Mashing buttons since 1984
Whether you’re celebrating Zombie Christmas, plain old Christmas or something in between, have a nice happy couple of days off. May your stockings be full and your consoles red-ring-free.
I’m looking forward to lots of gaming with family and friends. Hope all is well with you!
Here’s a Guild Wars wish for a Merry Wintersday. Like most people, I’ll be taking it easy, blogging-wise, for the weekend. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all you button mashers out there!
With family in town and the Thanksgiving weekend almost upon us, blogging here will be spotty at best until next week. I’m interested in seeing the reaction to the Xbox 360 launch around the gamingsphere, there won’t be much more going on here. No launch 360 for me.
I’ll be playing copious amounts of NCAA 2006 (my bro-in-law’s favorite game) and some other stuff on the side. I will hopefully be playing MKDS in the every once and a while but even that will be hard to do. I did play my first “friends” game against n0wak (the-inbetween.com). We both won two races and all four races were close. Hopefully I’ll see some of you other guys on soon!
Hopefully everyone in the good old US of A had a great Fourth of July! I took a little break from video games this weekend, it was rather nice. But it’s back to the old grind tomorrow (both at work and in Guild Wars).
Wouldn’t it be great if Independence Day was actually Independence Week?! Man that would be flippin’ sweet.
2005 gets two exclamation points!
Happy new year to all you ButtonMashers! We here in the ButtonHouse are looking forward to a prosperous and gaming-filled 2005. We will be in a new ButtonHouse by February, so things will be changing for us here, but hopefully thinks will stay the same in the gaming (and gaming blog) world.
The new year has already started off with a bang, having my pathetic stats reset over at bungie.net. I heard chatter last night in a few Halo 2 games that there was going to be a reset, possibly to counter cheating going on? I was once accused of playing with a lag cheat, but I figured the kid was pissed becuase I was repeatedly whacking on the head with my bazooka, whack-a-mole style. I had no idea there were Xbox Live! cheats. That’s too bad if there are but I’m sure Bungie will fix it.
Stay tuned, as I do what everyone else has been doing, roll out my 2004 awards and look to 2005.
Once again, the jolly old elf found his way to deliver the goods once again. He had my assistance, he can’t be totally trusted. I helped out by picking up the ViewSonic N5 Video Processor (I mentioned I was getting the N4 but ended up going with the N5. More on that below), Burnout 3: Takedown, and Viewtiful Joe 2. He merrily brought me Metroid Prime 2 and Mario Tennis. On the non-gaming side, he brought me The Christmas Story 20th Anniversary Edition DVD (Daddy’s gonna kill Ralphie!), the Extended Lord of the Rings Trilogy (my precious), and Aladdin (it’s for the kid). I also think he’s got Need For Speed Underground 2 on back order, it should arrive later this week.
So far, I’ve played some Burnout 3 (Game of the Year Contender) and Metroid Prime 2 (ditto). I’ve played about an hour into Metroid Prime 2 and Retro Studios has done it again. Amid the din of the “it’s same old game, not that that’s necessarily bad” there is an extremely detailed, smooth, wonderfully crafted gem of a game. It takes a lot to peel me away from Halo 2 on Live and Metroid Prime 2 is doing just that. That in-and-of-itself speaks volumes. I haven’t even taken VJ2 and MT out of the plastic yet. My gaming queue is growing out of control.
I sadly must admit that I think I’ll be sending the N5 back to Dell. I had hoped it would be the cure to what ails me – the lack of another TV. With the ButtonWife watching TV on the Sony 27″ WEGA, I don’t get as much game time as I’d like. So I thought the N5 would be an alternative. Unfortunately, my ViewSonic A90 wasn’t meant to be a television after all. It’s a shame it didn’t work out. I never tried the actual TV reception, I only attached my SNES and Gamecube consoles to it. They looked okay but a tad too pixelated for me. I’ll take my chances with TV time for now. I’m on the look-out for a nice, 20″-24″ TV to complete my setup downstairs. But Halo 2 still rocks the house on the Sony.
Well, after a foot of snow has been dumped on central Ohio, we’re on our way home for the holidays. Just wanted to wish all the Button Mashers a Merry Christmas!
Even though I’m about to experience my seventeenth Christmas since I was twelve, I still get as giddy about gifts as I did back then. And I still ask for the same thing – video games. But now my tastes have matured, my wallet is fatter, and I don’t have to rely on Santa for everything. So I get to pick some of my own gifts. My wife and I usually exchange a few gifts but she lets me pick out what I want. So on my list is one of these:
Bring high-resolution TV to your desktop with the NextVision N4. The ViewSonic NextVision N4 video processor turns your LCD, CRT or projector into a TV and multimedia center quickly and easily. Simply plug your display or projector into the N4 for TV and multiple video entertainment connections. Adding a DVD player, VCR or digital camera is as easy as plugging into the N4. The NextVision N4 comes with everything users need to get started, including cables and a remote control. The ViewSonic NextVision N4 video processor offers a convenient, cost-effective way to add TV and multimedia capability to your desktop.
I mentioned earlier that I was getting the bug to hook up the old Nintendo systems but I didn’t want to monopolize the big TV upstairs, so I wanted to find something that could make use of the computer monitor. I had initially thought I wanted on of these but the reviews were lackluster. I trust ViewSonic for all my monitor needs so i figure my A90 and my soon to be N4 will play very nicely together.
I’m also going to pick up the ButtonWife some scrap-booking programs. I’ve got my eye on Jasc’s offerings, since I love Paint Shop Pro. I’ll probably pick her up a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 (assuming they’ve fixed everything, which I heard they did). Since my parents will shower the daughter with gifts galore we’ll get by another year without having to buy her anything. Are we bad parents?
The buttonDaughter and buttonWife want to wish all the button-mashers a happy Thanksgiving. And we gamers have lots to be thankful for this year – in addition to all the great games.
Let’s eat some turkey!
