Mass Effect and Guitar Hero 3 coming soon.

Where my dilemma lies is my inability to choose either Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4. Both games I want, but at the moment have only enough to purchase one. Mass Effect is a game that I've been anticipating for months (Well pretty much since X06), and with every piece of gameplay footage, screenshots and TV commercials, I get more and more excited. Not to mention it looks amazing from both an artistic and technical standpoint. Plus it's from Bioware which is an extra bonus knowing they've made nothing but quality products.

Call of Duty 4 on the other hand is a game that I wasn't fully sure of, and it would've been nice to gain access to the multiplayer beta so I could see if I'd enjoy it or not. The main reason why I'm very interested in Call of Duty 4 is it's time period. No more World War II setting (which has plagued the first person shooter genre for years and still is). It's Modern day, with modern weapons, and with a modern back-story. After playing CoD2...a good game, it was about damn time. Now with Call of Duty 4 already out and Mass Effect just around the corner, what game do you think I should buy first? Or wait til I have enough money for both?

In other things, Xbox Live Arcade recently released Carcassonne for free which before has a cost of 800 points($10). At first glance, Carcassonne didn't appealing to me at all especially when I started playing the trial. So now that Microsoft decided to make it free, I said OK, I'll give it another try. To my surprise, it's oddly addictive once you understand what you're supposed to do. It's like a cross between a puzzle and RTS game as you're trying to claim land, build castles/monasteries, and roads for points. I can confidently say that it's currently one of, if not favorite XBLA titles to date.

A scifi dream I had last night.

Note: The time period in this dream takes place between 1:00 AM and 7:00 AM.

Well, It all started with a family of 2, a mother and her son at 1:00 Am. They are driving down a long rural area at night for no apparent reason when they unexpectedly come across a crowded gas station. All of a sudden, strange ships started zooming though the skies above. At first the crowd was confused by these flying objects, but as soon as they found out what they really were, Aliens, chaos ensued.

People scrambling to get to their cars, vans, trucks, anything to escape. While driving furiously, the mother and kid surprisingly stumbled upon a rich neighborhood...this is where the story gets weird. In a moment of shock the mother saw a glimpse of her long lost other son while he was playing with friends. Hmmm... Why the hell is he playing outside at night during an alien attack? Anyways, she gets out of her car and frantically runs towards him. As she does, her car is then destroyed by an alien missile, so her only alternative is to somehow hot wire and steal a very expensive sports car from the garage of one of the homes nearby as they're trying to head for the next safe destination.

*Fast forwards to 6:30 AM* The sun is now rising, and at this point the family is exhausted, and don't know if they'll live through the invasion. *Perspective changes to a different family* This family of 4 are near the city. (The virtual camera is my mind pans out) Over 3,000 vehicles are lined up also attempting to escape to somewhere safe as more UFOs are closing in. (Dream abruptly ends as I'm woken up by family member). The End.

Have any of you seen this show before? It's on the History Channel, and combines some of my favorite subjects, History and Martial Arts into one big educational program. Here's a brief synopsis...

The Ultimate search of a Human Weapon, Each episode of HUMAN WEAPON charts an expedition through foreign continents, famous cities, exotic villages, back alleys and lush landscapes with hosts Jason Chambers, mixed-martial-artist and professional fighter and Bill Duff, former professional football player and wrestler, who will learn how each individual location gave birth to its distinct form of combat and will study their form of martial art.

Jason Chambers and Bill Duff will put their bodies through extreme exercises and challenges to prepare for a battle against a professional fighting master in the arts of MAUY THAI, KARATE, JUDO, ESKRIMA Stick-fighting, SAVATE Street-fighting, KUNG FU and much more.

I've been watching Human Weapon since it first premiered, and I can't get enough of it. I've been intrigued by Martial Arts for a number of years. Their are so many different forms of Martial arts, and they all have unique qualities to them. The one that interested me the most so far besides your typical Kung fu, Karate and Tae Kwon do, is Krav Maga . It's more of a self-defense $tyle that you can actually use effectively in the real world and in close combat situations. It's not to be used lightly because as said in the episode, it can be very lethal. Also another aspect of Human Weapon I like is how they break down a particular martial art (Krav Maga for example) in the form of mathematical CG demonstrations on how it should be performed on an opponent.

If anyone enjoys learning about the history and/or techniques of martial arts, please check out this show.

I saw paragraph issues in some of my reviews, but every time I tried to fix them, the powers of glicthspot slam down their mighty hammer of frustration and don't allow me to, and it seems to have been doing this forever. But I discovered while sending an email of my Viva Pinata/King Kong reviews to a friend, requested by fishdalf (still don't know why he can't view them from my profile, weird) that I could just copy and paste the review from the email to Gamespot without any trouble. This ultimately solved my problem, and I'll be doing it from now on just in case it happens again. However, by also editing my Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando review which was written before the new review scale, my score was changed from a 8.9 to a 9.0. I mean, why couldn't I keep the original score after editing? So I pretty much had no choice but to give it a 9, close enough I guess. Wish Gamespot would go back to the old scoring system though.

Haven't done this in a while, so here you go...

Viva Pinata Review (X360)

Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie Review (X360)

Thanks to Glitchspot it took me longer than expected to post this, as well as my King Kong review not being the way I wanted it to be. Other than working on my reviews, nothing new has happened with me gamingwise. My PS2 is still collecting dust with limited use. God of War 2, Okami and MGS3 should be cheaper by now, so hopefully when the time comes those games will get me off this time-suck that is the 360, at least for a little bit.

November is going to be death for my wallet, Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4...my PS2 might have to hold on actually. It's like after the drought a few years back, the 360 has been stockpiled with a ton of games, and it'll certainly get better afterwards. Still wish I had a PS3, but that will eventually sort itself out.

For those who don't know, the Guitar Hero 3 demo just hit XBL Marketplace not to long ago. Now I've played GH2 at a Walmart kiosk, but didn't spent enough time with it. So with this version as well as the others, I clearly thought the guitar controller could only be used and nothing else. But to my surprise, I found myself actually using the 360 controller. One problem, it's nearly impossible with the D-Pad...at first. But after a while, it's a bit easier, still difficult though. Other then that, I loved it, all 5 songs in the demo were excellent, especially "Even Flow" by Pearl Jam and "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by Scorpions. Can't wait to learn what some of the other tracks are. Of course I plan on buying GH3, and the guitar will certainly come in handy. As for using the D-Pad instead, DON'T, but I'm sure you already know that.

EDIT: After spending more quality time with the demo, maybe I'll consider using the 360 controller...we'll see.

It's been the worst October for North American movie ticket sales in years, and industry executives are pointing the finger at Master Chief.

Total cinema ticket sales in North America for the weekend of October 5 were a relatively meager $80 million--the worst results for an October weekend since 1999, reports Advertising Age.

Industry executives are wagging the finger at blockbuster game Halo 3, which was released in the US on September 26, made $170 million in its first day on sale, and at the last count, had made its creators Bungie and Microsoft more than $300 million.

But Bungie's gain is apparently the movie theatres' loss. Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, commented, "The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you'd see in cinemas. This could last for several weeks."

The Advertising Age article continues to warn that another box office drought may be ahead, as the release of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV looms in the distance--current ETA the first quarter of 2008. Courtesy of Gamespot.

Is this for real? I guess the movie industry wants to play the blame game on Halo 3 for poor box office sales (No pun intended). Seriously, why blame a game. Yes it was the biggest selling game in history supposedly ($170 million first day) and it's popularity is out of this world. You see, Halo as a franchise over the years had been excepted more into mainstream then people realize, the multiplayer is addictive to keep people in doors. Plus their hasn't really been anything on the big screen worth seeing this month anyways, atleast to me.

To my surprise I stumbled upon the demo for Virtua Fighter 5 (X360). And this is my first experience with a VF game in some time since VF4, not including the expansion, VF4: Evolution. Being a DOA fan myself I actually enjoyed it. Obviously their are some differences control wise, but I adjusted quickly. With only 4 players to choose from and 3 stages, the demo wasn't as beefy as I wanted it to be. Out of the 4 characters, this Rey Mysterio lookalike was my favorite to use(Fast and acrobatic). Now I'm strongly considering buying the game. Plus having online play for the first time in the series doesn't hurt either.

Puzzle Quest (X360) on the other hand, was a bit confusing at first, not knowing how to play even after looking into the "How to Play" menu. But once I finally got the hang of things, I found myself quite addicted. The only thing stopping me from getting it is the price, 1200 MS points. And I'm not sure if I'd lay down that many points/money for any XBLA title. But thinking about it though, that's not such a bad deal since it was probably around the $30-40 range when released on the other handhelds(DS, PSP). Still, 1200 points is the combined price of 3 retro XBLA games, and that sounds like a better buy assuming you liked playing the trial versions of course. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!

The supposed final installment of the Halo series is done with. I finished it earlier today in co-op mode on Legendary. My impressions of the single player campaign are that it's more polished and satisfying. Although I've heard others being somewhat disappointed by the ending, in my opinion it was a solid one (certainly compared to Halo 2) and especially the short cutscene after the credits particularly on Legendary is something to be curious about. Now that I'm finished with the fight, I can focus on locating those hidden skulls, multiplayer of course and co-op competitive play. So if anyone of my friends here are interested, just throw me an invite.

In other stuff, I'm starting to get over a cold and sore throat. But aside from that, I also picked up Common's Finding Forever album, but still plans on getting Kanye's new/old album whenever possible.