Weekend Review

Well, the weekend has come and gone. I am currently here at work dealing with the usual stuff that it is I get paid to do. This weekend I spent apprx 1/3 sleeping, 1/3 gaming, 1/3 watching movies, and 1/3 not answering my phone. Wait...that can't be right...

Made Underboss in The Godfather : The Game and got to level 38. I finished the whole plot missions and now all I have left is to bomb the hell out of the other 4 families' compounds. Am also down to my last 4 contract hits. This game is getting pretty difficult now.

Halo2 didn't go so well this weekend. I played a tad on Friday and a tad on Saturday. Both times I left feeling woefully inadequate in my skills. STILL level 3 and I don't think I got more than 7 kills in any game. Although I did turn off the vibration in the controller and it does make a difference.

Ninety Nine Nights is almost complete. Finished all main missions and unlocked the secret character. Who is it? It's a SECRET. hehe. I have to finish the special mission and get all A ranking or higher on all previous missions. I also need to level up all my char's to 9 for the final achievement. This game was alot of fun.

I bought the new Xbox Live Vision Camera. Snapped a pic and it looks pretty good. I don't know why I bought it, I will probably never use it. Maybe I'll make my owm gamerpicture or something. Meh...

OK. Im out. I have nothing else to report. Leave me a comment. Out.

 

Posted by DreadPirate75 @ 12:34 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

"Everybody's Workin' For The Weekend!"

So, it's Friday and I still can't think of anything good for the blog. I think you are all gonna be stuck with random ramblings, game reviews, and the occasional pic/vid post. I have one idea, but it's top secret because I don't want anyone else to do it as well. (Blog espionage) It will take a week or so to organize. I'll keep you posted on Blog Project-X. I had Halo dreams last night, but only remember the tid bits that flooded through when I was hitting snooze on my alarm this morning. I'm hoping this weekend to get at least to level 8, and advancement of 5 levels. We will see. So we get new computers in the office this weekend. Yes..thats right. The weekend. This means I have to come in on Sunday and make sure it all goes smoothly. Not a big deal, I will take that time to also decorate my office so it doesnt look like a hospital room. I have heard from a little birdie that Guild Wars is having a free weekend for their new expansion. I might check that out. It's a free download on their website. (Thanks to you-know-who-you-are!)

Anyways. I'm out for now. I hope you all have a great weekend and will see some of you in-game.

Drink your Ovaltine!

 

Posted by DreadPirate75 @ 1:19 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Just a little patience...yeaaahhh yeah"

Wow. Awesome night of Halo smackdowns!!

 I unfortunately was on the receiving end...again.

Picked up a few good tips and hints and still need to work on headshots big time.  Thanks to D1V1S1ON XX for their patience.  Gimme another week or two and I'll be passing around the Ovaltine.





Posted by DreadPirate75 @ 2:32 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

"It's on random..."

Well, today I have absolutely nothing to blog. No funny pictures, no reviews, top-10's, or anything that would remotely be considered entertaining. As usual I have wrapped up my operational and logistical resposibilities wayyyy before quitting time. Now I just have to wait for the "fires" to start so I can put them out as they happen.

I guess I can ramble on about different things that pop up in the ol' skull here. How about current events? Who is still eating spinach? I don't eat alot of spinach. Did you know if you say the word spinach about 20 times really fast, it turns into one of the most nonsensical words in the english language. (next to the word nonsensical itself, of course...which isn't really even a word.)

How about last night's Halo2 beatdown. I'm sorry guys...I suck...but it was still fun watching everyone else get kills. I was reading the Halo2 tips thread in the Division XX forums. Good stuff there. I will have to remember all them for later. I hope they keep piling up.

Tonight I am thinking chromehounds. I miss my mechs. I need to break in and game with the folks from 2old4tactics. I'm sure I will follow it up with some Halo.

Lets talk about how after 5 hours of Godfather : The Game last night, I went to bed and had crazy ass dreams of mobsters and tommy guns. Sometimes, and I am fairly sure this is common, we all play games for very long periods of time. And sometines when the game is turned off in the console, it is still turned on in your brain. That happened ALOT before I cured my addiction to WoW. I would have crazy retarded dreams of all things WarCraft.

Well, this is actually more rambling than I anticipated. I'll catch you all in-game or around the site. I am thinking I will have to have some gimmick for my blog. I'll have to think about it....

Later skaters!

  

Posted by DreadPirate75 @ 2:44 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

XBox 360 - The Godfather : The Game - The Review

I’ll do this review in two versions, the short ADD version and the long version -

The short version:

This game is awesome. Buy it.

The long version:

Just when you think you have gotten as gangsta as you can get with GTA:San Andreas and Saint Row, along comes The Godfather: The Game to take it back old school style. This genre of video game has been out and about for quite a few years now: run around, act the criminal hijacking cars, beating the snot out of people and complete a mission oriented plot line involving guns, drugs, hookers, and gang territories. In all honesty there is no deviation from that game play in The Godfather, you wont find a groundbreaking new type of game play. What it does instead is refresh it by taking it back to the “golden age” of organized crime, 1930’ s-1960, in none other than good old New York City.

The game starts off with a bang and continues to deliver a series of violent and movie related missions to give you a basic tutorial of how to control your character throughout the game. From there it moves on to increasingly higher profile missions that tie in directly (and thankfully credibly) to the movie itself. In between the plot related “main missions” you have the opportunity to increase your respect and cash income by extorting businesses, taking over rivaling family warehouses and territories, robbing banks and businesses, and hi-jacking cars. It is an open-ended game, so you can get distracted for as long as you want from the main plot missions.

Let’s talk graphics, sound, and controls. If you are looking to play only next gen games that have pretty textures, extreme lighting effects, and lots of cool neon particles then you won’t find it here. The graphics look just like the 180 x-box version. If you were expecting a big makeover for the port to the 360 version, it didn’t happen. This is not to say the graphics are bad in any way, they just aren’t “next-gen”. This is in no way a flaw in the game; it still looks great in almost every aspect. The models of all the main characters look amazing, down to moles and wrinkles the characters are spot on. The sound is pretty standard, nothing extremely noteworthy there. The voice acting is very well done and thankfully almost exactly spot on with the actors from the movie. (You will be surprised when Michael Corleone is introduced…enough said without spoiling it) The bullets pop and zing, tires squeal, and garrotes zip. It sounds great on my surround sound when I’m in a warehouse firefight with boxes getting riddled next to me, glass shattering behind me, and my bullets slapping into torso’s to my front. The game is controlled with the standard look and movement controls. The melee fighting control is uniquely done with the ability to grab the enemy and do some pretty brutal beat downs up close and personal. The weapons have a great lock on system using the triggers and a non-frustrating manual aim as well.

Lastly you should know about the character development. Your character is leveled up based on respect. The more businesses you extort, bad guys you beat down, and mission you accomplish the more respect you get. This will bring up your level and you get to increase your stats by assigning points to the corresponding skill. Ex. Melee, hand-to-hand, health, speed, etc. There is also a family rank structure you climb as the game progresses. These promotions are automatic as the missions are completed and increase your percentage of profits from all your activities.

There is no multiplayer however; you can upload your stats to EA servers. I haven’t explored this yet. I am assuming it just for reference to see who is doing what and all that fanboy stuff.

The final word: this game is a hit (no pun intended) and totally worth adding to your collection. Factor in a big bonus if you like the GTA series / Saint's Row. Add a BIGGER multiplier if you are a fan of the books or movies. The game follows the plot lines of the movie and you are directly involved in the events that take place in them. The game basically fills in details that the movie didn’t, and you are in them. I'll see you on the streets of New York...or maybe you will be sleeping with the fishes.

Posted by DreadPirate75 @ 10:55 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments