The ScooterBlog

Sometimes, things seem like they are made to happen at an apportioned time, in an apportioned place. Some would call this destiny, others fate. I’ll settle for God-given serendipity.

I’ve been in the dumps for the last couple of weeks. Various reasons, but that’s how it has been. Anyways, I was starting to get out of that funk on Monday when I went out for a walk (I’ve been walking every day … 45 minutes today!), and was listening to the guys at Short Attention Gamer, notably the 9/22 podcast (Matt and Todd won’t be happy to hear that I was behind by a month almost, but they’ll understand in a minute). As I’m getting to the end of my walk, I heard ‘em mention the post that I made about my lack of success at Uno! I got to admit, just like it was awesome to be in one of the Game Junkie Podcasts (Matt, record some stuff this weekend, I want in again!), it was very cool to get a mention there, and help lift my spirits a bit. Things have been much better this week, outside of the huge backlog of work I have, but I don’t think that’s going to go away no matter what I do.

As for the gaming? Not much this past week. I really wanted to participate in the Phantasy Star Universe beta, but it just didn’t happen, not to mention the one day I could play, that being Tuesday, XBox Live was down. I may pick up the retail game depending on how much it costs and play online for a month or so, but I can’t afford much more then that at $10 per month for a Guardian’s License. I miss the days of the old Dreamcast and free online play, the group of us who played that game had so much fun!!

So then, what would be next? Likely Tiger Woods 06 … and the devs must have been reading my blog! While I would normally take pleasure in calling EA a bunch of money scrounging hogs looking for a buck (need I mention the Madden 07 Stadiums and EA Sports craptastic tutorial videos?), they actually got the formula of mixing gameplay reward or waller punishment this time. You can either play the heck out of the game and unlock your courses, players, and other goodies the old fashioned way, OR you can spend $2 or $3 each and get all the courses, or all the players, or the ability to max out your custom player. The only unlockable you have to buy? The “Sunday Tiger” character, which I think is $3. If you’re renting the game and want to try it all out, or like I might do, if you want all the courses now for practice for certain upcoming tournaments, that’s a bargain, but it doesn’t inhibit the game or become a forced thing. Sony, start paying attention, if you must gouge on microtransactions, I present you a good example on how to balance it.

Oh yeah … did I mention that I will be at Friday Night Live this week? Everyone better be ready to play Windjammers, I will be bringing my “A” game!

The 360 has been getting a fair amount of play, and while I was worried when I first got it that I wouldn’t have the time to get a lot of achievements or play it a lot, it’s turned out pretty well, enough to feel like I’m on place to get 10,000 points a year, which for me isn’t bad, and I’m at 1,200 points after the first month, without the need for any “whoring” of games like King Kong (although I may have to at least play ‘em to see how easy it is!)

The latest purchases have been:

• The XBox Live Vision camera (Gold Kit Version) - I needed to extend my Gold membership for one more year anyways, and this allowed me to do it, get the camera, get a free arcade game, give a friend Uno, have an extra headset, AND get the camera for $80. Not too shabby! Anyways, the camera has proven quite useful for Uno games and video chat (although I have noticed more crashes then before, and it happens to everyone in the room), and the other goodies have only complimented what I already own for the 360.
• Returned Rockstar Presents Table Tennis to GameFly … I hope to get Madden 07 next from them. Bought Test Drive Unlimited, as the concept of a completely open ended racing world was very intriguing to me, and the reviews, while not praising it as the best racer ever, were certainly good. I would agree with them. It was worth what I paid, and I’ll enjoy it even more once I’ve completed some of the single player games and have the kind of cars to do some damage in the persistent online world (which is an awesome idea by the way).

Calling the post here … cause it shoulda been posted a long time ago!