Monday MUpdate: Me vs. 1 vs. 100 vs. Maradona vs. Elvis

Have you heard? Did you see? Were you there? 1 vs 100 now offers prizes!! Oh em gee, stop the presses! Or, you know, whatever the Internet uses. Stop the tubes?

Anyway. This weekend when I logged on to my XBOX Live! dashboard, I noticed that 1 vs 100 had a nice little note up that said you could actually win prizes today, and I was very excited. I'd stopped playing it after the first few weeks because I didn't care about just racking up points like everyone else. I figured I'd wait until I had a good reason to play, and that was for a prize! I quickly logged into the game and joined the crowd, and soon I found myself as an actual player in the 100! How exciting, right?!

Well, to cut a long story short, I didn't get my prizes. The prize that I would have won is about 160 Microsoft points and the game Puzzle Quest, and that would have been super to have and all, but since 1 vs 100 is still in Beta and is still buggy, guess what happened? XBOX Live! frakked up, and all of a sudden I got booted out of the game to the dashboard. Not just to the lobby, I was sent all the way back to my Sam and Max themed dashboard! I couldn't even log back in, either, because for some reason all but three channels had disappeared! I had my Welcome channel, my personal channel, and my Friends channel, but the rest was gone! I had to reboot my XBOX to get back into the game, and by that time I was eternally crowded, and that was really unfortunate because in one round I managed to get all the questions right up to the last 20 people! I would have won so much! It was brilliant too because the last question that made everyone else in the crowd die was "What size are 45 rpm records?" 7 inches! Duh! Who on Earth has 10 inch records, people. Seriously.

I'll come out and say it flat: I think that 1 vs 100 is probably the coolest thing the XBOX team has done in a while. I don't care about Facebook and Twitter on the box, and I don't care about avatars and paying for clothes. Heck, those that have my gamertag know that my avatar looks nothing like me to the point of absurdity and impossibility. However, 1 vs 100 is the first thing that XBOX has done where I feel they've created a true and unique experience that isn't offered by any other system and won't be offered by any other system. The Prime Time Channel idea is absolute GOLD for them! I want to see more games like this because it's easy to casual game it as well as bring in people who aren't big gamers. Nate, Kara, and I - we could potentially sit at our consoles for days if the game is right. But our significant others? No way. They'll play games every now and then, but if they never played a game it probably wouldn't bug them. When you get something like 1 vs 100, though, I've seen that it makes them more interested in playing.

This is something I'd like to somewhat call the Wii Technique. The Wii obviously didn't create this, but it's their biggest selling point - you don't have to be a gamer to enjoy or even want the Wii. Whenever I end up being suckered into using this machine, it's always in a "party" atmosphere (like last time I played on the 4th of July). When you're in a large group doing something simple, it's easy to get everyone involved. 1 vs 100 is a basic concept everyone can get behind - trivia. You're all playing to see who can answer the most questions right, and you get to laugh and joke while you're playing because you don't need to spend every waking moment staring at the screen worried that some n00b is going to frag you. The same works for another popular XBOX game in my friends group: Scene It! We just play it - if you win, you win, and if you lose, everyone gets to make fun of you! ("You thought that quote was from Shrek?! It's CLEARLY from Training Day!") The Wii capitalizes on this but is ridiculed by people like me for lack of any other form of substance. If I want to pay 2-300 dollars for something like that, I might as well just buy a butt-ton of paint thinner and start sniffing glue! (Too much?) But now, on XBOX Live!, we have a free game where there are actual benefits to playing, and most of all, it's insanely fun.

So kudos to you, XBOX. You may have robbed me of my Puzzle Quest (which I, admittedly, probably would have played once and then never though of again), but you have positively enriched me in so many other ways that it doesn't matter. Hopefully we'll get more games soon. I can't think of any game as involving as 1 vs 100 to the large market they have (when I was playing, there were over 30,000 other players) because most game shows involve 1-3 people playing at a time. Deal or No Deal (or as Michael Showalter calls it, Money or No Money)? Jeopardy? Wheel of Fortune? None of that works as well as 1 vs 100. Looks like it's time to invent a game, guys!

One last note - Marvel vs Capcom 2 comes out on XBOX Live! This Wednesday! As I said months ago when it was first announced, I was putting $20 away just for that. Did you think I was joking? Nope. Dead serious. In fact, I have a fresh crispy 20 dollar bill in my pocket right now, and I'm having it placed directly towards the purchase of Microsoft Points. So, if anyone wants to play with me, feel free to log in and find me Wednesday night. I'd be more than happy to go a few rounds with any n00b.

Monday MUpdate: Death of a Disco Dancer

For the start of this Monday MUpdate, I figured I'd collect every bit of E3 I was involved in for the convenience of all the fanciful readers, just in case anyone was curious. I ended up doing/writing a lot about it, so if for no one else, this acts as a nice way for me to have a collection of me-related E3 things to enjoy. So here is my official E3 Wrap-up:

Halo 3: ODST "Firefight" Write Up - bam
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Write Up - ka-pow
DC Universe Online Write Up - thwap
IGN Game Scoop! E3 2009 Podcast - snikt
E3 Write Up for BGE (including full descriptions of hands on games) - zap
E3: A Travel Companion's Perspective - epa
IGN E3 Wrap Up Write Up - (link missing)
IGN Editor For A Day Video - vjjjwommmvvvvvvb

So with that out of the way I can get on to other videogame related things, which will be split into two parts:

1. Things I Own: The most I played at E3 turned out to be my Nintendo DS. I don't think this is a huge surprise considering this is what I had in my hotel room and on the plane, but I finally managed to take out a good chunk of Crono Trigger. I love this game beyond loving it, but having played it a million times already I am admittedly slow. I know all the plot points, the twists, and the things to be wary of already. I've even taken a stab at fighting Lavos just to get one of the different endings (although I did fail). E3 did get me playing it a lot in my down time, and for anyone that knows the game, I am now in the Underwater Palace fighting the twin Golems. I had started, I believe, right as you enter 65,000,000 BC. That gives you a good estimate of all that I did in just three days! I really would like to sit down and give it a good honest play soon, with the hopes that I can finish, because I'm not that far from the end at this point. I still have The World Ends With You and Final Fantasy IV to play, in that order.

On my XBOX 360, the game I've been playing the most is 1 vs 100. It's in it's Beta stages and I was able to sneak into the first Beta the night before I went to E3. It was so much fun. Two of my friends and I sat around shouting out answers and making the avatar dance on "live" TV. It's probably one of the most fun experiences I've had in a group oriented game on XBOX in a while. It's too bad you can't win prizes yet or I'd be rolling in Microsoft points! 1 vs 100 was an idea I was doubtful on, but when it coems down to it, it really is a winner. I believe you can still play the bonus trivia rounds every night, so if you get the chance, play. The actual game is much more fun and I'm looking forward to the full season where you can really win prizes. And with Sam and Max coming out sometime this week, you can be sure that I'll be spending a lot of time in front of my TV.

Other than that, though, I haven't played much. I'd like to, I really would, but I have so much on my plate these days that sometimes it's hard to bring my priorities straight. I want to focus on so much that I end up focusing on so little. It's kind of a tragedy, in a way. All that, however, leads me to my next topic of discussion, which is...

2. Things I Don't Own: One thing about BGE is that we all have our systems. Nate and I have our Nintendo DS', we all have the XBOX 360, Kara has her PC, and Nate and Kara share a love for the simple pleasures of the Wii. But in the big four of the video game wars, where is our representation of Sony? I have a PSP sitting in my closet, but it hasn't worked in months and I've never cared enough to get it fixed. The only games I had were Metal Gear Acid, which I didn't enjoy, and Gitaroo Man, which I loved. However, the PSP just randomly stopped working one morning, and as I said, it was never a big enough part of my gaming life that I felt I needed to replace it. On top of that, I sold my PS2 to Game Stop a while ago in order to pay for XBOX 360 games! So is Sony doomed to a fate of no love whatsoever from us?

Not anymore. At E3, I developed a slight love for the PS3 and some of it's games. I found that there was more to love than I originally assumed and decided, why not? At the very least I get a blu-ray player out of the deal! Besides, I really want to play The Last Guardian (pictured) like nobody's business, and LittleBigPlanet is high on my list of wants as well. So I have begun saving away a little bit at a time and have decided that I will buy a PS3 for myself at the end of July, sometime after my birthday. This will act both as a birthday gift and a moving gift to myself from myself, and the longer I push it off, the more I will feel as if I really earned it. Or something like that. So look forward to some sort of PS3 related news towards the end of next month as it becomes more relevant in my life.

One thing I hope to do is reviews again, which I haven't done in a long time. Once I finish some other projects I'm going to go out and rent a bunch of games I've wanted to play for a while and give them all playthroughs and do reviews on all of them. None of them will be all that exciting or well known I suppose since I want to play games like Afro Samurai, but still. And as soon as I complete Sam and Max, I will definitely type up a thorough review of that, so keep your eyes and ears peeled as I do my best to get more involved in the videogame community once more.