The Summer Vacation Report or: Why I Haven’t Posted in 4 Months

Salutations Readers,

First off, I’ll apologize for my extended absence. But, summertime is quite busy for me and my family. Lots of weekends outdoors can put a dent in the amount of time to play games or write about them. Also, my brother got me involved in a softball league that nabbed a normally free night from my schedule.  All these little things add up and cause things like this blog to get set on the back burner.  Sadly this blog is no stranger to a setback like this.

Now, I’m back to resume blogging and roll out more great content to my readers and friends. I’m unsure of the rate that new articles will be released, but I would rather post something than nothing at all.

The reason I decided to kick-start this now is the Extra Life 24 Hour Marathon.  I’m signed up and ready for October 15th!  I hope to raise some money for Children’s Miracle Network and specifically St. Louis Children’s Hospital.  Look for more information including how to get involved or donate in the next few weeks!  If you can’t wait that long, visit http://www.Extra-Life.org/participant/commandercody83 to make a donation.

Now that I’ve got all the big stuff out of the way, I want to talk about games for just a bit.  I’ve been playing a ton of games as usual.  I’ve managed to finish Call of Duty: Black Ops, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Tornado Outbreak, Rez HD, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Red Dead Redemption, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Nail’d and now Crysis 2.  I’m also caught up on Fallout: New Vegas including all the DLC that has been released and the Hardcore achievement.

So obviously I’ve had the time to game, but writing a review or article might take up to three hours.  But now things are slowing down and the weather is cooling down.  So I’ll hopefully have more time to write and produce some fun stuff.

Thanks everyone around me for your continued love and support.

Cody

Hey! Whatchya Playing!?!?! Volume 10

This week I set out to make big gains in Halo: Reach. Doing that caused my time with other games to slip. Almost to the point of where I feel bad. Oh well, I’m going to slap the reset button and try some more new games this coming week. All because I don’t want to bore you readers. If you are actually reading this, please leave a comment on my Facebook. Sorry no contest, this is so I know I’m not just talking to myself. Anyhow, on to the games!

Xbox 360

Halo: Reach
I played a ton of online games this week. The Daily Challenges are addictive especially when I’m so close to Lieutenant Colonel. As of this entry I’m at the bottom of Major Grade 3 and hope to meet my goal this week. I’m also working on my commendations. Which are making it feel like a new game since it has levels for online, campaign, and firefight. I also got a lot of time with the Defiant Map Pack. There is a review up for those mulling over a purchase. My adventures have also led me back to the campaign. Again my motivation is mostly in the commendation process, but the game is still fun no matter how it’s diced with an energy sword.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
Even with all the achievements claimed, I’ve still had good reasons to revisit this game. After playing for an hour I unlocked all the boards via the 5 minute mode. I haven’t even dropped a credit in thr other modes of those maps, so there is tons of life left in it. Dungeon is my favorite level because it’s so hard and tiny. Pac-Man CE DX has become my happy place. It’s there for me to visit when things aren’t going well in other titles. Yes, sanctuary.

Rez HD
I have been itching to play this game for so long.  The demo was one of the first XBLA games I tried out after buying my console.  Finally, I own it as part of the Qubed collection.  This and the next two games in the list heavily incorporate music and rhythm into their theme.  Rez HD stands out as being the most graphic intensive and fun to play.  It’s a rail shooter set within a supercomputer which the player is trying to analyze.  Each level has a variety of enemies leading to a boss battle at the end.  The path is predetermined, but the player has control of their avatar (not Avatar) to shoot down enemies.  The shooting isn’t traditional requiring players to hold down “a” and cross their enemies achieving a “lock-on.” I’ve worked my way through the first three story levels and enjoying it.  The difficulty isn’t terrible though I’ve done far but stellar.  I’m looking forward to working through more of the game and the variety of modes within.  Figured I better get started with Child of Eden coming later this year.

E4
Even after I played my first round of this little gem, I wasn’t sure what the objective was.  Years of video gaming had me programmed to put self-preservation above all else.  In this instance I was supposed to detonate my ship to create long score chains All there is to protect me while I maneuver to the best location of destruction is a small shield that lasts only a short while.  The main mode I played was Unlimited.  The timer counts down to zero forcing me to balance my pickups.  Yellow icons increase time while others increase shield and enemy speed.  There is one achievement related to time requiring me to play for 30 minutes.  Most of that time I kept the timer between 1 and 3 minutes, but there were many tense moments when I was about to lose it all.  After I made that milestone, I decided to push on and attempt to score 15 trillion for another achievement.  I played for about 90 minutes before I got it along with another chain achievement.  The game requires a lot of patience and coordination, but the music and visuals rock.

Lumines Live!
Despite playing this game before and not really getting into it, I gave it another shot on this compilation.  I’m still not a fan.  Mostly because it requires me to think faster than I’m comfortable with.  When I look at it I think a little  of Tetris, but Lumines is way more complicated than that.  I can play it, but not to the degree needed to be successful.   The simplicity of two colors making squares and such actually turns out to be tougher than most shooters I play.  It is a good title to have around when nothing scratches your itch, but I couldn’t play it full time.

iPhone

I haven’t been playing a lot that isn’t Street Fighter IV.  I did download Overkill, Lanesplitter, and RobotNGun.  Unfortunately I’ve been way too busy playing Xbox 360 to get a handle on any new IOS games.  Sorry, maybe next week I’ll get back to it.