Woot! I won this Creative Labs BF2142 screenshot label contest. Got a free copy of 2142. Gonna give it to my friend, Kellogg. :-P

As you can see, my label wasn't that funny, but fortunately... everyone else was less funny! Hahaaaa!

Haven't uploaded a new Game Score selection in a looooong time. I apologise!
This track clip is from the PS2 game, Shadow of the Colossus, and is by Koh Ohtani.
It's my fav track of the game.

Click here to listen to Koh Ohtani's The Opened Way

In other news... I'm enjoying my 360 but they really need to put the mouse/keyboard onto it ASAP. Games like Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas work fine with the gamepad, as much of the gameplay is not so much interested in your accuracy with a gun and more with your ability to use battle tactics. Tactics doesn't require joystick finesse.

But Call of Duty 3 multiplayer has been essentially kept in its PC format roots. You run around, you aim and you shoot. This requires joystick finesse. And ohhhh is it frustrating! The multiplay gameplay also feels like it's been given a more "deathmatch arcade" feel than previous CODs. So I don't recommend COD3 for it's multiplay.

NWN2 is now $35 at Amazon.com. I think that's with free shipping, too. I'm really enjoying this game, but it's extremely, extremely easy, to the point that it's not really a game.. but an interactive novel.

Then again, if you have no understanding of the D&D rules whatsoever, don't read the manual or anything, then this game might pose some sort of challenge. Hehe. If you click the link below to make your purchase, I get like a few cents in commission. So yeah, gimme a few cents!

Me and Dogar (online friend) hope to tweak the game's difficulty using the Toolset. If we can do that, I think this game would be an instant classic.

Gears of War online is awesome O_O And the Rainbow Six Vegas demo is pretty great, too!

Assuming the 360 doesn't die on me in a few months, this is a great system that I recommend to everyone :)

Now if it could just get mouse/keyboard support...

Bought an Audigy 4 SE soundcard from Buy.com for $40. I bought this card solely for BF2142, which is kind of embarrasing. But I think it's worth it in the long run. Afterall, I'll be playing 2142 for at least another 300 hours. Heh :-P And shoot, I can always reinstall BF2, too.

Being able to enable EAX effects really enhances the game's sound in quality and in placement. When stomping around in a mech, the footstep sounds boom from the rear of me, recreating the fact that my mech's legs are behind me. The only downside to the soundcard is that there's no joystick port! I guess non-USB joysticks are too old fashioned, but I was still using my Microsoft Sidewinder for X-wing Alliance play. I guess I'll have to keep my old soundcard in there if I want to continue playing the Tie Fighter Total Conversion for X-wing Alliance.

I got an Xbox360 recently, and have been playing Gears of War and Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Gears of War is pretty fun, but I dunno why I got Splinter Cell. I don't even like stealth games that much! I guess playing multiplayer Double Agent back at the Gamespot After Hours event compelled me to buy it. Ah well, I should be able to get most of my money back through Ebay.

When I first started playing Gears of War, I thought it overrated, but I've warmed up to it since then. The way gun reloads work is pretty cool. Pressing the reload button a second time at certain times will bring a different result. If you time it correctly, you reload quicker. If you time it perfectly, you get a boost in damage. If you screw up your timing, you reload far slower than normal. Doesn't sound like a big deal on paper, but I find it a really fun twist on the shooter genre. In most FPS games, you reload your gun and it's a completely passive activity from your point of view, despite the fact that a real gun does require quite a bit of manual dexterity to reload quickly, especially under fire. So the reload feature of GOW kinda brings that experience to the player for the first time.

I'm also expecting Call of Duty 3 to show up in the mail, soon. I've enjoyed all of the previous Call of Duty's, so I feel obligated to play COD3, even if I am really tired of WW2. If the multiplayer isn't that great, I'll be Ebaying this one after I finish the single-player campaign a couple times.

Can't wait for the semester to end. Lots of games to play, and others to replay (Resident Evil 4 PS2 in 480p with 5.1 Digital Dolby Surround should be awesome!). Heck, even NWN2 has turned out to be a great game.

Hopefully I can get some exercise, too ;)

Most expensive winter ever?

I'm thinking about buying an HDTV, Xbox360, PS3, and Wii in the coming months. Yoiks! That's like ... $1800 bucks at least.

The Xbox 1 was such a huge let down that I'm kinda wary bout the 360. But Gears of War and GRAW look so cool. I wish I could be excited about Mass Effect, but IMO Bioware makes terrible games. They craft good stories, is all.

The PS3 seems to have weaker graphics than the 360 right now. Hopefully that will improve. Still, if it has weaker graphics now.. do I really want to buy it right away? I guess I won't have much of a choice anyway since it will be sold out everywhere for at least a couple months. But that Resistance: Fall of Man game looks really fun.

The Wii.. that's a no brainer. I've rediscovered my love for Nintendo properties recently, thanks to my DS. Zelda Minish Cap, Metroid Zero Mission, Star Fox. So definitely getting a Wii.

I'll also need a surround sound system for all this. o_O

I bought, used, and returned a 22" widescreen monitor over the past week. It was great seeing Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty 2 in widescreen format, with the widescreen field of view. It really increased the immersiveness of the game. In real life, when you look at something, you have a lot of peripheral vision going on. But on a standard 4:3 monitor, the game screen only occupies the center of your vision, and your peripheral vision is mostly filled with the real world. A widescreen monitor (16:9 or 16:10) changes that, and it's a really cool experience that all FPS gamers should try at least once. It was also gorgeous exploring World of Warcraft and Guild Wars in widescreen.

So if it's so great.. why did I return it? Well, I had no idea LCDs worked the way they work. In order to display the screen correctly, I *had* to increase my game resolutions to 1680 x 1050. Unlike CRTs, LCDs can't scale up resolution without a performance hit. Not a big deal for most people, but for frame rate watching gamers it's a different story.

1680 x 1050 was such a big drain on my PC that widescreen gaming was mostly unplayable, outside of HL2 and COD2. DOD Source and CS Source had crummy frame rates. And BF2142, my fav game at the moment, didn't support widescreen gaming at all. So yeah.. if you're interested in trying widescreen gaming, be sure you have a powerful enough PC.

In other news...

The PS3 and Wii are coming! I'm going to try and pick up a Wii on launch day. While I'm not too excited about any of the launch titles, I figure I'll be getting a Wii eventually, thanks to Smash Brothers Brawl.

The PS3 is a must have.. some day. The launch line up is getting bad reviews so far, with Genji 2 getting a crummy 6.5 from Gamespot. Bummer! I enjoyed the first Genji even though it scored poorly, so I'll probably enjoy Genji 2, too. But with a score of 6.5, I'm not in any hurry to play it.

Besides, I'm drowning in games anyway. Final Fantasy 12, Okami, Xenosaga 3, Neverwinter Nights 2 (which is dissapointing, by the way!), Metroid Prime Hunters, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center, BF2142, Zelda Minish Cap.... yikes. Can't wait for winter break :)