Posted by Rob on January 29, 2011 – 10:27 pm
Filed under Sports
Tagged as all-star game, all-star weekend, big bad bob, bigbadbob, chara, corey perry, guardians, hockey, lidstrom, lundqvist, nhl, ovechkin, shoot-out, skills competition, Staal, stan lee, versus
Tonight was the real start of the NHL’s All-Star Weekend as the teams of Staal and Lidstrom competed in the Skills Competition. I said my money was on Team Staal, and they did not disappoint as they won 32-22. It was over two and a half hours of hockey fun as the All Stars took part in the following fetes of skill:
- Fastest Skater- won by Michael Grabner (Islanders)
- Breakaway Challenge (fancy shots)- won by Alexander Ovechkin (Capitals)
- Accuracy Shooting- won by Daniel Sedin (Canucks)
- Relay Race- won by Team Lidstrom
- Hardest Shot- won by Zdeno Chara (Bruins)
- Elimination Shoot-Out- won by Corey Perry (Ducks) Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 29, 2011 – 3:45 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as basketball, big bad bob, bigbadbob, co-op, competitive, gamefly, move, nba jam, online, PlayStation 3, PS3, sega, sega genesis, two worlds II
With less than a week to go on enjoying my “two games at a time” Gamefly plan, I decided that the last game I rent would be a quickie, seeing how there is a heck of a lot to do in Two Worlds II. I had some Move games on my queue, and some other simple single player games, but I ended up getting the new NBA Jam in.
Now I don’t follow basketball, and I doubt that I could name half of the NBA teams, but I do know that I loved NBA Jam’s simple controls and quick, fun gameplay back in the day on the ol’ Sega Genesis. Many of the reviews said that the new one is a step back in time and will fill players with nostalgic reminiscence of classic gaming, and that was enough to pique my interest. I’ll definitely be giving more thoughts on the game once I get to check it out.
On a side note, as far as Two Worlds II goes, I’ve been meaning to sit down and give a review on it, but the single player game is so addicting that I haven’t even touched the co-op or versus modes yet. I might just do a separate review for single player and multiplayer, since neither mode is connected (ie: your single player character cannot travel to multiplayer).
Posted by Rob on January 28, 2011 – 9:56 pm
Filed under Sports
Tagged as all-star game, all-star weekend, big bad bob, bigbadbob, chara, cindy crosby, crosby, dallas, hockey, lundqvist, martin brodeur, nash, new york rangers, nhl, ovechkin, raleigh, rangers, sharp, sidney crosby, Staal
I don’t know why, but I’ve always liked Eric Staal, and I’ve never had a problem with the Hurricanes. So when I heard that Staal was one of the captains of this years new-fangled draft-style All-Star game, I had a feeling I’d be rooting for his team. Within just a few of his picks, I knew I would be cheering on the Red team come Sunday.
Staal drafted a pretty nifty team. My top favorites were:
- Henrik Lundqvist (obviously)
- Marc Staal (see the pic of him and brother Eric above)
- Alexander Ovechkin
- Zdeno Chara
- Paul Stastny
- Rick Nash
- Patrick Sharp Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 27, 2011 – 4:16 pm
Filed under Sports
Tagged as all-star game, all-star weekend, batman, big bad bob, bigbadbob, capt. america, guardians, hockey, iron man, nhl, stan lee, super hero, the blackhawk, the king, the predator, the ranger
Unbeknownst to me, over the past month the NHL and Stan Lee have been revealing their Guardians, the super heroes based on each NHL franchise. Obviously I was interested to see what the Rangers hero would look like. I naturally assumed it would resemble Capt. America between the team colors (red, white, and blue) and the team logo, which is a shield. Well, I was partially correct. Behold the Rangers Guardian hero…The Ranger:
He has the coloring, and the shield. However, the Ranger appears to drive a motorcycle around. Based on the description, he kind of sounds like Batman, using technology to do stuff. You can read up more about his background on the NHL’s website. According to the NHL’s article, the Ranger: Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 26, 2011 – 10:03 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, droid, eureka, fallout: new vegas, netflix, online, PlayStation 3, playstation blog, PS3, PSN, Sacred 2, trophies, trophy, two worlds II, update, update 3.56, wwe smackdown vs. raw 2011
It was 9:30. Shell was sleeping soundly on the couch, and I was ready to get my game on. I was hoping to dive into Two Worlds II some more, or meet up with Steve for some Sacred 2. Instead, when I went to sign in to PSN, it stated that I had to download the newest update, 3.56. I tried to ignore it, but I could not sign into PSN without this update.
So I clicked on the button to install the update, and I saw it was going very slow. I googled it from my Droid, and on the PlayStation Blog, tons of people were complaining that the update did indeed install slow, and would eventually abort after reporting an error message. After reading the tons of complaints I decided to cancel the update myself before receiving the error code.
So I can’t play online, and I can’t even watch Netflix! I would love to play Two Worlds II, but I don’t know how not having this update will effect things, particularly the trophies (and you all know me for the trophy whore I am.) So I think I’ll just pop in something else, maybe some SvR 2011 or New Vegas. I’ll try again in the morning.
Thanks for costing me a sweet gaming night, Sony.
Edit:
I’m going to play it safe and just watch some Netflix on the 360…probably some Eureka. See what you did Sony? You made me turn to the arms of your competitor!
Posted by Rob on January 25, 2011 – 11:30 am
Filed under Books, Video Games
Tagged as a hole in the sky, big bad bob, bigbadbob, Books, borders, christmas, Gathering Storm, PlayStation 3, PS3, Resistance, Resistance 2, resistance 3, William C. Dietz
Wow, this is funny. Just last night I was musing about my book review of Resistance: Gathering Storm, and was saying that I hoped there would be another Resistance novel written. I just happened to check out the PlayStation blog today, and they just announced this morning that there is indeed another book in the works. Titled “A Hole in the Sky”, and written by the same author as “Gathering Storm” (William C. Dietz), the new novel will take place following the events of Resistance 2, and will be a bridge for the story to connect it to Resistance 3, which comes out in November.
I’m pretty stoked for this new book, and I hope it answers some questions; the biggest one being “what the hell happened to Cole at the end of Resistance 2?!” Chances are I will be picking it up on release date, using the Borders gift card I have yet to use from Christmas.
Posted by Rob on January 24, 2011 – 8:39 pm
Filed under Books, Food & Drink, Geocaching, Movies, Sacred 2, Site Updates, TV Shows, Video Games
Tagged as aliens vs predator, big bad bob, bigbadbob, blog, captain morgan, combat arts, Gathering Storm, geocache, Geocaching, google analytics, high elf, jason lee, king of kong, lime bite, my name is earl, PlayStation 3, posts, PS3, Resistance, Sacred 2, shadow warrior
Last January, I checked out my top ten most viewed blog posts ranging from when the site started in April 2009 until January 2010. Today I was using Google Analytics to see how my site traffic has been the past week, and I decided to see how it was for all of 2010. While some of my posts continue to be popular, it seems that some new ones from the past year have swooped in and usurped some of my posts from 2009. So without further ado, here are my Top Ten Blogs of 2010 (in order of visits received):
Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 23, 2011 – 12:56 pm
Filed under Sports
Tagged as all-star game, big bad bob, bigbadbob, carolina hurricanes, cindy crosby, crosby, guardian media entertainment, guardians, hockey, lundqvist, new york rangers, nhl, rangers, red wings, Sports, Staal, stan lee, vs.
I’m getting psyched for next weekend’s NHL All-Star weekend, not only for the big game and the competitions, but also for the reveal of Stan Lee’s “Guardians.” So just this morning I went over to the NHL’s site to see who made it into the All-Star game, and I met with a pretty shocking reveal. In the past, the NHL All-Star game was the Eastern Conference vs. the Western Conference. But I realized today that that is not the case anymore. This is how it will now work:
All the NHL players vote for two team captains. These captains then draft the remaining players to be on their team and play alongside them at the All-Star game. So this year, rather than having players from the Western Conference take on the Eastern Conference, it will be “Team Staal” (Eric Staal of the Hurricanes) against “Team Lidstrom” (Nicklas Lidstrom of the Red Wings.) Now the pool of players that the All-Star captains can choose from comes from:
- Top six players voted for by the fans
- The NHL Operations Staff then chooses the remaining thirty-six players, as well as twelve rookies
- Every team must be represented at least once Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 22, 2011 – 12:41 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as 360, big bad bob, bigbadbob, dead space, dead space 2, demo, ea, gamefly, horror, plasma cutter, PlayStation 3, PS3, RPG, survival, two worlds II, xbox
I was very happy with Dead Space, so I’m definitely psyched for the sequel. It’s definitely a great survival horror game, and did give me a few creeps as far as the gameplay, sounds, creatures, and environment are concerned. I downloaded the demo to Dead Space 2 on the 360 and gave it a whirl this morning, and it’s just as eerie as its predecessor.
The demo begins with some cutscenes, bringing the player up to speed on the story. Eventually you are dropped into the game and on your way. You start the demo with four weapons, all returning from the previous game, including the all-purpose plasma cutter and the awesome line gun (I think that’s what it’s called…the one that fires the wire like all the way down the room, cutting through multiple enemies.) The extra abilities also return, as you must use Statis to slow down time and then grab and interact with objects to get through puzzles. The store also makes a return, allowing you to purchase upgrades and ammo and sell off the stuff you don’t want.
Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 21, 2011 – 2:18 pm
Filed under History, Movies
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, chapelle's show, civil war, confederacy, confederate states of america, csa, documentary, History, hitler, manifest destiny, mockumentary, north, reconstruction, south, terrorist, union
What would the nation be like if the Confederacy had won the Civil War? The mockumentary, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, explores this notion in a film full of satire and “what ifs”. The film is presented from the point of view of a British crew who expose the true history of the Confederate States of America after the South won the “War of Northern Aggression.” According to the film, while some things remain the same, other key events that we know from American history are now changed and altered. The documentary gives a retelling of the CSAs history, and is broken up with commentary from citizens and politicians of the CSA, as well as television commercials that viewers in the CSA would see on a regular basis. Most of these events and ads are indeed racist, but in the CSA that term wouldn’t mean anything. Here’s a shortened history of the CSA, based on the mockumentary: Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 20, 2011 – 11:34 pm
Filed under Sacred 2, Video Games
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, console, diablo III, dungeon crawler, dungeon siege III, hack and slash, high elf, PlayStation 3, PS3, RPG, Sacred 2, shadow warrior
After a several month hiatus, crazysteve and I finally got our gaming time down together and returned to Sacred 2. Earlier today we were trying to figure out how far we had left to go in the main quest…I thought we were in the jungle area and he thought we were in the underground lava area. We were both wrong, as I loaded up my character (level 54 High Elf; Steve has a level 57 Shadow Warrior) to find that we were 89.9% through the main quest, and were actually on the elf island, which is the area right before the final area.
I was a bit rusty, as I had all my combat arts mapped up as combos, and it took me some time and experimentation to figure out what did what, but eventually I was casting fireballs and snowstorms around like it was nobody’s business. Man I love this game, and it’s a shame that it received such poor support after its release. The consoles really need another good hack and slash/dungeon crawler like this, and I’m hoping that either Dungeon Siege III lives up to this, or that Diablo III finds its way to consoles. Otherwise, I’ll probably just keep crawling back to Sacred 2.
Posted by Rob on January 20, 2011 – 1:26 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as allstars, arcade, big bad bob, bigbadbob, caws, hulk, mad catz, online, smackdown vs raw, svr, the rock, thq, triple h, undertaker, wrestling, wwe
When I first heard about THQ’s upcoming WWE Allstars game, I wasn’t interested. It appeared to be unrealistic with over-the-top exaggerations of the wrestlers. It immediately reminded me of WWE Legends, which wasn’t a horrible game, but I preferred the realism and seriousness of the Smackdown vs. Raw series. Also, the fact that it was being hyped as an “online” game was quite unattractive, given the horrible SvR servers that THQ currently has. However, yesterday THQ released a ton of information, screenshots, and videos about the game, and after seeing it in action, I have to admit that my curiosity is quite peaked.
Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 18, 2011 – 11:51 pm
This was a weird one because she was all over the place, and I was getting confused with what she was talking about.
I woke her up from her nap on the couch:
“Babe, wake up. It’s time to go to bed.”
“Where?”
“Let’s go to bed.”
“Where’s your bed?”
“In there.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“It’s over there.”
“What is?”
“I want to stay here.”
“On the couch?”
“No, there.”
“Ok…”
I then left so that I can write this up real fast. Better go try and wake her up for the second time now.
Posted by Rob on January 18, 2011 – 4:26 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, boy, gamefly, glitch, harry potter, lego, lego harry potter, platinum, PlayStation 3, PS3, telltale, trophy
I’m sure that some of you are familiar with the frustration I had with TellTale’s Lego Harry Potter game, in that I could not get the Platinum trophy I so justly deserved. For those not familiar, there were many glitches in the game, and the one I encountered stopped me from unlocking the last character in the game. This resulted me in getting a 99.9% completion for the game, and the last trophy I needed to get Platinum required me to complete the game 100%. After a frustrating time trying to get the character to unlock, I finally hung my head in defeat and sent the game back to Gamefly.
Then about a month ago, I heard rumor that TellTale had released a patch that fixed this. Actually, a couple of people either commented on my blog or messaged me on the PS3 telling me that patch 3.0 fixed several of the bugs in the game, including the “boy” glitch. I did some researching on gamefaqs.com, but that was inconclusive. Then I finally saw confirmation of this on ps3trophies.org. After seeing this, I decided to give the game a re-rent from Gamefly to see if I could finally receive my glorious Platinum trophy. Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 18, 2011 – 12:13 pm
Now don’t get excited, I don’t make my own beer…but my bro-in-law does! When I last saw him, he gave me two hefty bottles of his homemade brew, one which was a Dunkelweizen and the other was a Winter Ale. I had finished with the Dunkel a few weeks ago, and last night I opened up the Winter Ale for the first taste.
The Winter Ale is a strong, tasty beer with plenty of flavor. It also has that “bite” that I’ve come to enjoy in beer, particularly in Sam Adams brews. The Winter Ale is a bit stronger than the Dunkelweizen, so I did prefer the Dunkel, which had some interesting flavors present. I was originally planning on saving them for our New Years Eve party, but in the end I decided to serve Sam Adams and keep the homemade beer all to myself.
The homemade beers my bro makes are a real treat, as there is a lot more to them than a commercial beer I can get in a store. I look forward to trying out more of his special brews. While making beer is not something I would personally like to get into, I would definitely be interested in making my own wine once we get a house. My dad used to make his own wine when we were down on Long Island, and it’s definitely something I want to try my hand at.
Posted by Rob on January 14, 2011 – 4:47 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as alan wake, big bad bob, bigbadbob, boy, gamefly, glitch, lego, lego harry potter, mafia II, platinum, PlayStation 3, PS3, rock band 3, telltale, trophies
I sent back Alan Wake and Mafia II on Wednesday, and I already have two new games on the way, which is pretty quick turnaround for Gamefly. Yesterday (Thursday) they shipped out Lego Harry Potter, and today they shipped out Rock Band 3, so I should have both soon.
So yes, between comments on my other post (about my troubles getting the Platinum trophy in Lego Harry Potter thanks to the stupid Boy Glitch) and researching online, there seems to be a patch out that fixes the issue I had with the game. If this is true, I should be able to pop LHP in the system, go to where I need to go, and should have the Platinum within moments.
I’m hoping it works, and either way I will definitely have an update, where I will either claim victory or curse out TellTale. Only time will tell.
Posted by Rob on January 12, 2011 – 5:35 pm
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as 360, big bad bob, bigbadbob, cop, demo, gamefly, gta, mafia II, PlayStation 3, PS3, xbox
I got the game in Monday, popped it in once, and sent it back to Gamefly today. I was not a fan of the game at all. I really liked the demo, but I couldn’t get into the full game. I had a few problems with it. Firstly, it was too much like GTA. I HATE the GTA series, with the exception of I and II from the PS1.I don’t like having to drive around a city, and for a good reason…I suck at it! For some damn reason, this type of game is just one that I am not good at. I have a hard time controlling the car, and I always end up wrecking it or getting chased by the police. Plus some of the missions in those games are one where you have to drive a car from point A to point B without getting it wrecked, or the mission starts over.
I didn’t get far into Mafia II when I came across one of these missions, and I was unable to complete it. I either got the car wrecked, or the cops kept chasing me. The police in Mafia II are relentless, where even if you do lose them, any cop who catches sight of you will renew the chase. Also, there are a lot of cops patrolling the game. There is an option to go to a body shop and get the plates changed and the car re-painted (which will stop cops from chasing you), but it costs a heck of a lot of money which simply isn’t available that early in the game.
When it came down to it, I simply wasn’t enjoying the game, and instead I was becoming aggravated. Games are meant to be a leisure activity, so when I get pissed off when playing one, it’s a good sign that the game is just not for me.
Posted by Rob on January 12, 2011 – 11:57 am
Filed under Video Games
Tagged as 360, alan wake, big bad bob, bigbadbob, book, fable, game review, horror, insomnia, manuscript, mass effect, misery, stephen king, survival, taken, the shining, the stand, uncharted, xbox
I hadn’t seen too much hype around the 360-exclusive Alan Wake, but the few people I have heard discuss it had nothing but good things to say. Initially, it wasn’t an exclusive that made me want to get the 360, like Fable and Mass Effect were. Within minutes of starting up the game, I realized that this was something different than anything I ever played, and the more I played it, the more I got sucked in. The game is very story-driven, so I will make this review relatively spoiler-free.
You play as Alan Wake, a writer who has taken a vacation with his wife to a small Washingon town. Shortly after, your wife disappears and you wake up behind the wheel of a car that has just had an accident, with no recollection of how you got there. Armed with simple weapons (revolver, shotgun, hunting rifle, flare gun) and a flashlight, you set out to uncover the mystery of what is going on. The game was definitely inspired by the works of Stephen King, which can be seen by not only the general story, but also the references. I noticed nods to The Stand, The Shining, Insomnia, and Misery, as well as the couple of times that Wake, through narration, gives a direct quote of King. Overall, the general story is amazing, and you can really picture the game as a book.
Read More »
Posted by Rob on January 11, 2011 – 5:44 pm
Nothing says “screw you, Winter!” like grilling outside in 20degree weather. Sure, there’s an impending snow storm on the way, but my pork chops say “we don’t care about no stinkin’ blizzard”, and I have to agree. I’m in the midst of grilling up some pork chops with some home-made BBQ sauce, and I have a sweet potato and brown sugar-layered concoction going in the oven. This delicious warm comfort food will definitely take the chill off of cooking outside.
