Lost: Season 4 begins tonight!

You can really see the pores on a persons face in 1080.

Tonights two hour showing is entitled: "The Beginning of the End".

Some gifts are better then others

You only live once and it was my birthday this week....

Empire State Building car zap mystery

In the shadow of the Empire State Building lies an “automotive Bermuda Triangle”
- a five-block radius where vehicles mysteriously die.

Cool(title link). I guess many fire back up after they towed outside of that radius.

Wii Civ Revolution on hold

Filed under very strange: Wii version of this game is on hold but the other platforms are moving forward including the DS version.

DS still being green lighted but not Wii?

No real reason was given. I can speculate but I doubt I'd come close to the reason behind this.

I didn't know there was going to be a Wii release of this but I did know that Sid Meier thinks Wiis are neat-o (not his actual words).

PC Assassin's Creed slip

About a month delay to the end of March.

I don't know if I care or not....maybe? I guess? Will see?

One thing to note, is the requirements:

* RAM: 2 GB (3 GB recommended)

Why they are so high for a console to PC game is a mystery of the universe.

SteamWorks

Valve has release a free software kit to use all of its back end services (retail, VoIP, stats, etc) for your next game.

This is the start of what is going to change the world of PC gaming. Retail channels suck and the so called AAA game titles are to big of risks to make anything that isn't a clone of something else.

Of course were also going to get a bunch of worthless trash titles but I don't mind letting reviewers sort them for me to find those little gems.

This is a wise move for Steam as it will drive new titles their way. This is good for everyone, really: game makers, Steam, and customers.

I also firmly believe that not every game in the world should have VoIP support but that's just me. Not to say that I don't frequently get a little chuckle out of the dialog spewing forth from my speakers....

Get paid for your next interview

This is a great idea: companies pay you to come interview. Crazy? No.

With costs of head hunters making $10,000's on placements, paying a few hundred is a much better value for a company.

Hell, its better for everyone....except head hunters.

ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2

I just took a trip to hell and confirmed its frozen over status!

CEO Hector Ruiz from a little known company in Sunnyvale, CA called AMD might have just gotten off my frequent beating list. He's been enjoying it for many moons now.... maybe the message got through or more likely the five quarters of losses got through.

ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 for $499, though I am hearing $399 is going to be the final common price. ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 combines two ATI Radeon HD 3870s on a single graphics board, connected through integrated crossfire technology.

Why this is good:

• One board solution is way better then SLI in terms of power and heat.
• $400 is really where the market needs to be. $600-$800 is stupid for a video card.
• These crazy prices on Nvidia hardware are serious examples of why its not good to have no competition.
• I will never be so happy to flush the update-me-every-damn-day video drivers 8800 card.
• Teraflop barrier broken, 10.1 DX card.

Now, to buy one before AMD sinks like Atlantis into the dark stormy waters.

Sins of a Solar Empire is gold

5 days from now the RT4x title will be available on Stardock Central for download or in stores in a box the day following.

This game looks hot. On both IGNs and Voodoos "Most Anticipated Games for 2008" list. No copy protection. I have yet to really read anything bad about it.

Need I say more?

I'm fired up.....

As I heard it said on G4:

Morgan: "This is going to destroy lives, isn't it?"
Brad: "Yea, but you won't have to pay $15 a month for the service. (i.e. unlike MMOs)."

Shadowbane wipe

Ever wonder what happened to Shadowbane? Well its a long story from hundreds of bugs to shut completely down to back up again to a free to play model.... its quite a story all in itself.

Shadowbane today: its free and its going to have a complete player wipe for a fresh start. I am sure that would normally lose a lot of customers but its free anyway so I don't know how much one can really bitch.

Apparently a wipe is the only way to fix this broken game.

I might check this out...will see. I had read a number of updates over the years that sounded like neat ideas but was never willing to check it out. The wipe means that everyone is starting over...if there was ever a time to review it, this is it.

Edwards and Rudy bail

Mayor Rudy and Edwards sail on out of the election.

And then there were 2...on each side...

While I wouldn't say hes got my vote, I would say if I had to pick who was going to win this shoot'n match my guess would be McCain. Hes barely a Republican, so that's likely to have the greatest tolerance among the masses. But we still got a long way to go so I wouldn't lay any real money on that bet.

Rock Band premium microphone

Has been sighted at $50 a pop. I'm thinking that better make me sound amazing at that price.

But more importantly the packaging shows for ps3, 360 and Wii. Right interesting I say.

Non-corn Ethanol $1/gallon

Good news on the alternate energy front:

Non-corn based ethanol being produced right now (not in 10 years) with a 7.7x energy yield that can be produced for about a buck a gallon. 80 something percent less green house gas supposedly with all factors weighted in.

That's what I call one of the most positive steps, to date, towards being free of oil dependence.

My logo

In a completely uninteresting article about Target ignoring Bloggers(linked of course)..... some blogger was complaining about Target, "Targeting crotches with a bull’s-eye is not the message we should be putting out there..."

Maybe not good for Target but I thought it was a great logo for me....if I wasn't married, of course.

Movies of Note

I watched some movies this weekend. I at least one I turned off early and its name already escapes me. Cool how I can purge useless data so effectively!

I did see two movies that weren't just good, I would say that were exceptional and most certainly Blog worthy:

• 3:10 to Yuma
• Charlie Wilson's War

Enjoy!

More insecure Firefox

Yet another Firefox vulnerability unearthed. This one related to some add-ons. Generally I wouldn't count exposures created by add-ons... as you installed it, so whys it the software's problem? But we all know Firefox is worthless with out a slew of add-ons and /noscript on. {I just click on IE and it successfully completes my web browsing needs with out any add-ons...sort of magical that way} Thus point out this new issue.

Happy browsing!

Final note: Window Snyder, Mozilla's security chief.....nothing says goober more then a name like "Window". Someones mommy didn't love him (or is that a her?).

Hellgate expands: Stonehenge

I read through the patch. Seemed to me like many features that the game badly needs. I may get back around to checking that out in time. There is no doubt that the potential to be a great game was there.

Mostly subscriber content though the balance and bug corrections have been passed on as freebie.

Brazil bans EQ and Counterstrike

That has to be some of the oddness news I've read in a while. I am unclear if that's just EQ1.

Freedom baby!

Northstar

A x3 space trading game with co-op play from Kerberos (Sword of the Stars). Sweet. Pre-production currently with no release date yet given.

Those guys could be my new heroes. Click the title link for a full summary of all known details.

5th straight quarter loss @ AMD

$1.77 billion loss last quarter to continue that 5th straight loss. Hey, maybe its time you try something different!

On the positive side: they did sell more chips then ever before!

They hope for a positive next quarter. You hope? Yes, invest with confidence.

Hot tip from BK: selling more product and losing more money means you are working harder for nothing(x2).

Rockband DLC gearing up

Hundreds of songs now in the pipe line. Complete albums near... I get the feeling Metallica is gonna be the first or very close to the first full album release. Plus a dig on GH3 not being so good at releasing new content.

Random stats:

200+ songs in the pipe line.
2.5 million downloads so far.

Insider story on 360 faults

This is a good read. We all know heat and some poor design causes 360 RRODs (red rings of death)..... this reveals some fascinating insights though into other lateral aspects of console building.

Also made it real clear that when you send in a unit for repair you don't get back your same unit. While that's fast turn around, it also can lead to you sending in nicer hardware then what you get back.

Age of Conan: 8 more weeks

These delays always make me uneasy. While I am glad that some companies are willing to invest to make a quality product, I still wonder if a turd can shine any brighter.

That's not to say that I believe its a turd.... I just have an uneasy feeling about it. Thing is with MMOs they are more often a turd then a shiny, really I am just going off of history here.

{Off topic} I liked that Conan game that recently came out for the 360. I tried the demo. I might have to go back and play that. I got a little frustrated with it but now I realize it was more then just a simple Diablo style slasher - there was some thinking required.

Star Trek Trailer

Title link to the trailer. I had been looking for it....

WoW passes 10 million

Blog worthy news item there.

They also state in exact terms what they count when they are counting subscribers as that has been up for debate in the past. The closest thing I saw to not being exact is that its counted in a 30 day window.....which seems reasonable to me.

Pirates of the Burning Seas released

Pirates of the Burning Seas is in a retail store near you right now. I suggest YOU run out and support the economy with a purchase. Not saying its any good or that you are going to like it but YOU should support the economy. You could lose your job if YOU don't do your part.

Now that that's out of the way: I was doing MY part to support the economy by telling YOU to do your part. See how this works?

Now on to the real post....

I've been watching this game for the last 3 years now. At many points I saw that it had promise. The promise to be something different in the idea stagnate MMO space. Over time I saw them pull back from the original scope and also expand the original scope and then pull back again. I understand its how these things work.... a lot of forces in play when you make any product.

Cutting a long story down; over the last few months I haven't felt like it going to be complete enough....yet. Common problem.

Anyway, I have title linked a short review that does the best job of summing up how this game is doing. To boil it down to an executive review level: little different play but serious lack of content. Which is where I was thinking it was about to land.

Maybe in a few months it might be worth a full going over.... not that its all the common for me to go back to "old" games but it does happen now and then.

Dem SC Debate

I wish I would have popped me up some popcorn for that Dem SC debate. That was more entertaining then the last movie I saw. I'd hate to verbally spar with Obama, that dude can throw down with the best of them.

Edwards should have capitalized more on being above such in fighting. He really looked good compared to the other two simply because he wasn't clawing any ones eyes out. He also played to the audience and connected well.

Hillary actually got boo'ed by the crowd at one point. Damn. I'd hope she fired whom ever thought that would be a good crowd to discuss what ever it was she was attempting to discuss (I don't remember). Or at least fire the speech writer that had her start off the way she did. Thats just bad - her greatest hang up is that she is so disconnected from reality (and normal people).

Obama likely will sway the masses as hes got a good game going. I have yet to hear how he plans to pull off his wondrous changes and directing me to his web site isn't gonna fly, I got better things to do with my time. I'd suggest providing a tad more substance to your speech's so I might think its worth my time.....or maybe not, as I really am not your likely your core demographic - likely your talking at the right level for the people your looking to sway.

The only policy comment I would make is about the economic stimulus plan. H and O both want to do an extremely rep slanted tax rebate (was that not how W started off?). Are you buying a vote? E was the only one that seemed more focused on job creation, which is a better plan.

I really don't pay a lot of attention to any of this so don't expect a lot of posts around this election. I just happened to be surfing through the channels when I saw Hillary and Obama locked in epic combat.

Letter to JJ Abrams

Dear Mr. Jeffrey Jacob Abrams,

Big fan of Godzilla? Perhaps Blair Witch really left a mark on you?

I respect that you tried something different. Today we mostly get the same ole rehash. So I hate to beat on you too badly because I do respect that you tried. I am certain you will make back that $25 million spent with ease from all your clever marketing.

I wouldn't exactly say it was bad. My eyes aren't bleeding heh. There were a couple of things I liked....the anticipation of getting to see little glimpses of the beastey and a couple of hot chicks.

So lets dig in:

-I am told people don't often steal cams, let alone go and pay for one. You would be well advised to keep that in mind. Motion sickness at points as well.
-Maybe I should write the story for your next movie. I think I would do better.... I think a lot of people would do better.
-People like to SEE the action, not sit around staring at a rock and hearing it. Gee that sure sounded neat....wonder what it looked like. Screw realism - I want to be entertained.

And now lets get to the worst crime in the history of movies: Your ending fucking sucked. I sat through the damn credits for the first time ever because YOU SUCK. Happy, glad, sad...whatever people need closure in an ending. YOU FAILED.

For anyone who didn't quite make it all the way through to the very very end of the credits to hear the burst of static, here is your link.

Lets try to not repeat this performance with your current production: Star Trek. Please and thank you. Not that the bar is all that high, I am certain you can do better then the odd numbered movies with out even trying.

Thank and have a hell of a nice day,

BK
January 18, 2008

2007 Game Sales Data

Here' how the 2007 annual hardware sales and life-to-date (in parentheses) installed bases stack up:

• Platform:
  DS: 8.50 million (17.65 million)
  Wii: 6.29 million (7.38 million)
  Xbox 360: 4.62 million (9.15 million)
  PS2: 3.97 million (41.12 million)
  PSP: 3.82 million (10.47 million)
  PS3: 2.56 million (3.25 million)
• Halo 3 - 4.8 million
• Wii Play - 4.1 million
• Call of Duty 4 - 3.1 million

Complete listings in the title link.

WoW gold limit aka how I killed a bit of this day

I ran across an article today on the limit of gold a person can carry in WoW. Which is 214,768 gold 36 silver 46 copper. Odd amount but it means that everything is figured in copper. So it doesn't store your gold, it always stores your copper because that's 2,147,483,647 in copper which is a int32. 8+ years ago when they started making that game I would have done the same....these days I wouldn't..... but the effort to change that now would be impressive.

So using some funny numbers based on traditional peak MMO utilization, 9 gigs of RAM are in use just to track active players cash.

If you think that number is a lot: well its not - when you spread it across hundreds of servers.

If you think that number is tiny: that's just gold (copper). Which is one of the smaller variables in use by your character which likely number into the thousands.

Is this day over yet? I'm board. Another day of life passing me by....

Introspection

I woke up today to my wife telling the kids that I "...let life pass me by while I play games all the time." My first though was "and watching TV lets less life pass me by or shopping perhaps? Or maybe 70+ hour work weeks or reading all day long....maybe those let less life pass by". Logical battles at the crack of dawn are a classic example of Kobayashi Maru so I kept my yap sealed. We all live in peace mostly because I wisely don't inject logic - often times she realizes her own error with out me saying a word.

Though I did reflect upon the thought, which isn't a stranger to my thinking.... actually its something I think about often already. The answer is: there is no wasted time when you are doing what you want to do.

What is a worthy cause? What is a worthy use of your time? Even helping others could lead to an unpredictable chain of events that you can not foresee: the birds you help save from extinction eventually produce an avian virus that wipes out 50% of the human population. Which might actually be a good thing?

I not saying you shouldn't help others if that is what you want to do. But I don't think that is any less or more wasted time then the game I play (more noble to be sure; we'll order you a crown).

Would additional education be productive portion of my life spent? Maybe. If there was some goal for the investment of cash and life force that it would meet. Is not that life still passed by though?

Perhaps I play games to study them more so I can make one? Is my time less wasted or passed by yet?

My father once told me "...all those games you play, they appear to have paid off. I never would have thought so." Yes dad, in the terms you presented them in, they did. But would I have been the President by now had I only not played those games - did I limit myself or did I gain?

What are those gains or theoretical losses? We don't know what could have been so we must take what is and we must make the best of it.

So what did I find was a waste in my life?..which actually equals what do I like to do the least: Drive to work (which extends all the way into drive at all). I don't have any problems working or the work I do but I do not like the wasteful process of getting there and back. The wasted energy, pollution produced, and life force consumed; on top of not liking to do it in the first place. THATS WHY LIFE IS PASSING ME BY - 40-60 minutes each day(currently). 10 days of each year burned, in global warming, economic destructive-energy dependent road time. When I am not eating cause there is no fuel to haul or produce food products I am CERTAIN I will think the roughly 2 years (over a driving/working lifetime) I spent behind the wheel helping to creating a Flordia like climate in Indiana was all so worth it (assuming I believe any of that at all).

I have no point except all of this is wrong. I think I will go back to my video game now.

Well, I've let enough life pass me by on this post. Have a great day because it could be your last! :)

Happy MLK!

You know what grinds my gears(I got Family Guy stuck in my head today):

MLK day and how completely racially oblivious I am. Thankfully everyone I work with happens to be cool and knows absolutely that I never see race. Ever.

Appears we get Monday off. I'm in a meeting and everyone is talking about Monday being a holiday...

ME: "What holiday is it?" (I'm lucky when I know the day of the week)
Random: "MLK."
ME: "Ah, OK. Cool."
Someone else: "Contract people can come in if they want to work."
ME: "Well, I know XXXXX will be in that day." (XXXXX = a white guy in the meeting)
Nervous laughs all around.

What I meant by that is this guy doesn't take a day off, ever. But some people read into it was a race slant.

Ghoraa san haga (I can't spell in English let alone anything else...thats supposed to be Urdu).

Game industry peek inside

The title link goes to Kotaku's insider on game industry folk work and play areas.

I so could show most of these people how you build a proper lair.

Lots of Rock Band drum kits pictured.

Sid Meier has a green plastic lawn chair and a CRT!!!!

Some of these people have desks the size of postage stamps. I could pull my car up and give two people more room to work out of. I hope these poor f'ers aren't working traditional game maker 80 hour work weeks!

Dungeon Siege bomber

Some day people will stop letting Uwe Boll make video game movies. But not today.

His latest Dungeon Siege movie took in $3.3 million in its first weekend. Rumored to be a $60 million movie. That's a lot of miles to go to see a buck.

Unfortunately he still has Far Cry and Postal to devastate..... maybe an end after that?

Hail to the dishwasher!

I feel funny when I post about appliances, after all they are about as exciting as drying wall paint. I recent bought a dishwasher(planned upgrade) and then a dryer(unplanned upgrade) the next week because the old dryer one went out.

Nothing special to report about the dryer....it performs as it should. Put in wet cloths and it magically transforms them into dry cloths exactly to spec. Which is a big improvement over the old one....

The dishwasher is what impressed me. I've had dishwashers for many years and have had many different models. A lot of times I often wondered what the point was, I had to have them dishes pretty damn clean before running them so I may as well just finish them myself. All I saved was the drying.

My latest dishwasher really changed that. I purposely generated and left to rot, some dishes for a few days just to test. I had some bake dishes with baked in cheese that I would have needed a bone saw to remove.

I dropped them in there with out even a rinse and started it up. When it was done I was amazed to find not a spec of food on anything. I inspected every cup, bowl, pan, plate.... so perfectly clean - seemed cleaner then when I bought them.

For the record, I also added water softener recently. Which covers any water spots but the rest was the wonder that is a modern dishwasher.

So while all the sexier new tech normally gets all the spotlight, I wanted to point out that even dishwasher technology continues to get ever better.

I can't dig up a link to this little wonder but its a Kitchen-Aid ran somewhere between $600-$700. I don't really know anything about dishwashers so I basically used the force here.... which means I am lucky in my selections or you can't really pick wrongly as most appliances perform he same.

P.S. a message to the disposal crew: one of those boxes had my name plastered all over the sides of it lol.

My last words on the HD format war

I am surprised by the turn of events in the HD format war. I expected HD to come out on top the whole time. Which I think we can all declare that that is no longer going to happen as even the most stiffest supporters are opening up to Blu-Ray.

I am not a DVD collector... I last bought one 9 years ago, which made for maybe 5 total I ever owned. I am not going to become a collector either - simply because I rarely ever re-watch something(unless its on TV and I'm surfing lol). This turn of events affects me not at all. It was fun to watch at first then it got tired - so I'm glad for the end in sight. Which I am sure everyone is because of the few movies produced for both platforms.... if movies were produced on both 100% of the time we wouldn't have had any of this in the first place.

Consumers vote with their wallet when the reasons to pay more aren't clear we all go with the most tangable thing - the price. Blu-Ray was always better but costly for nothing special. There's no way the general public is going to pay more for that unless they have no choice. Just like the console market - if there isn't a game you want to play or a use for that console, then your not going to buy it no matter its specs or cost.

So here we are competitive market is over and it was decided not by the consumer but by the producers of the content. Which unlike the game market have little cost to produce for more then one platform. All reasons to produce for only one platform were completely artificial(shelve space being the best reason against- again look at the game market).

I bow to you Sony, your beta max will float this time around. Deftly done. I never thought it would be possible because it shouldn't have been possible.

Well, hopefully you weren't a person with a large collection of HD disks.... couple of years them are going to need replaced as players get hard to come by.

The Phenom turd

A Intel Quad core processor that I paid $230 for many moon ago (6+ months now) is faster then the best Phenom which is about $310. Strangely, today Intel QCs are higher priced and continue to be - which is something that have never seen before in the CPU market. Clearly I got a deal.

I am not talking about the 6700 which has a tard-o tax added to it that makes it stupid to buy. 260mhz does not equal almost $200 increase.

So it appears AMD is relying purely on a $15-$20 price break to sell these "bad boys". I am not sure anyone with half a brain is going to buy into this bullshit about being a future proof platform.... to re-use the most classic (overused) of computer lessons: Bill Gates said we would never need more the 640K - which he denies having said but I don't believe him.

I also evaluated the possibility that AMD was trying to position themselves as a good buy against the Core Duo 2. No. Aside from having more cores, the Phenom costs more and is slower then most CD2s. OK so much for that theory which really didn't make since in the first place but I'm really reaching to try to give them the benefit of the doubt as they *cough* do this for a living and I do not.

Next month might shake this up into something more realistic but as it sits today the Phenom processor doesn't even manage to pull off a win on price/performance indexes. I weep for you AMD.

PC Worlds: 10 worst keyboards

Man....that Sinclair 1000 was hell.....a true king among the crappiest interfaces ever made.

I never knew Mattel made a computer, which it appears as if they should have never made it.

Some Bioshock rumors

A Bioshock movie in the works. Which is really more then a rumor.... it really is being worked out but thats not to say that its going to make it to production. I'd go see that.

What I love about games to moves over books to moves is you really can't say "the game was so much better then the movie".... I mean you can but its not apples to oranges like a book vs movie compare generally is.

The bad news is how few game -> movies don't suck. Only had a few that my eyes haven't bled on.

----

Bioshock prequel set to be released in 2009. I don't think this is much of a stretch. Lot of milk left to give in that cow.

Valve gives Nvidia love

The #1 supporter of ATI hardware just made a free offer to Nvidia card owners for: Portal First Slice (an extended demo basically) and some other HL2 stuff. Even got Nvidia to link to the offer which shows mutual co-operation.

Tis a sign of the times my friends. Valve starting to buddy up to NV as you got to have good relations as its now possible to see a 1 card vendor world (which happens to also mean a 1 cpu vendor world). Read that written wall.....

Dragonlance movie

Jan 15, 2008 release....yet it escaped radar till now.

Very quickly I discovered why: low budget animation. blah. Way to waste a good story!

Cashing in on Firefox

See, its not just me. More enlightened souls are noticing(title link) that there is a large cash cow at the end of the Firefox train. Just because Mozilla COO John Lilly says it isn't happening doesn't mean that it won't ever happen.

Its just a couple of management changes away from reality and its all completely legal.

I am sure they will give you a big textual THANK YOU for all your hard work, me, I prefer cold hard cash for my services.

Console news bits and rumors

Conan plays Rock Band in his off time and chooses to sing the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" in the style of Edith Bunker.... which isn't as good as my Marlon Brando version of The Who 'Won't Get Fooled Again' (No! No!). Fortunately there is no video of mine but there is of his.

On that note, be ready for a flood of crappy low quality Rock Band accessories out of Mad Catz... sadly, this may be our first opportunity to get wireless controllers....

God save the Queen because 81 year old UK monarch has been rumored to be playing Wii sports. And while were thinking about the Wii: DS games will not be making appearances on the Wii.

Xbox live subscriptions pass 10 million. Hey, that's more then WoW! But less $ and a nice bit of legal action as some class actions have opened up due to the poor xmas performance cause by all those new users.

Lets close this post out with a nice read with Ken Levine, Mr. Bioshock -- interesting stuff about the AI and other things...good read.

Apple files OLED keyboard patent

Optimus Maximus keyboard look out!

I call this good news, this is a great idea for a keyboard and technically do-able. About time to get a real player in there. Hopefully for less then $1536...

Blu-Ray FTW

HD DVD had a dark couple of days in what is starting to looking like The End Game in the HD War:

• Warner tries to curtail format war by ending HD DVD support.
• HD DVD CES HD DVD Press Conference Canceled.
• New Line goes Blu-Ray hot.

Not even $100 players are gonna counter those blows. I really think everyone just wants to see an end to this no matter where it lands.

VanGuard dirt

There is some good dirt over at the HOF forum(above link) about how Vanguard came to pass as it did. Good read: n00b designers, mass exoduses/firings, Brad Q popping pills, Smed saying he got screwed....

Oil starts at $100/barrel in 2008

Just so we can look back in a few years longingly for the good old days, when oil was $100 a barrel....

On January 2, 2008 oil hit $100 a barrel in the first day of trading of this new year.

2007 BK Game of the Yar!

Rock Band, like there was every any doubt

Gasp! A non-pc game - times ARE changing, ain't they? But let us remember that its only non-PC because it wasn't made for the PC!

From a scientific point of view: Everquest 2 and Civ 4 consumed the most hours per game this year of my life. So technically they win (EQ2 actual)... as that was how it was measured for 2006 BK GOTY (which was BF 2142).

Now lets pass out the honorable mentions:

- Bioshock: For raising the bar.

- Gears of War: Took back co-op FPS.

- Mass Effect: Innovation unleashed.

- Ice Planet (5 hours on Green Eye - I will never forget you.)

Biggest disappointments: Hellgate. Oh how you burned so brightly and burned out so fast.

The end of 2007 has got to be the craziest game release period I have ever seen. TOO many good options - a lot of games, that generally would have gotten played slipped right through the cracks. I doubt very much we see that again, ever.

I also felt like there were too many FPS's this year, though many where better then anything we ever saw before.... actually, pretty much nearly all of them were worth playing for one reason or another. So I guess I really should hold my bitch'n.

Good luck and good gaming in 2008.

~BK

Some site awards for GOTY 2007:

GameSpy: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

IGN: BioShock

Yahoo! Games: Super Mario Galaxy

AMD roadmap to recovery

Seems like to much in too little time but I keep my fingers crossed.

Tough year, sadly I don't foresee 2008 being the year of the AMD Phoenix....

Granado Espada free now

Ah, yes, the hallmark of an MMO going down in flames: Granado Espada goes free. Funny thing is I value my time more then money....

Xbox Live! Service restored

About time, about 12 days by my measure -- unacceptable. 360's and Windows Live games are really troublesome when Live is down.

Rumor has it that Gold accounts are going to get a little love back out of the deal though.

And while we are chatting about RB..... tracks this week: "Gimme Three Steps"--Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Hard to Handle" is a cover version of a song as made famous by the Black Crowes, and "Limelight" is a cover version of a song as made famous by Rush.

RB's greatest drummer

Appears this is the greatest Rock Band drummer doing Tom Sawyer.... I dunno, doesn't look that much worse then hard. I think LittleDrummerBoy can do it (with double bass)

Vaction ends: Welcome to 2008

Amazing how fast time travels. Here I am back at work after a duration of off time that was longer then I've taken in years.

Much needed..... can't say I spent much time getting caught up on all that other work I had planned to do. Which is a bummer but I simply couldn't force myself into it. Never have I needed the time off so badly before. I truly understood what burned out really meant.

I think I briefly burnt myself out on Rock Band as well in this period..... not that the burn out lasted more then a day but it shows that there is limits for me.

Anyway, wasn't to bad coming back to work....didn't have to drag myself in but I am happy that its a short week.