JCBains Blog

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

2008-09-21T10:24:00.023-05:00

So much for not buying this game this month. Last week I was sitting at the computer and my son asked me when that new Star Wars game that had the demo was coming out. I said this week but I had changed my mind about buying it after playing the demo. He just kind of looked at me and said "oh." and then turned around and walked off.

Then I quietly said to myself well shit now there's another $60 gone that I wasn't planning on spending. So after he successfully gave me a guilt trip I went and picked it up Tuesday night after work. We now have a shiny new copy of The Force Unleashed that will from here on out be referred to as SWTFU.

SWTFU puts you in the role of Darth Vader's apprentice. Vader gives you the task of hoping from planet to planet hunting the last of the Jedi. The game play is great. It is a blast having these awesome force powers that you get to unleash on anything and everything that gets in your way. Though the targeting leaves much to be desired, which leads me to my biggest question in the this game. Why if there is only one other freakin' person on the screen besides me can I not lock on to him? It's possible, it works about one out of every 100 times but you'd think it'd be something that would be rather easy to notice. The targeting is a glaring flaw that at points makes the game impossibly hard. There are also some RPG type elements to leveling up your character but they are kind of generic and I thought they could do better.

But onto the good. The graphics and sound are good not great, there are definitely games out there that are better in those departments but there are also a lot more games that are worse. The story is great. It may be the best Star Wars story to come along in decades. It fills in some of the void between episodes 3 and 4 very nicely.

If you are looking for easy achievements you should look else where. I got around 600 points on my first play through, playing on the hardest difficulty that is available at the beginning of the game. There where a few very frustrating parts. By the look of things it appears that I will have to play through two more times and one of those times will have to be on the hardest difficulty level which unlocks after your first play through. I think I am going to wait on that hardest difficulty for a little while though because the one I played was hard enough.

Overall it is an enjoyable game but not really worth the $60. It's more suited for a weekend rental. I would give it a 7 out of 10.

Timeshift

2008-09-21T09:57:00.011-05:00

I had a hell of a time getting Timeshift from Gamefly. The first copy got lost in the mail and I had to wait on them to send me another. It annoyed me little that I went without a game for almost two weeks while I am still paying them. Oh well, it's the first real hiccup I have had with them. But anyway back to the subject at hand - Timeshift.

Timeshift is a first person shooter in which the hero is tasked with traveling time to alter the future. The game draws very heavily from the Half Life series. You'll notice it in the hero that never talks, the puzzle solving, the enemies you encounter and especially in the weapons you come across.

What sets this game apart from the other million or so shooters available for the 360 is that while you are playing the game you are able to slow down, stop and even reverse time. This makes things rather interesting as you are given free reign to run around while while everyone else is either frozen or moving ever so slowly. You would think that this feature would cause the game to be to easy and it does. The developer limits the length of the pause/stoppage but you can pause time shoot a couple of guys, take cover and wait for the meter to refill and then do it all over again. This makes the game pretty easy on even the hardest difficulty level.

The graphics are really nice, the sound is good and the controls are tight, the story is just just o.k. Overall the game was pretty enjoyable. I wish I could have played some games online but there is absolutely no one playing this online. So I didn't even get to try it out. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to pick it up cheap and try to organize an online event. Based on the single player alone I would give this a 7 out of 10. But it doesn't really have much replay value.

The achievements, if you are looking for games to get achievements out of you can get 520 on a single play through on the hardest difficulty. If you're looking for anymore points than that out of this good luck. Unless you have a couple of other friends that have this as well it just isn't going to happen.

2008 Football season

2008-09-06T08:30:00.003-05:00

With the NFL season officially underway and the first full day of games scheduled for tomorrow I thought I would throw out my 2 cents about the Dolphins.

This years team is much improved, seriously though how can it not be after only winning 1 game all of last year. I'm happy with the way they look so far and I think they'll win 6 or 7 games this year. I think they'll get their first win tomorrow. Not because they're better than the Jets, but because I think Brett Farve is going to have a rough first game with the Jets and will have several turnovers that could lead to Miami winning a close one.

What I'm buying in September

2008-09-06T08:25:00.005-05:00

It looks to be another easy month on my wallet. I had originally planned ot buy Star Ware the Force Unleashed, but after playing the demo I think I'll just rent it now.

The only game I will be picking up this month is Rock Band 2. I had planned to wait until the bundle was available next month but I think I'm going to pick up the Guitar Hero: World Tour Instead. I really prefer the Guitar Hero contoller to Rock Bands. GH's drums look alot better as well.

What I'm buying in August

2008-08-08T16:47:00.004-05:00

After buying five games last month, I caved and bought Unreal Tournament 3, this month will be alot easier on my wallet. This is the month Madden 09 is released. After the last couple of dissapointing versions of Madden I was considering sitting out and not buying it for the first time in over ten years. But last week a demo was put up on the marketplace. I played it and fell in love again. Madden 09 looks to be the first major upgrade in the franchise in years. The graphics are stunning and the controls feel tight. It also features the first "Adaptable AI" which adjusts to how good you are at the game.

I'll be picking up the collector's edition which also features NFL Head Coach 09 for an extra $30. Not to bad I've paid more for collecter's editions that had less, though I don't think that's a good thing.

Review - Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal

2008-07-22T15:33:00.004-05:00

I usually try to make every other game on my Gamefly que something that my kids would enjoy. This time it was Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal and while I thought my kids would enjoy it, they proved me wrong.

I know that in the title of this post the first word I used was "Review" but after thinking about it a little more maybe I should have substituted the word "Warning". This game is not good. The sole charm of this game lies in the Looney Tunes characters, who really are just great cartoon characters from my youth that are trapped in a horrible game. The levels are bland, the controls are clunky and the camera is just horrible. While most platform/action games seem to have some kind of problem with the camera this is the first one that actually gave me motion sickness.

I have said all I really want or care to say about this game. I love Looney Tunes, it is still to this day one of my favorite cartoon franchises. But this game is just another horrible game created with the Looney Tunes license. I am sure you can probably find this game on clearance shelves for around $20 by now but I assure you it is not worth. It was so bad that I didn't even try to get the rest of the achievement points out of it. I would give it a 3 out of 10.

Photos Added

2008-07-08T08:12:00.000-05:00

I added photos form the LMB get together. They're in the photo album on the right hand side. I will be adding more pictures as I get time today and once that's all done I will be adding tags to them so everyone knows who is who.

What I'm buying this month

2008-07-07T07:53:00.000-05:00

Each month I buy a game or two but this month looks like it's going to hit my wallet a little harder than most as it looks like I'll be picking up at least four games this month and two are over the normal $60 price tag.

Rock Band Although Rock Band came out over six months ago I picked it up this month after playing it at the LMB Gathering. Awesome game, great family and really good music. I had to buy this as I already bought almost $50 worth of extra music.

Guitar Hero - Aerosmith I needed an extra guitar for Rock Band and since this was the newest Guitar Hero, I picked it up. The game itself is alright but I prefer the game play of Rock Band.

I like Aerosmith's music but I wouldn't exactly say I am a huge fan. I would recomend to anyone interested that you be a fan of Aerosmith because the rest of the music just isn't that great.

Civilization Revolutions I love the Civilization series. I was first introduced to it on the PS1 and I then picked up Civilization 3 for the PC and played the crap out of it. I skipped Civilization 4 mainly because I was so into my 360 but now here comes a Civilization game for the 360. I played the demo and loved it and I'll be picking this up on Wednesday.

NCAA Football 09 This is the best football game that EA makes. I buy this every year and love it. This years version promises to be even better. Don't they say that every year? But this year NCAA 09 features online Dynasties for the first time. It's going to be awesome to play Dynasty mode online with friends.

I also thought about picking up Unreal Tournament III but I think I'll take a pass on this one. I think I have enough shooters for now. I may pick this one up after the price drops on it some. And that will be the damage for this month. It looks to only get even worse the next couple of months as more and more high quality games look to be coming out.

Clan LMB Gathering

2008-07-03T15:37:00.000-05:00

I belong to an online community called Geezer Gamers.com. In that community I belong to a Clan called LMB. Clan LMB is a group of about thirty adults spread across the United States that play games together over XBOX Live. Two years ago we decided to all meet together face to face in San Antonio. It went really well and we wanted to start getting together every year. We have now however decided to start meeting once every two years since it's easier to plan and in hopes of getting bigger turn outs.

This past weekend marked the second LMB Gathering. This years gathering was held in Missouri. Mudhog and I hosted the festivities on Friday and on Saturday we all spent the day in St. Louis.

Thursday night marked the start of the gathering as Lt Dan showed up at Mudhog's house that evening. They then showed up at my house to drop of Rock Band and accessories and to B.S. a little while.

Friday morning Yukon and Versa showed up at my house, followed about an hour later by theCreech and his wife. Mudhog and Dan drove to St. Louis to pick up Ronin , Papa Oneal and his wife who flew in Friday afternoon. We had lunch that afternoon and played Rock Band with my kids until Mudhog and Dan returned from St. Louis with our other guests.

Once everyone arrived we sat around and talked for a while and then I fired up the grill and we a little barbque. After that we all went to the basement for some Rock Band. Good times were had by all as we cycled players in and out playing different instruments and singing. I even sang a stirring rendition of Glados' Still Alive much to the amusement of everyone in attendance. About midnight the party broke up and some of us played some Scene it! LCA.

Saturday morning we all met for the 1 and a half hour drive to St. Louis and on the way stopped at Denny's for breakfast. We then went to Grant's Farm and took a private tour of the grounds were we got to tour Grant's cabin and feed some of the deer and elk. Once the private tour was over we met Medic8er and his family and we then went through and looked at the rest of the animals and spent an hour or so in the beer garden where we ate drank and a few people got some airbrush tattoos. We then left to visit the Arch. We spent a couple of hours touring the museum and then rode to the top to experience the awesome view of St. Louis. We then went to Dave and Busters for diner and then returned to my house where we sat around, talked and played a little Rock Band and Scene it. Dan left first thing Sunday morning while the rest of us went to The Cracker Barrell for breakfast. We then returned to my house where we sat around for awhile until everyone else left about noon.

It was a great weekend that went by entirely to fast. We all had a great time and looking to do it again in two years. We are hoping that we'll get more of the clan to attend next time. We haven't decided on a destination for next time but we're considering going West.

Rock Band

2008-07-03T11:14:00.000-05:00

The rythym/ music game phenomenom has mostly passed me by. I know they're there but the games never grabbed me as something that I absolutely had to play or must have.

Well this past weekend we had our Clan LMB gathering (more on that later) at my house and the entertainment of choice was Rock Band. Mudhog brought Rock Band and all the instruments to my house Thursday evening ahead of everyone arriving on Friday. Well Friday morning I was immediatly and the constantly hounded by my children to let them play. I finally caved and we started playing, what a blast. I was immediatly hooked. Mud was nice neough to leave Rock Band at my house for a few more days and the kids have been playing non stop.

I will definetly be picking this up this month and I can not recommend it enough. This a great family game and it happens to be the only game in my house that my kids are better at than I am and I think that is great. While Rock Band does have have some minor faults most people aren't going to notice them.

Samsung Rocks

2008-04-05T13:14:00.001-05:00

So I wrote about my TV but now that I've got to use it how is it. The TV I got was a 61" Samsung 1080p LED DLP. The TV I had a was a RCA 50" 720p DLP.

I have an XBOX 360 Elite hooked up via HDMI and a Sony DVD player hooked up via component cables. I had the same set-up on both TVs. The picture on the RCA was really good but it wasn't in 1080p. The picture on the Samsung is absolutely unbelievable and may burn your retina because it's so bright.

The Samsung was very easy to set up, the remote functions are intuitive and clearly labeled and with no help from the manual I was watching TV in a matter of minutes. I did later have to refer to the manual to figure out how to get the picture in picture to work but it really wasn't that big a deal.

The picture is absolutely amazing. I have never seen a picture that looks so good. I can not believe the difference between my previous set and this one. I understand that 1080p is supposed to be better than 720p but I didn't expect what I saw. The Samsung overall is just awesome and while it carries a high price tag for a DLP I think it is worth every penny.

Thank you Best Buy

2008-04-03T12:47:00.000-05:00

I had a 50" RCA DLP HDTV that I bought from Best Buy about tree years ago. I really liked the tv but it had several problems. The one that annoyed me the most is that when I would play a game or watch a movie on it, it would sometime lose the signal from the inputs. This was very annoying. When I bought the TV I paid the $400 for an 4 year warranty. This would prove to be one of my smartest purchases ever.

I called Best Buy and they sent a couple of Geek Squad guys to the house. They diagnosed the problem and ordered parts. The next week I received a phone call letting me know the status of my parts, which was that they didn't have them yet. This continues for several weeks, I would get a phone calling saying something like "We are hoping to have the parts from the manufacturer next week".

Well, one day about two weeks ago I received a voice mail from a Geek Squad guy. So I called him back. He said "I have a confirmation number for you". My response was a big fat WTF? He then informed me the Best Buy has a policy that if an item is under warranty and it takes so many days to receive the parts/fix the problem that they replace the item.

FUCKING AWESOME! Best Buy FTW!

So he gave me the number and I wrote it down and the wife and I headed to Best Buy. I was informed when I got to Best Buy that I was not entitled to what I paid for the tv (which is to bad because the damn thing cost $2600) but that I was entitled to a similar item. I thought this meant that I was going to have to fight for the tv I wanted. The guy at the counter then took me to the tvs and turned me over to the salesman in that department, he was busy so he left me to look until he finished with another customer. I wanted another DLP and nothing else and when I started looking they only had about half a dozen DLP TVs. I immediately feel in love with a Samsung 61" 1080p LED DLP TV. It was really sharp looking and the picture was comparable to what I had. It cost around $2400. When I started talking to the tv guy I pointed out the Samsung that I wanted and he compared prices and said "We can get you that one" so I hurridly set out to get the paper work finished and buy a new warranty and get the hell out before someone changed their mind. I was got everything done and was told it would be delivered on the 2nd.

The delivery guy showed up at 9:30 that morning left me brand spanking new tv and left with the old one. So for $400 (the price of my new warranty) I got to upgrade my tv to the newest DLP technology on the market. Very freaking cool and thanks Best Buy.

ESPN MLG Top 10

2008-03-22T09:18:00.001-05:00

The second installment of the ESPN MLG top 10 plays of Halo 3.

NL West Prediction

2008-03-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

The National League West looks to be the most competitive division in the National League this year. The Rockies went to the World Series last year and the Diamondbacks won the division. They both look to be even better this year along with the Dodgers and don’t forget about the Padres either. This year however I don’t think the division will be near as close. I think that the Diamondbacks will win the division again this year and shortly after the All-Star break they will start pulling away from the Dodgers who will finish second. The Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres will battle for third and the Giants can look forward to having a higher draft pick than either the Royals or the Pirates.

They finish in this order
1.Diamondbacks
2.Dodgers
3.Padres
4.Rockies
5.Giants

NL Central Predictions

2008-03-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

Now to my favorite teams' division, the National League Central. I hate it when “experts” select the Cubs as the division winner because I always view it as a jinx. It always seems that when the team has high expectations they seem to play with a heavy burden on their shoulders through out the whole season. However, this will not prevent me from predicting that the Cubs will win the NL central this year. I think that the Cardinals will have a substantial drop off. The Reds will be better than expected fighting the Astros for third, and the Brewers will be good, maybe even better than last year but the will still finish second to the Cubs. Maybe this year as opposed to the previous 100 years the Cubs will win the World Series.

No, I did not just predict the Cubs will win the World Series. I don’t think they really have much of a chance to pull that off this year, though it would be nice.

Cubs Win, Cubs Win

1.Cubs

2.Brewers

3.Reds

4.Astros

5.Cardinals

6.Pirates

NL East Prediction

2008-03-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

The National League East hasn’t changed a whole lot if you don’t count the Mets adding the best pitcher in baseball to their team. As if that wasn’t enough they also have Pedro Martinez healthy this year after he only pitched a couple of games all of last year. So what this means is bad new for Atlanta who really shouldn’t be much better than third place in their division and the Phillies who figure to finish second are going to find it much harder to take over the top spot in the East this year. I do think that the Phillies will get into the playoffs as the National League wild card team. But I don’t really expect them to make any noise once they get into the playoffs.

The predicted order of finish

1.Mets

2.Phillies

3.Braves

4.Nationals

5.Marlins

AL West Prediction

2008-03-13T14:32:00.000-05:00

The American League West is yet again an example of a two horse race. The Mariners are hoping to keep it interesting and give the Angels some stronger competition this year. The Angels made two key off season moves acquiring Jon Garland and Torii Hunter. The Mariners made their counter move by acquiring pitcher Erik Bedard from the Orioles. Mean while the A’s and Rangers didn’t do enough to remain competitive.

In the end I think the Angels win the division as they pull away down the stretch. Though I don’t think they’ll make much noise in the playoffs.

They finish

1. Angels

2. Mariners

3. Atheletics

4. Rangers

AL Central Prediction

2008-03-10T16:29:00.000-05:00

The American League Central is widely regarded as the toughest division in baseball. It deserves the recognition as such because the Central features four teams that are capable of making the playoffs. I don’t think that is really the case this year though as I think Detroit and Cleveland will be the only two left standing this year as Chicago and Minnesota just aren’t as good as they’ve been in the past. Although Chicago has tried hard to make over their team, I don’t think they did enough to remain competitive with the Tigers and Indians. Minnesota is still getting rid of it’s best players every off season with this year featuring them getting rid of the best pitcher in baseball and one of the best defensive center fielders in the game.

The additions of Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers will be just enough to push the Tigers past the Indians and maybe all the way to a World Series title. But I believe the Indians will make the playoffs as the wild card team so they’ll have a chance to get some revenge if they get the chance to play the Tigers again in the Playoffs.

The final standings -
1. Tigers
2. Indians
3. White Sox
4. Twins
5. Royals

AL East Prediction

2008-03-07T14:52:00.000-06:00

I picked up my copy of MLB2K8 Tuesday evening and spent the last couple of days playing it. I am now anticipating the start of the Major League Baseball season even more than I previously was. So I thought that while I wait for the season to start I would predict each of the races in the six divisions in MLB. I do this every year and I am usually wrong, I just never write it down. This year I thought I'd be different.

So I'll start with the AL East where I think Boston still has one of the best three teams in all of Baseball and will win their division along with making a strong push to repeat as World Series champs. I think that Toronto will finish in second place if they can stay away from the injuries that haunted them last year. Most people would probably put the Yankees second but even though I like Joe Girardi I still think their pitching is suspect. But they'll manage to stay close to the Blue Jays. The Orioles and Rays are clearly rebuilding as they have been for the last couple of years.

So it plays out like this.

1. Boston
2. Toronto
3. New York
4. Tampa Bay
5. Baltimore

Iron Man Preview III

2008-03-05T15:05:00.000-06:00

Here is the third trailer released for the upcoming Iron Movie. I can't help but get excited. I can't wait to check it out on May 2.

The Offseason

2008-03-01T14:40:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted anything about the Dolphins in a while and there is a lot that has gone on. So I thought I would post a recap of what has happened so far. It's good to see the team go through such a giant overhaul, so far I am pretty happy with the moves with two exceptions. The first being the release of Zach Thomas, it was probably the right decision but I would like to think that he can still play. I guess we'll see what he can do for the Cowboys next year. The second move being I would've liked them to sign a couple of free agents in the secondary. They really need secondary help and they haven't gotten any stronger there. But overall they look like they are heading in the right direction.

Released
Joe Toledo (T)
Marion Dukes (T)
Marquay Love (DT)
Anthony Bryant (DT)
Anthony Alabi (T)
Keith Traylor (DT)
Trent Green (QB)
L.J. Shelton (T)
Marty Booker (WR)
Zach Thomas (LB)

Signed
Joey Thomas (CB)
David Kircus (WR)
Josh McCown (QB) signed/unrestricted free agent (two-year contract)
Justin Smiley (G) signed/unrestricted free agent (five-year contract)
Randy Starks (DT) signed/unrestricted free agent (five-year contract)
Ernest Wilford (WR) signed/unrestricted free agent (four-year contract)
Sean Ryan (TE) signed/unrestricted free agent (one-year contract)
Reggie Torbor (LB) signed/unrestricted free agent
Charlie Anderson (LB) signed/unrestricted free agent
Yeremiah Bell (S) re-signed/unrestricted free agent (one-year contract)
Michael Lehan (CB) re-signed/unrestricted free agent (four-year contract)

Traded for
Jason Ferguson (DT) traded (for 2008 & 2009 6th-round draft picks)

Declared Free Agent - no longer with the team
Samkon Gado (RB)
Jesse Chatman (RB)
Donnie Spragan (LB)
Travares Tillman (S)
Chase Page (DT)
Rex Hadnot (C)
Derrick Pope (LB)
Cleo Lemon (QB)
Gene Mruczkowski (G)
Cory Lekkerkerker (T)
Lance Schulters (S)
Chris Liwienski (G)
Mike Rosenthal (T)

ESPN's MLG Top 10

2008-02-23T10:03:00.000-06:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-02-22T17:05:00.001-06:00

The trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie debuted last week and it looks pretty awesome. I like how it appears that they used set pieces and backgrounds from the Raiders of the lost ark.

Mass Effect Review

2008-02-10T16:42:00.000-06:00

I am not real sure why, but the pre release hype for Mass Effect just kind of completely failed to get my attention. It wasn’t a game that I thought I absolutely had to have and even while people were singing it’s praises after it’s release I still didn’t see the need to go pick it up. As luck would have it I had just finished my second play through of Bioshock (which is a completely awesome game) and was looking to turn to something else. Well, during my daily browsing of the GeezerGamers.com forums I came across someone looking to trade Bioshock for Mass Effect. So I figured what the hell.

I received Mass Effect in the mail and it sat on the shelf for a couple of days before I got to it. However once I put the disk in the tray of my 360, Mass Effect quickly became an obsession of mine. I played it non stop for two weeks, only taking a break in the evenings to play Halo 3 with my clan mates.

Once you begin Mass Effect you are given a very robust set of character customization options. Complete with face customization, sex, class and skills. My character was then ceremoniously dumped onto the space ship Normandy. After a short introduction to the Capitan of the Normandy and a couple of crew members I found myself on my first planet. Mass Effect is a RPG but plays like a third person action game and is very similar to the Knights of the Old Republic also from Bioware. I did not fully understand everything that I could do in combat however until close to the end of my first play through and once I started to figure it all out the game became a lot easier. After the events on the first planet I was then back in the on the Normandy and on my way to the citadel at which point I would become a “Specter” and was given my mission to stop the bad guy as well as given control of my own ship. I was then on my own to cruise the galaxy and this is where Mass Effect really opened up.

Like most RPGs there are a ton of side quests and extra things to do. Several quests that you do along the way lead you to a total of six different team members of which you can have any two in your party any time you are on a planet. You team is made up of several different alien races that each have special abilities and powers that help you in many different ways. Mass Effect has a lot of replay ability with the different character customizations and different party members. Mass Effect takes about 30 hours or so to play through the first time but you’ll definitely want to play it through more than once. I played it through to the end six times.

Mass Effect is a “Space Opera” with an entire galaxy and back story that rivals Star Wars and Star Trek. If you want to let yourself become completely emerged in the Mass Effect story, Bioware will help you get there. Mass Effect features a lot of alien species each with an extensive background of the history and culture available to read about if you so wish. The only complaints that I have with Mass Effect is that when some objects appear on screen or come into view, they do so with out all of their graphical assets. Some of the textures and lighting will “pop in” 5-10 seconds after the object is on screen and can become kind of annoying at times. I must say that Mass Effect is not perfect but it is just about as close as you can get though. I give it a 9 out of 10.

Oh and than alien lesbian sex stuff you’ve read about. Forget about it, it’s not worth the trouble and all it shows is a little side boob anyway.

Two Wolrds Review

2008-02-05T15:23:00.000-06:00

At the end of last year Gamefly had a sale on used games and I picked up a couple of good deals. One of them was Two Worlds. Two Worlds is an action RPG that was released in the 4th quarter of last year and really got hammered by reviewers. I’m not sure what all the complaints were about because the game never really grabbed my attention so I had no desire to play it. But a month or two ago a good friend of mine picked it up and really like it so when I say Gaemfly had it for around 12 dollars I said “What the hell” and picked it up.

Well during my vacation last week I finally decided that I was going to play it and if for nothing else I was going to get 1000 gamerpoints out of it. When I put the game in I created my character with the rather limited customization options and then when the game play started I found myself in a dungeon after tooling around in the dungeon for a few minutes I quickly came to two conclusions. The first being this game is a straight Oblivion clone and the second being that this may very well be one of the worst games ever. One of these two conclusions would hold true to the end of the game, the other not so much.

Two Wolds is an action RPG that is very much built from the same mold as Oblivion. If you’ve played Oblivion you will notice it immediately. However Two Worlds doesn’t do Oblivion nearly as well. So why would I think that this is the worst game ever? As I said previously you start in a dungeon and the tutorial consists of about three or four commands and then it is done and it is up to you to figure out the rest of the game. This is fine and dandy but the game is fairly deep and some additional explanation would be really nice. On top of that I kept trying to go in the direction that my character was originally oriented. Turns out my back was to the door that I need to enter that looks actually nothing like a door but I just happened to figure out how to get out when I walked to close to the door and I got a little icon on the screen that let me know that I could interact with it and then finally I was free.

The gameplay itself is pretty fun but the main point of the story was confusing along with not very interesting so I don’t really know the specifics of what I did other than the fact that I saved the world and was the hero. In between the confusing beginning and the lackluster ending I roamed the entire country side looking for pieces of a relic and killing a lot of wolves and boars along with some bandits, ogres and other interesting species of two legged creatures. There are plenty of side quests to keep you busy for hours on end chasing down this for him or some one for her, you know your normal RPG side quests. But along the way you have to deal with a terrible frame rate, lousy voice acting, character models that look like they belong in a Playstation 1 game and having the game lock up more than half a dozen times. While most of the controls are pretty good the controls for riding on horseback are also terrible as well, why won’t the f*cking horse go in the direction I want it to?! Why does the damn horse suddenly veer left or right when I am just trying to go straight down the road?!

While it seems like after the last game that it very well be the worst game every it actually isn’t. It is a decent RPG with a good combat system a nice level progression system (though it seemed like you get the same experience no matter the enemy) and a good alchemy system for creating potions. Two Worlds best feature though has to be the ability to combine like items to create a better item. If you find say, two swords that are exactly the same you can combine them to make on that is a little bit stronger and then when you find another you can combine it as well. You can do this forever provided you can continue to find the same item and later in the game this allows you to create some nice armor and weapons.

While after reading through this review it appears that the negatives far out weight the positives and Two Worlds is a total pile of crap, it’s really not. I have to say the game is fun to play as well as interesting and is a good way for those people that love to play RPGs to get their RPG fix. So if you’ve played Mass Effect and Oblivion to death and you are looking for some thing a little different, I would say pick it up on the cheap. But if you haven’t played Mass Effect or Oblivion you should go with one of those two as they are clearly the better RPGs on the 360 and have a lot more polish and replay value. Overall I would rate Two Worlds a 6 out of 10.

Super Bowl Iron Man ad

2008-02-04T10:23:00.000-06:00

The new Iron Man trailer debuted during the Super Bowl. Man, it looks awesome I hope that the movie doesn't disappoint.

James Bond - Quantum of Solace

2008-01-26T16:39:00.000-06:00

If you haven't seen Casino Royale, the latest James Bond flick, you are missing out. While I have been a life long fan of the series of films I was unsure how it would turn out with Daniel Craig taking over as Bond. Turns out the guy is freakin awesome. If the next movie is anywhere as good as the last Craig will become my favorite Bond of all time.

But the next movie comes out this November and it now has a title. "Quantum of Solace", if you're like me you probably just said WTF? but the title was taken from a collection of short stories written by Ian Fleming in the 1960's so it does come from the original author but really, WTF?

Oh well, the title doesn't make the movie. Here's to hoping that this one is as good as Casino Royale.

The #1 pick

2008-01-25T17:23:00.000-06:00

Reports are out that the Dolphins are willing to listen to offers for the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft. While it would be nice if the could trade down and get more picks I think the reality is that it's not going to happen. Every year the team with the #1 pick tries to trade down to get more picks and come draft day they are still picking #1. It is just to hard to convice teams that they need to move up. It doesn't matter where you draft what matters is that you draft the right player and I think that more and more teams understand that and some are afraid to move up and take a player that may end up being a bust. So come draft day I still look for the Dolphins to have the #1 pick and I just hope that they choose wisely.

Tony Sparano

2008-01-18T17:10:00.000-06:00

Tony Sparano was named the Head Coach of the Miami Dolphins. For anyone that has followed the head coaching search this is reall ynot a suprise as he was pretty much conisdered the favorite to become the next head coach the moment that Bill Parcells was hired.

For now everyone in the press is singing Sparano's praises and this seems to be a good hire but only time will tell for sure. I am happy but I think it is mostly just because I wanted as much change as possible in the organization and I got it.

The Baseball Hall of Fame

2008-01-12T15:54:00.001-06:00

It's that time again for the Baseball Hall of Fame voting. I think that this years voting is a perfect example of why the current system for selection into baseball's Hall of Fame needs to be over hauled. I think that there are too many old men that do not use their votes the way they were meant ot be used and therefore they should not have a vote at all.

Goose Gossage finally got in which is great but if he's worthy for the Hall of Fame now why wasn't he worthy before? I don't get it, either you're in or you're not. The fact that these voters use their votes as a tool and to support their own agenda is ridiculous. Everyone that has a vote should have them taken away and then new voters should be selected. Who should select the new voters you ask? Why don't you go get a retired senator that has nothing better to do and have him come up with all the suitable candidates? Then take that list and send it to all the active and retired players and have them select who they think the fairest baseball writers are and the top 200 or so become your new pool?

That's just one suggestion. I am sure there are people that have better ideas and but I just threw that together. My point is that the system is broken and it needs to be fixed.

Playoffs ?!

2008-01-12T15:50:00.001-06:00

I forgot to make my pick last week but I did alright. I will however make sure I get my picks up this week.

Seattle beats Green Bay, Dallas over the New York Giants, New England over Jacksonville and Indiannapolis sends San Diego home.

The hardest one to decide was the Dallas/New York game I think that New York could be able to pull the upset but I am not quite convinced. I think this game will be the closest of the four.

Bioshock

2008-01-10T16:14:00.000-06:00

I finally made time to play Bioshock. I have so many games to play it seems I don't have enough time for them all. I am glad that I made time for Bioshock. This game is one of the top 5 games that I have every played. It may be the best shooter that I have ever played.

The game has a very dark subject matter and is really not suitable for kids. I tried to keep my kids out of the room as much as possible while playing. The game tries to give you hard moral choices and rewards you accordingly. I won't ruin any of the game for you but I will say that if you are a first person shooter fan that this is the game for you. I would give Bioshock a 10 out of 10 and I would write more but I really don't think I should I think that it is best that people just play it and not bother reading reviews about it. It's that good.

The Mismatch

2008-01-08T12:55:00.000-06:00

We had a game in matchmaking last night that we have to share. The team we played had 4 generals on their team each with over 1000 games played and one player with over 3000 games. Once the game was over we knew we had to post something about it and I volunteered.

Last night Versa lvl 28, Yukon lvl 37, Ronin lvl 35, Mudhog lvl 10, Soul lvl 23 and I lvl 40 were playing some matchmaking in the DLC Playlist. As sometimes happens in matchmaking, you enter a game that is clearly a mismatch.

If you were in the pregame lobby you would notice right away the teams were lopsided. They (The Opp. Force) had Mista Codeine lvl 50, GDL Carplat 64 lvl 31, Bloodtide lvl 50, Lite Green Sticky lvl 50, I Ryer 180 lvl 50, AlphaOm3ga14 lvl 38. We knew right away this was a mismatch and we had no idea how right we were. But they noticed it as well and proceeded to inform us that we were going to get "raped" and they were going to dominate us. We told them they were free to try but not to count on it and we threw in a few other verbal jabs as well.

The game was MultiFlag on Standoff and there was zero vetos, everyone wanted to play. The game started off with Ronin and Yukon getting into a warthog and heading directly for the enemy base to make some new friends. Ronin's driving helped Yukon to a Running Riot on the turret as Versa stole the flag, I protected the base and Soul and Mud held the middle of the map picking off stragglers and holding the power weapons on the map. Next thing you know Teh LMB had a 1-0 lead.

Shortly after we grabbed the lead our warthog was destroyed and we had to go head to head on foot. It was a constant battle to destroy the hogs as they spawned as each team tried to keep the other from gaining control of them. We continued to leave one person (me) on defense as the other 5 went on the offensive, before long Yukon was bringing home our second capture and Teh LMB led 2-0.

The Opp Force managed six flag grabs during the ocurse of the game but only managed to get the flag outside of the base one time. We had a chance at a third captured with the entire Opp Force dead, a warthog outside and Mud with the flag. However it was not meant to be as the other team got a good spawn and managed to kill the waiting hog. So LMB ended up winning the game 2-0 against our overmatched opponents.

We then headed to the post game lobby and we did a little smack talking but to the other teams credit, they didn't say a word and never left, they took their medicine.

The post game carnage report

Goodbye Mueller, Hello Ireland

2008-01-02T16:38:00.000-06:00

Well, Randy Mueller was fired as GM of the Dolphins on Monday (good ridance) and today the Dolphins hired Jeff Ireland to replace him. I really like this hire because it was who Parcells wanted and he went out and got him. Hopefully they'll decide real quick to replace Cam Cameron who I still think needs to go.

Bill Parcells

2007-12-20T16:27:00.000-06:00

Bill Parcells was signed by the Miami Dolphins today to be Vice President of the team. What does that mean? It means that he has total control of the team. He controls who the GM and Head Coach will be and he'll have a major say in all the personnel decisions. Is this good? Only time will tell but I think that it is a great thing for my Miami Dolphins. Bill Parcells has inherited some train wrecks before and he has always straightened them out. He might not have stayed as long as some fans would like but he always left his teams in better shape than how he found them. If he could do that to the Dolphins (it won't be hard) I'll be pretty happy. Now here's to hoping that he cleans house.

Dolphins win?

2007-12-17T10:55:00.000-06:00

OMG WTF BBQ?!?

Dolphin's for sale?

2007-12-15T15:42:00.000-06:00

Supposedly Wayne Huizenga is considering selling the Dolphins or cleaning house. I hope he opts for the later as he's not a bad owner but the next guy could be.

Cubs let go of Prior

2007-12-14T15:33:00.000-06:00

The Cubs let Mark Prior go yesterday. I really hate to see this happen. When healthy, he is a great pitcher but he hasn't been healthy in four years. Most of his injuries seemed to have been flukes as well but you don't really know if this is another situation similar to Kerry Wood. Wood has also had numerous injury problems. I wish Prior would have taken a little less to stay with the Cubs, there is still hope as Prior said he hasn't ruled out returning to the Cubs. He just wants to try to get more money. I guess I can't blame him after all isn't that what we're all after?

Hopefully the Cubs can resign him because I think Prior's career is going to mirror Cris Carpenter's. Carpenter had a lot of promise with the Toronto Blue Jays but he had a couple of extended injuries, including Tommy John surgery and eventually left to play with the Cardinals. The Cardinals paid him for a year just to rehab and when he finally came back to pitch he paid off big time. I hope that Prior can find the same kind of success but what I hope for the most is that he has that kind of success with the Chicago Cubs.

The Mitchell Report

2007-12-13T14:51:00.000-06:00

The Mitchell Report was released on Thursday and for those people that thought it might contain something new were let down. The Report basically just regurgitated everything that has already came out in the press during the last 18 months. There was nothing new and no shockers. MLB paid George Mitchell $25 Million dollars and all they got in return was a few suggestions on how to tweak their testing system and a list of names they already had. What a joke.

I think the best part of the whole day's activities might have been Commissioner Selig avoiding taking any blame at all in the whole thing. He really didn't know that there were steroids in baseball? Didn't reporters locate Andro in Mark McGwire and Dante Bichette's lockers in 1998? I guess he missed that, it was only all over the news. It was perfectly legal then but Selig can't say that he isn't partly responsible and that he didn't know.

Cubs sign Fukudome

2007-12-12T15:24:00.000-06:00

The Cubs reached a 4 year, $48 million contract with Kosuke Fukudome today. Fukudome, 30, is a veteran of the Japanese MLB and will play right field for the Cubs. He is the left handed corner outfielder that the Cubs wanted but I am not sure why they settled on Fukudome. I would have much rather they traded for Carl Crawford. I don't know if that was possible or not but at least then you know what you are getting. I have seen several reports on Fukudome and some say he better than Hideki Matsui but not quite as good as Ichiro. But then others say that he might not be able to hit left handed pitching and he might best be suited as a platoon player. I hope the Cubs didn't pay $48 million for a fourth outfielder that's going to have to split time.

Only time will tell but I hope this was the right decision.

Game of the Year 2007

2007-12-10T13:12:00.001-06:00

Spike TV had their annual Video Game Awards show the other day and it go me thinking. What are my top 5 games this year. I am working on putting some lists together and submitting them for voting over at GeezerGamers.com. Until then here are my top 5 (on the XBOX 360) for game of the year in the order they appear.

1. Halo 3

2. The Orange Box

3. Call of Duty 4

4. Bioshock

5. Assassin's Creed

I have not played Mass Effect yet so it could possibly knock off one of these. I am trying to finish up a couple of other games before I start Mass Effect. I have also not played Guitar Hero 3 or Rock Band. Remember this is just my list. Everyone's is bound to be different.

Greatest Games EVA?

2007-12-01T10:25:00.000-06:00

I was asked an interesting question yesterday. What are the greatest games of all time? IGN released it's top 100 list the other day and so it has created a lot of discussion, as lists always do. Just because someone takes the time to create a list doesn't mean it's the list to end all list, it's really just one person or a group of people's opinion. Everyone knows the saying, "Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one." so here's mine. In order for a game to be on my list I had to have played it, makes sense right. So if your favorite game isn't on here I either didn't play it or I didn't care for it, you can always go make your own list if you don't like mine. I also linked to the wikipedia pages for the list of games released on each console (so far).

PC Games

John Elway’s Quarterback
Police Quest
King’s Quest
Space Quest

Commodore Amiga

Auto Duel
Test Drive
Jordan vs Bird

Intellivision II

Astrosmash

Atari 2600

Breakout
Burger Time
Centipede
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong
Kug-Fu Master
Missle Command
Pac-man
Pitfall
Q-bert

Nintendo Entertainment System

Baseball Stars
Dragon Warrior
Final Fantasy
Ghost's N Goblins
Mike Tyson’s Punchout
Pro Wrestling
Rush'N Attack
Rygar
Super Mario 3
Super Mario World
Tecmo Bowl
Tetris

Super Nintendo

Donkey Kong Country
Final Fantasy II
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario World
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Final Fantasy III

Nintendo 64

GoldenEye 007
Perfect Dark Zero
Super Mario 64
Madden 99

SEGA Genesis

Prime Time NFL Football w/Deion Sanders
Rampart
Sonic the Hedgehog

Playstation

Castlevania: Symphony of the night
Civilization II
Metal Gear Solid
Syphon Filter

Playstation 2

Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec
Grand Theft Auto 3
Kingdom Hearts
Final Fantasy IX

XBOX

Forza Motorsports
Halo 2
Halo: Combat Evolved
Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow

My 360 Blog

2007-11-29T10:49:00.000-06:00

I blog but have I mentioned that my 360 blogs as well? Don't believe me? Check it out. 360voice.com is a site that compiles data from what games you played the day before and it has text that is generated and it gives you a little info about your gaming presented as if your 36o is blogging about you. It's pretty cool. My favorite feature of the site is how it keep strack of the number of days that I have played each game. Pretty useful if I want to find out whether or not I got my money's worth out of a game.

Assassin's Creed Review

2007-11-21T16:46:00.001-06:00

I was really excited about Assassin’s Creed. I had it preordered for months in advance and then a couple of days before it were to be released some reviews started coming out and the game all of the sudden wasn’t looking so hot. So I cancelled my preorder and picked up Virtua Fighter 5 instead. I had done what I had told myself in the past that I wouldn’t do again. Which is, if I am looking forward to a game I will not let the gaming press influence my decision, they have been wrong numerous times before and they don’t seem to enjoy the same games that I do. I think the reason that I slipped up this time was because there has been a giant buzz kill surrounding this game since the last time that it was seen in playable form and I somehow went along with it.

Then I read the Penny Arcade article blasting the reviews for not giving the game a fair shake and a few people that I game with picked it up were happy with it. So I realized I made a mistake and I went and picked it up on Monday. I haven’t played it all the way through yet and according to what I have learned in the story so far I am only about a third of the way through, which puts it on pace to be about a 20 hour single player campaign. But I have to say that I am really impressed by this game, it is beautiful and the controls are excellent. The story strikes me as somewhat goofy but the time I have spent in the Middle East is awesome. I am amazed by how big the cities are and yet almost every building is detailed enough that it has foot and hand holds so they can be scaled Spiderman style. Ubi Soft really nailed the details in this game.

Assassin’s Creed was a little weird at the beginning until the story line was kind of laid out for you but once it gets going it is a blast. There is a slight learning curve but nothing that I think would be bad enough to discourage anyone from trying to figure it out and I am sure that anyone could play it competently after a little time with the controls. Assassin’s Creed however is not without its faults. Though I am not sure if it’s the game or a sign of impending doom for my 360, I have been having some sporadic issues with the frame rate and once it starts the game is going to lock up, it’s just a matter of when. It usually happens when I have been fingered as an Assassin and I am running for my life (of course) and even when I get to a spot to where I can let all the action calm down in the hopes of the frame rate stabilizing it doesn’t happen, and then it locks up.

Overall it is an excellent game, which I’ll be playing for a while; it’s going to take me forever to find all of those flags. If the problem’s that I have had with the game are because of my console and not the game itself, I would give Assassin’s Creed a 9 out of 10. If it’s frame rate problems with game itself then you can deduct the appropriate number of points because I am being lazy, I want to finish this so I can play some more.

Scene it LCA Review

2007-11-21T15:39:00.000-06:00

The “Scene it?” board games are pretty popular with my family. We have the Harry Potter and Disney editions and the kids love them and they have become pretty good at them. I saw the ads for the new Scene it? Lights, Camera, Action game for the 360 and thought that it’d be fun to have so I picked it up.

When I opened it up it came (of course) with the disk, a “dongle” and four “big button” controllers. The controllers are shaped like a television remote control and have one big button at the top and then the A, B, X and Y buttons stacked underneath. With a guide button, start and select at the very bottom. The controllers aren’t cheap the construction seems solid although they are rather light. They each run on two AA batteries, which are included in the box. There is no need to sync them up as they sync to whichever 360 the “dongle” is plugged into.

The game itself plays differently than the board game. All of the questions act as a “my play” or “all play” from the board games which means instead of individual turns everyone is involved in every question, no waiting for your turn, which keeps the game interesting and it has a good pace. There seems to be a very good selection of movies and all the pop culture favorites are here. All the genres and decades are well represented and they seem to include a lot of the more popular movies for each.

Overall I would say the “Scene it” is an excellent game and is excellent for small parties or families. My two older children (9 and 12) have enjoyed it and have been competitive in most of the games we’ve played. I would rate Scene it an 8 out of 10 with points deducted for not being able to play opponents over XBOX Live. This in my opinion was a big miss. Hopefully XBOX Live support can be added at a later date. Movie packs have already been promised as future downloadable content.

Call of Duty 4 Review

2007-11-17T12:47:00.000-06:00

Call of Duty 4 is, you guessed it, the 4th game in the Call of Duty series. I've played the Call of Duty 2 and 3 for the 360 as well, with 2 being my favorite and 3 just being sort of o.k. The good news is that Call of Duty 4 is made by Infinity Ward, the same company that made part 2. Until now the Call of Duty games were based on World War II. Now the series has shifted to modern warfare, hence the title "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare".

Like other AAA titles Call of Duty has awesome graphics that rank right up there with Bioshock and Gears of War as a game that showcases this generation of gaming. From the textures to the lighting to the frame rate everything is top notch. The smoke, heat and debris are all stunning and when you mix all these things together you get beautiful character models and environments that help create an awesome single player experience. The sounds go along well with what's on the screen. The voice acting and sound effects help create a life like environment that when the action heats gives you the feeling that you're fighting for your life.

The single player is rather interesting as it starts of with a short tutorial followed by an awesome prologues through which you storm a ship at sea and then become a spectator as the ground work for the story is laid out in front of you. The prologue ends rather spectacularly and you are then thrust into action. While the single player campaign is rather short is epic. It features a couple of events that will stick with you for a while and levels that are refreshing and different in their pacing. You go from being a sniper hiding from enemies in the tall grass silently taking them down to storming through buildings trying to beat the clock. There is also a very cool level in which you get to be the gunner in an AC-130 Spectre Gunship. The game stays fresh and it is very enjoyable, although it is a bit tough in parts on veteran as the enemies tend to not play very nice at all. When I completed the campaign I was left with a sense of accomplishment.

Oh, and make sure you sit through the credits.

The multi player is a class based affair that allows you not only to pick out your weapons and accessories but "Perks" as well. Perks are things that give you a little extra advantage such as 'Juggernaut' which allows you to take more damage or 'stopping power' which allows you to deal more damage. There are over 20 perks and you can outfit 3 at a time to help you survive online. There is also a level system in which you are given experience for completing certain tasks or killing enemies online. As you earn experience your level increases and you unlock more perks and weapons. The multi player is very robust with over 20 perks and 70 weapons you are really given the opportunity to play the game the way that suits you best. Add all of the customization of classes with 16 maps and over half a dozen game modes along with the addiction of leveling up and you have a multi player mode that should last for a while.

Call of Duty 4 is a great game that will demand time in your 360 tray this fall, though it'll be hard with all the great titles that are already out as well as the ones that are coming soon but Call of Duty 4 makes a strong case for game of the year but I think in the end it falls short to Bioshock, Halo 3, The Orange Box or Mass Effect. Which is not a bad thing because to be in the company of those games means Infinity Ward has accomplished something. I would rate Call of Duty 4 a 9 out of 10 and the only problem I have is trying to find time to play it. There are simply to many good games to play.

Virtua Fighter 5

2007-11-17T11:47:00.000-06:00

I picked up Virtua Fighter 5 this week. I loved the VF series on the Playstation and I missed it since I made the switch to the XBOX and then the 360. I've only played a little so far and my initial impression are favorable. It is a more polished version of VF4 but I haven't got to play enough of it yet to write a review or to give an endorsement one way or the other. Between finishing Call of Duty 4 and the multilayer of Halo 3 my gaming time has been spoken for. But I plan to play some more of it next week and I'll give my impressions after that.

Ricky's Back

2007-11-16T12:54:00.000-06:00

Ricky Williams, the "I spend more time suspended than playing" running back for the Miami Dolphins has been reinstated by the NFL. Whether this is good news or not is debatable but the Dolphins now have a decision to make. Do you play him or cut him?

Believe it or not for the first time this calender year, (it's now November) the Dolphins have made a good decision. They have decided to allow Williams to return to the team and plan to have him playing in another week or two.

So why is this a good decision you ask? Because they don't want him and everyone knows they don't want him, effectively ruining his trade value. But if you get him into some games before the end of the year and Williams proves that he can still run the ball then you might get a decent offer from a team for him. This is the only way that the Dolphins will get anything for him and even if he does do well they still may not get much. But at least it looks like they're trying to make some smart football decisions.

Call of Duty 4 on veteran

2007-11-12T16:10:00.000-06:00

I picked up Call of Duty 4 last week and have played it pretty much every day since. I finished the campaign on veteran (hardest) difficulty Sunday afternoon. And I have to say that it was a pain in the ass. There were three spots that I came to where I was stuck for a while and it took A LOT of trial and error to get through. The worst by far had to be the level "No fighting in the war room" were you are racing against the clock to beat the level. The worst thing about it though is that if you don't proceed quick enough through the level you won't get the next checkpoint, meaning you have to start all over from the beginning when you die. UGH. Overall it was a lot of fun but I won't be playing through it again on Veteran. I'll have a full review later.

New Iron Man Trailer

2007-11-07T07:44:00.000-06:00

There is a new trailer out for the upcoming Iron Man movie. There's not a whole lot new though there are a few scenes with Gweneth Paltrow who wasn't seen in the first trailer. She is playing Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) love interest.

I'd embed the trailer but it's been disabled. So you'll have to go to Youtube if you want to check it out.

The X-Files

2007-11-04T10:31:00.001-06:00

I used to love the X-files. I never missed an episode. When I was in the Navy and at sea I would have my wife tape the shows I missed and mail them to me.

I didn't really care for the movie though. I really thought that it would provide some kind of closure for the series. Though I guess I shouldn't have really expected it. After all one of the best things about the X-Files was how sometimes there were things left unexplained, sometimes the bad guy gets away. Just like in real life.

I would like to see some trailers but I will try not to get my hopes up to high. After all it has been ten years since the first movie and five years since the end of the television series. We'll all get a chance to see how it turns out on July 25, 2008.

Picking a winner

2007-11-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

Time to pick a winner of the biggest game of the year. No, you didn't miss anything it's not the Super Bowl week already, but it might as well be. It's week 9 in the NFL and the two best teams in the league are playing. The New England Patriots travel to Indianapolis to take on the Colts. Everyone has a say and I won't make you wait for my pick, the Colts win.

Now for the why. Yes the New England offense looks unstoppable but Indianapolis' offense can be just as unstoppable when they want to be. They match up well on special teams as well. So where does one team pull away from the other? On defense. The Colts defense has looked a lot better against stronger competition than New England's defense has looked against some weaker opponents. I think that the Colts end up stopping the Patriots one more time than they get stopped and the Colts win... by 2.

My disclaimer, I stand by this post as long as Bob Sanders plays. I have never seen one player have such an impact on the defensive side of the ball before. The defense is completely different if he doesn't play. But as long as Bob Sanders plays, the Colts Defense is an awesome force.

Bungie Humpday challenge.

2007-11-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Once a week Bungie has a "Humpday Challenge" where they play members of the XBOX Live community to their own game (Halo 3). This week they selected GeezerGamers.com and I was lucky enough to get to play. This is the piece that I wrote for the site rehashing the events.

October Thirty First of the year two thousand and seven, a day that will forever live in infamy. O.K. maybe not, but it is the day that Geezer Gamers got to play Bungie during Bungie’s weekly Humpday Challenge (Again).

The site worked really hard (read: bugged Bungie until they finally gave in) to become this weeks participants in the Humpday Challenge. Bungie responded by giving us a days notice to throw some people together and do our best by trying to create a formidable team. And they left out a few details.

Meet our team – The Focktards

JameyT – Site Founder
Hawk75 – Site Founder
Jester76 – User Moderator and member of Geezer Gamers West
FireMedic41 – User Moderator and member of 911 Geezers
Hogw1ld – Overlord of Geezer Gamer Southeast
Furgus – Overlord of Geezer Gamer Southeast
Stratinator – User Moderator and member of Clan Elysium
JCBains – User Moderator and member of Clan LMB

Team Bungie

New0001 – Joe Tung
Thug Larz – Lars Bakken
Frankie – everyone’s favorite person to tea bag
TJ Scoot – Luke

We were invited by Frankie into a very eerie lobby. Have you ever walked into a room where everyone was talking and as soon as you entered it went deathly quiet and you knew right away they were talking about you? It was like that only worse. Team Bungie was up to something. We had a short little meet and greet, Team Focktards asked a couple of stupid questions and we divided up into two teams with Stratinator, Hawk75, Hogw1ld and I(JCBains) going first. Then Team Bungie said “You guys pick the game and map”. This was one of those little details we should have been informed of before hand. We knew it was coming but we hadn’t really thought about it. So I said “How about King of the hill, guys?” which was responded to with silence. So I thought, maybe we don’t want to play king of the hill, I then said, “Let’s just play some slayer and one of you guys pick the map.” Someone said, “Guardian.” Of course that meant none of the lobby setting needed to be changed because team Bungie already had it set for Slayer on Guardian. That was convenient. So much for that older and wiser saying, you know the one.

So we proceeded to get stomped into the ground by the Bungie Machine 50-39 with Hawk and Strat leading the way in kills and Hogw1ld and I trying to get out of the way. The game left Hogw1ld and I hoping that maybe we’ll get a chance to redeem ourselves later for our poor performances.

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Carnage Report

Feeling terrible, we invited the better half of Team Focktards into the lobby and the first team retreated to the safety of our own lobby. The second team was comprised of JameyT, Jester76, Furgus and Firemedic41. It was Team Bungie’s turn to select the game and map and they chose Capture the Flag on The Pit. Team Focktards came out strong with a quick flag capture to take the 1-0 lead. But Team Bungie responded by putting down the hammer and turned the next three flag captures to win the game 3 captures to 1.

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Carnage Report

After consecutive defeats Team Bungie took two members of Team Focktard (Stratinator and Furgus) onto their team, and played the remaining six of us in a game of Team Slayer on Construct. Furgus, being the good soldier tried his best to throw the game but someone forgot to tell Stratinator to do the same as he helped carry Team Bungie to victory. Hogw1ld and I did get our redemption as we lead Team Focktards in kills.

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Carnage Report

Bungie was then kind enough to play a Geezer favorite – Zombies. We played a couple of rounds before saying thanks and see you later. Team Bungie was awesome and we appreciate the opportunity to play the Humpday Challenge and the chance to get to tell them thanks in person, well online anyway, for creating such an awesome game (well, 3 games).

Zombie Carnage Report

Viva Pinata Review

2007-10-29T18:51:00.000-05:00

I know that I am late to the (Pinata) party here but I never really had any desire to play this game. I recently picked it up on EBay for my daughter and since she has ignored it since saying that she wanted it, I thought I would play a little and see what the fuss was about. Everyone that plays it talks about how great it is so what the hell, I can live with a kids game on my gamercard, it won't be the first and it won't be the last.

First things first, when I started the game I was given a small plot of land that is in need of attention, my garden. So I take my trusty (albeit rather tattered) shovel and proceed to clean up my dump and try to turn it into a respectable garden. I cut the tall grass, smash trash and soften up the hard dirt to make it suitable for planting. I was then left with my new garden, a flat piece of very well manicured grass. I am then ready to attract some new visitors (pinatas).

There is a very large variety of pinatas in the game all modeled after animals with slightly modified names that come from a combination of the animal name and some kind of goodies like the Syrupent (serpent) for example. As you plant plants, buy items and dig a pond in your new garden new pinatas start to visit each looking for something specific that peaks their interest. Once they visit your garden you can entice them into staying, if you have what they want they will become a resident of your garden. Once you have two pinatas of the same type you can build them a new house and romance them. After playing a small maze mini game they will dance and then lay an egg. This allows you to increase your garden population, sell excess pinatas to earn some money and will get you a few achievements. The game then is pretty much the same to the end. Attract pinata, turn pinata into resident, romance pinata and then sell the pinatas so you can change your garden around to attract another pinata. It becomes repetitious but is a rather fun game that only presents a few challenges none of which is the least bit frustrating. It becomes a bit addicting though as you try to perfect your garden in the hopes of attracting that next elusive species of pinata.

Overall it is a nice family game, that is enjoyable to play and the kids should love. Though my kids would rather watch me play it than play it themselves. I would give Viva Pinata a 7 out of 10. Viva Pinata can be picked up at a lot of stores for $20 or $30 now and it is well worth the price. You can easily get over 20 hours of gameplay out of it if you try to complete every task and attract every pinata.

What gives?

2007-10-29T14:17:00.000-05:00

So I missed my weekly blog post about the Dolphins last, o.k. so I didn't have any posts last week. Well, I predicted that they would lose to the Patriots. What I did not predict was the worst possible thing that could have happened to the Dolphins this year. What's that? It's that their best offensive player would get hurt and miss the rest of the year.

Ronnie Brown was on a tear and he was undoubtedly the best player on this years team. The key word in the last sentence being "was". Because he hurt his knee and will be out for the year. The way this season is going I really wasn't all that surprised.

So the Dolphins now have no offense and what happens this week? The defense shows up, really. The only gave up 13 points to the New York Giants allowing 59 passing yards by Eli Manning (though they gave up 189 on the ground) and held the Giants to only 13 points. Looks like the Dolphins let their one win for the season pass them by. Congrats. I now officially predict that the Miami Dolphins will win 0 (that's a zero) games this year and be the first team to go 0-17. At least they still have that perfect season to look back on. What's it been, 25 years now?

State of the Dolphins

2007-10-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

I believe that the Miami Dolphins should have given Daunte Culpepper the opportunity to try to win the starting quarterback job in Miami. But the Dolphins decided to dump him and bring in Trent Green instead. I think Green is a good quarterback but I don't think he was a proper fit for this team. He has had a couple of very bad injuries in his career and he was just one hit away from another concussion. That coupled with the Dolphin's offensive line is a recipe for disaster. Then that one hit finally came two weeks ago against the Houston Texans and today Trent Green's season with the Miami Dolphins is officially over. I think that he should retire now. At his age injuries are going to continue to pile up and he should go while he is still able to eat solid food.

The Dolphins now have the New England Patriots this week and the New York Giants the next. Management has said they are looking to the future and it's time to start doing so. Following the Dolphins' bye week John Beck should be the starter at quarterback. This is "their guy", they drafted him and it's time to see if he can play and get him ready to be the starter for a full season next year. Beck is already 26 years old and in another couple of years they'll be talking about getting younger at the quarterback position again. It's the nature of the beast, the way the things work in the NFL. So might as well see if you can get some production out of him now. With Green out for the year, Chris Chambers gone and the team off to an 0-6 start it's time to give the ball to Beck. If Cameron can't do that by the game following the bye week he should be gone. He's made enough mistakes already, while he has done some good things with Ronnie Brown and the offensive line has improved, the team as a whole has regressed. It's time to get ready for next year.

The Orange Box Summary

2007-10-17T14:07:00.000-05:00

The Orange Box is an outstanding collection of games. I think that Valve did a good thing for gamers by packing these five games together for $59.99. After all the games that I have paid full price for and then felt cheated after playing them, I finally feel that I am the one that cheated the man. Valve could have easily released this content separately digitally as well as on multiple disks but they didn’t and they should be praised for it. I don’t think they should be praised just for putting out a small compilation on one disk and charging a normal fee. The quality of each individual game is outstanding and they could each stand alone on their own. I would have to give The Orange Box a 10 out of 10 not only because of the high quality but because it may be the best value in gaming as well, maybe even best value ever.

Team Fortress 2 Review

2007-10-17T12:12:00.000-05:00

Team Fortress 2 is the multiplayer component of the Orange Box. Team Fortress 2 is multiplayer only and can be played over XBOX Live and system link and supports 16 players. Team Fortress 2 looks like a Saturday morning cartoon and is very fun to play. There are several character classes that all have special traits and skills such as a medic (healer), engineer (builder), scout (fast), pyro (flamethrower), demoman (grenade launcher), spy (cloaking), soldier (rockets), sniper (long range) and the heavy (machine gunner). Each class is unique as some are faster or slower than others along with each having its own set of weapons and tools. The classes each have a ton of personality. Among the things you can do is taunt. The personality of the classes really comes out in these taunts as the camera pulls back to 3rd person so you get a good view of what’s going on.

The only complaints I have with Team Fortress 2 is that you can’t take a party into match making and the lack of maps. Though more maps can be made available on the XBOX Live Marketplace, Team Fortress 2 only ships with 6 maps and each map only has one game type available to play on it. But each map is very well laid out and there isn't a bad one in the bunch. Team Fortress 2 is also blessed with the same control scheme as the other games in the Orange Box. That it, that you can make your own. So no matter what control scheme you want, you make your own by mapping the controls to whatever button you want. Team Fortress 2 does have a few bugs in the lobby and only 6 maps but the graphics and sounds are top notch. The different character classes provide a lot of different ways to play Team Fortress 2 as well. While it probably won’t have a lot of staying power it will be a fun game to play one evening a week for a while. I would have to give Team Fortress 2 a 9 out of 10.

Chris Chambers is gone. What?

2007-10-16T17:50:00.001-05:00

Chris Chambers the Miami Dolphins best wide receiver was traded to the San Diego Chargers for a second round pick in next years draft today. And I find myself saying WTF? I mean how do you trade one of your best offensive players? I realize that they have a couple of young wide receivers that they want to get more playing time but I am not sure if this is the right way to do it.

My Dolphins ended last year terribly. The ended up with a top ten pick in last years draft and they shock everyone by taking Ted Ginn Jr. I was so made I almost collected all my Dolphins stuff in the house and set it on fire. I wasn't upset that they didn't take Brady Quinn but there were so many other positions where they needed help I couldn't belive they took a wide receiver that is basically another Az Hakim, Dante Hall or Antwaan Randle El, a returner that doesn't do much receiving. I mean why not Leon Hall? The secondary is awful, why not trade down?

Then they let Randy McMichael and Daunte Culpepper go and brought in Trent Green and Joey Porter. I really do not understand what the hell it is that they are trying to do. I think McMichael should have stayed and Culpepper should have at least been given the opportunity to play quarterback for the Dolphins.

Now they are off to an 0-6 start and are almost definitely headed to 0-7 as they play New England on Sunday. I think the Miami Dolphins are in need of a serious enema. I think they really need to come out and explain to their fans what they think they are doing, where they think they are going and how they plan to get there. Is that really to much to ask for? I gotta go I think I may be sick, uuuggghhh.

Portal Review

2007-10-16T12:11:00.000-05:00

Portal is a new puzzle game introduced by Valve and is included in The Orange Box. In Portal you play a female character that wakes up in a “clean room” and you are given directions by an eerie robotic voice. As you make your way through the game you are introduced to portals and then to the portal device or gun. The premise is that you can create an entrance and exit portal on most surfaces. So you then use these portals and your momentum you gain by falling or jumping through portals to reach normally inaccessible areas or to bypass obstacles.

Portal is funny and full of wit with the robotic voice constantly promising you cake at the end of your testing. The sound and graphics are cool and the controls are solid although the game itself can be a little vertigo inducing at times once you move to the more advanced stages. Portal takes about 2 to 3 hours to complete the main story line and once that is complete new challenges are opened. By itself it not a whole lot of game. I would think it more suited for the XBOX Live Arcade but included with the other content in the Orange Box it fits perfectly.

Portal is a unique game that is genuinely funny as well as fun to play. I would give portal a 9 out of 10 and it is definitely one of the better puzzle games on the XBOX 360.

Half Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 review

2007-10-15T14:37:00.001-05:00

Along with Half Life 2, The Orange Box also includes Half Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2. Episodes 1 and 2 are a continuation of the Half Life story and pick up exactly where the story left off at the end of Half Life 2. While Half life 2 was a pretty long game Episodes 1 and 2 are a lot smaller about 4 to 5 hours each and if you really tried, you could finish either one of them in a couple of hours. Each Episode has the same great graphics, soundtrack and frame rate of their predecessors along with the uber-awesome do it yourself control scheme. Though they also are both cursed with the awful loading screens.

In Episode 1 you find yourself trying to undo what you did in the previous game and then trying to escape with the information that you stole in the process. Throughout the game you’ll be accompanied by Alyx who unlike most NPC characters that try to be helpful actually is, at times. She helps you find your way, except when you really need help but that’s not her best trait. She is pretty much indestructible and she is a great shot. She almost makes the game to easy. If you can manage to stay alive, given enough time she’ll kill pretty much everything by herself.

Episode 2 picks up as you have just escaped the city and you are now in the process of taking the information you stole back to the “rebel headquarters.” Unlike Episode 1 you spend more time by yourself and it also includes a very lengthy driving level. Though this driving level is broken up with multiple stops and seems to make it all a little more bearable. The last level of the game ends in a large open area reminiscent of something from Halo and involves you chasing down enemies in your car and then getting out an killing them. It didn’t really fit with anything that had been done previously in these 3 games and it seemed a little out of place.

Both games are good but like Half Life 2 there is just so many shooters out there that while great I only see myself playing through them again to get the achievements I missed the first time through. But a couple of achievements in these two games are going to be pretty tough. I would give each game the same rating as Half Life 2, an 8 out of 10.

Half Life 2 review

2007-10-15T14:02:00.000-05:00

I thought I would review each game of The Orange Box individually so that’ll it’ll make the posts smaller and easier to read. I’ll start with Half Life 2 and work my way (eventually) through all 5 games.

Half Life 2 was originally released by Valve on the PC in 2004. I do not play many games for the PC so this was my first experience with the franchise. The game has you in control of Gordon Freeman. A scientist who is mysteriously placed on a train and sent to City 17 to help free the human race from the control of a group of aliens and humans called the Combine. The game is rather lengthy and seems to be paced oddly at times. The game can take around 10-12 hours to complete and includes two levels that consist of driving (pretty much) the whole time. These levels were long, very long and seemed to go on forever. It got to the point on both of them that I was ready for them to end. The levels where you spend your time on foot are pretty varied. You spend quite a bit of time in the dark using you flash light. Half Life 2 also features quite a bit of puzzle solving. You will come to a dead end and then you have to manipulate the objects to open a path or go around an obstacle. This was pretty cool at first but it came to the point where I thought it was a little too much and I just wanted to move on so I could shoot something else. The puzzles seemed to really slow the pace of the game at times. The only other thing that I feel really needs mentioned is the loading screens. There is a lot of loading in Half Life, a lot of loading. Sometimes the loading screens can take up to 30 seconds to finish and occasionally they locked up my 360, which is annoying as hell.

While the first person controls are tight the driving controls are awkward and took a little time to get used to. One of the best features of the game is that if you don’t like what the buttons do you can assign each command to any button that you want. The graphics and sound are very well done and the frame rate held up through out the game. The game is a good first person shooter and I probably would have liked it a whole lot more if I played it two years ago when it first came out. But now after playing so many shooters in the last couple of years it just kind of blends in with the crowd. I’d give it 8 out of 10, deducting points for the very long driving levels, which were cool for a while but wore on me and the abundance of loading screens. The only reason I will play through it again is to get the achievements I missed the first time through.

Lost Planet Review

2007-10-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

Here is another review that I wrote whe Lost Planet came out and I'll post it now for your reading pleasure. Lost Planet is a third person shooter created by Capcom for the XBOX 360. With most reviews that I write I usually start off with a small synopsis of the story. On this game I am going to over simplify it a little. “In Lost Planet you play as a guy named Wayne on an ice planet where you battle insects called Akrid and bad guys called Snow Pirates. Your goal is to kill an Akrid named Green Eyes that killed your father.” I would go into more depth and explain it a little better but I would just confuse both of us. The story is very hard to follow and never really makes much sense. Fortunately you don’t need a solid story to make a good game.

The visuals in Lost Planet are very good. The game is graphically, one of the prettiest games on the 360. While most of the game is played in the snow or in caves, Capcom did a very good job designing the levels so that they do not all look the same. They are all unique and very detailed. The explosions in the game are very well done as well, they are bright and make good use of some haze and blur effects that help give the appearance that you really did just see that explosion and that your eyes are trying to recover. They also have the same great smoke effects that seem to have become the norm in XBOX 360 games. The enemies are well done with a lot of attention to detail and while all the snow pirates pretty much look alike, the Akrid are varied and unique. And, when you get all of these things in mass chaos on the screen at once, the frame rate holds up very well.

As the main character Wayne, you will have at your disposal several weapons that all are very different and some pretty unique such as a homing laser. You have your normal machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, sniper rifles and then you have the alternate plasma weapons. All of the weapons are pretty balanced and each has their positives and negatives. Lost planet also offers several different types of grenades such as a gum (sticky), plasma (stun), disc (think Tron), dummy (they look like weeble wobbles that blow up) and your normal grenade. While they are varied your character can only carry one type at a time so it’s up to you to choose wisely. You also have VSs or Vital Suits, which are basically small mechs that you can board and ride around in, there are about half a dozen different Vital Suits in the game. Each one of them serves a unique purpose such as drilling, speed or combat. They also have their own weapons which can be removed. That means the Vital Suits are customizable and you can swap out weapons on your Vital Suit. It’s as easy as swapping out weapons when you are on foot, just one button press, so it is not a giant complicated mess of button mashing. You can also pick up the Vital Suit weapons when you are on foot and use them. Your character also features a grappling hook. If you point your reticule at any object and the reticule turns green you can hook onto an object with your grappling hook. This enables you to close distances faster and to reach areas you might not other wise be able to reach.

You then use anything and everything you can find to make it through 13 levels. The levels are varied but each is very short with no single level taking over 30 minutes to complete, the entire single player can be finished in less than 8 hours. Capcom tried to do a couple of things to make this game different. The grappling hook was something new that works very well and you’ll also notice a T-energy gauge. Since you are in a sub zero climates you must do something to stay warm. And what you do in Lost Planet is keep a reserve of T-energy on your hip. But your T-energy is always being used so you must replenish it because once you run out your life energy starts to drain. So in order to refill the T-energy gauge you have to kill enemies and collect their energy. The bigger the enemy, the more energy you receive.

Something else Lost Planet features is a sort of treasure hunt. Through out the single player levels there are coins that can be found to collect and when you get them all in a level you spell a word and get an achievement. While not really anything new or mind blowing, it is something else to help keep the achievement whore in you occupied. The best part of the single player campaign would probably have to be the boss battles. There is a boss battle at the end of each level and they are all interesting and fun to play. They each have their own weaknesses and they each offer their own unique challenges. All of these features help contribute to a single player game that is above average for a third person shooter, but doesn’t really give much of a reason to go back and play it again once you beat it.

And then we get to the million dollar question, How is the game online? The game play remains unchanged from the single player to the multiplayer. Lost Planet features four different game modes; death match, team death match, fugitive (1 person versus everyone else) and post grab which is basically a territories game type. You can host a private room or you can join a random ranked or player match. The game play feels somewhat slower than other games. Which can be good but it seems to lend itself to a lot of people camping with sniper rifles. My main complaint with the game play is how your character reacts to explosions. If your character is within about 15 feet of an explosion it causes them to stumble. And there a lot of explosions which lead to a lot of stumbling which leads to a lot of easy targets. While I guess it helps lend a sense of realism to the game play it just becomes annoying and a nuisance after time.

If you decide to host a room you have a few options available to you such as starting weapon, map, time limit and a few other game specific options. Now this is where the online goes to crap. Once you create a room you can not change any of the options. Also if the game is in progress no one is able to join in. If one of your friends pops online mid game, they must wait for the game to finish and return to the lobby before they are able to join in. Now supposedly, the Capcom developers had been “Playing a lot of Halo 2” to see what gamers liked. Evidently they didn’t pay any attention to the user interface or the lobby.

While Lost Planet can be enjoyable at times, the online is just o.k. and with the number of shooters available on the 360 it doesn't really hold up to the competition. Lost Planet tried to be different, but did they do enough? I don’t think so. Lost Planet like so many other games had great potential and it still has the potential to be even better if Capcom will fix the incomplete online system. If a patch comes out to where you can change the settings from inside the lobby this game would be around a 9 out of 10. But if that never happens I would say it deserves no more than 8 out of 10. I think that everyone should definitely give it a shot. Overall I would say this game is worth renting but I wouldn’t recommend that anyone buy it until they play it and can form their own opinion. While it is a good game I didn’t enjoy it as much as some of the other games out there.

The Orange Box

2007-10-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

I picked up The Orange Box for the XBOX 360 last night. Developed by Valve, The Orange Box contains 5 games. Yeah, I said five. It includes Half Life, Half Life Episode I, Half Life Episode II, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Half Life games have been available for the PC for a while now but I never had the chance to play them. They are considered to be some of the best first person shooter games available. Portal is a puzzle game in which you create portals with a "portal gun" to make your way through areas. Team Fortress 2 is an online multi player game that features several classes, 6 maps and a whole lot of fun. While the Half Life games may be "old" they are new to me and all 5 games combined on one disk for the same price as every other 360 game ($59.99), this may be the best deal ever. I haven't got a chance to play through it all yet, but I will and I'll post my thoughts.

Gears of War review

2007-10-10T18:03:00.001-05:00

I origianlly wrote this when Gears of War was released last year. I didn't have this blog then so I thought I would post it now.

The premise of Gears of War is that on another planet inhabited by humans a subterranean species comes to the surface and wages war with the humans in an attempt to take over the world and destroy the human race. You and your team of soldiers are on a mission to destroy the locust horde.

The Graphics in Gears of War are awesome; there is no other way to put it. The environments are “beautifully destroyed” the entire city looks devastated and war torn. The buildings look realistic and look like they have been through hell. If you play this game in HD you will marvel at the environments and it will take you a lot longer to finish the game just because you want to see all the sights while playing. The characters are detailed and each has a very unique personality that is brought out in the game and makes them seem real. The weapons are not based on real life weapons but are original and realistic looking. When you fire a weapon the muzzle flash looks great and when you fire a weapon too long the steam that rises from the end of the barrel because you got it a little too hot is awesome. The chunks of rock that fly from the environments when hit by rounds and the blood effects are very well done. This game graphically is the best looking game on the 360 yet.

The sound of this game is great. The music isn’t the best in a game but it is very good and helps set the tone and the mood for the campaign. The sound of the weapons firing is also very well done. The two things about the sound in this game that really made it stand out are the chainsaw and the voice acting. The chainsaw that is your melee weapon on your machine gun sounds mean. It sounds like a real chainsaw and when you hear it fire up behind you it will give you chills. It is so cool. Then there is the voice acting. The voice acting is what put’s the story over the top. The voice acting is the best I have ever experienced in a game and it makes the characters in the game seem like real people. While there is a lot of foul language in the dialog I thought that it fit the situations that arise in the game. Unlike Prey where the foul language seemed gratuitous and fake this game really made it fit. You can turn the dialog down if you don’t like it so you don’t have to hear it but I think that it really help sets the mood in the campaign. There were many times where I would say “Oh Shit!” and my character on the screen said the exact same thing. The voice acting alone is enough to push this game toward the top 360 titles in the sound department.

The game play can make or break a game. If it’s not fun to play or easy to learn people will give up on it in a hurry. This game is not a first person shooter (FPS) people expecting another Halo needing to realize that this is a completely different type of game. It is not “run and gun”, it is “stop and pop”. This is a third person action/shooter game. This means that you can see your character on the screen. This game requires the use of cover to stay out of harms way and to maneuver to a superior fire position in order to gain the edge and take down you opponent. Now this may sound complicated but in reality it is pretty simple. The A button is the cover button. You press the A button when near and object to take cover behind it. You can move left or right to move while “stuck” to the object. If you use your weapons sights and press the left trigger you character will expose enough of his body to aim and fire at the opponent. Or you can just hit the right trigger and blindly spray rounds everywhere while not exposing your body. While behind cover you can rotate your thumb stick and an icon will appear at the bottom of the screen letting you know what will happen if you continue to press that direction and then hit the A button again. There are a lot of possibilities. You could do a “Swat spin” and go directly to another cover spot you can mantle over some obstacles and you can roll out cover among other things. Overall the control scheme works very well and is very functional. The weapons are fun and varied although through out the campaign I found myself relying mostly on my machine gun with the chainsaw bayonet.

The game can be split to single player, co-op or multiplayer. The single player story is one of the best single player experiences I have had playing a console game. Though the story may a few holes the overall experience of playing through the game itself is awesome. With a lot of very tense moments and some very intense firefights the game is a joy to play.
The single can be played cooperatively. Either two people on one console or two people over XBOX Live can play through the single player campaign. This works very well. While playing, a second player can jump in at any time at any point in the game and assume the role of Dom. Your teammate is then there with you through the rest of the game until he or she wants to leave. While they call it “seamless” it does seem to have one fault. That is when one player leaves the game the other player is then kicked to the menus. You cannot just continue your campaign where you’re at. While this is not a deal breaker it was something to note.

Gears of War features eight player multiplayer over XBOX Live. Now if you are a Geezer this is where you want to get your moneys worth. The game has three game modes War zone (death match), Execution (Death match only you have to be right on top of your opponent for the kill) and Assassination (kill the leader). They are not very different from one another and lead to much of the same, yet the game is still fun and the many different ways you have to finish your opponent keep the game fresh. There are ten multiplayer maps and they are all small and fast paced. They are very detailed and wonderful to look at. When playing with eight players over XBOX Live the rooms seem to stay very stable. There have only been two games online out of the many that I have experienced that had any kind of lag. The biggest problem with live so far is that you can’t change the options once you start a lobby. To change game types or weapons available on the map you have to exit and start a new room. It would also be nice if you could pick a map before each map as opposed to having the maps on a cycle.

Overall I would say that this is the best game available for the XBOX 360 right now. It looks and sounds awesome and has the best single player campaign on the 360. The co-op makes it even better. While the multiplayer has the possibility to become stale due to the lack of game types I think that future marketplace content of maps and game types will help. I would rate this game a 9 out of 10. Overall it is a great game that should get a lot of mileage and a good Geezer Game.

Halo 3 summary

2007-10-10T14:18:00.000-05:00

I gave my review of the single player and I gave it a 7 out of 10. I then wrote my review of Halo 3s multi player and I gave it a 10 of 10. So why did I break my review into two parts? One reason was to keep from having one really long review (people tend to ignore those) and the other is because I thought that each part should be reviewed separately. Halo 3 as one game is an awesome game. It is quite possibly overall, one of the best first person shooters ever. On a console. While the campaign was just above OK, the multi player takes this game to another level. Combine the multi player with the data collected on Bungie.net plus the promise of downloadable content in the future. This game will be the dominant title on the XBOX 360 until Microsoft comes out with another console. My overall score for Halo 3 would be a 9 out of 10 with a recommendation for everyone that has an XBOX 360 that is connected to XBOX Live to go buy this game.

Dolphins week 6

2007-10-10T13:50:00.000-05:00

I would like to say how happy I am that my Dolphins didn't let me down, but they lost. Even though I predicted they would lose, it doesn't make me feel any better about it. No team can lose every game, can they? So this week I am hoping that Miami can finally get into the win column, but I doubt it. I am usually a glass half full kind of guy but they did not look all that great last week and to top it off they lost their starting quarterback. Even though he hasn't been that great he's still the guy they were relying on to win some games. The Dolphins play the Cleveland Browns this week and while they aren't necessarily a very good team I think Miami loses another close game late in the 4th quarter. Their defense just hasn't been able to stop anyone and Cleveland has scored quite a few points this year. Hopefully the awful play calling from last week gets better this week.

Halo 3 multiplayer review

2007-10-10T13:45:00.000-05:00

If you played a lot of Halo 2s multiplayer on XBOX Live Halo 3 will have a very familiar feeling to you. The controls are tight and responsive and it plays similarly to Halo 2 but it does seem to have more balance. Bungie believes that they have a good balance between weapons, melee and grenades and I tend to agree. One of the three is usually not good enough to take down an opponent but combine any two and you can dispatch your enemies quickly.

When I first played Halo2 the maps really left me kind of awe struck. I didn’t feel that way with the Halo 3 maps. The maps in Halo 3 in general are small. They are nice to look at but the only map that made me say “this map is awesome” is Last Resort, a remake of Zanzibar from Halo 2. There are only a couple of maps with a lot of wide open spaces. It seems that Bungie wanted to keep the battles in close quarters.

The matchmaking is set up much the same way as Halo 2 with an assortment of ranked and unranked play lists where the system picks a map and a game type and then fills the game full of bodies. It is a system that still works really well and is the best and fairest matchmaking service (for ranked games) in an XBOX Live title today. I still cannot believe that no other developer has tried to copy the system Bungie uses, but that’s a topic for another post.

For more multiplayer madness you can also play custom games where you pick the map and game and invite your on friends. If you don’t like the game types that ship with the game you can create and customize your own with a very powerful set of customization options that let you do a lot of different things in a custom game. If those options aren’t enough there is also the Forge. The Forge is a quasi map editor that lets you place, move or remove objects on each of the games multiplayer maps. This also creates a lot of customization options and allows you to completely change how a map plays.

Once you are done playing you can go into a lobby and view films of your recently played games. You can play them like a video tape slowing down the action to see just how that guy killed you in that game of slayer. You can take pictures and make small films out of the games as well. You can then upload these to Bungie.net or send them to friends.

With all of these options plus being able to play the campaign over XBOX Live, I would have to give the online portion of Halo 3 a 10 out of 10. They really nailed it. Not to mention all of the stats that are tracked at Bungie.net . My only complaints are that I wish there were a few more larger sized maps and that a few of the customization options from Halo 2 didn’t make it to Halo 3. That’s not enough to deduct any points.

My review of Halo 3's campaign

2007-10-07T12:53:00.000-05:00

I left my house at around 11:45pm on September 24th headed to the GameStop in the mall to pick up my copy of Halo 3 (Legendary Edition). I live in a relatively small town, population 35,000. So imagine my surprise when I showed up at the mall and saw around 300 people waiting in line. I didn’t think there would be that many people there. So I finally got how around 1:00 in the morning and commenced the opening of my box of Halo 3 goodies. I went for the game first because there will be time for the rest later. I played a game of the single player, looked at a couple of multiplayer maps and went to bed (I need my rest).

The next day I slept in but then spent the rest of the day playing my new Halo goodness. I played through the single player on normal difficulty first and then played some multiplayer with my friends. I then went back and played the campaign on Heroic difficulty by myself and then on Legendary with friends. I have also mixed in plenty of multiplayer.

My impressions of the single player campaign were good. I enjoyed it. I thought the pacing was good, the graphics were sharp and the frame rate was very steady. I did however experience problems with the sound. I had parts where the sound was not in sync with the action. There was a good second or two between the action and then the sound effects. I also had problems with the music stuttering. I haven’t really heard of other people having these problems but I have experienced it at other times that I’ve played through as well. When the sound is in sync the sound effects and dialog are awesome and it’s topped off with excellent music from Marty O’Donnell.

The enemy AI is really great. They think and try to out maneuver and flank you to take you down any chance they get. The jackal snipers are a lot more forgiving/fair than they were in Halo 2. Most of the time it takes them two shots to kill you, as opposed to the one you never saw coming, over and over again. At least you have a chance to get behind cover after the first shot. With the enemy AI being so smart it is really sad that your teammates are completely fucking stupid. I mean completely fucking stupid. Most time you’re better of walking than riding or driving around with the AI because they more likely than not will lead you to certain death every time.

Bungie did a pretty good job of answering most of the questions that we were left with from the previous two games and this time unlike Halo 2 they do manage to give us closure. Just make sure you sit through the credits when you finish the game. ;)

With the inclusion of skulls, terminals and the online co-op the campaign has a lot of replay value. Overall I would give the single player a 7 out of 10. Even though I really enjoy the campaign I wouldn’t give it an 8 or 9 because the campaign is only about 6 hours long and the sound issues I experienced along with the teammate AI keep Halo 3’s single player being anything more than average.

A look back

2007-10-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

Well, so much for my bold predictions yesterday about how my Cubbies would take their series back to Arizona. Well now we get to be overwhelmed with stories next year about how it's been 100 years since the Cubs have won a World Series, great. Looking back on the season now the Cubs did do a lot better than I thought they would. I didn't think they'd be .500 much less win their division. So they did well. I think they'll be better next year. Hopefully Mark Prior will be back after Tommy John Surgery. Add him to the rotation and the Cubs should have one of the top starting rotations in baseball next year. Of course, we've learned you really can't count on Prior though. So maybe they will get Alex Rodriguez instead in the off season. That would certainly make the Cubs the favorites to repeat in the Central Division of course we can't count on that either. So maybe they won't be better. But I think they will be and we'll find out next year. Let's not go 101 years. Please?

The XBOX, Halo and me

2007-10-07T10:35:00.000-05:00

I was late to the XBOX party. I didn’t become an XBOX owner until 1999 or 2000. I can’t remember exactly when but the reason I switched was because I was on my 2nd PS2 and I got to the point where I just wanted a system that worked (heard that before?) and Sony wasn’t helping me out. So I said “Fuck Sony” and traded all my PS2 stuff in for an XBOX. There weren’t very many games available on the XBOX at the time so I picked up Halo.

I immediately fell in love with Halo. I thought the story was awesome and I will never forget my first encounter with the flood. I loved the music. Marty O’Donnell’s score really helped set the game apart from other games. I never had music in a game, music that had been composed for a game, stick with me like that. I played all the Final Fantasy games and while critics praise the music from those games (what are there 30 of them now?) I think that it doesn’t even compare with Halo’s score. I loved the ending. The last level of Halo with the warthog chase was so awesome. Racing against the clock to escape Halo before it did its best impression of the Death Star at the end of Episode IV.

If you were late to the party and didn’t get to enjoy Halo before Halo 2 was released you’re probably not going to understand the excitement surrounding Halo 3. Halo’s success brought a ton of first person shooters to the consoles. Before that everyone thought shooters were for PCs and wouldn’t work on consoles. Not only did Bungie prove everyone wrong with Halo. They brought several new and fresh ideas to first person shooters such as wide open sprawling areas, vehicles playing such an integral part of the game, and the limitation of only being able to carry 2 weapons at a time.

Transformers on DVD

2007-10-06T14:38:00.000-05:00

In case you live in a box somewhere and haven't heard. The Transformers movie is coming to DVD on Tuesday, October 16th. When I originally heard about the movie I wasn't all that excited. The more it was talked about and the more pictures and teasers I saw my interest really started to rise. By the time the movie came out I was ready and I took my 7 year old son to see it at the theatres. I must admit even though by now I was excited to see it, my expectations weren't all that high. I was more than pleasantly surprised by Transformers, as an avid fan of the toys and cartoon as a kid I must say that the movie really was awesome. I'm not saying it's Oscar material. It is a little thin on plot and the Transformers are the stars not the actors. But it is a great action flick with tons of explosions, chases and a lot more comedy than I expected. While the plot is thin, it stays true to it's roots and I think that is a good thing. I even went back to see it again and took all three of my kids, they all enjoyed it as well. Though there is a spot or two that really isn't suitable for children. I'll be picking it up Tuesday sometime and I recommend it to anyone that enjoys action movies.

Hole? What hole?

2007-10-06T14:25:00.000-05:00

My Chicago Cubs have managed to dig themselves a pretty big hole. They have lost the first two games of a five game series against the Diamondbacks. I don't think it's over and I do think the have a shot to win the three consecutive games needed in order to advance. A lot of sportswriters have been critical of Lou Pinella's decision to pull Zambrano in game 1 but I don't think it was a mistake. Sure it looks that way now but Carlos Marmol has been unhittable this year. If he would have came into the game and shut down the Diamondbacks like he's been doing to everyone else, all these "experts" would be singing Pinella's praise for limiting Zambrano and coming away with a win. I believe the Cubs win tonight behind Rich Hill and then I think they win again on Sunday with (a well rested) Zambrano on the hill. Then it's back to Arizona and who knows what happens then. Hopefully by then the Cubs bats will have been pretty hot at Wrigley and they carry that momentum to Arizona with them. I'll just try not to get my hopes up to high. After all I am a Cubs fan and I've been through this before.

Dolphins, week 5 versus the Texans

2007-10-06T14:15:00.000-05:00

Zach Thomas has been out dealing with a concussion and the defense has just fell apart. Though only one of several injured members of the defense, Thomas is definitely the biggest loss. Without Thomas to help stop the oppositions running game Miami gave up almost 300 yards on the ground against the Raiders, yeah those Raiders. They also managed to allow Daunte Culpepper to score 5 touchdowns. Three of which he ran in, so much for that bum knee huh? Looks like it's healed up alright. This week the Dolphins play the Texans who are with out their top two wide receivers and their starting half back. They also feature a defense that has not created much pressure and hasn't forced a turnover in two games. But somehow, someway I still feel the Dolphins are going to lose this game. I hope they can keep it close because if they can they have a chance. But I foresee a 7-10 point loss and the Dolphins moving one step closer to the number 1 overall pick in the next NFL Draft.

Vacation and Halo 3

2007-10-05T13:56:00.000-05:00

I was on vacation the last two weeks, I didn't go anywhere or do anything special. I did a few small things around the house and spent the rest of my time playing the crap out of Halo 3. The game is awesome and I have really enjoyed it. I have played through the single player campaign three times. On Normal and Heroic difficulties by myself and on Legendary (the hardest difficulty) with some friends online. I have spent the last couple of days playing a ton of matchmaking and I must agree with the people who call it more "balanced", it is. But I feel let down as some of the more important (at least to the group I play with) customization options from Halo 2 are missing and the maps are not near as fun as the maps from Halo 2. The maps as a whole are just alot smaller. Although I still think the game is truly awesome and worthy of the praise it has recieved. My disappointments are just small imperfections on a truly great game.

The Dolphins O showed up

2007-09-23T16:15:00.001-05:00

But the defense was nowhere to be found. I am so happy that the Miami Dolphins decided to actually try to run the ball. We hadn't seen much life out of the Dolphins running game this year and it affected the rest of the team. Ronnie Brown had 100 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving. The Dolphins still lost 31-28 to the New York Jets but I find myself more upbeat than down do to the fact that the offense actually showed up to play football. Now if the defense can get it back together and the offense can become consistent maybe they can become a respectable team again. I won't hold my breath.

Halo 3 Reviews

2007-09-23T15:35:00.000-05:00

The last few weeks members of the press have been playing Halo 3. But they were not allowed to write about what they played or saw until noon pacific time today. Now that the embargo has been lifted the reviews for Halo 3 have been coming out of the woodwork. According to Metacritic.com ,a site that collects review scores from all over the Internet and averages out the scores, Halo 3 is at last count scoring a 97 out of 100. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive and I cannot wait. I will be in line tomorrow night at midnight wait for my copy of Halo 3. In case you were wondering, I'll be getting the Legendary Edition .

A Little Wrigley Field

2007-09-22T08:21:00.001-05:00

A man by the name of Denny Garky in Freeport, Illinois came up with an idea to build a replica of Wrigley Field. The major difference is that is built for children. The field is a smaller scale but will feature some of the same major landmarks as the original. It will have a brick out field wall covered in ivy, it'll have a smaller (30 ft) manual scoreboard in center and it will have the "Welcome to Wrigley Field" sign in the front complete with scrolling marquee. What an awesome idea and I can't wait to see the finished product.

Congressional Medal of Honor

2007-09-21T09:04:00.000-05:00

I occasional read the website CMOHS.org, it is the web site of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. You can read about the history of the award and read the citations for all of the recipients. It is usually interesting reading and I think that it's great that this website is there to remind people what these heroes did for their country. While reading through the list I came across this citation and I had to share it.

BAKER, THOMAS A.

Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company A, 105th Infantry, 27th Infantry Division. Place and date: Saipan, Mariana Islands, 19 June to 7 July 1944. Entered service at: Troy, N.Y. Birth: Troy, N.Y. G.O. No.: 35, 9 May 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Saipan, Mariana Islands, 19 June to 7 July 1944. When his entire company was held up by fire from automatic weapons and small-arms fire from strongly fortified enemy positions that commanded the view of the company, Sgt. (then Pvt.) Baker voluntarily took a bazooka and dashed alone to within 100 yards of the enemy. Through heavy rifle and machinegun fire that was directed at him by the enemy, he knocked out the strong point, enabling his company to assault the ridge. Some days later while his company advanced across the open field flanked with obstructions and places of concealment for the enemy, Sgt. Baker again voluntarily took up a position in the rear to protect the company against surprise attack and came upon 2 heavily fortified enemy pockets manned by 2 officers and 10 enlisted men which had been bypassed. Without regard for such superior numbers, he unhesitatingly attacked and killed all of them. Five hundred yards farther, he discovered 6 men of the enemy who had concealed themselves behind our lines and destroyed all of them. On 7 July 1944, the perimeter of which Sgt. Baker was a part was attacked from 3 sides by from 3,000 to 5,000 Japanese. During the early stages of this attack, Sgt. Baker was seriously wounded but he insisted on remaining in the line and fired at the enemy at ranges sometimes as close as 5 yards until his ammunition ran out. Without ammunition and with his own weapon battered to uselessness from hand-to-hand combat, he was carried about 50 yards to the rear by a comrade, who was then himself wounded. At this point Sgt. Baker refused to be moved any farther stating that he preferred to be left to die rather than risk the lives of any more of his friends. A short time later, at his request, he was placed in a sitting position against a small tree . Another comrade, withdrawing, offered assistance. Sgt. Baker refused, insisting that he be left alone and be given a soldier's pistol with its remaining 8 rounds of ammunition. When last seen alive, Sgt. Baker was propped against a tree, pistol in hand, calmly facing the foe. Later Sgt. Baker's body was found in the same position, gun empty, with 8 Japanese lying dead before him. His deeds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

Iron Man

2007-09-21T08:45:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite comic books from my youth was Iron Man. Tony Stark is an industrialist who during a trip to the Vietnam War (updated to the Gulf War) is caught in a booby trap and captured. Stark is injured in the booby trap when a piece of shrapnel becomes lodged in his chest. While being held prisoner with a physicist the two are ordered to build a weapon for their captures. Instead they build a suit of armor that not only keeps Starks' heart beating but allows him to escape. It also gives him tremendous strength and other abilities. In the movie Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark. It is somewhat ironic that Downey was chosen for the title role because one of the major story lines of the comic was Tony Stark's struggle with alcoholism.

I am anxiously awaiting the release of this movie and if you're interested the trailer can be viewed at Yahoo.com

GeezerGamers.com

2007-09-21T08:40:00.000-05:00

GeezerGamers.com is an online community who's goal is to provide a place to meet like minded people to play games online over XBOX Live. It consist mostly of men and women over the age of 30 but there are several members below 30. If you've ever experienced playing an online game with some of the random people that are out there you know that it can sometimes be a very UNenjoyable experience. So if you want a better online experience stop by and post in the forums.

Mark Ecko has 756

2007-09-17T14:42:00.000-05:00

Mark Ecko, a semi famous fashion designer, was the winning bidder of Barry Bonds 756th home run ball. You know, the one that broke Hank Aaron's record. Now that he has it, what's he going to do with it? Well, he's leaving that part up to us. He created a web site that basically ask what he should do with it. So get over there and vote. My vote? I voted to send it to the Hall of Fame because that's where all of baseball history, good or bad, belongs.

Saturday night's Cubs game

2007-09-17T07:39:00.000-05:00

My birthday was back in May and for my birthday my sister bought me a ticket for the Cardinals and Cubs game Saturday evening. The seats were awesome. We were in section 143, row 11. The Cubs won 3 out of 4 games against the Cardinals over the weekend and wouldn't you know that the one loss they had was the game I attended. Oh well, I had a good time and it wasn't a complete wash as I got a foul ball off the bat of Ryan Ludwick in the bottom of the first inning. :) First time ever and it was pretty cool. The ball originally landed about ten or so rows behind us and everyone went nuts, there was a major dog pile. I had stood up and turned around and I saw the pile and figured I wasn't getting the ball. Then the damn thing rolled out from under the pile and bounced right down the steps to me. I just reached down and picked it up and showed it to my sister, while there was still a pile of people fighting for a ball that was no longer there. It was very cool. I ended up giving the ball to my son who was really excited when he found out I had it.

Ryan freakin' Dempster

2007-09-13T15:31:00.000-05:00

Ryan Dempster is going to give me a stroke. Watching him close games is freaking nerve racking. Last night with a 3-1 lead after 8 innings Dempster came in to the game and proceeded to give up a run to make it 3-2. He finally closed out the game with runners on first and third with 1 out by getting a ground ball to Lee who managed to turn a double play to win the game. Why is it so hard for him to come into the game in the ninth and get 1-2-3 inning to win a game? He can't seem to close out a game without giving up a run or at least putting a couple of guys on base. If you go by his numbers he is a good closer. But I really hope that he's gone next year because if he's not I'll have to start turning off the games after 8 innings, I can't take much more of the stress.

Robert Ridge

2007-09-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

I read Roberts' Ridge: A story of courage and sacrifice on Takur Ghar mountain a while back and thought it was worth mentioning. This book is about the U.S. military's attempt to take the Takur Ghar mountain peak from Al Qieda so that they could use the mountain as an observation post. A team of SEAL's original plan to land below the peak and climb up in order to maintain some surprise was abandoned after several set backs happened that caused them to lose valuable time and forced them to attempt to land on the peak. During the failed insertion a single SEAL falls out of the aircraft and the rest of the team then has to go back and attempt to rescue him. Things don't get any better and eventually the SEALs themselves have to be helped by a Quick Reaction Force of Army Rangers. This battle takes place during Operation Anaconda during the war in Afghanistan. Eight members of the U.S. Military died during Operation Anaconda, seven of them in this battle.

The story is very similar to "Black Hawk Down" in how a seemingly very well thought out plan has to be scraped when unforeseen circumstances happen. This book also highlights many of the problems the different services have cooperating with each other. The Army, Navy and Air Force all three had people on the mountain top.

Wow, I need a plan...

2007-09-09T17:01:00.000-05:00

According to a recent story in The Onion over 87% percent of Americans do not have a plan for survival in a post apocalyptic world. Do you have a plan in case of a zombie outbreak or nuclear fallout? Just something else to think about. ;)

Lone Survivor

2007-09-09T16:39:00.001-05:00

The other day I was reading through the news and I came across something about a Navy SEAL named Marcus Luttrell that had released a book about a rather bad experience that he had in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2005. Marcus was part of a four man SEAL team that was dropped off in the Afghan mountains and shortly thereafter ran into 3 goat herders. They were civilians, 2 adult males and a male teenager. They decided that even though no one is supposed to know that they are in the mountains that they don't really want to kill 3 goat herders and they then proceed to let them go. Eventually the four SEALS are ambushed and Marcus Luttrell is the Lone Survivor. I won't ruin anymore of it for you but it is a very interesting read and Marcus' personality really comes out in the book as you get a feel for who he really is and how these events have affected him. I definitely recommend it.

The Cubs?!

2007-09-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

When I was in the 4th or 5th grade my dad was stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. It was at this time that I became interested in baseball. My first little league team was the Cubs, I played several different positions but mostly catcher, pitcher and the outfield. One afternoon I was at a friends house. We were talking about baseball and he showed me some of his baseball cards. He said his favorite team was the Dodgers and then proceeded to ask me what my favorite team was. I didn't have one. So after thinking about it for a few seconds I said "The Cubs". It was the only team I new of besides the Dodgers and there wasn't a local team. I wish I would of realized at the time what I had just done. Well, maybe not. Twentythree or so years later I think it's probably best that those events played out how they did. Championships are over rated anyway...aren't they?

Why JCBains

2007-09-09T15:33:00.000-05:00

My real name is not JC Bains. JCBains is my identity on XBOX Live. I had to come up with a unique name that millions of other people did not already have. So in my pursuit of said name I tried out a lot of possibilities, though I must admit most of them were not very creative(but they were all taken). After giving it some serious thought, I came up with a (I thought) pretty good idea. How about I take the first letter of each my children's names T, C and B and then add the first four letters of my last name Ains. Brilliant! But some how I managed to enter a J instead of a T while I was signing up (and my oldest never lets me forget it) and so JCBains was born. In hindsight JCBains does sound better than TCBains.

Call of Duty 4 Beta

2007-09-09T09:31:00.001-05:00

I wasn't nearly as excited about Call of Duty 4 as a lot of people seem to be. I played Call of Duty 2 and 3 and while they were both really good games they didn't really leave me wanting more. I went to charlieoscardelta.com anyway and signed up for the beta so that I could find out why people are so psyched for this game and why everyone at E3 was so excited about it. I was lucky enough to get a beta code last week Call of Duty 4 is all that I have played since. I love it and cannot get enough of it. I think that it say a lot about Infinity Ward when the beta version of their game is more polished than most of the crap that gets released as a retail version of a game. Things that make other games annoying as hell, such as unplayable online games and frame rate issues are nowhere to be seen in Call of Duty 4. The game play is solid, the game looks nice and it's fun to play. Can you really ask for anything else.

This years Dolphins

2007-09-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

Never mind Thursday night, today is the day that the NFL season starts. I am a Dolphins fan and I have been for as long as I've been a football fan. Last year I thought the Dolphins had a real shot to win the division and to go far in the playoffs. Well, we won't talk about what happened last season. If you're interested you can look it up, it wasn't good. But if I learned anything from last year and this preseason it's that I should expect more of the same. While I am really happy that we now have an offensive head coach for the first time in years, I don't think the offensive line is strong enough for this team to do well. I think the offensive line is what keeps the Dolphins from being a .500 team this year. I predict 5-6 wins and another high draft pick. Maybe next year they can get an offensive lineman in the draft or maybe Zach Bowman from Nebraska because the secondary isn't that great either.

Hi, I'm JCBains

2007-09-08T17:52:00.000-05:00

I have thought about starting a blog for a while, and wouldn't you know I finally did it. I thought I'd start my first post with a little information about myself. I am a white male, 32 years old, happily married for twelve years and the father of three beautiful children, 2 daughters aged 10 and 12 and a 7 year old son. I live in a small town in Missouri about 80 miles south of St. Louis.

I plan to use my blog to talk about my interests which are Books, Movies, Baseball, Football (the american kind) and video games. I am an avid gamer and my console of choice is the XBOX 360 (please don't hate me). But I will try to keep my thoughts short and to the point so that way I hopefully won't bore anyone to death or scare away readers.

Thanks for stopping by and if you stop by again I'll tell you more about myself and my interests as time goes on.