That was the longest downtime the site has ever experienced!  Anyway, it’s back up now and should be OK from here on out.

Was just scrolling through my RSS feeds and saw that Brinstar has taken a job as a Community Manager for Guild Wars! Congratulations Brinstar! In celebration I will stop what I’m doing and play Guild Wars for a little while.

*edit* Not sure if it was me or this new version of WordPress but, the original post somehow ended up as a “page” and not a “post” so - I’m fixing that now…

I keep finding excuses to get myself out of the house - maybe it’s because the weather is starting to get a bit nicer.  My play time has really suffered because of it.  It’s OK though, it really is - I have managed to squeeze in a bit of gaming time…

Rock Band (Xbox 360)

Mike and I finally sat down this past Friday (or was it Thursday?) and played through a bunch of Rock Band.  We hadn’t really played since St. Patrick’s day and I’m not sure you can really call that playing.  We had to start a new band because Mike, the drummer extraordinaire, managed to break one of the drum sticks.  We still have quite a way to go before finishing the Band World Tour so who knows if we’ll actually do it.  Don’t tell anyone from Activision but, Guitar Hero is terrible in comparison to Rock Band.  Especially, if Harmonix and MTV come through with the in-game music store.

Company of Heroes (PC)

I finally reinstalled CoH and started inching my way through the rest of the campaign mode.  Hopefully, by the time I finish it Opposing Fronts will be less then $29.95.  It’s a bit of a pain - only playing a few minutes at a time.  Although, I’m ending up with a ton of save games so if something goes wrong I’ve got a bunch of fall back points.

Prey (PC)

It was on sale for $4.95 through Steam last weekend and so far it’s a decent game.  The portals and gravity effects are pretty cool.  Nothing too special besides that though.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (NDS)

Dragon Sword is without a doubt my favorite DS game ever!  The graphics are fantastic, the controls are perfect and the story is spot on.  I’m about four and a half hours into it and hopefully will get around to finishing it some time soon.  I pretty sure that beating it unlocks hard difficulties which, for once, I’m looking forward to.

Persona (PS1)

I haven’t made it nearly as far as I wanted to but, I have been playing a little bit here and there.

If you saw my PS2 pile of shame list you saw that one of the top titles is Persona 3: FES. It made the list because I’ve heard from so many people that it’s a great game. I have never played any of the Persona titles - actually, I’ve never played any of the Shin Megami Tensei titles. I’m not sure why, it’s just that these games just never crossed my path when they came out but I’m going to do what I can to make up for this. As with all Atlus games the Persona titles are going require a small investment if your getting them from eBay. I got extremely lucky with my copies and managed to actually hunt down both Persona: Revelations and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and stay under $20. As always the cheapest way to pickup older games is yard sales or thrift stores, although finding exactly what your looking for right when your looking for it is a

At this point I’m only around two hours into Persona: Revelations so I can’t really say too much about it yet. I can however talk about why I decided not to play it on my PSOne. That’s right I decided to begin playing using the ePSXe emulator. Why would I do this? Well, I’ve got some trips to NYC coming up in the near future so that means time on the Metro North Railroad. So, I’ll be playing on my PSP as well since, the save games between the PC emulator and PopStation are compatible.

Also, it looks like I’m going to pick up a copy of Persona 2: Innocent Sin from eBay. Innocent Sin was never released here in the states but, a few days ago Siliconera posted a link to a blog about a fan translation project.

*Note* The last screen shot is from the released version of Persona not from the fan traslation.

I just logged into Steam to play a quick game of Audiosurf and saw that everyones favorite game publisher Atari has decided to release several of it’s titles for download.

• Act of War: Direct Action
• Act of War: High Treason
• ArmA: Combat Operations
• Atari 80 Classics in 1
• Death to Spies
• Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge
• Indigo Prophecy
• RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum
• Tycoon City: New York

I played Act of War: Direct Action around the time of it’s release and remember it being pretty fun.  But, the only game I think I’ll actually pick up is Indigo Prophecy well, until The Witcher is released that is.  It looks like Atari make seriously try and save themselves…

It’s been around for quite a while now, Sony’s PlayStation 2. Yet for some reason I never made room on my shelf for one - until now. Target has decided to celebrate my birthday by lowering the already low price of the PS2 to $99. That’s just the thing I said it would take for me to dive in and finally get the dying system. Now, that I’ve got the PS2 it’s time to start working on a PS2 pile of shame. I found a copy of Shadow of the Colossus on a nearby shelf so, I’ve got a good start I think. Unfortunately, Target was out of memory cards so a quick trip to eBay was in order. Hopefully, the card will be here tomorrow. I did, however, start the game and defeat the first Colossus. It’s a good start of what looks to be a great game. As if I don’t already have enough games that I need to find the time to play here is the start of my pile of shame list:

• Shadow of the Colossus
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES
  
• God of War
• Okami
• Devil May Cry
• Final Fantasy XII
• Ico
• Katamari Damacy

Anyone out there have any other suggestions?

*edit* Added Katamari Damacy and updated Persona 3 to the recently announced Persona 3 FES.

id Software appears to be gearing up toward a beta for the upcoming “browser based” Quake Live.  Get over to the site and sign up now!

Via Maxconsole

A couple of days ago Rock Paper Shotgun ran a round up of ModDB’s Mod of the Year poll. I decided that since I haven’t really been following the mod scene very closely, it was time to get reacquainted with it. Three out of the top five mods are for Half-Life 2 (lucky for me since I don’t own Battlefield 2 which covers the remaining mods). So, starting with number five on the list: MINERVA: Metastasis.

Minerva is a single player stand along side story set within the Half-Life universe. The back story is pretty vague - all you know at the beginning is your being air lifted to an island that is under the control of Combine forces. The player receives instructions from the mysterious Minerva via text messages that appear on screen. I don’t want to go into too much detail since I don’t want to give away any aspects of the story. Developed by a mod team consisting of one person, Adam Foster, Minerva should land this guy a job with Valve - it’s that good.

If you own a copy of Half-Life 2: Episode 1 I suggested trying this out - you will not be disappointed.

Finally, after all this time I’ve finally played and finished every released portion of the Half-Life series. Released as part of an Nvidia/Steam promotion a little while back I was extremely excited to get my hands on this little piece of the Half-Life universe. Released in October of 2005 Lost Coast is basically a tech demo showcasing the Source engine’s ability to render scenes using high dynamic range lighting and Valve’s new in-game commentary system. Now, I just need to wait until Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is released. Which knowing Valve is right around the corner…

Yesterday, I received a call from my friend Mike - he was trying to get me to go see In the Name of the King.  Having seen a number of Uwe Boll’s movies I refused.  I’ll wait see it until its out on DVD and I don’t have to pay any real world money.  So for now this is the closest I’ll be getting to this train wreck.  Mike was quick to say the movie wasn’t that bad - it was just a typical B-movie - with a (strangely) large cast of known actors.  Anyway, I’ll reserve judgment until I can see it for free.