even get me started on Nintendo. I regret buying my Wii on launch day, and it looks like my DS is in for another year of playing only Age of Empires.

Anyway, looks like I'll go play something to keep me busy until Bioshock comes out.... mmmm, Bioshock..

This post here was actually a response I left on someone elses blog post, but I thought it was good enough to be my first blog post :)

I own all three next-gen systems as well as building a new $5,000 gaming PC. The PS3 is  "sleek" but whenever I use it, I get the impression its more like a business tool, and that I should be wearing a suit and tie while playing Motorstorm.

The Wii, although fun and adictive at parties, is rather limited by its mundane hardware. I'd have been willing to pay $100 more and get a better GPU and motion sensing system in there.

As for 360, and I don't mean to sound like a fanboy, is perfect. not flawless (it is anything but) but it is perfect. perfect blend of multiplayer, controls, game library, XBLA, Marketplace.... everything. the only drawback would be some rather cryptic errors and glitches that haunt many people (Ring of Death, anyone?)

anyway, that's my two cents!