Rarely have we seen the addictive effects of gaming take hold so quickly as they have with our new co-op student who we will refer to as C Lowe.

Command & Conquer: Renegade has consumed his mind and it’s all he thinks about day in and day out. His will is strong but he must now contend with 5 seasoned veterans who have not only worked up a nasty bag of strategic maneuvers but also played the maps time and time again. The most recent smackdown was as follows: Mike G and I took on C Lowe 2-to-1. To make things fair, we gave C Lowe 20,000 credits and gave ourselves zero. Mike and I launched our footsoldier attack quickly, placing bombs in his base and giving the finger to his Hand of Nod as we shot out its window panes. After gaining enough credits to build vehicles, we launched an air assault which involved flying together to C Lowe’s base, waiting for him to build a helicopter, stealing said helicopter and flying it back to our “motor pool”. This happened more than once…

We’ve Got More Rides Than Six Flags

The round ended with C Lowe clean out of money from building aircraft and with TEAM ALLSTON flossin’ like Funk Master Flex. Kudos to you, C Lowe, for spending credits at an unprecedented pace and for seeing it through to the end.

I found the evil voodoo skull and now only have 45 minutes of gametime left before I can cross this one off! In classic Blizzard form I have to cooperate with the Orcs and Humans to defeat the common enemy of life itself;
Archimonde the demon!

If I can keep him away from the World Tree for 45 minutes, than all will be right with the world (except that something else must go wrong afterwards to warrant the Frozen Throne expansion.)

Having finally taken out Chunky Chong by backing over him with a station wagon, or family truckster if you will, in a never ending car chase (I managed to flip his piece of crap car four times and it still wouldn’t blow up), I continued to drive around Liberty City in search of good times. I found it in the source of driving two police cruisers into the water simultaneously with a large red and green (to put us in the holiday spirit) bus. A few moments later, with two helicopters overhead and several roadblocks in front of me, the mythical fifth star appeared at the top right corner of my screen. Unfortunately at this point, the bus has been slightly damaged and had blown up in an inferno of blood and short italian men. Of course, when the fifth star came up, I nearly spit my root beer out of my nose. Tragically, the fifth star was only up for roughly four seconds as 9 cops on foot put more holes in me than a cheese grater.

I then played Hot Shots 3 and kicked Spike’s ass.

The Ravenshield crew continues its losing streak against the terrorists occupying the private airport in Somethingtown. Our last excursion started strong with a new strategy: stealthily lying face down in a pool of blood. This fooled the enemy into thinking we’d eaten MRE’s filled with glass rendering us harmless.

Hope This is Not Chris’ Blood

Despite our best efforts and painful glass chewing, the entire outing ended in heartbreak as we shot a terrorist in a Hawaiian shirt who in turn sat on the head of undercover special agent Slim Goodbody.

Mele Kalikimaka, You Bastard

We’ve failed this mission roughly 40 times now and we’ve been forced to call in the last line of defense:

Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) and “Tiny” Jeb Wilkins

With their help and an endless supply of ammunition/explosives, we can defeat these Russian/Japanese/Columbian oppressors and move on to better days. More to follow…

Down here in m***** f***** rainy New Orleans (seriously, it rains 3 inches every day - it’s like Seattle except with 350 more murders per year), we had the Grand Theft Auto marathon on Saturday night and my, my, the hilarity. I would like to take another impromptu poll. Bascially, we said screw the missions, and for 6 hours we tried our damdest to get as many stars as possible to get the police to chase us. We got up to four a few times but whenever we got to that point we would be gunned down in a line of bullets by about 50 squad cars and a few helicopters and roadblocks. Poll question A: has anyone gotten to 5 or 6 stars and Poll Question B: favorite vehicle in the game - mine is the bus (although one of the cops actually hopped in the passenger side and busted me - bummer).

Not only am I a goober for taking this picture ten years ago, but also for choosing to dominate this game so completely. Even now I’m thinking “I bet I could beat them 250 - 0 if I practiced a bit more”

So no more excuses for those of you who have digital cameras and consoles. Let’s see some snaps!

Ahh . . . finally the game’s getting interesting. Now I’ve had to choose sides. Do I believe that UNATCO is trying to take over the world and join NSF, or do I stick with UNATCO and keep shooting GiJoe “Cobra” lookalikes? Usually I side with the baddies, so this time I decided to play “good cop”. I put that in quotes because I have a feeling that it’ll all come crashing down in the end. I shot Mr “Bad Hispanic Accent” in the throat and then carried him across the airfield to make it look like he just had too much to drink - sort of like “Weekend at Bernie’s” but with more laughs.

There’s also a disturbing element to this game because it’s pre-9/11 and deals with terrorists taking over NYC. You start out the game running around the ruins of the Statue of Liberty (terrorists blew it up) and I’ve yet to see the WTC in any of the fly-bys. It’s interesting how plots like these are no longer necessarily tied to Sci-Fi settings with Cyborgs and plasma weapons.

Tim has made me feel like a sellout by keeping the train rolling for the past week. It’s not that I haven’t been gaming. Erin & I have been beating down Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for the past week and a half. It’s just that I can’t easily get any screen captures from PS2 games. But here’s what I can give you.

Tennis Critters

Matt introduced me to this multiplayer tennis game and it’s funny as all hell. He tells me that it’s best when you swear a lot.

Suck It, Squirrel

I’m determined to find a way to get PS2 screen captures more easily but until then, deal with the critters.