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!