buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Tony

November Releases

by 7 Comments

A feature I’ve been wanting for this site for a while is a look at the video-game releases for the month. With the holiday season and the glut of games that are released around this time, I figured now would be as good a time as any to start. So here are the releases for the month of Novemeber.

A couple of things to keep in mind: the release date I’m listing is what Amazon.com has listed. I haven’t checked each individual game for a change in release date. The links also go to the respective Amazon page. I haven’t included every game, which means I haven’t listed “Catz 2” or “Beowulf: The Movie: The Game.” Most of the games I’ve listed are games I want to play or I’m at least remotely interested in. I’m going off the assumption that may readers would also be interested. I’ve also grouped the games I’m most interested in at the top of each section and I’ve tried to sprinkle in a little commentary where I can. Please excuse any ommissions or errors in advance.

Xbox 360 banner

Mass Effect (Nov. 20th) – This is probably the only sure purchase for me this month. While most people hold BioWare in high regard, I’m not as enamored. I have very fond memories of Baldur’s Gate but I only played KoToR for a few minutes and I thought Jade Empire was a button-mashing turd of a game. That being said, Mass Effect still looks mighty tempting. I’m looking forward to a good RPG on the 360 and I’m pretty sure Mass Effect will be it.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare(Nov. 5th) – Call of Duty 4 looks awesome. Amazing. Tons of fun. I’m still not picking this one up. With all the unlockables and other hooks to get me to play it exclusively, I just can’t do it. I’d rather play Halo 3 and have a life.
Assassin’s Creed(Nov. 13th) – This is one that I had initially be very interested in, but that interest has waned a bit. Reports of really complicated controls and not delivering on promised game-play has me cautious.
F.E.A.R. Files (Nov. 6th)
Cabela’s Big Game Hunter(Nov. 6th) – Can someone clue me in here? How are these games fun? And who the heck are buying them?!
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga(Nov. 6th) – Looks fun, but I must resist.
Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action(Nov. 6th)
Blacksite: Area 51(Nov. 6th)
Popcap Arcade Hits Volumne 1(Nov. 12th)
Avatar: The Burning Earth(Nov. 12th)
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008(Nov. 13th) – Want me to buy a WWE game? Put Big Boss Man in it.
Need for Speed: Prostreet(Nov. 13th)
Soldier Of Fortune: Payback(Nov. 13th) – Rag dolls are magic.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men(Nov. 13th)
America’s Army True Soldiers(Nov. 15th) – I’m in yer Xbox, subvertly recrootin’ ya.
College Hoops 2K8(Nov. 19th) – Respect for Greg Oden, your 2K8 coverboy.
Rock Band(Nov. 20th) – I’ll probably be the last person to play Rock Band/Guitar Hero.

Wii banner

Super Mario Galaxy(Nov. 12th) – I still don’t have a Wii. The fact that this game comes out in two days and I won’t be playing it physically pains me. I have owned a Nintendo console before the first Mario came out for each system (I’ve usually had one at launch) and Galaxy is the first one that will come and go without me. I am sad. I hope to rectify the situation soon.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn(Nov. 5th) – As a huge Fire Emblem fan, this will also be an immediate purchase once I am a Wii owner.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games(Nov. 6th) – My childhood weeps for this game.
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Nov. 6th)
Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey(Nov. 6th) – I’ve got a four year old girl at home. I would be the biggest hero ever if I bring this home.
My Word Coach(Nov. 6th) – Me fail English? That’s unpossible!
Cabela’s Big Game Hunter(Nov. 6th) – Shooting virtual deer seems wrong with the Wiimote.
Spongebob Squarepants: Atlantis Squarepants (Nov. 12th)
Need for Speed: Prostreet (Nov. 13th)
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (Nov. 13th)
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Nov. 13th)
Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (Nov. 13th)
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (Nov. 13th)
Cars: Mater-National (Nov. 19th)
Wii Zapper with Link’s Crossbow Training (Nov. 19th) – Can you use Link’s Crossbow in Cabela’s Big Game Hunter?
Soul Calibur Legends (Nov. 20th)
Trauma Center: New Blood (Nov. 20th) – Trauma Center on the DS was an exercise in futility. I can only imagine the Wiimote would only exacerbate the issue.
AMF Bowling Pinbusters (Nov. 20th)
Cranium Kabookii (Nov. 27th)
Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords (Nov. 27th)

Nintendo DS banner

Contra 4(Nov. 13th) – This may be the only DS game I pick up this month, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played a Contra game, and I’m due.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Nov. 5th)
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Nov. 6th)
Build-A-Bear Workshop (Nov. 6th) – I made fun of this game a while ago. I guess they’re actually making it.
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker(Nov. 6th) – I may pick this one up.
Panzer Tactics (Nov. 6th)
World Series of Poker 2008 (Nov. 6th)
Ontamarama (Nov. 6th) – Didn’t Wyclef sing a song about this game?
Ultimate Mortal Kombat(Nov. 12th) – I don’t think 2″ fatalities would do it for me.
Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends (Nov. 13th)
Orcs & Elves(Nov. 13th)
Mario Party DS(Nov. 19th) – Will they ever stop making these games?
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings(Nov. 20th)
Geometry Wars: Galaxies(Nov. 27th) – I love me some Geometry Wars, I just can’t see how this could be done successfully on the DS. Hopefully I’m wrong, but we’ll see.

PC banner

Everquest: Rise Of Kunark (Nov. 13th) – I haven’t purchased a PC game in a long time (I got EQ2 for free) but I’ll definitely be picking up this expansion up. It’s 40 bucks, but it’s got all the previous expansions and adventure packs. This is a no brainer for EQ2 players.
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (Nov. 5th)
Empire Earth 3 (Nov. 6th)
Crysis(Nov. 13th) – AKA bring your rig to its weak, sorry, 3 GHz knees.
Unreal Tournament III(Nov. 13th) – Ditto.
Soldier Of Fortune: Payback (Nov. 13th)
Universe At War: Earth Assault

PS3 banner

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Nov 6th)
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War (Nov. 6th)
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions (Nov. 6th)
Assassin’s Creed (Nov. 13th)
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Nov. 13th)
Need for Speed: Prostreet (Nov. 13th)
Medal of Honor Airborne (Nov. 13th)
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (Nov. 13th)
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Nov. 13th)
Soldier of Fortune: Payback (Nov. 13th)
College Hoops 2K8 (Nov. 19th)
Rock Band (Nov. 20th)
Time Crisis 4 (Includes Guncon 3) (Nov. 20th)
Timeshift (Nov. 27th)

PSP banner

Silent Hill Origins (Nov. 6th)
The Simpsons Game (Nov. 6th)
SOCOM: Tactical Strike (Nov. 6th)
Warhammer 40k: Squad Command (Nov. 6th)
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (Nov. 13th)
Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus (Nov. 13th)
Sonic Rivals 2 (Nov. 13th)
Aliens vs. Predator Requiem (Nov. 13th)
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (Nov. 13th)
Atari Classic Evolved (Nov. 20th)

October in Review

by 1 Comment

I’ve never done this before, but I’ve always liked it when other blogs I read do their monthly reviews. So I thought I’d give it a try. Time to take a look at the month that was.

It seems like it’s been pretty much Halo 3 and Portal around these parts in October. Sure, we chatted about more than that, but I was pretty much playing Halo 3 exclusively (still am) and my posts had a decidedly Halo 3 slant. I’m actually disappointed to report we only had 16 posts this month. Again, I blame the amount of Halo 3 being played on the drop in post frequency.

Nat brought up the fact that’s he’s got a long list of games he wants to finish. I have one, too. It’s too long to admit. We were discussing this very topic one night on IM and I mentioned that since November is “National Novel Writing Month” we should hijack it and make it “National Finish a Game Month.” Me personally, I want to finish Halo 3 and find all the skulls. If there’s time after that, I want to eventually finish Pokemon Diamond. But one game at a time. Feel free to join us in the “NaFiGaMo.” Something like that.

So what posts got the most traffic this month? I get a lot of traffic from search engine referrals so some of the top posts are actually older posts. The top five posts for the month of October were:

5. Dead Rising is dead to me.
4. MMORPG Sports (Part I)
3. Resident Evil 4 Translation Guide
2. Halo 3 stats ready to go
1. Halo 3 Stats and Stats Galore

There are a lot of people looking for Halo 3 stats. I happy to provide some hopefully useful information.

Of course, along with the regular searches for things like “Halo 3 Stats” and “Resident Evil 4 translations” I get some funny search terms. A few:

“tickling me” – This one baffles me. Sometimes I wish I could see into the mind of the person searching for something like “tickling me.” Maybe something crawled up his shorts and just really wanted to know what that thing that was “tickling him”? I wish I knew. Or maybe I’m glad I don’t. Of course, that’s not half as bad as the person looking for “tickling pee.” I just… Stop. Sadly, this eventually ends with someone looking for “tickling till pee.” I blame Nat.

“deer buttons” – They’re right next to the moose zippers and the bear patches.

“eve is boring” – EVE Online might be boring, but I can’t vouch for eve. Maybe, maybe not.

“gears of war wallet” – Didn’t Jules own one of those?

I could go on, but I’ll spare ya.

So what about November? I’d really like to increase my posting frequency. I often feel like I’m neglecting you guys when I go a day or two without posting. It’s been great having Nat around to help, I just hope to get more content out on a daily basis. With the holidays quickly approaching, we’ll definitely have some timely content for that. Hopefully with the bad weather will also bring some more blogging time. Here’s to great November. Let me know if there is something you’d like to see me cover!

Tender Moments in Halo 3

by 2 Comments

I was doing my daily multiplayer matches (USDA Recommend Daily Allowance is at least 5 a day), this time in the Ranked Team Slayer playlist. I’m matched up with some players and we wait for the map to load. As often happens, someone comments on my gamertag (I aint yer Pa). The person that found it funny was a player with a gamertag like “EvilPRINCESSS183” or something. At first, the voice sounded like like a teenage boy whose voice hadn’t deepened just yet, but it turns out it was a real girl. I chuckled at the name EvilPrincess193, thinking some little kid thought it would be funny to call himself an evil princess.

The match was set for Guardian (one of my favorite maps) and it was on. Turns out that the competition was quite weak, so I was running around spanking the other team on the bare bottom. I go up the elevator and find three blue guys looking for trouble when EvilPrincess842 runs in and screams “Ahhh! Why do I always find the bad guys when I’m by myself?” She was promptly dispatched and then I Gravity Hammered two of them into oblivion before the third one got me.

I respawn and I hear a couple of my teammates talking. Another member of the team was RootofEvil583. I should have made the connection, but I didn’t until after the game (I noticed they had similar names and icons). How cute — a couple playing Halo 3 together. They were even playing on separate boxes (this was a ranked matched, after all). This adds to the cuteness. Then I overhear this conversation:

RootofEvil482: Honey, please! Don’t fall of the edge again.
EvilPrincess410: I’m trying! It’s not the easiest thing to do.
RootofEvil482: Sweetie! Be careful. You’re gonna fall!
EvilPrincess410: This level drives me crazy! It’s so hard to jump around!
RootofEvil482: You’re doing great! Now lets go get some kills!

It was a nice tender moments between a couple of love birds. The encouragement, the positive reinforcement. I just wanted to hug ’em! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: “The family (or couple) that games together, stays together.”

Achieving Satisfaction

by 1 Comment

As anyone who’s been in a “Lone Wolf” Free For All match in Halo 3, you’ll know that a lot of players would like your assistance in getting a few of the tougher achievements that can only be earned in ranked FFA matches. BS Angel talked about this earlier. I’ve been spending the majority of my Halo 3 time in Lone Wolf matches, so I’ve been hearing this a lot.

I usually ignore the pleas to help out. “I’ll get in the Ghost, then you hijack me, then I’ll hijack you, then you hijack me back.” This was an actual conversation I heard as a game was loading. More often than not, I’ll head to wherever these guys are and mess with them. Then I’ll leave them to their business. Sure, I want the achievements, but I want to earn them, man!

One of these achievements is called “Two for One”:

Two for One

Recently, I was in a Lone Wolf match on Snowbound. It wasn’t a Slayer match, however, it was Oddball. I snatched the Spartan Laser and started chasing after a guy, training the laser on him the whole chasethe whole time, trying to time his movements to the charging laser. As luck would have it, another bad guy (with the skull, no less) came in the other direction. I charged the laser, blasted at guy #1 one and the nudged the laser ever so slightly and caught the other guy. Two for one, baby!

Here’s an in-game screenshot:

Two for One

Not the best shot, but you can see my name there in the background, in the little tunnel there, with the laser blasting the Ghost and the two bad guys as I earn my achievement the hard way. That was most satisfying.

In my hands

by 3 Comments

The Orange BoxYeah, I’m about a week behind here, but I know you’ll forgive me. I’ve read so many positive things about Portal (our man Nat here, Michael has a good Orange Box round-up here) that I’ll be starting with that game.

Impressions will follow after I get around to it. I have to consume tonight’s episodes of Prison Break and Heroes. And a little Halo 3 multiplayer, too. I’ll get to it eventually!

Update: I got side-tracked the night before by some Halo 3 multiplayer action, so I didn’t get a chance to through the Orange Box disc in until last night. I originally thought I’d jump right into Portal, but decided to give Half Life 2 a look first. I may lose some gamer cred admitting this, but I never experienced the original Half-Life. So I was pretty confused for the hour or so I played HL2. It’s off to Wikipedia I go for some answers!

After a bit of wandering around in HL2, I jumped right into Portal. Fun fun fun. It’s one of those “holy crap, I’ve been playing for two hours?” game. I can’t wait to get back to it.

Wednesday night musings

by 1 Comment

Since there aren’t any sporting events going on this evening (no college football games of note, the Indians have a day off, and who wants to watch pre-season NBA?) I’m working on some blog items, mostly updating plug-ins and playing around with their settings. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t totally *heart* WordPress.

I also have a couple other items to get to: For the time being, we won’t be hearing much from my newest co-blogger, Dark Reyule. He’s taking a break from gaming and blogging isn’t an option at the moment. I told him he’s still very much welcome around these parts, so hopefully he’ll still drop by once and a while. So the blogging will be coming primarily from me and Nat for the foreseeable future.

I’m also going through a bunch of drafts and stubs of posts I have sitting in various degrees of completion, so there may be the occasional post with some “older” content. Hopefully it will still be relevant in some way. The blogging will continue, even if morale doesn’t improve.

As for the musings: Anyone here listen to Major Nelson’s podcast? If so, is it just me, or has the podcast’s quality declined lately? When Major and his co-host “e” are talking about things like their latest travels or other minutia, I lose all interest. Their conversations also have an “inside joke” feel, but not everyone is in on it. This was something that turned me off of the Evil Avatar Radio podcast. I want to hear about games! Not how exciting your company retreat was! I don’t care who you saw at the Halo 3 launch. Tell me about the actual game. I do love when he interviews people in the “industry,” however. The interview with Marty O’Donnell was top-shelf. I love the music from the Halo Trilogy and hearing Marty talk about it was a treat. Get back to the games, Major.

I would also like to mention that the Halo 3 theater rocks. That is (not) all. More on that later.

Blogging updates (and what we’re playing)

by 13 Comments

Just a quick note that I’m currently in the process of upgrading all the blogs I maintain and host for friends, so things around here may get goofy, but I think it should be pretty painless.

If you run a WordPress blog, I cannot sing enough praise for the WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plug-in. Instead of manually downloading the new files, unzipping them and FTP’ing them to my server, this plug-in handles it all. This is very, very cool.

I know we’ve been a little lax in the blogging department around these parts, but with Halo 3 dropping on us and everything else going on, we’ve been busy. Busy playing games, that is. This is not necessarily a bad thing. For me personally, I’ve been spending a little more time back in Norrath with Everquest 2. I joined a guild, but haven’t done a ton with them yet. I’ve mostly been working on my tradeskills. That’s always fun, especially if you like mindless button clicking. We’ve been enjoying Halo 3 a bunch around these parts, co-op’ing and multiplaying whenever we can. There are a bunch of good games on the horizon. I think the Orange Box and Puzzle Quest are in my near future.

What about you guys and gals? What are you playing?