This week in gaming

Hello everybody...(in my best Dr. Nick Riviera voice)

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was pretty uneventfull. Did a bit of work around the house, played a bit of Fable II, and got some Fallout 3 in. Getting REALLY excited about GOW2!! It's just a few days away, and I can taste it. I can't wait to try out all of the new weapons, and see if some of the annoyances of GOW are gone. It'll be killer if I can actually run past something without feeling that I was wearing a velcro suit. I'm hoping the inherent lagginess of MP will be a thing of the past too. I'm going to pick it up at midnight, and play until I can't keep my eyelids open. I'm hoping I can take Friday off, if not, I'll be one sleepy ass mofo Friday morning.

Like I said, I played some Fable II this weekend. I'm still really impressed with the game, but it has gotten a bit repetitive. I played Fallout 3 for about 4 hours yesterday, and got a lot of stuff done. I'm knocking around Megaton right now, with a few excursions out to the wasteland. Fallout 3 is definately living up to it's pedigree. I'm really digging it. The first time I shot a bandit in the head, and their head flew off in glorious slow motion, I had a big smile on my face. I can't wait to level up my weapons skills so I can inflict even bigger damage to my enemies!....Ah...it's the small things in life.

Well, that's about all that's going on this week. The Maniacal Marauders are having a GOW sendoff this Wednesday, to get in the mood (like we really need that right now, I think we all have raging hard ons right now!) It'll be a bit bittersweet to retire GOW, but damn, GOW2 is going to be sweet!

Well, in closing....tommorow is Election day. Get out and vote! I don't care who you vote for, that's your business, but VOTE!

Here's a little election humor for ya'll.

www.cracked.com/article_16733_2008-presidential-election-as-depicted-by-5-year-olds.html

Cheers.......and see ya'll online!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Yeah! It's Halloween. My favorite "holiday"

This year's going to be a bit tame as my wife is still recovering from hip surgery, and we're still down about our dog. I think tonight, we're just going to do a horror movie marathon and give out candy. Usually we make a haunted house "pilgrimage" We have one here in Baton Rouge that has been voted on of the best in the country for a couple of years now. "The 13th Gate" is really great. They own the building so they can work on it year round. It's always really impressive, and they usually have a good mix of new stuff, with the old.

We usally try to hit the "House of Shock" It's an 18 and older haunted house in New Orleans. It was co-founded by Rob Zombie, and Phil Anselmo (of Pantera) It's definately not for the faint at heart. There's usually a goodly amount of people that don't make it through (pussies!)

I've always loved Halloween. Carving pumpkins, decorating, wearing a costume, and eating more Halloween candy than is advisable. It really is my favorite time of year. This year we really haven't done any decorating, or neighbors went all out and did a really great graveyard in their yard. I told Claire (the missus) that next year we'll make up for this year (Hopefully we'll be able to AFFORD to do something next year!

I love horror movies. It's my favorite genre by far. Anything from classic Universal horror to J-Horror, it's all good to me. American Movie Classics has been showing some great old movies the last couple of days. We watched "Twice Told Tales" with Vincent Price last night. I've pretty much been recording AMC for a day now. There's a couple of movies that have never been released on DVD that are airing today. YEAH!

Well...enough of my yapping....      HAVE A HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

MUH-HAR-HAR

Initial reaction to Fallout 3

Greets all...

Picked up Fallout 3 yesterday. I only got to play for about 90 minutes, but so far I am very impressed! I played the first 2 games, and loved them. I know a few of the Fallout faithful that were very leery of the switch to first person format, but I have to say that it does not bother me in the least. You can play the game in first or third person view, just like Oblivion. Speaking of Oblivion, it's very obvious that they are using the same engine. It took about a nanosecond for me to get comfortable with the controls, as I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing Oblivion.

The first half hour of Fallout 3 is spent creating your character. You start as a kid, and by the time the game starts to really take off, you are 19 years old. The character creator is fairly extensive, much like the one in Oblivion. You chose skills, and are taught combat, and how to use your Pip Boy (Personal Information Processor) and the VATS targeting system. There's not much combat in the first part of the game, you interact with the denizens of Vault 101, and kill a few huge ass roaches (radroaches), but the combat is pretty limited. You do a lot of sneaking around in the first couple of objectives, and you do fight a few guards, which gives you some experience using the VATS (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System)

The graphics are good. The muted color pallete suits the post nuclear wasteland world of Fallout. Since it shares a game engine, the graphics are about on par with Oblivion, I would say. Controls are pretty intuitive, and the interface is well designed. The Pip Boy is really easy to navigate, and chock full of information.

So far I am very pleased with Fallout 3. If you were a fan of the first two, and can get past the format change, I think you'd dig it. It's funny, because the format change makes Fallout 3 feel a bit like Half Life (which isn't a BAD thing, let me tell ya!) I can't wait to gain some of the skills, and use some of the outrageous weapons that you will gain as the game progresses. Fallout 3 is receiving rave reviews, except for a few timmies that apparently don't know the difference between and RPG, and a FPS.

I think it definately deserves the accolades!

Back to work (sigh)

...so, it's my first day back to work after a weeks vacation.

I so don't want to be there. I'll still really down about our dog passing away, and worried as hell about my wife. I'd rather be just about anywhere but here right now. Of course I've got a week of work to catch up, so no rest for the wicked.

Spent most of last week playing Fable 2. Damn, that's an addictive game. Got in a few matches of Gears of War, and a bit of Dead Space. Really wasn't all that much into playing this week, but I needed a diversion. Fallout comes out tommorow, then Resistance 2, and then of course GOW2 on the 7th. Lots of stuff coming out, but I can't really seem to get that excited. I guess I'm going through a bit of depression over everything. I am glad that Pig is not suffering anymore, but I miss her. Claire seems to be doing okay, and I really hope she does get relief after she heals up. We've been through a lot in the last couple of years, and she means everything to me. I hate seeing her in pain, and not really being able to do anything. The doctor says she should see almost complete relief of the pain in her hip, and then hopefully they can ease the pain in her back. She's a great person, and doesn't deserve all of this hurt.

Well, I don't want to spill my guts too much on my blog. Just giving ya'll that have asked about us an update.

I hope to shake out of this funk I'm in soon, and get some good games in for GOW2. I hope to take November 7th off so I can pretty much play from midnight until I pass out.

Good news and horrible news

Just a quick update on my last post.

My wife made it through surgery with flying colors. They were able to repair the torn connective tissue on her hip. She is already feeling some relief from the operation. Thanks to all for their prayers/thoughts. We really appreciate it.

Unfortunately our dog Pig didn't make it. She steadilly went down hill yesterday. I was going to bring her to the vet, to do what had to be done. I picked her up to bring her inside so my wife could see her before I brought her. She was non responsive but still hangin in there when I brought her in the house. We sat and held her for a while, told her what a good companion she's been, and she died in our arms. She was ready to go. I'm deeply saddened, but I take consolation that we were both there, and she went quickly,. It feels weird this morning not doing her morning walk and feeding her.

She's in a better place now. Hopefully she is with her sister that passed away last year, and with our other dogs and cats that have passed on over the years. She was 11 years, and had multiple health issues. We really didn't expect her to live this long. She was a rescue dog and was near death when we found her, and the vet said to not get attached because her and her sister had very little chance of survival.

Here's a picture of Pig (her real name is Gabrielle, her sister was Xena), in Mardi Gras mode.

We'll miss you terribly my girl...