No snickering! Yes, I’m a grown man playing Pokemon Diamond. You gonna do something about it? If not, I’m going to catch me some Pokemons.
As always, first impressions once I get a chance to play around for a bit.
Mashing buttons since 1984
by Tony 4 Comments
No snickering! Yes, I’m a grown man playing Pokemon Diamond. You gonna do something about it? If not, I’m going to catch me some Pokemons.
As always, first impressions once I get a chance to play around for a bit.
I haven’t been playing a lot of games lately, but I feel a manic phase coming on. Hopefully the next couple months should provide a lot of gaming opportunities.
On the DS front, I’ve finally given up on Contact. I tried really hard to get into the game, but there was too much backtracking and grinding for me. The combat was okay and the story had its moments, but I just didn’t feel like investing any more time into the game as a whole. So it will become trade fodder for me to pick up a copy of Pokemon. In addition to catching them all, I think I’ll get some more Elite Beat Agents in. I thought about picking up Puzzle Quest for the DS, but after I heard it was announced for the 360, I decided to wait and pick it up on Live. Multiplayer and achievements always win!
Also on the 360 front, there are a lot of things happening. The first thing I’ll be doing is picking up Settlers of Catan from the Xbox Live Arcade. Catan (the board game) was something my group of friends played a lot of. I actually hestitated picking up the XLA version because of the strife the board game caused us. Catan can be a very visceral game at its core — you have to be ruthless to win. Friends become enemies with the simple roll of a ‘7’. Sure, it can be a problem when you’re playing with friends, but imagine how much more so with spouses. Faced with trading your friend a brick for a stone to complete your city versus trading two stones for a wood with your wife can be perilous. I don’t need Doctor Phil to tell me what path leads to pain. I’m figuring that these types of gut wrenching decisions will be minimized with the digital version of the game.
I think I’ll also pick up the new Halo 2 maps in preparation for the Halo 3 Beta next week, or as I like to call it, “The Day Xbox Live Melted Down (taking the whole internet with it)”. There is absoultely NO WAY Bungie and Microsoft can be ready for the beating their servers are going to take once the Beta goes live. I’ll be right in there, part of the problem, not the solution! Then it will be Halo 3 time, all the time. I’ll probably pick up Forza 2 when that drops, but I’m not sure I’ll be picking anything else up for a while.
Of course, Everquest 2 will be sprinkled in there when there’s time.
Time. There never seems to be enough of it.
The kids were at my parents’ house this past week, giving the missus and I a nice break. We went to pick them up over the weekend, and my daughter asked me to fix my mom’s computer because she couldn’t get her games to work. She loves to play the games on sites like barbie.com and disney.com. She’s becoming quite the gamer. Daddy is proud.
Anyway, she comes running up to me and tells me to fix the computer, because “the dot-coms aren’t working!”
Truer words could not have been spoken.
by Tony 2 Comments
Here’s my two word review (spoilers abound!):
Everyone cries.
Damian has posted the May edition of the Carnival of Gamers. Go there now and enjoy the bloggy goodness!
The Carnival is now 3 years old (actually, the 26th of May is the actual birthday, but who’s counting?). Thanks to everyone who has made the Carnival a success. I honestly had no idea it’d last this long, and I’m glad it’s still going!
by Tony 8 Comments
It’s no secret that I like to play games. I play a lot of games. Call it a hobby. But I also consume other types of entertainment. I’ve talked at length here of the TV shows I watch and I mention the occasional movie, but I really haven’t mentioned what else I’m consuming.
As geeks go, I’m not very well read in the “Classics”. Sure, I’ve read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, I, Robot, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and others, but I haven’t read as much as I’d like to. When I was in high school, I read a lot fantasy books (mostly Dragonlance Novels), but I’ve recently endeavored to broaden my reading horizons. Going off of a few “Top 20/50/100 lists” (here and here and here and here) I’ve been diving right into some of the best Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels I’ve missed out on. I’ve just about finished up Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, and I’ll be moving on to the next book on my list. The next five books on my list are:
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov
In addtion to that, I also started reading the Harry Potter books. (Yes, I am a hypocrite)
I’m also a voracious consumer of music. Recently I’ve been listening to Fort Minor. Fort Minor is a hip-hop/rap side project of Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park. If you’ve seen any ABC/ESPN/TNT NBA promo commercials, than you’d recognize their song “Remember the Name“. But there’s more than just that song. The entire album, The Rising Tied is all pretty good stuff; great rhymes and serious beats. I’m digging it.
On top of it all, I’m excited about a lot of movies coming out this summer. We’ll be seeing Spiderman 3 this Friday because I’m a huge fanboy of the Blockbuster/action/blow-stuff-up kind of movie. Can’t wait. I’ve also got a huge list of movies I’m looking forward to this year, but I won’t bore you with that list. At least not yet.
As always, I’d love to hear what you guys are consuming. Any recommendations are also welcome.
(I should mention that this post was inspired by a post over at The Game Chair discussing reading lists of gamers)