I know I promised a video blog, but you're not getting it. At least not yet. While I did have my vacation last week, which was pretty awesome, and even though there is E3 to talk about right now, there is something more important going on in my life right now. I figured for those who are still dedicated enough to read my blog, I'd like to share it with you. I have a new daughter, Emma Lynn Greenwell, who was born on 07/13/08 at 3:15 am.

Sorry the picture is bad. I promise better later.

So, she was born 2 months early. Chelsea and I were not expecting it. She was 3 lbs and 14 oz, which is pretty good. She is actually fairly long too, I would guess around 14in, but I don't remember for sure. There were no real problems though. She's able to breath on her own and her heart is working fine. They're still keeping her in the NICU at St Johns in Springfield, IL. It is about an hour away from where I live. My wife has a room at the Ronald Mc Donald house, for free. I am traveling back and forth because I have to work still. Its a hassle but it is worth it and we're hoping the doctors will let us bring her home soon.

On another note I did take some video and I do plan to post it here, but my wife is keeping the camera/camcorder. She is using it to photo friends and relatives that come so I'll have quite a few worth posting in the future.

For my thoughts on E3 and whatnot, check your own blogs. I'm still reading all of them and commenting a lot.

The 4th of July has to be one of my most favorite days of the year. I love the fireworks and the cookouts. Of course I'm also very proud and very happy to be an American living in the United States. For my American readers I hope you have a great holiday with your families.

I'm taking a vacation from work next week. I don't know that I'll be posting much, but the idea of a video blog has been itching at me for a while now. I'm not going to make any promises, but I think I will give that a try while I've got the extra free time. If you have any questions you want answered or topics you want covered in that video blog, leave them in the comments below.

As I was mentioning to NeonNinja in my previous blog, I've had a little extra money recently and I have been using it to pick up a few things for myself. I actually bought Shadowrun, a new power supply, and a new graphics card all at the same time from Amazon. However, Shadowrun I got from J and B Computer World and had to pay for shipping. The iteam I got from Amazon I was able to get free "Super Saver" shipping. While J and B shipped my purchase right away Amazon waited, which I knew they would do. So I finally got my Amazon order yesterday and I'm impressed.

So, which items did I get?

I got this power supply:

Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU 500W V2.0

and I got this video card:

eVGA e-GeForce 9600 GT 512MB DDR3 PCI-E 2.0

Now, I would have liked to have taken pictures or video, but honestly I wanted to get this all installed quickly so my wife didn't have time to think about how much I spent and convert that into clothes or baby items. So while she was at the grocery store yesterday I opened up my package and set to install all of it while she was gone. It was pretty ambitious of me because she would only be gone 20 minutes and I never installed anything this complicated before. I did have an old graphics card, but it just plugged into the PCI-e port, no extra power required.

The first thing I did was unhook everything from the computer and unplug it, then I moved it over to an open space on the floor of my living room. I then unboxed the power supply and was honestly a little intimidated by it, but I still set to work. I removed the side panel from my conputer and tried to figure out what the power supply was plugged into already. There were two cables to the motherboard and one was rather large and partially hidden under my hard drive, there were also cables to the DVD drive and the hard drive itself. That was all I could see. I took careful note of how everything was, and thought about taking a picture in case I couldn't remember, but I was in a hurry, and besides I'm a tech genius (right?). I found there were four screws on the back of the case to hold the power supply in and I removed those and unhooked it from the components then removed it from the PC. It felt a little like I had just torn the computer's heart out.

Installing the new power supply was more complicated. While the 300 Watt that came built in my computer had like 3 wires coming out of it, the new one had like 8. What am I supposed to do with all those wires? I tried not to panic and found that actually the power supply fit in the spot left by the old one super easy. I screwed it in with four screws on the back of the case just like the old one was.

I decided to leave the wires all just sitting there for a bit so I could get the new video card installed. So I go the new card and unboxed it and went to replace the old card. This is were I really needed pictures, but didn't have the time. I'll try to illustrate as best possible here.

As you can see the new card is considerably longer that the old one. So much so, that it almost didn't fit, but only almost. Which is great!

So now that I had everything in the case I went to plug in all the power cables. It wasn't too hard to remember plugging in the motherboard cables and the one to the DVD drive. I have a little trouble with the hard drive. Then, I plugged power into the graphics card. All the extra cables I bundeled up and shoved towards the bottom of the case. I closed up the case and plugged everything back into the computer.

Now, the moment of truth! I hoped turning it back on wouldn't cause it to explode or light on fire. Everything looked fine at first then, where it normally would boot into Windows, I got a primary hard disk error. I knew I must have forgot to plug the hard drive back into the motherboard. So, I unplugged everything again, and opened the case. Then I plugged the hard drive into the motherboard and closed it all up again. I rehooked up everything and tried booting again. Success! It booted into windows.

Only a few minutes later and I was waiting while the drivers installed and cleaning up the mess I had left. That is when my wife came home and though she knew I had bought computer stuff and she knew I had installed it, she didn't sit there and watch me do it, so it sat pretty easy on her mind (from what I can tell). The computer rebooted and she hasn't really noticed a difference.

As for performance. I haven't got to test it as much as I would like to, but I know it is a ton better. My Windows Experience Index went up from a 3.2 to a 4.7. The graphics portion is rated at 5.9 now, but I'm limited because of my processor, a Pentium D 2.4 Ghz (I'm not upgrading that anytime soon). I went from running my games at the lowest settings, to the higest on my monitors native resolution. For the power source,its fairly quiet, and it seems like everything is getting power and nothing has lit on fire yet. So, I'm pretty happy about that too.

Tell me what you think.

A lot of you, in fact I think all of you, did not know me back when I was 15 and had tons of free time to devote to my favorite hobby. So, in case you didn't know, I AM AN EXTREME GAMER! I haven't had as much free time as I've wanted recently and have been playing catch up with things I need to do on the weekends. This weekend was different and I was free to do whatever I wanted. So I spent it playing quite a few different games on two different platforms. I'll run down the list of this past weekends accomplishments. BE JEALOUS!

Beat Halo 2 on legendary:

If you haven't read this blog yet, I'll give you a quick summary. I finally beat Halo 2 PC on legendary. You can only play a solo campaign on there, so its pretty tough. I hate to say I did it only to get the achievement so I wont. I did have fun, but the achievement didn't unlock for some reason. Needless to say, I'm mad.

Shadowrun:

I played Shadowrun extensively over the weekend. I decided I really like playing a Human because they have no cost for tech. I've gotten pretty good.

If you didn't catch my review take a look at it. I'm pretty proud of it.

Mass Effect:

Yes, I'm still playing Mass Effect. I got the achievement for Soldier Ally yesterday. I'm almost done with my game on the hardest difficulty. I'm at the point where every enemy is easy again. Mass Effect really has a problem with difficulty scaling. It is impossible in the begining and in the end nothing can kill you.

The Cake is a LIE!

I beat Portal this weekend. I bet you didn't even know I had Portal. Well, I don't. A friend let me play through it and I beat it in less than 4 hours. I didn't have any help on the Puzzles so I feel like I was pretty quick. I found it annoying when I knew the solution to the puzzle but died because I missed a small jump. I hate platforming games anyway, so it doesn't suprise me. Anyway, the game is perfect in every other way. I love it but I'm glad I didn't buy it because well, its short. There are some additional puzzles I didn't bother trying. So, I don't have any impressions on them.

Rock Band... its annoying:

I played the Endless Setlist on Rock Band. I personally don't see how anyone can remain a fan of that game after playing through that. It actually took me more time to complete than playing through portal, but unlike portal I didn't enjoy it. I got an achievement for it, but I was only playing on medium, because I'm not that good at vocals. If I wanted all the achievements I would have to play through it again on Easy, Hard, and Expert. That is something I'm never going to do, and am I little peeved that the developers thought that anyone would find the endless setlist fun enough to play through even once.

I've removed Rock Band from my now playing. Probably for good.

TMNT for gamerscore:

I've got TMNT out from gamefly right now and managed to play through a couple of stages. It has to be the easiest gamerscore game I've played in a while and I am quite happy with it for that reason. I actually love Tenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I've already watched the movie TMNT a couple of times. The game is all platforming, which as I mentioned before I hate, but honestly this is a baby game. They give you plent of nija powers to do things like run across walls and jump all over the place and there are a lot of check points. I think the game is somewhat fun, and I plan to finish it sometime soon.

So thats it. I think it was a pretty full two days of gaming. My gamerscore is over 18000, which is a short jump to 20k. I have some games in my collection that can put me over right now, so I'm looking foreward to that. I'll probably finish up with Mass Effect soon. I think I might do one more game as an Adept, its the one c1ass I haven't tried. Also, despite my low review score for Shadowrun, I really like it and will probably be playing it a lot more too.

Tell me what you think.

Difficulty: Just Right

Time Spent: 10-20 hours

Shadowrun is a game that seems to have a lot of potential. In the end, though, it isn't fully exploited. The game mixes fantasy games and sci-fi shooters in a marriage that should be any nerds dream, and it does so very well. When you go online the game is solid. The problem is that there are only 3 game modes. So, after completing the tutorials and playing a few matches online, you'll be wondering where the rest of the game is. Sadly that is a question the will forever remain unanswered.

There are a couple things to note about Shadowrun. First, it is Windows Vista only and does require a decent system (2GBs RAM and Ge Force 7600+ graphics card). It is enhanced for dual core system so if you have one it, its a plus. Also, since this is a Games for Windows LIVE title, the online requires a Windows LIVE account (hotmail account) to play online. You can play against other PC players with a silver account, but to most games are from Xbox 360 players and you'll need a Gold account which is $50 a year if you don't already have one (it does come with a month free). Of course the game can be played locally over LAN, if you're opposed to online for whatever reason.

Shadowrun is set in a fictional future where, in addition to technological discoveries, magic is uncovered for the first time in 5000 years. The discovery of magic lead opposing forces into war and also created different races of meta-humans. As the player, you're fighting for the forces of RNA or Lineage for control of magical artifacts simply called "artifacts" (creative, right?). Anyway, the story doesn't matter at all and serves only as an excuse for you to be shooting at other players online.

When you join a match you'll be placed on a team. At the beginning of each round you'll have a chance to buy your choice of weapons or skills. For anyone who has played Counter Strike, that should be pretty familiar. Then you'll set off to destroy the opposing team. Should you be killed you will not respawn, but you can rejoin the fight if one of your team members revives you. Once the game gets going there will be people flying and teleporting around, as well as shooting and healing, killing and reviving. It is a lot to wrap your mind around and that is the real strength of Shadowrun.

In the game there are four races, human, elf, dwarf, and troll. Each race has its own advantages and they are all balanced very well. In addition to the races there are Tech and Magic... oh and of course guns too. Magic skills allow you to heal team mates, or teleport, or even summon minions and more. Tech abilities allow you to use a glider, or have radar like vision, or improve your speed, or aim better. As for weapons there is your standard fair of pistol, machine gun, rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, mini-gun, rockets, and (maybe not so standard) katana. When you start messing around with Race/Skill/Weapon combos then you start to understand Shadowrun's complexity, and its uniqueness. From my experience it is easy to make a combination you like, but difficult to master all the different aspects of what your enemy may be doing at any given time.

So, the game is totally based around team play and, as I previously mentioned, there is an astounding 3 different modes to play and that might even be brought down to two. Each map is set up as either a Extraction Map or a Raid Map, and Extraction Maps you can't play Raid on and vise-versa. Extraction has both teams fighting to bring the artifact back to their base, while in Raid only Lineage tries to capture the flag while RNA tries to protect it. In either of these game modes if one team eliminates all players on the other team, they win the round regardless of the artifact. The third game type, availible on all maps, is called Attrition, where the objective is to kill the other team. In Attrition the artifact stays on the map, but only serves as a kind of power-up that either team can use. While all of these game modes are fun they're not very diverse and I really feel the game could use more modes to choose from.

Graphically the game does pretty well, but there are a few issues. Each team has a different look for the different races, but other that that there is no difference between characters. You can't change your clothes or looks in the slightest way, there isn't even a choice to change gender (everyone is male). The developers also failed to put in a ladder climbing animation for some unknown reason. Still, everything looks good even on the lowest settings. Everything holds up graphically even with 16 players quickly moving around and using magic and skills.

Sound is pretty simple in the game. I don't know that there is much to say on it. It isn't bad or distracting, but its not something you'll be looking for the soundtrack for. One thing the game does that I appreciate, is that it gives you auditory warnings as to where enemies are and where your team mates are fighting. Some people might find that annoying, but it isn't overdone, so I'm glad they included it. As far as sound effects go everything sounds like it should.

In the end, Shadowrun is a fun, but limited game. Everything it does works well, but you might get sick of what is really just two different types of matches. This PC version can actually be picked up fairly cheap now. I got mine for $10 with a free month of Gold. If you're the kind of person who enjoys playing games like Counter Strike endlessly and want to try something different you need this game. For everyone else, you wont be hurting yourself if you decide to skip this one.

Score: 6.5

Please, leave positive feedback here if you read all that.

I finally finished Halo 2 PC on legendary. GUESS WHAT?!?!?! I DIDN'T GET THE ACHIEVEMENT!!!!!!!! Games for Windows live is a f'ed up glitchy mess and I am really sick of it. Also the game doesn't show which levels it counts that you've completed online and which ones it doesn't. Which means I've going to have to play through the whole thing again and just pray if I actually want the achievement. That is a bunch of BS!

I'm thinking about writting my review for Shadowrun already. Its pretty straightforward, so even though I haven't spent much time with it, I think I have a good feel for it. The sad truth is there isn't much there, but that is somewhat ok because what is there at least works. I think it is a game that missed its potential because of pressures from Microsoft for the cross-platform play and they didn't get to focus on elements like making more game modes. I guess it just is what it is.