pics

if anyone can tell me why blogspot insits on cutting my pics in half when I post please let me know and what I can do to fix it

A New Review

Don King Presents: Prizefighter

Now I have always considered myself a mild boxing fan, I like to watch the occasional fight on TV, and I enjoy playing boxing games, but I have missed out on the last few boxing titles to come out, the last one I really played was the first Fight Night (formerly the Knockout Kings series) on the original Xbox, So i was some what excited to play this one. I had heard mixed reviews on it but was excited for my first taste of Next-gen boxing (that brings up another issue now that the xbox 360 is 3 years old can we really call it "Next gen"...well that's a rant for another time).

Prizefighter is half boxing game half documentary. This has to be one of the most unique game presentations I have ever seen. A lot of games immerse you in the story and have you feel as though you are playing through a movie (The Halo series is a great example of this) but this game literally has filmed a documentary (its a fictitious story of course) to surround the in game action. The game has you create your fighter nicknamed "the kid" and then goes about chronicling your rise to world champion. You train in between fights which consist of button timing type mini games to boost your stats and will occasionally get offers to do TV commercials or other various things that take away from your regular training. Along the way you run into a little bit of everything from breaking your hand before a fight (thus only being able to throw punches with one hand) to having the opposing boxer hopped up on pain killers and virtually indestructible. The story is very well done and the documentary aspect adds a nice touch around the game play.

As for the game play itself its fairly well done. The control is well laid out with the face buttons being your punches and the triggers and bumpers handling blocking and punch modifiers. The in ring action is fluid and is a somewhat accurate representation of real boxing, though as with any boxing game I have ever played the pacing is not accurate, there is way more action than a true match, but it is a video game so that's expected. The difficulty is one gripe I have, I started on the default medium setting and promptly got my rear end handed to me 3 straight fights (which oddly enough earned me an achievement...LOL) so I ramped it down to easy and sailed through the rest of the game never losing a fight. I really should have gone back and played another fight on medium to see if I had improved but didn't get the chance.

Overall Prizefighter was a decent boxing game but not worth a full retail purchase so it gets the stamp of.....

TRY IT

Happy Hollidays

Let me start off by saying Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to everyone. Obviously there has been a lack of posts latley and that can be blamed squarly on the wonderful holliday season wich has limited my free time, but I plan on getting back into the swing of things. I hope that everyone has been enjoying my posts latley and hopefully I can get a little more regular with them. And please if you enjoy my blog and know anyone else that you think might enjoy it pass a link along, the more the merrier.

Review of the Week

So this week we present TNA Impact, now for the record I was only mildly interested in this one, While I have pretty much completely stoped watching wrestling altogether I do still enjoy the video games. This was about 9 games down on my que but its what showed up so here we go....

Now the WWE products have always been fairly well polished affairs, (save for the RAW atrocities on the XBOX) and I was hoping for the same here, sadly the TNA game (much like the product its based on) shows its not quite ready for Prime time.

I went ahead and jumped right into the career mode right of the bat. It starts off with a narration of a wrestler named Suicide chronicling his rise to the TNA Champion, he was supposed to take a dive in the championship match and didn't so a couple of wrestlers beat the snot out of him and dump him in Mexico, this is where you come in...Basically you create your character and are Suicide reincarnated. The character creation is very basic and nothing compared to the depth offered in the WWE games.

You start off fighting a bunch of nameless wrestlers in Mexico eventually winning you're way into TNA. The story is lackluster at best and is basically just there to progress you through the matches. Speaking of the matches where WWE always has a wealth of modes to choose from in TNA there is really only two types basic match (single and tag) and the Ultimate X match (witch I'll touch on a little later). As for the in ring action again the lack of polish really sticks out here, all the wrestlers basically have the same exact moves and it gets really repetitive after awhile. Also the reversal system is abused by the AI, basically anytime you get close to doing significant damage to the CPU they will start reversing almost everything you attempt. This really sticks out in the Tag Team matches as you can be dominating a match, but then have the AI reverse everything, tag in their fresh partner and suddenly destroy you.

The Ultimate X match could have been the one shining point in the game, as it is one of the things that sets TNA apart from the competition. Sadly its just one more area where the game becomes a letdown. The goal of the match is to grab the big red X hanging in the middle of ropes that crisscross above the ring. Sadly there is really no strategy in the matches, basically get your opponent down once climb up try to grab the X, get attacked, Rinse and Repeat.

Graphics wise the game looks good, but the little details are missing like intro video's on the jumbo screens. Also some of the cutscenes are animated while others are just snapshots, its really weird.

One final note is the roster there are only like 25 wrestlers to choose from, and some of them are very questionable choices, compare this to the WWE games which usually approach 50 or 60 and it once again points to a lackluster effort from the developers.

Overall TNA Impact could have been a good game if they had just taken the time to add the little details that make or break a wrestling game. As it stands TNA is a very poor effort and leaves alot of room for improvement.

OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: AVOID IT

New Review Finally....

So Gamefly finally delivered my game last week and after spending some quality time with DiRT here we go.....

DiRT

DiRT is the fourth game in the Colin Macrae series produced by Codemasters, Now while Codemasters hasn't done much right in video games, this series has always been top notch. The game does a nice job of giving you a rundown of everything you can do the first time you boot it up, I spend all of my time in Career mode which is the bulk of the game. Career mode is set up as a tier system. You start at the bottom tier and as you clear events you unlock more on your tier and eventually the next tier. As you go through events you can buy new cars and will sometimes be forced to because only certain cars can race certain events. The really nice thing about career mode is that you can start of easy and ramp up the difficulty as you get better. Another nice touch is the loading screen you spend a lot of time looking at it but the nice thing is it will give you a rundown of your current stats, such as average finish, longest jump and so on, Its a little touch but its nice to have something engaging to look at while you are waiting for the next event. In addition there is no shortage of information to be had, pressing Y on just about any screen will give you some info about what you are looking at, whether it be the type of even, car or the track itself, its another simple but nice touch that makes this game feel really polished.

Now DiRT is not a standard racer its all about rally racing and there are a few differences in the way rally cars handle as opposed to street racing. The main thing you half to get used to is the looseness of the cars, they really have a tendency to slide on you if your not careful about braking and accelerating properly. Once you get used to it though they really become fun to drive. There are a few different types of races to keep things interesting, and a wealth of different cars. The modes range from straight rally point to point races, to crossover races (you race around a track that crosses paths at the halfway point), to my favorite the Rally Raid which is 6 cars or trucks on the track at once in an off road race. The cars and trucks also came in many forms from standard rally cars to big rigs and each perform like you think they would (the big rigs for instance are slow to get moving and really really loose) it is fun learning how to handle each different type as you come across them.

Now graphically the game is nothing short of amazing, I thought Rallisport Challenge on the original Xbox looked good but this thing blows that out of the water. You can even see individual weeds along the side of the road as you go roaring past. Also the real time damage to your car looks good and behaves like it should, it will even throw mud onto the side of your car as you drive along.

My main gripe with DiRT comes in the repetitiveness, after awhile everything starts to feel the same, sure the cars change but all the events start to feel like the same thing with different pictures after a decent amount of time with the game. Also this type of racing is not for everyone it can be very unforgiving on the higher difficulties and for those reason's my recommendation for DiRT is going to be.........

TRY IT

This is definelty one you want to check out and make sure you like its style before taking the plunge.

Where's the Review?

well I am sure my loyal readership is clamoring for the next review there's just one problem...Gamefly is currently screwing me over. I returned PES on the 25th of October, the promptly shipped out DiRT two days later, well that never arrived I alerted them of this on the 3rd of November (after waiting the mandatory 7 days) the promptly sent another copy on the 4th, here we are on the 10th and guess what ....STILL no game. I contacted them on Friday to let them know that I was not happy as its basically 2 weeks now that I am paying for and getting nothing out of it, they told me that we had to wait until the 11th to report another problem but were nice enough to credit me 5 gamefly dollars for my troubles. Hopefully I can come home from work tomorrow to find that it has indeed arrived though I'm not getting my hopes up. So that is why there is no review, I guess I could bust out something older and do a quickie on it but nothing is immediately jumping out at me, hopefully I can whip something up on Thursday as I have the day off. So stay tuned hopefully something will be up soon.
Until then please click on over to The Spoony Experiment (see links in sidebar) and check out his "Lets Play" Video's of Phantasmagoria 2....its down right hilarious...

Review of the Week

LEGO Batman: The Videogame



This weeks review is actually the last game I purchased, LEGO Batman. Now I have been a big fan on the LEGO games ever since LEGO Star Wars came out of nowhere to be a smash hit. The formula is simple take a known license and transform everything into plastic brick versions then run around and bash everything you see searching for hidden items as you go. Now Batman is the first LEGO game to not have a storyline to go with it, The story the use is pretty simple all the villains have escaped from Arkham and its up to good ol Batty to put them back

The game plays out in episodes, each episode has 5 chapters and there is a Hero and Villain half. Basically you play through as Batman and Robin thwarting the villains scheme, then you can play through the same story arc as the villain side, its really quite fun and a nice way to mix up the game play. There are also vehicle levels in each episode which also does a nice job of mixing up the game play.

Now the game is not without its faults. The major flaw in the game is that the puzzles are very random and there is often no guidance what so ever as to what you are supposed to do. More than a few times you will find yourself running around randomly trying to figure out what to do, Now this wouldn't be as big of a deal if after you figured it out it made sense, but more often than not it is something totally out of whack. It also can get repetitive at times. The camera is also an issue (as it has been in every LEGO game) it is often difficult to judge jumps and see exactly what you need to do. It does do a lot of things well though. The character selection is huge (again a LEGO staple) The classic LEGO humor is there and its a total blast to play through in co-op mode. Replay value is also a huge plus, going through the levels multiple times in search of all the hidden stuff adds a lot to the game.

All in all LEGO Batman does a good job of being entertaining and fun, I would definitely give this one a try if you like an action platformer, Batman, or want a game that you can play with a friend (or significant other). Now I love the LEGO games but it may be time for the series to move in a different direction, it seems as though they are just turning out the same game with a different licsense each time.

SUGGESTION: BUY IT

(now on the advice of one of many thousands of readers ( :) ) I have revamped the review scale, rather than assigning a numbered/smiley face rating I will simply give my suggestion of Avoid it, Try it, or Buy it)

Wicked

So Sam and I went to see Wicked @ the Fox Theater this weekend, and I have to say I was very impressed. Now for those not in the know, Wicked is the backstory of the Witches from the Wizard of Oz. It was very engaging, quite funny, and a very well rounded musical. I wont ramble on about the story here (if you are interested def. go see it or read the book) but the jist is that Elphaba (the wicked witch) and her sister Nesa (the one crushed by Dorothys house) are sent off to school. Elphaba is an outcast everywhere including her own family and the only reason she is sent to the school is to watch over Nesa who is in a wheelchair. It is there that they meet Galinda (with a Ga....LOL) and through a misshap by her, she becomes Elphaba's roomate. They later actually become friends and it is here where the show has one of its shining moments with Galinda singing to Elphie (as she is now calling her) a song called "Popular", the song is all about how Galinda is going to transform Elhpie to be just like her (only a little less popular) at one she tries to transform her frock into a ball gown after two failed attempts she tosses her wand away saying "nevermind the frock is pretty". Later on in the story we learn that someone is taking away the animals ability to speak and after one of the proffesors (a goat) at the school is taken away, is when Elphaba starts to sort of turn wicked although she is doing things for the right reasons. This is also where Galinda becomes the Glinda that we all know (she changes her name because the aformentioned professor never could pronounce it right) The other truly shining moment is Elphaba singing a song called "defy gravity" where the litterally do make her fly, it was truly amazing as you couldn't see what was making her float and it was a perfect end to the first act.The basic morale of the story is the old "you cant always judge a book by its cover" and that things are all realitive to your point of view. It was really neat to see how the tie things in with the story that we all know, although the timelines dont always sink up so its not perfect but the story is amazing and I HIGHLY recomend it if you get the chance.

Review of the Week

This weeks review is another of my Gamefly rentals....The Simpsons Game

Now the Simpson's have had a very troubled video game past, the old NES games were decent and the arcade game was amazing(nothing beats 4 player co-op) but it was pretty much downhill after that (are there two bigger abominations than Simpsons Skateboarding and Wrestling?) but the have had a nice uptrend recently with both Road Rage (Crazy Taxi simpson's style) and Hit and Run (GTA style open world romp) being worthy of a playthru. The Simpson's first journey on the latest batch of systems may well be their best yet. The Simpson's game is sort of a half open world, half linear story based game. Basically you can explore an open world on your way to your next mission. You get to play as all the Simpson's and each has unique abilities and powers. The game walks you through each characters abilities by going through the first few levels each with different characters, I really like this as it got you acquainted with each character and how to use them. Any fan of the show will love all the show references and video game fans will love Comic Book Guy pointing out all of the video game cliches of which there are many (its actually an achievement on the 360 version to find them all). Its funny how they make it seem like your watching an episode of the show while playing through the game and the characters actually acknowledge that they are inside a game (even using the instruction manual to figure out there powers). This is a great platformer and is best played in co-op mode, many of the puzzles require two characters doing two different things and it can get tedious switching back and fourth in single player. I highly recommend this one for platformer fans or any one looking for a game to play with the significant other (as I always say...The couple who games together, Stays together)

OVERALL RATING

8.7

Cool Thing of The Week: Pandora Radio

Ok so as promised a new feature for the "throngs" out there The Cool Thing Of The Week...

This weeks cool thing is a website, Pandora Radio (http://www.pandora.com/), I was turned onto Pandora about a year or so ago by a coworker. Basically you put in a song or artist you like and Pandora will take the style and play other music similar to it, if you like a song it picks give it a thumbs up and it will find more music like that, if you dont give it a thumbs down and it wont play that song again and will find other music for you. Basically the more you listen to it and rate songs the better it gets at playing stuff you will like. It also will give you a brief description of the Artist, Album, and Song currently playing. You can set up as many different stations as you want so you can taylor them to different styles, and you can also use the Quickmix feature to play a few stations at once and it will rotate them. If you are going to be spending a good amount of time in front of your computer and want some background noise Pandora can become your best friend. My favorite thing to do is throw it on while playing poker online. Here is a link to my profile to give you a taste http://www.pandora.com/people/neoflynn

You Tube video of the week

This is the sickest thing I think I have ever seen at a poker table, can you even imagine how that would feel. I have seen some horrible beats in my poker playing but nothing as sick as that

YouTube Video of the Moment

For those that thought Barney's Soulja Boy was the coolest thing ever....we were wrong as this video plainly states on its intro....

Whats This Another Review....

So I just finished reading a book and since I can't sleep I thought I would go ahead and throw up another review

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

This is the book that coincides with the animated movie that debuted in theaters not to long ago, I have not yet seen the movie but found the book immensely enjoyable. The book starts off with the kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt's son. Jabba is so distraught that he enlists the help of both the Republic (in the form of the Jedi Council) and the Sepratist's (mainly Count Dooku). So the book follows Anakin Skywalker and Obi-One Kenobi as they are the Jedi chosen for the mission of finding and returning Jabba's son. The book does a great job of giving us a glimpse inside of Anakin's head, it really sets the stage for the things that will eventually lead to Anakins falling to the darkside. As the book progress's you really get a feel for how much Anakin struggles with the situation that he has been placed in. Here he is barley a man himself and he is being told basically that he is the one who will save the galaxy, and early in the book he has a young Padawan thrust onto him. He was really interesting to see how the relationship progressed between the two of them. Now Anakin was once a slave to the Hutts, so he does not relish this mission one bit, especially when he see's most of his Clone Troopers lost to save one little Hutt, but as a Jedi he is bound to his mission and thus struggles with this balance throughout the book. There are some great moments in the book that you can really visualize while reading it (the mark of a great book in my opinion) My favorite was the battle between Anakin and Dooku's personal assassin Asajj Ventress. Ventress is a great character, her story is that while her planet was engaged in a bloody battle, a Jedi named Ky Nerac crashes on her planet and takes her under his wing, He is later killed and Ventress blames the Jedi for his death claiming the simply abadoned him, she later falls under Dooku's tutelage and is assigned to kill Anakin. The battle between the two takes place on a small landing platform and the book does a great job of narrating the battle. Overall I really enjoyed this book and was amazed at how quick of a read it was.

Overall Rating

9.0

Review of the Week

Ok so as I mentioned earlier I have a few ideas kicking around in my head about things to keep this blog moving and one of them is doing more reviews (it is mentioned in the blog title after all) so I plan to do at least one reveiw a week. This will cover a broad range including books, movies, games and TV shows. They will all be based on a 10 point scale. Lets start off with a game I just rented on GameFly.

Burnout Paradise

This one really took me by surprise. Those who have read my top 10 xbox list know that I love the Burnout series. As the first true Next Gen installment I really was excited to play this one, sadly my excitment was short lived. This installment moves the game to a totally open world enviroment (think Grand Theft Auto style) while this change allows you to basically do whatever you want it makes it somewhat difficult to progress through the game. The game is truly huge with a gigantic city to play around in and 75 cars to unlock.

The modes are somewhat varied, Straight up point to point races are nice the basically point you where to go but dont lock you into a route allowing you to find your own way, this can work in your favor but if you take a wrong turn it pretty much ruins your chances fo winning. Road Rage events are pretty fun basically you drive against 5 or 6 other cars trying to crash each other. Marked Man challenges you to get to a specified point with 3 other cars all trying to take you out before you get there. Stunt Challenges task you with getting a target score by performing jumps and stunts. The biggest change comes in the Crash Mode. Now dubbed Showtime, basically you roll your car around hitting the A button to boost it along trying to land on other vehicals to boost your score. It really requires no skill and is all a matter of having enough stuff around to land on and getting lucky. This was the biggest let down for me as my fondest times playing Burnout was playing with a group of friends (James youshould remember this) passing the controller around trying to beat each others crash scores. There truly was skill involved in the old crash mode and its missing in this game. Now dont get me wrong I enjoyed Burnout Paradise I was just hoping for a lot more.

Final Rating

7.7

Where does all the time go?

So clearly finding time to blog has been difficult latley, With all the goings on at work (One guy getting promoted and two quiting) my schedule has been insane the last few weeks and shows little signs of getting much better. But on to better and brighter things first off the house is finally nearing completion, we have a few more boxes left to sort through in the garage and then hopefully we can get the bedroom furniture taken care of and get it moved upstairs. Sam and I have come to the conclusion that once that is done we are going to get a puppy. We dont want to bring him into the house until its fully situated, I can't wait and hopefully the little guy will force us to get off our keysters more often and help us lose some weight 8).
We also have quite a few shows coming up we are going to the Braves v. Mets game this weekend (hopefully the Mets will turn it around by then cause we look like POOP right now) and then we have Alanis Morrissette and Wicked in October and we just bought tickets for Cirque de Solei coming at the end of the year. i have a few ideas kicking around in my head of things I can do on this blog to 1. keep it more interesting and 2. give me reasons to post on it. I would like to bring back the Random Mame review as I enjoyed doing those though it will be in a much different format I think. Also I thought of doing a "cool item of the week" post about things I find on the ol' interweb that I feel deserve to be shared with my "throngs" of readers. So hopefully I can put some of these ideas to work and make this thing worth reading again....until then......Sianora

Go Team USA

I must say that I love watching the Olympics. Something about the pride of our country and watching great athletes do amazing things just gets me going. So far there have been some great stories. The US women sweeping the medals in the fencing saber competetion, and the Mens freestyle swimming team upsetting the french, after the frenchies talked some smack. Also tonight the mens gymnastics team took bronze, wich was pretty amazing considering they lost thier two best athletes before the games even started. Hopefully the US can continue to have a succesful games and give us all something to cheer about

All Quiet on The Bloggin Front...

Well its been a very long time since I last posted so time to get a few random notes out on the airwaves...err...blog waves?. Well after waiting 2 months Sam and I finally got to move into our new house. WOW what a lot of work. You never quite realize how much crap you have until you have to move it all. Our move was a two parter first our apartment wich we decided to hire movers for the bulk of since it was just to much for the two of us, and second a storage unit in Blue Ridge full of inhiereted stuff wich we did ourselves with some help from Sam's parents and nephew. It was a lot of hard work and thank goodness we both took a week off of work to get settled in. The house is still mostly a work in progress but its starting to feel like home. The kitchen is done (and is awesome) and the livng room and master bath are pretty muchdone. We did have some unexpected obstacles the biggest of wich was our computer deciding it didnt want to work in the new house so we had to purchase a new one. Shortly after that the desk decided to colapse on Sam when she tried to move it so we are trying to find a solution to that now as well. Other than that things have gone smoothly, we just have to figure out where to put everything.

Sam begins her new job on monday and I am so excited for her. She was always amazing at Nationwide and they never seemed to want to reward her for that. I dont think Travelers is going to have the same problem and I see Sam going as high and as far as she sets her mind to.

On the sports front I am happy to say that my Mets finally are starting to live up to their potential and as of now are back in First place, I dont know if the managerial change has alot to do with it but maybe all they needed was a fresh outlook and the fact that they dont have the distraction swirling around anymore. As for the All star game, I must say it was an amazing game but it points out a huge flaw in the setup, Now I dont have a problem with how the teams are decided but the way the managers handle it is wrong, They want everybody to play so they waste their players and then we have an incident like this year where it almost came to David Wright having to pitch. Make the game what it is an exhibition, if it ends in a tie so be it who cares, let the records decide world series homefield like they should.

Well I think that is all for tonight, I will try to get more regular with this thing again......

Until next time .......Keep on 8)

One Year Later

Its hard to believe that Sam and I have now been married for a year. It seems like just yesterday that we were in Florida preparing everything for the big day. Looking back on it, I cant believe how nervous I truly was, I was fine until I actually saw Sam, She looked so amazing and I was so overwhelmed at that moment I dont know how I managed to make it thru the whole thing ....LOL. Although it wasnt perfect It was and will forever be the happiest day of my life.

Samantha,

You are the most wonderful thing that has ever happend to me. Although we have had our ups and downs I wouldn't trade any of it for anything in this world. You have made me a better person and I can't wait to grow old with you. I can't wait to move into our new house and make it our own. I Love You with all my heart ....now and forever. Happy Anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MMA on CBS......no thanks

I am Kimbo, Hear me Roar


Well the highly touted primetime network TV debut of MMA (mixed martial arts for those not in the know) has come and gone and hopefully it doesnt happen again. CBS basically made a mockery of true MMA, it was a second rate league (Elite XC who is only known because of two fighters) and a second rate production. It started off with about 30 minutes of build up for a bunch of fights that no one cared about. And focused more on the dancing girls than the fighters. the only reason most were watching was because of Kimbo Slice who I'll get to in a second. It started with a fight with two guys no one has ever heard of, yet they trot out Busta Ryhmes to bring out the first guy. That fight promptly ended about 20 seconds later. Then the spend another 20 minutes talking about some Baroni guy (more like Jabroni..LOL...thats for you James) The supposed New York Bad Ass, took about 10 minutes to get to the ring and lasted about 10 seconds in it. Why they were hyping this guy who had lost 3 of his last 4 fights I'll never know. Then they trot out the women fighters (I'm sure they only did this for the sideshow aspect) all though this was one of the better fights, Gina Carrono who for some reason has become the supposed face of women's MMA (probably because she can kind of fight but she is pretty...she's the Anna Kournikova of MMA). She put on a good show but you could tell she got really winded she had a lot of trouble finishing the fight and the doctors stopped it after 2 rounds. The next fight was actually the best one of the night Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith started off slow but really started going at it in the second round then in the third Smith took an accidental poke in the eye and they had to stop the fight, this was unfortunate because had this fight kept going at the pace it was it might have saved some face for CBS. Then came the big match Kimbo Slice v. John Thompson, the annoucers touted it as the greatest MMA fight ever despite the fact that neither of these fighters really deserved to be headlining a show Kimbo who made a name for himself in no holds fights on the internet is still learning the game of MMA and it showed. As for Thompson he is a once strong MMA fighter who is on his way down. Thompson looked like he had an alien growth on his ear and really dominated the fight early on at the end of the second round he had Kimbo pinned against the cage and rained about 20 elbows right to his face, you could tell Kimbo had no idea what to do and the fight probably should have been stopped (but that would have meant the end of CBS's golden boy) Kimbo survived and then in the third round finally land a shot on the ear of Thompson and popped the growth, shortly after that the ref stopped it (much to Thompson's shagrin who nearly took to hitting the ref instead of Kimbo) All in all it was a dissapointing show and if CBS wants to try this again they need to watch the WEC show from Sunday and take some serious notes. Versus put on a great show (honestly this show could have been PPV and would have been well worth the money) Every fight was good, and the show focused on the fighters not girls ( The only sign of pretty girls was a few shots in the crowd and one of the officers leading the fighters to the ring...LOL) The Co-Main Events truly stole the show and dwarfed CBS's whole show by themselves.

This is how its done CBS

The first was Torres vs Maeda for the Bantam weight title, These two put on one hell of a war and at one point had competing ankle locks on each other where it looked like both might wind up with broken feet. The fight ended after 3 rounds only because Maeda's left eye had become so swollen he litteraly couldn't see out of it. Then came the big daddy...Urijah Faber versus Jens Pulver...these two are arguably the two best 145 pound fighters out there and they had an all out brawl Faber kept landing shots and Pulver coming at him landing shots of his own, not to many thought the fight would go the distance and no one thought Faber had the stand up game he had because he had steamrolled most of his oppents prior. These two put on the fight of the year and I only hope that people who watched the CBS show and got turned off get a chance to see this fight to see what MMA is really all about.

True MMA Fighters

Jack Thompson is A Moron

Now anyone who has a remote interest in video games has heard the name Jack Thompson. For those not in the know Mr. Thompson is a Florida lawyer who has taken it upon himself to become the champion against video game violence, now I can see where he is coming from on some things but there's a problem. Mr. Thompson is wholly un-informed on what he is talking about. Now I consider myself a stable human being. I am also a gamer. I have been playing video games since my childhood and I have yet to go on a killing spree. Now games nowdays are a whole lot more realistic than they were when I was growing up but the base concepts are the same. What Mr. Thompson fails to realize is that its not the industry's responsibility to ensure that their product is played by its intended audience. When Rockstar releases Grand Theft Auto IV with a Mature rating, they are telling you this game is meant to be played by adults. Now I will agree that game stores need to be more responsible when selling the games, as it is possible for someone who is not 18 to walk in and buy a copy of GTA IV. But if said child purchases the game and brings it home and plays it, is it not also the responsibility of the parent or guardian to be aware of what is being played by their child? This is the point that Mr. Thompson misses. Recently any act of violence that occurs, Mr. Thompson has been right there to blame video games. Take the Virginia Tech shootings for example, moments after the tragedy Mr. Thompson was front and center saying that the person that did this must be a video gamer because only video gamers are capable of such things. He even blamed Bill Gates because Microsoft has an association with the game "Counter-Strike". (Microsoft's only relation is as a publisher for the Xbox version, they had nothing to do with making the game), now when it was reveled that the VT shooter hadn't been interested in violent video games since high school, Mr. Thompson dismissed it saying that you just don't forget what the games have taught you. Thompson's crusade against the game Bully is another example of him just not knowing what he is talking about, He led a crusade to have the game banned before even knowing any of the actual game content he based his crusade on the title alone. If a game is called Bully it must be about being a bully and therefore must be bad. As it turned out the character you play is the one being bullied and not the other way around. He also sparked an outrage when he learned that you could kiss another boy in the game claiming it was teaching our kids to be gay. But again he was misinformed as you have to physically seek it out the action for it to take place.

For a great breakdown of how off target he can be check ou this link that breaksdown and interview he did shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/feature-dissecting-jacks-lies-252914.php
For the record Jack attempted to file suit against this site for what he claimed where attacks against him. Who knows maybe Mr. Thompson will stumble across my little blog (being read by all of one or two people LOL) and try to sue me...LOL

Now as I said before I consider myself a well adjusted adult, I can sit and play GTA IV for a few hours, realize its a game, and then go back to my normal life, which I do have. (another famous claim by Jack is that any adult who wants to sit and play Grand Theft Auto needs to go out and get a life) People who commit heinous acts of violence are not well adjusted normal people. There is something wrong with anyone who is capable of such acts to begin with. While they may enjoy violent games, The games do not create the violence its already there to begin with.

It was recently announced that a Florida judge is recommending that Jack Thompson be found Guilty on 27 of 31 counts of misconduct. Hopefully he will be disbarred and will no longer be able to stick his nose into anything and everything remotely concerned with video game violence.

ERROR: The blog you are viewing is boring

Well not much to post about lately thus the lack of posts, I want to do so more top 10's and bring back the Random Mame Review but just haven't been motivated. As Sam and I like to say...Ive had a series case of the "blahs". This was supposed to be a very exciting time coming up with moving into the house and our one year anniversary but since the house got pushed back to June it has kind of sapped me. Not to mention work has been crazy lately I worked almost 2 hours extra tonight because the severe weather we had here in Georgia wreaked some havoc on our refrigeration and I had to stay and help try and save our product. Work has been getting better it seems like they really want to promote me and are trying to get me as prepared as possible, the finalist list should be out in a month or two and hopefully I make it this time. Though if I don't I learned that it doesn't mean I cant be promoted so I wont get to down if I'm not on it. My managers know that I am one of the top performers and have been told more than once that they breath easier when I am there because they know they don't have to worry about things being taken care of properly, if that doesn't get me promoted I don't know what will.

On the sports front sadly all my teams are either done or playing like schlock. The Jazz put up a game effort against the Kobe's but it just wasn't meant to be, had the refs actually called fouls properly the series might have been different but life goes on. I will say this if the Jazz can keep the core they have built and add a piece here and there (mostly a more low post type of center to compliment Okur better) I think they can make a serious run for the title. The Stars got ousted by Detroit in the Western finals though they made a series out of it after going down 3-0. Add the Grizzlies rode an upset wave all the way to the conference finals but came up just a little short against the best team in the conference. As for my Mets...they are so hit and miss this year that I just don't know how I feel about their chances. They can look great one day and like they team that made the epic collapse last year the next. Take this weekend for example they go into Yankee Stadium and throttle the Yankee's for 2 games, then come to Atlanta and lose both games of a double header quite soundly. You just cant play 500 ball all year and expect to make the playoffs. I think that they are on the verge of turning the corner if they can just show up and play every day like they are capable of playing, it will help getting Pedro back in June and it seems like Wright, Reyes and Delgado seem to be breaking out of their respective slumps....perhaps they stole Jason Giambi's thong while they were at Yankee Stadium.

On the gaming front I have way to many new things to play since my birthday. Sam (the most awesomest wife in the world) bought me a Nintendo DS, and I got a bunch of games for it (Legend of Zelda, New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, Advance Wars, Mr. Driller, Nintendogs, True Swing Golf) and I am loving all of them mostly hooked on True Swing and Mario Kart at the moment. She also (despite her vocal protests of the game) got me Grand Theft Auto IV I haven't delved all that deep into it yet but from what I have played this is truly a break thru game there is so much more to it than people think, it really isn't all about the violence. for instance early on in the story you are tasked with picking up a girl your cousin works with. When you pick her up she has one of her friends with her, and you and the friend hit it off and you wind up going on a date with her and going bowling, Now I don't think to many people would expect to find that in a GTA game and that's what makes it so good....it surprises you more than you would expect.

sorry if this post lacked my usual flair (with pictures and such) I just dont have it in me tonight....LOL.....well I probably should attempt to get some sleep as I have got another long work day ahead tomorrow.....

The Top 3 Revealed

#3 NCAA Football 06/07

This one is a no brainer for me. Those who know me know I am a diehard Nebraska fan, so nothing is greater for me than getting to play with my favorite team. I have always thought that NCAA is better than Madden but I am more of a college fan anyway. 06 added the Race for the Heisman mode where you create your player and try to turn them into a legend. 07 tweaked the mode and made it a little better. The on field action has always been top notch and with 06 they finally added online play wich was awesome though gets frustrating at times as most online players try to take advantage of glitches in the games. Overall this is one of the games that I have probably spent the most amount of time Playing.




#2 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
I have mentioned this game before at it still stands to this day as a favorite of mine. Now I am not normally one to like RPG's they have always just felt slow to me but this one feels different. I think its the fact that your not stuck playing the story if you dont want to. You can just go and be a freelance adventurer. It is very free-roam and allows you to be whatever you want to be. The only drawback was the expansion packs, you basically had to rebuy the game to get the added content and that was a drawback for me.




and the #1 Orginal Xbox game is.......................








Halo 1/2
As if there was ever much doubt....Halo stands alone as the greatest xbox game(s) the fact that I played this game literrally thousands of hours and never got bored is testament to its greatness. The multiplayer is truly where the game shines and the game is virtually limitless in the game options allowing you to create new game times anytime you get bored with whats already there. Halo 2 added online multiplayer and this added to an already great formula...the only problem is as with anygame people are going to take advantage of the system and at one point cheating became quite rampant, but the developers took strides to elimnate it and the game remains one of the most played games ever.





so there ya go my first top ten list...Please leave feedback and let me know what you think and wther I should do another one or not...LOL

Top 10 Xbox Games pt 2

#7 Tony Hawk Series

I couldn't narrow this one down to one game in the series so I included the whole set. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater has become the Madden of extreme sports games, but the one thing they do really well is add something fresh with each new game that comes out. One of my fondest memories of the early Xbox days was playing Tony Hawk multiplayer hours on end, and the funny thing was it never got old. The series got truly reinvented with Tony Hawk's Underground where the game become story driven, as you created your own skater and started out as a nobody in your own neighborhood and rose to stardom in the skate scene crossing paths with all the known pros in the process. In the earlier games you just went to each location and hit all the goals...there was no cohesion. Other extreme games have come and gone but Tony Hawk has managed to stay fresh enough to keep people coming back for more.





#6 The Burnout Series

Again this one cant be narrowed down to just one game, and again its all about the multiplayer on this one. Nothing compares to getting a bunch of friends together and playing the Crash mode, to see who can create the most carnage. While my wife may disagree there is nothing better than watching massive automobile pileups in video game form. While the multiplayer/crash mode is what lands Burnout on my list it does feature a very solid single player experience.








#5 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Never has a game series been so known for controversy as has Grand Theft Auto. While it may be best known for the fact that there is basically no limit to what you can do in the game, I think that is what makes the game great. Most mature adults can separate video games from reality, and games like GTA give us the chance to do things that we would never do in real life. GTA is made for adults and should be treated as such. And when you look at it from an adult perspective, you realize that deep down the game is a little tongue in cheek. The pure scope of San Andreas is insane it truly is a living breathing city. While the game has been attacked for its violence it really is the parents that allow their kids to play the game that should be attacked, not the game itself.




#4 Lego Star Wars

I don't think any game has ever came out of nowhere quite like Lego Star Wars did, who knew that the greatest console Star Wars game would feature Legos. I remember when I first heard about, I was like "I like Legos...I like Star Wars...This could be really cool" and oh how cool it was. The Star Wars universe has never been brought to life quite like it is here, none of the characters speak everything is brought to life through clever pantomiming and it is laugh out loud funny. And it really is something that everyone can enjoy (at times I have had to fight Sam over the Xbox because she is playing it), it also gave me one of the best moments ever...coming home from work one night I walked into to the sounds of a techno version of the Star Wars theme, I found Sam on the couch playing and she had just completed a puzzle and the Kamino Cloners were disco dancing to the Star Wars theme.....Im not sure I have ever laughed harder.




Stay tuned to find out the top 3....

The Top 10...

In an effort to give myself something more to blog about I have decided to do a few top 10 lists. I think it will be fun and hopefully interesting to read (for some of you anyway) So to start it off I am going to go with my personal top 10 favorite Original Xbox games, I will spread it out over a few posts just so it doesn't turn into a giant wall of text, So with out further delay here is the first installment of The Top 10....

NeoFlynn's TOP 10 Original Xbox Games

#10 Marvel vs Capcom 2
This one makes my list but probably not alot of other lists out there. I love 2d arcade fighters and this was a tough call between MvC2 and Capcom vs SNK, I gave the not to MvC because of the cast of characters, There is no better feeling for a comic book fan than to be able to throw down with beloved characters like Wolverine and Spider-man. Not to mention the amount of things to unlock from additional characters, stages and music to various artwork. It really adds alot when companies give you a reason to keep playing a game even after you beat it and this one is one of the best, I played for who knows how many hours and still didn't unlock everything. The sad thing is, if you missed this one when it came out your going to be hard pressed to find it now, You can get it on eBay but be prepared to spend, it runs about 40-80 dollars

#9 NFL 2K5
The little football game that could. I truly believe that if given the chance the 2k series would have surpassed Madden as THE football game, unfortunately the NFL and the evil empire (aka EA games) ensured that wouldn't happen by signing an exclusive deal. 2K5 really was poised to give Madden a run for its money, The gameplay is much smoother and a whole lot more realistic than Madden,not to mention the presentation completely out classed anything EA had done up to that point, and when Sega decided to sell the game for 19.99 right out of the gate it was a kick in the teeth to the mighty EA and thus they reacted the only way they knew how....eliminate the competition. I will give EA some credit they haven't totally rested on their laurels since they signed the deal the have genuinely tried to improve the game each year but we may forever wonder what might have been had the deal never been signed. 2k tried to make a comeback this year releasing All Pro Football 2k8 (made up of fictional teams with past NFL stars) but without the NFL lisence the game was never given much notice....Sadly.

#8 Oddworld Stranger's Wrath
I Was excited about this game the moment I heard about it. Oddworld Inhabitants has always made great and hilarious games and this was to be no different. What truly makes the game is the live ammo system, you have to hunt and collect your ammo and it is all various living creatures...my personal favorite is the aptly named "chip-punk", these little guys are always good for a laugh with their witty one liners. Also a favorite is beating random townsfolk until the all run inside then hearing over the loudspeaker "We're coming back out now so stop being a Punk ass", very few games have this kind of Laugh out loud factor. The game itself requires alot of thought and is extremely well written, I don't know why it didn't sell better than it did but hopefully we haven't heard the last from this great and underrated developer.

stay tuned for part 2.....

Slackin off....

Ok so I realize I have been slacking off a whole lot on the blog latley but the fact of the matter is outside of the house purchase things here are ulitmatley boring. So I apologize if this post becomes a wall of text. Speaking of the house, things took a little turn this week, when we orginally made our first offer we had set closing for June 27th (at the time we were under the impression that the apartments needed two months notice before we could move out, we found out later that wasnt the case) The sellers didnt really want that far of a closing so we were going to change it to May 30th, Well the selling agent never disclosed this to the owners so they were under the impression that we were still closing on the 27th so they made all there plans for then, So now we have to wait until June 27th to close, Not a huge problem but it could change our interest rate on the loan because it wont stay locked the whole time. And hopefully it gives the apartments extra time to rent out our place so we dont have to pay the extra money to get out of the lease.

On the sports front Sadly our beloved Gladiators fell in the second round of the playoffs though they did make it interesting forcing a game 5 after falling behind 0-2. They just couldnt close the deal on the road. But the Utah Grizzlies managed to pull the first round upset and hopefully can keep it going. My Mets right now are playing very lackluster, they just cant seem to get rolling for any extended streak, mostly due to hit and miss performances by the bullpen, but luckily all the other teams in the division are suffering the same problems so we are still right in the thick of it. The NHL playoffs are in full swing and with the Thrashers not even coming close to making it, I have reverted back to cheering for the Dallas Stars (back in the day the Utah Grizzlies were the farm team for the Stars so thats where the link comes) They took out the defending champion Anahiem Ducks in the first round and now have to face San Jose, the two teams met in the season finale and it turned into an all out brawl featuring 160 penalty minutes, should be a heck of a series. On to the NBA where Utah is looking very good in the first round winning the first two games on the road and coming home (where they were a league best 37-4) with a chance to close it out quick, They need to because the Lakers are having no trouble against Denver.

On the gaming front I have gotten back into Oblivion, I dont even remember why I stopped playing orginally but am loving the game once again, It is so huge I have put about 10 hours into my current character and havnt even played the main quest yet. The scope of the game is insane and you truly feel like you are in a living world where characters cary on their daily lives, regardless of wether or not you choose to interact with them. I am not normally an RPG fan but something about the Elder Scrolls has always felt different to me I guess its the freeform aspect of it, I played Morrowind wind for hours upon end and never even touched the main quest and now am doing the same with Oblivion. I know some of you enjoyed the MAME reviews when I was doing them and I plan to bring it back at somepoint, I just havnt been motivated to do them properly latley and didn't want to put a lackluster effort out there.

As some of you know Sam and I love stand up comedy and we have bunch of shows coming up, Tonight we went to see Josh Blue, some of you may know him, he actually won NBC's Last Comic Standing. He was an absolute treat to watch and really played off the crowd well, that is one thing I love to see when going to the smaller clubs is how the comics react to the crowd. Blue touched on the fact that some people see his disability and automatically think he is mentally handicaped too, but watching him on stage you realize he is probably smarter than most so called "normal" people in the world. At one point he did a q&a with the audience, I asked him what the best part of Last Comic Standing was to wich he of course said "Winning", he also said that he became really good friends with everyone on the show. Coming up we have Gabriel Igliases (who we saw before and LOVED), Raphie May (love his stuff but missed him live when he came last) and the big one Eddie Izzard....We have loved Eddie for years and are so happy that he is touring and actually stopping in Atlanta, as soon as we found out we jumped on it (for my Utah folks the closest he gets is Phoenix, Vegas or Denver can you say ROAD TRIP?)

Guess that will do it for now....Ill try to be better about updating even if it is boring as hell LOL

Just a Quickie

I meant to do this yesterday and forgot but wanted to throw this up before I head off to bed. Sam and I are offcially homeowners, We GOT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ill give the whole story later but just wanted everyone to know that we got it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our First House

Two Words.........HOLY CRAP!!!!!

where to begin...Sam and I went to look at houses with Julie our realtor on Saturday, we were really excited to finally be able to see some of these in person. It's amazing what you learn when you first go looking, the first thing is pictures can be very deceiving, Most of the houses that looked so amazing in the pictures were not so much in person. After looking at a couple different ones that just didn't suit us we went to one in a very nice community called Kingsgate, Julie was very high on the neighborhood even telling us she had sold a couple homes there already. We drove up to the listing (which had literally just been put on the market like two days before) and from the outside it already looked amazing nice little front porch and great landscaping. The inside was even better the layout was perfect with a formal living room right off the entryway and then a formal dinning room with a nice columned archway separating them, then into the large kitchen with breakfast area and all hardwood throughout. The 2 story great room with gas fireplace was very nice sized and we loved that the stairs where hidden on the back. Upstairs had the 2 extra bedrooms which were very nice and the guest bath which included a double vanity. Then the master which was big and the master bath was amazing huge double vanity, jetted garden tub and separate shower and all tile floor, The walk in closet was huge and plenty big enough for all our clothes and such. the backyard was big and well landscaped...pretty much the house was perfect we really wouldn't have to change a thing except update the appliances in the kitchen and maybe the counter tops as well. After that we looked at others and nothing else even came close to this one (to check it out click herehttp://www.visualtour.com/show.asp?T=1458627&prt=10003) There was another neighborhood called Belmont Trace that had a few listings that we were really excited about but after looking at them all that was good was the outside of them, the insides were layed out really badly and they hard no yards to speak of at all. So we got done feeling a little disappointed that we didn't find more we liked, but Julie thought it was pretty normal and was glad that we were they types that knew exactly what we wanted. After getting home and kind of debriefing each other we started to like the Kingsgate listing more and more, so we emailed Julie to let her know that we were really interested in it and were afraid of losing if we waited because it was so nice. So I went off to work and Julie and Sam talked that night about it and Julie seemed to think if we really truly liked it we should jump on it. She pulled the comps for us and it was priced right around them at 19500, the average selling price is 193000 in the neighborhood and this one has a ton of upgrades. So after losing some sleep over the excitement of it we talked to Julie on Sunday, after talking with her we decided to go ahead and make an offer on it we decided to offer 190,00 and ask them to pay the closing costs. So she got the offer ready and emailed it off to us, we were kind of playing beat the clock a little because Julie had to be somewhere at 1:00 so we got the offer looked it over talked with her again about a few questions and after we felt good about it we signed and then faxed it over to the selling agent. Now we are playing the waiting game to see what happens from here, Julie said that after talking to the agent the couple is apparently relocating to Tampa, and they really want to stay close to the asking price, so we most likely get a counter offer if they comeback somewhere in between with them paying the closing costs I think we will jump on it. We also talked to Marcia who is going to handle are loan for us, She also loved the house and ran some numbers for us, We were prepared to put 15k down but after talking with her it may be better to only put 10 down and use the other 5 to maybe upgrade the appliances, Since we aren't putting a huge down payment we would have to pay PMI which is an insurance for the mortgage company that basically protects them, but since we have such good credit we would qualify for a program where they actually pay the PMI for us, our interest rate would actually be a little higher but our overall payment would be less, so that is the option we are looking at. It is so insane to think that in a few days we may actually be homeowners, it is such a huge step but it is exciting, I cant believe how fast the process seemed to move but it is such a good opportunity we didn't want to miss out. Look for more to come soon......

Avenue Q and The House Hunt Continues...

Thought I would start this post by talking about Avenue Q, for those who dont know Avenue Q is a tony award winning musical that is basically Seasame Street for adults. I had found out about it a few years ago when it was off-broadway in an Entertainment Weekly article. I found the soundtrack and purchased it from the song titles alone(classics like "if you were gay..." and "Everyones a little bit racist" and my favorite "The Internet...is for Porn). Well we finally got the chance to see it live as it came to Atlanta this week. The show was simply outstanding its done with a mix of live actors and puppets (to give it the seasame street feel) and after a short while you dont even notice the puppeteers and just focus on the puppets themselves. The story is actually quite good it focus's on Princeton the newest arrival on Avenue Q trying to find his purpose in life and getting involved with the other citizens of the block the superintendent Gary Coleman (yes THAT Gary Coleman), Christmas Eve (a Japanese Therapist with no clients) Her finace Brian (a jobless stand up comic), Rod and Nicky (a Bert and Ernie type pair with Nicky being the slob and Rod the in the closet Republican investment banker) Trekkie Monster (the internet porn addict) and Kate Monster (the cute kindergarten teaching assistant who cant seem to get a boyfriend) Princeton and Kate hit it off and begin to date while Princeton is still searching for his purpose and this leads to one of the most outragesly funny things I think I have ever seen...after the whole groups goes out to a bar to see a new singer (a rather gifted (in the chest anyway) singer aptly named Lucy the Slut) Princeton and Kate wind up getting totally wasted (thanks to another highlight of the show The Bad Idea Bears) and wind up back in Kates apartment while during a song sung by Gary called "you can be loud as the hell you want" they engage in some serious puppet on puppet action...it was so funny it nearly had me falling out of my chair. Sam and I truly loved the show and would recomend it for those with an open mind LOL.

On the housing front after some discussion and thinking we have decided that Bridgetowne may not be our best bet. After we started looking closer at the house to get the upgrades we would want we might wind up closer to a 215,000 price tag wich might stretch us farther than we want to go. So we met with the realtor on thursday and really liked her she pulled some listings for us in Woodstock and Cumming that fit our needs and were in our pricerange and we went through and picked out the ones that we liked we came up with close to 20, so this saturday we are going out with her to try and look at as many of them as we can. Most of them are priced less than 200 so I really think we may be getting the most out of our money on a resale, the nice thing is what we save on the house we can always put to upgrades or rennovations. We also talked with the mortgage lender that we got connected to thru Sam's coworker, We already got pre-qualified and found out that we really do have an awesome credit score wich really made me feel good. On the apartment front we found out that in order to get out early we would have to buy out basically by giving 60 days notice and paying a month and a half worth of rent. But in talking to the realtor we may be looking at around August for closing so we may not need to get out early we will just have to see how that plays out. Hopefully we find something that we will really fall in love with and can get a good deal on it really is a great market for buyers right now so we are looking at a good time.