InDisFest!!!!

Now that the weekend of awesomeness has concluded, it's time to go back and recap the epicness.

I got to North River Tavern at around 8pm Friday night. It was really cool having people I hadn't met yet recognize me and come up and say hey (since they recognize me from my avatar on VGEvo, ha!). Was in a Rock Band competition with Spoiler, Aces and MC. We won for best scoring performance! Went and played a bunch of Street Fighter IV over the course of the evening. 8-bit W0nder rocked the place with some great chiptunes and other music. Danced for a little while with lots of VGEvo members and others. Chatted a bunch with Lisa (who worked there), Johnnyisaboy, Spoiler, Nikko, Pigpen, Tears, MC, Killnine and Rounder. Ate some great chicken nachos. Didn't actually drink any liquor like I planned, but I knew I'd have to drive back to Shino's eventually, so I held off. Great gaming, partying and socializing until we headed out around 2am. And that was only the pre-show party! How could this be topped?

Saturday, Chris and Krystal made us a wonderful breakfast. Chocolate chip pancakes for the win! A bit later we went out and met up with a bunch of the others at their hotels before we set off on the trek to Spoiler's Sonic. Unfortunately it was a bit chilly, but no one seemed to mind much... well except maybe the InDis Angels in their awesome costumes! But lots more socializing here while enjoying some great food and drinks. I was talking to Amy and Rounder a lot, and we decided that since there was still a few hours until everyone was gonna meet back up at Battle and Brew, we'd go downtown and check some things out. So I dropped my car off at Shino's then David drove us around. We visited the Georgia Aquarium which was awesome! I've got tons of pics to upload at some point, and I know Amy got lots of pics as well, including a few group pics I'll have to get from Rickey at some point. After that we walked through Olympic Centennial Park and went to the CNN Tower. Unfortunately it was just a bit late to go on the tours, so we didn't really get to look around much. It was about 6:30, so we headed back to the car to make our way to InDisFest proper at Battle and Brew!

We rolled in about 7pm. Zee was there, so I caught up with him for a while since I hadn't seen him lately. We got two free drink tickets, and Amy suggested I try the Fat Tire. Not too bad actually, but still pretty "beery" lol. I drank that while mostly hanging out with the "RICANFEST!" crew for a while. Rickey, Amy, oor1can, Johnnyisaboy, Rounder and Pigpen. Those guys were all great. I was dubbed Borican, and we were all being silly randomly yelling RicanFest! or sometimes BoricFest, hahaha! We watched the beginnings of the live show together, and our group dominated the InDis trivia for prizes. I picked up a Ghostbusters wristband and belt buckle, as well as a Monster Hunter demo. I got another drink and tried to get around to visit other people some more. Meeting SouthernCoyote, BubbaBBQ, USFCarmax, BluSteele and lots more. Eventually PigPen and I got over to the Wii and started battling on Super Smash Bros Brawl. Some absolutely great and intense matches. But our 1 on 1 battles were left unresolved at 2 wins each before it became a big multiplayer battle royal. Rounder got in and was really good at the game as well! Next we moved onto street Fighter IV while InDis answered questions from the audience for a while. I got to play with a pad there, so I was much more comfortable. Lots of great matches against BluSteele, Krakerjak, Rounder, Killnine and others. I was doing very well with a combination of Zangief, Ryu, Akuma and Blanka mostly. Also some point around here I won a door prize drawing and got Disgaea for PSP! Whooo! Zee had earlier won Valkyria Chronicles which would have been my pick, but I'm glad he won something as well! Gameplay then moved on to BlazBlue which I tried all of once, and got destroyed, haha!

Back to socializing as the show was winding down. They started setting up Rock Band while we all started eating cake(for InDisFest and 9-Volt's birthday) and chatting with Tears, Amy, and Rounder. My voice was in terrible shape since much earlier in the evening, but I still played guitar, and even attempted to sing a couple times. It was more fun when I sang together with someone like Rickey, Amy or others though, since I sounded terrible!! But it was all in good fun! oor1can later hooked us up with some Rican Egg Nog that was freakin' awesome. Had fun drinking that while chatting with Scott, Glenn, Geoff, Nikko, and others. Went over to the one end of the place I hadn't been to much and saw Tawnya and Kelly for a bit. It was pushing 2-3am at this point, but no one really wanted to slow down, but the place was closing. After some convincing from krakerjak and Jason (and making sure I'd be able to get back to Shino's at some point Sunday) I decided to go to the after party.

Geoff, Tawyna, Scott, Jason, Lisa, Aces, PigPen, Killnine, Nikko, 9-Volt, Krakerjak and Rounder were all at the after party for at least a little while. Mostly enjoying Sailor Jerry and playing more Street Fighter IV. Too much fun playing that game while I'm super tired and about to fall out between matches. But I still did really well! People started heading out, and we said some goodbyes since we wouldn't see some on Sunday. I crashed at the apartment with Aces, Nikko, 9-Volt and Krakerjak around 7am.

There was pretty much no chance of us making breakfast with everyone at the pancake house. We finally were all up and ready and went to eat at Varsity. We stayed there for a while since we were all pretty worn out from two days of partying. Then we got in touch with Shino and a couple hours later headed over to meet them at his place. We said goodbye to Ken and Scott as they headed out. Watched Krakerjak demonstrate his skills at Trine for a while. Then the remainder of the group headed out for Taco Mac. Ryan, Rickey, Krystal, Chris, Krakerjak, 9-Volt, Nikko and I had one last great relaxing meal together. I decided to head back home after that since it was about 7pm, so I didn't make the night at Spoiler's unfortunately.

InDisFest was seriously the best weekend ever. Getting to see all my great friends I already knew in person, and make a ton more. Everyone was so great, easy to talk to, fun to hang out with. Random trip to the Aquarium, playing tons of video games, drinking, and partying. What more can I say? Completely Epic. And now I absolutely cannot wait for MGC '10 and hopefully InDisFest TWOOOOO!!

Left Thursday at 11 (with my new Garmin Nuvi 360 guiding me)... stopped halfway between Indianapolis and Chicago for the night around 9 or so.
Left Friday around 8:30am, got to the Olympia at right about noon. Helped Dan Loosen and others set up for a while and got a free lunch out of it! Then some of the guys from VGEvo and all started showing up. Great seeing old friends and meeting others I've only known online :) I went by Carlson's booth before opening and get him to hold 4 Super Famicom games for me to buy Saturday (which I did end up buying... Seiken Densetsu 3, Star Ocean, Dragon Quest V and Dragon Quest VI)
A group of about 25 of us went to the Delafield Brewhaus for dinner. Tons of great food there! Afterwards we all headed back to the hotel, and after a little while we all went to the karaoke bar, where we had to listen to a bunch of crappy locals sing slow and lame songs before some of our group finally got up there and rocked the joint! We finally got kicked out of there around 2am. We then had a run-in with a strange drunk guy in the hallways... who we thought might just attack us! We eventually got away from him, and then continued to chat and hangout until about 4am.

Saturday, We get up at 8am, and the 5 of us in the one room all proceed to shower and get ready one by one (i went last). We hit the Pick 'n Save for alcohol and stuff for the after party later that night. I picked up a different sized Sailor Jerry for my collection :) Back in time for the show opening at 10am. Wandered around for a bit to get a general look at the three big rooms. MGC has definitely outgrown the Olympia, not only were all the rooms packed with vendors and games and the museum... but there had to have been even more people at the show this year than in past years! ZIMM had already attempted the Phoenix score chase and posted a solid score of around 150k. DJ and I went and practiced, and then DJ gave it his shot, bypassig ZIMM with about 231k. Then I took my shot and barely squeaked by DJ with a score of 233k. Hit Culver's for lunch with a group from VGEvo. Later we squeezed 6 guys into a midsize car (4 in the back) and when on a hunt for beer. Apparently in Wisconsin you can't purchase alcohol after 9pm, and we got back to the store at 9:05. We took some weird back roads before finding a bar you could buy from. We finally got to the after party a little after 10pm. I start eating cold pizza. Tried a little of the 115 proof Rum that RPT brought from Australia. Played the totally awesome Tatsunoko vs Capcom on the Wii. Drank a lot more Sailor with Coke. Wandered between rooms, finally ended up playing Homura and almost beating the game before running out of continues... without knowing how to use a bomb, ha! Then I got in on Street Fighter IV competition and started dominating Ken and Sau with my Zangief. Though they eventually started figuring him out. I think Randum and I finally left there around 3am, and headed back to our room. Finally fell asleep aroudn 4am again.

Sunday I woke up when the first alarm went off at 8am... no hangover or anything. I showered and played some DS while the other guys started getting ready. Headed to the show around 10am again. Checked out more of the museum this time. Did some filming with my Kodak Zi6. Horrible shaky cam footage, but I might still put it on youtube. I filmed the entire Midwest Gameshow Classic, but I'll need to split the file into smaller ones for loading to youtube. I competed in the VGEvo Street Fighter tournament(get the biggest win streak over the course of an hour of play) and finished 2nd. Won a cool Blanka T-shirt! Bought the new VGEvo t-shirt. Went to Carlson's booth and bought the Battle Angel Alita Japanese PSX game along with the Berserk Japanese PS2 game. And he threw in a free Japanese PC shmup which looks totally cool. Went to Culver's for lunch again. Got back around 3pm. Phoenix tourney ended at 4pm, and I was in the lead last I knew. But upon returning, ZIMM had just started up a game to overtake me before time ran out. And overtake he did! He ended up playing for nearly 2 hours, breaking the world record(previously around 500k) and even rolling the score at over 1 million points! I've got footage of the roll on youtube in hidef here! Mad props to ZIMM for winning the contest and breaking the world record convincingly! And w00t for another 2nd place for me! Hopefully Twin Galaxies accepts the record! Shortly after that everyone is packing up from the show. I follow a caravan back to Savory Cade's new house. Torgo grills some burgers and brats for us there. And we all get some group photos and stuff! Finally around 8pm Terry, and a few others are headed out, so I decide to get an early start heading home too. Chicago is easy to go through at about 10pm! I finally stopped fairly close to Indianapolis around 11:30 (Protip: Motel 6 is MUCH cheaper than Holiday Inn Express)

Monday I leave by 8am, and at one point get the hybrid to crack 100... and eventually arrive home at 5pm. The GPS worked awesome. The hands-free bluetooth functionality when some friends and family called me during the trip was quite awesome!

For the 3rd year in a row MGC was super awesome, and I met even more very cool people. Can't wait until next year's show!

Shoutouts to great friends! Torgo, Savory Cade, Nermassa, Trickman, SaberG, Sushi-X, RPT, Marquis, Randum, Phillip J Fry, TonDog, OatBob, RPGJock, Crakerjak, SinfoniaSam, MadScienist, Fivespot, Gruel, Gruel's bro, Chris, TheSau, MrsSau, ZIMM, DJIncompetent, SimpleNate, John, Moe, Hilden, Carlson, Dak, SaritaMango, Apoc, Phneri, 9-Volt, Vladrek, Aiman, and of course the one and only Keith Justice! [I hope I didn't forget anyone ;)]

Alright... I'm officially a huge nerd... after seeing that video of a Calculator designed in LittleBigPlanet... I'm now seriously interested in this game just to see what sort of "circuits" and whatnot I can design in the game.

For instance... I wonder if I could create a Turing machine that would run the following:

(A,0) 0 R -> A
(A,1) 0 R -> B
(B,0) 0 R -> C
(B,1) 1 R -> B
(C,0) 1 L -> E'
(C,1) 1 R -> D
(D,0) 0 R -> E
(D,1) 1 R -> D
(E,0) 1 L -> E'
(E,1) 1 R -> E
(E',0) 0 L -> D'
(E',1) 1 L -> E'
(D',0) 0 L -> HALT
(D',1) 1 L -> C'
(C',0) 0 L -> B'
(C',1) 1 L -> C'
(B',0) 0 R -> B
(B',1) 1 L -> A'
(A',0) 0 R -> A
(A',1) 1 L -> A'

So for the sake of asking, does LittleBigPlanet have the following abilities?

1. The ability to create something like a treadmill (or tank treads), for instance a cloth or paper around two gears of choosable distance apart, to where the material would be movable in either direction.

2. The ability to have an object stamp this cloth/paper cue from some other input.

I kind of expect the game to have those two abilities.

3. But finally, does it have a sensor, that could look straight at the material and read if there's a spot there or not.

Basically points 2 and 3 would be a read/write head, and point 1 is like a tape to write on.

If so... I'll be an even bigger nerd when this comes out :happybounce:

Well contrary to what everyone else sees... I'm actually in a gaming drought since Mario Kart Wii came out. I still haven't been able to pick up Wii Fit... and I don't care much for Ninja Gaiden, Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid. So in the meantime, it's been downloable games and completions!

New games:
29. Assault Heroes (XBLA)
30. Lost Winds (WiiWare)
31. Star Solider R (WiiWare)
32. Pop (WiiWare)
33. Dr Mario (WiiWare)
34. Toki Tori (WiiWare)
35. Castle Shikigami 3 (Wii)
36. DBZ: Tenkaichi Budokai 3 (Wii)

New completions:
7. Mega Man Maverick Hunter X - great game! And actually rearranged from the original quite a bit. Vile mode is sweet too.
8. Me and My Katamari - Finally finished this off. Not bad... but much prefer dual analog controls.
9. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law - A very short game (maybe 3 hours?). Not bad, considering I don't watch the show. But probably worth $20.
10. Beautiful Katamari (360) - Pretty short even for a Katamari game... Pick it up now at $20 though. Graphics are sweet, and rolling from 5cm to a million meters in one straight shot is AWESOME!
11. Mario Kart Wii - Got gold on every Cup... and beat most trial ghosts...also doing rather well on each tournament that comes out... haven't quite unlocked everything.
12. Dr Mario - Well... there's no real beating this game I suppose... but I was back in old form quick... playing on Medium from level 1 to 23... and then playing 15 random online matches and winning without breaking a sweat. So I'll consider this complete.
13. Assault Heroes - Not bad... but I'm glad I only paid $5 for this. It's pretty short and terribly easy on the Normal Difficulty, and I doubt I'll play it a second time.

Edit: Other gameplay includes Baroque... which I sorta finished ??? I mean, I made it to the end of the dungeon... I just don't know the whole story... weird stuff. Also through about 150 of the 250 N+ levels. Hoping to finish off Dragon Quest Swords and Smash Bros in the near future.

Well as some of you know from the Shoutbox, TFL, or Silrayne's blog... we found out a couple days ago that we'll be having our first baby.

We're definitely excited and a bit nervous :)
I've been rearranging the house lately anyhow, so retooling the guest room into a nursery won't be too bad.

Now to determine how to raise him/her with video games... I figure starting with the classics would be the way to go. Maybe decorate the nursery with Baby Pac Man... :D

ehh who knows :)

I'm sure we'll figure it all out within the next 7-8 months!

New purchases in April:

20. Okami Wii
21. World Heroes Anthology
22. Untold Legends Dark Kingdom
23. Arcana Heart
24. Mario Kart Wii

and new purchases on May 1st >_>
25. Zack and Wiki
26. Baroque (Wii)
27. Magical Starsign ($12 at Toys R Us!)
28. Echochrome (PSN)

New completions
6. Final Fantasy: Crisis Core

Not too bad at 6 out of 24 before today. 25% completion ratio. Still could be improved though.

I did however get a ton of playing in on games this past month. 40 hours through Crisis Core. Got back into Hotel Dusk. Already halfway through Mario Kart single player. Lots of Smash Bros online and offline. I did slack off on Hot Shots Golf though. I only unlocked about half the stuff on that before Smash Bros took over. (I've obviously technically beaten Smash Bros Arcade mode... but I figure I'll beat Subspace Emissary and unlock pretty much all the characters before I count it as completed)

Warhawk I suppose can't technically be beaten, so that would help my ratio... but I have spent a few Warhawk Wednesdays on it, and I'm starting to get the hang of it.

And speaking of PSN related stuff... got back into Super Stardust HD with the solo add-on pack. Love the Bomber Mode, and was in the top 20 after my first day with it... Probably fallen back now. I'll need to reclaim all my high scores on that game from the peeps on my friends list at some point :D

I've now started Mercury Meltdown on PSP. Tough little puzzle game, especially when you're forced to separate the blobs. I'm through the first lab of eight, so we'll see how that goes.

Started Zack and Wiki tonight. Didn't realize this was so big on the puzzle aspect of the adventure game. I'm not sure I'll have the patience to complete this one, but it's a very cool game, and unique for consoles, so I'm glad to supoprt it. Plus, I'm sure once Silrayne picks it up, she'll blow right through it :)

I'd say between spending lots of time on Crisis Core and Online gaming, April was a good gaming month for me. Hopefully I can continue to spend as much time the rest of this month.

So last night I beat Crisis Core... I had no idea I was even close to the end of the game either. Granted I did play for about 40 hours, and complete about 73% of the missions... but less than 10 hours of that was actually time spent doing actual story progression.

What follows is my thoughts on the positives and negatives about the game. Some slight spoilers in terms of overall progression involved, but nothing too specific will be mentioned.

Positives:
The battle system is fun... at first. An action RPG, done fairly well. Easy to cast spells and use items during battle. The DMW adds a slightly random twist to battle, but honestly can be completely ignored for the most part. Rarely will you get "MP costs zero", and be saved thanks to it.

The new characters are all interesting Angeal, Genesis, Cissnei, Lazard and Hollander are all interesting characters. Playing through the story sections is enjoyable because you can't wait to find out what happens next with them.

The overall story is good for what's there And you knew it would be. If you had any interest in Zack and the world before Final Fantasy VII, you knew this would be cool.

CG is Advent Children quality Yeah, it's beautiful, and the one battle scene somewhat early on is arguably better than anything in Advent Children.

Voice acting is solid Beyond Genesis reciting Loveless a little too much, I liked all of the voice acting in the game.

Music is great Some great renditions of classic FF7 themes as well as some great new music.

Negatives:
The battle system becomes tedious You'd think an action RPG would have strong gameplay. Tales, Star Ocean, Rogue Galaxy... all great Action RPGs, where you just love to battle. In this game, you'll eventually loathe battling. I for one figured out how to avoid battles for the most part, and did so. There's no tangible reward for battling anyhow. You get a few SP for fusion (more on this later). You get a little gold... which you'll pretty much never use. Leveling is random, so you're not gaining experience. And otherwise, fighting just breaks up story, or slows down your mission progression.

Those interesting characters... You barely get any development on them This is easily the biggest disappointment in the game. The game starts off by introducing a lot of cool characters. You want to know more and more about them. But then the characters are ignored or otherwise leave the storyline abruptly and without getting much development. I'd say the game needed at least a few more hours worth of development on most of the characters... old and new alike.

The Materia Fusion system isn't so good It's certainly interesting at first. But it has some serious flaws. Firstly... as in Final Fantasy 8... The system makes you overpowered entirely too fast (more SP than you'll know what to do with). Also, the system seems to tend towards the skills you don't want. Drainga, Status Ward, Death Blade, Aerial Drain... once you get to these... you're never able to change your materia back to anything useful. And you'll end up ignoring better spells just to keep your high stat materia equipped.

Too many mini-games throughout the story sections. I mean seriously... Let's do squats. Let's do a stealth mission. Let's solve a riddle. Sniper level. Don't run out of time. Perfect timing sequence. Build this. Find these people. Find these items... And those are just some of the required ones to move the story ahead. There's a ton more that aren't required by the story, but don't have much point to them either.

Enemies are boring and repetitive Yeah... pressing X,X,X,X and occasionally Square to dodge, is not my idea of fun. Especially when there's hardly any threat of losing. And even if you do, there's NO PENALTY FOR DYING. (well at least not during the missions... I never died during main story, since I was terribly overpowered throughout that... thanks Fusion system and Missions)

Landscapes in missions are boring and repetitive. It already doesn't help that there's around 300 missions of boring repetitive enemies. But geez, there's only about 5 different landscapes/designs, that are vaguely changed by DO NOT CROSS lines randomly scattered about.

The ending comes out of nowhere I honestly had no idea how far I had progressed at any point in this game. Partially this is thanks to missions and fusion overpowering me like crazy, but also because at some point it seems the designers just said screw this, we're done, let's cop out and do some crazy s**t, and tie that into Final Fantasy 7 really quick.


Wrapup
So overall this game had a TON of potential, and for the first few hours, I felt the potential and enjoyed this game thoroughly. But as time went on, the gameplay got boring, the characters were never really explored, and the story just got glossed over to rush us towards the things we'd expect based on FF7.

I'd still recommend this if you're a big FF7 fan. Just don't expect too much beyond some fan service and a dab of background here and there. But if you're not an FF7 fan... avoid at all costs.

Finally completed 4. Everyday Shooter! Took me until I had 7 lives to start with, but I finally got it done. This is still one of the best downloadable games available, and if you haven't played it you're really missing out :)

Also finished gold medalling every level (all 64) on 5. Geometry Wars: Galaxies (DS). The DS version is fun for some portable action. But there's a lot of slowdown at times, and the game is limited as to how many enemies can appear at once. The version on Wii is my next target for completion.

Hoping to complete a few more games this month. Maybe Beautiful Katamari and Me and My Katamari. Barely scratched the surface of Crisis Core but I'll probably get sucked into that. I need to finally finish off Lost Odyssey as well.

Don't worry, MGC post coming tomorrow!

I thought I'd catch up on my purchases and completions first.

new games:
13. Nanostray 2
14. Hot Shots Golf 5
15. Smash Bros Brawl
16. FF: Crisis Core
17. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
18. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (PSP)
19. Warhawk

and games completed...

none... >_>

oh well...
sadly though, I've got a few more purchases I'm ready to make as well including Heavenly Guardian, World Heroes Anthology, Untold Legends (PS3), Rule of Rose, and others. I really need to dedicate some good time into games in the near future. Starting with finishing off Lost Odyssey before I leave it stranded.

Numbers relate to overall year numbers...

Games bought this month:
9. Professor Layton (DS)
10. Lost Odyssey (360)
11. N+ (XBLA)
12. Dragon Quest Swords (Wii)

Games completed this month:
2. Burnout Paradise
3. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS)

4:2 is a much better ratio than last month's 8:1... however I could have done a lot better. I'm on the final disc of Lost Odyssey, and will finish that this week. I'm about halfway through the base puzzles of N+. I haven't yet started on Dragon Quest Swords.

I've got a few games on the way though in the coming month or so:
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (PSP)
Crisis Core (preorder)

The Attorney games are more for Silrayne than me. But I plan to get to them at some point. Still on the second case in Phoenix Wright 3.

In other news, I did finish the book "Rise of the Horde" this month which had some good World of Warcraft lore. Hopefully throughout March I can complete some more of the games I was planning to finish this past month :D

So I completed Professor Layton on schedule Saturday morning. It took about 12 hours (and 3 battery recharges) to complete all 135 puzzles and the story. I found the game quite enjoyable and am already looking forward to the sequel. Definitely worth a pickup in my opinion if you're a fan of logic puzzles and the like.

I got in 3 hours of Lost Odyssey on Saturday night... then Sunday was stuck on the couch sick all day, so I went from 3pm - midnight playing more of it. So I'm now 12 hours in, and just hit the end of disc 1.

The music is amazing and graphics for the most part are awesome. However, the faces get dangerously close to the uncanny valley for my tastes. But the story has been very intriguing, and I've loved the Dream Sequences (the sections you may have heard of which are like reading a short book). I like just about all of the characters, and they all have very well defined personalities. Each character does a good job of evoking different emotions from you. And this game has definitely pulled my emotions in various ways, and I'm excited to see where else it takes me as I hear it only gets better.

The battles are nothing special as jRPGs go. The addition of a Back Row "Guard" meter is about it. More complex spells take longer to cast and sometimes will take longer than one round (and it can be pushed back further if the caster is struck repeatedly). The skill system in this game is very intriguing also. The methods of learning skills from other party members and equipment aren't anything entirely new, but I'm a sucker for trying to get every skill possible in this sort of thing.

Anyhow, I suppose I'll post more thoughts about Lost Odyssey once I've gotten further in the game :)

Also of note... I think I'll be picking up another 2 games this week on Wednesday. Definitely Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, and possibly Dragon Quest Swords for the Wii.

So yesterday I picked up Lost Odyssey and Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Lost Odyssey, I was gonna pass on, but I've been hearing overwhelmingly positive reviews from the community particularly at Team Fremont. Though where I'll find time for it since I haven't even started Eternal Sonata or gotten very far in the second disc of Blue Dragon, I have no idea.

But I started Professor Layton last night, and I kept playing until my DS battery needed charging. The puzzles are pretty fun, and there's well over 100 at least. I played for 3 hours and completed 40 or so thus far. Only a few have been really tough or tricky. And I've only given up on one thus far. The artwork and voice acting is great, and it's just a fun little game. Definitely recommended if you like puzzles. I imagine this will get finished by this weekend. Which will make this my 3rd completed game of the year, as I consider getting my Burnout License in Burnout Paradise as a completion (though I do plan to go forth and earn my Burnout Elite license as well)

So... One month down and where do I stand on the aforementioned purchases vs Completed games?

1 complete and 8 purchased (add 8.Rez HD to my previous list)

I finished 1. Arkadian Warriors the other night with the Warrior class. I had hoped from the demo that this game would be more like the Baldur's Gate or Champions games from PS2, but alas it never got deeper. The gameplay got harder but the skills were pretty pointless and the gameplay was very repetitive. There is a multiplayer online mode, but considering only one person on my friends list has this... and has only played two levels of it.... I don't think I'll get to try that out. Can't really recommend it. Not terrible... but nothing special whatsoever.

So I've got my eyes on finishing several games in February:
Burnout Paradise(360) - I have my Class A license and am over 33% through the game
Phoenix Wright Trials and Tribulations - on the second case
Gripshift (XBLA) - I've completed over 20% of this one
Geometry Wars (Wii and DS) - I'd count completing as having a gold medal on every stage
Alien Homind (XBLA) - I've only played once since buying and got to the boss of stage 1-4
Omega Five - maybe not a 1cc though, but hopefully... I have only gotten to the third stage thus far
Everyday Shooter - I've almost unlocked everything, but still take too many risks to make it to the last level and beat the game
Pac Pix - not sure how long this is, but I'm on like the 12th level
Beautiful Katamari - Once I start on this, I'll finish it quickly
Me and My Katamari - This one is almost complete already
Blue Dragon - Maybe I can get back to this one, lol... I got to the second disc and kinda let it drop by the wayside

It'd be a miracle if I can finish off all of those this month... but I'll give it a shot :)

In an effort to keep a decent Games Beaten to Games Purchased ratio in the new year... I'm gonna list the games I've bought thus far this year...

1. Beautiful Katamari (360)
2. Arkadian Warriors (XBLA)
3. Gripshift (XBLA)
4. Alien Hominid (XBLA)
5. Omega Five (XBLA)
6. Burnout Paradise (360)
7. PixelJunk Monsters (PSN)


Games I've beaten so far this year

...

none quite yet :(

However I'm playing the above 4 XBLA titles quite a bit. I'm on the second case of Phoenix Wright 3. I've played quite a bit of Pac Pix on DS. Burnout Paradise is gonna get tons of playtime since it just arrived today. Me and My Katamari is mostly complete, and Beautiful Katamari probably won't take to long to play through either.

I should probably make like a weekly blog to give myself more of a push towards actually completing these games.

This entry is mostly a giant response to Nabokov's review of Hot Shots Golf Open Tee. He obviously didn't like the game and that's fine. But I want to throw my opinions out here as well. And also suggest things that might possibly help him enjoy the game more.



Characters: Yes, they aren't very different beyond stats... that's a bit disappointing, but no biggie... it's mostly for customization anyhow. You're also obviously not a fan of customization since you knock the fact that you unlock cool little items every single time you win a round. Who cares if they don't all affect things. I don't feel having a female character wearing a plaid skirt instead of a dress should change my spin rating. The sheer amount of cool little customizable items is wonderful! Not to mention all the clubs, balls, courses, modes, bonus shot types, etc that get unlocked that DO affect things.

The graphics and sound I find to be quite decent. Better than the PS1 games, but not quite as good as the PS2 games. I never saw anything near blurriness that you've described. Completely adequate with nothing atrocious about them whatsoever to me.

I don't know what game you're playing when talking about putting being oversimplified. This game actually takes so many things into account in terms of making a putt. After some practice, it's not too hard to sink 30 ft putts regularly. And there's even an entire mini game you don't mention that is devoted to nothing but practicing putting.

What's wrong with chipping? Should the rougher surfaces not act differently? Are you putting backspin on shots going up a ledge, so you'll get more air? (you really shouldn't have this issue much except in bunkers... which you also shouldn't hit too often)

I find that the ball almost always reacts as I'd expect. If you think it goes to far, maybe you should have checked the lie to see it's going downhill the direction you are shooting.

The precision meter works just like in the other games. If you can't handle timing it, then you'd have trouble with most other golf games of this sort. Not to mention you can turn on the easy clubs so you don't even have to worry about this.

The game never tells you that you will definitely make a shot. It gives a guideline based on max power for that club. Other things like wind, spin, current lie, precision, power used, and terrain and lie where it lands will affect that quite a bit.

Here's a hint, stop trying to stretch a shot over water and be conservative on your shots sometimes.

You also don't mention other positives, like the fact that this game has practically no load times. It saves videos of your best shots which is fun. It's great on the road to just pick up and play through a round in about 10 minutes. Great stats tracking through the game, for every course (6 total).

While I wouldn't call the game perfect by any means, it certainly is a great Hot Shots Golf game, and an awesome game to have on the go. There aren't any serious issues with the game, and if you've liked previous Hot Shots games, you'll definitely want to pick this one up, especially at the low prices you can find it these days.

Well the TV arrived last Monday, and I had to basically take half a day off work to wait for it to arrive. Later that night, I set it up and tested it out and it's beautiful! My old TV (which I did end up selling to a coworker for $700) had a small blemish on the screen and also a backlight banding issue. They didn't bug me much before, but the absence of them is quite nice.

The most noticeable difference with the new TV is the improved black levels and contrast ratio. I'm not really sold on this 120Hz mode. It makes normal shows look like soap operas, it makes some games look terribly jerky. Maybe I need specific types of input for it to really shine?

So since I bought the TV from Amazon. I've been watching the price, as you get a 30 day price guarantee, where if the price drops in the next 30 days after purchase, you get the difference refunded. Well finally after staying steady for a good two weeks, yesterday the price dropped from about 1790 down to 1650!! I instantly e-mailed Customer Service when I saw that, and today got confirmation that they will be refunding my credit card that amount!

And that refund will make my purchase last night free basically! I went out to Toys R Us armed to the teeth so to speak, and came out with Rock Band for PS3 (my first PS3 game that wasn't downloadabl, not counting the quite fun Ridge Racer 7 I bought from Terry :bighappy:) for only $125 after tax. Ahhh the wonders of using a 20% off any one item coupon, and the $25 gift card from buying Mario Galaxy :D

So since I recently finished Puzzle Quest on XBLA... I think I'll be spending a couple/few hours each night working on my various Rock Band skills. My avatar in game turned out to be a very good representation too :)

Well, I've been pricing the Samsung 4071 for a few months now. Watching the price drop from the original MSRP of $2799 down to $2499... and watching as the Amazon price dropped to just below $1800 with free shipping.

With our yearly Xmas bonuses assured of hitting now, I found someone to buy my barely 1 year old Samsung 4041 for $700 with its minor blemishes and slight banding issues... and all in all I upgrade to 1080p, get 120Hz, an extra HDMI input, better contrast ratios, a built in HD-Tuner all for a net of around $1000...

I also signed up for the Amazon Visa to buy this (thankfully the temp limit started at $2000)... which kicks me back $30 instantly on my first purchase. And since the TV is being sold by Amazon.com... I get triple points, which works out to another $50 in Amazon gift cards just from buying the TV. Of course, now my wife will expect me to buy everything from Amazon using this card, but hey... atleast I earn some rewards with this card.

Once I get the new TV set up (maybe later this week ::crosses fingers::), I'll need to take new pics of my gaming space, as it's pretty much been perfected :)

Interesting website they have for the upcoming movie.

You can find out your Daemon by doing a little personality type quiz, and then can have friends and whoever else look at it and they can agree or disagree to help get the final form of your Daemon.

Seemed pretty cool... so here's my link if anyone wants to check mine out thus far:

My Daemon

Well, this time of year is just buffing up my backlog to no end... because I still don't have the ability to not buy games until they are cheaper :D

Tomorrow I'll be buying 3 more new games.

1) Phoenix Wright 3 (DS)... Vanessa would kill me if I didn't, and she'll be putting all her other gaming on hold to play through it.

2) Castevania X (PSP)... I didn't buy SOTN on XBLA because I was waiting for this...not to mention I already have it. This I can't pass up though, Castlevania is a great on the go game.

3)Spanish for Everyone(DS)... Yep... I've been waiting for this and Spanish Coach. I took Spanish in high school and have always been upset that I've never learned more. I can get context from a lot of Spanish stuff, but miss a lot of words here and there. Hopefully these games will help me build my vocabulary a lot more. (Then I just need a Japanese language learning game too!) So I'm really looking forward to this one. Especially if it's done decently.

Also... I'll probably be selling Halo 3 soon. I may try Legendary campaign or something first... but this game really did nothing for me with single or multiplayer. If I do, it'll join Mario is Missing as the only other game I've ever sold after owning and playing. :whip:

Yep... Puzzle Quest is still the single most addictive game I've ever played...

Even the second time around. :)

I had a practically free 1600 point Microsoft card still laying around from my Halo 3 preorder, so I figured I may as well cash it in. So I did, and promptly bought Puzzle Quest on XBLA.

Next thing I know, it's 3am.

This game just rules so hard. Even the second time! Sure, I still can find little annoyances, but the sound and graphics are terrific and the gameplay is top-notch.

I'm playing through with the same character class that I used on DS, but on Hard difficulty this time. This seems to make your opponents use their skills much more often and much more efficiently.

So I think I'm level 13 or so after a few hours. And only 2 achievements gained thus far. Can't wait to progress to the top and then light up some multiplayer :)


Oh, also gave Picross DS WiFi play a shot last night. I prefer to use the D-pad controls, but that proved to be entirely too slow. I played about 20 matches and won 15. I only got completely destroyed once, by a guy who finished both puzzles in barely 30 seconds total (I had only just finished the first). I was actually surprised how easy it was to find opponents on that. Pretty fun, but I doubt I'll spend too much more time with it unless someone just wants to play :)

Well at least the main game... still haven't tried WiFi play...

But geez... like 345 puzzles... and 60 bonus games... an S rank in Daily puzzles after well over a month of play and like 30 DS battery recharges atleast!

INSANITY!!!

I can finally move on with my DS game playing... back to Hotel Dusk, and starting up Phantom Hourglass :)

Well the diet is still ongoing. It's been a little over a month now, and I've lost about 17 lbs or so, down to 197 at last check. I'm definitely learning alot about being more careful with my portions if nothing else.

In gaming news...
I've been playing tons of Blue Dragon. I'm about 13 hours in, and am just now getting to the first large town >_> Though I have opened atleast 33% of the Warp points, so maybe the size of this game is deceiving. I'm at about level 21 of experience and so far i'm enjoying the battle and levelling systems as well as the characters and story development. It's nothing super deep, but it's fun and sensible, and keeps my wondering what will happen next. I wonder if I'll hit the second disc soon...?

Beyond that I've been playing lots of World of Warcraft like usual. I've got a Hunter up to level 50 now, and that's the next one I plan to get to level 70. Playing with all setting at full on the new computer hooked up to the 40" TV is amazing! Makes me wish it was a 1080p set ;)

And of course, I've been playing hours and hours of Picross DS. I'm in level 8 of Free mode I think. So closing in on the end of it. Thankfully there hasn't been too terribly much required use of the overlay mode, but some of these puzzles have been seriously rough. 30 minuters without time penalties.

Anyhow, guess that's all for now. I did decently on Twinbee Yahho! for the first week of the shmups tournament. And this week is Viper Phase 1, so I'll be revving that up shortly! :)

(West Coast) So I started on my first diet ever a couple weeks ago (Saturday July 28th to be specific). Why did I go on a diet you ask? Well in preparation for the Team Fremont Pool Party that it seems no one else was invited to. Hmmm... maybe Hilden has ulterior motives?

But seriously, I'll start at the beginning... Two years ago, I had my first kidney stone. Easily the most painful experience of my life. I thought I was gonna die sheerly from the pain alone(the doctor calmed me by saying that a kidney stone is one of the most painful experiences a person can have, and many women have admitted that the pain is just as bad as labor pains). After that, I cut back on sodas, and drank more water. However last year, even with the extra precautions, I got my second kidney stone. Since I knew what it was, it didn't scare me as much, and thus the pain wasn't as bad... but it was still horrid.

From that point on, I have nearly completely sworn off sodas and other caffeinated beverages. Only drinking one on rare occassion (once a week at the very most), but mainly drinking water. This had the unexpected side effect of dropping 10-15 lbs of weight off of me within the next month or two from the loss of those empty calories.

However, in the following year or so, I gained back those 10-15 lbs without going back to the sodas. I noticed I was eating portions that were bigger, and just getting out of control. So I talked to Vanessa and decided I was going to start a diet. She mentioned she had done a 1200-calorie-a-day diet back in high school that worked well for her. So I began on that endeavor. I knew I couldn't change the types of foods I was eating by too large a degree, but I figured I could control portions if I put my effort behind it.

So now it's 17 days later... and it hasn't been too hard. The first week I was starving a lot, but now my stomach is used to less food, so it's not too tough anymore. I'm down about 11-12 lbs at this point. My starting goal is to lose about 25 total (from 215, which would put me to 190lbs for my 6'1" frame). Depending on how I feel/look at that point, I might make a second goal for 170, 175, or 180. But just getting below 200 lbs for the first time since early college will definitely be nice.

Anyhow, does anyone else have experience with dieting? What worked for you? Was it hard for you? Will I finally be able to beat 10 footer songs on DDR with the weight loss?

As usual, errata first...

Silrayne decided to toast my Zuma high score the other night while I was over at MC's recording the E3 Day 1 podcast. I think her score is around 530,000... while mine was around 450,000. Guess I'll have to play some more :D

Also in high scoring news... I have of course been playing Super Stardust HD since getting the PS3. And thus far my best score is about 26 million (dying at the world 4 boss), and I've since turned my attention towards planet mode. Planet mode has taught me one thing... I definitely don't know how to rack up the most points. I had a clean run through the 2nd planet. No deaths... got up to 7x multiplier... finished the levels quick. And I still only had about 10 million points, while the high score is near 15 million. Obviously there's tricks to improve the multiplier quicker or otherwise gain points that I'm not yet aware of.

Anyhow, on to the meat. As I mentioned in my last post. I did indeed purchase a PS3 on Monday, and picked it up Monday evening. Unfortunately I still haven't had a ton of time with the system, but I have gotten a pretty solid first look.

Calling All Cars is awesome, and playing online is pretty solid even though the lag causes weird problems at times. The single player is a pain though. I like a game to be challenging and all. But when all the computer players play like MC does in Stick Arena every so often(i.e. they take me down but allow one specific CPU player to score everytime) it gets pretty frustrating. Never have I seen the CPU stop another CPU player from scoring the helicopter. Or even be near him. Of course, when I try, I have all 3 toasting me full speed. Why can't all 3 CPU players just try their best to win and defeat me and the other CPU players? Oh well... the main fun of this game is multiplayer for sure. I just need to headset so I can hear the others playing (well atleast when playing friends from VGEvo and TFL)

Super Stardust HD is terribly addictive and fun. It's surprisingly slower than Geometry Wars, but it can get pretty frantic if you're not careful. I like the different weapons and planets. And the bosses are pretty cool too. Though since I've seen 4 of the 5 planets... I'm a bit disappointed in the small amount of actually different enemies. Maybe at some point they can drop expansions with more planets and more varied enemies to face. But until then, you can bet I'll soon be back to aiming for the top of the worldwide scoreboard, especially since I just found the option to back the camera up so I could see more of the level at once!

Also, My second PS3 controller that we ordered Monday from Amazon with the Free Super Saver Shipping arrived already yesterday! So now Silrayne and I can throwdown on CAC against each other as well as online. Also hopefully Planet Earth will arrive soon. I bought this since it was on sale for only $60 on Amazon on Tuesday... so maybe that will be waiting for me when I get home today :)

I've downloaded tons of demos and trailers throughout the whole time, but haven't had a chance yet to check out many of them. Maybe one will spark a purchase of a retail game? We'll just have to wait and see. But the price drop, and the 5 free Blu-Ray movie deal definitely make this worth it. So, I'm pretty happy with my purchase. Considering it would be at least another year before another price drop, and the fact that the newer systems may only have Backwards Compatibility through software... I'm glad I did finally purchase one. I'm sure it'll be solid in the long run... but I also feel like once I finish going through demos, I'll be back to the 360 for the majority of my gaming time for the foreseeable future.

So yeah, I bought a PS3 earlier... and will be picking it up from Best Buy after work.

And then Terry bought one....

SAVORY, YOU'RE NEXT!!!


More updates later when I actually get some time with it :D

Well tonight will be the first evening I'll be at home for all of Fremont Fridays. I'm really excited since I usually don't get home until around 11pm or later from visiting the in-laws. We just visited them on Tuesday though, so I'm off the hook tonight ;)

I'll probably be on and off both Uno and Planet Puzzle League all night. Should be a blast!

In other news:
I've been playing a ton of Pac Man CE again. I've been watching everyone on my friends leaderboard slowly creeping towards my score. Razorburn in particular has crossed the 300,000 point threshold. So last night I put some effort into improved my championship mode score again. And after getting several scores just below my best, I finally improved to a bit over 330,000. Putting me back into the top 150. My "Darkness" mode (Challenge Mode 2) score is still #4 in the world. And I know I can improve that to take #1, so maybe I'll attempt that this weekend.

Silrayne has been creeping up on my Zuma score, and has broken the 400k mark... so I might need to put more time into that again :D

I bought both new Lumines Live packs, and have been playing that a good deal again lately. That game just puts me into a trance of beautiful graphics and amazing sound.

Also, I'm getting more time into this past week's Backlog pick which was Hotel Dusk Room 215. It's starting pretty slow... but it is intriguing, so I'll keep going and see where this one takes me.

I suppose that's all for now. I'm sure I'll have more to talk about after a wondrous Fremont Friday tonight.

A non-video game related post, yikes!

Well yesterday was Independence Day here in the US. Usually this is a holiday I look forward to with much anticipation. For as far back as I can remember, the 4th of July was a day filled with fireworks. For years my parents took me to the fireworks show our city put on.

Eventually my dad would take me to the next county and we'd buy some fireworks to shoot ourselves. I'd pick out ones I thought were cool, which were the ones that looked like tanks or helicopters and such. Though nowadays I realize how gimmicky and overpriced those types were. Every once in a while my dad would let me light a bottle rocket or two which was really cool back then.

A few years later, in 1995, my dad let me bring my best friend along for the ride. We picked out a bunch of good fireworks, using our own money we had saved up for a few months. When the parents were inside, we'd randomly shoot a few in strange ways, or kinda toss them at the others' feet.

The next year my friend had his license prior to July 4th, so we went on our own to buy even more fun fireworks. And we were ever more dangerous with them. Breaking sticks off of the bottle rockets, holding bottle rockets by the stem to aim them... and so forth. This eventually would become what we recently called our Annual Deathmatch.

Over the years, we determined which firecrackers were the most fun. That the Buy 1 Get 4 Free were sold like that because 4 out of every 5 was a dud. We figured out Cherry Bomb and Black Cat brand were the most reliable.

No one ever got hurt beyond a scalded thumb or a singed shirt in the previous 12 years of "deathmatches" we held in my parents backyard. We were surprisingly cautious, while enjoying the danger and recklessness of it all.

And then there's this year...

This year was different...

I wasn't looking forward to the 4th. It all seemed so different this year. The holiday felt like it would just be another day off work for me.

Usually my friend Doug and I would head out to buy fireworks the weekend before the 4th. But this year he didn't come down. I had a feeling he wouldn't, after all, he is in his last year of Vet School. And sure enough, when I talked to him Wednesday morning, he told me that he was in fact on-call for the day for radiology, and couldn't be more than 20 minutes from the vet school. Considering Auburn is about an hour drive... yeah... nothing was happening.

So Vanessa and I visited my parents like normal last night. We swam in the pool, ate some great food that was grilled out. But as evening approached, there was no anticipation of the bright lights to come. My eardrums would be safe. I wouldn't have to dodge roman candles at point blank range...

And my heart kinda sank.

This would have been the 13th year in a row... but obviously growing up made this an unlucky year for us.

Let's start with the errata...

Wilson and I have recorded the episode #147 of Broadcast Gamer and I'd imagine it will be up later today. We had tons of feedback this week and that's always great to see, especially considering what a couple of the letters mentioned! :questionblock: :questionblock:

Among other things, we of course discussed our backlog picks from last week... Record of Lodoss War, and Sword of Berserk: Guts' Rage. And had an interesting Devil May Gripe. I generally find the Devil May Gripe to be the hardest, but at the same time, one of the funnest segments of our show.


Anyhow, on to the main discussion point for this entry, which is World of Warcraft. I knew this was the type of game I'd be sucked into, and I never wanted to start paying a monthly fee for a game, but I had played things previously such as Neopets, Maple Story, and ROSE beta. But alas, in December of 2005, Vanessa was pretty excited about it due to the Tauren being a playable race. So we gave the trial a shot. She played for a couple days, and I just watched. It looked cool, so I thought I'd make a character of my own...

Well here we are, a year and a half later. My wife and I have separate accounts so we can play together, and we both have the Burning Crusade expansion. I don't want to... but let's check some math here...

2 copies of World of Warcraft = ~$60
2 copies of Burning Crusade = ~$60
18 months of one account x 15$ = $270
6 months of the second account x 15$ = $90
2 characters switching realms x $25 = $50

over $500 spent on ONLY World of Warcraft over the past 18 months... and that increases by $30 every month. :whoa:

$500 is like 10 brand new games, well in the last generation anyhow.

Of course, most new games only give you about 20-50 hours of playtime (not counting multiplayer). While occasionally you'll play something like Smash Bros, Marvel vs Capcom, Goldeneye or Mario Kart for nearly a hundred hours of multiplayer as well.

I don't have the exact number here with me, and I'll check when I get home, but I believe my total time with all my characters is 40 - 50 days. DAYS, not hours. We're talking somewhere around 1000 hours of game play on a single game. That's way more time than I'd spend with 10 console games.

So has it been worth it to me?

Well honestly... yes. Considering that doesn't even count Vanessa's time playing. The enjoyment we have playing together. The amount of updates made to the game keeping it fresh. The way I can keep in touch with some friends from college in the game. I don't know enough people locally to get even 10 hours of multiplayer out of a game these days. Even my XBLA arcade titles have gotten no where that much play (Worms is probably right around 10 hours). And for me, World of Warcraft has been enjoyable those entire 18 months. Sure I've taken breaks without cancelling my account, I've switched between characters to keep things interesting, etc. But I always go back to it, and I always have fun.

Sorry, this entry kind of rambled badly. :goomba: But I thought I'd start with that, and maybe get to more of my opinions and my characters info on the game later on in a different post.

Well I finally got back to that saved game of Zuma, and as expected, I lost a few lives before getting back in the rhythm... Thankfully I had 7 at that point. I did forge my way ahead, but was stopped just shy of 450,000 points (and another extra life) on level 9-3.

That puts me in 2nd place, about 20,000 points less than BlueCoffee who is #1 on my friends leaderboard.

At the end of the game, it said that it had taken 2 hours and 11 mintues altogether... O_o

Anyhow, I guess I should practice up on Root Beer Tapper. Razorburn has also passed me on that one as well now.

To PS3 or not to PS3...

Since MC picked up a PS3 and since the Midwest Gaming Classic, my thoughts on buying a PS3 have gone from a solid "no way", to a more hard to define sound... "Graahhmmmm zzuuuuuuuu".

what?

Seriously though, there have been some things I've learned about the system, and a few games that now have my interest. And so I'll collect my thoughts on them and my other reasons for possibly getting a PS3 here:

1. PS3 plays Blu-Ray - Well duh. Do I really want Blu-Ray? I could get an HD-DVD for 360 for only $200, or a standalone for $300. I have already determined that DVD isn't going the way of the VHS anytime in the next 10 years, so I won't be replacing my collection of movies. However there are movies and things I would like to see in Hi-Def on my 42" LCD at some point such as Planet Earth, 300, and Spiderman 3 (Sandman in Hi-Def = win). So the fact that PS3 has Blu-Ray is kinda good

2. PS3 virtualizes PS1 and PS2 memory cards on the hard drive. This is a god-send, and I didn't even know the system did this. To play PS1 games on the PS2, you still had to use the PS1 memory card. If you moved saves to a PS2 memory card, you couldn't use them. However the PS3 makes it all so much easier. I could finally consolidate my 3 PS1 and 3 PS2 memory cards. In fact, I'm about due to buy YET ANOTHER PS2 memory card if I want to continue playing new games without deleting old data. So a PS3 intrinsically saves me $20 from not buying another memory card, lol.

3. What about the PSN games? Well Calling all Cars would be a definite purchase, as would Super Stardust HD. There's a few other original PSN games coming that look awesome as well. However compared to Live Arcade, the PS3 is well, a year behind. There's not quite enough here to sell me on the system alone, though there are some definite winners.

4. Hello, full PS3 games! Uhhhh.... well Motorstorm was pretty fun at MGC... and there's Ridge Racer 7... but that's about the extent of interest I have in current games. Of course there are a few big titles on the horizon, but we probably won't see FFXIII until late 2008 or 2009. And blasphemous as it may be, I have no interest in the Metal Gear or Devil May Cry series. There is White Knight Story though.... someday...

5. What else? Well not as many of my friends have one as have a 360. So I'd probably play the PS3 even less online than I play the 360. This doesn't bode well considering my biggest game attraction is Calling All Cars thus far. (I'm not one for playing random people around the world much). Also unlike the $100 off deal I got for a new 360, I'm not as likely to find a great deal like that for a new PS3. Not to mention it would still be 200$ more.

I dunno, I keep thinking I could buy one on potential but after typing this up, I think my desire for one has lowered once again. But that PS1/2 memory card virtualization is my killer app. :D