I just picked up the orange box so the new games for me out of the orange box are: Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Episode 2. I logged something like 60+ hours in the first 2 weeks on team fortress 2 and haven't even touched episode 2 or portal. Although I am burned out on team fortress 2 (for the time being) and moving on to some different games.

Just picked up Space Rangers 2 for $4 so looking forward to trying it out.

Lego Star Wars II: played the hell out of this over Thanksgiving. Fun game.

Played Dawn of War: Soulstorm intensely for about a week and a half. Beat it with a couple races and am ready to put it down. A fun game, I love DoW games, but this game seems a bit lackluster compared to DoW: Dark Crusade.

Guild Wars Trilogy: I recently picked this up as well. 3 guildwars games for $50. So far I have only played 3 days, but I am digging the hell out of it. I will probably go over to this full time as soon as Hellgate London and Tabula Rasa die or I tire of them (again).

I played the demo of this through a few times last night in 4 player co-op mode. It is damn fun!!! Reminded me a lot of the movie 28 Days Later. The whole thing has a gritty-cinematic feel to it. Plus, Co-op games are a great thing and gaming needs more of them. I recommend everyone try this out: setting up a Steam account is free as is the demo(duh).

They tailored the demo perfectly...enough to whet your appetite and leave you begging for more. The only thing I am hoping for is that after full release of the game there are some real game servers with good connections up for this game...that way there is no issue with slow connections which seems to be somewhat of an issue with the demo.

http://www.l4d.com/

http://store.steampowered.com/

It's that time again...my pc is finally reaching the point I can't play any of the games coming out. There is always some game that comes out which I just have to play that finally makes me get a new system. The last such game was farcry. Since then I have had the same machine and just made small upgrades/modifications to the same machine and staved off buying a new system. Which worked great for 4 years and required minimal cash outlay. Now though, there are finally a handful of games that I am going to have to get a new system for: Fallout 3, Diablo 3, Sins of a Solar Empire, and The Witcher to name a few. My poor single processor/AGP system huddles in the corner crying when it comes to those, I will retire it nice and gentle though...it served faithfully for 4 years. (3.4ghz hyperthreading, 4 gb ddr, geforce 7800(agp))

--

The new season of Stargate Atlantis is on SciFi tonight(July 11th/Friday) for any who are interested and may have forgot. I really enjoy the show...plus I feel the need to show some loyalty now that it is the sole remaining Stargate show on tv.

A few other series I have recently finished, or started, and highly recommend: some of these have been out for awhile...I know. I have been under a rock known as law school for the last 3 years.

Heroes: Just finished season 1: It rocks.

Weeds: Just finished season 1: Love it, waiting for season 2.

The Wire: Finished it a couple months ago, possibly my favorite tv series to date.

Dexter: Finished season 1: Loved it, waiting for season 2.

24: Finished seasons 1-6, fun show. They mastered the art of perpetually ending on a cliffhanger, will watch season 7 when it is out on dvd.

Battlestar Galactica: I am current through the mid-season finale of season 4. Fantastic remake, waiting for the final episodes to air.

Coupling: I just finished season 2, good fun. Planning to watch seasons 3 and 4 in August.

I think I may start The Shield, The Office, and possibly Big Love in August. Anyone have suggestions on some other good series?

I am looking for 4 old games atm. I know they are on for sale on Ebay and Amazon(among others), but I have been hitting the used bookstores and computer stores in my area hoping I may find them and avoid paying the silly money asked online. So far: no luck. Right now this search is kind of an afterthought, but after the big summer exam is over I will actively try to find these and maybe even resort to buying them online.

Here is what I am looking for:

1. Planescape: Torment

2. Grim Fandango

3. Dungeon Keeper II

4. Indigo Prophecy

-I have never played any of these and am really looking forward to giving them a shot.

I saw Iron Man opening night and it was a great experience. I highly recommend it for comic book and non-comic book fans alike. I collected Iron Man comics long ago so I really enjoyed the movie. Robert Downey was an excellent fit for Tony Stark.

The future of Internet Radio is in jeopardy: July 15, 2007 may very well be Endgame for many Webcasters due to a House Bill set to go into effect on that date.  If you enjoy Internet Radio (Pandora, Shoutcast, di.fm, Accuradio, etc.) then you can help by going to:

http://www.savenetradio.org/

 

 

Finals are here and all games are on hold...blah.  Although, 8 days from now it will all be over whereupon I intend to reformat this slovenly machine and then load up a ton of summer games on a fresh OS.  This summer I only have work and no school for three whole months and I am salivating just thinking about it.  I am planning to knock out a lot of RTS games I have never beat(C&C3, sacrifice, star wars empire at war, company of heroes, etc.) and then switch over to some FPS titles I have been waiting to play(avp series, nolf series, riddick, jedi academy, elite force, the fallen, tron 2.0, rouge trooper, xiii, rune, enclave, etc.).  

The second half of the summer my big ambition is to either beat or at least make serious progress on some awesome open-ended games I have either never beat or never played:  these include

-Freelancer, Gothic II,  Mafia, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Vampire Masquerade.

 

All that being said I am going back to studying for this beast of a test on Thursday:  I've got my coffee and a serious lightning storm going on outside...I am good to go for an all-nighter.  Have fun playing all your games these next 8 days, I envy you. 

I recently got into 3 new authors, so far they are great and I highly recommend them.  They are as follows:

1. Richard K. Morgan: Altered Carbon (1st book in series) Altered Carbon was excellent.  I just finished book 2(broken angels) via audiobook from audible.com while driving around.  I am looking forward to book 3 in this series although the audible version supposedly has a bad narrator so I am looking for the paperback version.

2. China Mieville:  Perdido Street Station (1st book in series).  I am just under 2 chapters from finishing this one: all I can say is fantastically weird, gritty, twisted, dark, and riveting.  I will be reading everything else of his for sure.  Based upon what I have heard from people who read his stuff this 1st book is tough to get in to up until page 200 or so, but the rest of his books supposedly are all excellent from page 1 on.  Personally, I had no problems getting into it from the get-go it as it was incredibly visceral and vivid.

3. John Scalzi: Old Man's War. (1st book in series).  A highly entertaining read.  Finished it in a day.  This book should appeal to fans of books like The Forever War, The ParaFaith War, and StarShip Troopers(amazing book, totally different from the campy movie).

I finally made the jump to HDTV and all I can say is that it is awesome!!  My old "natural flat" Proscan was dying, so my new baby is the 40" Sony Bravia XBR2.   So far it is amazing, the 1080i cable in from time warner looks fantastic(looking forward to the new 1080p boxes in march) and DVDs still look amazing to me even though they are only coming in via 480p component.  I think I will probably buy an upconvert dvd player (most likely the Oppo 981HD) while I am waiting for a clear winner on the HD DVD v. Blue Ray battle.

 

After an 11 year hiatus from upgrading a single entertainment system item, with the exception of an old dvd player, we are really loving the new set.  Can't believe we used that ancient TV for so long(it was old top of the line, fist s-video capable set).  Not to mention our other TV is 16 years old...blegh.