I just learned a little while ago that Gary Gygax has died. Now I've not been an avid RPG player and I haven't played pen and paper DnD/RPG's in close to 10 years, but this news has almost brought me to tears.

It's not because I was close to him or even knew him. For me the feeling is more of what I PERCEIVED about Gygax. This man who co-founded pen and paper role playing was instrumental in the way board games and video games progressed over the past 30 years.

I'm not saying that without him there wouldn't have been progressions in RPG's, but because of him this type of gaming is much more prolific in the world.

So to his family and friends, who I am certain are hurting, my condolences. But as I read in another forum, "He's gone to help God create New World's somewhere else."

:cry:

Honestly, what faults I might have had with the first movie were monumentally dwarfed by the second one.  Just yesterday, before I went and saw the movie, I was watching some of the interviews and they talked about people wanting a more cerebral and plausible story line than people coming back from the grave.  Well let me tell you that this is definitely not it.

No spoilers but let me ask you this...

Where are the guards for the only living infected person?

Why are kids in these movies so stupid that they don't respond to their own names?

If its supposed to be a secure location why aren't all the doors locked?

Floating chemical gas > than being in a car with vents and using a cloth to cover your mouth.

There are more issues for sure but I don't want to spoil it for anyone wanting to see this in the theatre.  I really was disappointed with the way they told this story because it could have been more cerebral if they were going for it.  But it felt like they are just taking the easy path to a dumb conclusion and setup for 28 months later.  (That one I might not make it too)

I finally finished the Vice Kings missions last night.  Let me just say that I suck at driving and avoiding cops.  Nothing worse than having to drive all the way back to the destination if you die in the mission.  Even worse if you are close to the end and then have to restart the mission.

So having completed Crackdown I figured I would go and try and get all of the hidden orbs I didn't find already.  So I looked up a map for the orbs and got to hunting.

When I finished the map I was missing about 13 orbs because some I couldn't find and I figured I had already gotten.  So I deleted my completed game and decided to start again from scratch and this time document all of the orbs I have collected.  Im about half way done at this point and have been keeping track of all the ones I've collected so far.

Surprisingly the game is still fun even though I've completed it once already.

I finally managed to come up with a tactic to finish the game and also beat it without any heroes dying for the evil campaign of Rivendell.  What I had to do was save the game at the beginning, play through and lose one or two fellbeasts (finishing the evil campaign and all bonus objectives) and then going back to my earlier save and doing a mad building of giants to ransack the front gate and enter Rivendell.  This forced Elrond to emerge from his home which is where I was having the problem before.  It seems that when Elrond would come out any available powers would be hurled at any heroes I had in the open.  Since I couldn't hide my fellbeasts, they would get zapped with the sunlight spell (I think thats what it was) and of course cook.  But, if I managed to get Elrond to step out with no heroes available on the surface (thanks to the wonderful tunnels) and before the fellbeasts and witch king show up, there was nothing to fry.  I then just poured my giants into rivendell and ignored when the fellowship showed up (since I already defeated all bonus objectives I didn't need to worry about them this time) and then had my giants stone all the fortresses and Elronds house.  The eagles were a bit of a concern since I was expecting them to ransack the bridge on the left since that was always what they did.  But instead they hit the one on the right which was where my fissures were located.  Luckily the AI was too dumb to move the archers out by Elronds home when I started stoning it with my last giant so I managed to get by with my base being rampaged by eagles and the fellowship.  The end result was the Servant of the Shadow achievement on Hard.

Honestly I can't recommend this game for anyone that already has the PC version without renting it first.  I'll detail with more info on my review later.  But, this was a fun game.  I really wish I had a gold membership for games like this.

UPDATE:  Here is my review.

As stated previously I am still in the middle of playing LOTR: BfME2 on my 360.  I was thinking about it and realized I had not played a RTS since Warcraft 3 and I had not played multi-player since Starcraft: Brood Wars.  So what has this enlightenment lead to?  I suck at startegy games.  Plain and simple.  As much as I enjoy them I seriously lack the skill and patients to play effectively.

Anyways, I'm almost done with LOTR: BfME2 single player campaigns and believe me, it couldn't come fast enough.  Not because the game is no good but because I am seriously tired of having to play such long missions (for me.  Remember that I lack the skill).

I'm most likely suffering from some case of OCD since I don't want to start another game until after I have completed the one I am currently playing.  Hopefully I will finish it tonight as I am on chapter 8 in the evil campaign and now have to sack Rivendell.  Since Im going for no dead heroes and completing all bonus objectives this is draining me.

I recently posted my opinion of the Xbox Achievement system on the Rated M for Mature Union board.  I liked it so much that I thought I would put it on my blog page.

I love RTS games.  At least I did when I had the hardware to support them.  Since its become cheaper for me to just get a new console rather then replace my extremely aging P3 desktop I have been left with very little in the way of new RTS games that I can play.

So lately I've been cutting my teeth on BfME2 on my 360.  I know that like some of you I don't particularly care for EA as I see them as a huge gaming corporation that is just destroying the talent pool.  That might be an inaccurate assumption on my part and probably more gut and heart related than actually factual but I really wasn't happy with what happened to Oddworlds: Stranger's Wrath and Clive Barkers: Undying.  Two games that they published that I wish had gotten more exposure.

Anyways, that aside I am really enjoying BfME2 and am currently trying to beat the single player campaings on hard.  I don't really think its all that hard though.  It is time consuming though since I do get extreme lag episodes while playing because of all the units on the screen at the same time (or even off screen).

Why don't I play online?  Well I haven't purchased a Gold account and if I did I know it would just lead to a lot more frustration than I currently want to deal with.

I'll be writing my review of the single player experience once I finish the evil campaign, which will probably be in two weeks or so if I continue at the rate Im currently going.