WAIM: September 24, 2009 - Too Much Gaming, Too Little Blogging (Road to Recon pt2)

It has been a week of one-hundred percent Halo gaming one-hundred percent of the time. Other than attending a wedding over the weekend (congratulations to Matt and Jamie) I have been strictly playing Halo 3 multiplayer (for the Road to Recon "feature") and for the past couple of days ODST has been occupying my 360 drive.

I have been trying, and failing, to get to the rank of Lieutenant in the "new" EXP system. I have been failing mainly because I did not know that you need fifty experience points in any playlist to attain this goal. I currently stand at forty-one EXP in the social rumble pit playlist so I can say with some conviction that this achievement will be mine in the coming hours/days.

I managed to nab the Vidmaster: Brainpan achievement last night after finishing up the campaign of ODST. The ones on Citadel and Longshore were annoying finds but the one on Heretic is a cinch.

I always manage to forget how much I love the Halo series when I am not playing it but I am glad that I have such a deep appreciation for the games. I know that it is the Xbox's most popular game and the truth is - this is not without reason - these games are fantastic. Bungie puts all of their care and love into these games and you can truly feel this oozing out of every well crafted detail of the Halo universe. Halo, as an entity, makes me proud to be a gamer.

Adventures in Babeland - Weekly Gaming Girl Diary: September 23, 2009

Yea, yea, yea...I suck at this whole updating on a consistent basis, I'm well aware of that. I apologize for my delay of an update. As per usual, life is hectic and I just haven't had the time. With that, comes the fact that I've had very little time to do any actual gaming as well. I do have any update in regards to my casual gaming experiences since installing a bunch of games on my laptop!

One of the best decisions I could have made when setting my laptop up for casual gaming was purchasing Plants vs. Zombies. Now, I never understood the hype when the game first came out and even after playing a bit of the demo I wasn't 100% sold, but the game was $10 on Steam...so I figured, why not? I must say, holy crap! That game is ADDICTING! Once I got past the first few levels, I was 100% sold. I've mostly been playing the game when I've been away from home at State College or in those moments right before I go to bed. I'm not really sure how far into the game I am, but I assure you, it gets more and more fun as time goes on. I would seriously urge anyone who owns a computer (PC or Mac) to purchase this game. It's definitely worth it. The game is also slated to come out for the iPhone, as well as XBLA, so there's absolutely ZERO excuse for not purchasing this game.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've also put in a little bit of time playing Diablo II. I'd like to do a full play through of the game prior to Diablo III coming out and with Blizzard busy with finishing Starcraft II as well as WoW: Cataclysm, I would expect that I have a good amount of time to complete this task.

Other then those two, I really haven't played much over the past couple of weeks. I did, however, purchase Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for $5 each from Direct 2 Drive. I was never 100% sold on digital only game distribution, but these distribution companies are easily winning me over with these sales. I think that's the key, however. There's really no sense in charging $50 for a digital copy of a game when I can purchase it at a retailer for the same price AND get the box art and all that fun stuff. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I still love box art and physical copies. If digital distributors could start lowering their prices below what they sell for at retail, then I would most definitely be drawn to that much more. Not only have the digital sales been pulling me towards purchasing online, but they have also pulled me towards playing my PC more in general. I'm pretty sure I haven't touched my Xbox for a couple of weeks now. I realize that PC gaming isn't quite as popular as console gaming these days, but these digital distributors definitely have some good ideas going on to maybe shift those numbers somehow.

Monday MUpdate: Game Over!

And by that title, I really mean congratulations to two of my best friends, Matthew and Jamie Bevins! The two of them just got married this weekend and I took the honors of best man, and it was a real blast and a half. Remember the first time you ever beat Mario and you found the castle that the princess actually was in? I kinda imagine that's what they feel like right now. So congrats to them and many happy returns!

However, because they got married, I didn't get in a whole lot of gaming, so this column being fairly short is completely their fault. If anyone needs their e-mail addresses or Facebook account URLs for complaints, I'd be happy to provide them.

HOWEVER, before all the fun and games and dinners and unrolling of walkways, I did type up a very extensive review of a game that came out last week called Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2! I basically skipped all responsibilities I had and spent the day it came out playing it, and then, through out the next couple nights, I had my review all done. I know what some of you are thinking: "Matt, your review is clearly going to be biased due to your extreme love of Marvel and the first game!" Well, no! You're wrong! In fact, I am just as harsh, if not more so, on this game as I was to Batman: Arkham Asylum, and if you read my review of that I essentially bent it over and tore it a new one. So, with that in mind, if you'd like to read my extensive review of Marvel: Ultiamte Alliance 2, head on over to Multiversity Comics to get the whole skinny on all the hate I (Hulk) smash down.

And on that note,