wolves

My dad is on this big 80's kick lately so I've been ripping all these compilation CD's he's been buying. I've had Cruel Summer by Bananarama and In A Big Country by Big Country on repeat lately. It's cool that he's been listening to a lot of 80's stuff because we can have some pretty good discussions about the music since I'm a monster fan of 80's pop.

I'm really hoping that Gamestop will call me today and tell me to come get it at Midnight. If that doesn't happen I won't be able to get it until maybe 5pm tomorrow which means I'll spend the whole day sitting around waiting.

Goddamnit Chris, I thought you were someone else and the spoilers were about Uncharted . At least I only read the first one.

I thought Uncharted 1 was way too frustrating to finish playing. Uncharted 2 was so much better that it makes the first one unplayable for me. It's a short game but so much fun.

Well apparently with Jayden there is a news van with a website that if you google is a real site. Also a phone number.

The planet scanning goes incredibly fast if you get the upgrade and just tap the shoulder button instead of holding it down while you scan.

I saw it today. I never read the book so I wasn't sure what to expect but I figured it out pretty quickly. Good movie, though odd. Some interesting editing techniques as well as the sound design. I look forward to seeing it again when it comes out on Blu-Ray.

Yeah I must admit I'm quite pissed as well at those who have been playing Heavy Rain. Last night I kept looking for live streams of people playing it then shutting my laptop and telling myself I can't. This went on for a while. Then I went to see Shutter Island and it made the desire to play the game worse.

At the same time though, you do it once and you don't have to do it again. 2K has been using the same names for years and it's never been a problem.

When it come to create a players in games I don't know why developers don't just copy what NBA2K does. They have a huge list of first and last names allowing for the announcers to actually call your player by name. UFC should just do that then throw in 50 or so nicknames.

A bunch of idiots started spoiling the game in random posts in Gamefaqs. I tried to avoid them and have since stopped going there totally to avoid it but I think I may have figured it out and now I'm pissed. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I would say that if you can afford it, absolutely pick up Mass Effect 2. It's an absolute stud of a game and I had a blast playing it. If you're worried about being sort of lost without playing the first, I didn't play the first and had no problem keeping up with the story. I would just read a quick plot synopsis for the first one before playing. I bought Fable II last year on the cheap and had a very good time playing it. I finished it in a week and traded it in but I didn't do absolutely everything in the game nor any of the DLC. As far as the GTA DLC, the only one I've finished is Lost & Damned. I quite enjoyed it but I'm also a monster GTA fan so it all depends on if you've had your fill of the game. I have Gay Tony but haven't gotten around to finishing it simply because I became burned out with the series.

I just hope I can get to my Gamestop on Tuesday before the run out of the pre-order bonuses. I'd hate to have to pay for DLC I could have gotten for free.

I actually just got home from running errands and pre ordered it. I was able to get 60 bucks worth of trade in together, so I figured why not.

Well to be honest, I don't really like playing games online to begin with. I only have two people on my Live friends list and I only play with one of them.

Yeah I think I'll be skipping online for UFC 2010. I got really into it with last year's game but I couldn't stand having to deal with idiot opponents who constantly quit.

I played the Heavy Rain demo earlier and really liked it. I have the money to buy a new game but I'm not sure that an 8-10 hour game like Heavy Rain is worth 60 bucks. I doubt I'd play through it again because I never do that with games. I'll probably check the local rental stores and see if anyone has it.

I didn't realise it was out that soon. That means I'll be playing video games for the next three or four months, almost non-stop. February - FIFA 10 Ultimate Team, Heavy Rain March - GTA DLC April - FIFA Road To World Cup May - UFC 2010 Life is hard. Yeah I was thinking about this the other day, figuring that my gaming would cool down for a bit. Then I realized that stuff like Heavy Rain, UFC, MLB 10, and others are coming out. Crap.

When I was little I definitely didn't have any genre I clung to. My dad works at a radio station so I pretty much listened to what he listened to and what was on the station because I was around it so much. So I basically grew up on stuff from the 60's and 70's as it was an oldies station. I remember the only family vacation we ever took was to Motown and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame so oddly I was a young white kid who liked black music of the 60's. Go figure. Then one day I got up really early for school for some reason and flipped on MTV as I watched the music videos before heading off to the bus. The video for Slipknot's "Wait and Bleed" came on and just blew my mind. From then on I was a metal fan. I pretty much listened to stuff like Pantera, Slipknot, and Metallica up until around 5th-6th grade when stuff like Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Sevendust, etc. started to get really popular. I pretty much listened to whatever was trendy at the time, nu-metal whatever it was. Once I started actually playing music I stuck to modern rock and metal but around the time freshman year of High School came I got really into hardcore and metalcore back before it came super over saturated. That's when I started going to local shows and got really into the scene here as we have a big hardcore scene in Syracuse. My tastes have pretty much stayed the same since around my Junior year of high school with some additions. Right now my tastes are really all around and haven't changed in some time. I won't bore you with a list of what I listen to these days but I will say that I have such a love for 80's pop music. I really wish I was born young sometimes but then I think about how I might not have appreciated it at the time like I do now.

Gametrailers has a video up talking about some of the new stuff in 2010 - http://www.gametrailers.com/video/upgrades-interview-ufc-undisputed/61795

I collect vinyl to the best of my ability. I've slowed down over the past three years or so because it got EXPENSIVE. We have a total lack of stores in my area that sell vinyl so I've always relied on the internet. My experience with buying vinyl in person is that it's very much over priced. For some reason, record stores immediately think that it should be almost double what the CD version costs. I think I put down 25 bucks to get Plans by Death Cab for Cutie on vinyl. Most of the stuff that I own is rare as that's all I'm interested in as far as vinyl goes. Anything else I just download. I've focused on things that are tour pressings only, colored, out of print, or test presses. I also have some radio station versions of stuff from the 80's. Lots of times record labels will give you a ton of extras if you buy an album on vinyl instead of CD. Last year when I bought "Static Tensions" by Kylesa I got the deluxe version for maybe 40 bucks. It came with a gatefold double LP case with deluxe version only swirl vinyl plus stickers, a poster, and a patch. It's nice to have stuff like that because it's not regular merch that you can pick up anywhere. Some of the favorite stuff in my collection is a England only single for the song "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears. The actual record is cut into the shape of a four leaf clover. They only printed so many of them (maybe 2000) and it came out in the 1980's. Finding a copy was a pain but I tracked one down in Japan. The guy owned a record store and had a special Tears for Fears display holder for the record with Japanese text on it. I've also got some really limited stuff like a tour only pressings of albums from Ed Gein, Daughters, and Another Breath (that one is number 7 out of 10!). Probably the weirdest thing I have is a record that was never supposed to come out. This band Neil Perry was a screamo band that broke up some time ago. They had this EP ready to go but the record label shut down while pressing the record. They album never came out but they gave away the test presses at random live shows. The songs are on the record but there isn't any label or artwork. I think the only other way to get those songs is through their discography CD. Sorry to ramble on so much about my stuff but I can talk music/records all day. Depending on what kind of music you listen to, if the bands are on smaller labels the labels will usually press everything on vinyl. Buying straight from them ensures and new wrapped copy and like I said earlier, probably some bonuses. If you go the eBay route, you can usually score "lots" which are just tons of records in bulk. I've gotten a few of those and not only will you get hard to find stuff but you'll find new bands. Not to mention you can get lots of hardcore or metal with about 20-30 different bands sometimes for as cheap as 20 bucks.

EA announced it for October-December 2010.

I finished Mass Effect 2 Sunday night. Phenomenal game. I have Assassin's Creed II but really have no desire to play it. I imagine I'll trade it in. Other than Mass Effect I think the last game I fully beat was Uncharted 2 as I never finished the single player mode in Modern Warfare 2. I've got a few games that I can finish like New Super Mario Bros., House of the Dead Overkill, Sam and Max Through Time and Space, and Trauma Center New Blood laying around. Though I'm not tremendously motivated to finish any of them.

I must say that I too am greatly looking forward to this game. I played the hell out of last years and it's nice to see that it will have actual changes and not just be a roster update with some tweaks like some sports series have done. I really hope that the career mode is more than just static menus with horribly generic music playing. Also, I hope they get more than just 4-5 songs to play as you hear them non-stop if you play for any length of time.

I finished the game tonight and was quite pleased with it, though I did feel the post boss cutscene was a little lacking. I'm certainly excited for whatever DLC they put out as well as Mass Effect 3. I was able to get everyone to survive even though Jack wasn't loyal so I was happy with that. I might go through the game again as a total Renegade just for fun but I'll be using my first play through to export to ME3.