Boy this would really take the fun out of playing the Cleveland Browns on ESPN NFL 2K5. If I updated my roster via Xbox Live to account for the current injuries the REAL Cleveland Browns have pictured above, I’d have an even harder time taking my sucky favorite team to the super bowl!

I miss the carefree days of Tecmo Superbowl for NES when I could take Bo Jackson on 80 yard runs time and time again. Your playbook was four running plays and four passing plays and any 15 year old could figure it out. Now things have gotten so complex, that you need to LEARN things. I find myself researching formations and watching football games to see if they use the 4-3 or the dime on 3rd and 5. Granted, it will increase my enjoyment of real life football, but it can be frustrating. Half the time I opt to let the “coach” decide what plays to use.

This whole franchise thing is ridiculous also. Who wants to micromanage ticket and concession prices when you could be playing football. I bet in ESPN NFL 2K6 they’ll have a nifty feature where you can watch the tapes of last week’s games to decide what strategy to use when you face your next opponent! Imagine watching hours of simulated games before building your new playbook every week.

My favorite thing by far is the Chris Behrman halftime show where Behrman narrates clips of key plays in the game. The narration can be typically choppy at times, but I always look forward to seeing my highlights presented. Another cool feature is the ability to import your own music and create clips to be played during events in the game. I have a piece of my song “Collide” playing everytime I get a touchdown. I was thinking of recording custom music clips for each event and making them available online. Anyhow, for $16.88 at Target, I’m getting major bang for the buck with this game!

Zombie Killing for Dummies

In the midst of getting started with school I finished Silent Hill 3. As expected, it was scary as hell and offered some quality monster beatdown. The guys at Konami have stretched the bloody hospital, abandoned wheelchair, demon dog ideas about as far as they can go since the first Silent Hill for PS1. Actually the demon dogs are still a carry-over from the Resident Evil series. The good news is that Silent Hill 4 is out and Konami has apparently brought in all new material. I don’t know how they managed it, but the voice acting for SH3 is worse that the two previous titles in the series. The man who did the Japanese to English translation for this game needs to find a new line of work as the conversations in the game were at times completely incongruous. Fortunately I found a superfan’s website which explained a lot of the storyline. If you’ve played the Silent Hill games and wondered at times what the hell is going on, this site will help.

http://www.black-helix.com/is/dead/

The Silent Hill games look better with each release and Konami has keeping the player on edge down to a science.

Borderline sacrilege at every turn

Konami still refuses to admit that these games are about foiling the plans of devil worshipers. I guess there’s no way you’d get a game released in the US if you actually came right out and said that.

Pull trigger, shout at television

All in all, a good time with a good scare. I’m looking forward to Silent Hill 4 which I will probably play on XBOX for the better visuals. But I think I’ll space it out with a couple of non-survival-horror titles first. Now back to the books. Or maybe just one more quest in Fable.

This should make up for Athens this year… [although I thought the man-made Kayak river was wicked cool.

Anyway, I decided to plug my brother’s game “Dark Horizons: Lore” just because Max Gaming has come up with an interesting way to promote the game, the latest release is supposed to be super stable [especially for Mac], and you can win a ATI card.

It is time for the Mavlympics!!!

And this should be nothing like a the strange Laff-A-Lympics .

Basically from what I understand, it is going to be like Track and Field just with big Mechs [or Mavs in the DH:L universe].

But unlike the old Decathlon is done you shouldn’t need a new keyboard once the games are over.

Anyway I have done my job, enjoy.

I promised Jeff I would spend time playing Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher’s Bay, and I came through on that promise. Its pretty fun, but the best way to describe it is that its remind me of Halo crossed with some Splinter Cell. Now, I’ve just named off to pretty monumental games here and had Riddick come out before those other two there would be real reason to call your mom about it. It came late to the dance, so we can’t get too excited about it.

Don’t get me wrong its big time fun, but I think I’m just in a Fable mood at the moment. The biggest highlight for me was walking around the prison and all the guys were saying things like “you gotta get a shiv man” or “hey, you wanna stay alive? Get a shiv and kill General Gau” or something like that.

BTW, when it came time to name my character I went with “Vigo” like the bad guy from Ghostbusters 2. I figure when I kill people really violently I can stand up on my couch and say “You are like flies to him! He is Viiiiigo!” Hopefully more on this game later, I promise to resist the Fable urge until at least the weekend.

PS. Get Kanye West - College Dropout(iTunes Link). Little kids singing about selling drugs on the street has never been done better. After all he’s Jay-Z’s protege.

OK, so this probably technically doesn’t apply as a video game, but I have to update why I’ve given no posts on the games I’m working on (mainly Wolf 3D). Basically, I’m addicted to online poker (no-limit Texas Hold’Em). Yes, I’ve been caught up in the worldwide craze and even hope to qualify in one of the World Series of Poker satellite tourneys next year. Anyway, that’s me on the right with the enormous boobs. I always try to pick the character at the table who looks most like me.

So many posts, so many memories, so much time I could’ve spent practicing….

On this momentous occasion of my 75th post, I must now declare that my PC is officially outdated. No matter how much memory I plug in, nor what latest and greatest video card I install, my 1.49Ghz P4 won’t be able to play Far Cry without it looking like Quake 2. It’s a sad occasion, but I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has. I’ve had it for almost three years and gaming has just caught up to it. Now my choice is clear, either buy a new PC or attack the catalog of pre-Far Cry games that play fine on my computer. I’m opting for the latter as I already own an Xbox and would feel foolish spending $2000 on a Wintendo machine. I guess it’s time to check out Jeff and Mike’s game lists for some post DOS / pre Far Cry titles to feed bomb to. I’m already working on Splinter Cell and Raven Shield, so maybe I’ll start there. I’ll have to reinstall them since Far Cry needed 4G and forced me to uninstall every other single game on my hard drive.

Before calling it quits with Far Cry, I did manage to jump the boat over the sand bar. In fact, while I was jumping it I fell out of the boat and watched it bounce across into the water. Unfortunately, my stupid keyboard had the F-keys switched to quick commands so my request for a screenshot was denied.

Meanwhile, I’m making steady progress in Everything or Nothing. I’ve taken the time to re-complete several levels to acheive Gold and Platinum status. Some of the levels are a bit too picky regarding this. It’s not enough that you beat the level on the hardest difficulty and get all the Bond Moments. You have to also run the entire time, waste no bullets, and shoot nothing but head shots. I’m exaggerating of course, but not by much. Here’s a stolen screenshot of an earlier level where the baddies throw your lay out of a helicoptor and you have to jump off a cliff and catch up with her.

Sir Issac Newton is rolling in his grave…

It seems I’m falling way behind in the who-has-more-time-to-blog race, so I thought I’d make a post to pad my stats. I don’t really have anything to say the moment regarding games or clever photoshop jobs. No no no, wait, I do have something to say! Medal of Honor: Rising Sun SUCKS! I’ve had more fun getting my teeth scraped. I don’t understand how MoH: Allied Assault and MoH: Frontline were such good games yet Rising Sun makes me want to get an elective appendectomy.

I still finished the game though. I consider it a matter of pride.

Hi folks. Here are some between-homework updates:

I fixed a few broken links that resulted from the move to WordPress. We had broken screenshots here and there.

Mike G’s game collection has been added to the mix. It’s over there with the links. Feeling lazy? Click here.

For kicks, I checked the post count for everyone. Tim’s dominating with 74 posts. I’m in second with 60. Ryan and Mike are in close contention for 3rd place with 20 and 18 respectively. Maybe I should change the name of the site to Eat My Bomb: Featuring Tim.