Triple Thrill

Back In Blue

2011-04-14T21:29:00.002-04:00

I've got a hunch that this is the longest period of me not posting, and I'm too lazy to go back and check if this is a true statement or not. I wish I had a reason for this writing, but I saw my girlfriend tending to her blog so I felt like I should do the same.

Since November, the Rangers have been decent enough to earn some round-trip tickets to and from Washington, D.C. to have fun with the Ovechkin and the Capitals. After their display of last night, I feel like they've been having too much fun and doing not enough work. I'm feeling a little lazy and am going to lack input on the game, but I'll let you go find a well-written article by the NHL.com or ESPN staff, stay away from Versus, they're the Fox News of the hockey world.

I'll just say this, Avery needs to be played. Think back a couple years to a similar setting, where the Rangers plus Avery were able to gets the Caps onto their backs and held a series lead of 3-1. What happened next? Avery was benched. The Blueshirts then went on to a lackluster 0-3 record to finish the series and their playoff stint.

Game one of the Rangers' 2011 playoff trip, Avery was nowhere to be found, and they better mark him back on the active roster if they feel like standing a chance. With Callahan sidelined with a fractured leg, they need another player to step in and provide much lost heart and soul.

Hopefully Avery will get the call for tomorrow night and the boys in blue will be able to lock up a W and tie the series to take back home to the Big Apple.

Adding Cents

2010-11-22T01:19:00.002-05:00

With AdSense.

Been busy, and lazy, for the past weeks with Fallout: New Vegas, schoolwork and the general social life. With the somewhat possibility of making money by having this blog, I felt that adding AdSense to my rarely read page could bring in some extra pennies or possibility even a hearty nickel or two. I honestly don't really know how it works, or if it will even work, but I'm just excited to see what ads Google places on my page. I can only assume that they'll be for hockey gear distributors and video game vendors.

XXI

2010-10-27T20:49:00.002-04:00

Been inactive due to midterms and whatnot. Today I turned 21 and my friends got me Fallout: New Vegas. Would love to be playing it right now, but I've got some work to do and a test tomorrow for environmental. I might keep this updated on the gameplay once I start tomorrow afternoon.

Blue October

2010-10-18T21:26:00.003-04:00

The Rangers aren't playing well (NY Rangers of the NHL, that is) and it's really starting to frustrate me. Yes, three key players are currently injured but two are very offensive while the third is a defensive center. At least buckle down on defense and let fewer shots hit Henrik.

What's even worse is that tonight's game was on Versus, and I don't get Versus where I am. According to NHL.com's ice tracker, there's 4:04 remaining in the third and the Blueshirts are down 3-1.

Very different from last year's start, of seven wins in a row after losing the season opener. This year the Rangers are approaching three losses in a row after losing the season opener. Funny to mention, the Rangers won seven games in a row at the end of the season and lost the final game, keeping that strong end of year record.

Maybe that means that the middle of the season will reverse as well, and the 56 games in between will go much better than the previous. Turn it around, guys, we need wins, and we need them before it's too late again.

Belated Tens

2010-10-13T23:09:00.002-04:00

If you haven't noticed, Threadless is holding one hell of a deal, t-shirts for $10 a piece and hoodies for $30 each. The sale goes until 10/14/10 at 10 central. If you've never heard of the website, then you're missing out. People usually think, "oh, another online vendor with annoying shirt designs."

Fortunately, the initial assumption is generally wrong. They're original designs that need to be voted on to become printed. I'd love to get in depth with it but I'm lazy and feel that their designs can do the talking.

Threadless, it's worth the visit.

Brady to Moss

2010-10-12T22:51:00.003-04:00

I just got news of this recently while reading a blurb in the Post-Standard, the newspaper of Syracuse, NY. Apparently a couple days before the trade, Moss and Brady were at their most hostile point, to where personal insults ensued. Brady told Moss to cut his beard and Moss replied to Brady, saying that he should cut his hair because he looks like a girl.

Moss - 1 | Brady - 0

Generous Ice Time

2010-10-11T01:19:00.002-04:00

For a limited time only, NHL Center Ice is free to a few cable providers, such as Time Warner, Verizon FiOS, Comcast and a select few others. Until October 17th, people with these cable providers will get access to many more games thanks to the free preview. Unfortunately I won't be able to take advantage of this for the entire time because I'm heading back to school Tuesday and will be stuck with my horrible DirecTV.

Mo-Town

2010-10-08T23:52:00.003-04:00

I'd like to congratulate Mike Modano on his first goal as a Detroit Red Wing. His first shot of his first game wearing the red and white turned into a goal and helped his team beat the Ducks 4-0.

Even though I don't care for Detroit, I'm thrilled that he didn't retire and I hope he has some outstanding seasons in his native state of Michigan.

Heroes of the NHL

2010-10-07T19:14:00.001-04:00

Big news, Stan Lee and the NHL have an agreement on a superhero comic and series. Each of the thirty teams will have a player represented as a superhero with a power from their abilities and cities they play for. I'm actually extremely excited, and only hope for the best.

Surprised?

2010-10-05T22:58:00.002-04:00

Of course I wouldn't do what I said I would, I got caught up with work and fun. Two major presentations, class discussion, lab quiz, lecture quiz essay all this week.

Haven't really been playing Reach, but I've been playing my WoW account. Oh yeah, a few weeks ago China hacked my Gmail account and tried taking my WoW account, took me a whole ten days to completely secure it back. Oh, those silly Chinese.

Bonus Features

2010-09-30T03:11:00.004-04:00

Game of the Night

Was a sick comeback, if you hover over players' emblems, you see a graph of kills/deaths and average kill range.

Fall Turnover

2010-09-29T22:33:00.000-04:00

Been a while since my last update, I feel like this is a growing trend that will always exist.

I could type up a bunch of stuff that's happened over this summer, but it's all generally uninteresting and has nothing to do with the reasons for this blog. Anyway, I bought Halo: Reach even though I never owned Halo 3 and never even played Halo: ODST. Surprisingly, I enjoy it. Sure, it doesn't have the amazingly made maps from Halo 2 or the same exact weapon sets of Halo 3 (makes sense, it is a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, but wait, there's about five times as many weapons in this than Combat Evolved), but it just has something. And that something is called customization.

Sure, in 3 you could pick your Spartan's colors and basic armor sets that you unlock from doing some simple tasks and things were good. In Reach, you need to play a lot to get credits (known as cR) and purchase new pieces of armor that literally do nothing but make you look cooler, and everyone wants to look cooler. Along with armor pieces you can buy firefight voices (small selection, such as people from Reach, Sergeant Major, Cortana, and John S117) and armor effects. Some effects are like the grunt birthday when you die, electrified armor, and armor that seems to be covered in an aura of death called pestilence and others available.

Anyway, people love upward mobility, it's a proven fact. That's why new tiers of armor and arena season in WoW keep people from leaving for long and the level and prestige system in the recent Call of Duty games kept their players with the game.

Reach has something different, it not only has buyable armor and other upgrades, but the throwaway of levels. You no longer have levels, you just have ranks based on how many credits you've earned across your campaign, matchmaking multiplayer, arena, and firefight modes. So you can play people that completely suck but only played a ton of games, which can be a blast if they're not on your team.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the challenges. In Call of Duty, you have the simple challenges that you can take your time on and eventually clear them all. Halo has a similar challenge and reward system, but with a twist. Every day, that's right, every day four new challenges come out, and then a weekly challenge to be completed as well. I have to admit, this gets me to get on Reach at least once a day and see if there are easy challenges to get.

Well played, Bungie, well played.

I feel like this is a substantial opening to my blog revival, and I guess I'll try to update tri-weekly. Let's say Wednesday, Friday, Sunday. Unorthodox? Sure, but it works for me, and I doubt I'll keep this up until Sunday anyway.

Lost and Frowned

2010-07-02T16:54:00.002-04:00

It's hard to imagine how much time has passed since I've last updated this.

I pretty much just came here to see what the view count was up to, and I'm actually happy with 480 whatever. That's about an increase of 100 since February. Anti-climatically, I'm playing WoW again. Got a level 56 warrior that I haven't touched since November of 2008 and I'm finally almost level 57.

Can't believe I'm playing this again.

Gangers of Doppel

2010-02-11T00:03:00.000-05:00

I've heard that I can look like Joaquin Phoenix, pre-crazy Phoenix, that is.

Mario's Moves

2010-02-01T20:00:00.003-05:00

Just recently, "Super" Mario Lemieux attempted to expand his business horizons by purchasing the failing (failed?) Pittsburgh Pirates. After talking with their owner, the owner said simply, but most likely in other exact words, "not for sale." Mr. Robert Nutting, I don't know what you think you're trying to do, but the Pittsburgh Pirates currently have the MLB record for most consecutive post-seasons missed. That's not really the record that one person wants to hold.

Also, Mario Lemieux was not only one of the greatest athletes ever, but he has managed to save the Penguins from disaster twice in the past, also becoming the first ever owner and player for a professional team. If Mario Lemieux and his business partner were able to acquire the Pirates, they'd be able to have their own television station in Pittsburgh, and holding a two of three professional sports teams of the city.

Also, with a legendary Lemieux owning the team, maybe the seats would finally fill and merchandise would be sold for a team that would always be televised for the local fans.

Nutting, Pittsburgh is no longer on your side.

Regift of Gab

2010-01-30T23:44:00.002-05:00

Marian Gaborik

Like the previous clip, no dandy dangles nor fancy footwork, just precise teamwork at its finest. Moved up from the Hartford Wolfpack fairly recently, Erik Christensen has been a big contributor to the Rangers scoring, even if their scoring hasn't been big. Gaborik displays his great speed and agility to reclaim the puck, dishes it across to Christensen, then receives the pass back while off-balance and getting around the defenseman for the wide open one-timer.

Feeding A Dead Horse

2010-01-30T23:20:00.002-05:00

Still don't know why I continue to inconsistently update this blog. Up to 433 page views across thirteen or so months and maybe up to 100 of those visits are from me making new posts. I wish I had some sort of material to be consistent with. Video game reviews would be great, if I had the time and money for a bunch. My tops of the decade went to shambles due to laziness and inability to feed the pop culture hunger of the masses (350 or so visits wouldn't count as a mass, would it?), but then I've got the top plays.

But alas, the NHL is the worst professional organization out there. Thanks to Commissioner Bettman and his inability to get games televised on the media other then the NHL Network and Center Ice. Yeah, I'd love to have those programs to watch all the games on, I'd also love to have the money to spend for it. So I rarely get games to watch on TV, and watching stuff on ATDHE.net can be good until it cuts out or the lag is unbearable. So top plays are hard to stay on top of, for I don't want to be that guy going through all of the highlights from every game to find them. Looks like I'll be that guy for now.

Oh, before I show a clip, I'd like to congratulate the Washington Capitals and the Ottawa Senators on nine straight victories each. The Caps are first in the NHL with goals scored (221 in 54 games [3.91 GPG]) and only 147 goals allowed (2.72 GAA), which is phenomenal for having such a shaky goaltender situation. If those numbers mean nothing to you, I'll just add that the Caps are first in goals for and above average on goals allowed.

Danny Briere

Sure there is no fancy passing nor dangling, but the hustle is shows heavy determination and heart. To sprint the entire ice length, take a hit, and dish a perfect short range pass is sometimes all it takes, and then the nice tuck by Briere to cap it off for the tally.

Top Play - Lecavalier

2010-01-28T14:13:00.003-05:00

Going to start putting up videos of top plays from around the sports world, generally the NHL because that's what I follow the most and is the top sport at the moment (got another week until the Super Bowl). I'll start it off with Lecavalier's in tight passing and fancy shooting:

*property of the NHL and NHL.com*

2010-01-20T19:41:00.004-05:00

This might be old news, but it's news to me.

I must be missing something, like a decoder ring or something along those lines. Apparently the London logo cost $800,000 to make, can someone please tell me what's going on?

Dead On Revival

2010-01-16T18:30:00.004-05:00

There I go again, saying I'll start the blog up again with consistency and I fail to do so right away. I guess I could write about the Ranger's scoring slump or any other sort of sport news that no one else cares about. Instead, I'll write about nothing, because I have nothing interesting to say.

Oh, thought of something I could mention, I discovered the easiest way to get 500 gold and level 25 (currency and level caps) in Dragon Age. After beating the game as a human warrior, I decided to take another origin path to beat it with. Second time through, I decided to be a human mage and pick the "negative" choices for the other half of achievements such as siding with the werewolves and defiling the sacred urn of ashes.

Anyway, I wanted to complete quests that I failed to do so as my warrior, one that came to mind was the traps for Allison early in Lothering. I picked trap-making as a skill at my first chance and picked up the sidequest as soon as I got to the small town. Spoke with her, found trap triggers for sale from the farmer in the tavern, made traps and gave them to Allison. When I was making the traps, I didn't know how many she needed and made six traps.

Turns out she only needs three traps for the quest and she gives you 50 silver per three traps. I tried to give her the other three, and she took them. Every trap trigger costs 2 silver 50 copper (I think, don't have the game on) and she gives 50 silver per three, great investment. So I bought thousands of triggers over time (hours) and made them, turned in, bought more, repeated. After having 450+ gold, I wound up past level 20. Level 20 in the first day of playing from that trick I discovered. Unfair? Slightly, but I guess I'll abuse what I can, seeing that I already played through 100% legit and beat it with no help from strategy guides or forums.

Enjoy your free gold and experience.

Bragging Gauge

2010-01-13T00:10:00.005-05:00

Already failing to continue by best of list and going off to write a game review, which I haven't done in a long time now. Mainly because my Swedish partner has been busy working and has lost interest in updating Klimp.dk. Before I can change my mind on the title, I'm just going to continue through with my review on the fairly new RPG, Dragon Age: Origins.

Dragon Age: Origins

2009 BioWare, Edge of Reality (consoles) - Electronic Arts - XBOX 360 (Also on PS3 and PC)

Story Time For Gamers

To open this review, I'd like to mention that I've been out of the RPG scene for a while now, and didn't see myself getting involved with it again anytime soon. I came across Dragon Age and my mind changed completely.

To be honest, I didn't think that Electronic Arts would publish a game of such size and expansiveness. I like to assume that expansiveness is a word, I also like to be redundant when I mention how grandiose something is, and this game is pretty grandiose.

Of course, the first thing that I'd like to see and cover in a game is the storyline. I'd love to be able to do this game justice with a word, or even a paragraph, but I know that I am unable to do so. In this game, you have origins that you can choose from, six in total, based on race and combat class. Humans have an origin called human noble, elves have Dalish or city, dwarves can be noble or commoner and the sixth origin is magi, that only human or elf can take the path (sorry dwarves, you're unable to perform magic here). Once your origin story is completed, you begin the major questline that everyone goes down, which is that of the Grey Wardens to combat the oncoming Blight.

Multiple times in the history of Ferelden, these evil beings called darkspawn have been a threat to the lands. To have the best idea of this, think of Lord of the Rings. Darkspawn are orcs, the dwarven places are like Moria, elves live in a magical forest, ents (animated trees) exist, and strife between towns and kingdoms exist. Like any good RPG, it's jam-packed with sidequests and interesting stories for you to read and listen to. Many of these sidequests even intertwine with other sidequests and even main quest chains, oftentimes leading you to answers to mysteries, some gold or form of wealth, or even legendary items that are invaluable. No doubt, storyline gets a perfect 10/10 in my book.

Next we have gameplay, the second most important aspect of a video game, and this aspect is top notch as well. I'd like to state right now that it has also achieved a solid 10/10. A big question often asked by people when it comes to RPGs, is "what's the combat like?" The best answer I can give for this is "great." With up to a party of four, with three AI members, you can preset strategies based on health amount, amount of enemies present, types of attacks enemies are using, who is being attacked, who is attacking, status ailments held... the list can go on and on. Each character you get comes with presets, for defender, scrapper, damager, healer and etcetera. Off of this, you can set their actions to passive, defensive, aggressive and so on as well.

The controls are simple and straightforward, and you can set spells and talents to X,Y,B (hold R for another set of three) for quick use. Again, I wish I could explain combat fully, but if you've played Star Ocean (which I haven't), you'd have a good idea of what it's like, said by friends of mine.

To cap off gameplay, each character receives experience from battle, unlocking chests, reading books and deactivating traps. Upon leveling you've got your classic RPG attributes like strength and willpower, then you have skills like coercion (ability to persuade/intimidate NPCs), trap-making, poison-making and others. Character classes even have sub-classes, that you can unlock from talking with party members or bought as books from vendors. Did I mention that party members aren't handed to you? You need to recruit them, they can also revolt if you're a bad leader, how amazing is that?

Third is graphics, which become more advanced and more demanding by the month. I'd hate to be hard on a game like this, but with the technology available today and what I've seen in the past three years, this game receives a 7.5. The graphics have been toned down a little, less attractive than the many year old Oblivion, but don't let that take away from the game. Maybe 7.5 is a little harsh, because the characters show expression amazingly. Alright, it's bumped up to an 8/10.

Like graphics, sound isn't a big part of this game. To be honest, there isn't much of it, but that's not necessarily a problem. The effects are okay, but what really keeps the score from dropping low is the amount of recorded dialog. Every conversation is the game is audible, every (except for your responses in conversation). That's a lot, dozens of hours, possibly over one hundred hours of vocals. Another 8/10.

Who wants to spend $60 on a game and not play it again? Not this guy. Lucky for you, or should I say anyone who purchased this game. You can easily spend 50 hours to beat the game and not even complete every available sidequest or obtain every possible party member. Then from that, you can play again as one of the other two races. Or one of the other two classes, or decide to be a punk or lovable hero. The replays seem to be endless, and you can continue to play once you beat it. Word on the streets is that there's an expansion coming out in March. Glad I've got 850 some odd MS points on my gamertag. Ten again.

You can't spell originality without origin, and you can't spell Dragon Age: Origins without origin. That line sounded a lot better in my head, but I'm sticking to it. When I was reading up on this game prior to its release, I thought of it as a Fable wannabe, with all of its decision making. If anything, Dragon Age blew Fable out of the water with one attempt to their three. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Lost Chapters. But with the amazing story-writing (sure, it felt a lot like Lord of the Rings, but who didn't love that?!) and plot twists and humor and seriousness placed strategically, it played out amazingly. Maybe this is how Lost fans feel every week.

After doing quick math and calculating the overall score, this game bags a perfect 10/10. After playing it for 50 hours in just under two weeks, I've been looking for flaws in the game to pick at or trying to come up with, "they should've thought of is..." and "should've deleted that..." After short deliberation, I've come to the conclusion that only one thing is missing. A Diablo II storage system. Worst part about the game is getting a great item, something perfect for your character, but realizing that you won't be able to equip in three levels, so you're stuck carrying it around for some time with you, wasting valuable inventory space.

Ratings

Storyline: 10/10

Gameplay: 10/10

Graphics: 8/10

Sound: 8/10

Replayability: 10/10

Originality: 10/10

Overall: 10/10

//Nate

Double 0 Agent

2010-01-11T21:30:00.002-05:00

Feels like just last year it was the Y2K scare, and a decade away from the 2012 scare, and a week from the Large Hadron scare, and a century after the Red scare. To veer from the frights and go on a happier note, I'm going to do something completely uncreative and go over the most notable things of the decade. The bests, the worsts, and most mediocre. Like my blog states, I'll be doing video games, sports teams, and you can't really go over complaints, so I'll put in random stuff to fill the gaps.

Best NHL Team

Casting away all bias, and the fact that the Rangers failed to impress in the '00s, they're completely out of the picture. In my mind, only one team can fit the picture, and that's the Colorado Avalanche of the 2000-2001 season, coached by Bob Hartley and captained by the legendary Joe Sakic. Before I get lost in the epic season the decade-opening Avs had, I'd like to mention those who came close but failed to make the grade. One team is the 2002-2003 New Jersey Devils, who had an incredible 166 goals allowed (2.02 GAA) and ended their season with one defeat in the final twelve games. A close runner-up would be the Pittsburgh Penguins of yesteryear. Midway through the season, the Pens had two of the top five scorers in the league and weren't even in contention for the playoffs. New coach Dan Bylsma took hold of the reigns and turned the team around, their record across March and April was 12-2-3 and they went on to return to the Stanley Cup finals, knocking off the Red Wings, the former champions, away in game seven.

Now back to the winners of my title. In the regular season, the Avs managed to get 118 points, an unheard of amount, even a grand total for today's post-lockout OTL era. With an offense packed full of talent, they put up 270 goals (3.29 GGA) and allowed only 192 with living legend Patrick Roy guarding the cage. Captain Joe Sakic not only fulfilled his role as a captain and leader, but he lit up the scorecard as well. He led the team in goals (54), assists (64), points (118) and even plus/minus (+45) and managed to play in every game of the season. I'd love to give a good mention of all the skaters on the team, but that'd take too long, and I am too lazy to do so. First, I'll go through the notable forwards. Peter Forsberg, two time gold medalist of the winter Olympics for team Sweden, Milan Hejduk, consistent scorer and grizzled veteran, Alex Tanguay, one of the best play-makers of the west, Chris Drury, current captain of the Rangers and member of team USA in the Olympics and Adam Deadmarsh, a key player to the Avalanche's return trips to the post season and Stanley Cups.

Then of course you have the defense, Ray Bourque, which I don't feel I need to mention, for he should be a common name in any household who watches hockey (but I will anyway; he played for the Boston Bruins for 21 seasons and served as their longest running captain in their history, a few years after his trade to Colorado, he won his long awaited Stanley Cup and happily retired). Then there was Adam Foote, currently the second captain in the Avalanche history, and Rob Blake, who had a long career with the LA Kings and racked up a lot of points for a blue liner.

And you can't forget about Patrick Roy, who won 40 of 62 games played and pulled off a great 2.21 GAA. Of course I should mention that not every backup goalie does great as well, David Aebischer saw the ice in 26 games and posted a 2.24 GAA, not bad for an understudy.

After spending so much time writing about the great, nearly decade old Colorado Avalanche team, I'm a little tired of typing and want to get back to playing NHL 10. Just scored a goal against the Florida Panthers in the second period to tie it up 1-1. I'll add more, maybe I should try something notable per day, for the rest of the month. Of course that won't happen.

December to Wiimember

2009-12-27T00:54:00.004-05:00

Almost forgot a minor detail, my father bowled a perfect 300 in Wii yesterday on Christmas morning. Kind of frustrating, because his technique is rather ugly and he stomps his foot like he's trying to crush a bowling ball.

Anyway, this guy used to be a league bowler, a pretty damn good one, too. Rolling 250s and above, never a 300 in real life unfortunately.

Here's the story. A few months ago, my brother's friend took the Wii away from his 5-year old son because he wouldn't stop playing it. Gave the Wii to my brother to hang onto, he played it a bit. At college last semester, my parents tried Wii bowling and whatnot because a suitemate had one. Over the past couple of months, my brother would bring the Wii over to the house occasionally. Somehow, my father managed to master the art of Wii bowling with minimal playing time and beat it before he even had the pro ball from the 1,000 player score. Again, frustrating that he did it so well (especially tha fact that we have to tell him to hit A and Z every time we play to start it, and where Z is), but I'm happy for him. He deserved it.

Additional bonus info: I'm going to make my goal five posts a month from here on out, I initially thought of once a week, but the number 4 gets on my nerves at times.

Holiday Six-Pack

2009-12-27T00:21:00.002-05:00

Here goes the record-setting six blog posts in one month, the magical month of December. A lot has happened here. First semester of junior year ended, the oldest guy in our suite graduated, Christmas. In retrospect, not much happened, but it always makes you feel a little better about yourself when you say there was a lot.

In sports, the Rangers pulled off their longest winning streak since their seven game burst back in early October, only to have it broken tonight against the Islanders in a tough 3-2 OT loss, which they scored two in the third period to make a solid comeback. Sitting with 40 points just a few games shy of halfway through the season, they're not on pace to make the playoffs, maybe they can make it happen.

Also in sports, we had Tiger Woods smash up his Buick, that's a story I don't feel like even getting close to. College coaches played musical chairs, NBA refs continued their gambling traditions, Mike Fisher got engaged to Carrie Underwood, the Capitals have an incredible 54 points in 38 games (don't forget Ovechkin's many missed games due to injuries), only the Colts remain undefeated, the once 0-6 Titans are now in playoff contention (power to you, Vince Young), the Giants' might not make the playoffs despite a 5-0 start, and preliminary hockey rosters for the Olympics have been announced. Russia is full of snipers, Sweden and Finland have the pipes covered, the United States has an assortment of skills, and Canada has their grizzled homeland security prepared with Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer manning the blue line.

As for video games, I haven't really been involved with them. Haven't been on Modern Warfare 2 in about a week now, not much desire to play. Played Borderlands the other night for a bit, seems like a blend between Jet Set Radio Future, Diablo 2, Halo and Phantasy Star. I guess that's the simplest way to put it into the fewest words (four famous game titles).

Oh yes, along with sports. My father gave me an old hockey sweater, once owned by Arnold "Lefty" Fregin of the Syracuse Stars back in the 60's. Purple with white lettering and yellow trim, had no idea the now black and reds were once a royal color scheme. Anyway, the thing's practically a relic of professional hockey, if you're familiar with hockey, you know that a sweater is a jersey. Well, this jersey is actually a sweater, a heavy and thick cloth garment. The guy was apparently famous back in the day, and was friends with my father and gave the jersey to him some time ago. So yesterday evening I went on the computer to look up Lefty Fregin and try to find other pictures of the classic Syracuse Stars sweaters. Had no luck with it, but found one article online.

http://highschoolsports.syracuse.com/news/article/-676251916/how-could-a-star-athlete-at-west-genny-prefer-hockey/

Kind of interesting being able to say that I own that kid's grandfather's jersey, even more interesting that my father founded the West Genesee High School's hockey program back when he was a student attending there in the 70's.

Funny how things move around, by hand or word of mouth.

368

2009-12-14T15:47:00.002-05:00

Already been over a year since my first post on this blog, and wow, have things changed a lot. First off, I haven't played Halo 2 in who knows how long. Kind of makes me sad that it's over with and I don't think I'll be able to get back into it. Then I had my bought of Halo 3. For some odd reason, I felt like I was into Halo 3 for months upon months. Looking back, it was just a fraction of the time since I created this blog.

For some reason I also thought I played WoW between then and now but that was from the summer of 2008. Went through a little PSX phase, tried some Age of Empires again, even put Morrowind on my computer and played it for a few days.

Don't really know where I'm going with this, but it's crazy to see how different things are in just a few hundred days' time.

Bomb Squadron

2009-12-13T03:16:00.002-05:00

Going to try and keep up a constant flow of posts to keep people's interest.

Before I get to sleep tonight, I'm going to enlighten you all on one of the best Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 class setups. I call it "Bomb Squadron," and it's one of the most amusing thing to play (I've had fun with this while going negative, I've never had fun going negative before). The class is built as follows:

Primary Weapon:
Riot Shield
Secondary Weapon:
Thumper
Equipment:
C4
Special Grenade:
Stun x2
Perks:
Scavenger Pro
Cold Blooded Pro
Commando Pro

In short, it's one of the greatest classes ever, people seem to have a hard time fighting riot shields. By the way, I only play hardcore, for it takes two smashes in normal and just one in hardcore. The thumper makes for a great long range weapon and hallway power. The C4 is great for luring enemies around corners to chase you. Smoke grenades are a waste, flash bangs are interchangeable, but if you're chasing a guy down, you want to slow him down as well. Cold blooded, because of course, it's hardcore. The very crucial scavenger allows you to launch spuds for days. Then finally, commando pro gives you that extra lunge reach and pro keeps you from receiving fall damage, very useful on Afghan.

So that's my elite, unique class that tends to turn heads and gain attention over XBL. Try it out sometime, once you get the hang of it, you won't be disappointed.

You Have The Right To Remain Silent

2009-12-11T18:05:00.002-05:00

For my past couple years of XBoxLive experience, I've come across a wide variety of characters and voiced. I guess the most amusing thing to do would be to make categories of them. Can't think of a logical order to put them in, so I'll just go from the top of my head while playing Modern Warfare 2.

The Singer:
Sometimes they can have a good voice, most of the time they're rather annoying and singing the worst most popular song at the moment. Oftentimes children, very badly sounding children.

The DJ:
I don't know what possesses people to play music through their headset. Are their beats blasting so loud from across the room that it penetrates their microphone like a loudspeaker at a football game? Also, they tend to play horrible rap music.

The Heavy Breather:
I know pressing buttons with your fingers and thumbs can be exciting, just move the mic away from your mouth a little bit, please.

The Screamer:
Generally happens after they get team-killed, this person will tend to have a hissy fit and proceed to cry into his microphone. If you listen close enough, you can hear his mom in the background threatening to turn off the XBox.

The Patriot:
I was considering calling this one the racist, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Pretty much the American (most of the times white) who tells people with accents or speaking in another language to go back to their country. Not the friendliest gamer.

The Hater:
Can be recognized by constant complaints about the game. The best way to handle one of these is to tell them to stop playing if they hate it so much, 95% of the time they'll direct their anger towards you, this is when you mute them.

The Lover:
Can be placed with the casual gamers who play for fun and enjoy it whether they're going 10-2 or 2-20. Despite being harassed by the more serious gamers, they continue on with their optimism and cheer every time they frag and enemy.

The Commando:
These guys mean serious business. They attempt to set up strategy and direct teammates for the best chance of victory. Unfortunately, random people rarely comply and frustration can rear its ugly head.

The War Hero:
Similar to the commando, yet has real life experience similar to whatever game they're playing. Whether it be a soldier playing Call of Duty, auto racer playing Forza, or an air gutarist playing Rock Band.

The Little Big Man:
They trash talk at any given moment, say "I've done this" and "can do that." Usually I feel sorry for their inadequacies and need to overcompensate.

That's all I can think of at the moment, if you've got any suggestions or changes, let me know.

A Little Rusty

2009-12-09T01:55:00.003-05:00

So I was chilling and watching my friend Andrew play HC:HQ and saw Rust come up. Never played it before, so I ask if I can jump in a game. He says go for it because it's my system and he refuses to deny me my own stuff, haha, and I sure went for it.

Before the games started, I thought Shipment and said, "I'm going to wind up with the best kill/death ratio." I went Rambo mode with my M240 with holographic sights, thumper, sleight of hand, cold blooded and ninja. I forgot to change my killstreaks so I used what Andrew had set up: UAV, care package, predator missile.

I got:
Omnicide! - Kill the entire enemy team within 10 seconds.
Wargasm - Get all 3 of your killstreak rewards within 20 seconds.
Crab Meat - Kill 10 enemies with a single killstreak.
*and other weapon/random challenges*

I'm currently trying to get pictures off of my phone and onto my computer.

Branching Out

2009-12-01T00:26:00.003-05:00

Just the other day I got sucked back into StumbleUpon and bounced around the internet and found a rather interesting blog that caught my attention. The name of it is Mostly Grocery: Adventures of a Grocery Clerk, and is rather entertaining. I recommend the site for good work stories to read and even a place to share yours.

The other day I was reading his about him section and emailed him back and forth a bit and gave him a story to post on his blog. He enjoyed it and threw it up there on November 27th.

I'd like to try and summarize the site or at least give you a little info on the author, but I don't think that I could do it justice. Just go ahead and check it out for yourself at http://mostlygrocery.com/, it's worth it.

The Ground Is Lava

2009-11-21T02:29:00.008-05:00

The day after Modern Warfare 2 came out, I went down to my local Walmart and picked up the last copy in the store. At first I didn't care much for it, really disliked the online play and went a few days without touching it. Then after I wanted to get into the new swing of things I picked it back up and continued with the special ops and online multiplayer.

After some time of learning the maps and weapons, unlocking attachments and camouflages, I began to take my time and look at the finer details of the game. The break patterns of glass, peculiar animations of the firearms, physics of grenades and bullet impact reaction, and then the atmosphere of the game. One of my suitemates at college has taken a couple semesters of Russian and enjoys reading the text on the walls of Terminal in multiplayer. After stepping outside near the airplane, we noticed something odd that the game developers missed. The police cars say "Metro Police." Wait a minute, I thought we were in Russia, why does a cop car have English writing plastered on the side of it? Not a bit of Cyrillic present. There's one goof.

The next goof is the one that decided the title of this post. Once I unlocked the thermal sights on the Barrett I was pretty excited to have the extended range of vision and distinct white hot body colors. As I went through the maps, I noticed something rather odd. Bodies are white, bodies with cold blooded on are dark. Conclusion, white is hot. Sand is light grey, so sand must be warm, sounds good. Snow is white, snow must be lava. Wait a minute, Infinity Ward, I thought white meant hot. So shouldn't the snow be black?

Who knew that a Russian civilian reads English no problem. I knew that snowcould lead to cold could lead to frostbite which leads to burns, but I guess you guys left out the cold and frostbite part of that series of events. You almost nailed it, IW, you really almost did.

LeBrown James

2009-11-18T16:36:00.002-05:00

This just in, to me at least, Mangini considers LeBron's offer to step in as a Cleveland Brown.

The former high school all-American wide receiver said that he'd like to try and give the 1-8 Browns some help to get their season on track. The 6'8" 250lb. star of the Cleveland Cavaliers said that he's willing to switch over and play tight end in an Antonio Gates/Tony Gonzalez style and give Brady Quinn a new target to gun for. Quinn thinks it'd be great, Mangini thinks it could help, but defensive tackle Shaun Rogers thinks differently. He agrees that James is a great athlete, but not a great football player, in a year of training, yes, he said.

I'm on the fence with this one, mainly because I'd like to see LeBron as a Knick in 2010. Anyway, look at this football time gap. It's huge. Plus, the change between high school and college is different, but he doesn't even know that transition, the college to professional alone is huge. Sure he's got the size and knows the fundamentals, but come on. One example we can look at is Greg Paulus out of Syracuse, New York. The guy was one of the greatest quarterbacks NYS high schools have ever seen. Playing for Christian Brothers Academy in the greater Syracuse area, he attracted crowds from all over Onondaga county to watch him play. Unfortunately, Paulus made the decision to play point guard for Duke in college.

With one year of eligibility remaining, Paulus decided to return his athletic career to Syracuse and quarterback the dismal Syracuse Orange. Since he's been back, he's managed to get people back into the stands of the rather empty dome (empty for football, packed for basketball) in hopes they'd see the hometown hero they once knew. Paulus was a bust. Despite having a better, younger quarterback ready, they continue to let Paulus lead the Orange to defeat.

I've really veered off of the LeBron story, but what I'm trying to get at is that his time away from football has been too great. I'm trying to think of other athletes that have made sports transitions from basketball to football, but can't think of any. Golf and baseball don't count, because the body conditioning isn't even close to contact sports.

Time to cut this post short and get to class.

Forsberg's Final Stand

2009-11-18T15:39:00.005-05:00

Back when I was growing up, the Rangers were my favorite team and still are. But like every kid out there, he had a few favorite players and a second team to watch, the Avalanche was that team, and Peter Forsberg was one of those players.

Anyway, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic roster previews have been released and appear to be nearly finalized. As I was going through the potential lineups, a name caught my eye and made my day noticeably better. Peter Forsberg will be back on the ice with his reigning gold medal Swedish squad and looking for his third Olympic gold medal. One of the greatest to play in the NHL despite missing so much time due to injuries, he still has a chance to be a leading scorer in the upcoming games in February if he can manage to stay healthy and prepared to play. In his final three NHL seasons, Forsberg managed only 66 regular season games across three different teams and 13 postseason games. Even though his physical style of play left him bruised up in the latter half of his career, he still managed to pull 69 regular season points and 9 in the playoffs.

At the current age of 36 years old, he still manages to have a powerful presence on the ice and his methods for success haven't changed a bit. Unfortunately, I think this upcoming winter Olympics will be his last hurrah, unless he can stay strong at 40. 40 maybe be old, but not unheard of, but that's an age defenseman tend to continue at, rare for forwards, especially of this intimidating play style and undergone such physical stress.

Canucks Become Bitter

2009-11-04T00:38:00.002-05:00

Been a long time since my last post regarding sports, and I'll be complaining in this, noticeably. If it's not evident, I'm a Rangers fan, always have been, always will be. Tonight was a late game against the Canucks way west in Vancouver at 10pm EST. I don't mind watching late night games, it's not like I'd be doing anything productive on a Tuesday night anyway.

The game moves slowly, Canucks held a decent 1-0 lead over the Rangers. For a while, the Canucks really held command over New York and played soundly, I've got respect for this. As the game went on, the Vancouver crew took some shots at Rangers that were uncalled for. At first they were subtle and didn't do any damage. Refs missed some calls and made them on the Rangers.

In the third period, Gaborik (star player and recently recovered from injury for the Rangers) took a solid hit and lost control of the puck. Legal hit, well placed body. But then he starts to skate again and gets hit right after with no puck even near him. A fight breaks out during a line change and a 16 or so player brawl breaks out on the ice. Fights spread across the rink and refs eventually sort it out. Words exchange between Avery and one of his rivals from his western past (when he played for the Kings) and received a jab from a hockey stick. Really, a player leaned from his bench, across to the opponent's and poked a player with his stick. It's not like it would do damage, but that's ridiculously immature and uncalled for. Avery then grabbed his stick and tore it from the player's hands, why not.

A lot of my respect for the Canucks fleets after this scrum and childish move, I've still got some left for the formidable foes. Later in the third period, Rangers are down 2-1 and still have some momentum from the melee, a penalty is called against a Rangers defenseman. Hooking was the call, and if you're not familiar, it's when you get your stick, generally around the waist, of the player and obstruct their movement. Well, what happened was is that the healthy Sedin pulled the Ranger's stick, held onto it, and fell to the ice. Creating a garbage penalty, leading to a 3-1 lead.

I might sound like a sore loser, and that's because I am. Change your play Vancouver, I don't want this kind of garbage dirtying the ice.

Dead Space (can't think of a witty title)

2009-11-03T16:43:00.002-05:00

Been a while since I've been into video games, and an even longer amount of time since my last post. Generally school's been taking up some time, last week I bought Team Fortress 2 over Steam and play the occasional NHL 10.

The other day I was sifting through the list of 360 games available for games on demand, a rather short list, and wanted to make the decision to buy one. Pretty much came down to Dead Space or Oblivion, like the title says, I picked Dead Space.

I kind of want to write a nice, in depth review, but like before, I'm too lazy for that. At least I can get down the key points and give people an idea of this nearly year old game.

If you've never seen gameplay or screenshots of Dead Space, think of Metroid Prime meets Doom 3. If you're unfamiliar with either of these games, I'd feel very sorry for you. The game's set some time in the future, and you're a member of a repair crew to fix a mining ship that's somewhere out in space. Your crew's like five people in size, I have no idea how a ship bigger than an Imperial Cruiser could have a difference from just five people (might be four people, including the pilot). So you get there and realize that something weird's going on, there's a bunch of blood on the walls and creatures trying to kill you.

The Metroid Prime aspect comes from the futuristic HUD (actually, there is no HUD). But you can bring up menus that remind me of Metroid Prime and the map layout and map view reminds me of it. Then you've got these alien(?) life forms that take over bodies and try to kill you, there's the Doom 3 aspect. There's a shop/upgrade system which is nice, and six weapons or so in all. Doesn't sound extensive, because it isn't. I've only used two so far, the one you start with and the second weapon you can get, which is like a laser assault rifle.

Like in Doom 3, it's got a lot of spook moments, I've jumped many a times. Unlike Doom 3, your weapon (fists?) has a flashlight on it and the rooms never get so dark that you don't know what you'll run into.

When I first started playing this, I thought it was so unique, innovative, clever and different. I know I had some redundancy in that sentence, but like everything else, I'm too lazy to change the wording.

So anyway, as I play through this game, it feels more and more like a third-person RPG-esque Halo 3. A lot of rooms and areas seem to get recycled later on in the game so I feel like I'm running in circles, enemies greatly resemble the flood, there are beasts called brutes, and the environment looks like stuff from the infected Pillar of Autumn.

Do I recommend you to get this game? I don't know. I'm just going to play through at least once to get my $20 worth.

Hit The Ice

2009-09-21T19:04:00.002-04:00

This Saturday was the delivery of my 360 (actually repaired, not a new one) and my NHL 10 arrived in the mail. A rather good day and timing on the postal services, such a day should be marked in my calendar and I doubt I'll do that and just forget the coincidence.

Anyway, I spent all Saturday afternoon and night playing NHL 10. My suitemates were either at home or just gone somewhere and I was the only one out of six. I went ahead and created my pro, played that season, then started a GM mode (replaced 09's dynasty) and tried my hand at some online team play games, but my connection was garbage, but luckily managed a rebound goal on a human goalie.

I was thinking of writing a broken down review like for Resident Evil 5, but still yet to make up my mind as I'm writing this post. I'll just write it in a weakly thought manner, that sounds a lot easier, I'll just rewrite a good review for klimp.dk sometime in the future.

New Stuff:

Goalies

They don't give up so easily after making the initial save, they'll sprawl and raise gloves/stick to keep the rebound from going in so easily
Goalies now play further out of the crease to cut down the angles on long range shots
Pucks "stick" to them less often, they really need to get their pads over the puck or their glove on it to get control
If the puck's loose a few feet in front of the crease and it's just an opponent skating down for an easy shot, he'll leave the net and either shoot it back down the ice or make a desperation dive
They hug the posts better, wrap around shots are tougher to pull off because of this and goal line wrist shots aren't cheap like in 09
When the play is behind the net, they'll lower their stick to the ice and angle their legs to move quicker/cover up low angle gaps
If the puck is bouncing around in the air, they'll grab the puck with their glove
Cross crease moves are tougher to pull off, the goalie will time poke checks better and follow your puck movement more smoothly than before
Overall, there's just dozens of more animations given to goalies

Defense

Breaking up rushes is easier now, in 09, you could practically skate into a player and keep going, if a puck hits a skate or stick (without a manual poke check), the puck will get knocked loose
The computer AI is much better, I scored so many goals against the CPU by skating it in wide on the side, then cutting between the defender and goalie to make an easy cross crease goal, they commit and don't let you in so easily now
Poke check are more effective
Taking a shot to the body has more effect in this, yet to notice one if you take it while on the ice
By pushing the right stick up (or whichever direction it would be for a snap shot) you will shoot the puck of the boards behind your net when facing them, very effective in clearing out of your zone now
You can pin the puck carrier against the boards by holding down Y (oh yeah, I'm only doing 360 controls), you can then have a teammate come to take the puck or get off and quickly poke check to take the puck away
If someone gets on your nerves during or between play, you can press Y to pick a fight, you'll then go into first person and use left stick to dodge and tug on the jersey and right stick to swing your first, you've got a decent health bar, only problem is that in fights, everyone is the same size, rather see a 6'7" putting the hurt on a 5'7" guy than seeing eye to eye
Can change power in your flip dump, by holding down RB for a fraction of a second, then pressing up on the right stick gives a low and direct dump, holding for two seconds then launching will give it much more of an arc

Offense

They removed one-handed puck control, unless I've yet to find it
The defenseman play the blue line much better, back in 09 it seemed to be rush after counterrush after counterrush, they'll really keep the puck in the zone and you can use them to pass back to more often, too many times in 09 they'll be out of the zone and ruin your play
It's harder to shoot through your defender, in 09 so many times I'd lean into a wrist shot and let it fly between the defenseman's skates and be successfull perhaps 80% of the time to reach the goalie, maybe two out of ten shots between the legs don't get deflected in 10
With hardcore mode, you need to hold the right trigger for different lengths of time to determine power, also must aim your passes right on, makes for a challenging mode but interesting
Blue line slapshots go in more often now
Goalies don't look around players as often when getting screened, not sure if screens are less effective or goalies just don't show it as easily when they're screened
Teammate AI is improved and position themselves much better depending on offensive strategy, crash the net will result in a lot of rebound goals, behind the net really gets your players to work behind the net and set up for solid one-timers
A button puck protection works much worse than last year
Stickhandling is slightly slower than 09
Loose puck dekes are harder to pull off than in 09
They changed the method of pushing a puck in front of you to get around defensemen better, the left trigger is now used (tapped) to push the puck forward, I don't feel that it goes far enough and your guy kind of slows down when he picks up it again
Penalty shots are much more often, I've yet to stickhandle or shoot from my knees, really want to see it done
Breakaways seem easier to score on but penalty shots/shootout are tougher to score on than in 09

I'll make note on new game modes and other gameplay, going to get to dinner.

Lighting An Old Flame

2009-09-17T23:53:00.003-04:00

When I was growing up and playing and loving hockey, I would always try to have favorite players other than my blue shirted Rangers. As I grew older and learned the game more, I admired and wanted to be multiple players on the ice. When I played defense, Brian Leetch was my hero and I sported his number 2, but before I played defense, I had a different idol.

Standing at just 5'6" and being very crafty on the ice, Theoren Fleury always seemed to be bigger than the numbers showed. Racking up over 1,000 points throughout his lengthy career and gave a very physical game. Now I feel like I'm giving too much of a buildup and weak backstory.

To get to the point, he's considering to come out of retirement and make a comeback at the ripe age of 41. Is it a bad idea? I don't know. I could give more backstory to his breaking league rules of drug substance abuse and the book he's finished writing, an autobiography titled Playing With Fire. I might actually read this one.

Anyway, I think a comeback for him would be interesting. In the past we've seen Mario Lemiuex return after cancer and play strong, Dominik Hasek returned after some injuries to continue being a dominator, but then Claude Lemiuex made a comeback and didn't make a difference.

This is really a bad post, a lot of start and stop in ideas. But I'd like to get out there that Favre isn't as old and unbreakable as so many people out there think. He's been playing 16 game seasons and isn't even 40 years old. Chris Chelios is 47 and still plays in the NHL.

A Very Far Look Into The Future

2009-09-15T18:43:00.002-04:00

With my 360 just arriving in Syracuse today, and then to my dorm on Saturday, I've had a lot of time to think about games instead of gaming games. I've been in awe how far video games have come and what could possibly be in store for the next five years of gaming. I could mention Microsoft's Project Natal or the addition to the Wiimote or even those crazy helmets that make you feel like you've taken a headshot, like this Kaiser cap to the right.

Instead of really thinking of possible innovation in hardware, I was thinking of a new Resident Evil. I'm not talking about a garbage Wii game, I mean a sequel or prequel to the Resident Evil 5 installment for a legit console like the 360 or PS3.

I've been watching online for any news on a Resident Evil 6 and they they any new games in the franchise would take anywhere from four to eight years to make. Four to eight years, that's a long time. Four is okay, considering they've already had four year gaps in the good bits of the franchise. If they do make another Resident Evil, I'd really prefer them to take a few steps back and return to the survival horror puzzle solving genre. I really enjoyed Resident Evil 5, I really did, but I miss the classic suspense and mind challenging play of 1 and 2.

Leaving a post and coming back to finish halfway through really hurts the mind flow and quality. Really can't remember what was on my mind before I left for dinner after finishing the first paragraph. I'll just say that I'm excited for NHL 10 and the return of my 360.

You Sunk My Battleship

2009-09-07T16:08:00.003-04:00

With my 360 still out in the dangerous world on its own, I've had just my PSX with me at college to keep me virtual company. After going through multiple games and reaching boredom with each after little time, I've decided to turn back to an old game that I once game up on.

The game is NavyField and it's a real time WWII naval game. I think they classify it as an MMORTS (massive multiplayer online real time strategy). The game is rather unique compared to all of the other involving progressive online games out there. I guess I'll break it down in separate paragraphs.

The Game
To keep it simple, you command a ship and fight other people. You go into an area, chose a game/or host one, wait and go into battle with randomly selected teammates and fight for last man standing. Each player controls their own ship (and scout planes and fighters, bombers if you're a carrier vessel) and cruises side by side up to dozens of others at a time.

Your Ship
When you start out the game, you begin with just a lowly frigate. It's small, weak and can't take much damage. Pretty much you can try and keep torpedoing light cruisers away from your aircraft carriers and larger, slower ships. As you gain levels you can buy larger ships (or a submarine if you chose that path) and equip your steel titan with better armor and weaponry.

Your Crew
You start with a few sailors and run your ship and after every game you play you receive experience. Each sailor has specific stats and growth rates for them (reload, accuracy, repair, torpedo...) are a few categories. As they level up you can pick a nationality (US, German, British, Japanese) and each of those has their own unique ships and advantages and disadvantages. Then you can specialize your crew members as gunners, AA gunners, pilots, engineers and whatnot. It gets rather in depth but it's not overwhelming. For it takes time to get into the depth of the game and by the time you need to make decisions and strategy you already have a good idea of what's going on.

There's a lot more to it, but I don't know how to effectively get into it all. I guess I can post the link and let you decide.

http://www.navyfield.com/

Change of Mind

2009-09-02T19:18:00.002-04:00

Tried out Parasite Eve II but got bored of it fast, most likely because the controller is a pain to use and partly due to bad graphics and whatever.

Looks Like The Doodoo's Really Hit The Fan

2009-08-29T15:56:00.003-04:00

One of the first lines of dialogue in Parasite Eve II between Aya the protagonist and her partner and friend Pierce. Today I will start my journey in Parasite II. Right now, I do not want to guarantee that I will play all the way through this game, for my controller is very bootleg and old. It takes a kung fu grip just to get X to know it's being pressed. The graphics aren't as bad as I expected to see, I'm sure I'll be much worse.

This will be interesting.

Quantity of Quality

2009-08-25T20:22:00.004-04:00

Four posts in a month, this is unheard of and yet undone by me.

Anyway, the plug is still pulled on my loyal 360 and I'm still waiting on the shipping label and casket. With my most modern and advanced gaming console out of commission, I've been left to search for any classic games to my liking. Lucky me, I've got two older brothers who helped my video game libraries hit unusually large sizes. NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, PS, PS2, XBox and computer games at my disposal.

So I sat there for a minute and in my head went over the games that I've got available and thought that I'd enjoy a nice, mindless game to play. Ken Griffey Jr.'s Major League Baseball for the trusty N64. That was a great game, loved just sitting there and slugging pitch after pitch out of the park and generally winning by 20 runs a game.

Can't find the N64, turns out my oldest brother has it in his house. Oh well, guess I could ask him to bring it over someday this week if he stops by. Before I even got to the phone I didn't want to play it anymore.

Alright, maybe a good PS adventure game or RPG would suffice. After digging through the closet for a good twenty minutes, I managed to find the old PS, the bootleg controller, two memory cards and the cables for it. The cables weren't too hard to find.

With the console hooked up, I began going through a box of dozens of PS games, but only one really got my attention and desire to play, Parasite Eve II. A perfect blend of survival horror and RPG.

Case out, open it up, no disc. My middle brother in NYC has it in his CD case in his car.

With this much disappointment stacked up, I decided to not look for any more (because all the good ones were with him, too). I then went back to my computer, well computers and looked for an interesting game to play with a friend online. Yeah, I play RuneScape, but that game sucks and isn't interesting. I tell him my situation and he suggests Knight Online. If you're not aware of the game, it's an awful WoW knock-off that's full of Turks and bad grammar. The quests are all glitchy and the game's full of bugs and people who just auto train their characters.

Oh yeah, my computers (one is an old IBM with connections falling apart inside, thus the clamp and block of wood. Other is a nice Acer).

We pretty much stopped playing as soon as we started and I just went back to RS, oh well.

Red Slice of Pain

2009-08-21T15:08:00.003-04:00

Got a text from my brother this morning, asked if I wanted to play some RE5 mercenaries. Sure, why not? Hop on the box and try to join his game, failed. He tried to join mine, failed multiple times. So what do you usually do? I turned off my console, waited, turned it back on.

To my dismay, I got a single flashing light and the good ol' multilingual error 74 message. Off for a bit, back on, again. Tried a few more times and just gave up.

Checked out the XBox site and they said my warranty expired. Hey wait, I thought they had three years now due to the 54% first year failure rate. On the pull tab I selected the problem "one flashing red light" and the estimated repair cost was $99.99. Pretty garbage. I look again and there's an option "Error 74." To my luck, that's free to repair. For some reason they said only three flashing lights is extended warranty and I guess one flashing light with Error 74 doesn't add up to Microsoft.

Looks like I'll bust out the classic consoles and update this more often until the 360 gets back to me in a few weeks. Oh yeah, stupid me. I chose to have them send me a prepaid label and for some reason thought they sent a box as well. Just a label. So now I'm waiting about four business days just for a label they're making me use now. Oh well, guess I'm not in a hurry. Just going to be funny waiting weeks to play NHL 10 that I've preordered.

Could be worse, could've been one light with no Error 74.

My Purchase

2009-08-19T22:52:00.002-04:00

With summer winding down and school closing in, it's about time to return any video games that I may be borrowing, and the only one I'm currently borrowing from a friend is Resident Evil 5. Despite destroying the game and having all the weapons and whatnot, I'd still love to own a copy and start fresh, so my buddy Chong and I take a trip down to Best Buy and I go and look at the games.

I'm in luck, they have a copy of Resident Evil 5 left, and a copy of Resident Evil 5: Collector's Edition. So I start comparing prices to see if the extra stuff is worth it, and after thinking for two seconds about the equal price of $59.99, I say why not and grab the bargain box, and did I ever get a bargain.

Anyway, let's take a look inside.

Here's the front of the game disc box. Very nice looking metal case, this will protect my goods from those African (and white ((and Mexican)) zombies (parasite infected people).

And the back with a rather nice art piece.

I crack the lockbox open and find an array of goodies. A game disc, a bonus disc (no clue what's on it yet), an advertisement for Dark Void, 48 hour trial for XBLive, and the game book itself. Above you can see the paper box that housed the paraphernalia to come.

The second item I pulled out of the magic box was a miniature Chris Redfield. To my surprise, he is wielding an invisible gun, I was wondering what that rattling sound was in his tiny clear plastic box in the box was.

And here's item number two. It's a... necklace of Africa. The only thing I like about it is the fact that it says Capcom on the back.

Time to make this prize box legit. Your own replica BSAA patch, North American branch. Didn't come with that iron on backing, but I don't care, because I doubt I'll be putting it on anything.

And the end all. Your very own Tricell messenger bag. Don't really know what to say about it, it practically speaks for itself.

And there you have it, that was my Resident Evil 5 bargain box in all its glory.

Little Bit of Vacation

2009-08-16T18:55:00.002-04:00

Recently I finished with work and went down to Queens to stay with my brother for a bit. Would love to get into the whole trip and talk all about it, but I'm a little lazy and taking off in a minute for some volleyball.

I'll just get down the key points.

A Tourist's Guide On How To Spot A Tourist:

If there's a hot girl dating a rather unattractive guy, who doesn't seem to have a lot of money, they're European
If there's a girl wearing odd clothing, such as a large shirt that looks like a bag with no sleeves, and is walking around all prim and proper, she's most likely French
Germans don't sound that angry in museums and aquariums
When taking photographs, people from outside the US tend to get 2/3 friend and 1/3 landmark in the picture
Dress socks, leather sandals, khaki shorts, slightly obvious
Male British teens are tough to distinguish between American homosexuals and metrosexuals, a lot of touching in public is a British giveaway
Just because they don't speak English doesn't mean they're tourists, they can be cab drivers, restaurant workers or cab drivers
British adults talk a lot, most likely because people like to hear their accent

More to come, my ride is here.

Live, From New York, It's Garbage!

2009-07-28T21:34:00.004-04:00

So I got home from work today and by reflex and I checked out what my friends have been up to on the wonderful world of Facebook. Half sarcasm, half non-sarcasm. Anyway, I saw that my friend was streaming a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time tournament between his younger brother and a friend over Stickam.com, which lasted all day apparently.

Being a fan of 4playerpodcast for a bit and video games for a bit longer, I kind of thought that it'd be fun if I tried broadcasting stuff as well. So I went and set up a justin.tv channel (because I wasn't feeling Stickam) and tried to set something up. So I thought about setting up my video capture card and then remembered that the lag on that is too bad to really play through, and is only good for transferring already recorded stuff (Halo 3 footage). So I ended up bootlegging it with my built-in laptop webcam.

What I did was set my laptop on a chair and turn it facing my TV, I could easily see around it, but the quality sucks ass. I tested streaming some RE5 but never got feedback from the guy who said would watch it, he got pulled off his computer and into something else.

So like I was saying, I'm not sure if I'll get a legit webcam, get something to feed from console to PC better (the USB card I have doesn't cut it) or just give up on it. It seems like an idea to do, but I don't even have people reading this.

To help with my decision, post a reply anywhere on the blog to at least let me know that actual people visit this site, or at least have randomly found it one day. And if things work out, you could find my garbage on justin.tv/eliminatrixxx and I might, if it works out, set up a schedule for broadcasting.

Still Here

2009-07-20T00:49:00.004-04:00

Haven't forgotten about this, just been busy working 40-50 hours a week and sleeping when I'm not working. Thought about copying over a solid Resident Evil 5 review that I wrote for another website recently, but just get too lazy/off track/tired. Actually, it'll only take me two seconds, so I might as well do it now.

Resident Evil 5

2009 Capcom - Capcom - XBOX 360 (Also on PS3)

Undead Demolition

I'd like to start off saying that usually when I have extremely high expectations for a game, I tend to end up turning it off at the end of the day with at least some degree of disappointment; this was not the case for Resident Evil 5.

In a quite bought of congratulations or encouragement, whatever you want to call it, Capcom outdid itself. Really, they did. Honestly, I haven't had this much fun with a Capcom game since they released Onimusha: Warlords for the PS2.

To give a quick rundown of my ratings, I'll start with the storyline. Hopefully you have played the older Resident Evil games and hopefully at least familiar with the general plot setting, so I'm going to go ahead and act like you know what's going on. Umbrella's pretty much back and in business another pharmaceutical company called Tricell. Albert Wesker returns and is the ultimate bad ass that he was since you played the first Resident Evil, Chris Redfield returns (a God compared to Leon Kennedy) and some flashbacks show up to help with understanding.

Anyway, you, Chris Redfield, gets sent to Africa to help bust up some terrorist biological warfare trades and end up getting through into a pit of experimentation. Like the previous installments, your objective is survival and completion of a mission. There isn't much for character development, mainly because it's been going on for a decade now (except for the new main character, Sheva) but the continuation of attitude and storyline pieces together well.

As for gameplay, I couldn't possibly consider giving this game anything less than a 10/10. Like in all of the past third-person Resident Evil games, you cannot move and attack at the same time. To me, I love that they didn't change it. It really helps build up suspense taking that time to ready your firearm or knife and continues to press the fight or flight decision. I've never had a problem with response from controls or any character action nor yet to find any glitches. Sure sometimes you can get angles on zombies where they don't see you, but hey, it happens.

I'd also like to mention that this is the first Resident Evil where accessing your inventory does not pause the game. The inventory comes up as a translucent box with the rest of the game continuing, thus making the quick combine reload only an advantage to the more skilled batch of gamers.

With more technology comes more expectations for aesthetics. I'm happy to say that Capcom really used up the potential of the XBox 360 (and possibly PS3, yet to see it on that console) to create a rather beautiful game. The environments are rich, the character designs are extremely life-like and lighting is done very well. Again, I give a ten.

Sound is where I get picky with my games, I nearly gave this one an eight. The sounds of wood breaking, zombies moaning, dogs barking, guns reloading, chainsaws roaring, feet stepping, glass shattering... is all great, but it was just missing something. I really can't place my finger on it, but it's just hard to give games nines or tens on sound when there's no soundtrack and I've played Medal of Honor: Frontline that I feel I must compare it to. The saving factor in this category is the quick communication system. By pressing B on the controller, you call your partner over. If you're in earshot, you hear their voice, but if you're a bit further away, you hear it over a radio. A very nice, and saving, touch.

With the cost of games and consoles today, replayability is a big factor when it comes to buying a new video game. Lacking a standard online match-making/versus/battle mode, they really had to dig deep here and they dug deeper than you can see. With about 25 or so weapons, all but five are upgradeable. This upgrading feature really gets you to replay the game for more firepower, capacity, reload time, piercing, range... you name it. And ultimately unlimited ammo for every weapon (except the grenade launcher) at your disposal. Also, the split-screen and online co-op functions are more than enough to replay through multiple times. You'll definitely get your money's worth.

After so many years so much has already been done. The creators of Resident Evil 5 really tired hard to keep the game fresh, and I feel that they did. For starters, they had a Ocarina of Time style puzzle at one part that made me content and unused enough to be considered original. The "dying" feature when so much damage is inflicted is a nice touch but reminded me too much of Gears of War's bleed out and revive system, but I feel that Resident Evil's was done better. It's hard to put the originality into words, then again, I worked ten hours of construction today and am ready to pass out now at 9:50pm.

Far from a let-down, I'm giving this game a solid ten out of ten. I really don't know how to sum this up with words, but I'd definitely mark this a buy and keep game that will refuse to get old. With four difficulty ratings, an unlockable mini-game, time completion rewards, extensive upgrade system, co-op... the game easily hits my all-time best list.

Ratings

Storyline: 9/10

Gameplay: 10/10

Graphics: 10/10

Sound: 9/10

Replayability: 10/10

Originality: 9/10

Overall: 10/10

//Nate

*the spacing coding left some big gaps and that sub-title didn't copy over well, I'll deal with it later. Just like those images from long ago, haha*

Fleury Flopping, Osgood Doesn't Live Up To His Name

2009-06-01T01:07:00.005-04:00

After watching tonight's game, and most of the 08-09 NHL season, I'd just like to say that the goalies in the league have been making me sad. I'll just talk about tonight, because a season would require dozens of pages, and I'm just too lazy to write about all of that.

I'll start with the Penguins goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury. He's one hell of a goalie, really plugs up that five-hole and has great rebound control. Anything below the 2 foot mark he handles without a problem. Just a great butterfly goalie, but that's also his problem. The Detroit Red Wings are far from stupid, they are the most experienced squad in the league and have the strongest offensive arsenal at their disposal. Fleury, great as he is, is having trouble against them. Two three goal losses, not bad, but still let's look at the situation.

Game one, two goals were off of lively board bounces. Direct shots at the boards in Detroit will come right back out across the goal line, and this is a goalie's nightmare. Not only do you lose sight of the puck, but it winds right up in a shooting angle as soon as you lose vision of it. Now let's take a step forward a day and observe the goals of tonight. Two of the goals were rather easy to stop, well, at least for a stand-up goalie. I was watching the game, he'd drop immediately on the long range shots and just hope they were traveling low. Anyway, he hoped wrong, and allowed two easy ones past him. Come on, Fleury, it's easier to drop your glove than raise it up. The other goal in the game was unstoppable, let's not think about that insane angled backhand off the post, a thing of beauty.

Osgood, now it's your turn. You're one of the best active goalies of today, and I've always loved your simple helmet and neck guard combination that is rarely seen amongst the goalies in any league. You're Hall of Fame caliber, you've held the Cup before, you're a hero in Detroit, but you haven't been acting like it. Yes, I know, you're in the Finals and you're already sitting on a comfortable lead of two games to none and only allowed two goals in the past two games. I'm just going to mention things that bothered me tonight.

You just bounced around in net and seemed to lose sight of the puck more often than a goalie should. I noticed at multiple times in the game that a decent amount of your skates and pads were in the goal while in your solid butterfly position. What good is that going to do you when a puck flies in your direction? Your glove hand looked weak and your puck playing aggression nearly backfired twice. About your glove hand, I noticed some shots really knocked it around, a couple times the post was really your best friend. Anyway, you've got one hell of an offensive and defensive combination to make your job easier than Fleury's, but step it up. It seemed like your defensemen stopped more "going in" shots than you did and that goal that went it just shouldn't have. Your age has started to show, and hopefully you can shed some years by the next game or you might be looking at a loss.

Young Gun

2009-05-28T23:45:00.002-04:00

When I think of the world of online gaming, I generally think of first person shooters, sports, RPGs... and then the people who play them. When I say people who play them, you'd think of age group, generally older teenagers, sometimes people in their 20's, and the rare amount of people in their elder and wiser years. Well, then you sometimes get the youngsters who are early teenagers and possibly even before that stage. After two minutes of typing, I'm starting to think that I'm drawing out this introduction, so I'll get to the point.

There's this young kid I met in an online RPG many years ago and now he's into FPS games, he's only 12 but he's intimidating. He's ridiculously mature for his age, and ridiculously good for his age. I'm really starting to type about nothing, so I'll just roll the tape.

His tag's Oh Soul and I really look forward to teaming up with this kid and seeing more of his footage.

Crosby Completes Game Seven

2009-05-14T00:24:00.003-04:00

The series is over, the Penguins move on.

Tonight's game really took me by surprise. As soon as the Capitals took the ice, they had fire in their eyes and a little bit of Ovechkin in all of their hearts. Just three minutes into the game, Ovechkin managed to get a breakaway on Fleury who made one hell of an effort to make his goal never happen. This was possibly the biggest play of the night.

After the Capital's opening four shots on goal, the Penguins decided it was their turn to give this thing called offense a chance. With over half of the first period gone, Crosby managed to score a power play goal with the help of Evgeni Malkin (12 assists in the postseason) and Sergei Gonchar. The goal was great and the Penguins could release that first sigh of relief. Crazy thing about it, before I was done sighing, the Penguins scored again in just eight seconds, which just made my sigh last as long as my lungs could keep up.

The Penguins continued to fire upon the young Varlamov and ended the first period up by two and with a threatening 16 to 5 shots on net. As soon as the Penguins took the ice in the second, the role of opening the period seemed to reverse to the Penguins taking immediate command and managed scoring in less than half a minute into the second. The period continued to play cleanly with no penalties the entire twenty and was much less one-sided, but the Penguins just managed to capitalize on their chances and gave Varlamov a headache until a 5-0 lead was achieved.

With just about two minutes left in the period, Fleury went behind the net to play the puck, sent it out and Ovechkin snatched it immediately for the easy open-net wrap around goal. Actually, this is the second time Ovechkin had such an easy goal on Fleury this series.

When the third period began, the Capitals came out swinging. And I really mean swinging, Laich picked up two high-sticking calls just under half a minute into the period. This led to a rather easy power play goal for Crosby, his twelfth of the playoffs. That was it for the penalties in the period and goals by Penguins. They toned down their offense and had their fewest amounts of shots in a period (6), while the Capitals managed to get a period high of just 9. With those nine shots taken, only one was able to make it past Fleury to cut the game to 6-2, which it remained for the remaining thirteen or so minutes giving the Pittsburgh Penguins a shocking defeat over the Capitals.

With the playoffs having been through so much already, I can't help but think back to the road that has led to here. I seems like just last month I was checking the standings in the East and seeing the Penguins in the hole with a slim chance of making the playoffs with two of the league's top scorers, and look at them now.

The Penguins will either be facing the Boston Bruins or Carolina Hurricanes which will be determined Thursday night. Maybe we'll get to see the Canes reclaim the lead and advance to the Eastern finals, I think a Staal vs. Staal series would be rather entertaining.

Played Out Prediction?

2009-05-09T21:24:00.002-04:00

The series was later continued and then ending, with the games played during extended breaks between studying.

Games three, four, and five were all settled by one goal each. In game three, I managed to win 4-3. In game four, the goalies didn't feel like showing up and eight goals were scored in the first period and the final was 8-7, Capitals. Game five was rough and full of penalties from frustration and exhaustion, with my Pens racking up 20 penalties in minutes and Jordan's Caps pulling a less, but still impressive, 16 PIM. I managed to squeeze a close victory with two short-handed goals, 3-2.

Game six, back in Pittsburgh and was a nail-biter. With the Caps taking the ice knowing that tonight could be their final chance at continuing their quest for the Cup, they managed to stay strong on the ice and really reduced the amount of penalties committed. The first two periods played smoothly and unfortunately in my favor, Jordan entered the period down 5-2.

With the game seeming nearly lost, Jordan continued to play strong and smart, not allowing his frustration to get to him like in the past games and kept his penalties to a minimum. Early in the period, he scored a quick power play goal with Semin. Score is now 5-3. I was sitting comfortably in my uncomfortable dorm room chair and felt no pressure.

As the period pressed on, he managed to score another goal by crashing the net with Mike Green and managed an incredible one-handed move to slip the puck between the wickets. 5-4 now, the game coming to an end and the Caps still refused to back down.

When all is going well for the Capitals, Crosby takes an unnecessary slashing penalty. With his power play dominating and my penalty kill being weak, I knew I'd be in for another onslaught from Ovechkin and his forwards. With just a few seconds left in the power play, he managed to dig deep into the boards behind the net and get the puck out to Semin, one-timer, goal.

With three goals scored in the third, Jordan and his rallying Caps managed to take the game into overtime. Like in the first game of the series, we were squaring off in another OT period, but this time held a lot more meaning. Both teams came out playing conservative and looking for the pass more often than the shot. Only two penalties were committed in the extra time and that was all that was needed. Being a man up and taking the draw in his zone, I managed to win it back to a defenseman, pass it along the blue line and fire a bullet from the point. It sailed right over Theodore's (we didn't bother bringing up Varlamov from the AHL to make it more realistic, would just put him at a huge disadvantage) and into the back of the net.

Game over, Capitals lose, Penguins advance.

That was a rather fun six hours plus of NHL 09, and maybe I'll do another round of the playoffs when I'm home from college with someone else. As for now, it's time to get back to the radio to listen to the overtime period of the Pens Caps game, shame we don't get Versus here. Maybe the Penguins will pull off a 4-2 victory over the Caps like in the game.

Virtual Ovechkin vs. Crosby

2009-05-08T17:51:00.003-04:00

Going to start veering this blog a little bit from Halo 3 and talk more about life in general. Well, at least mention more video games. Back over winter break, I bought NHL 09 for the XBox 360. I got chances to play it at a friend's house on the PS3 and fell in love with it immediately. I'd like to go into a huge review and really show my love for the game but I'll do that in a review sometime later on in the video games review section.

Anyway, my Rangers have been knocked out of the playoffs by the fearsome Caps and I've finally got some decent video gaming time to play out the current series in NHL 09. Anyway, I got the only other hockey fan in the suite (well, only other sports fan I guess), Jordan, and made him the Capitals while I commandeered the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Like in real life, we set the periods to 20 minutes each, turned up the difficulty level (of course it's required) and made the Capitals home hosting the Penguins.

Game one began with a bang, I managed to take a 4-1 lead on Jordan and he rallied back in the third to tie the game 5-5 and taking it into OT. Throughout the game, a decent number of penalties were called and I oftentimes found myself on the man down, hard to control Ovechkin and Fedorov, and even had two shorthanded goals in the game. The OT period went smoothly and neither of us changed up our tactics. I still cruised in slowly and took my time to set up one-timers while Jordan would blast long ranged shots and crash for the rebounds. With just 5:41 left in the OT period, he won a faceoff, ripped a blue line special and crashed the net with Ovechkin to take the win.

Now onto game two. Again, it was hosted in the Verizon Center in D.C. and the fans were loud. Jordan scored the first goal, a rather early one to take a 1-0 lead. At one point in the second period, I managed to take a commanding 3-1 lead until he cut it while shorthanded making it 3-2 going into the third period. After the intermission, something happened in the Penguins locker room that while never be known but great for the third period.

Soon after the draw, I scored the take the lead to two again while still on the power play. The rest of the period was a blur and the game ended with a devastating score of 8-3. It's not that his goalie performed poorly, it's just that the passing game was stepped up and great winding, and scoring plays were made.

With the series now tied 1-1, I think it's about time to get some eats. Possibly Chinese food, even though the Chinese in this town sucks. At least it's better than on campus.

Starting Up Again

2009-04-12T14:48:00.002-04:00

I haven't been playing Halo for quite some time now, and finally ordered a video capture card to document and collaborate my best footage. Well, I go to start transferring some clips and it turns out over half of my saved footage is lost. Due to corrupt data or incompatible with the current version of Halo 3. Had some really good stuff on there, one was my only sniping triple kill and some fun goofs in the game (splattering and invisible guy, hammering a warthog with a driver into the ceiling of Rat's Nest, bull true with a sniper rifle...) but oh well. I managed to get some decent clips off of my 360 and started making the long awaited montage.

I've only got the intro done and uploaded, other than the intro, I've got the piece over three minutes long now and the progress is going slowly, considering that I've got three tests coming up and the fact that my best video clips are now lost is very discouraging.

Anyway, here's my intro to it so far.

I suggest watching it in high quality with your volume on, I even tried syncing the music to the video.

Taking A Step Back

2008-12-17T18:53:00.008-05:00

Sorry for the delayed update, I've been busy with studying, finals, packing up and moving out. I've finally got time to relax and play some good Halo and Halo 3 just wasn't thrilling me all that much. First game of Lone Wolves I had swords on Epitaph and pulled my first ranked FFA overkill, glad I got it, but I went downhill from there.

So with my shoddy performance game a quick pull of the Halo 3 disc and swap with the Halo 2. Last time I attempted to play Halo 2 I tried H2 Challenge but had no games despite my five minute waits, what a shame. So this time I loaded up the SWAT playlist, and to my happiness I got my favorite maps right away.

First match was with my brother, he's very rusty, he hasn't really Halo'd in years, but that stats weren't all that bad:

Shame, Bungie already purged the stats, I had a capture, few saves and returns.

Then you've got the Sanctuary slayer, again, stats purged, sadness:

I've played a few more, got to run now, so glad I haven't lost it all.

*I'm working on fixing the layout to get the full pictures visible, sorry for now*

The Rest of a Revolution

2008-12-12T13:36:00.002-05:00

I feel bad about leaving out the rest of my Halo companions. When I'm not living in the past and playing Halo 2 with the suitemates, I'm playing the third installment of the trilogy with good friends over the semi-reliant XBL. Allow me to introduce them.

SnipingScythe (Charles)
Old friend of mine that I've known for the past few years over other online games. Great team player and my designated partner for team doubles. He always tries to get his hands on a sniper rifle and has more no-scopes than I've got assault rifle kills. Wish I had something witty to say about him right now, but I'm still mad because he refuses to get out his copy of Halo 2.

*Charles playing angel of death*

xAngel V2
Another friend of many years and of most talent. Back in the glory days of Halo 2 he was always better than me and generally still is. One of the, if not, best I've ever played with, went to MLG Vegas a few years ago and took part in the FFA tournament, placed in the 20's, that's damn good. Because of school work and just life in general, he's lost his touch in Halo 3 and even more in Halo 2 because he moved on too quickly and rarely had people who would even consider playing Halo 2 again. These old montages he made barely do him justice.

I'll add the rest later, I've got to get on studying.

The End of an Era

2008-12-11T17:30:00.002-05:00

Well, we all know that in the world of online gaming that Halo 2 is done with, Halo 3 has taken its place, and Halo: Combat Evolved is dead. With the help of a few college friends I made last year, they've been able to keep that spirit alive with some good system link fun in the suite. I guess the best way to begin this blog is to introduce the cast.

Ice Berg
The oldest one of the bunch and possibly the least familiar with video games in general. He's made a lot of progress since we began playing last spring semester and he's very enthusiastic, whether he's on the winning or the losing team. You can usually tell if you're playing against Ice Berg if you get stuck as soon as you beat him down, he loves to take anyone else down with him.

Oatmealsnap
My roommate of last year and neighbor in the suite this year. He's played Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 before coming to college so he was already familiar with the game and its controls. Like Ice Berg, he's made some good progress since we've began battling in the dorms. He tends to be very inconsistent when we play, but he's got some skill with the battle rifle and loves to go for those no-scopes with the sniper, he's partly a daredevil.

Vladimir
Not one for the console FPS games, was into Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Source, Red Orchestra and Day of Defeat back in the day. Coming from a strong old school computer FPS background, he brought his inverted look with him. Vladimir's one hell of a team player but rarely plays, stubborn guy who does what he wants when he wants, unfortunately he rarely wants to play Halo. Oh yeah, if the sword's gone and you can't find it, you know who has it.

Henneseedeeznuts
Very competitive, loves to win, usually on my team. More of a sports gamer if anything, has some great skills in Madden but unfortunately the tactics from the football on PS2 didn't successfully carry over to the shooting on XBox. Like the others, he's made a lot of improvement despite playing almost the least out of us all.

Jill
The only regular female in the crew. She's not one for the FPS, or really even for video games. But at least over past summer she used her brother's XBL account to play Halo 2 and really progressed over the few months. She's only joined us for a few nights this semester but hopefully she'll make more visits over the course of the next.

Philol
Possibly the biggest threat I see in the game when we play. He's good with the battle rifle and great with the shotgun, definitely the guy who gives me the most trouble in close quarters. He's leaving us this semester, but hopefully he'll make some celebrity appearances after we return from winter break.

The Natrixxx
And finally myself. Been playing Halo for years and have the most experience and skill out of the bunch. I can only remember a very few amount of times where my team hasn't come out on top, and oh well, can't win them all. I would also be using The Natrixxx as my blog username but I've just been using Eliminatrixxx now and just The Natrixxx for system link games.