buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Xbox

Time to Purge (“The List”)

In light of all I’ve gone through and with giving up (actually, changing perspective) on “The List,” it’s now time for me to get rid of all the games I no longer want or need. What does that mean for you, oh, inquisitive reader? Simply put, you get first dibs.

Here’s how it works. I’m going to list all the game I want to get rid of. (All of them come in their cases). I could just take them in to Gamestop, but they are idiots (There’s a guy in our local store that deserves a plethora of posts. I feel sorry for uninformed customers.) and they would give me a pittance for the trade-in anyway. I will sell the game to you at half the price Gamestop sells it used (look it up on their site and email me the link). That way, you get a game cheaper than used list and I make more off it. Make sense? Let’s eliminate the used store middleman and save on their fees.

Just email me (agentgray at gmail) what you want and we can work all the other stuff. I’ll probably use Paypal and ship the mail via USPS (US or Canada) Here’s the games (with commentary):

Gamecube:

  • Metroid Prime – It’s a little past it’s namesake, but an excellent game. Good for a single play through.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes – echoing what’s above
  • SSX Tricky – I loved this game. One of the few I did everything with. Now? Meh.
  • Pikmin – If you like telling flowers what to do, then this is for you.
  • Mario Golf Toadstool Tour – I consider it to be the best sports game for the ‘cube.
  • Super Monkey Ball – A party game before they were popular. You unlock the party game part.
  • Prince of Persia The Sands of Time – I had a blast with this, the grandfather to Assassin’s Creed.

Xbox

  • Lego Star Wars – I have the new version. No need here.
  • Panzer Dragoon Orta – I guess this game may be rare? Good for a single play through.
  • Psychonauts – Just a smidgen overrated, I think, but very funny. Might be a little rare in Xbox form.
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – A classic. Might be the best Star Wars story since Episode V.

Nintendo DS

  • Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime – a fun diversion that’s easy to play.
  • Brain Age – my age dropped the more I tried to complete “The List”
  • Contact – what a quirky game. Almost like a new Startropics.
  • Hotel Dusk Room 215 – one of the best uses of the DS ever, an interactive book.
  • Metroid Prime Hunters – cramp inducing? At least for this lefty.
  • Meteos – From what I understand it may be rare now. A fun puzzle game.
  • Electroplankton – I love this quirky off the cuff stuff. NOt really a game, but interesting. Rare.

Xbox 360

  • PocketBike Racer – I will give this away. The King creeps me out.
  • Lost Planet – the constant falling down lost me on this.
  • Dead Rising – A frustrated love? The timer, the inmates (that keep coming back), the bad survivor AI, and weird save system. I need to move on.

Nintendo Wii

  • Zack & Wiki – I had fun with this quirky adventure game. Hilarious unintended Wiimote motions too.
  • MLB Power Pros – I wish I had the time. I really do, but this is the most interesting, time consuming baseball game on any console. Stat tracking is amazing.

There you go. There are some more titles I may add to this, but I am very close to completing them. Plus, I have some PC titles, but I need to make sure license keys and stuff are OK.

What I’m playing

I haven’t done this for a while, so I thought it’d be fun to do a “what I’m playing” post. After I stopped playing EVE I had a lull in gaming overall but recently I’ve been getting back into it. I’ve been busy with other endeavors but when I do have a chance, here’s what i’ve been playing:

Mercenaries – I stopped playing Mercenaries a few months ago but got the bug to play it again and I’ve been having a blast. I find myself not even doing the missions — I just drive around exploring (and running over the occasional mafioso). Last night, after picking up a bad guy, I hijacked their tank and drove it down into the Russian Mafia section of town and starting blowing buildings up. I took down a couple warehouse buildings, a construction crane a couple gas tanks. After running out of ammo I ditched the tank and jumped in a mafia truck and high-tailed it back to safety. I’m currently persona non grata in Mafia land after I capped three of their leaders. Oops. I’m anxious to make it back into that section of town to see if the damage I caused was perament.

Forza Motorsport – I try to avoid playing games when the kids are awake, so when my daughter asks to play the “racing” game, I’m more than happy to get a little gaming in. The only catch is that I have to drive a pink Lexus IS300. With cutesy-pootsy vinyls. It’s a price I’m willing to pay for my art. I’m actually liking the simulation-style racing. Originally I didn’t care for it but it has grown on me.

Pink Lexus
“That’s my pink car, right daddy?“

Brain Age – I finally cracked the twenties with my brain age! I’m sporting a respectable brain age of 26 years. I’m also loving Sudoku. But honestly, the best thing about Brain Age is that the buttonWife is hooked on it, which gives me free reign over the television and the Xbox. It’s a pretty good arrangement. I had no idea the DS Lite was going to actually enable more gaming.

So what are you guys playing? I’m thinking about picking up Big Brain Academy — any recommendations on that? I’m also gonna look for a rental of NCAA 2007. Having been burned by 2005 and 2006, I’m gun-shy with 2007 but Bill Abner has been giving it good marks, so that’s promising.

Back from the dead

I have returned from my long weekend of family visits and no internet. As I’m sure you’ve heard before, disconnecting for a while feels great. I didn’t completely disconnect, though. I took my Xbox to the in-laws since the brother-in-law loves NCAA Football and his wife loves Burnout 3. He also had never experienced the Halo/Halo 2 experience, so I took that along to show him there is life after football games. I also played a little Splinter Cell Chaos Theory to further my point that there are games that are fun to play that don’t involve Heisman Trophies and Maryland-I formations. He was impressed.

This gave me a chance to go back to games that I had neglected since I started my EVE binge. The long weekend (coupled with losing my partner in EVE-crime) hasn’t lessened my desire to play EVE, it will just be on the back burner for a while. I think I’ll be doing a little AFK mining while I play some of the games on “The Stack.” I think the first order of business will be finishing Splinter Cell. I forgot how enjoyable putting bad guys in the choke hold was.

On the buttonmashing.com side of things, I noticed the site was down today for most of the afternoon. I don’t know what caused the problem, but whatever it was seems to have already been straightened out, so yay for that.

Some thoughts…

I know blogging has been light lately, but RL keeps getting in the way. I’d like to say gaming has kept me away but sadly that isn’t the case. Gaming has been limited to EVE lately, with an occasional Animal Crossing break.

Even with the lack of blogging, I wanted to post a few thoughts I’ve had recently:

  • Even with two AAA titles out in the past couple of weeks (Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Oblivion), I still find that I’m not really gravitating toward the Xbox 360. All the trimmings on the periphery (Xbox Live Arcade, Gamer Points) still intrigue me but the games don’t. I’ve never played any of the Elder Scrolls games (even though I own Morrowind) but I’ve been fascinated by the excited anticipation surrounding Oblivion. I’ll be watching Adam’s blog, since he’s in the same boat and will be playing an Elder Scrolls game for the first time. Even with all the excitement, I’m still content with the occasional Halo 2 match with friends and a little NCAA 2006. I’d also like to snag a copy of both Mercenaries and Forza since I never finished either of those. And I also have a stack of games that I’ve only played briefly that I’d like to get to. So yeah, I’m really not feeling the 360 right now.

    So I’m not sure what will be the title that pushes me over the edge. Probably the next NCAA title. If not that, then certainly the next Halo.

  • That being said, I am currently drooling over the DS Lite. I don’t know when it hits our shores, but man I want that! It just looks sexy (something the original does not). While I’d really like to get a black Lite, I think the dark blue (Navy enamel or something) will do. I’m also pumped about Metroid Prime Hunters. If I have a chance, I’ll be picking up a copy later this evening, but you never know how that works. I was a little worried about the control scheme, but after reading Tycho’s blurb about it you can color me excited.
  • I’m really digging EVE-Online. So much so that I’m running a mission as I type. I never got around to Auto Assault and now I doubt I will. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but the gaming buffet is already overflowing. With Metroid and Tetris on the cusp, I just don’t need another time sink. It isn’t easy being a gamer.
  • I have a bunch of posts that are in various states of completion that I’d like to get to at some point. I’ve got stuff on MMOs (Sports games in particular), video game music (and other music-related stuff) and whatever else fills the empty space in my head. I’ll get around to them eventually. Right now, someone is in dire need of Antibiotics and I’ve got to deliver.

Xbox Live

n0wak has noticed an interesting trend on Xbox Live.

Except for an occasional Halo 2 game, I haven’t been on Live for months. I’ve heard that NCAA 2006 is fun online but I have yet to give it a try.

Sports Gamer on NCAA 2006

The Blog for the Sports Gamer is quickly becoming one of my favorite blog stops. Moreso right now because one of the contributors, bill, is filling us in on his experiences with NCAA 2006. I’ve cooled on the NCAA series due to 2005’s lacklusterness (is that a word?). Bill (who is a Buckeye like me) did what every other Buckeye Fan does when they get the newest NCAA title — the play OSU vs. Michigan (the greatest sports rivalry of all-time). Bill has a recap of the first half and the second half, along with his impressions of NCAA 2006. Of course, OSU was victorious, as they have been the past 3 out of 4 years. Go Bucks!

So now, after reading these initial impressions, I am contemplating an NCAA 2006 purchase, something I thought I may pass on this year. I’ll probably still wait until its price comes down a bit, but as it stands now, I think I may be NCAA’ing it again this year.

Bungie.net : Top Story

Bungie has dropped their latest update regarding Halo 2 and Xbox Live and it is a doosie. If you haven’t read it already, you can read it here: Bungie.net : Top Story

I’ve got mixed feelings about this “patch” business. Up until now, console games have been “what you see is what you get,” and if some glitch happened to make it through QA then thousands of purchasers were stuck with it. Now, with the Xbox Live connected console, games can be patched to fix, among other things, “weapon balance issues.” To me, the troubling quote is

Grenade attacks will be one of the most significant changes for the 1.1 version of Halo 2. In many ways, the new grenade balance is a reflection of the way we really wanted them to be.

If that’s the way they really wanted them then why aren’t they that way? Even though all the gameplay tweaks ands changes seem like steps in the right direction, I’m still troubled by this trend.

Next generation of consoles will surely all be connected to the net and this trend will continue. The question is whether or not gamers will embrace it or reject. The blurring of the line between PC games and console games continues.

That being said, I’m excited about the changes. The enhanced melee attack and improved grenades are welcome additions to my style of play. And the mid-jump melee attack? That’s my specialty, just ask my clan mate, Ted. I caught him with a mid-air, rocket launcher melee attack and BEAT HIM DOWN. Making this common place is okay with me. It is interesting to see the nerf-bat, normally reserved for MMOGs, has been found in Bungie’s offices. Once people start learning how to exploit this round of changes, Halo 2 ver. 1.2 won’t be far behind. This is what troubles me most about these updates. The vicious circle of “re-balancing”.

The Games we Play

I have pulled myself away from Halo 2 this weekend long enough to give some new games a try. I’ve got games I picked up on sale at Toys R Us in a pile, which are being neglected, I traded some of my games with a friend and got a handful of games from him, and I have a free rental at Hollywood Video every month that I have to use. I don’t want anymore new games until I play the ones I already have. I try to avoid the list of weekly releases, just to avoid temptation.

First off, I put Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 in to give that a fly. I loved 2004 2003 but never played it much past the first handful of challenges. 2005 looks and feels pretty similar, but as with other EA sports games, the enhancements and polish are noticeable. The most fun I’ve had so far with Tiger Woods is the character creation part (called EA SPORTS Game Face II). I sat there for a half an hour with my mom and wife crafting my electronic counterpart. What better people to keep me honest while I made the mental projection of my digital self. (or is that the other way around? The Matrix is so confusing) Anyway, my golfer looks so much like me it’s scary. I’ve only played two rounds so far, but I am really enjoying TW 2005. Unlockables in a sports video game are like heroin to me, so I can see myself playing this a lot. There are thousands of unlockables. I have already been offered a sponsorship for Maxfli products (in the form of what? an unlockable!). What a game! I’m shooting for that TaylorMade sponsorship. I didn’t try out the online aspect of the game, I need to find someone to play with first. I haven’t seen announcements for the 2006 iteration of this game, so I may look to pick up a copy of this game. Great video game golf.

I’m late to the party, but I’ve finally tried Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. So far I’ve only played about an hour into the game but I definitely see why this game was on the top of most 2003 Game of the Year lists. I’m liking what I’ve played so far.

Anything D&D always has a place in my heart. My brother-in-law and I gave Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes a try this week, as well. D&D Heroes wasn’t super well-received by the reviewing community, but I give it a multi-player thumbs up. The story isn’t going to grip you but the mindless hack-and-slash is fun enough to give it a shot. It’s basically Gauntlet in D&D clothes (which certainly isn’t a bad thing). I doubt I’ll play this much by myself but whenever my bro-in-law is in town I can see us throwing down, saving whatever world or universe or plane we’re trying to save. I told you the story was forgettable.

Looking ahead to next week, I’d like to get some more time in Metroid Prime 2, finally give Viewtiful Joe 2 a try, and get to some other games in the unplayed-queue. Also, after reading gatmog’s review of the free trial for Everquest 2, I may give that a whirl, too. He doesn’t resoundingly endorse it but doesn’t condemn it, either. I want a new MMOG. I’m intrigued by EQ 2’s crafting system. I like that it isn’t a particular class that specializes in crafting. One of things about Neocron was that the Constructors (crafters) were usually weak fighters. I was a pretty good constructor but I couldn’t take down the big baddies by myself. I always needed a Tank which was frustrating since they had the good parts needed to craft rare items. I’d like to see how EQ 2 handles crafting. That’s my bread and butter.

I haven’t abandoned Halo 2 yet, I’ve got to support the clan, but I’m not playing it exclusively anymore. I hope it doesn’t get jealous.

Halo 2 Expands

I posted this submitted this earlier today to Evil Avatar but I haven’t posted here since I’ve been watching March Madness all evening. So I’ll just quote myself from EA’s site:

Bungie.net’s weekly update gives us the lowdown on the upcoming “expansion” pack. From the update:

  • We’re releasing a total of nine new multiplayer maps.
  • All nine maps will eventually be available as Live downloads and as a normal boxed game disc – available at retail for $19.99 (US).
  • The release on Live will be staggered, some paid, some free!
    The first two maps are free and coming in a few short weeks. (late April)
  • The same day the 2 free maps are released, 2 additional maps will be available for purchase.
  • The remaining 5 maps will be made available as a paid download on the same day the retail package goes on sale.
  • The retail disc will contain extras, including a documentary, a cool project from our cinematic and animation team, every Halo 2 update released so far and possily one or two other little treats.
  • By late summer, ALL the maps will be available for free.

It goes on to describe some of the new maps and includes a FAQ for all your questions. I was a tad disappointed that there won’t be a Hang ’em High translation but the new stuff definitely looks spiffy. I’m holding judgement on the whole “purchase the new maps now” vs. “wait until late summer”. I think it’s gonna cause major headaches for match making. Get used to playing with the same people who will pay for the new maps.

I said originally I was holding judgement. The more I’ve thought about this, the less I like it. Halo 2 sold millions of copies of Halo 2. Let’s just say 5 million copies. At 50 bucks a pop, that’s a quarter of a billion dollars. Now, from my previous findings, the publisher and developer get about 20 bucks a pop. (MS and Bungie in this case). That works out 100 million dollars. Wrap your brain around that number a little bit before we move on. Good. Now, let’s pretend it cost Bungie and Microsoft 30 million dollars to develop, test, market, and produce Halo 2. Let’s say it has cost Bungie a million bucks to keep Bungie.net (and all the terrific stats they maintain) up and running. That leaves sixty-nine million dollars in their collective coffers. That is a lot of scratch. I would think they could dip into those reserves and throw us a bone with new maps. Do they really have to charge for this? I also see this as giving game developers a “safety net” for delivering games missing vital elements, knowing they can always go back and patch them, but that’s a different topic all together. What I’m trying to say is Halo 2 earned Bungie and Microsoft a HEALTHY little profit. Isn’t 19.99 a little steep to ask for an update that will eventually be freely available? And what about buying the maps on Live? How much will they cost us? I don’t want to have to pay to get things I initially thought would be free.

“But,” you might counter, “if you’re patient, all the maps will eventually be available for free.” Ahh, but there’s an interesting tid-bit in the FAQ for the upcoming expansion:

By late Summer, with the support of Mountain Dew, all the maps will be completely free.

So it’s not even Bungie fronting this offering, it’s Mountain Dew. One of the maps not highlighted, but was mentioned in the update, is named “Backwash”. Will this map contain some form of a Moutain, covered with a Dew? Some Mountain Dew ads, perhaps? We’ll have to wait and see.