I just beat Baal in Disgaea which, to people who know the game, it pretty big shit. I'm well pleased, and maybe now I can move on to another game.

Just not Disgaea 2...

I've reached pro status on baseball, but didn't hold on to it for very long. It gets ridiculously difficult when you're in the 900's.

You guys have convinced me to try and reach pro status on tennis.

Also, close to beating Super Paper Mario. Will probably move on to something old school like Perfect Dark, Mega Man X or Zombies Ate My Neighbors! I have so many NES and Super NES games that I would like to pass.

Pro tennis is getting very challenging. Even though the skill levels of the top 2 don't change, I've noticed they are better as my skill level goes up. I lost 1 yesterday, and won 2, and I think my skill level went up a total of like 40 points. The climb to 1900 is going to be painfully slow, I see.

My wife loved Marble Mania, so I bought her that Super Monkey Banana Blitz game yesterday when I bought Madden. Similar concept, but slightly different game context!

should check out mercury meltdown. i dont know when its coming out, but its similar to monkey ball, or kororinpa. and its only 20 bucks. score!

Mercury Meltdown was pretty solid on PSP; wonder how the controls will work out on Wii. Thought I read a poor review somewhere -- maybe the UK version?

The shipping carton for my broken 360 still hasn't come. What the fuck, MS?

Well, MS reported shortages on the 360 Coffins due to the large number of returns earlier this summer. Hahaha. Sucks you're in limbo, though.

by any chance, was anyone able to find a toys r us that broke the street date for bioshock? i need this game, now.

Might still find one, but they've put the kibosh on it:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3161991

My shipping carton supposedly shipped out over the weekend (got a confirmation from them), so I figured it would've been here by now. It's going to be so tempting if I run into an HDMI-enabled Premium in the next couple weeks, even if I'm burying myself in credit card debt these days. Freelance monies needs to comes nows!

from DESTRUCTOID RE: Guitar Hero for the DS



i love their pictures!

R Type Final, for PS2. Very impressive game, even if the end of 1st level boss is owning me. The environment is against me.

Finally had time to sit down last night and properly go through the demo. This is a game that deserves moret than just a speed-run, kill-em'all, FPS strategy. The environments deserve to be savored. I found myself amazed at times just walking around in an empty room, looking at the signs on the walls, the views out the windows, listening to the tape diaries. Plus, the music and the sound effects . . . holy hell.

The plasmids are fucking awesome, and the weapon controls are incredibly intuitive. Hacking bots is sweet. Big Daddy v. Splicer outside of the restaurant = awesome and legitmately creepy. I definately don't want to cross one of those sumbitches, but we all know its coming.

Metacritic = 98 right now.

1UP = 100
Game Informer = 100
Gamespy = 100
Gamepro = 100
IGN =97

I went out and bought an HDMI-enabled Premium Xbox 360 yesterday.

FUCK.

Nah, I feel pretty okay about it, but that's some dollars to throw around. But now I'm set for BioShock, which looks to be the most ridiculously awesome shooter in years. The shipping carton for my busted 360 finally showed yesterday; sent it out today. Will probably sell off the repaired/replaced one. Or hold onto it for when the new one breaks down.

Also, my drum-centric Rock Band preview went up at 1UP yesterday:

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3162018

Some late night gaming on the emulator



Wow, I really need to get this cartridge on half.com or something. Pretty cool and underrated platformer, with great music, as expected from Capcom in the 8-bit days.



I have no idea what happened to my Game Boy copy. If I could find it, I'd still play it on Super Game Boy, but I'll probably end up buying the Tetris/Dr. Mario that came out for Super NES to fill the void. One of the all-time great puzzle games that gets overlooked a bit by Tetris. I frequently played this well into my teens.



After seeing a bunch of reviews for that King of Kong documentary, I decided to play a bit of this as well. Still fun, of course.

Yeah, that was definitely one of the better platformers on the NES. Some of the best art direction in a game ever. Hard as fuck though, I was never able to beat it.

Capcom did some nice platformers for the NES. When I say nice platformers I mean



edit

im considering selling mario strikers charged. anyone interested?

Yeah, after playing a bunch of stuff on my emulator, I had to bust out the old NES yesterday and this was one of the games I played. Now that I think about it, a good deal of the Capcom/Disney games were pretty good, which is amazing considering how many videogame adaptations of television and movies usually suck. Chip N' Dale. Darkwing Duck. They all kicked ass as videogames. I even heard somewhere that The Little Mermaid was actually decent. They'd probably be horrible if someone tried to make them today. But yeesh, I have to do some serious cleaning on all my cartridges because they will hardly play at all. Football season is near. I need some Tecmo Super Bowl in my life!

I never played that, but I wouldn't be suprised if the game was good.

Dude, Super Metroid and Shinobi III on the VC today. Might have to pick up both.

I'm downloading Super Metroid right now. It's the reason I picked up a Classic Controller.

fuck! I left my classic controller at home. Fuck me!

So if anyone goes and buys Bioshock tomorrow, would they mind videotaping themselves playing it, and then post it on youtube or something, so I can vicariously live through you.
thanks!

Psh, forget Biosuck. I want to see some Brunswick Pro Bowling footage(aka the Wii Sports killer).

Seriously though, I hate Microsoft, and I don't play FPS, but all the stuff I've seen and heard about Bioshock might make me swallow my pride, and get a 360(w/new chip sets of course). Has there been any negative press on this game?

You can still play VC games with a Gamecube controller, right? Assuming you guys might have one.

http://nintendo8.com/

Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock Bioshock

($49.99 at Circuit City tomorrow, btw)

I'm gonna run to Meijer at midnight and see if I can get it, hopefully with a price match from Circuit City. If not, I'll still pick it up to avoid the trip in the morning.

Yup, it's true. I kept my Wavebirds which is good because the new Smash will be GC controller compatible.

Got it. Had to run to a second Meijer (each local store apparently got four copies, and I got dicked out of one at the first store), but it saved me a trip tomorrow and they price-matched to Circuit City.

Came home and found I've been given early access to a multiplayer beta peeps be looking forward to. Hot.

No. Apart from that bloke who hates Rockstar thinking it was a Rockstar game and complaining that it had violent adverts - during a wrestling show of all things.

I tend not to go for 'PC' style games, and the current rash of graffick games on the new generation mostly seem the same to me, but goddamn do I think this one's gonna rule.

Picked up Bioshock this morning at Target. I have a Target, Wal-Mart and EB Games within 3 minutes of my house. The nearest Circuit City is 15 minutes, so its just not worth all that driving just to save 10 bucks.

Won't get to play it until tonight, but I am seriously excited.

So . . . does discussion of this game warrant spoiler tags? Just wondering as we move forward.

And Andy, you wouldn't, perchance, be involved in the Halo 3 Epsilon closed beta, would you? If so, how does the Forge work? Do you like?

Count me in as someone not bothered about Bioshock spoilers.

damn. all this bioshock critical hoopla makes me want a 360 and an HDTV.

oh wellz.

Bioshock justifies they hype. Just thought everyone should know.

agreed. i'm only an hour and a half in, but the game has been a blast so far.

So I've gotten my Wii Tennis skill level up to 2038, but basically it takes a dominating victory to gain any points now. It's not a matter of beating them, but how bad you can beat them.

Man, BioShock is fantastic. It almost makes me embarrassed to have used the word "atmospheric" to describe any other recent games. I think I've played about 4-5 hours so far, and it's great to be able to actually enjoy a game without having to take notes or worry about producing a write-up afterwards.

I haven't had a completely free weekend in about five months (always seem to have a queue of things to write), but this weekend is all mine. Gonna put some serious hours into BioShock, dabble in the Call of Duty 4 beta (embargo's up; I can talk about it now), play s'more Hot Shots Golf 5 (import), replay the glorious Skate demo for the fourth or fifth time, and finish season two of Lost. Awesome.

I'm this (two fingers) close to trading in Mario Strikers for a crack at Metroid Prime 3. It's getting pretty stellar reviews, and I'm really intrigued at the controls.
I stopped caring about the Virtual Console and I'm not sure why.

I don't know if it's just me, but some of the controls and animation on the virtual counsel just seem off. For example, I bought both Galaga and Galaga '90 for the virtual counsel. Galaga '90 runs great, and the controls are very smooth...however Galaga is horrible. Everything is choppy and unpredicatable, and I usually die at least once on the first couple levels because the controls suck so bad. I downloaded a free Galaga emulator on my computer, and that runs much better.

I'm also noticing a bit of the same thing with Street Fighter II Turbo, but my problems with that game may have more to do with the fact that I haven't played it in about 8 years.

I've also been a little disappointed with the Virtual Console games for reasons you provide.

But Paper Mario was fantastic. There was nothing wrong with controls/response and the mid 90's graphics were easy to get used to, particulalry since they suited the game play.

And Super Metroid is also fantastic. Controls are as good as I remember them. Now you are talking about early 90's graphics, but the game utilizes them so well that you begin not to care.

But I'll be at Best Buy at 2:00 tomorrow to pick up my copy of Metorid 3. My new policy is to avoid Gamestop/EB Games, which seem to piss me off one way or another each time I go there (although I remain a VERY happy shareholder of the company).

Oh hey, so I finished BioShock last night. Pretty awesome, though I doubt it'll be my year-end #1. Certainly in the top five.

And I'll be picking up Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for sure tomorrow. I skipped Echoes, but loved the original and Super Metroid is my all-time #1... I'll have to dust off my Wii tonight. Might take a while.

I picked up Metroid during lunch today at my local Gamestop. The song playing in the store at the time was Queen's "Play The Game". I asked the goofball behind the counter if they were playing their special "Video Gaming Mix" and he looked at me like I had two heads and started panicing. I then asked him what he thought was the best Plasmid combination in Bioshock and he snapped out of it.

But it got me thinking -- What songs would be on the "Video Gaming Mix"

Play The Game -- Queen
Games People Play -- The Spinners
Games People Play -- Alan Parsons Project
Games Without Frontiers -- Peter Gabriel
Wicked Game -- Chris Isaak

Ok I am not a video game person but I watched my friend play Bioshock over the weekend and it was really impressive. Are there a lot of games like this or is it really the best game everrrr?

I sort of love that a major point in the game hinges on video game dudes not instinctively realizing it is always wrong to kill a helpless little girl

Man, I got Outrun 2006: Coast2Coast yesterday and it is absolutely fantastic. Easily one of the five best racing games I've played. No fucking sim mode, no fanbelt upgrades, or braking distance random shit, or killing your chances of winning a race if a molecule of your tyre leaves the road. This is a racing game, and it's fucking fast and beautiful with great tracks and music, and even when I don't win a race I'm fine with it, because playing through again is a joy. Fucking awesome.

so, bioshock, save or harvest? so far i have done one of both.

Anyone with opinions on Wii Tiger Woods or Brunswick Bowling? I've seen a few reviews for TW that basically say it's TW 07.1, but seeing as though I don't have that one and am enjoying Wii Golf, I was thinking about getting TW 08. Brunswick Bowling, I haven't seen squat about, which is odd since I figured Wii Bowling is a fave of a lot of Wii people.

Anyone?

From the limited reviews I've read, Brunswick bowling isn't as good as the Wii bowling. Its very similar, and doesn't offer any improvements that would justify the additional cost. Its also really below the radar, as when I looked it up on Metacritic this week there weren't enough reviews to even garner a rating or so I've heard.

As for actually playing it though, I can't say I've bothered. Seriously though, I can't understand why anyone with a Wii wouldn't be picking up Metroid Prime right now over everything else on the system.

I'm in heaven with Bioshock, and my next purchase will be Halo 3, but I have to admit MP3 looks pretty cool. Will definately pick it up sometime down the road. I said that about LOZ, too, and that hasn't happened yet though.



I'm a saver. I can never be the bad guy in games like this. At least on the first run through. Going to go through again and harvest, though. You might as well just harvest them all, because if you kill even one you can't get the "good" version of the ending, or so I've heard.

Game is so goddamn fantastic. I just want to say it again.

I mostly harvested, only saving a couple times to see what it was like. As much as I'd like to go through again without sacrificing, I don't know that I'll make the time for it.

Not sure how I feel about Prime 3 yet. Wasn't especially pumped about the first segment of the game on the space station, but I'm hoping the surface play will be better. The original Prime was fantastic (skipped Echoes) and Super Metroid is my all-time favorite, so I'm compelled to stick with it. Hope to put a couple hours into it today, but...

PUZZLE FIGHTER HD is out.

I don't even know what Metroid Prime is. I'll have to check it out.

Just read a review of Metroid and it doesn't interest me. Same with Bioshock. I haven't played a game remotely similar to these since the first Doom.