Just watched the first episode of the new season of 24. Looks like we'll be in for another wild ride. I loved the fact that it was commercial-free. Man, between that, Band Of Brothers and Sopranos I'm about THIS close to asking for digital TV of some sort... but we get free cable (more or less) so I can't really complain about paying for crappy programs on basic cable. Oh well.

I was just going through my wish list today for games and I decided I'd post it here. This is more or less the definitive list of what I'm looking forward to over the next 6 months or so. And no, I don't have them all on pre-order :) I just like having a list I can check stuff off of.

What Brock Will Be Saving Up For:

Gamecube Games

Zelda (GC)
Metroid Prime (GC)

GBA Games

Metroid Fusion (GBA)

PS2 Games

Robot Alchemic Drive (PS2)
.Hack (PS2)
Star Ocean 3 (PS2)
XenoSaga (PS2)
Unlimited SaGa (PS2)
Frequency 2 (PS2)
Dynasty Tactics (PS2)
Zettai Zetsumei Toshi (PS2)
Summoner 2 (PS2)
The Lost (PS2)
The Thing (PS2)
The Getaway (PS2)
The Way Of The Samurai (PS2)
Silent Hill 3 (PS2)
Shinobi (PS2)
ZOE 2 (PS2)
Anubis (PS2)
The Two Towers (PS2)

PC Games

Divine Divinity (PC)
Asheron's Call 2 (PC)
Thief 3 (PC)
Deus Ex 2 (PC)
Republic: The Revolution (PC)
Gothic 2 (PC)
AquaNox: Revelation (PC)

X-Box

X-Box System
Steel Battalions w/ controller (XBOX)
Halo (XBOX)
Fable (XBOX)
Jet Set Radio Future (XBOX)
Mech Assault(XBOX)
Panzer Dragoon Orta (XBOX)
Hunter: The Reckoning (XBOX)
Psychonauts (XBOX)
Buffy (XBOX)

I love hearing mainstream media yip about violent games. Especially when they keep talking about how the latest school shooting was because of Doom. Yeah, I'd be killing people too if the only game my crappy computer ran was Doom. (No offence Doug :)

Vice City is sooooo good. I had to do a mission where I flew this little remote control helicopter around dropping bombs off in a construction site. It was great... I can't wait till I get the real chopper. And watching the construction workers and guards either run off the side of the building chasing the chopper or get sliced up with the blades was good fun too.

Did I mention the chainsaw? And the fact that blood spatters hit the screen and ooze down it a bit before fading away? Good fun for all involved ;)

Kill the pop-ups! KILL THEM ALL!

I got 238 before they overwhelmed me.

Vice City is pretty nice so far.

I've discovered 3 simple steps to fun:

1. Get on a moped.
2. Putt down the street and get a good bit of speed going.
3. Hop off the moped and let it fly at a crowd of bystanders!

Good times... good times...

Well, I got Vice City today. Yep, a day early.

Only 3 more days till Vice City (well, Tuesday...)

Well, I traded in Wild Arms 3 the other day and got Tony Hawk 4. Then I saw Suikoden 3 and vowed to wait until sometime in the far future to get it as I was going to work through Suikoden 2 first and then play Vice City and all that jazz.

Well, today is obviously the far future. I ended up getting Suikoden 3 in Wal-Mart of all places... stupid impluse buying... well, that and the guy took it out of the case and told me to take it up to the check-out to see how much it would cost... gee... do you think I'll end up buying it then? Sigh.

I am going to see how long I can hold out and leave it in its packaging though. Now I have it, so that's done and I will have the opportunity to play it. However, I do want to finish Suikoden 2 first and so I'm going to leave 3 wrapped in its packaging until I've finished Suikoden 2.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself!

Sigh.

hmm.

I think I'm going to trade in Wild Arms 3.

I was just loving it last night until I got to this puzzle I just couldn't get past. Then I tried it again this morning and the stuff that wasn't doing anything last night started to work. SO... I played for an hour or so, but now I'm just bored of it. That, and I got to ANOTHER puzzle I"m stuck at.

I will probably see if I can find it used at some point in the future when I am jonesing for a console RPG. But I'm just bored of it right now. 12-13 hours of doing the same thing over and over again. And I could use the exchange credit to either pay off Metroid or most of The Two Towers or some other game...

If Counter-Strike players tried to stage an armed revolt, they'd be too busy trying to talk l33t vocally though.
They wouldn't know how to pronounce all the numbers :)

'u g0 0\/3r th3r3'
'\/\/h4t?'

I was trying to sell my program manager on videogames as a tool to help the moronic staff at the other home develop better problem solving skills.
All I do all day when I'm gaming is really just figuring out one problem, being rewarded with a little bit of story or movie or cool battle, and then moving on to the next problem.
Heck, even the battles teach you tactics or item management, etc.

Grr.

I want to find the guy who wrote this and beat him.

Wait a minute... Marc Saltzman... he's a good gamer news guy.. what's he doing writing this tripe!? Grr...

Ok. This guy has some wierd sites. First you have a bunch of viking kittens, then you have a bunch of jazzy chain smoking kittens who really creep me out. There's something definately wrong with the singing cat. It just looks... wrong.

I've been busy with Wild Arms 3 the last couple days. It's getting quite good. Granted, it's probably more for your hard-core, old-school RPG fan more than anything. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is quite good and has a lot of originality as well as some good features from games such as Skies of Arcadia. I just got a sandship so it's gotten a lot less linear. There are also some REALLY good and brain-scratchingly hard puzzle dungeons to work on if you're bored of smacking demons.

The story's not bad either. It's nothing terribly original, but the mix of Wild West, fantasy (spells and demons) and sci-fi (terraforming and space ships) is pulled off quite well and nothing really sticks out as being too wacky. The graphics are really growing on me too.

Got a horse in Wild Arms 3. Woo! Now I'm a rootin' tootin' cowboy who can lob spells at my freakishly deformed enemies.

The battles on horse are pretty neat. And the game is so far doing a neat job of showing how it's such a bleak and barren world that the characters are living in that good and evil are not clear cut. It's nothing profound, mind you, but it's not like a lot of games where there's you, the good guys, and then everyone else, the bad guys. Heck, I've even had one of the bad guys logically define why, as a result of my character's actions, *I* should be the bad guy.

Not to beat on a dead horse, but MAN, I really want this game.

I finally saw the end of Unforgiven today. One more thing I can tick off my 'To Do Before I Die' list.

Why is that such a big deal? 10 years ago I was out at the movies with my future wife and a few friends. They all went to see "Columbus: 1492". I and a friend went to watch Unforgiven instead. I was sitting there, minding my own business and enjoying the movie when I was pulled out by my friends right before the big shoot-out at the end. The movie went on to win all sorts of awards and I had never gotten around to watching the end of it until today. I finally saw the whole stinkin' movie in one sitting. Ending was ok, but not worth a decade of wondering exactly how it ended :P

I was flipping through the channels today at work and twice stopped on the Country Music Television network... and I'm not a country fan. Why? They've found the way to get geeks to listen to country music. Put giant mecha in their music videos. Sigh. I can't stop watching the new Shania Twain video :(

VERY cool video. But who woulda thunk that country and mecha would go together?

This is an interesting and informative preview of the first direct sequel of a Final Fantasy game: Final Fantasy X-2.

Well, I spent a good few hours tonight playing Wild Arms 3. I've finally started getting at the meat of the game system and it's pretty neat. Looks like it'll be a relatively deep RPG with lots of customization and character improvement... and I love the setting. Wild West meets Final Fantasy. The Cel Shading is pretty snazzy too.