Xbox Nation

Alright, so a good friend of mine was in town last week, and we hung out for a while. He's a guy I worked with back in Omaha, and so he still keeps in touch with people we used to work and/or hang out with. He informed me that pretty much all my friends in Omaha now have Xbox 360s. Now, I pretty much swore up and down that I wouldn't buy one unless the price drops, but man I gotta say I'm a little jealous.

Other than the price point, there are no real killer apps for the system, so I still don't need to get one. I'm not sure what game would be a must have for the system. I consider myself more of a casual gamer, anyway.

Burnout Revenge (PS2)

Alright, so my Brother-in-Law bought a couple of PS2 games before he actually bought his PS2. And one of the games he picked up was Burnout: Revenge. I play all kinds of games, and while I don't consider racing games my favorite, I do like playing them, and they make for great two-player games my wife and I can have fun with. I think Rallisport Challenge for the Xbox is probably one of the few games I've played until it is finished.

In any case, I totally dig on Burnout Revenge. Now I've never played any of the other games in this series, so I don't know if they're as exciting, but man this one is fun. My only complaint about this game is that the load times are awfully long. I'm curious if the Xbox version addresses this.

The Warriors (Xbox)

I can't say that The Warriors has been one of my all-time favorite movies, because I'd never seen it from beginning to end until recently. But I picked up the DVD, knowing that Rockstar Games, the creators of the Grand Theft Auto Series, was making a game based on the 1979 cult classic. I was surprised at how much I actually liked the movie, it's more than just a cheesy flick. So wanting the game was a no-brainer.

My wife, actually got me the game for Christmas, and I really like it. While it carries a lot of the gameplay elements from the GTA series, it has its own mood and tone that really sets it apart. It's a great weekend distraction, and since I'm really only a casual gamer, it's made it really fun to start it up, play a mission or two, and then go do something else.

I guess if I had to be disappointed in anything it would be the visuals. There's one in-game cutscene where a train pulls into the train station where the warriors are standing, and the light that comes off of the front of the train, instead of being a real nice translucent lighting effect looks like two big solid white triangles. I thought for sure the GPU in the Xbox could support better shading effects, but maybe not.

All in all, it's a really fun game.

We Heart Katamari (PS2)

For Christmas, I gave my wife We Love Katamari.
We played through the game in one night, but there are so many little nuances to the game, that it has excellent replay value.
The whole idea of the game is just crazy fun. For those of you who have never played it, you roll this ball, called a katamari, around, and collect things.

Things stick to the katamari, to help it grow bigger and bigger, like a snowball. In fact, there's a level in We Love Katamari where you have to push snow and other items around to make a head for a giant snowman. There's just no way to describe how crazy cool the game is. The game is, in fact, a sequel to a game called Katamari Damacy. It takes the gameplay from the original, and expands it, without growing repetitive and boring. As much as I hate to admit it, I decided to use an Action Replay to extend my time on some of the levels just to see how big I could get my katamari after accomplishing the goal of the level.

So, as far as We Love Katamari is concerned, we do, indeed, love it.

Meet the new blog, almost the same as the old blog.

Alright. So here's the scoop. I've got profiles on three different gaming sites, none of which I visit too often, but I do play a lot of video games, so I've decided to try and be more active online.

This blog is just my way of unifying the different blogs on those three websites, in case anyone is interested in my opinion on video games.
I know, they're not.

In any case, I have a profile on 1up.com, another one on gamespot.com, and yet another one on playstation.com.
The Playstation one is kind of tricky. I don't know if there's a way to look at my profile without being logged into the site, but if you own a PS, PS2, or PSP, you probably want to register on that site anyway, because they have some cool news and updates. I also have a profile on Xbox.com.

So feel free to check out those sites, or my personal site, available in my profile.