Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Mario Kart Wii

I traded in a few games at Gamestop on Sunday in order to get my hands on Mario Kart Wii. I know, Gamestop is the devil, but the games didn't sell on eBay and I wasn't willing to wait to start racing. They did give me $15 for the games, which is more than I expected. It doesn't matter, because in the end it's all about Mario!

I didn't play Mario Kart DS much online. I played the Wii version online last night and pretty much got my ass handed to me in every race. I came in 2nd once, but that's the best I could do. Not that I'm complaining. It was a ton of fun. I did get a little frustrated at times, but it wasn't because of the game or controls. Just my unfamiliarity with the new courses.

Rhea and I played on Sunday night in some VS. races. I love playing with her because she cusses like a sailor when she's playing. It's probably a good thing there isn't voice chat in the game because both of us get pretty raunchy. There's a lot of "fucking Baby Mario!" and "Shit!" and "Oh, that's nice, I fell off!". The last one isn't that bad, but it's always punctuated by "fuck!".

The cool thing is when you're first connecting. I always chose regional races, so it showed a big map of the U.S. and it would pop up people's Mii's on the map where they are located. It was a cool feature I wouldn't mind seeing on Xbox LIVE. Maybe Nintendo has some online game after all.

The friend code thing is another story altogether. I got messages from some of my buddies, but it was just a note with their friend code in it. I couldn't say accept or anything to automatically add them. I had to write the number down, boot up the game, then add them. Pain in the ass!

Overall I'm super happy with the game. I'm especially happy that I threw some money at Nintendo instead of at Rockstar for GTAIV. Vote with your wallet, I say.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Hornet Takedown

I continue to love jumpcut.com.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Circuit City Legendary Map Pack A-Go-Go

Last Tuesday, X3F broke the news that, if you pre-order Ninja Gaiden 2 from Circuit City, you get the new Legendary Map pack for Halo 3 for free. Now, I'm always up for getting something free, especially if it means screwing "the man". So, on Tuesday evening, Rhea and I headed up to our local Circuit City.

We got there and looked around a few minutes before we headed up to the registers to take care of business. We walked up to the faux hawked gay guy at the register and asked about the game. First he wanted to know how to spell Ninja. I spelled it. I also went ahead and spelled Gaiden. He couldn't find it, so Rhea and I looked at the screen to see he had spelled Nina Guyden. Ooooookay...

I corrected him and he finally found the pre-order. He told me to swipe my card, so I asked him about the map pack. He found on the site where it told about the free deal. Then he told me that it was only available online. It's at this point I decided to take myself up to the customer service desk for some real help. I don't trust guys with faux hawks. Especially when it comes to my games. And especially if you can't spell ninja. Everyone should know how to spell ninja.

The customer service chick told me the same thing. It's only available online. I was noticeably irritated and used phrases like "this is ridiculous" and "glad we drove all the way up here". We went home and I got online.

I started to do the pre-order, but it looked like the site was going to charge me full price for the game instead of the $5. I called their handy dandy 1-800 number and talked to a lady. It turns out that you don't get charged until the game ships. Sweet!

I did the pre-order and the wait began. Then, to my delight, the code for the map pack was delivered to my e-mail address as promised! My next step is to cancel the pre-order. I'm going to wait a couple weeks so as not to arouse their suspicions. I'll call and use some line like "I decided I wanted to get something else" or "my family was killed by ninjas so I'm going to go in a different direction".

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Why I'm Not Buying GTAIV

With the release date of Grand Theft Auto IV quickly approaching, the internet is filled with information, speculation, and hype. Avoiding it is like trying to avoid the Halo 3 hype last year. Not possible.

A little background on my experience with the GTA series. I bought the double-pack of GTA3 and Vice City back when it came out on the original Xbox. I played a bunch of GTA3, although I only did probably 2 missions. I only played Vice City once.

I mainly played GTA3 with cheat codes. I would give myself a tank and go on a rampage. Rinse. Repeat. Yawn.

When the whole hot coffee thing happened, I realized how Rockstar does business. They use the controversy to sell their games. Not that this was a big revelation to anyone else, but it just brought it into sharp focus for me. It doesn't matter how much damage they do to the industry, as long as they sell games.

Anytime the industry is attacked by outsiders such as congressman or lawyers, GTA is always the title that's brought up. Not once have I ever heard them decry a Mario Bros game or hurl insults at the latest Madden.

Now, I'm not speaking out against violence in video games or anything like that. I love my Halo, Crackdown, and Gears of War. But the hype that surrounds these games is not because they're "destroying our youth", but because they're monuments in the industry. They have merits that elevate them above just being about mindless violence.

The bottom line is this. I'm not buying GTAIV because it supports a developer that creates games that are detrimental to the industry at large. They bring unnecessary attention to our favorite pastime if for nothing more than to make a buck. I'm not going to give my money to a company like that.

If I buy a game on April 29th, it'll be Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Guitar Hero 3 And Stuff

I played a bunch of Guitar Hero 3 tonight. I made it all the way to Knights of Cydonia before failing a song. Well, that's not entirely true. I had to play the Slash boss battle like 8 times, but that doesn't count, right?

I really don't like the guitar battles in the game. I had to make him fail before the end of the song, and I would always be higher on the rock meter than he was. Then my notes would end and he would just rock out and drain my meter. Talk about frustrating!

I also heard that Flickr is starting to let you upload videos. People are complaining that they don't want videos on their picture site, and I would tend to agree. Not because I don't like videos, but more because there's already a site that lets you upload videos called YouTube. Maybe you've heard of it.

It also doesn't make sense to me that Yahoo apparently owns JumpCut.com, which is all about videos. So why integrate it into Flickr? I don't get it.

That brings up another question. Why aren't more people using JumpCut? I've been making videos and it's pretty fun and addicting. I've searched for more Halo 3 videos and found very little. And nothing recent except my stuff. It's really wierd.

Anyway, I just want to say that Baylee is cute!
Baylee face

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Grifball FTW!

We played a shit-ton of Grifball last night thanks to the double XP weekend that Bungie put on. The game is a lot of fun and the medals flow like cold beer from the tap. I actually got my first killtacular playing Grifball. I also got an extermination medal, but I can't find that film. I really wish they would add some more information to each saved film. The date and time is fine, but that really tells me nothing when it comes to medals or even number of kills. When you play 50+ games in one sitting, they tend to all look alike in the Theater.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Our New Pup!


In Bed
Originally uploaded by Gemini Ace
Rhea brought home a new addition to our household yesterday. Her name is Baylee and she's a Chihuahua. She's 7 weeks old and adorable!

Winner (in my pants)!

I listened to The10k.com Zunecast yesterday after a twitter buddy named Assassinated gave me a heads up. They relaunched the site a little while back and held a contest to celebrate. I entered it (as I do with all contests), and I won! Runner up, baby!

The prizes include:
  • Xbox 360 Games: (1) PopCap Arcade Vol.1
  • PC Games: (1) BookWorm: Adventures
  • Shwag: (1) Signed Call of Duty 4 Poster (signed by entire Infinity Ward Staff), (1) Frontlines: Fuel of War T-shirt
This is pretty cool considering I've entered contests on X3F and countless other sites and never won anything.

Thanks, Rodsmack and everyone at The10k.com. You rock!