Though there was some confusion yesterday with the picture Jimmy posted and what he wrote, I decided to gather up the essentials of my Pile ‘O Shame and snap a picture to put it all in perspective:

As you can see there are a great many PS2 games in this pile. A while back I went on a big used game shopping spree when the PS3 launched and everyone was dumping their old PS2 titles off at GameStop. It’s also safe to assume if you see the first game in a series (Like Onimusha or Sly Cooper) I have the other games in the series sitting on the shelf right next to them.

You’ll also notice that Jade Empire makes a double appearance. That’s how much I’ve been meaning to play that game that I thought if I owned it for two systems I would have more options when I finally decided to play it.

Too many games, too little time…

The busy time of year is coming around the bend at work which means six day works and me grabbing all the overtime I can get my hands on, leaving even less time for gaming. It also means that fall and the holiday season are also coming up quick bringing the annual deluge of hot, new games to the marketplace. While I’ve been running through Too Human and repeatedly watching The Wrath Of The Lich King opening cinematic it started to get me thinking about all the games that are coming out this fall and how I’m basically going to have no time to play almost any of them when they come out (let alone having all the funds to purchase said games).

One simple solution would be to simply wait and play them one at a time or wait for a price drop, which is perfectly reasonable and a rather smart thing to do. Unfortunately I have to fight that the urge to but them at launch since I tend to enjoy games more then when most of my friends are playing them. At launch it’s easier to find people for co-op and more fun to talk about your experiences as you’re plowing through a game together. Then I really have to start questioning how often I actually do play the online portions of games or how much being with the hip crowd is really going to matter in the end. Continue Reading »

Greshkov rejoice! My buddy has to be the biggest Gran Turismo nerd I’ve ever met, so it’s safe to assume he’ll be picking up the new GT “demo” dropping this week. Hell… so will I. While I’m not a HUGE car nut (I prefer arcade style Burnout) the graphics are just drop-dead gorgeous and I’m dying to get my hands on some Playstation rumble…. mmm, last gen features

Here’s the rest of the best. There’s a few good ones that rise to the top but… what’s that smell? Oh, it’s this shitastic crap some companies call games.

• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)
• Rondo of Swords (DS)
• Okami (Wii)
• Final Fantasy XI: Vana’diel Collection 2008 (PC)
• Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! (DS)
• Major League Baseball 2K8 Fantasy All Stars (DS)
• High School Musical 2: Work This Out! (DS)
• AMF Bowling Pinbusters! (DS)
• Jack Keane and the Dokktor’s Island (PC)
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PC)
• Turok (PC)
• Cory in the House (DS)
• The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff (PC)
• Summer Sports: Paradise Island (Wii)
• Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis (PC)
• Emergency Mayhem (Wii)

DDR: Baby Mix

Originally uploaded by jimmycanuck

I was just combing through my old flickr photos and came across this one of my daughter. She was just shy of ten months old here. Now she’s three and has better computer literacy than my mother. Go figure.

As she got older it became harder and harder for me to use that pad as she always wanted to jump on it with me. Even when I bought her a second pad, she just wanted to be around the feet of dear old dad. Now she has her own — the Konami Kids Playground Frogger game, complete with a dancepad using shapes and colors. Being a dad is a hoot sometimes.

Sonic has been on a bit of a downward spiral as of late. I’ll try not to touch on that too much, but it’s the elephant in the room that can’t be avoided. Every time a new Sonic game is announced, everyone hopes and prays it’s going to fix things, and then it falls flat just like all the rest. Chances are the upcoming Sonic Unleashed won’t be any exception, although the 2D style that is occasionally displayed in the trailer gives me some hope.

A number of sites lately have written pieces on what’s wrong with the series/how to make it better (Destructoid had a great one that they’ve since had to take down), but there’s one area of contention in recounting the glory days of Sonic that no one seems to have any answers about — the shift from Robotnik to Eggman. Name changes don’t just happen in midstream, and a lot of gamers don’t feel like they’ve been given any answers on the subject. Considering that Sonic Adventure was both the first game to feature a shift in name and the first game to slowly kill the franchise with poorly executed 3D design, it’s a hang up that some of us just can’t let go of. Luckily wikipedia has some answers;

Continue Reading »

Nintendo’s Media Summit is taking place in San Francisco and the first thing to come out of there has been the unexpected announcement of Mario Super Sluggers. I don’t really know what to think about it when I look back to my experiences with baseball on Wii Sports. Man, I sure struck out a lot…. Anyways, I’m sure it will be full of my favorite cheap tricks the likes of which can be found in Mario Strikers Charged and, my personal favorite, Mario Kart. As you might imagine, the Wii remote can be swung like a bat or waved towards the plate to pitch.

No other details have made their way to the surface as of yet, but it is slated to come out later this year. Is anybody up for some Mario-flavored baseball? I wonder if you can swing your bat out into the crowd like this?

There is still a big part of the world that see gamers in terms of stereotypes; telling us games are for kids and to grow up. So when you have a mainstream show like “Tyra Banks’ Show” that hosts a couple in which the guy happens to be a gamer, you would think that their “expert” would explain that video games are just a form of entertainment. A gamer is no different then say a movie buff. Now if the “expert” is X-play’s Morgan Webb, you would think that being in the gaming industry would give her a insight. Sadly this was not the case, she put us all into video game stereotypes. Now I remember why I hate X-play.

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