My complaining about Animal Crossing two years ago.

The game I love to hate.

in a strange twist of fate... my top 2 most anticipated games are both released this week.

GTA IV (duh.)

and

EchoChrome!!!

yup... its hitting PSN today for just ten bones in both PSP and PS3 flavors. i think i'll go for the PSP version. hot damn!

i stumbled through the japanese demo and loved it. i'm sure to get to the fourth level and pull my hair out though.

***

also... looks like we're doing two podcasts today. or something.

***

and!

cd update

Lyrics Born - Whatever dumb title his new album has
David Crowder Band* - Remememedy Deluxe Edition

***

my back was pretty jacked today, so i came home early. watched 'before the devil knows you're dead'. it's good. better in some aspects than i expected and worse in some others. the story is good and its a pleasure to look at (and not just the naked parts), but the acting was... bonkers. i wasnt feeling it. worth a look though. really, the story is great.

i wont spoil it as much as the trailer does, but two brothers rob a jewelry store... their parents jewelry store. the heist goes bad...

***

an mfing spider was just crawling on my ear! how did it even get up there?

hell... now i feel them all over myself. ugh.

HAHAHAHA!

Man... I just love it when GameSh!t fails. Really. I LOVE IT.

Those reservations they shove up your ass everytime you set foot in their stores? Meaningless.

Way to be.



I saw my dad today at my work about an hour before I got off. He said that on the news they said GTAIV was selling out everywhere. I didn't bother with a pre-order because I'm a cheapass and I always wait until I know all my options before I commit to one place or another. When he told me it was selling out though... I got scared.

I ran to Best Buy after work and they still had some left... but not many. WTF? Seriously, I expected copies of GTAIV to be choking the aisles. It's the biggest title of the year, and is already being speculated to be the fastest selling game ever. I figured supply would STILL out rank demand. When Halo 2 was so 'rare' at launch, every store I went to had stacks and stack everywhere for weeks. There was no shortage in my area at all. That was a few years ago, so internet orders were smaller even...

Did GTAIV short ship or what?

of the 10 'friends' logged into their xboxes when i was playing (at a peak... i'd say at least 15 users showed up while i was playing, maybe more) EVERY single one of them was playing GTAIV. one guy did Halo 3 for a while, then went GTA. When Halo 3 launched i had 11 friends on at peak, and only 3 of us were playing halo. just to give a comparison.

***

So what do i think of it?

WELL...

I love it.

BUT.

It really really is more of the same. It's not a revolutionary leap to the next gen. Certainly the graphics and physics are much much better than in previous titles. and there is a ton more swearing and sex talk. but its a fine tuned version of GTAIII really.

not that that's a bad thing. GTAIII is one of the best games ever made and was a massive innovation and landmark title. Everything about GTAIV is better, but pretty much the same as you would expect.

Anyone try the multiplayer? I did just for a bit around dinnertime. I did a Team Deathmatch game. I'm hoping the other gametypes are better. the level sucked and the screen was a mess. you're dressed like some guy or whatever, and there is no team colors. i mean... i dropped in and there was an orange team and a purple team. i was wearing jeans and a navy jacket. uh... who do i shoot? as i was trying to find my bearings, some thug ran up next to me. i aimed my pistol at his face and he said 'what's up man?'... ok... we're purple apparently, or he's just as clueless as i am. he didnt fire at me, so i took off running towards the nearest orange blob on my radar.... he followed my every move constantly asking 'what's up man?'. then i got sniped.

i took down 4 guys with my pistol in 3 minutes and was ranked #1 on my team. i think everyone was confused as hell.

***

also.... the moment i booted the game... i mean... THE MOMENT. the freaking title screen had not even come up yet.... i got an invitation to play. wtf? its 2 in the afternoon on launch day for a historically single player game. please hold off on the invitations a day or two. did anyone really jump right into the multiplayer right away? the beginning of the game is a 10 minute cut scene... peoples...

he sent me 3 more invitations throughout the day. i messaged him and said i wanted to spend some alone time in liberty city. he said that was fine. and then proceeded to send invites anyway. i guess he's just excited.

i have 14 more multiplayer types to try... so i'm sure i'll hit him up soon.

I think i'm about 8% through the main storyline. something like that. i just got an email account in the game. achievements are pretty random. i think i have 4 or so, for pretty random things besides finishing levels.

***

cd update

The Roots - Rising Down or something
Portishead - 3

If you don't know, now you know.

The look on Jason Priestleys face makes me want to play MarioKart Wii RIGHT NOW. He looks so full of joy. It's like he's thinking 'HOLY SMOKES! I've never in my entire life had this much fun ever!'

If it had come out a month ago, or maybe in a month, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But as is, on the dawn of the most exciting moment of my entire life, no dice.

In XXIV hours from right now, I will start playing GTAIV...

I'm seriously WAY excited. Believe it or not, I'm literally more excited about my upcoming excursion in Liberty City than I was about my real life vacation last week. I'm really not joking... I haven't been this excited about a video game since... I don't even know when.

I was really excited about Orange Box, but this... this is something else...

Maybe the last time I was this excited was when I got my Wii at launch and it was just a pandora's box of mysteries.

even then... GTAIV is the reason i bought a 360. Remember at launch (*cough*still) how they sucked and had no good games and were not really that happening? well, i waited 9 months. then GTAIV was announced. that was in 2006? i thought it was coming out THAT christmas, and i saw the rare 360 in stores and bit. i didnt know they actually meant christmas 2007 (which became 2008). yes. i, in essence, paid $400 for this game already.

of course everyone knows that i love my 360 more deeply than i could ever even love my own child. so it worked out in the meantime.

I had a dream last night that I played GTAIV. It was a lot like Sly Cooper, but handled like Tony Hawk when you're off your skateboard.

Despite that, I still loved it.

I'm extremely excited about Tuesday.

***

sometimes, you just gotta laugh.

I kicked on the ps3 and logged into the MGS4 beta to see what the url was for the site to make an ID to actually play the game, and i was greeted with ANOTHER update to download.

sony/konami... i though microsoft had a lock on how to eff up highly anticipated online content and how to botch a massive launch. you have proved me wrong. kudos sirs.

I love being a man (sometimes)... I packed all my junks in about 5 minutes. Now I have time for CoD4.

***

MFing Metal Gear Beta update is at 30% complete. I started it five hours ago. These are some biloxi speeds here or something. It's all Konamis fault. It's using an elaborate mirror system.... I'm uploading at 5kb/s... i'm downloading at just over 1. the best i've seen i was downloading at 4kb/s, but i was uploading at 33kb/s... so whoever is leeching me is making out much better than i am.

***

cd update for a while

Phantom Planet - Raise the Dead
Black Francis - svn fngrs

I haven't bought a Frank Black record in years... but when i saw that 'Black Francis' was releasing a new record, my pixies pavlov reflex went off and i instantly preordered it... weird... so it showed up today, and i was like 'why the heck did i just run off and order this?', i threw it in and i'll be damned... it actually sounds kinda pixie-ish.

so then i did some reading, and it turns out thats what he was going for... this is the 'last' recording as Black Francis. and its good. well... maybe not just like the pixies... but its much weirder than his folk country roots rock records. it's like 8 bucks or something on amazon.

phantom planet is much different than their other records... this one is the 'arty' record i guess.... they kinda have a slight radiohead vibe... which is a compliment i guess because EVERY band thinks they sound like radiohead, but this one actually does sometimes. you ask any band what they sound like and they'll say 'like radiohead but...' and then whatever makes them 'unique'. its funny... in the late 90's early 00's, bands said this, then they got into the thing 'like coldplay but...' and now its back to radiohead. right on.

Jon
2:37
Kojima just needs to quit making games and make movies
except they would suck

Don
2:38
haha
did he make ANYTHING else?

Jon
2:38
he made like pac-man or some shit

Poll #1170011
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Three

***

Wow... that '24' game is so fun I actually kinda want to watch the show now!

Only four more discs of Oz, and we're done with the entire series.

The top 100 best selling games of the last 12 months, ranked by sales.

command and conquer 3 sold more than THE ORANGE BOX???

David. I blame you.

and CoD4 sold more than Halo 3. Microsoft spent a billion billion dollarz on Halo 3, and 2 months later CoD4 dethroned it. hilarious. after playing Halo 3 the other day after months away from it, i'm not surprised one bit.

much of the list is full of CRAP, but thats not surprising given the success of the Wii and its massive catalog of budget shovelware and non-gamers buying said garbage.

i'm actually kinda surprised that Puzzle Quest didnt make a showing considering its ease of use and multi-platform-ishness. and did i miss WoW? i didnt see it on there.

NFS:Prostreet sold a sh!tton of copies. I gave up on that series after the 'Hot Pursuit 2' followup sucked... like 10 years ago.

***

Jon and I talked a lot of BSG today. And mostly disagreed. Surprisingly, we had the same exact feeling about 'There Will Be Blood'.

and i dont think i ever told him, but we also had the same feeling about 'No Country for Old Men'. The stuff at the beginning in the desert was my favorite part too. i was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

that brings up another point... in my brain. The Coen Brothers really are fantastic filmmakers. They NAILED comedy with 'The Big Lebowski' (a film that many many people hated, and as such caused me to lose my faith in mankind.) even 'Oh Brother!' was really freaking funny. And 'Raising Arizona' is an across the map favorite. They do the thriller genre over and over with ease. They had the weird, frenchish, larger than life 'Hudsucker Proxy'. They do fast talking dialog (Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Oh Brother!), they do films that might be just as good without the sound on (No Country, Blood Simple). and however they influenced 'Bad Santa'... it was funny, crude and emotional all at once. they even were allowed to dick around with 'Man who wasn't there' and still make an entertaining film.

The consensus (among mens magazine writers... *cough*...) seems to be, you can be a fanboy, thats ok, but pick your obsessions and stick with them. be bold and unabashed. i love the coen brothers and i dont think anyone could talk me out of that.

You Have to Burn the Rope

Go. Burn rope. Now.

***

Yesterday I watched 'Wristcutters: A Love Story'. it reminded me A LOT of 'Dead Like Me'. good movie... did i already mention all this?

I'm still trying to figure out what genre both WALS and DLM belong to... supernatural? it's not really sci-fi, not really horror or romance or comedy... all of them?

Today I watched 'Shakes the Clown'. It had like 50 famous people in it, before they were famous. It's the only starring role I've seen Tom Kenny in (unless Spongebob counts), it also had Adam Sandler, Kathy Griffin and that fat Paul comedian guy who i can never remember his name. I actually wish it had more Bobcat Goldthwait.

***

Did the podcast with Jon today, got lunch, played some Rock Band and Sonic and the Stupid Rings (that theme music DOES SUCKS HARDZ_), went to dinner with my old man, and now i'm BEAT and have work in like 8 hours. Time for bed! I'll upload the podcast tomorrow.

I actually own Mr. Driller for the DS, and I still don't 'get it'. I played the demo on xbox live this week... is the only point to get a high score? because you can pretty much just keep drilling straight down forever as long as you are getting oxygen pick ups. i guess if you sorta focus on one color for a bit, the other colors will avalanche and you'll drop even faster.

either way... i dont see the challenge or the point.

any insight as to what makes this a 'game'?

his pops (Dig Dug) did it right.

WTF? New, weird, Weezer song... It's on the top video... you have to stop the bottom video since they're both on auto play.

***

FlatOut for the 360 is GREAT. Its like Burnouts Hillbilly cousin. it looks good, handles pretty well and the levels are destructible... as are the drivers. I didn't even touch the ragdoll minigames and it had me going for over an hour. so fun at a budget price. and they even nail the Nitro better than Burnout... when you speed up, you actually go faster than your opponents! on Burnout, the screen just blurs and all the other cars still stay in the same position relative to your position.

still... i do love me some Burnout... but FlatOut has really come a long way since the first game.

***

i made another DVD... this time i compiled all the PlayValueHD podcasts. they look GREAT on the tv, i guess thats the HD part... and its like one long documentary about gaming! i love it! i hate Dan though. i hope hes playing some idiotasshole character. hes got feathered hair, bad hornrims, a popped collar and a members only jacket. tre douche!

remember that really sad Animal Crossing comic?

well, this remix made me laugh AND cry. and then cry some more.

The demo for 'Echochrome' hit Japan today... and as it is #2 on my list of 'must have' games for 2008 (with GTAIV at #1), I FINALLY took the time to figure out how to download PSP demos.

And it works!

I'll say this... Echochrome is just what I expected... a very lo-fi title, thats high on the creativity chart.

This video makes it look too easy...



I got stumped on the DEMO. Should be good! Here's hoping for a budget price point, because I don't see it flying in the US otherwise...

***

Anyway though... so now I'm downloading all these japanese demos. I downloaded:

- Echochrome
- Hot PXL
- Intelligent License 2 (???)
- Homestar Portable (? - hopefully something to do with homestar runner)
- Mawasakes (?)
- Space Invaders Extreme
- Warhammer 40,000 (haha Justin)
- Blockus Club Portable
- Airport Hero NaHa (??? wtf? sounds either awesome or boring)
- Bounty Hounds (?)
- Comp Science Lab 1 (sounds so dull... it has to be good)
- DJ Max Portable 2
- Doko: Let's Gakkou! (... indeed... lets.)

***

CD update

Black Crowes - Warpaint
TODD BARRY - FROM HEAVEN (oh yessssss)...


and i can't believe i'm saying this, but...

U2 - 1980-1990

yes. i not only bought a greatest hits album, thereby making me a soccer mom. i also bought my first U2 record EVER. i liked 'War'... and it was really cheap, so i figured why not?

Picked up two more copies of 'Folklore' at Target today, and sold them to some CAGs. It's the first time I've ever sold something online, and it went really well. They both paid me in full, up front. Now I just have to ship them out. I guess it's nice being on this end, because I don't have to worry about getting ripped off really. I already have the money, as long as I ship the games, I'm gold.

They gave me some money for postage, and I'm planning on spending it all on postage. Maybe I can swing some delivery confirmation or something, just to be nice. It feels good to help fellow CAGs out.

WTF is up with the Rock Band version of 'El Scorcho'? It SOUNDS like the original, but one of the lines of lyrics is wrong, and the solo is HORRIBLE. I mean waaaaay off. It didn't say it was a cover version (indicated by an asterisk), so... is it a re-record or what?

It sucks either way.

***

CoD4 needs an online ranking and stats system a la Halo 3. a la Halo 2 at that.

Every game ever needs an online stats system for that matter. the CoD4 servers kick the Halo servers asses anyway, might as well toss in some stat track stuff. You can't even look at the match you just played to see what kills you got and who killed who and all that. That's my favorite part of Halo (outside of the Theater mode).

I leveled up a lot today... finished a couple challenges (by accident) that gave me a lot of points. I finally unlocked the M4, but it has no decent add-ons... so I'm in the boring/bad area of the game where I'm just trying to level up to get the red dot scope.

I'm actually kinda pissed... this guy kept killing my whole team. So I finally killed him, while he was killing more of my team (and he nearly killed me), and I ran over to his perch and took his gun and it's BADASS. I don't know what it is though!!! It's not quite a sniper rifle, the scope isn't as good, BUT the scope is still really really good and its got very little recoil and fires a quick three-round burst. It's wonderful. I went bonkers and filled a trench with corpses for a few minutes with that thing. Then a RANDOM GRENADE (thanks killcam) took me out. Oh well... I've got to find out what that gun is.

Also, it looks like the troglodytes from the Halo3 camp are finally invading the CoD4 lobbies. We did a game on 'Wet Works' which is just a very narrow map (you're on a ship... in the rain) and after the match this little kid was all excited:

Kid: GUYS! You should all just throw grenades on that level! (no duh) I got 8 kills in the first 3 minutes just from grenades! I killed their whole team at the same time at one point!

Some asshole: SHUT THE F%CK UP! NO ONE CARES!

Kid: but... it was... cool... and the grenades...

Douche Baggilo: HEY LITTLE KID! NO ONE GIVES A SHIT SO SHUT THE F%CK UP!

Kid:...

awwww.... he was just excited! Remember when you were a kid and you found some secret room on Mario Bros, or whatever, or you figured out some new combo on Mortal Kombat and it was really awesome and you wanted to tell other games so they could check it out? Well in this new age of online connectivity, there's always some asshole there to shoot you down.

Meanwhile, there are spree shootings in Lane Bryant stores and coffee shops and whatnot every week. Right on America!

***

weird day at work today. I confronted a co-worker about their poor work habits (leaving trash for others to clean up) and they went apeshit like it was my fault. This isnt the first time this has happened with them (though it was the first time it happened to me). I confronted them first to give them the benefit of the doubt, but after that reaction, i reported to a manager so they would know what was up. It's the fifth complaint filed against that coworker. They're going to have a talk with that person. We're too short handed to not be working as a team...

CAG has a thread that puts everyones XBox Live gamerscores in order based on score. I found it today and checked out my place and (oddly) out of 716 listed CAGs, I'm ranked 2 spots above Wombat! I didn't even think to look and find him or CheapyD, but there he was, right under my name. I have about 130 more (pointless) points than he does right now... I should hit 10,000 soon, if i ever get back to Mass Effect probably.

Looks like pretty much everyone has CoD4 in their recent games... I don't because Mike was playing some crappy arcade games, but it would otherwise be in my recently played list. I'm the only gamer i see with Yaris and DigDug in my Games... haha...

Weird that I've been playing my PS3 and Wii soooo much lately. I've barely touched my 360 besides watching dvds and messing around here and there.

Jon had mentioned that there was no need for more gaming podcasts (which I would agree with), but I'd still love to do one for fun. I love talking about games, but I don't really know many people who can talk about them for any length of time...

more later!

Forget Indiana Jones... THIS made my heart skip a beat...

alright... so... this morning i cashed in some Hasting's gift cards when I saw that they had the Collectors Edition of 'Stranglehold' for the PS3 for $40. It comes with 'Hard Boiled' on Blu-Ray, and I figure the resell is good, so I bit. I played the demo about 6 times as I liked it so much, I just heard the game was really short...

I played about 3 hours today and I loved every second of it. It's easily one of the most FUN games I've played in ages. It makes no excuses for what it is, big explosions, bloody bullets and a massive body count, but it's great.

I'm pretty far in I guess, but it's set up really weird. There is a first level, with a boss, and it feels natural. after the level you get a rating and all, then you play the second 'level' for about a million years, it seems to span several levels in one, there is no boss, then all the sudden you are rated... then shortly afterwards you complete the third level, but with a boss, a much harder boss than the first one... so I'm just after that battle... however far in that is.

the scene before the second boss was really hard. you're in a ballroom, with a jazz trio playing, and you battle wave after wave of enemies, while trying to kill the band (as they play on). I kept running out of ammo and health, and kept dying. there were just dozens of waves of villains. it was pretty cool though, you shoot the sax player, boom... no sax, but the drums and bass keep playing.... very cool.

i love it. its just everything i want in a shooter. VERY destructible environments, lots of crap to knock over and jump over and shoot, lots of interactivity in the levels, cool gunplay, very natural controls...

i did a slo-mo 'matrix-ish jump backwards while i was wielding dual pistols shooting at a guy, at the same time i landed on my back on a counter top and instead of sliding off to the floor, or clipping through to the floor like most games, Tequila hit and did a backroll to the floor and took cover. really... just perfect.

you dont dive into the walls and clip and fall. if you dive into a wall, you run up the wall and do a backflip. its a little weird sliding over every flat surface like it were the hood of the General Lee, but it also looks badass, so i'm not complaining.

awesome game.... 50 stars...


***

i also played a little 'skate' today... for the first time in several months. another fantastic game, so relaxing...