On December 25th, I always like to celebrate by saying...

Happy Birthday Pete!*

Barb, the kids and I wish you a very happy birthday and a very merry Christmas.  We hope to see you and The Lovely Joyce(tm) sometime in the new year!

*For those that aren't in the know, Pete actually was born in a manger on December 25th, unlike that Jesus character, who was apparently born sometime in May.  But in a manger.  Jesus, I mean, not Pete.  I really don't know if Pete was born in a manger or not.  I just always assumed his "condition" was caused by being kicked in the head by a donkey at birth, so the manger thing just kind of grew out of that.  But I digress.  Happy Birthday, buddy!!!  And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone else out there!

PS3 Rules the Roost

The original Playstation represented a major turning point for me as a gamer. Until then, my gaming time had been focused on no more than a small handful of games on each generation of console I’d owned. It was the PSX that really opened the floodgates, and I haven’t looked back since.

The Sega Dreamcast was the first of the post Playstation consoles to hit the market, and was a release day purchase for me. It’s a shame that Sega dropped support for it, as it truly was a great system. Regardless, there was no question that I’d be supplementing the DC with the hotly anticipated Playstation 2 when it arrived on the scene. Much to my disappointment, I was completely underwhelmed with the PS2. I expected it to be a noticeable step up from the Dreamcast, and it simply wasn’t. It wasn’t long before an Xbox sat in the space previously occupied by the PS2.

I was much more impressed with the Xbox, and even more so with the 360 that succeeded it. In fact, I was so satisfied with the 360 that I never saw myself owning a Playstation 3, especially at the price. Well, I should have learned long ago never to say never. When my DVD player went kaput, I started to think about upgrading to blu-ray. In researching blu-ray players, I discovered that the PS3 was the most affordable point of entry. That was all the rationalization I needed to spring for another gaming console.

As expected, blu-ray knocked my socks off, even at 1080i (and better still at the 1080p I’m running now). However, I wasn’t quite prepared for how powerful a gaming platform the PS3 is. MLB ’08 was, at the time, the most impressive game I’d ever laid eyes on, and represented a noticeable step up from what I’d become accustomed to on the 360. A year and a half later, virtually all of my movie and gaming purchases are for the PS3, and the system continues to amaze. So much so, in fact, that I just bought a second one for the bedroom!

Kudos

· Blu-Ray!!!
· Processing power for gaming
· Multi-Media capability (movies, gaming, music, photos, video)
· Tons of great downloadable content, and a very nice interface (Playstation Store)
· Ease of upgrading hard drive, ample storage capacity (my entire 16,000+ song music collection is now stored on the PS3)
. DS controller is compact, familiar and doesn't require batteries
. Wireless connectivity to internet and compatible devices (e.g. Bluetooth)

Quibbles

· Music management could be better, especially when dealing with a large volume of files
· Can’t be used as a media server, only a client – I’d like to stream music from one PS3 to another
· The ability to automatically update and share game save data between PS3’s would be nice
. Not much comes in the box, so plan on shelling out for an HDMI cable and, possibly, a headset
· Upgrading hard drive, if necessary, can add a lot to overall cost
· Online community growing, but not as large or established as Xbox Live

Congratulations Jessica!!!

My lovely 15 year old daughter Jessica passed her written driving test and got her learner's permit today.  She is very excited and we are very proud.  Way to go Jess!

Survivor Finale

Our numbers seems to be dwindling, but Joyce and I remain loyal fans of Survivor. It's a guilty pleasure. Last night put the wraps on a pretty entertaining season. But how on earth did Natalie win over Russell? A particularly snotty jury awarded a cool $1M to an adorable, coat-tail rider over, arguably, one of the shrewdest Survivor players in the history of the game. Like Richard Hatch before him, love him or hate him, Russell deserves to be considered among the best of the best. His over-confidence and arrogance along with the fact that he's already a millionaire ultimately sunk him, but I've seen jury's forgive more in the face of a deserving player. But not this assembly of self-absorbed putzes who seemed to put more stock in who was nice to them rather than lower themselves to acknowledge someone who clearly outplayed, outwitted and outlasted them. Oh well, thanks for the memories, Russell. You made it a fun ride.

A little gaming stuff

- I read somewhere recently (the new Game Informer, if I remember correctly) that a sequel to Bully is on the way.  This is excellent news; I actually enjoyed Bully more than the recent Grand Theft Auto games.  I'll definitely be looking forward to the sequel.

-I picked up Rock Band 2 for 20 bucks and installed it last night and played around with it a bit.  It's a lot of fun, though I prefer the setup of The Beatles: Rock Band.  For one thing, when singing and playing guitar at the same time, you get penalized for not doing the hand claps that are part of the singer's bit; hard to clap hands when you are also playing the guitar.  I also hate having to unlock the majority of songs (I actually forgot that I would have to do this) especially when you have to play certain songs repeatedly in different set lists.  I did manage to unlock Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" which has some great guitar bits by my favorite guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham.  I can play the solos on Hard, but can't come close to playing the verses or choruses that way.  Medium is still the way to go for me on guitar.  I usually play guitar on Medium and sing on Expert.  And on drums I still have to play on Easy.  I am sure I could make the leap to Medium, but I don't feel like putting in the time to practice.
   I exported my songs from the original Rock Band into my RB2 save file so I don't have to change discs when i feel like playing RB1 songs.  That's a nice feature.  I also downloaded a couple more songs last night ("Don't Stop" and "World Turning" by Fleetwood Mac for me and "Rock Me" by Liz Phair for Barb).  There is a lot of tempting stuff out there to download, that's for sure.  Still, I wish there was more that appealed to me.  The newer stuff is okay but I am not into metal, which is a large part of what is out there.  I am looking at some of The Who stuff and some Foo Fighters in the future.

Can a sports and racing gamer change his stripes?

I’ve been a video gamer since the advent of the technology. We’re talking Magnavox Odyssey here, which actually pre-dated Pong. It used the same moving light sources as Pong and came with overlays that adhered to your TV by static electricity. Each overlay represented a different "game" (shooting gallery, haunted mansion), but they were all essentially light gun shooters. After the Odyssey came a Radio Shack Pong unit that proved to be great bang for the buck at $14.99. Next up was the Mattel Intellivision, to this day, one of my favorite consoles ever. I still have two of them and a box of games. Believe it or not, I never owned an Atari, NES or Super NES. There was a brief dalliance with a Colecovision (impulsively purchased after playing baseball at a party), but it was the Intellivision that kept me going right up until I bought a Sega Genesis, specifically for the NHL series. In fact, I only ever owned two games for the Genesis – Road Rash, and every release of NHL Hockey. Then came the Playstation, and all hell broke loose. There was a period during the PSX/N64 years when my game library topped out at over 100 current generation titles, the proceeds of my sideline gig as a game reviewer. Insanity. I finally came to my senses and sold most of them while they still retained some value.

As the next generation of systems arrived on the scene (Sega Dreamcast, an ever so brief experience with the PS2, Xbox), I kept my obsession under control, accumulating only a handful of games for each console, almost exclusively sports and racing games. At a certain point, it dawned on me that those were the genres that drew me to video gaming in the first place, and kept me coming back for more on every system from the Intellivision onward. Of course there were exceptions, arcade games on the Intellivision, Donkey Kong on the Colecovision, Wolfenstein 3D on the PC, Bejeweled 2 on the 360, heck, I even B.S.’d my way through a pretty credible review of Turok 2 for the N64. But I eventually accepted that third person action games and first person shooters simply weren’t my thing, sports titles and racers were all it took to satisfy my gaming needs. Periodically, I’d take a flyer on a high profile action title, only to sell it off after completing a level or two (or not). I’ve obviously missed out on scores of great games over the years as a result, and that’s always bothered me a little.

During our visit to the Schmaltz household in Sept., Jim took the opportunity to provide in-depth demos of some of his favorite games: Uncharted, Arkham Asylum, IL2 Sturmovik, Fallout 3, Rockband 2 and, most impressively, Bioshock. It was quite the eye opener. I came home with three of those games (and bought RB2 soon after), completely re-energized about gaming. More specifically, I’ve become determined to take the time to finally master games in genres that I’ve given up on too easily in the past – FPS’s, air combat, action games, etc. I’m tired of missing out.

The downside to this is that, with all the great games I’ve discovered in the past few months, I’m like a fat kid at a buffet, gorging myself but never finishing one course before anxiously moving on to the next. Not the ideal way to approach things, but I’m gradually becoming more comfortable with first and third person character control. While I still pretty much suck at it, I’m having a lot more fun in the process of sucking. I’m beginning to feel like there’s hope for me yet, at least until the next great sports or racing game comes along to monopolize my gaming time.

Quick hits - games and movies

-My 2009 Game Of The Year selection, Borderlands, has sold over 2 million copies, according to USA Today's Game Hunters.  Take-Two studios said in a statement that Borderlands "has established itself as a key franchise ... for which the company (Take-Two) has long-term publishing rights."  Looks like there will plenty more Borderlands headed our way, which is terrific news for gamers.

-I have played 5-6 hours of Resident Evil 5.  First of all, the graphics are stunning; the look of the game is incredible.  The story is above-average and well told.  The main characters are likable and you care about them.  There is a lot to like about the game but the controls really hamper the game.  Even when you get used to them, they still stick out like a sore thumb and take something away from the game itself.  If this game had 3rd person controls like Uncharted 2 or, perhaps an even better comparison, the Gears Of War series, it would be much better for it.  It is still a grade A title but I sure wish Capcom would get modern and update the controls.

-Barb and I saw Up In The Air Thursday night.  It's a very good flick with standout performances from George Clooney and Vera Farmiga.  It's nice to see a film that is aimed squarely at adults. It's equal parts funny and sad and it's very topical for the times.

-I also finally got around to seeing that 80's horror/camp classic, Re-animator.  It was exactly what I expected after hearing so much about it through the years.  I can see why it was so startling when it was first released (it was unrated and featured tons of gore and gratuitous nudity) but of course that effect has been lessened over the years due to the ever-escalating tastelessness of horror movies released since then.  The movie was fun but quite silly.  And the musical score was such a blatant rip off from Psycho that I was not surprised in the least to find out that there was legal action taken against the composer.  But you know what?   It worked for the movie.