Huh. I guess it's been a while, eh? My last post was after E3, which was like, forever ago it seems. I should really post more often.

Anyway, I just got back from playing 1 vs. 100 Live, and I got to be in the live mob tonight! I had a chance to win a copy of Worms and up to 800 Microsoft points. Unfortunately, I was knocked out on the second question. I was one of the first ten eliminated. The question I missed was about lyrics to a Billy Joel song, who I don't listen to. I felt better after the next question though, when the one (and about half of the remaining mob) missed a question about Barbie, which I also didn't know the answer to. So I was pretty much destined to fail that round. But even though it was only for two questions, it was a lot of fun actually being a part of the game. And now that I know it's possible, I'll be trying even harder every week to qualify.

Anyway, that's all I have to report for now. Hopefully in the weeks to come I can get this blog revitalized.

This is going to be a two part thing, because I haven't seen the Sony press briefing yet, and only part of the Microsoft one, and I already have so much to talk about.

First off, Nintendo. Nintendo's press briefing was pretty good, if only because they showed at least 3 games that I want RIGHT NOW (as opposed to 1 last year) and that Dunaway lady wasn't nearly as annoying this year. In fact, she dropped a lot of good news. First off, New Super Mario Bros. Wii looks like it's going to be my new favorite offline multiplayer game, although the name is blah. Can we get a little more creative here? Speaking of uncreative names, the direct sequel to Super Mario Galaxy is called Super Mario Galaxy 2, and... wait, two 3D Mario games on one console?! This is unprecedented! I want it NOW!

And to top off the list of poorly-named games that look awesome, there's Metroid: Other M. Terrible subtitle, but the trailer looked good. I'm a little wary of the continuing trend of using voice actors in Metroid games (Metroid Prime 3's voice acting was sub-par), and I'm not sure if teaming up with Team Ninja will be a good or a bad thing for the franchise, but I'm cautiously optimistic about this title. (Well, the game; the title still needs some work.)

All in all, Nintendo's press briefing did exactly what I hoped it would do: make me glad I own a Wii again. Since last E3, I have purchased one Wii retail game (Animal Crossing: City Folk) and I've already grown tired of it. It's nice to see there's some software coming in the near future that will give my little white rectangle something to do.

On the Microsoft front, I had a chance to play the first episode of the 1 vs. 100 beta, and it was a ton of fun. I didn't get to play as the 1 or in the mob, but crowd players get matched up with three other opponents, so it's still competitive even if you're not on stage. Chris Cashman is a great host. Some of his jokes had me laughing out loud. Unfortunately I couldn't hear him all the time. My opponent's would say he was talking sometimes but all I could hear was background music. It's a beta, so there's sure to be bugs, but I hope this is one that gets fixed soon. Cashman is a funny guy, and I'd like to hear what he has to say.

And then there's Project Natal. The features shown in the video are pretty impressive, and I hope most of them make it to the final product. It's still probably more than a year off, but Jimmy Fallon got to try out a working prototype on his show last night:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/77038/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-project-natal-demo

Just to be clear, you don't need to wear red jumpsuits to play Project Natal. The Xbox rep was clear on that after the commercial break.

It's an ambitious project, and if it does what it promises it could easily blow Wii out of the water. The only concerns for me are: how much is it going to cost, how well is it going to work, and how many games will actually use it?

Well, that's about all for now. I'm off to play some World at War (my new maps just finished downloading) and then I'll watch the rest of the Microsoft press conference. And then I'll watch the Sony one too, just for completion sake.

Hello Internet. It has been a while.

Last time I posted it was the week before finals. I did... um, well I did ok on some of them. I think I might need to retake a few classes though. Eh, it's summer now. No need to worry about tomorrow's problems today.

In the meantime, I've been busy at home, super busy at work (McDonald's sucks), and have been trying to make time for games in between. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much time to update my blog. As such, I have been gathering thoughts for a while and have not shared them. So I shall.

First of all, I've been playing Fable II and I LOVE it. The co-op play is... well, it's not good. But the single player is more than enough to keep me occupied, to be honest. I've had a ton of fun trying to unlock some of the more off-beat achievements, like sleeping with more than one person at the same time or kicking a chicken a certain distance. (Why kicking chickens? Is that some sort of inside joke?)

Second of all, 1 vs. 100 is debuting on Xbox Live on Monday, and I couldn't be more excited. I've been looking forward to this since it was announced at last year's E3. For anyone who's never seen the show, it works kind of like this: there's one solitary contestant, and they're facing off against a group of 100 people known as "the mob." The player and the mob are shown a multiple choice trivia question, and each member of the mob has a few seconds to lock in an answer before the player is asked to answer the question. If the player gets it right, all the mob members who got it wrong are eliminated. For every 10 people eliminated, the player goes up one prize rank. If the player gets a question wrong, however, the player's earnings so far are split up amongst the remaining mob members. This show was originally designed for TV with a jackpot of $1 million, but they've adapted it for play on Xbox Live, and instead of money, the players are playing for Microsoft points. I have no idea what the jackpot is, but the idea of free MS points has me intrigued. I don't know how contestant selection or prize payouts are going to work, but the premiere episode is Monday night at 10:30 pm Eastern Time, so if you've got Xbox Live you should check it out. (Beta season is free, by the way, so there's no charge.)

Thirdly, I am all kinds of excited for Modern Warfare 2, which is totally unfair because it doesn't come out until November, but the trailer they released last week has got me all worked up. I'm hoping they tie the "Mile High Club" chapter from CoD4 into the story somehow, because that part of the game always seemed so randomly tacked on to me. (Not to mention extremely difficult.)

And that's about all I got. I haven't been paying attention to the pre-E3 hype this year because in year's past it's only led to disappointment. I will be watching the press conferences next week, though, and I'm looking forward to what the big 3 have to show us. (Nintendo can't possibly disappoint me more than it did last year... can it?)

Today I reached another milestone: 10,000 gamerscore points. Like I did when I hit 5,000, I'm going to take a look back at some of my more memorable achievements, and take you along for the ride.

Fallout 3: Tranquility Lane - 20G - I don't want to be spoiler-y here, but if you haven't gotten this far in Fallout 3 yet, or just haven't played it, this mission is probably the part of the game that stands out the most. It's weird, it's ironic, and it's a lot of fun to play.

Oasis - 20G - This one gave me a hard time. You see, my second playthrough of Fallout 3 I decided to make my character as evil as possible. Blowing up cities, killing innocents, stealing, looting, cannibalism, that kind of stuff. So when I got to this mission there were a number of ways to complete it, but I couldn't figure out which one was the most evil. I spent a good deal of time debating the ethics of the situation with my family, but the answer came when I talked it out some more with the in-game characters. I torched the place.

The Bigger They Are... - 20G - The achievement I used to hit 10,000. Finding an achievement I hadn't completed to hit the thousand exactly was easier this time around, as I was 20G short and almost all the achievements in Fallout 3 are worth that much.

Left 4 Dead: Zombicidal Maniac - 30G - My achievement hunting in L4D has, for the most part, been super easy, since most of them can be achieved simply by playing single player on easy difficulty. This one, however, required me to survive a campaign on the expert difficulty, which meant I had to play with people. (Not that I mind playing with others, since it's way more fun than moron CPU players.) A friend of mine and a friend of his teamed up, and we left one player to the computer (got used as bait most of the time). It took us about 3 hours, a lot of dying, and my friend's friend didn't make it to the rescue vehicle, but I got the achievement, and my friend got the achievement for beating all 4 campaigns on expert, so it was worth it.

Halo 3: Tank Dropper - 25G - This is one of those goofy achievements. You don't have to drop a tank to get the achievement, you just have to kill someone while you're in monitor mode. I took a slightly more creative route and launched crates and boxes at someone through a man cannon.

Rock Band 2: Buy a Real Instrument Already! - 35G - I got this one for beating an "Impossible" challenge on Expert, but the challenge I beat was just a handful of The Who songs, which aren't really all that hard. How that got categorized as "impossible" is beyond me, but whatever, I got an achievement.

Uno Rush: Party's Over - 20G - I scored 250 points in one round, basically winning the entire game in a single round. I think it was after this that someone accused me of cheating.

Fable II: The Menace To Society - 5G - I got this one for doing a vulgar dance in front of a townsperson while naked. Why are you encouraging this kind of behavior, Microsoft?

GTA IV: TLAD: Get Good Wood - 50G - Achievement description: "In the bike races, whack off 69 bikers with a bat." Tee-hee! Double entendres.

And that's about all I got. I've still got another 1750 to earn to get the maximum entries in the sweepstakes. Back to work on that.

Reading directions is important.

I just wrote a 6-page paper for my media ethics course, and as I was getting ready to turn it in, I noticed the directions, and that I hadn't follwed them. I had thought we could discuss anything relating the media, but the directions said to write about a story we felt was under-reported by the mainstream media.

Fortunately for me, my paper did kind of discuss that. My paper was initially about anti-gaming legislation that restricts the sale of M-rated games to minors. These laws are unconstitutional and each one that gets passed gets overturned, but legistlators keep drafting new bills in states across the country. Every time a law gets overturned by the courts, the state has to pay taxpayer dollars in attorney fees and damages to the game industry.

I basically turned this into an on-topic paper by saying that most of the mainstream coverage of video games involves controversy involving sex scenes, such as GTA's "Hot Coffee" scene or that whole Mass Effect vs. Fox News ridiculousness, but really doesn't focus at all on the legislation that gets passed and then overturned at the taxpayer's expense. Ta-da! I made my paper on-topic, and added a page in the process! Anyway, that's done and turned in, so now I can get back to playing 360.

Speaking of 360, they've got a sweepstakes going on this week that couldn't be timed worse. It's for a trip to E3, and you can earn up to 10 entries by increasing your gamerscore. For every 250G you earn by Sunday, you earn an entry. Therefore, to earn the maximum possible entries, I'd have to increase my gamerscore by 2500G. To put that in perspective, my current gamerscore is 9245G, and I've owned my Xbox 360 for almost a year now. Not only would I have to earn over 1/4 of my current gamerscore in about 1/40 of the time, but this is the week before finals. I had that paper due today, a newspaper article due tomorrow, and another huge paper due Wednesday. Ugh. Guess I'm not going to E3 this year... Oh well. The odds of winning that sweepstakes are pretty slim anyway.

Looks like I'm not getting any sleep tonight.

The problem with living in a dorm is that your study area and your gaming area overlap. My TV and my laptop sit right next to each other on my desk, meaning I can't focus on my school work without nagging thoughts of video games distracting me. As a result, I usually say "screw this" to my homework and play Call of Duty instead, which has put me way behind on homework. Oops.

So now it's 3:30 in the morning, and I have a 10 minute presentation to give in 10 hours, and I haven't done anything on it yet. The good news is it's about video games, so whatever I don't prepare tonight I can probably just come up with on the spot. The bad news is... I'm tired. It's been a long weekend.

This weekend was the prerelease for Alara Reborn, a new expansion set for the Magic: the Gathering trading card game. I don't have a lot of money to buy cards lately, but I haven't missed a prerelease event in six years and I wasn't about to start now. Unfortunately, my mom's 50th birthday was also this weekend. I spent my Saturday at home for her birthday, generally trying to be as nice to my mom as possible to cover up for the fact that I can't afford her a birthday present (I will get her one when I can afford it, along with my sister, cousin, and aunt, whom I also owe presents to. I'm terrible at birthdays). The next day, I went to the card shop for the prerelease, but apparently everyone had already played at the Saturday event because no one else showed up on Sunday. My perfect streak has been broken. On the plus side, I saved some money, which is something I currently don't have.

So that was my weekend. Might not have much time to blog this coming week: I've got my video game presentation tomorrow, a newspaper article due on Tuesday, and a debate to prepare for on Wednesday. Why do school courses always give huge amounts of homework at the same time? There should be a law against that.

Hello, internet! Happy April 20th, to those that celebrate. I don't personally, but I did mark the occasion by zoning out, daydreaming, accomplishing nothing and watching "Family Guy." (Just like every other day...)

Speaking of "Family Guy," Mike Henry, the voice actor who plays Cleveland and several other characters on the show, visited my university the other day. It was a guest speaker event called "Behind the Scenes of Family Guy." He showed us how the episodes are made, from start to finish (it takes about 10 months, apparently). He also showed us some of his earlier work before landing the "Family Guy" job, talked about what it's like working in Hollywood, and gave us a preview of his new spin-off "The Cleveland Show." Oh, and he did the voices. Tee hee!

Then he opened the floor for questions, half of which involved "Check out my Cleveland impression - Party over here!" I asked him if he ever gets sick of that, but he says he doesn't get it that often. I guess it makes sense; he's not a screen actor so people don't recognize him on the street. Gosh, I bet Seth McFarlane gets Peter and Stewie impressions from people ALL THE TIME. Anyway, he's a really cool guy. I forgot to bring anything for him to sign, so I had him sign my student ID.

In gaming news... um, I'm renting Fable II. There's a Game with Fame event on Xbox Live this Thursday with the cast of "Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire" in the game. I have never seen the show, but my friend has been talking about how India de Beaufort is his new favorite actress, and I'm sure playing a video game with her would make him jealous, so I sent a friend request and was lucky enough to get a spot on India's friend list. Here's hoping I get a game invite!

Also, i've become quite fond of sniper rifles in Call of Duty 4. I used to hate them, preferring an M16 with a red dot sight for long-range kills, but after getting in some practice I've actually become pretty good with a bolt-action rifle. I've gotten into such a habit of sniping, I've started clicking the left stick to steady my shots even when I'm not sniping. It doesn't do anything with other guns, I just do it out of habit.

Anyway, I'm gonna go watch "Shaun of the Dead" with some friends. See y'all around!

Oh, what a happy Easter weekend I had! My games from which I had been separated for almost a week were waiting for me on the coffee table when I got home. And yet, the first game I reached for was the one I had been borrowing from my neighbor all along: Halo 3.

I sent messages to the Red vs. Blue folks, hoping beyond hope that they would invite me to their game and I could game and chat with my heroes. Unfortunately, about a jillion other people did so as well. Burnie Burns posted a video on his journal showing the message overload. According to him, they came non-stop through the entirety of the event and for about two hours after as well. Anyone who actually got to play with them should consider themselves quite fortunate. Considering the turnout, I wouldn't be surprised if next time they end up setting it up like a Game with Fame event.

So it turns out all my Halo 3 practice was for nothing. (Well, I got a lot of achievements, but those are arguably nothing.) I did get a chance to play Grifball, however, a Halo variant created by the Red vs Blue creators. It's neutral bomb Assault with two teams of 4 in a rectangular arena. No shields, hammers & swords only, ball carrier gets an overshield, a speed boost, and orange armor. Best of 5 rounds wins. It's like a mix of soccer, football, and Halo, and it's a lot of fun. The double XP playlist is closed now, but if they ever open up another one I encourage anyone who's never played it to give it a try.

I haven't played Call of Duty yet this weekend, partially because I'm afraid of what all that Halo playing has done to my CoD skills. I have a feeling I'm gonna be throwing grenades when I try to reload my gun.

My computer is working again! Well, kind of. My monitor is still busted, but I got the stand-alone monitor I'm borrowing to work. Apparently I had to press function+F8 to get the laptop to send video output to the monitor. I wish someone had told me that sooner. Anyway, I can use my computer again, so that's good.

Unfortunately, I am stupid, and forgot all of my video games at home this weekend. I still have my downloaded games on my hard drive, but all of my disc based games are 100 miles away. So I'm going to either have a boring week or I'm going to play a ton of Uno Rush and Peggle. (Although I probably would have done that anyway...)

Ironically, the game I wanted to play most this week was Halo 3. I haven't played it in 3 months, so it's odd that I would want to all of a sudden, but Red vs. Blue is hosting a Community Playdate in Halo 3 this Friday and I wanted to get some practice in before that, so I wouldn't look like a bumbling idiot who can't shoot to save his life. Fortunately my neighbor owns the game, so maybe he'll let me borrow his copy.

Well, that's all for now. It feels good to post updates from my own room again. See ya on the forums!

I never though much of leaderboards before. I don't need to know that I'm ranked 106,000th or whatever in Call of Duty 4, that number means nothing to me. That attitude changed recently, however. Somehow I've made it to3rd place in ranked wins on Uno Rush. Of course, the game hasn't even been out a week, so its player population isn't that big yet, but still. 3rd. Something about actually holding a relevant position on a leaderboard makes leaderboards so much more... relevant.

Of course, there are some negative side effects to being highly ranked. Players I'vedefeated several times avoid me in lobbies, sometimes making it hard to find enough players for a game. One player even accused me of cheating, saying there's no way someone could go 70-50 in Uno legitimately. (Uno maybe, but Uno Rush is a game of skill, not luck. Although a little luck helps.) I've never performed so well in a game that someone actually thought I was cheating at it. I explained my strategies to him and the accusations stopped, but I can see why he was suspicious. Only one other player in the top 10 had a winning record.

(An aside on cheating: I hate cheaters with a passion. Words I use to describe cheaters on Xbox Live would get me suspended or banned from GameSpot if I repeated them here. I can tell the difference between an itchy trigger finger and a modded controller, so if you cheat on CoD and I see it (I watch all killcams when I'm shot with a G3 or pistol), I willfile a complaintto Microsoft and encourage everyone else in the game lobby to do the same. Cheat all you want in single-player, that's fine, I don't care. Just keep it out of multiplayer.Cheaters ruin the game for people who just want to play legitimately and have fun. Ok, rant over.)

Anyway, in case anyone's wondering about my Uno Rush strategies, I keep a close eye on all the other players' hands. As a general rule, I look at my opponents' hands more than I do my own. Once I've got my cards sorted by color, I watch my opponents to predict what the card will be when it's my turn, then quickly arrange my cards not only so that I can discard some cards, but also to make sure I'm not playing into the next player's hand.
Some other tips:
- At the beginning of the round, set up your cards in such a way that you can change the color of the discard pile, if possible. Players put cards of the first card's color at the top of their pile, so if you go first and change it on them right away you can force them to adapt quicker then they'd like, potentially screwing up their line.
- Discard command cards and wild cards as soon as possible. Not only do they interrupt lines, but if another player goes out before you get rid of 'em they'll get 20 points for 'em (50 for wilds).
- Mash Y on opponent's turns and X on your own if hands are less than 3 cards. If you're down to two cards and are going to play one of them, you need to call UNO! as soon as your turn starts or there's an easy opportunity for an opponent to challenge. Same for if you're down to one but need to draw a card; if you draw a playable card, it's going to be played immediately, and if you're not ready for it, an opponent will be. Likewise, if an opponent is in the same situation, you should be pressing Y furiously. If they don't call UNO! right away, you'll get 'em for it.
- Use the bumpers in addition to the control stick for quick swaps. A friend taught me this. Using both the bumpers and the control stick can get cards to the top of your stack twice as quickly as just using the control stick.

There. Now if anyone else accuses me of cheating, I can send 'em here. I'll stop the accusations and increase readership at the same time! How's that for two birds with one stone?

Sorry if this blog got a little braggy, but this is my one moment in the leaderboard spotlight, and I probably won't be able to hang onto it for long. Every day the topplayers get further and further ahead, and players below me seem to catch up and surpass me by more every day, meaning I have to put more time into playing just to keep my spot. They might have losing records, but the other leaderboard toppers are cutthroat and determined. I don't know how long I can keep up with them.