Shell wasn’t feeling too good tonight, so I was concerned with how she felt when I woke her up.
“Time to get up babe.”
“Uhhhhh.”
“How you feeling?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it your head?”
“…no…”
“Is it your stomach?”
“…no…”
“Is it your toe?”
“No…it’s my…stomach sticker.”
“Your what?”
“I don’t know.”
After several months of looking around for a retail job that will bring in some cash while allowing me to work weekday morning hours, I think I finally may have found something. I have an interview on Wednesday. If all goes well, I’ll be waking up a bit earlier than I’m used to to be at the job at 4am, but it will be pretty sweet otherwise.
Everyone cross your fingers…a steady job = steady income= steady game supply!
One of the first things the President does after leaving office is sit back, adjust to civilian life again, and start working on his memoirs. President George W. Bush began writing Decision Points shortly after President Obama took office, and it is an interesting piece of reading. Rather than a straight-forward biography, the first few chapters of the book give you some general background information on who George W. Bush really is and how he got into politics. After that is established, the remainder of the book’s chapters are dedicated to a particular key event or program that President Bush dealt with. So rather than a long rambling book detailing every day in office, each chapter jumps through the timeline of that particular event.
One of the first things you will notice is that the book really does read as if it was written by President Bush. Aside from directly quoting himself many times, the overall style of writing is not overly “fancy” or “political”. President Bush always spoke plainly and directly…one of the reasons he was not the best public speaker. However, while he did not always prove to be a great orator, he is a good writer, and the book is not challenging or intimidating as you would expect a President’s memoirs to be. It is really interesting to read more into the key events of his presidency, from 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan to the federal bailouts, Hurricane Katrina, and AIDS reform in Africa. Read More
Last weeks new releases were mainly FPS (Killzone 3 and Bulletstorm) and I wasn’t feeling any of that. So I decided to gamble on a action beat em’ up that was getting little attention in the gaming media. I believed that I would enjoy this type of game over a FPS, but I was indeed wrong.
Knights Contract has a very interesting story/premise, but it just is not delivered well. You play as Heinrich, a knight who was charged with executing women accused of being witches. One of the witches you execute curses you, making you an immortal who just wants to die and move on. Eventually you meet up with this witch, Gretchen (who has returned from the grave), and the two of you become unlikely allies as you team up to take down the other resurrected witches who are trying to get revenge on mankind. The two of you will travel through a variety of bland environments where you walk to an area, beat up some enemies, walk to the next area, beat up more enemies, and rinse and repeat until you reach the boss. The catch in the game is that while Heinrich can’t die, Gretchen can, so you will be defeating enemies while ensuring that Gretchen is safe. If Gretchen dies, it’s game over. If you die (ie- lose your health), you will be downed for several seconds and need to rapidly pound on the x button to resurrect yourself and hope that Gretchen doesn’t die during this time.
Today IGN finished unveiling the entire WWE Allstars roster, including the first batch of DLC. Here are your wrestlers:
Legends:
One of the neat little features in WWE: Legends of WrestleMania was that the game used WWF/WWE archive footage to help move the game along. When playing through the WrestleMania tour, the game would play some archival footage to help set the stage for the next match. A combination of wrestler promos and parts of the actual match were played, and this did nothing short of psych you up for the coming match. I thought it would be an awesome feature to have in WWE Allstars, and luckily it will be. Here are three “teasers” of what will be possible with the finished game: Read More
While watching Tosh.0 tonight, one of the commercials started with images of Donald Trump. Since it was Comedy Central, I quickly ruled out that this was yet another commercial for Celebrity Apprentice. Thus, I made the logical assumption that he would be the “guest of honor” at this year’s Comedy Central Roast. A few moments later my rationale was confirmed…Donald Trump will be roasted on Comedy Central in March (it will be filmed March 9 and will air at an as-of-yet undisclosed date in March). I like this year’s pick, and I think there will be plenty of fodder to go against Trump. It would be great if Vince McMahon would come by to get another haircut…
I always enjoy the Comedy Central Roasts, and I’m sure this years will be no exception. The only confirmed roaster is actually the “Roast Master”…Seth MacFarlane will return to do the (dis)honors this time around (he was the host of last year’s Roast of David Hasselhoff.) I’m sure the usual suspects will be present such as Jeffery Ross, Lisa Lampanelli, and others (I’m sure Greg Giraldo would have been there…RIP.) Personally, I always welcome the addition of Jon Lovitz…
It’s been bugging me that the only trophy I was missing for Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 was the Last Man Standing trophy, which you unlock after winning an online Royal Rumble match. This is extremely difficult. For starters, you actually have to find a match. After managing to get a match going, the next challenge is to keep it going. The final challenge is to actually win. I’ve tried many times, and most of the time I got booted out due to the other player disconnecting. I also lost twice against other players, once against the AI, and just this morning the game disconnected when I was the last player standing. Needless to say, it’s a tough trophy to get…unless you find someone in the same situation!
I went over to ps3trophies.com and posted up a plea for help. The site is dedicated to, you guessed it, PlayStation trophies! There are not only a ton of in-depth trophy guides to help you get them on your own, but the extremely active community is also very helpful in aiding other players in getting missing online trophies (something they call “trophy boosting.”) So I went to the SvR 2011 sub-forum and posted for help in the online Royal Rumble thread. I eventually received a friend invite from one of the guys on there, and he was also missing the RR online trophy. So we created a private match between the two of us and played two rounds of the Royal Rumble…he wanted me to win the first match, and then I let him win the second match. This worked out very good, since by working together we were able to eliminate every opponent almost the second they entered the ring. I was happy to finally get the Platinum, and had fun playing and talking to someone else. Read More
I’ve been waiting a few days for Gamefly to ship a new game to me, and I think it was disrupted a bit due to Sunday and Presidents Day. So I figured that instead of waiting for them to get one of the older games on my queue shipped out to me, I would just get one of today’s new releases. I had three choices: Killzone 3, Bulletstorm, and Knights Contract.
I tried Killzone 2 and did not like it. I’m very picky with FPS, and one of the only ones I really enjoy is Resistance. When the Killzone 3 demo launched last week I gave it a whirl, and could not complete it. It’s a very intense FPS, which ends up being too intense for me. I did enjoy the Bulletstorm demo, but I wasn’t sure it was a game I would enjoy. While it was a fun FPS, it felt to me that the game concentrated too much on massing up major bonus points by performing “trick kills.” This was even more evident when I read an interview by one of the developers, in which he said that co-op was taking out of the main campaign because they didn’t want people rushing through the level and not amassing major points. Bulletstorm just doesn’t sound like my kind of game.
That left me with Knights Contract. I hadn’t heard much about it, but the name sounded good enough for me to consider it. Researching it a bit online, I discovered it was an action beat-em-up of sorts akin to God of War as far as combat and Enslaved as far as having to protect another character throughout the game. That kind of game is more up my alley than a FPS, so I decided to give it a rent. I am a bit nervous about it since I don’t know much about the game, but we shall see. I’ll write up a review after I get some time with it.
Today was the second annual Mac-n-Cheese Bowl in Albany. Quite a few (thirty to be exact) restaurants were present, and offered their version of the classic macaroni-n-cheese dish to be judged by the public. For a one-price ticket, you were given access to unlimited tastings of these delectable cheesy dishes. The event ended up being sold out, but luckily Shell and I had purchased tickets a few weeks back, so we were good to go.
There were many different kinds of M&C to try. My favorites had some kind of meat in them, whether it was beef check, pulled pork, buffalo chicken, or, my personal favorite, a birch-beer braised beef. There were also a few seafood ones which reminded me more of a pasta dish than M&C, so those I didn’t personally like as much. While they were tasty, they just weren’t M&C. There were also some really cheesy (in a good way) ones, and one in particular that was my second favorite was extremely cheesy. It contained a heck of a lot of provolone, and was filled with a few different types of Italian meats, like capocolla and prosciutto. Read More
It’s been awhile since we took in some fosters due to the holidays and other commitments that would have us away for weekends. With my Dad’s birthday behind us, and our trip to Vegas in a few weeks, we had the time to take care of some new sick cats. We picked up a pair of sisters today who have a URI. We’ve only had them a few hours and they are already tugging on our heart strings. Read More
Since this site first started up, I had a blog category titled “cooking/food”, which is where I lumped my adventures in the kitchen along with restaurants we ate at and different things we drank. Today as I was writing up my previous blog on my brother-in-law’s F.N.Beer, I realized that I didn’t like lumping beer and wine talk into a category called “cooking/food.” So I went ahead and changed it, and it will now be called the more stylish “Food & Drink.” This category fits about everything to do with consuming anything, so it works for me.
My brother-in-law has been brewing beer for quite some time, and yesterday he unveiled his new blog, F.N.Beer. This will chronicle his adventures of experimenting while perfecting his craft and pursuing his dream of opening his own professional brewery. I can personally attest to the tastiness of his spirits, and I wish him all the best in his quest.
I also told him he should make a Sasquatch Ale, as I think it would sell like hotcakes.
With Sacred 2 deftly completed in co-op, we have moved on to Borderlands. I completed the main game in single player with the Hunter, and I am now playing through as Lilith. I had previously created a Roland and Brick character to get the trophies associated with their abilities, so when we started up a new game, it only made sense to play as the final character I haven’t touched yet.
Right off the bat I have to say that Borderlands is a heck of a lot more fun in co-op. There are not only more enemies, but they are tougher, and it makes for a very challenging experience as opposed to playing solo. I look forward to spending a good chunk of my co-op time in Borderlands, and getting to check out all the DLC (I own the GOTY edition but only played through the Zombie Island one.)
I’m also glad to go back a second time and collect some trophies I missed out on. Already got two co-op trophies tonight!
Have you ever played a video game where the medium involved Russian nesting dolls? Neither have I, so when I heard about Double Fines new downloadable game Stacking, my curiosity was piqued. I had enjoyed their previous work on Costume Quest, but the steep price of admission stopped me from going beyond the demo. When I saw that Stacking had a price sticker of $15 I knew I wouldn’t even consider purchasing. Then when it was released, I was shocked to discover that the full game was free to all PlayStation Plus members. Since that includes me, I was able to sit back and enjoy this little puzzler.
You take control of Charlie, the youngest member of the Blackmore family. An evil industrial baron has kidnapped the family, and it is up to Charlie to rescue them all and thwart the Baron’s dreams of organized child labor. Charlie does this by solving puzzles across four different levels. Unfortunately, Charlie is pretty darn small, so he relies on the help of other nesting dolls to get things done. To break up the game a little bit there are cutscenes that play out like old silent movies. So you will have the characters moving around and doing basic actions (they are not very animated since they are nesting dolls) and then it will cut away to a screen with a line of dialogue, and then back for more action, and then more dialogue.
Who doesn’t love the simplicity of top-down stick shooters? Now take that genre, and replace the gun-toting hero with a flying dragon, and you have Hoard. Hoard is a really easy to learn, challenging to master downloadable game that lets one to four players take control of a dragon and rain fire down on villages, castles, knights, and other dragons as well.
As the title suggests, one of the main goals of Hoard is to collect as much gold as possible. Using your fire breath (and a few different power-ups), you fly about the map and burn down structures for gold. You can burn down fields, towns, castles, human enemies, carts of goods, and more that all drop gold. You then pick up all the gold you can and fly it back to your lair, where you can safely deposit it to add it to your score (and regain any lost health), and then head out and get some more. As your score increases, you gain xp which can be used to upgrade your speed, fire breath, maximum amount of gold to be carried, and armor. Your stats start at the very beginning each match, so there is no need to worry if you assign xp to a stat you didn’t want. There are a few different modes, and each one is a little different, so it will probably be best to go over each one separately.
Today IGN released an article detailing the first half of the roster for the upcoming WWE Allstars game. The currently confirmed wrestlers are:
Legends:
Current Superstars: Read More
When it comes to reading, I get into this cycle where I will alternate between reading fiction and non-fiction. I don’t read one fiction book and then one non-fiction book…I end up reading a bunch of fiction books at for a period of time, and then I’ll read a bunch of non-fiction books. Right now, I’m on a non-fiction kick, having finished up the Song of Ice and Fire series and the Riverworld series.
A few days ago I finished reading Sasquatch:Legend Meets Science. While I’m sure some may argue that that could be considered a fiction book, I consider it non-fiction. Having finished that, I am currently more than half way through Decision Points, which is George W. Bush’s memoirs. Once I’m finished I will definitely write up a little review of what I think. After that I will be moving on to The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly New York Rangers: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, & Gut-Wrenching Moments from New York Rangers History. After that I’ll probably dig into my backlog of history books.
I love Penny Arcade. I love turn-based RPGs. Thus, one would think that Penny Arcade’s “On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness” (which is as elaborately titled as some of their tri-weekly comics) was a must-buy for me. But one thing turned me off…the price of admission. The Penny Arcade Adventures were going for $15 each, which is extremely steep…especially for a downloadable title that was short and had little replay value.
Well, good things do indeed come to those who wait as with today’s PlayStation Store update, both of the Penny Arcade Adventures (Episodes 1 and 2) are bundled together for a measly $3! That’s nothing compared to the fact that just last week it would have cost you $30 to buy both episodes.
If you’re a fan of RPGs and the folks over at Penny Arcade, do them a favor and send three George Washingtons their way.
I was fiddling around on my Gamefly account today, and I was surprised to find that they had a full log of every game I ever rented from them, started from 2008 to the present. I decided to use this information to my advantage and factor in how many games I rented for the year 2010 and, based on the yearly membership price, determine if it was worth it. Below is a list of all the games I rented in 2010: Read More
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