Everything about this is awesome

This game is my pick for the best movie tie-in game ever. It is so fun and there is so much detail in this (especially if you follow the comics and the creator).

He-Man is always great

I just started up Split/Second and upon using one of my event triggers I unlocked an achievement. What makes this so note worthy is the name of the achievement: I Have The Power. References to He-Man are always great.

The Birds and the Beedrills

I first saw this on Kotaku, it's a popular video game website.

You know what's Freakin' Sweet?

Not playing Clash of the Titans, that's what.

I miss these

This was cool to find in New York

Buy it

The Mario Kart Love Song has now been re-recorded to sound better and is up on itunes and other music download services. I suggest going and buying it, Sam Hart deserves the money and needs support to make more great music. I'd love to see more great video game love ballads. I just got it on itunes and it sounds great.

Game Pass

So I will be continuing my list of games from 2008 this week, but I took a break as I got hold of a free Blockbusters Game Pass. It came in the Entertainment pack for this year which runs for $20, so if you want a Game Pass for $10 cheaper than normal, go grab one. Keep in mind that this specific coupon expires on the 31st of January.

So as I have a break off from my usual going-ons, I thought now would be the perfect time. I plan to go in each day to get a new game and see how many achievement points I can earn by the time this is up. I'll update this post each day with the previous day's/game's collection.

If anyone has any questions about how to earn some of the achievements I got from these games, let me know.

Madden NFL 09: 695
Kung Fu Panda: 210
The Bourne Conspiracy: 240
Mirror's Edge: 690
NFS: Undercover: 435
Galaga Legions: 10
Dig Dug: 185
Ms. Pac-Man: 185
Pac-Man: 130
Pac-Man: C.E.: 110
Xevious: 10
New Rally-X: 125
Galaga: 85
Mr. Driller Online: 30
Lego Batman: 285
Sonic Unleashed: 85
Iron Man: 690
Tomb Raider: Underworld: 55
Need for Speed: Pro Street: 50
Skate 2: 40
Naruto The Broken Bond: 230
*Gears of War 2: 20
Ninja Gaiden 2: 55
Mortal Kombat vs. DCU: 350
Saints Row 2: 60
Beijing 2008: 50
Afro Samurai: 445
*Rock Band 2: 50
PotC: At World's End: 275
LotR: Conquest: 190
Banjo Kazooie: N&B: 260
Devil May Cry 4: 30
The Incredible Hulk: 75
Jumper: 750
Dark Sector: 30
Shadowrun: 225
Fallout 3: 40
*Gears of War: 40
Looney tunes: AA: 90

Final Count: 7 610

*Not from the game pass, but I did get more achievements in it.

Games of the Year - Best

So I decided to write up some lists for certain games of 2008. This one will be my favorite ones I played this year (that came out this year). This won't be in any specific order as I can't really decide what my best of is. These are only the 10 best games that I played throughout the year.

• Burnout Paradise: This is a game that didn't see many Top 10 lists this year due to it's early release date. I find it most noteworthy because I had some of the best online time of any game to date with this game. The use of it's many different numbers of co-op challenges along with head to head racing was just great. Even though this is a racing game, I had the most fun when working with people in order to complete the online goals. Getting seven people together just to have the final guy do a barrel roll over the rest was just too much fun.
• Professor Layton and the Curious Village: This brought my love of riddles and mind teasers to a game with a great story, art style and overall game play. I became addicted to this game through over a hundred of its puzzles. Everytime one of the full anime cutscenes came on, something great happened. It also contains Professor Layton, one of the coolest characters ever. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the sequals in North America.
• Gears of War 2: This came as shock to me as I had no interest in this game at all. I wasn't even planning on picking it up, it was sent to me on accident. Unlike the first game, this one kept me interested and wanting to play more. The weird thing is that I can't even think of a reason why this one got to me and the first pushed me away. One of the best things about this game was, like most first person shooters, the online play. Specifially Horde mode. If you have checked out some other Top 10 lists on the web, you can tell people really like this game. Just the use of pitting everyone together to the point where if someone leaves to go solo, they WILL NOT make it. Quite the genious set up of co-op play.
• Chrono Trigger (DS): This was a great port of the Playstation game that was a remake of the SNES version. Chrono Trigger is one of the publisized and legendary RPGs of all time. It contains around 13 different endings and has the best - personally speaking - sound tracks ever. This game is highly involving and keeps me thinking about it and wishing I had more free time to play it.
• Prince of Persia: This game didn't get such great hype when it came to the reviews but I had some of the most fun with it in a single player game. It didn't have the most depth or challenging difficulty that most games should have, but made up for it in other ways. I loved the art style so much and deem it one of the best looking games of the year. I also enjoyed collecting the light seeds, which most people would find tedious and not fun. It was an overall good game that, even though I was only timing my button pushes and watching everything happen for me, I had so much fun going through it.
• Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2: This was the first of the series that I ever played after hearing only good about the first Retro Evolved. I did go back and get the first one too and can see how this was such a smart upgrade to a great game. It took such a small game and used all its potential in six incredible ways. This is probably the best game I have on the Xbox Live Arcade and is easily worth more than the 800 Microsoft Points it is going for.
• Rock Band 2: I fell in love with the first game. It was the perfect party game and can always throw it in when I have a group together and we've gotten tired of everything else. Its sequal did the same but just fixed any loose ends and brings it more towards what it did best: playing with friends. This series has almost made me drop the Guitar Hero series. It has a more professional feel to it and yet remains rediculous.
• The World Ends With You: This is another incredible DS game that easily hits the top list for any DS game released. It used the stylus in a great way that didn't get tedious over time. It had great replay value with the ability to go back to any level that has been previously played. It also integrated a great art style and lovely full anime and voice overed cut scenes. This games was one of the best new games to come from Square Enix in a while.
• Castle Crashers: This was a wonderful brawler with a great new flash game like twist. I am quite a fan of olden arcade beat 'em ups like TMNT 1989 Classic and this just renewed my love for them. The only downside to this game was the jacked online play. It was fortunately been fixed but it came at a time too late for me as I had already had my fill of the game.
• Tales of Vesperia: This wasn't a huge game and not many people played it at all. I however quite enjoyed it whether it be because I hadn't played a great 'Tales of' game since Tales of Symphonia 1. It reminded me of all the great times I had with that games but upped the graphics and added my much loved achievement points.

I will also be continuing this post with more games I loved and quite enjoyed but didn't feel they were a top 10.

I will be adding a few more 'Games of the Year' posts over the next day or so looking at the worst I played, the most disappointing, the ones I'd most like to play soon and the best reviewed that I have no interest in.

Let me know your top 10 games of the year.

Geekmas is upon us

I know that's an incredibly dumb term.

Anyway, something you should know is that Castle Crashers is getting patched in about three hours. Yes. I said it. Patched. That means we can finally play it online! Yes! I'm so happy! So far this Christmas has started off great. If anyone wants to play some of the old game tomorrow, hook me up.

Also, to add to the holiday time, Doctor Octoroc has made an 8-Bit Techno album based on Christmas tunes. You can find it here. He titles it: 8-Bit Jesus. Some tracks I find noteworthy are The Legend of Noel and Have Yourself a Final Little Fantasy. The best part about all these songs is that they use the music you find in the game to compose the Christmas jingle. So you will hear only notes used in The Legend of Zelda when hearing The Legend of Noel.

Now for something not holiday themed, however it fits in with 8-Bit Techno. I've known about 8-Bit Peoples for a while now and I don't really know why I didn't show you guys more of it. This site has some of my favorite 8-Bit Techno I've ever heard as it is so deep and well put together. I would post some of my favorite albums and songs, but I can't quite remember and all my music has been erased when my computer crashed.

Have a great holiday everyone.

Jumping Christmas!

How to get an ONSQ

This is actually really funny and true in each way. Hopefully you guys will find it good. This is the how to get an Official Nintendo Seal of Quality made by SomethingAwful.

Purple

So I beat the endless set list 2 on Rock Band 2 last night with the help of Cory "missing that unison bonus" Purdy and Gryphon "I'm not taking my shirt off" Anderson. Needless to say, I ache inside. So it's the next day and we're doing it again this time on medium for another achievement. This one requires never failing or pausing a song, so hence the medium.

So far song:

13/84: We've started palm strumming and silent druming.

14/84: 3 stars and Gryphon has yet to hit a 4x combo. 100% guitar solo with the elbow.

21/84: This is hell.

32/84: Guide came up by itself, I'ma kill something.

So we stopped for the night, we couldn't take anymore of Rock Band after that. The next morning (today) I got up and started it again and by 3:30pm we had done it. All endless set list achievements are mine.

Professor Layton 3 trailor!

The japanese trailer for Professor Layton 3 is now out. God it looks so good, time traveling and everything! Man we better get the second one over here soon.

Moment to note: Rock Band 2

You Won...
Merch Girl

"...and act as an unofficial band den mother...a den mother who is always trying to make out with you. Still, congrats!..."

Update: Even better moment
I was playing with a game generated character, and his name was The Duke of Gravity!

Watch it

Tonight on Spike TV at 11:30pm Eastern time there will be a count down to Rock Band 2.

Here's more info.

Seems pretty crazy.

Reverse psychology!

The Office theme and picture pack is now on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 150 MS points and 100 MS points.

Rock Band + Colbert = :)

Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report has just gotten his song Charlene (I'm Right Behind You) into Rock Band as a free downloadable song. I quickly grabbed it upon hearing this and found it quite a good song. Though lack of the video does decrease it's overall effect - it still is a great addition to any Rock Band library.

Castle Crashers has an Insane Mode!

Hey guess what?! Castle Crashers has an Insane Mode. Which loads of you may have heard something about, I bet a good portion can't find it.

When you start up your normal quest, yes you can use your normal guy (in other words, you don't need to start a new knight) press down. If you have beaten the game as this guy you will be able to move lower on the map from the "Home Castle" area and the "Barbarian Boss" spot. From there you will move down into that cave in the ditch area.

Selecting it makes that spot light on fire for the remainder of the time your in insane mode - so you know which mode your in. Though each time you go into this mode it shows the opening scene. A quick way to get past this is by hitting Start and then Return to Map. Then you can proceed along to where you were next. Exiting is the same so don't think you need to go back to normal to leave properly.

This is great because having my guy at the high 40's in level and not being able to continue on and level up without using the Catfish of Batboss tricks was awful. Now I'm hitting like one new level at each new spot.

Happy Crashing

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 is up

For any of you who have been waiting up for it. It is now up. Seems it was up on the Japanese server for a bit longer than the one I use (Canadian) but I didn't feel like downloading it off the Japanese one because I didn't want to risk the 800 MS points if something went wrong.

Anyways, the game is now up and available for download. Currently mine is at 16% and going terribly slow, but after that I'll be online playing. Only for a few minutes though since it's late o'clock over here and I should hit the bed soon.

For offical info of it, check Major Nelson's info post.

2:16am Update: 42% and looking toasty!