Gaming

Play, Want, Bin: July 2008

I plan to post a Play, Want, Bin at the end of every month to show what I’m currently playing, wanting, and binning. Seen a few other people including Rockers Delight which I’m borrowing/stealing the idea from.

Play

Super Mario Galaxy - This is still one of the best games for the Wii and I’m playing through it right now. Me and Mario go way back and this game never disappoints. It is one of those games that you must play on the Wii. Great use of the controls and the whole flying between planets/stars is a great addition to the normal Mario levels.

Halo 3 - I have no clue why I keep coming back to Halo 3 but I always do. I binned it awhile back and here it is back in play. I had a break from gaming (the reason there was no play, want, bin last month) for the past few weeks and have been in the mood to shoot some people in Halo. Maybe I’m just looking forward to Halo Wars also.

Want

Soul Calibur IV - I was a fan of Soul Calibur II on the original Xbox. It was also my first time with a Soul Calibur game. I have seen and heard great things about the game so it is at least worth a rent but I might end up buying it. Either way I’m checking it out.

Nintendo DS - I have wanted a DS for awhile and finally going to buy one soon. My son is wanting one for Christmas so it is the perfect excuse to get myself one as well. I have several games on my list that I want to check out and my son has already been looking at games for him. What games are a must have?

Bin

Nothing has really been binned recently. Most of that is because I haven’t spent a lot of time gaming the past month and with our upcoming move into a new place, my gaming time will be limited again.

There you have it. My current Play, Want, Bin list. Feel free to post your comments or your own list.

Play, Want, Bin: March ‘08

I plan to post a Play, Want, Bin at the end of every month to show what I’m currently playing, wanting, and binning. Seen a few other people including Rockers Delight which I’m borrowing/stealing the idea from.

Play

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - Yes, the game I have been looking forward to most of all is finally here. Got my copy of RS Vegas 2 on Wednesday (nobody had it Tuesday) after driving to 5 different places (for the second day). I ended up getting it at Gamestop (which I never go to, just don’t care for them much). I gotta say its awesome. Gone through the first two levels on Story (gotta find somebody to do co-op through it though), play some Team Leader (which is pretty cool), and of course the great Terrorist Hunt which is always fun. I love the ACES system and the new weapons and maps. Overall this game will be taking up plenty of my time in the coming months.

Rock Band - We’ve been spending more time on Rock Band recently with family and having friends over for some ‘jam sessions’. Its always lots of fun. Had some drum and guitar battles last time when some friends brought their drums over. Need to purchase some new songs though.

Want

End War - This was on the ‘Want’ last month but as RS Vegas 2 came with a sneak peek bonus disk for End Wars it is back. The disk showed the trailers and finally some gameplay footage of the Fragdolls playing. Granted it didn’t show much as it spent most of the time showing the dolls instead of gameplay but from what I saw and they talked about the game will be an awesome RTS for the 360. This is my most wanted game of the year now that I have Vegas 2.

Army of Two - I love Co-Op games and this one looks awesome and everybody I know who has it just love it. I didn’t get it yet because I was waiting to see if my brother in law would get it as we do pretty good on Co-Op. However, as right now everybody is doing other games I have passed on this… For now anyways. Would still like to pick it up.

Bin

Mighty Mouse - I’ve been on a Mac for only a short time and the Mighty Mouse was okay at first but as I work from home and the amount of time I spend on it the Mighty Mouse just wasn’t doing it. I am now back to using my Logitech mouse which just feels much better after hours of use and my hand relaxes more with it. Sorry Mighty Mouse.

Halo 3 - I’ve been on Halo 3 since just after its launch and its time to bin it. RS Vegas 2 has taken its place. I will end up getting on it a little as my brother in law won’t get Vegas and plans to stick with Halo and we do a lot of gaming together. I might get on it if the first Map Pack goes free soon to check them out since the new Map Pack was announced already.

There you have it. My current Play, Want, Bin list. Feel free to post your comments or your own list.

Play, Want, Bin: February 08

To add a little more gaming posts to the blog I plan to post a Play, Want, Bin at the end of every month to show what I’m currently playing, wanting, and binning. Seen a few other people including Rockers Delight which I’m borrowing/stealing the idea from.

Play

Poker Smash - I haven’t really been interested in XBLA but Uno is a great relaxer and Poker Smash is a little addicting; or at least for me.

Burnout Paradise - I’ve always been a gamer but never much into racing (besides Mario Kart back on SNES/N64). In fact most find it surprising that I have never played any GTA games. However, after checking out the Burnout Paradise demo in December I knew it was on my buy list. So, shortly after its release I ended up purchasing it and love it so far. Haven’t spent much time online with it but have been exploring the city and events.

Want

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - What’s better then Halo? Rainbow Six that is. I have always been a huge RS fan since the N64 and then again on the Xbox with RS3 and Black Arrow. I haven’t played Vegas though as I waited until recently to purchase my 360 and knew that Vegas 2 was on its way so it was worth the wait. This is by far the game I’m looking forward to and one of the main reasons for me purchasing a 360.

End War - I am really wanting to see some actual game play video soon instead of the teaser trailer but it still looks awesome. I loved Full Spectrum Warrior on Xbox and this looks to be a huge improvement over that. Granted this isn’t supposed to be released until September the teaser has gotten me interested in it.

Bin

Windows - Although this isn’t really on gaming (although I did game on Windows in the past) I made the switch to a Mac earlier this month so Windows is out. However, I do have to purchase a copy of Vista (as my XP disk is 64bit) for boot camp to do browser testing when designing.

Guitar Hero III - This was my first GH game and I loved it. However, 2 weeks after buying it we bought Rock Band and I honestly haven’t touched GHIII since. However it was still worth purchasing because it gave us a 2nd guitar for RB. In fact had some friends over last night to do some jamming and its always fun.

There you have it. My current Play, Want, Bin list. Feel free to post your comments or your own list.

Game Night

Had my Grandma, mom and brother over for dinner and some games. Started off teaching them Rock Band. Went pretty good. My Grandma doesn’t have the reaction time to see the notes and play them (drums or bass) but she did pretty good. My mom also did okay on vocals and bass. We only got kicked off stage a few times at first. Overall it was fun. After that we did a little ‘Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader’ DVD which is pretty fun. I think the game is basically a chance to show you that the things you learn in school you never remember or use unless of course you buy this dvd. My teachers in 5th grade didn’t tell me I would have to wait so many years just to put this knowledge to use for a dvd game. Anyways, it ended up being a pretty good night. We had not seen or talked to my mom in about 6 months due to some problems and arguments. Not sure if things are patched but a start. Looking forward to the weekend and working on my redesign. Still doing css on it but have started a little moving it to WordPress. Had a few problems but plan to attack them this weekend. Still no plans to put it up until February though. My goal is February 4th.

Is the year over yet?

As you can tell I didn’t get through NaBloPoMo very well. Starting off late and never finished. I did better then I thought. I also haven’t done anymore videos. Mostly because I was just kinda testing things and our camera is messing up now. We hope to replace it in January though with a much nicer one (I’m still browsing, so send me suggestions). I’ve been busy with new clients and old clients the past few weeks and now have deadlines that are right around the corner and plenty to get done. I had a board meeting with the Soccer Club last week in which they voted to not pay me right away. I told them that my work would be on hold until I got paid half, so my check will be sent tomorrow. Good thing to. I just have tons more work on my plate now. I’ve got several clients that I need to switch over to WordPress. Not doing redesigns as most are new but need to move them to WordPress for them to update and not me. It will take a huge load off me. I have a few projects that I was hoping to work on this month but not sure if that will work out. Three of the projects are bigger and I’m really excited about them (no details just yet though). I had planned to do a rewrite of 2532|Gigs early this month as well but not sure if that will happen. I don’t want to see the project die as it has lots of users and plenty of things to be added and a great solid base to build upon. I might look for somebody to take over the project and just pass the site and script off to them. I wouldn’t mind staying on as a minor developer but just don’t have the time to really provide the support for bugs and new releases right now. I don’t want to drop it so I’m still debating. FieldStatus also never had a release although is ready. Its being used on a clients site and works great but not sure if I will release it. Might just release it ‘as-is’ and provide no support. I hate to do that but its better then nothing. Somebody might take the code and expand it into their own project so it could have some uses.

I haven’t spent as much time on my Xbox 360 as I had wanted. I just got it a week ago and have put in some hours but not much. I ended up buying the console, 2nd wireless controller, Vision Webcam, DVD Remote, ChatPad and Halo 3 Limited Edition. Why does everything come with a headset? I now have 4 headsets (the console, webcam, chatpad, and live kit came with one). Granted its kinda cool when you have several people on Halo 3 that they all get a headset but still its a little much. I have been getting some live play on Halo 3 in and pretty much getting owned. I was always better at RainbowSix 3 then Halo. Got Melissa to play on live with me as well (even bought her a gamertag so she isn’t on mine) and she is enjoying it and getting better. I haven’t got any other games yet and don’t plan to this month. I do plan to rent CoD4 and maybe Assassin’s Creed to check out. AC not being online kinda kills it for me as a buy. I am very recreational when playing and just love getting online to play quick matches. Sometimes it takes me months and months to finish single player games if I ever do. I’m attempting to get through solo on Halo 3 but so far only got to the 3rd lvl. I am looking forward to two games early next year. End War (lovin the trailer) and RS3: Vegas 2. I was going to buy RS3:Vegas but found out the 2nd is due out early 08, so plan to wait. Anybody else on Live look me up; gamertag: twofivethreetwo.

In other news me and Melissa will be getting married this coming Friday (the 7th). We have been together for Lets not go there cause I don’t wanna think about what will happen if I get how many years wrong. Basically since high school and we have a 4 year old son. So, more than 4 years. Anyways, we are getting married at the courthouse here in Wichita Falls, TX. Nothing major and really small. In fact so small that only my grandma will be there (mostly because we haven’t old anybody else really). She kinda wanted a ceremony however it would be so small. I am not in contact with my mom anymore and refuse to see her which in turn has caused my sisters to not be too happy with me so my side of the family would be out and most of her family doesn’t live here. So, we are simple people so something simple at the court house is perfect. We set the date a while back I just hadn’t posted about it until now.

Spider Man 3 on Wii

Last night I rented SpiderMan 3 for the Wii. Honestly I’ve heard some pretty bad things about it and the screenshots haven’t looked that great but I wanted to check it out for myself. The gameplay I love, however the graphics are pretty bad. The buildings are more like blocks, very little textures, the voice overs are good (as they are the real actors) however the mouth movements are nowhere near right. The Wii can do alot better. This honestly looks like it could be on the DS or even the N64. It doesn’t even hold up against the PS2. Granted this is NOT the Wii’s fault. Its the developers. They develop the game for the system of their choice (in this case is was the Xbox360) and then they just port the game down to the other consoles instead of tailoring a game for the system. Basically it helps save them money. The downside is by porting from the 360 to the Wii they dump alot of the code including textures. Half the time your enemies are walking a foot above the ground, nothing is smooth at all.

On a plus side; I do love the game play. I normally don’t care much for games based on movies. I normally give them a try but they seem to get old pretty fast. You do get to use motion capabilities of the Wii though. For example when your web swinging through the town, you have to flip the Wii Remote or Nunchuck (right/left hand) and the web shoots and you swing. There are several things that rely on movements including basic fighting moves, dodging, etc. I would personally give the game a 4 our of 10. The game play kept me playing for about 2 hours last night, however the graphics just keep making me cringe a little. I guess I’ll just have to wait until Mario Strikers, Mario Galaxy, and Smash Bros. are released to get a good game.