those burger king games will be mine as well on Sunday.

Beat Gears Of War on hardcore yesterday. now i'm going back in Casual mode to get all the cogtags. i've got 26/30 now.

anyone interested in playing with me on an insane campaign?

i saw this at Gamestop the other day and was interested in picking it up, but realized i know nothing about the game other than the praise from this thread. I don't even know what the game is or focuses on. Yet the praise was enough to make me consider picking it up. Weird.

It's an intense third-person shooter. It doesn't do a whole lot to revolutionize the genre (or gaming in general), but it's a superb example of what happens when (almost) everything clicks.

I'm in the fourth act on Casual. I'd like to finish this tomorrow so I can be fresh and ready for Call of Duty 3 and the Wii this weekend.

Oh, and my BK games are in hand. I will be playing those now...

report back on Sneak King, please. i want good, hardhitting journalistic insight on that one. the rest, ehh, i don't care so much about. but Sneak King. need feedback on that.

Alright, so the racing and bumper car games are pretty wonky... the controls don't feel right on either.

But Sneak King is pretty much amazing. Not actually amazing, but the concept is fantastic and just watching the dude sneak up on lumberjacks and hand them sandwiches while dancing end zone-style dances is high on my list of amazingness. Fucking awesome.

holy shit i just burst out laughing at that. i didn't know that the game had an actual premise. i thought it was just to have the King watch people and be a creep voyeur. I am now anticipating this game even more.

So, I'm doing a conference call with 2K Sports and J.J. Redick of the Orlando Magic (and formerly Duke) on Monday. Any questions I should ask that don't involve his DUI?

And we should be getting one of these for review:



Looking in your direction, Derek.

grill them about a possible football game. get out all the juicy details. mmm, steak.

yeah i can take that shit if you want. i'm always down for hoops and dunks.

Wii is amazing. Simply amazing. I waited in line for the launch, got one, and earlier tonite played a video game(!), with my girlfriend, and my parents. Honestly, I never ever ever thought that would happen. My mother and girlfriend are so far away from being gamers, it's ridiculous. That said, after 5 minutes with bowling on Wii Sports, the girlfriend said "I want one."

On a side note, Zelda: Twilight Princess is the best launch title since Mario 64.

So I was just playing the glorious BK Pocketbike Racer, and after hosting (and subsequently losing) a match on Live, one of the racers took the time to send me a heartfelt thank you:

"U = Fag"

Uh huh. Complaint filed. I hope that Microsoft actually reviews these things.

Jesus that is classy. I wonder how old he was. I am guessing about 14.

First time I ever played a video game online was NBA Live 03 on PS2 i believe and the dude i was playing against was talking shit to me the whole time. I didn't know how to respond and still really don't. Hearing some kid talk shit about you through a headset is hilariously awkward.

I rarely even use the headset. I'm not a big fan of talking while I play, especially to total strangers.

I ran into someone via Uno last night that had a Gamerscore of 48500+. Holy shit.

yeah now i look at the headset and laugh at anyone who uses it. i can't take weird voices being blasted in my ear. if i know the people i am playing against, though, i am 110% in favor of the headset.

and jesus christ 48500 is one ridiculous score. i hope they write for EGM or something because otherwise, that is absurd.

my dad watched me play Uno the other night. it was a weird bonding experience. he sat there and trash talked people with me and also gave me his "strategic advice." he's an odd man at times.

how are those bk games, andyroo? i have all three sitting right here on my desk, now i have to wait til christmas for a 360. and even if the games are subpar, i'm sure the initial excitement/absurdity far outweighs the negatives.

Sneak King is honestly solid. Not great in a "game of the year" sense, but it is certainly bettered by the licensed. Significantly bettered. Pocketbike Racing has some issues and is by no means great, but it's a decent diversion. I've spent the least amount of time with Big Bumpin'; I didn't like the control scheme when I first played it, but the hockey game was kinda neat. It has gotten the best reviews of the three, so it may actually be solid.

Overall, better than most would expect. Low production values, but that's no biggie.

I'll make a big Wii post here in the next day or two. I've been holding back as to not make too quick a judgment about anything.

NY Times Trashes The PS3

A pretty interesting take from a non game industry source.

Yeah, most of the mainstream PS3 reviews have been pretty lukewarm so far. Problem is, there isn't exactly a standout game at this point. Is anything coming down the pike in that regard? What kinds of exclusives will the PS3 have? Final Fantasy 7 and GTA pretty much propelled the PS1 and PS2. Is there something similar for the PS3? I think development costs are going to crush the chances for that kind of lightning to strike thrice

Metal Gear Solid 4.

Problem is that it's a year away. Right now, there's only Resistance. It may be really good, but it's not a system seller.



I just passed the halfway point in this. I really like it, but there are little glitches and bugs that hold it back a bit. I wouldn't put it right on part with its predecessor, but by no means is it a bad game. It's intense as ever. I'm thinking of a mid-8 review score, maybe 8.6.

Pocket Bike Racer is the best of the BK games. They are all solid though, and excellent $3.99 buys.

i have been so busy though playing Gears Of War. I'm doing a campaign on Insane and it really is tough. i've been recruiting online help from people though, co-op is really the only way i can see that i'd ever beat Insane...

downloaded and played a game of Small Arms this morning. WOW another great 360 release. they are doing a good job of keeping lots of good content in our hands to divert attention from all the hot/sexy new system launches...

what is this Small Arms you speak of?

it's an XBLA multiplayer battle game, a la Super Smash Bros.

So I wasn't entirely enthused with Wii Sports. Single player was ultimately unsatisfying, and it seemed like little more than a series of tech demos. Not that it's a big deal; it was free after all.

But four of my friends came over tonight, and we switched off through the games with my two Wii-motes and we had a hell of a fucking time. Now I truly understand the promise (and overall concept) of the Wii and Wii Sports. Excite Truck is a lot of fun in two-player, as well.

I just usually game alone, s'all.

i hear ya. i don't own a wii yet, but my friend does. after thanksgiving dinner, a bunch of us all drank and smoked and (virtual) bowled. i blacked out and woke up the next day on the sofa and my friend woke up and turned on his Wii and was all: "you bowled your highest game" last night" and i was all: "Uh. I did?"

hell, when he first got it, just making "miis" of ourselves and friends was fun.

Uh, yeah. Fucking ridiculous.

More importantly, this also came in today:

Pydance
I d/l like a million songs for this game. i suck though lol.

I shockingly played about three hours of this tonight... surprisingly enjoyable. And I nabbed 100 Achievement Points already... booyeah. Less than 400 to go until I'm in quad-figures. It was an end-of-year goal. Should be no problem.

i can't wait to play Viva Pinata.

not picking it up b/c i'm currently playing Animal Crossing: Wild World. that's right, picked up a DS Lite (Onyx, fingerprint bitch). I had a DS when it first came out and NO GAMES were on it so I sold it. now i'm back on it. picked up New Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing (2nd copy should be arriving b/c my fiancee doesn't want anyone in her town and i want to go wireless with it), Big Brain Academy and Kirby's Canvas Curse (SIMPLY AMAZING). i think Kirby's CC was overlooked, because i had a bitch of a time finding it; it is a year old though.

my buddy that works at Nintendo is also getting me the hookup and a few more super-cheap games. woot woot. back with nintendo.

although i'm still playing the hell out of Gears Of War and Marvel on my 360.

tell me more about what you do in this game.

BTW I have 3500 points on my 360 and I hardly play it that much....is that a lot?
would be cool if you could use those points to buy ARCADE games....maybe down the road??

I'd like them to do something with the points system. We get the points by supporting Microsoft and their console, so it would be nice if we could use them in some way... if only to get exclusive skins or abilities. Somehow. Someway.

Viva Pinata is somewhat of a cross between Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, but with a heaping helping of Rare's weird humor. Basically, you are given a plot of land to develop, and as you improve it, you start attracting Pinatas. You can breed the pinatas and have a whole slew of them, and eventually I guess you can send them to parties... because they're pinatas. And the land is supposed to grow larger at some point, which would be awesome, because my plot has become a bit cramped.

Anyway, that's a really simplistic explanation. This game looks to be quite large, and there are many possibilities for evolving the pinatas and getting rare ones, etc. It sounds lame, and looks like a kids game, but I dunno... I plan on playing for a couple more hours tonight.

Oh, and it's got roughly an 85% rating on GameRankings.

that pinata game sounds surprisingly solid.

so i got them there burger king games in the mail, yesterday and played them for about 10 minutes before realizing i had way too much to do outside of the video game world.

i can safely say that Sneak King is one of the funniest visual experiences i have had in a long time in a video game. something about tip-toing in a lumber yard and handing people Whoppers is visually appeasing to me.

and the Bumper game sucked. it just sucked bad i thought. i did, however, like the description on the back of the box for the electricity mini game in that. i believe it said something to the effect of "FANS OF ELECTRICTY!!!" Hilarious!

I'm dying for Viva Pinata, but my fiancee is currently studying for a certification and she doesn't want it around (she's more likely to be addicted to it than I)

i love achievement points, i'm a total whore for them. i've got 6055 right now. look i understand it's an e-penis thing, but it's just a cool feature. especially when i unlocked a new Gears Of War gamer picture for getting the Commando achievement (beating it on insane). hell yeah.

I played for maybe two hours this afternoon and nabbed another 120 points from Viva Pinata. Less than 300 away from 10k.

And my Wii component cables finally arrived today. Not much of a difference, but eh... things are crisper.

Love this game! Using the two analog controllers was a huge change, but once mastered, it's much better than the old way.

OK, I'm not a gamer, and don't plan on becoming one, but my 9 year old son is really looking forward to getting a "game system" for Chanukah this year.
He enjoys computer games, and the plug and play TV games, but we've never really let him loose in an arcade or had any game system other than our PC. He's really wanting a football game and games like that. Loves backyard baseball and that kind of stuff. I've pretty much decided to get him a PS 2, but I have a few questions:

1. is there any reason I should be looking into any other system or is PS 2 a good option?

2. what do I need in addition to the PS 2 to make it worthwhile (controllers, memory cards, etc.)?

3. the gift will ultimately be for all 3 kids, so how many controllers do I need?

4. i was probably going to get it from amazon.com, but maybe I should get it from somewhere else either because of money, or some other reason, what's a good source for this.

5. any other advice is welcome. thanks in advance.

1. The PlayStation 2 is still probably the best overall option on the gaming market today -- especially for your situation. Not only do you get a cheap system with a steady stream of new games still coming out for it, but there are hundreds and hundreds of old games that you can pick up cheaply for it. On top of that, there are plenty of kids and all-ages games well worth playing for it. You might consider a Nintendo Wii if you think they'd be into the motion-sensing and such, but you'll be talking about a much bigger commitment in terms of price.

2/3. If you get a PlayStation 2, you will want to pick up a memory card ($25), two additional controllers (up to $25/each, depending on brand), and a multitap (up to $30), which will allow you to plug in more than two controllers to the PlayStation 2. However, not a ton of games really use the multitap, so if your kids are down for sharing, just get one extra controller (for two total) and they can switch off.

4. If you're buying a new system (which I recommend -- older PS2s have problems), it shouldn't matter where you buy it. It'll be $129.99 pretty much anywhere, unless you can find a solid bundle that'll let you save on the extra goodies. Look around, check the ads. While I don't entirely recommend used systems, I do think used games are worth your time and money, as you'll save at least a few bucks on each game.

5. If he's down for some football, get him Madden NFL 200X. The X depends on what you're looking to spend. Madden NFL 2007 will be about $40, but you can probably nab 2006 for $10 used these days, if not less. If he's not deep into gaming, go for last year's version.

Any other questions, just toss them in this thread. Between the however-many of us, we should be able to answer anything.

Agreed with all of that, except that I've bought 2 used PS2s, and never had a single problem with them. I don't know what the price markdown is, to make it worthwhile, but if you can find one for like $60 used, I'd go for it.

On the other hand, you might not want to give a used machine as a gift....

For $60, sure, it might not be a bad option. However, try to get one manufactured in the last three or four years, tops. I worked at GameStop for over four years, and the amount of broken PS2 systems we encountered was staggering. Hell, my launch PS2 started giving out in early 2002, but I was able to swap it for a new one before I quit GameStop for the first time. That one has been fine for 4 1/2 years now.

Honestly, $130 is an extremely fair price for the system, and it'll be new, and the smaller model to boot. If I had any reason to buy a PS2, I would almost certainly buy a new one, unless I got a killer deal on a used system.

Yeah, I was just guessing that used ones at gamestop would be like...half price. They should be even less with the new systems, but I really don't have a clue what I'm talking about. They could be $100, in which case, fuck em. I was just giving my opinion about what I'd pay for one.

Red Dead Revolver on Xbox is my favourite game to play.

Yeah, that would be far too logical for GameStop.

GameStop.com lists used versions of the redesign for $119.99, and used versions of the original design for $99.99 (with one of many cheap used games). They make a lot of money on those used systems -- and pretty much nothing on the new ones.

awesome advice. If I have any other questions I'll let you know. I knew you guys wouldn't let me down. Thanks so much.

I finally got it. I caved in and did it. GEARS OF WAR. Its everything I wanted and more, so pretty, so fun, so addicting. I may or may not have stayed up until 5:30 in the morning playing with my roommate yesterday... whoops.

YES it is awesome. i still suck at online play though.

How's this?


and this?

and this

Would I be ok if I got all of the above? And should I get 2 or 3 Controllers? Doesn't the PS2 itself come with one controller? Or is the original controller really bad?
Thanks for all the advice.

A PS2 as a multiplayer system? Pfft.

Elco, if you want all the kids to play and stuff, just get them a Gamecube, they've got 4 controller ports already and are pretty much THE kid-oriented multiplayer gaming system. Just pick them up a Mario Party and Smash Bros and everything is crystal.

I don't think I've ever played a single PS2 game not by myself with the exception of the Smackdown! series, but shit.

PS2 is definitely the better system, but I'd actually recommend the Gamecube over it in your case.


However, if the kids are just into football and only football games, then it doesn't really matter which one you buy. If I hadn't just sold my review copy of Backyard Baseball I'd mail it out to you. Sorry.

hmmm. I suspect they will play alone a lot, but together sometimes. I'm not really looking to have them play too much frankly. Does Gamecube work well when playing alone? Do they have games like football, too, or is it mostly arcade type games?

EDIT: They play other stuff. My son played a football game at a friend's house and has his heart set on getting one. Oddly, I even want him to gain some understanding of the real game out of it. They have backyard baseball on the pc, and enjoy that quite a bit.

Well, most football series are multi-system, all of them are 1-4 player, but with PS2 you'd have to buy a multi-tap.

If you don't want the kids playing that often, my parents wouldn't let me play until my homework and chores were done and stuff, it was a pretty effective system.

There's plenty of great one-player Gamecube games, but a lot more great PS2 one player games. Basically:


PS2
- incredibly strong and diverse library of games spanning the last ten years
- more singular player oriented
- Dvd playing ability

Gamecube
- Kid oriented, little objectionable material on their best titles
- Less expensive
- Much more variety and quality in multiplayer gaming.


EDIT: I'd also check Ebay for some good deals in respects to purchasing these systems, since their technically last generation now, these things can go pretty cheap used.

Here's a gamecube with an hour left going for 60 coming with an extra controller and over 20 games, not too shabby. Not saying you should bid on this or anything but always keep Ebay open as a viable option for used game systems.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nintendo-Gamecube-Syst...1QQcmdZViewItem

Oh yeah, if you go with PS2, you could always get some of those crazy DDR dance pads if they're into that sort of thing.

tough call. I don't think the dvd playing is really significant. I like the price issue, and the multiplayer gaming. I did some surfing and see the Madden Football game is available for gamecube, so that's not a problem. I'm starting to lean to the gamecube. andyroo, you got any issues with gamecube that I should be aware of? anyone else either?

Thanks again for all your help peoples. Gives me renewed faith in the greatness of hte somb.