Weekend Good!

Had a really good weekend on Saturday and Sunday. I played a bunch of Gears of War 2 multi on Saturday morning, followed by registering for the baby shower at Kohls. Then we came home and took a nap. All that scanning really wore us out!

When we got up, it was all about the baby's room. We got the bed put together and stuff. It's looking really cute in there. All puppy-themed stuff. Hopefully he likes dogs. Not that he has a choice! We stayed up till like 2:30 in the morning doing stuff. Good times with the wife.

Sunday I went to Alana's house to record and play some games. The show turned out really good. Almost 2 hours! Then we played a little Gears 2 and Left 4 Dead. I think I've turned the corner on L4D, to the point that I wouldn't mind buying it. I still think it's a little light on the features, but the new Survival mode was really fun. Of course, in order for all 3 of us to play together, I have to buy a copy and be online. Still kind of chaps my ass.

I'm in the market for a copy of Wolverine for the Xbox 360. Just waiting to find a sale or used copy. I'm not paying $60. It's against my religion.

Gears of War 2: Really?!

I've been blasting my way though the Gears of War 2 campaign since I gave up on Dead Space. Gameplay wise, it's a great game. Really scratches that need to shoot stuff until it dies. Unfortunately, all the reports of the dialog and story being really cheesy are true. There are more groan inducing lines of dialog than in a season of Smallville and One Tree Hill combined.

At one point, the guy that drives that big rig named Bettie says something like "Let's light up Bettie's titties." Really?

Spoiler alert, by the way.

So, yesterday I get to the part where the giant worm eats the King Raven helicopter I'm in. And I'm inside the damn worm. This is by far the stupidest level of a game I've ever played. It's stupid because we're supposed to believe that somehow these guys survived. Not only that, but they can actually find the heart and kill the worm.

I think it's Dom that actually states "This looks like the sternum." Really?! How the fuck do you possibly know that?!

I'm glad to be passed this part, honestly. I knew it was coming because I've listened to enough podcasts and I don't generally avoid spoilers. I also knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea.

I did get lulz when Carmine died, tho.

After all that, Alana and Kenneth helped me finish off Horde mode. Good times...

A Weekend of Stuff

It was a nice weekend off for us. Well, I say us. Rhea had to work on Saturday, of course, but she's off today thanks to MLK. That's not really fair and I'm very upset about it. lol!

We watched Righteous Kill and The House Bunny this weekend. House Bunny was pretty funny. I liked it. Righteous Kill was decent if you don't mind watching Al Pacino's face age right before your eyes.

I took the girls over to my parent's house and wore their asses out yesterday. It's always funny when we get home because they just pass out. You wouldn't even know we had dogs except for Buffy's snoring.

I submitted a stupid song to the GameHounds podcast. It's kinda gay but funny. Not like me at all.

I also had a thought this weekend. How about a mod in Gears of War 2's horde mode called Whore Mode. Basically, it's never ending waves of coked up hookers coming at you with their handbags and pepper spray. Cliffy, are you taking notes?

For The Horde!

Alana, Kenneth, and I played whor...I mean horde mode in Gears 2 last night. Made it to level 35 and called it a night. I really like being able to take pictures in the game, even though you have to die in order to do it. Then you're not even in the shots! But, it's not that big of a deal since you just look like one of the characters and don't have customizable armor like in Halo 3.

I still haven't figured out how Gears scores your pictures. My highest scoring pic is pretty crappy, but my lower scoring one (below) is more highly rated by people.

Missing Game Requirements

I was able to go to Alana's house and play some Gears 2 yesterday. Horde mode is fun and frustrating. I liked it a lot, but I probably won't be getting it until at least Christmas.

One thing we did notice when we sat down to play was the 2-player limit on co-op play. The game won't even let you have a third gamertag signed in. It warns you that you can't have more than 2 tags signed in and you have to sign the third one out to even continue. Bullshit.

The fact that there is no 4-player split screen in Gears 2 made me think of some of the other games that have glaring omissions. Features that should be required in all games this generation.

The first game to come to mind that was missing a required feature is Call of Duty 4. The first time the three of us tried to play some online deathmatches, we realized that two people can't play online on the same Xbox 360. WTF?! It boggles my mind that Halo 2 on the original Xbox featured 4-player split screen over Xbox Live, yet Call of Duty 4 limited you to one player per box. Ridiculous!

Another game that I've really been a hater of is Burnout Paradise. Now, I've been playing it on the PS3 and I have to take back a lot of the hate I've spewed about the game. That being said, I still hate the fact that you can't automatically re-start an event or jump to races. It's obviously a concious decision by the developer, but at what point do you just give us what we want? It's really the only thing holding this game back from greatness, in my opinion.

And, of course, the afformentioned Gears of War 2. I cannot get over the fact that a AAA title like Gears can't manage to include 4-player horde mode on the same console. We have had four player split screen since the N64 days. Yes, it wasn't co-op, but it still worked just fine. And if that's not enough, Halo 2 and 3 has 4-player split screen with zero issues.

I really think that these missing features boil down to nothing more than developer decisions. Basically, it's not an issue of console power or coding prowess. The devs made the decision to not put these features in the game. In the case of CoD4 and Gears 2, it smacks of the dev wanting you to go out and buy another console and another copy of the game if you want to play with more than one or two people in the same place.

What really hits this home for me is the fact that Forza 2 came with a mode that allowed you to to use three screens, three Xbox 360's, and three copies of the game to play across the three screens. Maybe .001% of people will ever use this feature, but it's there.

So, tell me again why Gears 2 doesn't have 4-player split screen?

Back To The Funny

I took a couple days off from my last post because I didn't really have much to say. Well, that's not exactly true. I typed up a little something yesterday about some political stuff, but decided to just leave it unpublished. I'm going to get back to funny Gemini, not asshole Gemini. Although some would say that funny Gemini is a myth, much like the female g-spot. And you know what? That hurts a little.

We worked at Kohl's last night. I came across a sweet Gears of War hat. I think I'm gonna get it.

We have a new girl up there lately. She is an interesting chick. And I use the term chick loosely. Seriously, I'm not a fashionista. My idea of hot apparel is basketball shorts and a t-shirt with Spider-Man on it. But, some people just have zero ability to dress themselves in any sort of style that relates to their gender or age.

Basically, the two times she's worked, she's worn men's jeans and a t-shirt with a wolf or tiger on it. Very 50-year old lesbian-ish. I mean, to own those type of shirts you either have to be in like 6th grade or in a committed, sexless relationship with a jean-shorts wearing lesbian. There's not really any middle ground there.

The funny thing is, she had moved away with this guy she was in love with. That begs the question, what does this guy look like?! I mean, you have to be a pretty dorky guy to look at the giant tiger t-shirt and Levi's and go, "I'd hit it".

But, I don't mean to be a hater. Some people just don't know. Anybody that looks at me probably thinks the same thing.

Gears of War Event

I went to one of my local Gamestops last night for the Gears after hours event. I actually went to two Gamestops, but the first one wasn't holding the tournament because nobody had signed up. So, I ran to another one that was right down the road and got in.

First, we watched the video hosted by Cliffy B. It was maybe two minutes long. There was some cool looking gameplay shown, but not a lot obviously. Cliffy said that you would be fighting on the highest peak of Sera to the lowest...area. Something like that. It was over so quick I barely remember.

The GS manager told us later that the video was "defective" and that it should have been an hour and a half long. I don't really know if I believe that. The video we watched during the first event wasn't that long. Not sure they would produce an hour and a half of video for this little event, but whatever.

So, then they got our names and started up the "tournament". It was basically one round, 1 vs 1, on Gridlock. They removed all the power weapons so nobody could "get lucky with the boomshot". I was knocked out the first round, which wasn't a huge surprise to me. It was a close match, though. It ended up with us at very close range using shotguns on each other. Both of our screens were bloody. He just happened to get a lucky shot.

By the way, we had to play on the Xbox 360 kiosk machine and the little LCD display on split screen. And we watched Cliffy's video on what I think was a 13" CRT. Very nice!

I did get a t-shirt out of the deal, so I'm happy.

Gears of War 2

The teaser trailer for Gears 2 is out and it's bad ass!