The Losers

Well if you're looking for some action with a bit of comedy, this movie is a must see. I actually enjoyed watching this. Never got bored even once with the entire movie.

The comedy they used is very refreshing and goes with the vibe of the movie.

If you get a chance to watch this movie, definitely watch it.

Where the Wild Things Are

Started and finished this game fairly quickly. I haven't seen the movie yet, so now I'm curious if the movie follows the game. If so, it doesn't really follow the book but the book is short in comparison to a movie and they added a bunch of stuff in the middle.

This game has collectibles but everyone said don't worry as you'll get a cheat later on. Well in order to get the cheat you want in order to find all the items on a board, you have to find everything on a certain item to unlock that cheat. So as you're running through, you still need to try to find everything you can and towards the end of the game, you'll start unlocking all the cheats. At least when you're running back through, you can run until you find it and not worry about looking everywhere again.

The gameplay is very simple and not hard at all. Fighting and saving the monsters gets a little harder later on but all you need to remember is, not die of course, but keep knocking the black stuff off the monsters so they will stay up and not get pulled down into the ground.

So in about 10-12 hours you should be able to knock this game out fairly easy.

Green Zone

Had another movie come in from Netflix that was not near the top. They are getting as bad as Gamefly when it comes to shipping out movies you want. I got around to watching it yesterday.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was during the Saddam period where we were looking for the chemical weapons. The movie did a great job showing how things probably were over there and what Americans were going through.

The action was really good. Any FPS fan is going to enjoy it because some of the scene's reminded me some parts in some games I've played. It made it more intrigueing if anything else.

If you like war movies and got 2 hours to spend, I'd watch this movie at some point.

Death Proof

So I watched Grindhouse: Death Proof a couple days ago. I wanted Grindhouse with the girl with the shotgun leg but my wife had added this to the Netflix que saying it was part of some how. I don't think so but I won't know until I get Grindhouse.

The first thing that made me laugh in the movie was when I put it in. First thing that popped up on the screen said, "This disc is for retail sale only". I thought that was pretty funny considering it came from Netflix as a rental.

The movie overall I was not really impressed with. I almost cut it off and quit watching a few times. I watched until the 1 hour mark and that's when the wreck happened that they rewinded and showed what happened which each person in the car died. That caught my attention enough to finish it as it went to 14 months later after that. Figured I'd get to see another wreck which would have been worth seeing.

Well, the last 30 minutes is the best part of this movie. From that point on to the end I enjoyed every bit of that part of the movie. It took it that long for it to get good. So if you wanted to fast forward to the car scenes in the movie, you would be good to go and only waste about 40 minutes instead of 2 hours on this movie.

Start the Party

Start the Part is a PlayStation 3 Move game. It's a bunch of mini games where up to 4 players can play. The graphics are clean and crisp but nothing overwhelming. The move controllers to work very well in the game and follow you precisely for where you are moving.

Just starting the game up, it's not to bad of a game, but it would keep young kids entertained for awhile. As an adult. It's only going to take a few games and you are going to grow tired of it very quickly. It gets repetitive and that's what drags it down.

One thing that really bugs me about the game is no matter if you pick 5, 8, or 10 rounds to play. When you get to the final round of the game. The winner of that round wins. All the stars you earn up to that point just give you more time to score higher. If someone is really good and you're not at the game that comes up with close times whether you have the lead or not, they can win by that last round. Seems unfair to me.

I went after all the trophies in the game and got my first platinum with this game. Most are going to be pretty easy to get. There are a few time consuming ones. Then their are some annoying ones that are hard. The one with the 3 strike rounds are annoying as you have to play an 8 round game for a 3 strikes round to show up. If you don't get the trophy associated with that game, plan to play for another 1.5 hours just to get that mini game to show back up again. It got old quick as one of the hard trophies to get is a 3 strikes round trophy.

First time playing, it'll be fun and any kids that jump into it will enjoy it. If you're not a kid, it's a play to see, maybe get all the trophies and get rid of the game. That's all there is to say about this game.

I Need to Post

I need to start posting up as I've had plenty to post but just haven't taken the time to post. Finished a PS3 game for my first platinum trophy. Which helped me get to level 6. Been wrapped up in Yu-Gi-Oh but finally played some Pinball FX2 and got some achievements. Got to start working on my games to be able to trade in to get Gran Turismo 5. I want to get Dead Nation on the PS3 as well. Christmas is almost here. Thanksgiving was a blast. Writing up a walk through for TA on a game.

So a short post just to get me back to posting again.

Disney Vacation

Finally back from a week long vacation at Disney. Had a blast and the girls loved it. We went to Magic Kingdom on Monday, Animal Kingdom on Tuesday, dined with Chef Mickey in the morning on Wednesday morning, then dined with Cinderella, Prince Charming, the evil step mother and her 2 daughters Wednesday night, went to Hollywood Studios on Thursday, Sea World on Friday, and finally stopped by Downtown Disney eating at the T-Rex restaurant before driving home.

So tired each day and very sore from all the walking around. Especially since we ended up carrying our 3 year old a bunch.

Most everything is cleaned and put away. I have 2 days of work this week and then I'm off for Thanksgiving.

The interesting part is when my friend who was watching our cats called me up Saturday night and told me to check out my games. Went and looked, Assassin's Creed II was setting in the pile. He said he couldn't resist and he has been wanting me to play this game. He won a Ebay auction for $4 for the game. I couldn't have let that pass either. So looks like I'll be playing Assassin's Creed II on my PS3 instead of the Xbox 360. No complaints here. I've been playing both systems equally here recently.

CompTIA Security + Certified

As of today I'm officially CompTIA Security+ Certified.

My company paid $1400 bucks for me to get into a boot camp class that lasted for 4 days. It was supposed to be from 8-5 but I didn't leave until 6 or after each night. Came home, didn't each supper, did some stuff around the house and studied until I was too tired to study anymore.

So today I went in, we finished covering everything that was left, took a short 30 minute break and took the test.

My nerves had been shot all week as all the pretest we took I was the lowest scoring and wasn't quite making it up to the average I should be in order to pass the test. The teacher knew I was going to take it anyway but her recommendation was to study for 1 more week then take it.

Even last night my daughter woke us up at 12, 1, and 2. Couldn't get any sleep, so was already tired today. My wife was awesome enough to go into the room and sleep on her bed with her the rest of the night. She's so AWESOME!!!!

So I take the test and get through all 100 questions in about 70 minutes and had about 20 minutes to review over some. I changed at least 4 of them. The last one I changed was under the 5 minute mark. I knew I had picked the wrong answer when I realized I misread the sentence and was thinking of the wrong port.

The test ended and everyone in the class came over as I was the last one still taking it. The teacher was up front. I got through the survey at the end and when the screened popped up, all I heard was OMG! I was like what, what. Then I realized my screen showed CONGRATULATIONS on it. Then I looked at my score. You get 100 points just for setting down take the test. To pass this test, you have to get 750 points. I seriously had a score of 750. I've got the paper to prove it. I shouted to the top of my lungs and everyone was giving me high fives. Even the lady who registered me up came and congratulated me. It was awesome to get that score and pass. Granted my scores had increased over the tests for the past 4 days but it wasn't enough to where I should have passed.

Praise the Lord on this one.

So now what am I going to do? I'm going to Disney. I'm leaving Sun for the entire week.

See Ya!

Witnessed an Accident today

Was out doing some quick shopping before we went to a fall festival and trick or treating.

Was waiting to to go to drive over to the mall when I looked left and said, that car is going way to fast. No sooner than I said that, the guy driving slammed into the side of a car crossing the road. His car came to a complete stop when he hit and the back end of the car went up in the air.

The car crossing drifted on down the street some. I jumped out of my car and ran to the guy driving that hit the car. Asked me if he was alright and he said no. The car was still coasting and heading towards my car. I turned the steering wheel to the curb and got the car to stop. All the while the car is smoking bad on the outside and inside. I was afraid it was going to catch fire. A lady came up, which I found out later she was a nurse, and told me not to move him and check under the hood to see what the smoke was. Couldn't really determine what it was but a fireman came up and we tried to get the hood up but it was jammed shut. Finally figure out the transmission oil was what was smoking. Along with the air bag stuff in the car that had deployed.

Interesting part is the first policeman to show up was from Warner Robins county but his jurisdiction was on the road I was on. The accident happened on the main road so I had to wait on the Centerville police to come and take a report.

We were the main ones to see the accident. So I verified somethings with the other drivers and none of them saw everything I did. So I told them I had it covered for the police report and let the go.

The girl that got hit wasn't hurt but was really shaken up. She was actually on her way to get her hair done for a wedding she was in today. The bride actually showed up at one point. I had to give them a recap as they had no idea what really happened.

The guy driving the other car got a neck brace, put on stretcher, placed into the ambulance and went to the hospital to be checked out. He was really out of it when I first got to him and I was the first one to get to the car. He still seemed out of it when he left.

If I get a sapenia (can't spell that) in the mail, I will have to go to court to testify on it. If not, I'll never see or hear anything about this ever again.

Resistance 2

Well, they announced Resistance 3 and I've gone back to playing Resistance 2 again. This game never gets old and it's just as fun now as it was the first time I opened up the box. This is the best co-op game you'll ever play. The only other one that compares is the old Delta Force games on the PC.

This game has a good story and I haven't even played the first game yet. I'm going to have to pick that up and run through it so I know the story from the beginning. Kinda like how I'm doing FEAR and FEAR 2 right now. Beat the first one and on the 2 one now. Only I'll have to go in reverse order since I picked up Resistance 2 first.

The co-op mode is done right though. You have 3 classes and you need all 3 in the game working together to make it work. If not, you'll die and never finish a mission. You have a Gunner, Assault, and Medic. You can play with up to 8 players. If you find a good team and coordinate decently, it will help you get through the missions easier. Each class can level up and get better stuff the higher level they get. Level 30 is when you stop getting things. However, their is a trophy for hitting level 50, so getting to 20 might mean playing on a higher difficulty for more experience to get their faster. So everyone needs to be at a high level to try superhuman mode.

The single player won't disappoint you either. It has a great story involved with it and it has some hard sections on it. I've beat it on easy and hard so far. When I beat it on hard, I unlocked Super Human mode. I started it up but haven't played very far into it. I will go back and finish it though as their is a trophy for beating it on super human mode. Plus the campaign will help me rack up experience.

Speaking of experience, this game tracks all kinds of stuff and your experience from each type of mode you can play is tracked separately: single player, cooperative, and competitive. Then all 3 are combined for an overall rank of what your current status is in the game. Which at a certain level you get a trophy. It tracks all your kills, deaths, ratio, kills per weapon, and on. All kinds of stuff to look at in this game.

You definitely need to check out this game out if you own a PS3. You won't be disappointed.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Over the holiday weekend I watched the new Nightmare on Elm Street remake. It has been a long time since I've watched this movie so I don't remember everything about the movie that was in the original.

So with that in mind, I thought it was pretty good and enjoyed watching it again. Some parts stuck out but those are the unforgettable parts. Some things just always stick in your head when you see them.

I think they did a great job of making it look like a current movie while still keeping everything in tack from what I did remember of the movie. and that's that.

The Hunger Games

My wife had been wanting to read a book along side me and this is the book we started reading on.

I must say Suzanne Collins did good job in writing this book.  It's still popping back up in my head even after finishing it almost 2 weeks ago.  So it has to be descent if it does that to me.

I'm pretty much going to spoil some of the story but I'll try to sum it up instead of telling it all so you'll want to read it

The book is based off in the future a little ways and there are different cities that have still survived but nobody really goes out into the wilderness.  They all stay in the city but this one girl goes and hunts in the wilderness to survive.  However nobody seems to live extraordinary lives but maybe a few people in the city.


The girl is the main focus in the book and she takes the place of her sister for this hunger game where they drew her name.  The main city hosts these games every year to prove a point of not revolting and get to the point of destroying each other.  Which is pointed out in the past and one city is completely destroyed from a war.  The Hunger Games puts 2 young kids from each city in an arena and they fight until all but one is dead.  The arena is by no means small.  It's a huge area and is sectioned off.  They have cameras everywhere and flying hovercraft machines that just appear out of no where to collect the dead bodies.

Before the games start up though it builds up the contestants and they try to win the heart of the crowd to get sponsors to receive items in the arena.  It's a good build up and you can tell the main city is better off than any other city around.

You will learn during the fighting and the talks that all the other cities are like the main city you started out in where most people are starving all the time and are barely making it by.

Of course since the book is focused on the girl, you know she wins but it's not the normal winning that happens.  Which is when the real games begin and the book ends when they arrive back in their home city.

Which makes you really want to read the next couple of books to see where this will end up and play out.

Definitely worth the read if you like reading books.

PS3 Move Party

Behind like 2 weeks getting this post up but rolling through some today.

The party went great.  Rearranged my living room which worked out good giving more room behind me than having the couch there.

Most of the younger kids looked at and admired the Eyepet walking in and then ran off to our kids play room.  They didn't really play much.  We did have 2 boy a little older than most the group and they played the whole time.  Got them through most everything on Eyepet we had unlocked and then got them started on a Start the Party game.  They enjoyed and some of the other kids came out and played some as well on and off.

The adults really liked the Eyepet and how everything worked with it.  Like how it picking up moving my hand in the air and it jumping, to rubbing it, and all the different types of interaction you could have with it.

Finally kicked the kids off and played with a friend of mine on a bunch of download-able demos that were available to play.

I'm the guy on the right in case you're wondering.

Here's a review of all the games played.

EyePet

• The eye cam has to be low to the ground.  Doesn’t work up on top of your television.
• The pet looks good but the camera puts a blue tint on the screen where you see yourself.  I think it’s to let it recognize movements better somehow as I saw another game put a less darker blue tint on as well.
• Lots of challenges to unlock and do in the game in order to do unlock everything.
• Kids enjoying the drawing part with the motion controller.
• Holding paper up to the screen for it to read and draw doesn’t work all that well.  Using a thick marker helps some but the camera reading it is still an issue.
• Game unlocks things as you go but you have to do the challenge mode of it first to actually unlock it.  So you see it unlock but you can’t do it yet.  That part of the game moves to fast for you to keep up with what all it shows you that you can do.

Start the Party

• Bunch of silly party games. 
• Easy to do. 
• Fun for little kids.
• Have to take turns using one motion controller.
• Can tell it will get boring after a short time.

Echochrome ii Demo

• Neat game with the shadow complex.
• Way too much talking in the demo.  Hardly got to play any boards.
• Can tell it will get hard at some point and I even tricked it once and skipped over making the actual picture and got the guy in the door.

The Shoot Demo

• You’re shooting a film with a director saying good and bad things on what you’re doing.
• You only use the T button to shoot objects on the screen which are cardboard bad guys and objects.
• It’s a little fun but couldn’t play 2 players on the demo.
• Would be a good game to rent but not worth a retail price.

Sports Champions Demo

• The accuracy in this game is amazing.
• It only came with Frisbee golf and ping pong.
• Would be worth owning for a mix of a different type of normal sport games.
• Have to resync on each game with the controller when you start the game again even while still in it.  That got old quick.
• Probably the best demo I have played yet.

Kung Fu Rider Demo

• You ride around on a rolling office chair doing certain moves to get through the obstacle course.
• Controls don’t always seem to go like you want them too.
• Got semi bored with it but looks like it could get hard later on down the road.  Not sure why people seem to have extremely liked this game as it didn't pull me in that much.

Beat Sketcher Demo

• My kids loved this.
• Only can create in this demo.  I wanted all the other options.
• Music plus drawing on screen is a good combo.
• Actual music playing overrides the sound when you’re drawing.  Need to turn that down.
• Will probably end up buying this just for the kids.

TV Superstars Demo

• Was very boring.
• Crazy super big heads and over exaggerated facial expressions.
• This game shows no appeal and I don't know why anyone would want it.

RUSE Demo

• The only demo I had where I needed a navigation controller and I had to use my gamepad to play since I didn't get a navigation controller with the box.
• Slow strategy war game.
• Could be fun if you’re into that sort of thing.
• Got a little bit of a learning curve to figure out how to play the game.  Lots of things to do and remember to fully perform good in the game.

Racquet Sports Demo

• Played tennis on it but the accuracy compared to the Sports Champions demo sucks.  They should have taken some advice from them.  It doesn’t have any where near the accuracy like Sports Champions does.  
•  I didn’t think my tennis game was ever going to end so we just quit playing.
• Steer clear of this game.

Tumble Demo

• The strategy in this looks like it could get hard and fun all in one.
• It’s a slow paced game but you get wrapped up in trying to stack the blocks to do what it’s asking you to do.
• You get to do more than just stacking.  I got to use mines to blow up some blocks as well to have them fall over for points.
• The game has more to offer and would be worth getting to see what all you'll be able to do.

So I had a successful party to say the least.  Even had snacks for everyone to munch on throughout the afternoon.  I think we need to do another one.  I wonder if they'll do a Kinect one.  It would make my day if they did and we got in on it.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lighning Thief

Watched this movie a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it.  Wasn't over the top and the fact it's made from a book makes the books more appealing to read now.  I might have to dive into them at some point.

The movie is pretty much about the sons/daughters of the gods.  Which include Zeus and the gang. Someone stole Zeus's lightning bolt, another god gets blamed and a war is about to start.  So a boy is blamed, they find him and the story begins to unravel on what he is and what all he can do.

It turns out to be an epic adventure for them and they even make it down into the underworld.

It's a neat concept for the way things are mixed into the real world but not quite sure how things are hidden and how regular humans forget seeing some things.

Past that, enjoy if you like a good story line with mythical gods.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Everyone hears about Batman: Arkham Asylum and that it's a must play game.  It is definitely worth playing as it not based from any movie and they made up their own story.  The fact you're locked down to an island you wouldn't think you would be able to go to many places.  Well this island is pretty big and you have a bunch of different sections with ways in and out of some.  You probably won't even grasp the concept of how small the island really is until you start running around trying to find all the riddles if you're going for that achievement.

The graphics are the part you're really going to enjoy.  They did a fantastic job.  You will however bring up a detective mode that turns the screen into an x-ray.  It's great for finding riddles, weakness in walls and more.  When you bring up this mode though you won't see the awesome graphics this game has and you'll end up using detective mode more and more.  It's a great and handy tool but it takes away from the game some in my opinion, especially when you're running all over the island with it on to find riddles.  It will get old having it on.

Another thing to note which is probably the best part of the game to me is when you die and yes you'll die.  If you don't, you should at least a few times on each of the areas where the villains are.  Yea, sounds crazy but when you die, the villain pops up making fun of you for dieing.  At that point you can really see the detail that went into this game.  Plus this is the only time you can get to see these small little cut scenes as well.  Each villain has a few different things to say and it's worth dieing to hear them.  Joker is the main one that always comes up as the island is his, so he's the default.  Harley will come up some to the point of her capture and then she's out of the picture.  So be sure to check those out and die when you come across them.

All the music and sounds in the game are on key.  That's all that's needed to be said as they make the game give you those feelings of what could happen, somethings about to happen and crack, bet that one hurt.

One you finish up the single player campaign, their is another mode to play called challenge mode.  It puts you in a brawl match for 4 rounds which gets hard when they start pulling out machine guns on you.  The hard part with this mode is you have to get a really high combo to raise your score up to get all 3 batarangs.  Those scores are not easy to get.  Their is also have predator mode where you sneak around killing guys on the board.  However you must perform 3 different types of actions to get the 3 batarangs score.  It is different for every board.  You can get a total of 24 batarangs in each board, so that's 9 boards each you have to beat.  Plus you can't die or it won't count.

Which now leads me to the one thing I really hate about this game.  It's the combo fighting stuff you have to pull off.  Don't get me wrong, the combat moves for fighting built into this game are great.  It is actually done very well.  However I can not pull off these combo's in the game to save my life.  Learning to jump, not hit the button to fast, not hitting it fast enough, avoiding getting it, and just everything else about it.  I can fight and do what I need but actually keeping the combo going to get a high score and raise the combo's up is nearly impossible for me.  Their needs to be a way to make it easier to do this so you can better time it out to make it happen or don't make achievements requiring you to do this.

Overall this is a game worth playing and #2 is being made so I'll definitely have to look at playing it for sure.

Resident Evil Extinction

Just got through watching Resident Evil Extinction.  Enjoyed it like all the rest but I would say it's not the best in the series.

Looks like she's still developing herself and will be able to do more.  They leave off with what looks to be a action packed movie in the making.  Which should be the one in the theaters now that I definitely want to see.  The new one in the theaters now looks to go in line with the RE5 game. 

However I didn't realize they put out a CGI movie called Resident Evil Degeneration.  I'm going to have to get and watch that now to see what it's about.

So this movie is worth the watch if you like the Resident Evil movie franchise.

Updating my Blog

As you can see I've done a bunch of changes and I've been trying to fix some stuff on my site this afternoon.  I thought it really messed it up in which I had to walk away and when someone else looked at it, they said it was fine.  So hopefully when I can get back to check it again it will look right for me as well.

I've had plenty of stuff to write about and I hope I don't forget by the time I get around to writing about them.  Been so busy lately that writing something is the last thing I've even thought about doing.  Hopefully I can get some new stuff up soon.

Recover Your True Achievement Guides

Thanks to Fafhrdd he showed me a cool way to get my guides back or at least a good amount of them.  So yeah for bringing back my Ace Combat 6 guides I wrote up with much detail that I couldn't do without replaying the game again.

So here is what you do.  Bring up www.google.com

Type in:


ZeroDesolation site:trueachievements.com -forum "achievement in"

Of course change my gamertag to yours and click Search.

Just look for the links with "achievement in" on the subject line and not in the text below it.  When you find one, right click and open in new tab or window, and scroll down to see if your guide is still there.  If it's not, on that link you just clicked on, bring up the cached info at the end of the text on that link.  It will have your guide in it.  Just copy and paste it on the other tab/window and save it to put your guide back where it was.

It might take a few pages to get through and find them but it will be worth it and you'll be done before you know it.

Thanks Fafhrdd!

UPDATE 10/5/10
 
DJP519 let me know that if you can't find all your solutions on Google to do the same thing on Bing and you might find your missing guides.  Also to note you better do it sooner than later because once they run a new update on those pages, your guides will be gone as the new cached info will be the current page.  At which point your guides will be non recoverable.

Verizon Ticked me off Today

Was out and decided to swing by the Verizon store tonight.  Was looking at getting the new Samsung Fascinate phone since my discounted upgrade came up.  We waited and waited and waited.  it was finally closing time and all the names went off the line on the screen.  Found out someone wrote the names down.  We got skipped over 5 times and I confronted the guy on why he skipped us.  He said he called our name and I said no you didn't.  The guy didn't have a loud voice so he can't be heard that well and until he got like half way down the list, he started walking around asking everyone on the names.  So I was already mad.

So got to talking and looking as the deal was if you buy a Fascinate you can get any other phone in the store free.  I knew I would get it but Destiny had to figure out what she wanted.  Ended up wanting the same one I did.  Go to the counter and then it's we can't give you the free phone unless the other line is up for promotion as well.  That's not what your advertisement says so now we're stuck and they are pitching the add a line for $10 a month and you can get the phone and move your phone over to that one.  We're talking, debating if we want that $240 over the next 2 years taken away from us on the phone.  We also have to take into account that now we can't sell one of the phones we are currently using because the 3rd line has to be tied to a phone.

It's a tough decision but we decided we can probably make it work.  So go back to the counter and the lady then tells us that we have to have internet on the other phone because you have to put it on that new # when you're buying it.  I told her to wait a second because I'm not getting something.  They are forcing me to put internet on the phone that I don't have internet on.  She says all new plans are forced to have it and come next year, it's not even going to be an option.  Then she had the audacity to say this is how we're going to upgrade and get to a 4G network.  That was the deal breaker right there.  Not only is it going be another $10 on the new line with our current phone, so it's adding another $20 to our bill and for 2 years, that's $480.  Now they are forcing me to pay so they can upgrade their technology.  I'm sorry, that's a hit you have to take and then reclaim as time goes by.  Not the other way around.

Needless to say at that moment in time we both thought the same thing.  God does not want us to get these phones and if we do, heaven forbid will be sorry if we did take that crazy deal.  We are both ready to drop Verizon and even look at AT&T or Sprint now.  2 year contract ends in Apr so we have time until we can do anything.  Windows 7 Phones will be fully out by then for sure on every provider unless someone will play for us to get out our contract.  Which I might have to call and ask just to see if another provider is willing to do that.

Prince of Persia: The Sand of Times

I wanted to go see this in the theater but never made it.  Not even when it hit the $2 theater here in town.  I finally got to watch it last week though.

I enjoyed watching the movie.  I thought I was going to see a little bit more action and more use of the dagger.  Maybe they'll make a 2nd one which would have to be an action flick but they would need a good story to go along with it if they made it.  Guess I'll need to grab the game to get some fighting in.  I'll have to add that to my list to get at some point in time.

They picked a good cast to play the parts.  I like Jake Gyllenhall as the main character.  He seems to fit the role well.  Especially with the quirky little jokes throughout the movie.  I just got through seeing Gemma Arterton in Clash of the Titans, so I was happy to see her in another movie so soon.  Everyone knows Ben Kingsley.  He's the villain in this film or the mastermind behind all that is happening.  I didn't even realize Alfred Molina was in the movie until later.  I just didn't recognize him while watching the movie.  Guess being dressed up with shaggy clothes and a beard on threw me off.  That or his obsession with Ostriches.  He has a good line in the movie though. 

"Hey! Hey, over here! HA! You know what they say about men with big swords?
[snickers and wiggles a bent pinky finger]

The story was very good and you didn't lose track of what was going on.  If you're wanting action though, this is more story line based that fighting.  It does have some good scenes on fighting that are enjoyable but it's not an action flick if that is what you're looking for.

Hopefully everyone will enjoy the movie like me but a lot won't.  Watch it and see for yourself before you knock it.

PS3 Move Party Box Has Arrived

I had mentioned before that my wife got in on a hosting house party for the PS3 online.  We made it into the second one since the first one they had was so popular that it had filled up really fast.  So been waiting for the box to arrive for our house party on the 25th of Sept.

Looked at Fedex this morning and it showed on the truck for delivery but the date at the top changed from today to Tuesday of next week.  Called fedex and the guy said it didn't go through some scanner part so it got pushed back.  Yea right!  Got home from cheer leading with my daughter at it was setting on the front porch.

Here's the box being opened, then everything that came in the box, and then something cooler than the PS3 Move once we figured out what it was.

This is everything that came in the party box:

• 2 Playstation Move controllers
• Playstation Eye Camera
• EyePet game
• Start the Party game
• 2 coupons for 2 free 12 packs of coca-cola
• EyePet activity book and crayons
• EyePet tumblers
• PS Can Holder 
• Bunch of different type of info cards to give everyone that comes over

That's over $220+ value for all that.  Was not expecting that.  All that's left is the Playstation Navigation Controller and I'll be set.


We have 15 of thsoe PS Can Holders.  We had no idea what it was when we first looked at it.  Finally saw where it says can holder inside the curve of the device.  Went to grab a can and hooked it on.  It locks on tight and is the coolest thing ever.  It literally makes it like you're drinking for a coffee mug or a glass with a handle.  It works great and it fits really tight on the can.  So no need of it slipping off.  I think I got more excited about that than opening up the box.  8)



The EyePet game was interesting but it was hard for my kids to get the screen to read what they were doing.  They were getting a little frustrated with it.  There is a good bit of stuff to do with it, so will have to play some more during the week to unlock more to see what the game has.


Start the Party is a simple game of taking turns to see who can do the best on very simple challenges.


If you can't tell, this is all geared toward kids more than adults.  Which is what we have mostly invited over for Saturday.  So everything should work out good.  Will see how long it holds the other kids attention when a group of them is here.


There are a bunch of demo's up online and I've been downloading all of them to have a variety to check out to see how things work.  Still have a few more to go.  Some are neat but I'm getting bored with them quick as it's a repeat of the Wii.  Which they will have those games to go against them.  Gotta steal their business.  Still haven't tried the sports one yet to see if it plays better or not.  That will happen later on during the week when time permits.


The Playstation Eye video quality isn't very good.  I'm really not impressed with it at all.  I can't even see anyway to focus or make it better yet.  Going to have to look into that to see if I can make it better.  If I can, maybe it'll help out some on the EyePet game and pick up my kids movements better.


Overall for about 3-4 hours of getting it all hooked up, charged, and playing games.  For anyone just starting, it'll be cool.  If you've already done the Wii thing though, you're not going to be as impressed.  I'm looking for that game that says, this is why it's worth buying the PS Move.

Old Dogs

My wife wanted to watch this movie but the only thing I could remember about it was Seth Green singing and a gorilla shaking him to make him sing again.  So was looking for a funny movie.

Once the story gets laid down and things start rolling, this movie gets really funny.  I was laughing pretty hard from midway to the end of the movie.  Robin Williams, John Travolta, Seth Green, and Kelly Preston are in the movie.  Bernie Mac also makes a short appearance.  Which something that is kinda comical to me is John Tavolta is married to Kelly Preston but she is with Robins Williams in the movie.  Just a funny tidbit I thought I'd share.

To make a quick summary of the movie, Robin Williams finds out he's a dad because the Kelly Preston is going to jail for two weeks.  He ends up with the kids and falls in love with them.  Not without a learning curve of course and John Travolta is their with them to help out.  Which wasn't really what he wanted and got sucked into himself.

Definitely worth renting this for a good night of laughs.

Jennifer's Body

I'm sure the title alone will make most guys want to watch this movie as it's Megan Fox were talking about.  Well, don't get your hopes up as it's not going to show you anything like that.

I try not to spoil movies but I am this one.  A rock bank kills Jennifer thinking she's a virgin to gain fame and glory by going to the devil.  Only problem is if you're not a virgin, a demon possess the body and eats the flesh of humans for the remainder of it's life.  That's what this film is about but you don't figure this out until the end.  So sorry but it's just an ok movie and nothing to go run out to grab as a got to watch this.

Seeing Adam Brody from The O.C. in the movie was interesting though as he was the lead rock band singer.

I recongize Amanda Seyfried from some TV shows my wife has watched and a couple other movies.

So you might know 3 of the actors in the movie.  Everyone acted the parts out good in the movie.

What mostly caught my attention though was the music.  Especially when I heard the song A Kiss With a Fist by Florence and the Machine.  All the songs seemed like they would be good through out the movie.  So I went to check out the soundtrack and it's pretty good.  I can actually hit play and not really skip any songs as it's playing.  I enjoy CD's like that.  So the soundtrack might be worth your while to check out if you don't watch the movie.

Frozen

Set down to watch Frozen earlier in the week with the wife.  I wasn't really expecting much out of this movie considering it looked like the entire thing took place on a chair lift.  It just didn't seem like it was going to be any good so I didn't have high hopes for the film.

However, the movie actually turned out to be a pretty good movie.  It kept me entertained and had me cringing on some of the parts it showed.  It's not every day you get to see bones pop out someones legs.  Still get shivers thinking about that part.  Their are a few more parts that will make cringe some more as well.  They did a really good job on those parts.  Even if you don't like the movie, it'll be worth watching to see those parts.

This movie is worth the rent if you're trying to find something this weekend to watch.  I'd definitely recommend it to anyone.  If you've seen it or watched, leave a comment so I'll know what you thought of the movie.

Xbox 360 HD for $56.22

A friend of mine showed me this and he ordered one.  I'm waiting for him to get it in the mail.

It looks to be legit even though shipping seems take some time for it to show up in the mail.  In the end this is a hard deal to pass up if you're needing a bigger hard drive on your Xbox 360.

Head over to this site as they have quite a bit of stuff for sale at descent prices.

http://www.priceangels.com/250GB_Hard_Disk_Drive_Module_for_Xbox_360__Black__p2530.html

Pure

Do you like ATVs? Do you like racing? Do you like doing tricks in mid air on ATVs? If you answered yes to all those, you will enjoy playing Pure as that's what this game is all about. What's even harder to believe is that Disney made this game. Which is one of the reasons I grabbed it to see how they did on making a racing game.

So sit down, pull the gas, and enjoy some fun/hard racing in Pure. You'll go through 4 classes of ATVs. D, C, B, and A. Which A is the best.

You can build your ATV from scratch, modify it, change the design, mix up the stickers, and upgrade your ATV through out the game. There is an easy way to build your ATV for race or tricks depending on what you're doing. Just gotta hold down the button and it will do it all for you if you don't want to mess with making one each time you build one.

You will race through a World Tour event doing Sprints, Races, or Freestyle.

Sprint: Short tracks to see who can finish the race first.
Race: Long tracks to see who can finish the race first.
Freestyle: Pull off tricks and combo's to boost your score to see who can have the highest score before you run out of gas.

All three race types are fun and enjoyable to play. It does get harder to win on some of the later on but that's only because you will need to learn the tracks and find the shortest way around it. Once you figure that out, you'll be in the top every time.

You'll be captivated by the scenery in which you can't just stop to look around or you'll lose the race. That or you'll run off the mountain. You even might just crash into the side of a rock or tree. So keep your eye on the track as you can take different paths on every track race. Some are optimal for time and some are better for jumps to get more tricks in.

Once you finish up the world tour you will be able to perform all the tricks in the game. Which is a lot considering A is for easy tricks, B is for medium tricks, and Y is for hard tricks. Not only do you push a button, but you push a direction on the analog stick to perform the trick. So that's 8 directions per letter. Which is 24 tricks but WAIT! You can also click and hold in the RB or LB buttons to perform special tricks on top of those. So that's 24 more tricks for a total of 48 tricks in the game. However, you have a meter in the game that builds up. Once it's maxed out, you can perform special tricks for each rider in the game. Yes some are the same but they each have their own individual tricks. Plus left and right tricks count differently as your rider does the trick to that side of the ATV. So you have 8 more tricks you can do on top of the 48 plus more for each rider. Then you perform a full 360 forward and backwards trick by tapping forward or back twice and holding it for 2 more tricks. What's even better is all those different types of tricks are achievements. So if you want all 1000 in this games, you're going to get to see and do all those tricks. Sad part is you'll have to do some of them in one race of the World Tour event. Which are the hardest achievements in the game.

This game does include online and people are still racing today online. Some are ungodly good and can nail freestyle tricks in places you wouldn't think of doing that type of trick there. So you can have some fun racing online if you're looking for that. If you're looking for achievements, just get a friend to help ya knock them out quickly and you'll be done in an hour with that or less.

Overall, enjoyed the game. When trying to finish up all 1000, I got very frustrated and quit playing it. Was ready to get rid of it say forget that 1000. Couple friends got it, did the achievements I was trying to get, got a push, got some advice and finished it up. YEAH! So thanks for the help and good luck to all who get this game.

Clash of the Titans

I remember watching the first Clash of the Titans movie when I was a kid growing up. It was just one of those movies I wore out and would watch it anytime it came on TV. So now they have done a remake of it and I finally got around to watching it.

It seems a lot of people didn't like the movie. I enjoyed watching it. Yes, things changed from the original but that's to be expected. They are trying to bring it up to date and put their on twist on it. So if you're trying to compare, sure I'll say I like the first one is better over the new one any day of the week. However the new one was still a descent movie in its own reguards.

The movie does follow the same story line and they did a good job on the details for all the animated portions of the movie. Being able to get the details down and do the changes they did turned out very well. Especially with the Titans.

I'm not going to dive into this but wanted a post on it since I got around to watching it. That and I enjoyed it so much as a kid, I wanted a post on it. So if you're looking for a movie to watch with this type genre, it will be worth picking up on a boring weekend with nothing going on. If you're looking for some over the top movie, this isn't going to bring that for you. Go grab 300 and watch it instead.

Resident Evil 5

If you've never played a Resident Evil game then you're going to feel like I do on this game.

The graphics in the game are extremely good. That is going to pull you in as they did an excellent job. When someone slings their head and opens their mouth to holler at you. Then you see it split open in to 4 pieces like a clover with drool, teeth and a nasty snarl. Even better when the guy on the bike rides by and tries to bite you with his mouth. Which is what they all want to do in this game; bite you or beat you to a bloody pulp. The graphics in this game are not going to let you down in the slightest.

The story line flows rather good as well. It's good but after you beat it once, that back button on your controller will help you skip all the cinematic's faster.

Speaking of the cinematic's, they show up through out the game and pop up quite frequently. Which the cinematic's look just like the game but you're not controlling the guy or girl at that point. However some cinematic's do enforce the timed button smashing to complete it. Which you are going to find out that you hate. Mainly because you know you hit the button but the game doesn't register it. It gives you about a second to hit it, if that, or it won't count. Especially when you have to hit X and A together. If it's not you, then it's your partner hollering that he hit the button, he knows he did. Yet you're dead on the screen and starting all over from the beginning to try again.

Which having a partner is a very good thing as this game is better playing with someone. Especially since the AI can be a complete idiot on occasion. It makes no sense to me why the AI can't take a side step to shoot the enemy but instead, blast me with the gun, which doesn't kill the enemy behind me at all. Which of course I then get hit and hurt while the AI is still shooting me thinking magically the bullet will go through and kill the enemy. Which if it's my year she's shooting, then it does hit the enemy but not my chest or head. GRRRrrr The AI will die at times that make no sense as well. For instance, if their is a beam of light that if it touches you, you will be blown to bits. How about the AI just walks out into it for some reason when it was just standing their waiting for it to go by. The AI needed a little more work in this game. The one good thing about the AI is if you load it up with an unlimited Mag gun, they will take out a ton of the enemies and help you out immensely. Load them up with health so if you are hurt, they will replenish you and themselves if your health gets low. Plus it stops them from picking everything up around them while running through the chapters.

The next thing you're going to hate in this game is the horrible controls. The way everything is configured out is not your norm you are use to. If you plan to get all the achievements in the game, you will get use to it but you're still not going to like it. It takes forever to turn left, right or behind you. Which there is a button to flip you to your partner but you'll do that by accident and the enemy will be behind you after you click it. So you'll probably get smacked in the back of the head while you start trying to turn around to not get hit. Which, as you'll notice, you have to stop completely to fire a gun or swing your knife. Which by the way, you have to hold the Left Trigger down to be able to pull the Right Trigger down to fire. That goes with grenades, flash bangs, etc... Your knife is actually the Left Bumper button to pull it out in which you still need to use the RT to swing it. You have an inventory menu that comes up by pressing Y. Your D pad can give you instance access to the up, down, left, and right section. The rest however you have to stop, bring up the menu and then highlight what you want to use or equip. Their is no jump button in the game either but you'll do a lot of jumping up, down, across and some dodging with X for the action sequence to make stuff happen.

There are a good range of weapons in the game you will find and unlock. Which you can upgrade them all to make them better. Which upgrading them all will unlock an achievement for you as well. Which takes a lot of money. The Rocket Launcher, Mag pistol, and Sniper gun are going to be your best weapons in the end. Just starting out though, keep your pistol and shotgun on you as that's the ammo that gets dropped through out the game.

After you beat the game and start on your next run, you will be earning exchange points for the bonus materials. Which you only get when you finish up the Chapters in the game. Which will also depend on your rank for the amount of exchange points you get. You will need to upgrade all the weapons so you can unlock the unlimited ammo for the best guns in the game. You want unlimited on the Mag before you buy anything else with your exchange points. So save until you can get it. It will just help you out in the game more than you'll know. After that, get your time down under 5 hours to unlock the unlimited RL which doesn't cost you anything. Between those two, you'll pretty much be set and can start buying all the figurines for that achievement. Which you can't buy the last one until you S rank every mission at least once on any difficulty.

You can play on easy, regular, or veteran for difficulty when you start out the game. Once you beat veteran, you will unlock professional which you don't want to run through until you have the unlimited mag and rocket launcher. One hit and you will die. You have about a second to get healed which the AI can't seem to do even standing right beside you. The achievements are stackable, so if you play through on Veteran first, you can unlock three at once when you finish the campaign.

This game does have collectibles. Find a good guide as they are not all that easy to find. You need to find everything to unlock extra stuff in the game as well. Running through on easy you won't have to worry about dieing so much while looking for everything if you have missed it.

Overall this game has its up and downs. I did read they are doing a Resident Evil 6 game and it's going to be a completely revamped since the original creator is not coming back for the next one. So hopefully they will fix the controls, especially since, even with the PlayStation Move, this game still stinks for controls from all I've read online where it was used with the game.

Time, Where Does the Time Go

Yesterday started out pretty good and had plans to work on some games last night but things never go as planned.

For some reason, work went beyond crazy when lunch time hit. So didn't really have a lunch, was putting out fires, and resolving issues for next week on into the afternoon. Finally got to leave work and head home. Was worn out and I know most won't be at work tomorrow considering it's a 3 day weekend being Labor Day. So they all take tomorrow off to make it a 4 day weekend but I'll be here at work chugging along.

When I got home, I see the Nook has arrived that I'll talk about later on in this post. However the other thing that happened was good fortune. We had signed up to test out the Playstion Move that is coming out, which of course we didn't get in on it. The interesting part is, it was so popular and such a big hit that they are going to do it again. The email came in while we were looking at something online. So we stopped everything and signed up right then before it filled up. We actually got in! I'm stoked about this since I've been reading up more on the Playstation Move and knowing eventually I would end up getting it. With what we joined up to do, we are hosting a party at our house, inviting friends and going to get the Playstation Move, Eye and some games to let everyone see and play with. The best part is, we get to keep it all. We don't have to pay anything. Woo Hoo!!! Now to save up and find a way to get Kinect and will be good.

Well today was also our date night since someone was being really nice and watched our kids for us this afternoon. So we drove over to Mamma Mia's to try it out after dropping the kids off. We've heard nothing but good things about this place and we had never made it by. Just a small little resturant but the food was good. Which is why you go in the first place. If you're ever down our way and you like pasta, gotta swing by this resturant. So we stuffed ourselves from the delicious food and rolled out the door.

Then headed over to Target and did a little Christmas shopping. Yea, now is the time to start while toys are in stock. Too bad the toys we went to get were completely sold out. If your kid wants some Squinkies, you better start getting them now as that's going to be the hot item for christmas. Did get a few items though, so those will be stashed away until December.

So we get done shopping and head back to get the girls. They are hungry and still running full blast when we get home. So go through everything and finally get them into bed. I started working on my wife's Nook that came in the mail. We ran across a good deal for a brand new one with a case, so we got it. We've already sold our Logetich Harmony remote and now got to sell the Sony ereader we have and will have it paid back off.

It's a pretty cool device and I like it better than the Sony ereader as it seems faster to me. It has more technology built into it for doing other things but the new Sony ereaders coming out will probably be a lot better than the older ones. However the Sony's are still good though, don't get me wrong. It was just time for an upgrade to a newer ereader.

Ran into an issue where none of the epub books would work on it. So was doing research and ended up calling a friend up who has one. Found out about this program called Calibre. http://calibre-ebook.com/ What a sweet program for manageing and converting your ebooks over to whatever format you want. It even detects your ereader and does everything for you with the click of a few buttons. So reconverted the epub's to an epub and it resolved our issues for opening them up on the Nook. Some of the files aren't really labeled properly so got a little project to fix all that so it all shows up properly in the Nook. Which with Calibre, that will be a lot easier to do.

By the time all that was done, it was past 10 pm. So I got online to finish up Resident Evil 5. Which took me until almost 11 to finish it up. The computer can be a complete idiot in that game sometimes. Professional is a one hit die, so not easy to do as it is. So RE5 is finished as far as the 1000 in the game goes but I'm skipping the DLC. Not going to buy something that I'll never play online. Hit up a chat with someone before I headed to bed.

I had hoped to start Dead Rising Case Zero but was too tired. Guess that will be my Friday night game. Nothing like killing some zombies.

Now the real fun begins as at 4 am this morning. I get woken up by my youngest daughter to go potty. Now my oldest has been a little sick and at that point in time, she starts coughing and can't stop. Tried some things and finally gave her medicine early to help calm her down so she could get some more sleep before school.

Me ,however, stayed awake and got ready for work. Mainly because I couldn't go back to sleep after all that. I got here before everyone did this morning. The saying the early bird gets the worms doesn't mean anything when the worms are even up yet. I'm so not sticking around today and I'm heading out early to trade in some games.

Good thing I have NOS in the frig for tonight or I probably will pass out early. Which I might anyway as it won't help me stay awake if I'm that tired.

Ceiling Fan Blade Snapped Off

I've been so busy that I'm just now getting to posting this up.

Saturday night around 10 pm I heard a loud BOOM followed by some crashing noises in my kids bedroom. Had no idea what was going on, so I bolted into the room.

To my amazement, the fan was swirling around irregular and I couldn't get it to stop. So finally cut it off and then realized it was missing a blade. I cut the light on and found out that the blade had actually broken off on the metal arm. I've never seen that happen before so I started looking for the blade.

I found where it hit the wall and put a dent in it over the TV. The crashing noise was it going down hitting the TV, dresser and a stand up fan. Was amazed to see how it had broken off.

My oldest daughter was wide awake from the noise. My youngest however slept through everything and never woke up once. Go figure on that one.

I went to get a replace fan as the arms come in a 5 pack and cost as much as a new fan almost. Talked to the guy about it and he said they could do that if they are loose. Too bad I had tightened them up just a week or two ago so they were not loose.

I'm very thankful though it hit above the TV as where the spot is on the wall is the same height of my daughter on the bunk bed and it could have hit her in the head instead. So I'm very thankful that didn't happen.

Here are some pics:

Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers is an Xbox 360 arcade title that is very fun to play. If you like leveling up characters, hacking and slashing your way through enemies, unlocking more characters to level up, battleing it out in an area or just seeing who can eat food the fastest (button smashing). You need to pick up this game as you won't be disappointed.

You can go solo it up or play with 3 of your friends for some 4 player co-op action.

The story is very simple. Bad guy steals huge magical crystal from king and takes his 4 princesses. As a knight you battle the bad guys through out the land, cross the sea and even go up into outerspace to rescue the princesses and defeat the evil wizard.

Along the way you will find all kinds of different weapons and tools to help you. You will even find little floating animals through your quest and each animal has a different ability to help you along your journey.

If you're wondering about the achievements in this game. They are not hard to get. They come even easier with help from some leveled up friends. So no worry for any completion percentage peeps out their.

However, even after you're done getting all the achievements and have beaten the game. Beating every area in the campaign will unlock a new character for you to play with. Also beating it with each knight will unlock a character as well. If you're really enjoying this game and want to level up all your characters as you're just that type of person. No worries as you won't have all the weapons in the game by just going after the achievements. Their are a ton to find in the game. Also their is an insane mode for the campaign that is not easy by any means. So their is still more playability in this game even after you get all your achievements.

So get and enjoy as I don't think you'll be disappointed.

What a Night

Woke up slightly past 12 am to my daughter hollering my name. When I'm almost to their door I hear her banging on the door to get out but couldn't. I found out soon enough why as when I opened the door, I stepped in throw up. She was back on her bed and had thrown up again.

While I washed my foot off, my wife got her to gave her a bath. I cleaned up the bed and got it all in the washer. Then cleaned up the floor. Once I got done, we gave her some medicine while she was setting on the couch. The medicine had that red dye in it. She threw up for a 2nd time and covered the couch with the medicine she just drink. So back to the tub again and I went to cleaning the couch.

Let her soak a little and made sure everything was alright before getting her back out. Got everything cleaned up and blew up a sleeping bad mattress thing we have for her. Of course she was awake and kept getting up. At one point she was standing at the bottom of our bed and wanting something from somewhere. Sure enough, she threw up again. So cleaned up a third mess for the night.

So covered three rooms with throw up and didn't get to sleep until after 4 am. I got to sleep until 7:30 am when I woke up. Got ready for work and Dakota woke up at 8 am. Went to rent a rug doctor to clean all the spots I had cleaned up to try to really get it up good. Once that was done, relaxed some, ate some lunch and went on into work.

She hasn't thrown up the rest of the day and doing fine. She had to catch something from Monkey Joe's where she was playing at that day. I just hope no one else gets what she had.

I will probably crash tonight and not be able to play much at all.

F.E.A.R.

First Encounter Assault Recon (F.E.A.R.)

I never new the actual name of the game until I booted up the game for the first time. So actually paying attention to the name of the game does help you understand where they are coming from in the game since you're going after something that you don't know anything about.

I actually chose to play this game on the PS3 as I needed to get some games for my PS3 and not just my Xbox 360 for a change. Plus the achievements in this game would be nearly impossible to get on the Xbox 360 and I get to by bass it by playing it on the PS3 as I'm not really worried as much on getting Trophies even though I do try some.

So at the beginning of the story you are some rookie that is being thrown into the mix on the F.E.A.R. team in which everyone thinks it's a bad idea to send a rookie in for what they are going to do. However no matter how many times the group says he shouldn't go in alone, the commander in chief says, "He can handle himself, send him in". It's like he knows something nobody else knows in the group and you don't even know yourself since it doesn't really explain you outside of being a rookie.

The game is dark overall with light in most places. You will hit a bunch of sections where it's just enough light so you'll know where you're going but you can't always see what's right around you. You do have a flashlight you can turn on and off. It only lasts for a certain period of time. I had to stop numerous times in the pitch black to wait on a recharge only to turn it on, walk a few more steps and see the light of the right hand turn I needed to make. That seems to happen quite frequently throughout the game.

Something else you'll run into while playing this game is it's easy to get lost and you'll end up running backwards which is where you don't need to go. However the game will have you go backwards on some levels to get to the next spot but it isn't obvious as that's what you need to do. So you're walking around aimlessly until you get a check point pop up or you run into some guys to kill that let you know you've finally found the right path to take. It gets confusing and seeing what to do next isn't always obvious in the game. The lighting isn't done to help you out in anyway with this. So if you miss a grate you can blast through, a railing to jump over, or a barrell that you can jump on to get on top of an object to get on other objects in order to get around to the back of an area. Yea, stuff like that isn't obvious to see in this game all the time, so getting stuck and not knowing what to do happens more than I would have liked for it to. I had to pull out a guide once as I just couldn't figure out one part at all but I'll leave that for you to get stuck on as well.

The very first thing you're going to notice when you start your campaign though, is the load time it takes to even start. Go grab a soda and a snack. By the time you get back, it might have just loaded up. It does that on every section it loads in the game. Which their are 11 sections and subsections under them. So prepare for the wait.

The next thing you will notice playing this game is that you do a lot of walking around to get to the next section without doing any fighting at all. I think 65% of this game is walking around to the next section just looking around. The fights do pick up by the end of the story. You will have phones with messages on them to help add to the story by listening. You will also find laptops to hack and sync back up to command for more story line. Those would have been great for Trophies as a collecting everything in the game. I think the game is too old for them to add trophies to now which is why it doesn't have them.

While you are wandering around though, their are spots in this game that do give you the jump, scare, or freaky feeling. Which is the main reason I got the game to see if it had it. The timing of some of them is what makes it work. I was about 2/5 of the way through the game before I hit the first thing that made me jump. After that, they start happening more and more. So the more the story goes along, the deeper you get in, the more frequent it happens. You can tell when something is about to happen as your hud in the game starts fuzzing up like it has interference. When that happens you need to keep focused otherwise you will miss some things. Sometimes it's a blink and it's gone. Some last for a little bit and some pull you into memories that you're not sure what to do.

Their is a good variety of weapons in the game even though you can't always seem to pick them up. Thought that was kind of quirky. You can only hold 3 guns at a time but they can hold a descent amount of ammo. You can swap out your guns for the ones laying around or the ones the enemy drops when you kill them. You can also hold 5 of each type of grenade you will use in the game. Something to keep note of, if you're in a close combat range, punch the enemy as your punch seems to be stronger than any weapon you'll get early on in the game.

I went online to try to see the different types of online play the game had to offer. I did a search on every type of mode the game had and nobody is online playing. So that's a no go for this review.

Now that I've finished the first F.E.A.R., I can start up F.E.A.R. 2 next and see if the scare factor has increased or not.

Did you know Hamsters can have strokes?

I didn't but my wife found out they could. Didn't have any clue that is what was wrong with out hamster.

About a week ago, something happened and my daughter was crying all day because she thought our hamster (Rexy) was going to die. It's head was turned sideways and couldn't walk straight. It was just barely breathing. We thought for sure it would die that day.

Two days later, Rexy is still going. So we start feeding it water and trying to get it some food. It seems to perk up and try to move around but can't get her direction straight at all.

So as I said at the beginning, my wife found out about the stroke and come to find out, if we keep up with the water and food, Rexy can get back to normal. We do have to take the wheel out of the cage though. It says to not let them run around on it anymore after that.

So our heart break day is turning into sort of miracle with some information from the internet. YEAH!

UPDATE 10/5/2010: The hamster died yesterday. 8(

Alan Wake DLC Part 1

I got my free download of the Alan Wake DLC Part 1 yesterday. The email with my code didn't show up until 3:30 pm. I was starting to get worried that I had gotten screwed over but thankfully not.

The DLC takes the game to the next level of crazy but helps make more sense of the end of the game with the words showing up in the last level. It actually gives it more purpose to me now as I didn't like that part at all in the game.

Alan seems to have lost his memory but regains it as he is running around. It's interesting how they are using the original game and slightly changing the atmosphere to give it a different feel. I had read an article that they went away from the story and did more on gameplay. The story is there to me but they reason they are saying that is because it does jump from parts of the original story to the next really quickly as Alan is regaining his memory.

It took me about an hour to finish the DLC. I picked up and remembered the controls pretty quickly. I think I found half the posters and about 2/3 of the clocks for the collectibles for just barely looking around. So they did put stuff in places that you would really have to look around to find them. I did die once as I wasn't ready for this massive on slaught of guys. I'll definitly not die on my next run through.

I haven't played the game since I beat it but it was so enjoyable to play it again. This is one of the best games I've ever played. I hope the next DLC comes out soon. Mainly because I want o play it before a good trade in deal shows up at Gamestop or I'll be trading it in. It'll be hard to part with this game though.

Update 7/29/2010

I did a 2nd run in the game last night and I missed 1 card board cut out and 2 clocks. Some how my cardboard character achievement popped on the first one in the game. I was sure I read that but it popped, so I actually found them all on the first run through.

Now the 2 clocks I missed. One was out on a dock that I just didn't walk out on for some reason. The 2nd one I missed was in the light pole area where the taken keep spawning in. That was rough stuff. Don't plan on finding it without dieing. That was rough finding where it was located at.

A good tip, hold onto 4-5 flare gun shots until you get to the end with the TV's. You'll finish it off so fast by shooting your flare gun you'll laugh.

Update 7/30/2010

Last update because I've had this happen to me a few times. So wanted to warn you.

When you beat the DLC and the end movie starts playing. Don't hit B to skip it. It has frozen up on me every time I've tried to skip it. Luckily when I reloaded it back up after going to the dashboard, it popped my 50 point achievement for beating it without dieing.

Lithium WorxGT™ 2-in-1 Trimmer/Edger

This is off topic but hey, it's my blog, I can post up what I want. 8)

So been needing a weedeater for a bit now and finally broke down and got one. Got a Worx GT 2 in 1 Lithium Electric Weed Trimmer.

http://www.worxpowertools.com/lithium-cordless/weed-trimmer-edger.html

I didn't want to do the oil and gas combo if I could avoid it. The 4 stroke engines for unleaded only cost more but they would have been worth it. Saw this on TV and thought, "That's really all I need." So I ordered it from Amazon and I'm thinking that I can just recharge a battery to save money in the long run without having to buy gas all the time? That's the way I'm looking at it anyway.

So it arrives in the mail on Friday and I get up to use it first thing on Saturday morning. Now granted I've let my weeds grow up pretty tall and they've needed cutting for a few weeks now. Plus the ground is wet from a late shower and the morning dew. I cut around the swing set in the backyard so the kids can play without all the grass sprouting out from around it. Headed over to do beside the fence where it's really thick.

This is where you see the difference between gas and battery. It took a slow and repeat cutting to get the tall weeds cut down. With a gas powered one you could cut right through and keep on going. That power difference is definitely noticeable when dealing with thick weeds. So I get a little ways along the fence and the battery dies on me. I plug it up to charge and look at the bottom of the weedeater. the weeds were wrapped around the top of the core that spins around. I'm thinking it might have caused the battery to drain faster causing resistants. So I spend some time with a knife and my fingers trying to get it out. Got pulled away for a little bit and then came back to work on it some more. The weeds had dried up some so they started coming off easier.

So the battery finally finishes charging and I decided, lets see how this edger is going to work on it. Go out to the front and start working on my walkway to the front door. It's doing good but it doesn't dig down into the dirt like I'm use to doing. It's right on the edge but never really gets into the dirt all that much. I even ended up tilting it sideways some because at one point the string didn't seem to want to come out from the little it lost. So I do all that and start working on the driveway. Decided to cut around the air conditioner and after I get one side of the driveway done. Then the battery dies again. So it gets plugged back up for charging. Which by now the kids are outside with me playing, so I'm playing with them while it's charging.

When you're waiting and watching, it seems to take forever to charge something up. I'm guessing it took about 40 minutes or so to actually charge up. Didn't actually time it though.

When it gets done charging I finish edgeing the driveway and go down the outside edge of the fence. The grass is drying up and it's not as thick this time so it's going a little faster. I then go to cut around some bushes, telephone pole, mail box, fire hydrant and it dies on me again.
It's lunch time by now and it's getting hot. So I didn't even finish cutting the rest of the front yard and still got most of the backyard fence to cut. Needless to say, that was the end of weedeating for the day.

One nice feature is a metal piece that sticks out show you how far out your string will go so when I'm cutting the fence, I can put the weedeater up to the spot and it doesn't wear out my string really fast as it keeps it off the fence.

I'm also still using the spool that came with it and I have 2 more replacements after it. I don't think I used but maybe 1/5 that line. It hardly got ran down at all. With a gas powered one I Would have probably already replaced the line by now from doing all that I did. One nice thing is once my spools do run out, I can order them from the site to get more spools and it only cost me shipping. So you don't pay for the spools and I think you get 6 when you order them. Not bad if it's going to last a while like it looks like it's going too.

I don't like the fact that when you set it down and it won't set up right without falling over. Can't tell ya how many times that happened and when I was working on it being on the cement. The handle on both side is all scruffed up like I've already been using it for a couple months.

Overall, I like it and once I get all the big weeds down, I just need to keep them down and I'll be able to cut more faster the next time around. If you have thick weeds, stay away from this as you need a gas powered weedeater and not a battery operated one. I do suggest you buy a second battery from the start as I plan to get one now. About the time you get done cutting the other battery should be close to being done charging. So if you have a big yard like I do (half acre), you'll need a longer span of battery time to cut it all. If you have a small quarter acre lot, you might not need it and this will be perfect for you.

Picross 3D

The first Picross game was a blast to play and the new Picross 3D doesn't disappoint. Instead of looking down and trying to figure out a flat picture, you now chip away at blocks to create objects. You can basically say you're creating a sculpture but it's all squares. They do a good job of making the blocks resemble the real deal so you know what you created. Make sure to watch all the animations after you finish them as some are funny to watch. Others are a quick bore and you'll know to just click and go onto the next.

The game does give you a range from easy to hard difficulities on the puzzles. wouldn't be a challenge otherwise right? I only ever really got stuck on one puzzle that just kept getting me. That's the very last puzzle you'll do in the entire game. Which is puzzle 369. Yep, 369 puzzles to complete the game if you plan to do every puzzle in the game. So it will take you some time to finish it. Now that's not to say I didn't have to redo a bunch puzzles to get it finished. So expect to try a few times on quite a few to get through the puzzle.

As you're going through you will keep unlocking levels per easy, normal and hard. In between those you will run across Timed Challenges, Construction challenges, and One-Chance Challenges.

• The Timed Challeges gives you a short amount of time but after you knock away and mark so much, you get more time. If you don't finish before you hit the red section, you'll lose.
• The Construction Challenges are a bunch of puzzles you'll finish and when all are done, it puts them all together to create something. Which is kinda neat to see.
• The One-Chance Challenges means you can't miss anything. You break a block that should not be broken, you lose and have to start over.

They add a nice little aspect to the game outside of just finishing the puzzles. After you finish the Tutorial or maybe it's the Easy mode puzzles, you'll unlock a Random mode. That lets you pick a range of what you want to do and it just randomly picks a puzzle for you to work on that you've already finished before.

You can actually build your own puzzles if you want. It takes a little bit to get use to working it but you'll figure it out and be moving right along making your own puzzles.

You can also hook up via DS communication and wi-fi for some more action. You can recieve and send your puzzles via the DS communication. Plus send the demo of the game to another DS. I didn't really explore the wi-fi portion that much. You can download more puzzles and upload your own puzzles you created. They host challenges for you to create puzzles according to themes they pick to see who can come up with the best idea. Kinda like the Mii creater on the Wii for people that they do now. That's about it for the wi-fi section. Sorry for not really digging more into it but I just wanted to finish the puzzles since I enjoyed the first one so much.

If you like puzzle type games and enjoyed the first Picross game. You're going to love Picross 3D and it's a must buy.

Blur for $20

So do you want a copy of Blur for $20. This is the week to do it as at the end of this week you won't be able to get this deal any more.

Best Buy has marked the game down to $40 right now. Which is $20 off the $60 price range.

Now you just need to go this website you're about to see and print off a $20 coupon.

Hard to beat a $20 game, no matter who you are.

So enjoy and thanks for stopping by. 8)

http://www.blurgamepromotion.com

Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a fantastic game. I ended up playing through the game 3 times since I bought it. I ran through the first time just playing to enjoy the game. Ran through it again to collect all of the collectibles that I had missed, and the third time was to play it on Nightmare. The second run through was probably the most tedious, but I never got bored with the game. If you decide to use a guide to get all of the collectibles on your first run through, I’ll let you know now, it won’t ruin the game. It’s rare to find a game that you don’t wear out on too quickly. I’m talking half way through a game and you feel like you’re just grinding stuff out to finish it off to be done with it. I never once got that feeling with this game.

The main reason I got this game was because I was able to get it real cheap and it was part of the bonus scenario for the STEI. It also helped that my wife had expressed an interest in it and wanted to experience the game with me. That’s a huge bonus for me as that’s rare. The reason why is even though I’m playing a game, the game is pretty much like a book or mini series. It is delivered in well portioned episodes. The story in this game is great. It’s what pulls you in and makes you want more. . You just can’t put it down. That’s how this game will be when you start playing it. So whether you are the one playing or watching, it’s still enjoyable. My kids were getting into it as well, telling me which way to go, watch out for the bad guys, and just enjoying it as well since I was doing what they said to do.

The Story

The main character is a writer in the game and an accident happens to his wife in which the real story begins and you dive into the darkness of the game. You will jump from present to past, to light then dark, from accidents to dreams, and be trying to figure out the story for yourself as you’re going through the game. It’s very intriguing and at one point, I started thinking it was going to be like the Shutter Island movie. If you’ve seen that movie and liked the twist, you’ll enjoy this game even more. As you’re going through, you’ll be collecting manuscripts of a book written by your character, but have no recollection of writing. The story presented in these manuscripts immerses you even more into the game if you read them all. I’m sure some will just collect the manuscripts to get the achievement and move on. You don’t have to worry as it will not take away what the game offers in the least. The manuscripts just help add more to the story to the game.

Game Play

The game play is pretty intriguing as light is your weapon. You use a flash light to drain the darkness off your enemies and then at that point you can use your weapons to take them out. Throughout the game, you’ll get to use a revolver, shotgun, double barrel shotgun, hunting rifle, flare gun, flares and flash bangs to kill the enemies. The flash bangs can really come in handy and you’ll actually run through a section where that’s all you have for a weapon. You’ll also go through some spots where you don’t have a flash light to help you out. The game does a really good job mixing it up the game play tactics. Also, at the beginning of each chapter in the game, you’ll lose everything you had from the previous chapter. So when playing normal mode, you’re going to have plenty of left over ammo. Your nightmare run however, you’re going to pray you have enough to even make it to the end of each chapter.

Difficulty

Normal mode isn’t that hard but you do hit hard spots, it does progressively get harder and you will more than likely die a few times. The spots you find that are hard on the normal run, becomes even harder on nightmare and getting through those sections is not going to be easy. I will give you a tip though: No matter what, if you know a safe haven light is semi close by, flare it up, flash the enemy with the flash light if needed and run. Most of the sections I got through on nightmare I literally flared it up, did not even fire a shot and ran through the massive amount of enemies just to get to the safe haven light. Once you reach the light, they all go away and you will regain any lost health. It is your biggest life saver in the game on nightmare. A good practice run before you start nightmare would be when you do that 30 min run achievement. You literally just run through the board as fast as you can which involves a lot of running and not fighting if possible. That would be a good place to get into a routine before your nightmare run.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics of the game are done very well. They do a wonderful job setting a mood and atmosphere with the stark contrast between the daylight and nighttime settings. They daytime is bright and colorful, but not blinding. The night is dark and gloomy, but not washed out from the overkill of black. The characters themselves looked good, but could have been rendered better. The sound turned out really good and they did a great job on that. The wind howls in just the right way for a horror setting. The rustling of the trees is just enough to hear it in the background, but not screechingly annoying. The voices and voice-overs sounded great, but they really missed the mark on the lip sync. It is rather jarring to be really submersed into the story, just to be thrown back by bad lip sync.

The End

Just like a book, there is always an end but there are already two DLC’s scheduled to come out for this game. The first one isn’t too far off in the future but no date on the second one at all.
For the most part, I was satisfied with the ending of the game. I do however wish they left out one section that was kind of cheesy to me. You can tell me your own opinion when you get to that point.

Overall I think everyone that plays this game, except a few who might critique anything off in a game, are going to really enjoy this game. It is well worth the purchase and I don’t expect anyone to be disappointed.