Shouzer

I finally broke down and bought Rock Band the other night.  I pretty much knew it was only a matter of time before it happened.  I’ve played it a few times, I own Guitar Hero 2, and I really like them both.  Now, obviously I wasn’t going to pay full price for this bad boy if I could help it.

Typically the game goes for $170, and sales tax up in these parts (since there’s no income tax) is near 10%, bringing the retail store total to about $187.  I looked around a bit and found that Newegg sells games.  Who knew?  They had it for $153 with three-day shipping and no tax.  Booyah.

I’ve gotta say, after playing GTA4 for a while, I’m fairly surprised at the reviews it got.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game, but it’s no 10.  I would definitely say, for instance, that I enjoyed Gears of War more.

My biggest complaint is fairly simple, actually.  The camera is horrible while you’re driving.  It’s too low (the car literally gets in the way of you seeing), and when you turn, it doesn’t follow you quickly enough.  You’re pretty much driving right while the camera is still looking straight.  These probably wouldn’t be big deals in a lot of other games, but you spend a lot of time driving in GTA, so it really gets old quick.  Ah well, it was still definitely worth the buy.

One of the things that I sometimes overlook when asked what I miss about Champaign are the last two months (or so) of last school year when Jared, Al, and I played NBA2k7 nearly every night in my room. Though it will probably never come to mind as quickly as “the restaurants,” “living on my own,” or “Illini basketball,” those games we played were every bit as enjoyable. You see, Jared became a master of the “3 Team Trade” in Association Mode, and we wound up playing with a trio of Gilbert Arenas (Jared), LeBron James (me), and Amare Stoudemire (Al). The point of playing was not to win, but to maximize our winning margin. We started out with the goal of scoring 100 (a “hundystick”), but got to where it was disappointing if we didn’t have 100 by the end of the third. I don’t know if that sounds like fun to the reader, but that doesn’t matter. It was fun.

This post obviously means nothing to anyone but Jared and Al, but it was just on my mind. I was thinking about how the NBA playoffs were coming up, and how the Jazz might face the Suns in the first round, and how that would be an awesome series to watch with those guys and then follow it up with some 2k. We could probably try to play over Xbox Live, but it just wouldn’t be the same.

Anyway, I’m just saying I really liked doing that, and I’m not going to get to this year.

Man, so I found one definite disadvantage to working at Microsoft. Xbox.com is running this contest right now giving away 20,000+ things for the GTA4 launch. Unfortunately, as a Microsoft employee, I can’t participate.

That sucks. I could go for some GTA4.

So I’ve been thinking of playing World of Warcraft. Yes, this is an idiotic notion, considering I enjoy my life. But I wanted to share a review of the game I read this morning. I wonder if this is how all your writing starts to look once you become trapped in the game…

Pros: fun, addictive, yes, its a good thing, awsome graphics, fun, realistic if we lived in a world with night elves and such,
Cons: NONE, RAN OUT OF ROOM FOR PROS, ppl have personality, there nice and you can talk to them, dis/enable language filter

“and acts as a second life.you wont need friends if youi have WoW friends, they have personality, its fun to talk to ppl cause its not all game like in runescape.you can do quests wich widly vary, unless there the first quests.if you dont like quests and just want to lvl, you can just talk to ppl, its fun, and then grind, wich is killing monsters a little lower lvl then you for max exp.there are also dungeons, with hard bosses that drop items that will make you want more,if they idnt, it be boring.the graphics are awsome, best iv ever seen, and theres alot of detail.plus, if you wanna have fun, you can just spend alot of money on beer and kegs, the screen will look wavy and move with your camera.but watch out!if you fight you will get knocked back and fall to the ground.The language filter is disablable,lol, so you can see words like ***** and know what ppl are talking about.the guilds you can stay in, be promoted, have fun, kick anoying ppl, and have guild events.if you dont like these then you can just pk, or player kill, in many of the battlegrounds, if its in an enemy city, its not a battleground, its a raid.If there was a smoker who got WoW, hed quit.remember.WoW, saving lifes everyday.and all words in cons thing arent cons…wasnt enough room for all pros.sry for riting so much.”

World of Warcraft… Better than a nicotine patch.

In my opinion, the point of a console is that every one is supposed to be the same. That way, game developers don’t have to worry about different possible configurations like they do on PC. That’s the power of a console–it’s easier to develop and optimize for.

That’s no longer the case now that there’s a 360 Premium, 360 Basic, 360 Arcade, 360 Elite, PS3 20gb, 40gb, 60gb, 80gb, etc. The different PS3s vary more than just by hard drive size, too. Some support full PS2 compability, some just a bit, and some not at all. Some have built-in WiFi, some don’t. It goes on and on.

Really, the Wii is the only console left that is a true console. There’s only one version out there. They all play the same games. They all do the same things. They all have the same hardware. Oh my, how smart…

So I’ve been playing the new Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Beta on 360 and I have to say that it is sweet! At first I wasn’t sure how much I would like the modern aspect since all previous COD games have been based in World War II era combat. But, man, I have to say that the present day setting is awesome. For you guys who haven’t maybe tried it out, go here and register for a key, it’s definitely worth it!

Right off the bat I can tell there are going to be some great features to this game that I’m going to love. First off, you can create your own classes and customize what weapons and perks you get. Some of the perks they include in the beta include being able to call in air strikes (if you get so many kills without dying), extra grenades, and one that I think is pretty cool called last stand. In some instances when you are shot, you can whip out your sidearm and use it to dispense some justice before you die. Pretty cool, I think.

There are several different multiplayer modes including team deathmatch, free-for-all, team objective and team tactical modes. Right now the beta only has three playable maps which has both advantages and disadvantages–the obvious being becoming familiar with the maps and becoming bored with the maps, respectively.

No doubt about it that when November 5 rolls around I will be purchasing my copy of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Those of you in the know–or, more appropriately, those of you who play videogames–should be aware that the Halo 3 beta dropped today. If not, wtf is wrong with you?! Geez. If you’re in this unfortunate crowd, I’m going to have to request that you slap yourself. Go on, do it. Believe me when I say you deserve it.

Now, my parents recently moved to a new house. As a result, and without going into details, I couldn’t plug my 360 in anywhere for a while. It was devastating. Microsoft actually sent me an email last night with my unlock code for the beta, which was just salt in the wounds. I sort of believe they knew I would have that issue.

Once I finally got around to playing, I got owned pretty heavily. Ah, good ‘ol Halo pwnage.

I’d be willing to challenge pretty much anybody at some 3-on-3 NBA 2k7. Al, Kyle, and I dominate that shit. We play as the Suns every game, mainly because, well, that’s how we roll.

More importantly, however, we bring our A-game every time–none of that Randy Moss shit in our house. Oh, no sir. We don’t drop the passes ala T.O.  We don’t blow pass coverage like the Bears in the Super Bowl.  We L.T. that shit.

Our A-game consists of a consistent triple double for Nash (me), double double for Marion (Kyle) with a good shot at leading scorer and stealer, and a double double from Amare (Al) which includes about 5 or 6 putbacks. We’re waiting for Albert to a 5×5, and it’s really only a matter of time. Domination.

I couldn’t let the weekend go by without mentioning the ginormous amount of karaoke that has been occurring in the apartment living room. We’re talking 10+ hours over two nights. It’s been more of an event than a gathering. I’m sure others will comment and describe the extravaganza better than I can.

A few things here. First of all, I like Dave Melillo six track album “Talk Is Cheap” quite a bit. I have to admit it’s a little frustrating that he’s three years younger than me, but I guess I should get used to that. I’m over the hill, haha.

Second on the agenda is The Shins. One of my buddies sent me a link to their new single Phantom Limb. Check it out if you’ve got a chance. I liked the song quite a bit, so I’m probably going to have to grab some of their old albums. Give it a listen if you’ve got a chance.

Now on to games. I’m a gamer, and that’s all there is to it. I love playing games. I’ve been playing Kyle’s copy of NBA 2K7 for 360 recently, and it’s great. I started a franchise with the Jazz, who I guess are more or less my NBA team now. They’ve got a couple players from the Illini of a couple years ago, and that makes them the only team I care about.

I’m also about 30 hours or so into Final Fantasy XII. I haven’t beaten it yet, but in my opinion it’s the best FF game so far. They’ve added a few new game mechanisms and have made it a fully 3d game, which is nice. If you’ve got a PS2 (or, in my case, your roommate does), I’d recommend picking it up (or, in my case, letting your roommate buy it and then play it when he’s not).

As you well know, I’m a big fan of Penny Arcade.  It’s comics like this that keep me coming back.

That pretty much sums up my day yesterday.  Well, there was some homework I did in there too, but who cares about homework?  That’s what I want to know.

I pretty much hadn’t played tennis since the middle of the summer, so I was pretty rusty when Jordy and I went out early yesterday.  Plus, we had played football on Tuesday and I was still sore from that–yes, I am that out of shape.  The heat was also cooking me a live, and we all know how much I don’t care for that.

Afterwords I went over to Alex’s for a little drinking, pizza, and videogames.  You really can’t go wrong with that combo.  We played some Madden, Halo, and Counter-Strike.  The problem was that Madden was last year’s version, and the buttons are totally fucked compared to this years.  So he beat me there.  I’m not saying playing this year’s version would have turned the tides, but it would have helped.  I can’t hate on his skills just because I’m used to something else.  Halo, needless to say, I dominated everybody at.  There shouldn’t have really been any question there.  CS we played on the same team, so he couldn’t really beat me, but he’s certainly better than me.  He plays it a lot more, though, so it makes sense.

After that Al, Jason, Jordy, Corinne, and I went out for some more tennis.  Yeah, that’s five so we just rotated.  After that we tried to play some frisbee but it was around 11pm, so it was hard to really see what was going on.  It was still pretty fun, though.

I came away from the day very tired.  I can’t believe I used to do sports on a daily basis in high school.  The simple thought of that just wears me out.

You may recall that we participated in a competition called PuzzleCrack last semester. It was a week-long ordeal with various puzzles every day of the week. The Saturday at the end of the week culminated with a big metapuzzle. Fun was had, and prizes were given away.

Well last Saturday was the first ever PuzzleCrunch, a smaller version of PuzzleCrack for the Spring semester which was hosted by Microsoft. Obviously we had to do it again. It was 6 hours long, running from 2pm to 8pm. There were 18 puzzles to solve during that time, and they involved going around to various parts of campus and finding clues.

We ended up getting 3rd of 40+ teams, so I was definitely happy with that. The top three teams go prizes. 1st place got an Xbox 360, two $100 Best Buy gift certificates, and other 360-related goodies. 2nd place got three $50 Best Buy gift certificates. 3rd place got three wireless keyboards and mice from Microsoft, which you can check out here. Plus, we got some shirts and hats. Everybody who went got some free shirts from Microsoft, pizza, soda, and candy. I certainly couldn’t complain.

In all, it was a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from the typical Saturday. I thought it was a little strange that our prizes were worth more than 2nd place, but I figure it’s probably because even if the keyboards/mice sell for $100, they’re probably not worth that much to Microsoft, who makes them. Still cool, though.

Haha. I don’t think I really need to say much more than that.