I’m on level 3 of Simpsons: Hit and Run and so far it’s great. Some of the missions are rather flimsy (like gathering blood for Grandpa), but you don’t really care because it’s fun. The environments are awesome and contain plenty of obscure Simpsons references like the solid gold house and rocket car the homeless guy who originally thought of Itchy and Scratchy bought with his settlement. You can even take his rocket car for a spin!

You forget how huge Springfield is when you watch the show, but as each new environment comes up I’m amazed by how many people and places there are. Even the NPG’s walking around are recognizable as extras from the show. The voice acting is top knotch as expected and they’ve recorded plenty of dialog and taunts so you never get tired of it. No “Lock and load” syndrome…

It’s really rewarding to just walk around town. They did a great job making you feel like you’re visiting Springfield. It was a thrill standing on the shoulders of the giant Lard Lad statue and being able to look around town.

Finally a decent Simpsons licensed game besides the arcade game! Now if only South Park could learn from this…

You should go spend that $50 that you would spend on a title on helping some people out.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/104-6937976-1253569

You should go spend that $50 that you would spend on a title on helping some people out.

Amazon 1-Click Donations

Here’s a barrage of World of Warcraft Screenshots:

I used to watch people play other MMORPG’s and it seemed like all they ever did was walk around forever. Like when you are in Target. In WoW you can actually take a gryphon to get around. Its kinda like an airline. The graphics in this part of the game are outstanding. Also, EJ pointed out the subway to me. No kidding a subway! They even have benches you can sit on to wait for the train. I don’t have any screenshots of that at the moment, but I’ll get some. And now so more amusing stuff…

Comedy like this makes the $15 a month worth it. Ok, that’s a lie, but still I definitely laughed when I came upon this in Tinker Town.

Apparently no one in Azeroth ever learned how to stand in line and wait for Santa.

So here he is, the man of the hour. Santa (or the more PC “Greatfather Winter”) gave me presents but more importantly he gave me what I really wanted for christmas, XP.

The Christmas Haul

Despite the fact that I gave my brother Pete four of my games, I returned home from Xmas with nine more. Only Xmen Legends and Simpson’s Hit & Run were gifts, the others were part of what is likely to become an annual game swap. It’s such a good thing. It provides for endless hours of inexpensive gaming, it let’s you play games you probably wouldn’t have bought on your own, and it sticks it to the man who insists on charging $50 for a video game. As long as you’re consistently six months behind schedule, your games will be 65% cheaper.

The funny thing is that despite the abundance of Xbox titles, we spent most of our time playing Mario Kart 64 on an emulator….

I hope you all had a great holiday and played lots of games. Now get posting!

I am making “friends” with a bear. He eventually became my pet and I named him “BigPapi”.

So I started playing World of Warcraft. Now I know what you are thinking… “We’ve seen Mike get pumped up about games before and then nothing.” Let’s not forget the Star Wars Galaxies debacle. That’s just it though, those games gave me no reason to keep coming back. That’s why WoW has been declared the new king of video games. It’s like Diablo online with super awesome pills. I mean really has Blizzard ever done you wrong? Whoever it is that is Jeff’s friend and doesn’t like the Warcraft Series, you need to get off your high gryphon and get with the program. For real though if you guys wanna play we are on the Skullcrusher server. Just whisper (that’s the way the HeyDudes talk to each other in game) to me “mikegray” or my buddy ej “Gryph” and we can hook you up with all sorts of goodies.

Many of you guys and gals are probably finshing (or perhaps starting) your holiday shopping now. As you check off your Xmas list, video games and electronics goodies are more than likely on top. And yes, I realize some of you may be shopping at Best Buy, to my chagrin.

I’m sure you’ve heard before that Best Buy says its customers aren’t always right, and how they’re trying to get rid of some of their customers. From what I’ve read, it appears they’re trying to get rid of us (the smart shoppers who know how to get the good deals); Best Buy only wants the unintelligent shoppers in their stores. Hence we may get ignored when we ask for help in the store.

So, here are some of my tips to make sure you get the good deals and don’t get the shaft by Best Buy:

1. Make sure you send in your rebate. Companies are able to offer rebate deals because they know quite a lot of customers will forget to send them in on time. Don’t be one of those fools; get the rebate check you deserve.
2. If Best Buy sales staff ignore you, don’t let up. Remember, Best Buy doesn’t want you to shop there. Force their sales staff to work get you the best deal.
3. If you take advantage of their credit card deal, be careful not to use it for 0% interest credit purchases. Best Buy sometimes offers its customers 10% or something if they apply for a credit card. This is a decent deal if you’re buying something expensive (perhaps on sale too), but be careful not to use it for 0% interest credit purchases. The 0% interest is nice, but if you miss one payment, they’ll hit you up for some ridiculous interest for all the money you have owed them since the start of the loan. We’re talking 20-25% at least. It’s not worth it.
4. Never get the extended warrantee. The Best Buy salespeople will try their best to foist the extended warrantee on you. Don’t get the warrantee, it’s a waste of money. The salesman may even imply they will replace the product if it breaks–even if the damage is your fault. This isn’t true; the BB salesman will say anything to get you to buy the warrantee.
5. You don’t have to buy from Best Buy. Remember, the smaller stores can have good deals and probably shorter lines. The customer service at the other stores can be much better, too. You may even wish to reward the store that has helpful staff with a purchase, especially if the price is the same as Best Buy’s price. And don’t forget returns can be easier at other stores–I once spent 4 hours at Best Buy returning two DVDs after Christmas. I kid you not.
6. Best Buy will give you 10% off plus the price difference if you see a lower price at a competitor’s business. So be sure to really shop around beforehand. The 10% off only applies if you have written proof (not including Internet ads). So be sure to bring an advertisement or have the Circuit City guy write down a low price for you. Be prepared to wait awhile while Best Buy’s fantastic customer service gets you this 10% off.
7. Do your research before you go into Best Buy. Don’t expect to find very intelligent or helpful answers from Best Buy employees or managers.
8. If Best Buy is out of stock, check other stores. There have been a few times where I’ve seen hot holiday items out of stock with long lines at Best Buy, but other stores had stuff in stock. Today I was talking with a coworker who went to two different Best Buys looking for a Nintendo DS; she finally found one at Toys R Us.
9. Just avoid shopping at Best Buy altogether. Enough said.

Have any more holiday shopping tips? Feel free to put them in the comments.

(BTW, sorry for the lack of photos, Jeff–I tried including a stock photo of a smiling Best Buy guy, and I almost spewed all over my keyboard).

Yes, the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has eaten the bomb. This was a really fun game with clips from the movie. In this game as opposed to the other ones they have fixed the problems with cooperative mode, it’s a blast to go through and kick ass with yourself as Gandalf and your friend as Aragorn.

No, that’s not what it seems. Yes, it does say “the crack of doom”.

I’ve decided I officially suck at taking screenshots. Sorry. It took me way too long to get these screenshots, my camera ran out of batteries and I had to comandeer them from my Tivo remote control. Now that’s dedication. Almost all of the pictures came out blurry. And I couldn’t pause it because a box would pop up and block the picture, just like Microsoft Internet Explorer. Bleh.

Here’s a decent one at the Black Gate. In some scenes you have to make your way along a path and fight off guys with your sword and arrows. In other scences (like the Black Gate) you have to fight off seemingly thousands of guys swarming at you. It’s a load of fun!

The game really sticks to the book/movie storyline with the exception of some minor details, and they actually use the music from the movie, which really adds to the excitement to the game.

If you have a chance to rent this or buy it cheap (I’m pretty sure you can find it for less than $30 at this point), I’d definitely recommend it. Now I’ll have to check out the Third Age–a Lord of the Rings video game pseudo-sequel that came out a few weeks ago (which I don’t *think* is based on the book storyline).

Sabotage!

Um…watch out for the balls…
*snicker, snicker*

It’s time to take a break from studying and talk about games. I can’t let you guys have all the fun.

If these screenshots don’t look familiar, you’ve taken a wrong turn, kid. You meant to go here. Dragon’s Lair was one of my all-time favorites at the arcade. It’s really only fun because you get to watch a good cartoon as you go. The cool thing is that these are out on DVD so you can play it on your TV/computer if you like. Standby for nostalgia transmission >>>

That’s right, hop on. He won’t hurt you.

The only controls are up, down, left, right and ’sword’ and your level of actual control over the game is limited. It’s all about hitting the right button at the right time. And if you don’t…

They take your dentures away.

This will be an easy one to finish over the holiday break. Can’t wait to beat that dragon’s ass without dropping $40 in quarters.

Last week I realized that squaring off against vocabulary chickens was pretty sad, so I pillaged the pre-played bin at EB Games and picked up a six dollar copy of “.hack//infection”.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this game, it’s a Japanese RPG based on an interesting premise: it’s a simulated MMORPG in which events in the game world (creatively named “The World”) are somehow affecting people in the real world. After your good friend’s game character is killed by a mysterious computer glitch, your friend falls into a coma in the real world (”real” being a relative term) and you begin to explore the game zones in search of the data glitch that turned your pal into a rutabaga. Along the way you ally with other players (and their characters) whom you interact with both in “The World” as well as through e-mail and message boards in the real world, represented by a desk top-like interface where the game starts.

Overall it’s not a terribly impressive game; the graphics are passe by today’s standards, I turned the music off to save my sanity, and it’s not a very long game (I’m at 24 hours and facing the final boss) but it’s got some good things going for it. First, it’s a solid RPG with all of the dungeon crawling elements you’d expect and enjoy. Second, the storyline is clever and your ability to interact with the game world and the real world makes for some exciting twists. Finally, the game is a multi-media juggernaut. There are four parts to this game series (infection, mutation, outbreak, and quarantine) that tell one story, each comes with an anime DVD that tells another story, the entire game series is backed by a cartoon series (which appears on the Cartoon Network late at night) which is a third story, and there’s a conspiracy that links all three together which is pieced by clues in all three media forms. The Japanese are nothing if not overly clever.

If you like RPG’s in general (which I do), six bucks is a good price to pick up this classic hack and slash.

Turn on the Japanese subtitles for an extra challenge!

This game got a “Teen” rating for “sexual situations”, but I’m sure her statement, “it would be my pleasure to service you” was just a bad translation. Then again, these are the Japanese…