This comic pretty much says it all….Mario Party always did have those quirky things that just pissed me off so much that I wouldn’t even feel like looking at the game’s case for the months to come.

My little brother asked me to play Super Smash Brothers Melee with him. Fifteen minutes of button mashing and I was through; I’d imagine the game to be more entertaining if you knew moves for your character. Unfortunately, picking the game up once every few months doesn’t embolden yourself with such knowledge. I remember playing Super Smash Brothers back on Nintendo 64; that was quite the party game. You know, go to a friends house, rally up four controllers, pick your favorite character and beat the crap out of your friend’s Nintendo-y exterior. I do, however, remember not owning that one, either.

To make up for my lack of posts this past week, I present you this video

(NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etVCUmgfMag

Entitled Internet is for porn, this is a World of Warcraft musical explaining why the Internet was born. Catchy music, and damn funny.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72263-0.html?tw=wn_index_1

If you check out the above article, you’ll see that Multiverse is in talk with Fox Licensing to turn Firefly into an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) Game. As Tim Buckley put it, if this is done half-assed, it would be an absolute abomination to the series. I’ve loved Firefly and then Serenity from the first time I viewed either, and the prospect of a game is intriguing, but I just hope they don’t screw this up.

I don’t think it’s too often the first post is the best post you make for a while; they usually improve as you post a few more blogs. Instead of just randomly writing most of the time, I’m going to pick things to actually write about.

On PS3 launch day (Nov. 17th, 2006), I went to Target and picked up an Xbox 360. No waiting in line (even at the checkout!), no fighting for a ticket to purchase it, no jumping over other people and their carts to reach the electornics shelf first. No sir (or ma’am!). I walked in, told them I want a 360 and Gears of War, paid for the things, and waltzed right on out of there, past the Wii campers and all.

In fact, this comic depicts my excursion perfectly. That weekend concluded with me picking up Lego Star Wars II and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

First off, Gears of War is an absolute God-send to the 360. It has beautiful graphics with cut-scenes that really aren’t cut-scenes because they take you seamlessly from gameplay to cinematic and back again. It’s also not your typical shoot-em-up-style game. Well, it’s a shoot-em-up-style game, but there are tactics and strategy involved; most notably the “Take Cover” commands. You can run up to an object in the world and “take cover” so you’re (mostly) protected from enemy fire, taking a second to poke your head out or just your gun to return the favor; or perhaps you blindly throw a gernade over a crashed car and hoping it explodes something worthwhile? Perhaps you just wanted to see it explode. Regardless, you won’t get tired of the game because it’s going to make you think your way through some problems and blast your way through others. Gears of War will provide you with a lot of seriously gripping gameplay; but if it starts to get old, head on-line or jump into co-op mode and play with a friend.

I’ll write about Oblivion and Lego Star Wars another day, but to sum them up really quick: Oblivion is a pretty massive role playing game (RPG), but it’s single player only. That has its pros and cons, but is turning out to suck up the majority of my gaming time. Lego Star Wars is an incredibly stupid kind of fun game, one that’s rediculously entertaining to play, but can get old pretty quick. Still worth buying, however I suggest picking it up for a last-gen console (PS2, Game Cube, Xbox) because it’s cheaper than the next-gen systems by $10-$20 bucks, and I mean c’mon, it’s Legos, they can’t up the graphics that much.