d0rkorg

Looks like Mr. T has hit a new career low.

Comments Off

This is a super-fast completion of the challenge stage #13 in Portal. This is easily my most-anticipated game ever and it has lived up to my expectations. After beating it in only a couple hours, I hope they release more maps/content soon.

The Portal-fu is strong with this one.

Comments Off

This has been around the gaming blogs for a bit, but I had to post it here because its so damn cool.

Comments Off

Jess has her own Xbox Live Gamertag now:

1 Comment »

So I went out over lunch and bought a copy of Halo 3 Limited Edition. A couple coworkers went with me and bought the same editions. We came back to the office and one of them decided to open it up and start looking through the bonus stuff. His game disc was scratched all over (in the inner third of the DVD). This may have still been playable, but I expect better from a brand new $70 game. After he showed us his scratched disc, we headed out to our cars and brought in our copies to check them out. Mine was scratched just as bad and my other buddy’s was okay.

The case design is horrible. There isn’t much to keep the disc from sliding off of its spindle inside the case. Once it does slip off, it just rubs against the plastic that is supposed to keep the disc secure. The over all case quality was much worse than the limited edition version of Halo 2. The metal enclosure just feels cheap and some of the black paint actually rubbed off on my hands when I was handling it.

I took my copy back to Best Buy to see what they could do about Microsoft’s mistake. The guy told me that they’ve already had a bunch of people swap them so I decided that I didn’t even want to mess around with getting another copy with a shabby case. The customer service guy let me swap it for the normal edition of the game, so I ended up walking out of the store with a disc that wasn’t scratched, a case that I know won’t let me easily scratch the disc, and a $10 refund. I guess that is about as much as you can ask for Best Buy to do in this situation as Microsoft really screwed the pooch here.

My coworker didn’t have the same luck at Best Buy as I did. He wanted to keep the limited edition version so he had the customer service guy at Best Buy open three new copies looking for a disc that wasn’t scratched. Understandably, after the third he said that there was nothing he could do. He left with the same scratched disc he went in with.

Here’s some pictures of the case, demonstrating how easily it scratches the discs. Also, Microsoft has announced that they will be replacing the scratched discs for free. Unfortunately, you’ll have to be without your game for two weeks while you ship it in and they ship you out a new copy. I guess it is better than nothing though for those stuck with a scratched disc.

1 Comment »

I’ve been on a pretty serious Wii hunt since Christmas with my younger brother. Our story goes something like this:

December 26th

7:00 AM

Our search begins. We agreed to hit Best Buy at 8am in hopes that they’d have one and also to pick up Gears of War, which they had a sale on. We got over to the West Des Moines store at 8am, right as they opened. I expected to see a line waiting outside to get in, but the parking lot was barren. There wasn’t even a quarter of the number of cars that I see when I stop by as part of my New Release Tuesday lunch. We walked in and searched for anything Wii and we were told they didn’t have any at all… fair enough I suppose. We picked up the Gears of War copies (which they had about a bajillion of), and headed on our way. Just for fun, I decided to call the south side store because I know they tend to sell electronics much slower than the one in West Des Moines. By the time I got through to a video games/media employee, we were bending around rider corner on 80/35. The guy said there was one Wii left. Our conversation went something like this as my foot nailed the accelerator:

“Would you hold it for a buddy?”

“Sorry, we can’t do that.”

“What?”

“We can’t do that.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“We can’t hold merchandise.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, we can’t hold anything.”

“Okay fine… I’m on my way.”

We came up with the plan that I’d let this one go to my brother, with the understanding that we’d both be playing it nonstop anyways. I was never so excited to be going to the south side of Des Moines.

9:00 AM

We arrive at the store, again, parking lot barren. Another car pulled up just as we did… it was a young couple. The guy (who was riding shotgun) hopped out as soon as they parked and made quick strides toward the door, leaving his lady friend behind. This made my little brother and myself nervous, so with some tactical parking lot walking, we managed to cut him off and enter the Best Buy door first. We had no clue about the store layout, but got lucky and ended up heading straight to the appropriate section. No Wiis on the shelf. We found an employee and he already seemed tired of the Wii questions and we were quickly disappointed with the answer we dreaded: “We just sold our last one.” Bust.

On our way back to Ankeny, we tried calling a dozen or so places without any luck (thanks Google Maps for being so awesome in our time of need btw).

December 27th

We took shifts calling places. I had the 8am and 9ams and my brother took the 10ams (there were many more 10ams). No luck. I had a craving for Shot Tower pizza up in Dubuque, so we decided a road trip was in order.

Long story short, we called half the state and the closest we came was one place that got a shipment of Wiis in that morning (the guy nearly gave my brother a heart attack, as he got all excited about the prospect of owning a Wii). Other than that, of the 50+ places we called, only a couple even had controllers (and no remotes, just nunchucks). The road trip wasn’t a total waste though, as we still got to eat the delicious pizza.

December 28th - January 2nd

No luck. And not for lack of trying. We called a lot places and visited a bunch of stores but nobody had any yet. We apparently missed out on a Toys ‘R Us south side shipment on Thursday morning. A buddy even had the opportunity to buy an extra one for me but I was still passed out from the tiring day before and missed the call. Nobody even had controllers during this Wii blackout period.

January 3rd

10:00 AM

I’m reading a bunch of forum posts about Wii availability and none of them looked promising. I stumble across one with some yahoo suggesting that all Targets are getting shipments today. I think to myself that this is unlikely at best, but I sent my brother a text message anyways, telling him to give the Targets a call (by this time, he had a fancy excel spreadsheet of about 30 local retailers with their phone numbers and how to navigate their voice systems). A few minutes pass and I get a phone call from him. Here’s what I remember of the conversation:

Ben: “Merle Hay has 2.”

Me: “Sweet. Anywhere else?”

Ben: “Haven’t called a few yet but I’m going to go to Merle Hay with mom.”

Me: “You think I should go? It is probably about the same time for you and me to get over to Merle Hay.” (I was at work)

Then I hear my mom in the background saying something like “put some pants on!” as he had apparently forgotten one vital element in all the excitement.

We decide that he’s just going to Merle Hay with my mom and that I’ll just be on standby if he finds any other stores in the phone calls he’ll make from the car.

After some thought, I take off for Merle Hay thinking I’ll beat them if he’s only barely awake and needs to find clothes. As I left work I called him and told him that I’m heading there myself. I was a little surprised when he said the Altoona store had 4. He and my mom had changed courses and were headed there. Great. Divide and conquer.

I arrived at the Target store and was walking as quickly as I could walk without drawing attention to the speed at which I was walking to get back to electronics. I got there as the two Target employees seemed to be making fun of video games and the like. I say “seemed to be” because I have no recollection of what I heard, only what I wanted to hear next. I interrupted them and asked about the Wii. The fella answered me and said only moments earlier they had sold out of their last two. Damnit. So close.

As I walked out of the store I relayed the news to my brother, who was by this time on I-80. While I drove back to the office, I helped my mom navigate to the Altoona store and then we hung up after she found it and I waited. And waited. The 5 minutes seemed like forever as I sat at my computer. Finally my brother calls and says that they had literally *just* sold the last two and he even saw the girl who had them walking inside the store. He offered her money but she wasn’t interested. Another bust.

Or was it? 10 minutes later my brother calls again and starts out casually “So, how’s it goin?” I just waited in silence. “Did you want a Wii? Because we’ve got two.” He knows better than to joke with me about something like this. “Mom saw a Gamestop out here and decided to swing by… they had two Wiis left.” I was surprised… on the list of retailers to call, Gamestop was only on there because they supposedly sell them - not because either of us thought they’d ever get any in before 2008. I’m happy we were wrong and that the Wii is totally awesome.

Whew. Here are my thoughts on some of the games I’ve played so far.

Wii Sports is perhaps the best concept/demonstration of any video game system I’ve ever played. Bowling is my favorite, even though we all have a tough time beating my mom (who rolls in the 170’s).

Rayman Raving Rabbids is as fun as the trailer leads you to believe it is. Pretty much nonstop laughter when you’re taking turns playing career mode with a group of friends.

Red Steel is promising but I haven’t really gotten used to the control style yet. Usually I’m pretty accurate at first person shooters but I haven’t been able to quickly shoot enemies as they appear on screen (hopping around corners and whatnot). Hopefully with time this becomes easier. Right now the game is teetering on very fun/super annoying. I hope it falls on the fun side.

Rampage sucks. That is nothing new to the Rampage franchise though.

I just got Zelda but haven’t had a chance to play yet. From the demonstration videos on the Wii kiosks, it looks like it should be pretty sweet.

5 Comments »

So I’m weak and I broke down and bought Guitar Hero II, even though the 360 version is coming out in a couple months.

I’ve only played through the game and unlocked everything on medium difficulty and my first impression is that this game is quite a bit harder than the last. I’ve tried a few of the harder songs on hard and even some of the easier ones on expert and they pretty much kick my ass.

I also think the song selection isn’t quite as good on this game, even though they’ve included Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight by Spinal Tap, Freebird by Lynard Skynard, and even Trogdor by Strongbad. The song list isn’t quite as mainstream as the last game, but they are still fun to play.

The new multiplayer mode looks cool, where you can cooperatively beat songs by playing lead/rhythm parts. Also, there is a pro version of the head to head playoff, where you both play the exact same part. That should be good for setting disputes on who kicks more ass.

The game is as sweet as I was hoping it’d be, even though I expected a lot. The only disappointment is the song list but I can get past that. I may still end up buying the Xbox 360 version of it (even though that means I’ll have three guitars). If you can download new content on Xbox Live Marketplace, that would make it a much better game. We’ll see.

This is the only game I’ve got that I haven’t been playing on the Xbox 360. I’m winning my Gamerscore battle vs people on my friends list, and I’ve gotta keep it up there to not fall behind MulderMan (who was the first one on the list to be a Gamerscore whore).

The other games I’ve been playing are:

• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 2007
• Dead Rising
• Contra (Xbox Live Arcade)

This year’s version of Tiger Woods is easily the best TW game so far. They took out game breakers, which were the worst idea ever. I’ve got a video of one shot I hit with a game breaker where the ball lands 30 yards short of the green, in a bunker and then slowly rolls up out of the bunker, onto the green, and into the cup. This version of TW also has tournaments where they disable power boosting and spinning after you hit the shot, which makes your round at least 10-15 strokes more difficult. It took me about 3 days to get my character to 100% on all stats. That usually takes me a month or two but I couldn’t stop playing - a couple hours every night and then most of a Saturday.

I still have a ways to go in Dead Rising to actually level up enough to take a stab at beating the game with the original ending. That game just takes a ton of play time. A few weekends ago I had some friends over and we were just passing the controller in the zombie slashfest until about 4 in the morning. Fun game, but hard to keep an interest in when I’ve got other games that demand my attention.

Contra is, well, Contra. It is the sweet arcade version. I still have to talk people in my friends list into buying it so we can get some Xbox Live cooperative action going. Woo.

1 Comment »

I’m in love.

Comments Off

Recently I decided that it’s time to up my Gamerscore for my Xbox 360.

I purchased a few games on eBay to help me in my endeavor. They are:

• Fight Night Round 3 (achievements)
• NBA 2k6 (achievements)
• King Kong (achievements)

I’ve won a couple belts in Fight Night so far - that game is tougher than I thought it would be after playing the demo. I like the controls though - feels pretty nice being able to throw a hook and simulating that action on your analog joystick. So far I’ve only unlocked 3 of the 8 achievements but I’m getting on a roll now, usually knocking opponents out in the second or third round. Parrying and blocking for that matter takes a while to get down.

I’m still waiting to receive the other games but looking at NBA 2k6’s achievement list, I’m hoping I can snag all of them in a single game or two and then keep the $10 game for some good local 4-player action. King Kong is one of the games I considered buying at launch, but from hearing that the game only plays 5-8 hours I couldn’t justify the $60. $20 is more reasonable. Thanks eBay.

I’m also working through GRAW and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 06 (can’t wait for the ‘07 version to ship in less than a month now). I’ve had my character maxed out in Tiger ‘06 for quite a while now, but I just haven’t played online against the kids that shoot in the low 40’s for 18 holes. Hopefully the 2007 version of the game cuts back on such ridiculous scoring.

Other games I’ve recently bought but haven’t unlocked many achievements in include Table Tennis, Dead Rising, and Dead or Alive 4. The achievements take forever to get in Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark: Zero, otherwise I may actually be tempted to play those games offline.

Table Tennis is way harder than it feels like it should be. It is a great 1v1 game but playing against computer opponents makes me look like an ass. Dead Rising is a great game that is going to take a ton of time to work through. I’m not sure I’ll ever get many more achievements in DoA4 because of the time required - who wants to work their way through a fighter multiple times with the same character just to unlock a new costume anyways?

Comments Off

My Xbox 360 Bundle

A buddy called early this afternoon to let me know what he had just seen:

Costco was selling Xbox 360 bundles that had the premium kit, an extra wireless controller, a play & charge kit, and Project Gotham Racing 3 all for $480. They had very few games, but Perfect Dark Zero was going for $43.

So, I’m now the proud owner of an Xbox 360. Apparently they’ve already sold out at Costco too - they were only selling one per membership card and the guy had a pretty large stack of tickets so they had quite a few left when I got mine.

3 Comments »