Woo boy, been awhile.

So as you can see I haven't really been posting any on my blog lately. It's a shame, because I do enjoy it, but I've been rather busy as of late, and the moment I get some extra free time I suddenly start to develop a small Fallout: New Vegas addiction, haha. Which in itself is odd, because I really wasn't that big a fan of Fallout 3 (which I own and haven't finished). We'll see how long my infatuation with the game lasts.

Before that I was playing a whole lot of Guild Wars in anticipation of Guild Wars 2. They recently released the reward calculator so people can see what sort of stuff they'll get in GW2 for their achievements in GW1. I had a measly 8/50 because most of my GW playing days were back when the original was the only game, but now I'm up to 21/50, which isn't bad considering you only get items up to 30/50.

Oh, if you guys are wondering how I'm playing New Vegas, I've stolen borrowed my brother's 360. Being the oldest has its perks, kekeke.

Hey Microsoft:

My 360 finally RROD'd.

Actually, it didn't. A RROD is when 3 out of 4 of the lights on the front of the 360 are flashing red. I only have 1 flashing red light. I have the E 73 error. This error shares many common traits with the RROD, as it happens rather randomly and prevents the 360 from working at all. It can also be temporarily remedied by such dangerous fixes as 'the blanket trick' and 'the tooth-pick trick.'

There is, however, one key difference: error 73 is not covered by the extended 3-year warranty that Microsoft gave to everyone after so many RRODs occurred.

Yep. So that's a good $100 down the drain in a time when I really can't afford it if I want it fixed. Did I mention I just renewed my gold membership, too?

Recommendation: Minecraft (Game)

For those of you who haven't been in on the big 'indie darling' craze that is Minecraft, allow me to point you in the right direction. Right now you can play it free in your browser, so it's a great time to give it a try. While I myself have yet to play the game (I will soon enough), so many rabid fans can't be wrong; the word "crack" is often used to describe it.

And hey, it's only like 9 bucks.

Firefight Cheating: WTF Bungie?

Just a gripe about Halo: Reach here, but apparently you can very easily cheat in Firefight. My brother went ahead and got just about all of the achievements with his friend who showed him how. I won't say specifics, though it's no secret and isn't against the rules since it is using in-game mechanics (which makes it that much more absurd). It boggles my mind that Bungie would let that go on. The achievements are one thing, but apparently you can get quite a few of credits as well, which obviously effects the other game modes.

PATCH PLZ

Halo: Reach - First Impressions

So, Halo: Reach finally came in the mail a couple days ago. I've been playing nothing but the multiplayer as I'm waiting for my brother to get his copy of the game so we can co-op it up in Firefight and the Campaign, but I'm still quite enjoying myself. There are clearly many people who have been playing Halo since the beginning, and I've gotten my ass stomped every now and then as evidence of that. But all in all, I think I'm lucky to have this as my first real Halo experience, as it seems to be the most polished and all around content-heavy of all the games. I am content.

Though it's a bumpy transition between Modern Warfare/Battlefield and Reach. I still keep trying to melee with R3, hurr.

And as a side note, if anyone knows of a weapon locations guide/video, do share. I'm starting to memorize the locations, but a little help would be appreciated. ;P

Recommendation: Demon's Souls (Game)

I love this game. I love it so much that from the day that I bought it I racked up 60 hours of game time in only 6 days. Yep, 10 hours a day. The combat is weighted and visceral, the atmosphere is dark, and the entire experience is as unforgiving as a 'current gen' title comes. If you own a PS3, and aren't a total pansy, you owe it to yourself to check this game out.

Monday Night Lagfest

So, bearing in mind that MNC probably just lost a huge amount of its playerbase thanks to Halo: Reach, I figured I'd throw one more MNC-related blog post out there before its dead. Now, don't get me wrong, I love MNC and have spent a huge amount of time playing it, but man, there are some things in that game that really grind my gears. And I shall now commence bitching about said things--with bulletpoints!

• Lag - As you could tell from the title, I've been dealing with some rather significant latency issues as of late. I'm talking Modern Warfare 2 kind of crappy server lag, and believe me, that's bad.
  
  
• Gunners - Oh-ho, you knew this one was coming. I mean, Gunners aren't unstoppable or anything, I actually quite like making them my target as an Assault since they're so easy to it. But really, let's be honest, all you need is that minigun and your Passive and you're capable of destroying practically everything. Care to tell me what the Gunner's counter is? ...Yeah, think hard on it.
  
  
• Cheaters - From flying to the top of the arena and shooting down at people, to speed-glitching as an Assassin, I'm pretty freakin' tired of this crap.
  
  
• Overtime, And Juice In General - I think we can all agree on this one: juice is too easy to come by, and overtime is a terrible idea. It's like, "Oh hey, you've been trading blows pretty evenly for awhile now, so let's just flip a f***ing coin to decide the winner."
  

i mad

Halo: Reach + Headset = Yay!

OK so, I don't actually have Halo: Reach yet. Infact, it'll probably be a week or two before I get it (damn you Walmart shipping). But I did indeed decide to buy it. Might not seem like a big deal for most, as everyone and their dog is a fan of Halo, but truthfully, this will be my first real Halo experience. I've played the first and the second games, but only after they were way outdated, and never online. Reach will be my introduction to the competitive online play of Halo.

Though I really was unsure as to whether it was worth $60 or not. But the pre-order perk on the Walmart website (as well as Amazon) is a $20 credit, which I can trade someone for actual cash. That plus the pre-order bonus item which I will sell on Ebay for what I estimate to be maybe $10-$15, and I've managed to nab myself a brand new game for about $30, which is exactly what I did with Red Dead Redemption. Yay for being a cheap bastard! 8]

Oh yeah, and I also went ahead and got that headset I was talking about. I'll let you guys know what I think about it. Hopefully Turtle Beach is a little more trustworthy than those TRITTON sonsabitches.

Kinect: It Only Does Nothing

Those of you who keep up with gaming news should know what I'm talking about here, but doesn't it seem like the Kinect is getting more and more hopeless as we learn more about it? I just read recently that there won't be any games that utilize the nifty 'item scanning' feature, at least not anytime soon. Then there's the fact that only a handful of countries' dialects will be recognized by the speech recognition (English, Spanish, and Japanese). Oh yeah, and did I mention that it's quite possible it won't work for people who are sitting down? Yeah... that'll go over real well.

All of this topped onto the fact that most gamers were pretty critical of the device to begin with. It'd be one thing if there were some truly good games coming along with it, but so far all we've seen are Wii Sports knockoffs.

I'm calling it now: it'll be reduced to $50 within the first 5 months.

Recommendation: Indie Games

Those of you with an online Xbox 360 will have undoubtedly checked out the "Indie Game" section already. Cheap they may be in price, but even cheaper they certainly are in quality. But believe it or not, there's a few gems floating in that sea of crap, and I'm here to shine some light upon them.

Soulcaster is an oldschool-styled, 16-bit dungeon crawler where you play a summoner who, well, summons stuff. Units, to be exact. You can upgrade said units, and where you deploy them adds a level of strategy to the game. Think tower defense/dungeon crawler hybrid. Very intense, and a decent challenge. 240 Microsoft Points

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Protect Me Knight, another oldschool throwback, is similar in its strategic elements but with a much stronger emphasis on the actual characters. This game has full 4-player local co-op, with 4 different characters for people to play and upgrade. Highly fun and addictive if you have people to play with. 240 Microsoft Points

Recommendation: Scott Pilgrim (Graphic Novel/Movie)

Yeah, I know what you cynics are thinking: "Not this hipster crap again!" But seriously, Scott Pilgrim is actually quite awesome. I hear a lot of dismissing of it because it's gotten quite popular and has the label of "hipster" firmly attached to it. Honestly, I'm not sure what makes it "hipster," or what makes anything "hipster." Is it because Scott is in a band? Or because that bastard Michael Cera plays him in the movie? Neither are good examples, methinks.

Now, if you're not into that whole 'slice of life' genre, that's understandable. But if you're not too jaded to check it out, I'd highly recommend the graphic novels, and then the movie. The novels are funny, unique, and chalk full of video game references. The movie has far less substance, but has some pretty badass fight scenes, and makes a good companion-piece to the novels.

Recommendation: Monday Night Combat (Game)

Monday Night Combat on XBLA is, quite frankly, awesome. Sure, it could use some tweaking, some re-balancing in various areas (Support's Airstrike is a little absurdly good [I should know, Support is what I play]), but all in all it's a very solid game, with great, fluid gameplay, and an appealing aesthetic. Some might note that said aesthetic is "Team Fortress-like," but you would be mistaken if you were to call this a TF2-clone. It plays very differently from TF2, at the very least gameplay-wise... and that's all that matters in the end: gameplay, which is MNC's strong point.

Super Mario Beatbox

Nothing I do will ever be this awesome.