Huh. I guess it's been a while, eh? My last post was after E3, which was like, forever ago it seems. I should really post more often.

Anyway, I just got back from playing 1 vs. 100 Live, and I got to be in the live mob tonight! I had a chance to win a copy of Worms and up to 800 Microsoft points. Unfortunately, I was knocked out on the second question. I was one of the first ten eliminated. The question I missed was about lyrics to a Billy Joel song, who I don't listen to. I felt better after the next question though, when the one (and about half of the remaining mob) missed a question about Barbie, which I also didn't know the answer to. So I was pretty much destined to fail that round. But even though it was only for two questions, it was a lot of fun actually being a part of the game. And now that I know it's possible, I'll be trying even harder every week to qualify.

Anyway, that's all I have to report for now. Hopefully in the weeks to come I can get this blog revitalized.

This is going to be a two part thing, because I haven't seen the Sony press briefing yet, and only part of the Microsoft one, and I already have so much to talk about.

First off, Nintendo. Nintendo's press briefing was pretty good, if only because they showed at least 3 games that I want RIGHT NOW (as opposed to 1 last year) and that Dunaway lady wasn't nearly as annoying this year. In fact, she dropped a lot of good news. First off, New Super Mario Bros. Wii looks like it's going to be my new favorite offline multiplayer game, although the name is blah. Can we get a little more creative here? Speaking of uncreative names, the direct sequel to Super Mario Galaxy is called Super Mario Galaxy 2, and... wait, two 3D Mario games on one console?! This is unprecedented! I want it NOW!

And to top off the list of poorly-named games that look awesome, there's Metroid: Other M. Terrible subtitle, but the trailer looked good. I'm a little wary of the continuing trend of using voice actors in Metroid games (Metroid Prime 3's voice acting was sub-par), and I'm not sure if teaming up with Team Ninja will be a good or a bad thing for the franchise, but I'm cautiously optimistic about this title. (Well, the game; the title still needs some work.)

All in all, Nintendo's press briefing did exactly what I hoped it would do: make me glad I own a Wii again. Since last E3, I have purchased one Wii retail game (Animal Crossing: City Folk) and I've already grown tired of it. It's nice to see there's some software coming in the near future that will give my little white rectangle something to do.

On the Microsoft front, I had a chance to play the first episode of the 1 vs. 100 beta, and it was a ton of fun. I didn't get to play as the 1 or in the mob, but crowd players get matched up with three other opponents, so it's still competitive even if you're not on stage. Chris Cashman is a great host. Some of his jokes had me laughing out loud. Unfortunately I couldn't hear him all the time. My opponent's would say he was talking sometimes but all I could hear was background music. It's a beta, so there's sure to be bugs, but I hope this is one that gets fixed soon. Cashman is a funny guy, and I'd like to hear what he has to say.

And then there's Project Natal. The features shown in the video are pretty impressive, and I hope most of them make it to the final product. It's still probably more than a year off, but Jimmy Fallon got to try out a working prototype on his show last night:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/77038/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-project-natal-demo

Just to be clear, you don't need to wear red jumpsuits to play Project Natal. The Xbox rep was clear on that after the commercial break.

It's an ambitious project, and if it does what it promises it could easily blow Wii out of the water. The only concerns for me are: how much is it going to cost, how well is it going to work, and how many games will actually use it?

Well, that's about all for now. I'm off to play some World at War (my new maps just finished downloading) and then I'll watch the rest of the Microsoft press conference. And then I'll watch the Sony one too, just for completion sake.

Hello Internet. It has been a while.

Last time I posted it was the week before finals. I did... um, well I did ok on some of them. I think I might need to retake a few classes though. Eh, it's summer now. No need to worry about tomorrow's problems today.

In the meantime, I've been busy at home, super busy at work (McDonald's sucks), and have been trying to make time for games in between. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much time to update my blog. As such, I have been gathering thoughts for a while and have not shared them. So I shall.

First of all, I've been playing Fable II and I LOVE it. The co-op play is... well, it's not good. But the single player is more than enough to keep me occupied, to be honest. I've had a ton of fun trying to unlock some of the more off-beat achievements, like sleeping with more than one person at the same time or kicking a chicken a certain distance. (Why kicking chickens? Is that some sort of inside joke?)

Second of all, 1 vs. 100 is debuting on Xbox Live on Monday, and I couldn't be more excited. I've been looking forward to this since it was announced at last year's E3. For anyone who's never seen the show, it works kind of like this: there's one solitary contestant, and they're facing off against a group of 100 people known as "the mob." The player and the mob are shown a multiple choice trivia question, and each member of the mob has a few seconds to lock in an answer before the player is asked to answer the question. If the player gets it right, all the mob members who got it wrong are eliminated. For every 10 people eliminated, the player goes up one prize rank. If the player gets a question wrong, however, the player's earnings so far are split up amongst the remaining mob members. This show was originally designed for TV with a jackpot of $1 million, but they've adapted it for play on Xbox Live, and instead of money, the players are playing for Microsoft points. I have no idea what the jackpot is, but the idea of free MS points has me intrigued. I don't know how contestant selection or prize payouts are going to work, but the premiere episode is Monday night at 10:30 pm Eastern Time, so if you've got Xbox Live you should check it out. (Beta season is free, by the way, so there's no charge.)

Thirdly, I am all kinds of excited for Modern Warfare 2, which is totally unfair because it doesn't come out until November, but the trailer they released last week has got me all worked up. I'm hoping they tie the "Mile High Club" chapter from CoD4 into the story somehow, because that part of the game always seemed so randomly tacked on to me. (Not to mention extremely difficult.)

And that's about all I got. I haven't been paying attention to the pre-E3 hype this year because in year's past it's only led to disappointment. I will be watching the press conferences next week, though, and I'm looking forward to what the big 3 have to show us. (Nintendo can't possibly disappoint me more than it did last year... can it?)

Today I reached another milestone: 10,000 gamerscore points. Like I did when I hit 5,000, I'm going to take a look back at some of my more memorable achievements, and take you along for the ride.

Fallout 3: Tranquility Lane - 20G - I don't want to be spoiler-y here, but if you haven't gotten this far in Fallout 3 yet, or just haven't played it, this mission is probably the part of the game that stands out the most. It's weird, it's ironic, and it's a lot of fun to play.

Oasis - 20G - This one gave me a hard time. You see, my second playthrough of Fallout 3 I decided to make my character as evil as possible. Blowing up cities, killing innocents, stealing, looting, cannibalism, that kind of stuff. So when I got to this mission there were a number of ways to complete it, but I couldn't figure out which one was the most evil. I spent a good deal of time debating the ethics of the situation with my family, but the answer came when I talked it out some more with the in-game characters. I torched the place.

The Bigger They Are... - 20G - The achievement I used to hit 10,000. Finding an achievement I hadn't completed to hit the thousand exactly was easier this time around, as I was 20G short and almost all the achievements in Fallout 3 are worth that much.

Left 4 Dead: Zombicidal Maniac - 30G - My achievement hunting in L4D has, for the most part, been super easy, since most of them can be achieved simply by playing single player on easy difficulty. This one, however, required me to survive a campaign on the expert difficulty, which meant I had to play with people. (Not that I mind playing with others, since it's way more fun than moron CPU players.) A friend of mine and a friend of his teamed up, and we left one player to the computer (got used as bait most of the time). It took us about 3 hours, a lot of dying, and my friend's friend didn't make it to the rescue vehicle, but I got the achievement, and my friend got the achievement for beating all 4 campaigns on expert, so it was worth it.

Halo 3: Tank Dropper - 25G - This is one of those goofy achievements. You don't have to drop a tank to get the achievement, you just have to kill someone while you're in monitor mode. I took a slightly more creative route and launched crates and boxes at someone through a man cannon.

Rock Band 2: Buy a Real Instrument Already! - 35G - I got this one for beating an "Impossible" challenge on Expert, but the challenge I beat was just a handful of The Who songs, which aren't really all that hard. How that got categorized as "impossible" is beyond me, but whatever, I got an achievement.

Uno Rush: Party's Over - 20G - I scored 250 points in one round, basically winning the entire game in a single round. I think it was after this that someone accused me of cheating.

Fable II: The Menace To Society - 5G - I got this one for doing a vulgar dance in front of a townsperson while naked. Why are you encouraging this kind of behavior, Microsoft?

GTA IV: TLAD: Get Good Wood - 50G - Achievement description: "In the bike races, whack off 69 bikers with a bat." Tee-hee! Double entendres.

And that's about all I got. I've still got another 1750 to earn to get the maximum entries in the sweepstakes. Back to work on that.

Reading directions is important.

I just wrote a 6-page paper for my media ethics course, and as I was getting ready to turn it in, I noticed the directions, and that I hadn't follwed them. I had thought we could discuss anything relating the media, but the directions said to write about a story we felt was under-reported by the mainstream media.

Fortunately for me, my paper did kind of discuss that. My paper was initially about anti-gaming legislation that restricts the sale of M-rated games to minors. These laws are unconstitutional and each one that gets passed gets overturned, but legistlators keep drafting new bills in states across the country. Every time a law gets overturned by the courts, the state has to pay taxpayer dollars in attorney fees and damages to the game industry.

I basically turned this into an on-topic paper by saying that most of the mainstream coverage of video games involves controversy involving sex scenes, such as GTA's "Hot Coffee" scene or that whole Mass Effect vs. Fox News ridiculousness, but really doesn't focus at all on the legislation that gets passed and then overturned at the taxpayer's expense. Ta-da! I made my paper on-topic, and added a page in the process! Anyway, that's done and turned in, so now I can get back to playing 360.

Speaking of 360, they've got a sweepstakes going on this week that couldn't be timed worse. It's for a trip to E3, and you can earn up to 10 entries by increasing your gamerscore. For every 250G you earn by Sunday, you earn an entry. Therefore, to earn the maximum possible entries, I'd have to increase my gamerscore by 2500G. To put that in perspective, my current gamerscore is 9245G, and I've owned my Xbox 360 for almost a year now. Not only would I have to earn over 1/4 of my current gamerscore in about 1/40 of the time, but this is the week before finals. I had that paper due today, a newspaper article due tomorrow, and another huge paper due Wednesday. Ugh. Guess I'm not going to E3 this year... Oh well. The odds of winning that sweepstakes are pretty slim anyway.

Looks like I'm not getting any sleep tonight.

The problem with living in a dorm is that your study area and your gaming area overlap. My TV and my laptop sit right next to each other on my desk, meaning I can't focus on my school work without nagging thoughts of video games distracting me. As a result, I usually say "screw this" to my homework and play Call of Duty instead, which has put me way behind on homework. Oops.

So now it's 3:30 in the morning, and I have a 10 minute presentation to give in 10 hours, and I haven't done anything on it yet. The good news is it's about video games, so whatever I don't prepare tonight I can probably just come up with on the spot. The bad news is... I'm tired. It's been a long weekend.

This weekend was the prerelease for Alara Reborn, a new expansion set for the Magic: the Gathering trading card game. I don't have a lot of money to buy cards lately, but I haven't missed a prerelease event in six years and I wasn't about to start now. Unfortunately, my mom's 50th birthday was also this weekend. I spent my Saturday at home for her birthday, generally trying to be as nice to my mom as possible to cover up for the fact that I can't afford her a birthday present (I will get her one when I can afford it, along with my sister, cousin, and aunt, whom I also owe presents to. I'm terrible at birthdays). The next day, I went to the card shop for the prerelease, but apparently everyone had already played at the Saturday event because no one else showed up on Sunday. My perfect streak has been broken. On the plus side, I saved some money, which is something I currently don't have.

So that was my weekend. Might not have much time to blog this coming week: I've got my video game presentation tomorrow, a newspaper article due on Tuesday, and a debate to prepare for on Wednesday. Why do school courses always give huge amounts of homework at the same time? There should be a law against that.

Hello, internet! Happy April 20th, to those that celebrate. I don't personally, but I did mark the occasion by zoning out, daydreaming, accomplishing nothing and watching "Family Guy." (Just like every other day...)

Speaking of "Family Guy," Mike Henry, the voice actor who plays Cleveland and several other characters on the show, visited my university the other day. It was a guest speaker event called "Behind the Scenes of Family Guy." He showed us how the episodes are made, from start to finish (it takes about 10 months, apparently). He also showed us some of his earlier work before landing the "Family Guy" job, talked about what it's like working in Hollywood, and gave us a preview of his new spin-off "The Cleveland Show." Oh, and he did the voices. Tee hee!

Then he opened the floor for questions, half of which involved "Check out my Cleveland impression - Party over here!" I asked him if he ever gets sick of that, but he says he doesn't get it that often. I guess it makes sense; he's not a screen actor so people don't recognize him on the street. Gosh, I bet Seth McFarlane gets Peter and Stewie impressions from people ALL THE TIME. Anyway, he's a really cool guy. I forgot to bring anything for him to sign, so I had him sign my student ID.

In gaming news... um, I'm renting Fable II. There's a Game with Fame event on Xbox Live this Thursday with the cast of "Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire" in the game. I have never seen the show, but my friend has been talking about how India de Beaufort is his new favorite actress, and I'm sure playing a video game with her would make him jealous, so I sent a friend request and was lucky enough to get a spot on India's friend list. Here's hoping I get a game invite!

Also, i've become quite fond of sniper rifles in Call of Duty 4. I used to hate them, preferring an M16 with a red dot sight for long-range kills, but after getting in some practice I've actually become pretty good with a bolt-action rifle. I've gotten into such a habit of sniping, I've started clicking the left stick to steady my shots even when I'm not sniping. It doesn't do anything with other guns, I just do it out of habit.

Anyway, I'm gonna go watch "Shaun of the Dead" with some friends. See y'all around!

Oh, what a happy Easter weekend I had! My games from which I had been separated for almost a week were waiting for me on the coffee table when I got home. And yet, the first game I reached for was the one I had been borrowing from my neighbor all along: Halo 3.

I sent messages to the Red vs. Blue folks, hoping beyond hope that they would invite me to their game and I could game and chat with my heroes. Unfortunately, about a jillion other people did so as well. Burnie Burns posted a video on his journal showing the message overload. According to him, they came non-stop through the entirety of the event and for about two hours after as well. Anyone who actually got to play with them should consider themselves quite fortunate. Considering the turnout, I wouldn't be surprised if next time they end up setting it up like a Game with Fame event.

So it turns out all my Halo 3 practice was for nothing. (Well, I got a lot of achievements, but those are arguably nothing.) I did get a chance to play Grifball, however, a Halo variant created by the Red vs Blue creators. It's neutral bomb Assault with two teams of 4 in a rectangular arena. No shields, hammers & swords only, ball carrier gets an overshield, a speed boost, and orange armor. Best of 5 rounds wins. It's like a mix of soccer, football, and Halo, and it's a lot of fun. The double XP playlist is closed now, but if they ever open up another one I encourage anyone who's never played it to give it a try.

I haven't played Call of Duty yet this weekend, partially because I'm afraid of what all that Halo playing has done to my CoD skills. I have a feeling I'm gonna be throwing grenades when I try to reload my gun.

My computer is working again! Well, kind of. My monitor is still busted, but I got the stand-alone monitor I'm borrowing to work. Apparently I had to press function+F8 to get the laptop to send video output to the monitor. I wish someone had told me that sooner. Anyway, I can use my computer again, so that's good.

Unfortunately, I am stupid, and forgot all of my video games at home this weekend. I still have my downloaded games on my hard drive, but all of my disc based games are 100 miles away. So I'm going to either have a boring week or I'm going to play a ton of Uno Rush and Peggle. (Although I probably would have done that anyway...)

Ironically, the game I wanted to play most this week was Halo 3. I haven't played it in 3 months, so it's odd that I would want to all of a sudden, but Red vs. Blue is hosting a Community Playdate in Halo 3 this Friday and I wanted to get some practice in before that, so I wouldn't look like a bumbling idiot who can't shoot to save his life. Fortunately my neighbor owns the game, so maybe he'll let me borrow his copy.

Well, that's all for now. It feels good to post updates from my own room again. See ya on the forums!

I never though much of leaderboards before. I don't need to know that I'm ranked 106,000th or whatever in Call of Duty 4, that number means nothing to me. That attitude changed recently, however. Somehow I've made it to3rd place in ranked wins on Uno Rush. Of course, the game hasn't even been out a week, so its player population isn't that big yet, but still. 3rd. Something about actually holding a relevant position on a leaderboard makes leaderboards so much more... relevant.

Of course, there are some negative side effects to being highly ranked. Players I'vedefeated several times avoid me in lobbies, sometimes making it hard to find enough players for a game. One player even accused me of cheating, saying there's no way someone could go 70-50 in Uno legitimately. (Uno maybe, but Uno Rush is a game of skill, not luck. Although a little luck helps.) I've never performed so well in a game that someone actually thought I was cheating at it. I explained my strategies to him and the accusations stopped, but I can see why he was suspicious. Only one other player in the top 10 had a winning record.

(An aside on cheating: I hate cheaters with a passion. Words I use to describe cheaters on Xbox Live would get me suspended or banned from GameSpot if I repeated them here. I can tell the difference between an itchy trigger finger and a modded controller, so if you cheat on CoD and I see it (I watch all killcams when I'm shot with a G3 or pistol), I willfile a complaintto Microsoft and encourage everyone else in the game lobby to do the same. Cheat all you want in single-player, that's fine, I don't care. Just keep it out of multiplayer.Cheaters ruin the game for people who just want to play legitimately and have fun. Ok, rant over.)

Anyway, in case anyone's wondering about my Uno Rush strategies, I keep a close eye on all the other players' hands. As a general rule, I look at my opponents' hands more than I do my own. Once I've got my cards sorted by color, I watch my opponents to predict what the card will be when it's my turn, then quickly arrange my cards not only so that I can discard some cards, but also to make sure I'm not playing into the next player's hand.
Some other tips:
- At the beginning of the round, set up your cards in such a way that you can change the color of the discard pile, if possible. Players put cards of the first card's color at the top of their pile, so if you go first and change it on them right away you can force them to adapt quicker then they'd like, potentially screwing up their line.
- Discard command cards and wild cards as soon as possible. Not only do they interrupt lines, but if another player goes out before you get rid of 'em they'll get 20 points for 'em (50 for wilds).
- Mash Y on opponent's turns and X on your own if hands are less than 3 cards. If you're down to two cards and are going to play one of them, you need to call UNO! as soon as your turn starts or there's an easy opportunity for an opponent to challenge. Same for if you're down to one but need to draw a card; if you draw a playable card, it's going to be played immediately, and if you're not ready for it, an opponent will be. Likewise, if an opponent is in the same situation, you should be pressing Y furiously. If they don't call UNO! right away, you'll get 'em for it.
- Use the bumpers in addition to the control stick for quick swaps. A friend taught me this. Using both the bumpers and the control stick can get cards to the top of your stack twice as quickly as just using the control stick.

There. Now if anyone else accuses me of cheating, I can send 'em here. I'll stop the accusations and increase readership at the same time! How's that for two birds with one stone?

Sorry if this blog got a little braggy, but this is my one moment in the leaderboard spotlight, and I probably won't be able to hang onto it for long. Every day the topplayers get further and further ahead, and players below me seem to catch up and surpass me by more every day, meaning I have to put more time into playing just to keep my spot. They might have losing records, but the other leaderboard toppers are cutthroat and determined. I don't know how long I can keep up with them.

Not much to report today, but I want to respond to some comments from last blog post. (I was going to do what most people do and leave a comment underneath those, but then it occured to me that people might not go back and read other comments on a blog they've already read, so I figured I'd just put them here where y'all will be sure to see them.)

@everyone: Thanks for trying to cheer me up. I'm hoping things don't end up too awkward between me and her. She's borrowing some of my Wii games and I'm going to want them back.

@Xongu: I prefer most of the Guitar Hero drums to the Rock Band drums, but I can't stand the kick pedal on the GH set. It doesn't go down all the way and it just feels weird. I tried connecting a RB drum pedal to the GH drums but it didn't work. I don't particularly dislike the RB drums, but the GH drum pads are much quieter, so that's why I prefer them.

also @Xongu: Zombie Verrückt is a great zombie map to play if you're getting tired of Nacht der Untoten. It's only fun if you have 4 players though. At the beginning of the game, you're split into two teams of two, and if you have 3 or less people (or someone quits), then someone doesn't have a partner until someone unlocks all the doors and turns the power back on, and that's no fun. As long as you've got a full party, though, it's great. It's not worth $10 on its own, but if you start playing multiplayer then the other maps would make it worthwhile. They're all good-sized - not too big, not too small - and none of them have tanks, so I'm having a blast on 'em.

Ok, now thatthat's out of the way, time for the real reason I'm here: reviews. I've been promising them for a while, and decided I should probably get around to it, since I'm going to need practice if I want to do this for a living. I just needed to wait for the right time...

Well, my night class was cancelled, so that gave me time to play some games. And then I forgot I had laundry to do, and didn't have any clothes to wear the next day. I noticed this after my roommate fell asleep, so I couldn't play video games in my room lest he wake up. So I went to the computer lab, and wrote up some reviews for the games I played:

UNO Rush: UNO is fun, but it's not hard. UNO Rush has actual strategy involved. (Also, I am the first GameSpot user to write a review for it. FIRST!)

Peggle: Ugh. Peggle Fever has got a hold on me. I love this game and I don't know why. The graphics are childish and the gameplay is simple (and mostly luck), but there's something that keeps me playing it. Maybe I just like "Ode to Joy"...

I was going to write one more, but my laundry's done now, so I can go to bed with peace of mind, knowing I won't have to wear dirty clothes tomorrow. See ya next time!

My spring break sucked. I must blog about it. If you don't care about my personal life, skipthe nextthree paragraphs. I won't hold it against you.

My ex and I have maintained a good friendship after our relationship ended. I was back in town this week, so I thought maybe we should hang out. She worked all week, but she got off work at 5 on Friday so we went to Applebee's for dinner. We talked a lot, and then we went to Wal-Mart (apparently it's her favorite place to just go and walk around, we didn't even buy anything). Then we bought some scratch-off tickets after she told me how her mom had just won $300 on one. And then we went home. Oddly, this was closer to an actual date than any of the dates we went on while we were dating. I start to think that maybe we have a good thing going here.

On my way back to school, I call her and say I want to meet her on my way out of town. I bought her a present and wanted to give it to her before I left. I meet her at our Usual Spot and we talk for an hour on the hood of my car. She eventually checks the time and realizes it's 10 minutes to midnight, and I've got a two-hour drive ahead of me, so I should probably get going. I ask her if she's seeing anyone, and she says that she is, which nullifies the next question I was going to ask.

So that was awkward, and my two-hour drive felt much longer than that. And now it's 4 in the morning and I can't sleep, so I'm venting on the internet, because no one else is awake and I need to talk to someone about this. So thanks for listening, Internet.

Ok, so moving on to non-personal issues, since that is what this blog was originally intended for:

I downloaded the new Call of Duty: World at War map pack, and I'm pretty happy with the new maps. Nightfire is nice and small, but still has great sniping spots. Station is small but has a lot of nooks and crannies to hide in. Knee Deep... well, I'm not sure what I think of it yet. Rooftop snipers annoy me. I do like that none of the new maps have tanks, though. Those things bother me. Whenever I get put on a tank map I basically just devote my time to blowing up tanks. I haven't had a chance to try the new Zombie map, but I like that they included one in the first place. Nazi Zombies is probably the coolest thing about WaW (probably because it's the only aspect of the game that wasn't stolen from CoD4 - well, apart from the damn tanks).

My Guitar Hero drum kit is fixed - again. Hopefully permanently this time. Apparently the wire had been pulled loose from the sensor, soI stripped the glue off and re-attached it. If it breaks again, I'm just going to buy a Rock Band 2 drum set. I'm sick of finding a screwdriver small enough to fit in the drum holes.

Ugh. I'm addicted to Peggle. I don't know how a game so mind-numbingly simple keeps me occupied as well as it does, but somehow it pulls it off. Maybe it's because I like hearing "Ode to Joy" when I win. Hmm. I should just start playing "Ode to Joy" whenever I win anything.

And that's about it for now. Join me next time when hopefully I have less personal drama affecting my blogging habits.

My laptop is broken. I am writing this blog from the computer lab in my dorm hall.

The monitor on my laptop quit last week. The LCD display is working, but the backlight blew out, so I can't see what's on the screen. (I tried shining a flashlight in there but all I got was glare.) So now I've been banished to the computer lab until I can get it fixed. Best Buy said it would cost anywhere from $100-$500 to get a new monitor (!), but my neighbor back home says I can find replacements on the web for less than $100, and he can help me install it, so I think I'm gonna go that route. Unfortunately, I won't be going home for another week, so that's another week I'm gonna have to go without a laptop.

It seems like all of my electronics are crapping out on me lately. My Wii makes excessive noise when the disc spins and gets disc read errors, my 360 makes excessive noise when the fan spins and my guide freezes up frequently, and now my laptop needs fixing. If I had enough money, I'd haul it all in to Geek Squad in a burlap sack. I'd throw the sack up on the counter and say "fix these." But I don't have enough money, and even if I did it would probably be cheaper to buy new stuff than have Geek Squad try to repair them.

I've spoken about the guys at Rooster Teeth on this blog before, specifically Geoff's $1,000 achievement bet with Burnie. I've been watching their Halo series Red vs. Blue for years now, and ever since Achievement Hunter went online I've been chasing gamerscore like it's... something that I chase. (Sorry, I'm tired, can't think of a good metaphor.)

Anyway, I noticed last week that Achievement Hunter was doing a community playdate on Xbox Live when The Lost and Damned comes out. So I hopped on that bandwagon and got to meet the guys behind the videos. It was awesome.

Specifically I got to play with Jack and Knuckles, who make most of the achievement help videos, and Geoff, who not only makes achievement videos but also plays Grif on Red vs. Blue. If you don't know who they are or what Red vs. Blue is then this may not mean much to you, but if you're a fan of the show then you understand how hard it was to keep my composure and not verbally hero-worship them.

Geoff wasn't very talkative, but when he did talk he was pretty funny. In one game our team was doing really well, and he said, "Good job guys, we're really kicking ***... mostly thanks to me, of course." Tee hee.

Jack is a good guy. At one point in a race game the connection freaked out on us and everyone but Jack and I got kicked from the race, so I got to have a one-on-one chat with him. At this point I nerded out a little bit and told him what a fan I was of the site, and we talked a bit about achievements, specifically the Rolled Over achievement I talked about in my previous blog. He put together a video of him attempting the achievement over and over again. He said it took him about 4 hours to finally pull it off. He had it easy; I can't even fathom how many combined hours I tried to pull that off.

Knuckles is also cool. He was kind enough to answer a question I had before the event about how the event was going to work. I don't think he likes me though. When I switched to his team in the lobby, he switched to the other team. (I didn't do very well that game, though, so maybe he just knows I'm underskilled.)

Besides playing with online celebrities, though, the best part about tonight was playing with people who weren't annoying jerks. GTA IV has some really annoying players in its online community. I mean, all games do, but GTA IV seems to have more than most. So it was really a breath of fresh air to get together with some people who can just have some fun and be civil. I hope Rooster Teeth does another community playdate soon, because this was a really great event.

Speaking of GTA IV, I have a review for it! I wrote it for my feature writing college course. I'm not sure it's what the teacher was looking for, but I've been wanting to turn in a game review for one of my journalism courses for a while, so I bent the assignment rules a little and turned it in anyway. I'll post it here on GameSpot next week, once I add a little part on the end reviewing The Lost and Damned. It's big enough DLC that it deserves its own review, but there's no place on GS to review DLC so I'll just add it to the end of my main game review.

Well, that's all for now GameSpotters. See you all next time!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up on my blog or my reviews. I've had writer's block the past few weeks. I haven't been blogging, or writing papers for school, which is bad, especially since I'm a journalism major. Anyway, I'm starting to get back on track. We had some snow days a few weeks ago and it made it hard to get into a regular schedule, but I'm starting to get back in the groove.

Been renting a few games, and as soon as I get a job again, I have two games on my list to buy: Left 4 Dead and Fallout 3. Left 4 Dead is pretty much just the best co-op game EVER, and Fallout 3 has nukes and slow-mo headshots. And dismemberment. And that never gets old. The day I returned those games, I sat back down in front of my Xbox and was like, "Now what?"

Call of Duty is what, because the identical triplets who live on my floor are former MLG gamers and are one person short of getting their team back into competition. So I've been practicing CoD4 for them. I've managed to bump my kill-death ratio up by about .03, which is hard considering I've got about 30,000 kills logged already. So maybe I've got a future as a professional gamer? Who knows. But it's certainly something I'm looking into.

Anyway, now that I'm writing again, I should probably work on some of those overdue papers for school. Until next time!

The staff at Rooster Teeth, the company responsible for the Red vs. Blue series, play a lot of video games. A few weeks ago, Burnie (who plays Church) bet Geoff (who plays Grif) $1,000 that he couldn't get 10,000 gamerscore in one week. Geoff did it - with 2 and a half days to spare. There's a funny video at achievementhunter.com of his wife interviewing him on the 4th day of the challenge if you want to go check it out.

Unlike Geoff, I can't get 10,000 gamerscore points in four and a half days. I can, however, get half that many in about 5 weeks. Yay me.

Last night, I hit my 5,000th gamerscore point. Achievements aren't something I fret over too much; you won't see me in a Halo 3 lobby begging opponents to line up in front of my laser so I can get the Two for One achievement (although you won't see me in a Halo 3 lobby period), although there are a few I'll put some effort into. They enhance the game for me. It's nice to see a little recognition for the time I put into my hobby, even if I have to go out of my way to get some of it.

To celebrate my milestone, I'm going to look back at the achievements I've unlocked so far and list some of my more memorable ones:

Braid:
Closure - 60G I wouldn't exactly call the ending "closure," since it was pretty ambiguous and confusing, but boy was it deep. I think this is the most a video game has ever made me think. Not just as I'm playing it, but afterwards too. Jonathan Blow is a genius.

Call of Duty: World at War:
Gunslinger - 15G Assassinating someone with a pistol from a sniper's perch is not easy. Especially when that person likes to hide behind things and run away a lot. This one took a few tries, but it felt good to get it. It's the kind of achievement that's brag-worthy, and I don't get many of those.

Halo 3:
Too Close to the Sun - 5G The achievement I used to hit 5000. I was at 4995 and wanted a nice even number, so I looked up the easiest 5G achievement I hadn't gotten yet and got it. This also marks the first time I've played Halo 3 since September.

Mirror's Edge:
Hey, it's-a-me! - 10G It's a platformer, so naturally I wanted to jump on some enemies' heads. When I did and read the achievement name, I laughed. Nice tribute, EA.

Rock Band 2:
Flawless Guitar Solo - 20G I had to borrow a friend's guitar for this one. The achievement requires you to get 100% on a guitar solo using only the solo buttons. Thing is, I use a Guitar Hero controller, and those don't have solo buttons. This one also took a few tries; I didn't know that you could play solo notes on the solo buttons without strumming, so the first couple tries I didn't get it because I strummed when I wasn't supposed to.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
Straight Flush - 20G This achievement was so easy, I can't believe I didn't get it my first play through the campaign.

Uno:
Devotee - 25G Holy crud, I played a lot of Uno trying to get this one. 40 wins... it's a game of luck, so with 4-players I have a 1 in 4 chance of winning any given game. That means, statistically, I'd have to play about 160 games of Uno to get 40 wins. And some Uno games can take a while... Ugh. I'd rather not think about how much time I wasted chasing this one.

Guitar Hero: World Tour:
Hall of Famer - 100G That's right. I play expert. I also got the achievements for beating the career on lower difficulties when I got this one, so it was really worth 215G. Not bad.

Grand Theft Auto IV:
You Win! - 60G That ending sure didn't make me feel like a winner...

Walk Free - 50G The first time I played this game, I had trouble out-running the cops on a 2-star wanted level. Escaping a 4-star one took me about 20 minutes, and I totaled 3 cars in the process (although since then I've done it again with less trouble).

Rolled Over - 30G Good God, this achievement took FOREVER. Getting a car to flip 4 times? I could do that no problem. 5? No way. This was probably the most time-consuming achievement I've gone after, and I literally jumped out of my chair and screamed when I finally got it.

Portal: Still Alive:
Vanilla Crazy Cake - 35G The last few challenge maps are HARD. Turrets are mean. Invincible turrets are meaner.

Is Anyone There? - 20G I made it all the way to the end of the game, right before the boss battle, when two turrets descended from above and I took a single bullet. I had to start all over again... :-( I was ready the second time, though.

A Feeling Like Floating - 5G The sound effect the turrets make when they dissolve is hilarious.

Dash of Destruction:
All achievements - 200G This game was free. It took 20 minutes to get all the gamerscore points. To repay them for their kindness, I bought a bag of Doritos in celebration.

Bioshock:
Defeated Andrew Ryan - 30G Sorry if you haven't gotten this far in the game, but I don't think it's too spoilery to say that you're going to have to face off with Rapture's mastermind eventually. My jaw dropped at this part of the game, though. I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that I was so stunned that I didn't even notice the achievement pop up.

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Ah, memories. Here's hoping the next 5000 are just as awesome!

So I'm back at college now. Which means back to class tomorrow. But more importantly, it means I'm now back online! Every day! Which means I can get up to date on things like:

*Posting blogs (check that as "done")
*Watching new videos of skateboarders wiping out
*Prestiging in Call of Duty
*Adding people to my PS3 friends list (I haven't forgotten!)
*Making a LittleBigPlanet level worthy of publishing
*Figuring out what time my first lecture is tomorrow

And so much more! Yay internet.

Another thing I plan on doing now that I'm back online is start posting some game reviews. I haven't done that in, like, 4 months, and I've played a lot of games since then. Mirror's Edge, Animal Crossing: City Folk, LittleBigPlanet and Guitar Hero World Tour (now that I've got my drums fixed) are at the top of my list of games to review. I've already got a rough draft of my City Folk and Mirror's Edge reviews: a list of things I want to see in the next installment. I felt really let down by both.

Well, that's it for now. I've got to go see what the internet's been up to since I've been gone. See ya!

Happy 2009 everyone! Hope everyone had a good New Years. Mine was less awesome than originally planned; I was going to go to a casino but car repairs ate up the money I was going to go with. Oh well. At least I can drive places again now.

I made a few New Years resolutions, and I'm going to put them here in writing so that I just might remember to stick to them this year.

#1. Start dating again. My love life has been... nonexistant lately. My last girlfriend broke up with me the day before Valentine's Day and since then I haven't really wanted to be in a relationship, lest my heart be broken again in similar fashion. But this past year I let too many opportunities pass me by, so I'm not going to dwell in the past anymore.

#2. Play less video games. *gasp* I know, it sounds crazy, considering I'm a gamer, who owns all 3 consoles, and blogs on GameSpot about games. But I'm not giving them up by any means. It's just that there's been way too many weekends where everyone else is out socializing and I'm in my room playing Call of Duty 'til 3 in the morning. Meeting people on Xbox Live is nice, but I really need to go out and meet real people face to face more often.

And that's all I got. Don't want to go making too many resolutions or else I won't be able to keep up with them all.

Well, let's talk about gaming now shall we? A few random thoughts:

* For some reason my dad's router hates my PS3. Whenever I try to download an update for a game through a wired connection, the router shuts off. Of course, the PS3 can connect wirelessly too, but I completely forgot that (I'm used to systems that only connect one way or the other). So I got it to work wirelessly once I remembered that, but I still don't understand why the PS3's updates crashed the router.

* There are still WAY too many glitches in Call of Duty: World at War. People are still glitching under the floor or into the sky on Castle, WHICH WAS A BETA MAP. Why bother with an open beta if you're still going to release with a ton of bugs?

* PSN Store is weird. I don't like the layout at all. It looks like it was designed for a website, not a console. I honestly prefer Xbox Live Marketplace's new setup to this.

* I haven't plugged in my Wii since I came home from college. I've missed two events in Animal Crossing.

* LittleBigPlanet is AWESOME. I've found a bunch of stinker levels in quick play (oh look, I can make a machine that putts a golf ball, but I can't put a scoreboard in my level), but for every one of those I find there's an ingenius level that blows my mind. A screaming roller coaster, a tic-tac-toe machine, a player piano... who has time to make all this stuff? It took me an hour just to make a rocket that dissolves and respawns when it passes a checkpoint. There are lots of people out there who have more time on their hands than any person should, but I'm glad they choose to spend it on LittleBigPlanet, cuz they're what make that game so great.

* The guy who does the voiceover work in LBP is Stephen Fry, who was in my second favorite movie, V for Vendetta. I just thought that was awesome.

And that's pretty much it. Well, my "weekend" is over. I've got work tomorrow, so I should probably get some sleep. See ya.

Sorry I've been away for so long. Between finals, getting my heart broken, going home and back to work and Christmas, there hasn't been much time to log on, mostly because I have to go to my Dad's house across town to get good internet access now. I'm playing some Xbox Live tonight though, so I figured I'd update my blog.

Finals went well. My final grades consist of an A and 3 B's, so that's pretty good. I found out that the girl I'm in love with has a boyfriend now (and needless to say it's not me) so that sucked, but at least I'm at home now. Distance makes it easier, and work keeps me busy, so I'm not dwelling on it.

Christmas was AWESOME. I got:

A PlayStation 3 (although no games with it, thanks Dad)
Call of Duty: World at War
120GB Xbox 360 hard drive
"JuggerNOT" shirt from jinx.com
"You are not in our buddy club" shirt from redvsblue.com
Xbox 360 chatpad
Red Xbox 360 controller

So not too many new games, but plenty of game-related items. Oh yeah, and a PLAYSTATION 3! First thing I did after the stores opened up again on the 26th (after my shift at work ended anyway) was buy LittleBigPlanet. That game is weird. Fun, but weird. Some of the levels are kind of trippy. I also found The Eye of Judgment on sale. It was a game I found intriguing but never really wanted to spend a lot of money on. Anyway, I found a bundle with that game and a PlayStation Eye camera on clearance. The bundle cost $25, and the camera alone was $40, so I figured even if I hated the game I still got a camera for way cheap.

Also, it wasn't really a present, but my dad fixed my drum controller. The wires for the red drum pad were way too tight apparently. He lifted the tape holding it to the side of the drum and gave them a little more give, and the drum worked just fine. Glad I didn't pay all that money to ship it in now.

Well, I'm gonna wrap this up so I can play World @ War. I have to work tomorrow so I want to get as much gaming in before I have to go to bed. See ya!