Two quick game reviews

I've been going for easy achievements still, and that means quick game reviews!

Terminator: Salvation

This game tried very hard to be like Gears of War. It's play style is very similar, but it just doesn't come close. It's not a terrible game, but it's not a good game either. You'll tear through it in a day, easily getting all the achievements, and then you'll be done with it and never think about it again. You can play this game co-op, if you want, but it's not really necessary. Of course, if you have a friend who wants to get some achievements too, go at it.

As for the story, this game is actually a prequel to the latest Terminator movie (which I still haven't seen, shame on me). The premise is pretty basic. While out on a mission, John Connor gets a distress call from a group of resistance fighters trapped behind enemy lines. He decides to go after them, even though the rest of his group thinks it's a suicide mission. That's about it.

The game is pretty simple, but it's short and does have a few cool vehicle levels. Rent it, or get it used if it's really cheap.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

A lot of people have decried this as one of the worst games on the 360, but I actually enjoyed it. I'll admit, it was very poorly designed, but I still had fun with it. Maybe it's my soft spot for all things Marvel.

This game loosely follows the movie of the same name. Aside from just dealing with the Silver Surfer, Dr. Doom, and the US Army, though, you'll also go up against classic FF villains the Skrulls, Red Ghost, and Terrax. And no, just like in the movie you never really see Galactus.

You run through each level switching between members of the FF on the fly (or you can have up to four player co-op), beating up enemies and solving simple puzzles while you collect points to power up your heroes. Each character has a unique set of super powers. The problem is that you'll spend a good 90% or more of the game as Thing. There's just no point in being anyone else. He's the strongest, and even on the highest difficulty he just tears through the enemies as long as you keep him powered up. Not only will you spend most of your time as Thing, you'll also keep doing the same move over and over. His ground pound move sends out a shockwave that affects all enemies around you, and is really strong. It even affects flying enemies! So even though you have a good variety of moves in the game, you'll spend the whole time using just one.

There are a few times when the game forces you to be the other characters. Each one has their own solo level. Human Torch actually has three, but they're all flying levels, usually chasing after the Silver Surfer. Mr. Fantastic has to stretch his way through a space station hallway filled with lasers, and the Invisible Woman goes on a sort of stealth mission through a military base. Oh, and Thing has a very short solo mission where he has to plow through a room full of enemies (replaying this mission over and over is a good way to power everybody up, by the way).

So yes, this game is hugely flawed in its design, but it still plays well. I had a fun enough time with it that I didn't even gripe too much that the difficulty achievements don't stack. Yes, you will have to play this through twice to K it. The game is pretty short though, and if you get all the collectibles on your first play though, you can just blast through the second one, only stopping on Thing's solo mission to power up.

If you find this game cheap somewhere and you're a big Marvel fan, pick it up. It'll be a good couple of days' playing time. Or just rent it if you want more easy achievements.

Bret Michaels update

I've read some conflicting reports on how Bret Michaels is doing lately. Most of what I've seen says that he's stabilized, but still in intensive care and under close supervision, and that he's expected to recover eventually. A few other things I've read are more negative, stating that he's not doing well and that we should all be praying for him.

Of course, I want to go with the former, but either way I'll still be including Bret in my prayers, and I hope all of you out there will as well.

New Ozzy!

The King of Heavy Metal himself, Ozzy Osbourne, finally has a new album coming out. June 14th will see the release of Scream, Ozzy's tenth solo studio album. And might I add it took long enough! It's been three years since Black Rain, Ozzy's last album.

Unfortunately, longtime Ozzy guitarist Zakk Wylde will not be featured on this album. But there's a bright side. Taking Zakk's place is power metal legend Gus G, formerly of such greats as Dream Evil and Firewind!

I'm really looking forward to hearing this album. I actually caught a bit of the first single, Let Me Hear You Scream, on the radio. I heard just enough to make me say, "Holy crap, was that new Ozzy?!", so I definitely need to hear more. I really hope this means that OzzFest will be a touring show again this year, and not a one night event like '08.

UPDATE: I tracked the new song down online. Go listen to it here, it's awesome!

Bret Michaels hospitalized

Bret Michaels, singer for Poison, is in the hospital after an brain hemorrhage. According to what I've seen on Google, he's in stable condition, which is good, but not out of the woods yet.

I'm a big fan of Poison. I see them in concert at least once a year. Bret was actually scheduled to play a show with his solo band tonight at the Belterra Casino in Indiana, which is about half an hour away from me. I would have bought a ticket if I didn't already have plans tonight. If it's rescheduled I'll definitely have to try and go.

Prayers go out to Bret and his family. After recently losing Peter Steele, we don't need to have any more rock stars dying on us. Get well soon, Bret, and bring Poison back to Cincinnati this summer!

Game review - Saw

I've never seen any of the Saw movies. I like my horror movies to be of the supernatural kind, not the gore kind, and Saw is way too over the top for me, but a buddy of mine is a big Saw fan. I borrowed this game from him because it looked like it was pretty decent and it was an easy thousand achievement points.

That's pretty much what this game boils down to. It's decent. The combat system has too many flaws for me to say anything better about it. Here's the deal. You play as Detective Tapp, Danny Glover's character from the first movie (apparently this game is set right after that). You're caught in Jigsaw's game and you have to find your way out. Doing so will require you to kill a number of enemies along the way, and there are all kinds of unique weapons you can use to do this. It's actually really cool in theory, especially since most of the achievements have to do with getting kills with different weapons, but the problem is that the combat just isn't that good. It tends to take too long to swing a weapon, and your enemies will be able to hit you before you can land your blow, thus causing you to stagger back and have to start your swing animation all over again. It was often times easier to go barehanded rather than mess with a weapon, unless you were lucky enough to find a gun.

That problem aside, though, the game was pretty fun. You had to solve a number of tricky puzzles, often with a time limit, and usually to avoid a nasty death. Sometimes they got rather frustrating. For instance, the fuse box puzzles were randomized every time you did one. And in a few spots towards the end of the game, you're expected to do a handful of puzzles in a certain time limit in order to get out of a room before it explodes. Very tense stuff.

Tobin Bell, the actor who plays Jigsaw in the movies, adds a lot of authenticity to the game by also voicing the part here. You'll hear a lot from Jigsaw throughout the course of the game as you attempt to save a number of people from traps and get yourself free as well.

By the end of it, I was definitely ready for it to be over. It's heavy and dark, a little bit depressing, but then I suppose that's what fans of the Saw series would be looking for. Even if you're not a fan of the movies, though, you can still enjoy this game for what it is, a decent action game with some tricky puzzles. And of course, easy achievements.

Some recent deaths

Last week former WCW/WWE wrestler Chris Kanyon was found dead of an apparent suicide. I'm sorry I didn't post about it sooner. I liked Kanyon back in his WCW days, but never saw him in WWE. I particularly remember the old catchphrase he used to use, "Who's better than Kanyon?", to which the crowd would always shout back, "Everybody!" He made a good cocky heel. I was sad to hear his life ended the way it did. Add him to the unfortunately long list of wrestlers who died before their time.

Here's another shocker I actually just found out about, apparently some time last night Peter Steele, singer and bass player for Type O Negative, died from heart failure. I've always liked Type O, and I never got to see them live, so I'm pretty disappointed to hear this.

Both of these guys died in their 40s, way too young. Prayers go out to their families. Sometime today, be sure to listen to some Type O and maybe see if you can find a Kanyon match on Youtube. Rest in peace, guys.

Game review - The Orange Box

I have a confession to make. I've never played Half-Life. Never. Now, I know to some of you that might sound blasphemous, but I'm not much of a PC gamer so it's not that big of a deal to me. The biggest reason I wanted to check out The Orange Box was for Portal, and Portal was the first game from the collection that I played.

This was a very cool game. Great concept, great execution, and incredibly frustrating difficulty at times. The story, while too short, was compelling and humorous. It's the extras that bring the hardcore difficulty. The extra challenge maps, super hard versions of the last six rooms in the story, were hard but doable. It's the medal challenges that will have most people pulling there hair out. The last six rooms each have three medal challenges, one for the least time, the least steps taken, and the least portals used. I'm telling you, even with cheat codes some of these are obscenely hard. But overall, this is a very fun game that is totally worth the time to play through. I only wish it had been longer.

Moving on to Half-Life 2. I actually really enjoyed this game. Like I said earlier, I never played the first game, though I did read the Wiki article on it before playing this. Half-Life 2 turned out to be a fun shooter, but with some pretty nasty difficulty, especially if you're going for all the achievements. All three games, Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode One, and HL2: Episode Two, had some achievements that would have been really difficult if it hadn't been for one thing: cheat codes. Hey, I'm not proud, I don't mind using them. I paid my dues on the NES and SNES back in the day.

Anyway, these are some pretty fun games if you want to take the time to go through all of them, and you can get the achievements pretty easily as well. The story is very cool, also, but I'll warn you that Episode Two ends on a cliffhanger. I have no clue when Episode Three will be out, or if the 360 will even be getting it. I know The Orange Box came out a few years ago, and I haven't heard anything about Episode Three yet.

The only game in the collection that I didn't get to was Team Fortress 2. It looks like a cool online shooter, and I've heard a lot of good things about it, but I don't know anyone else who has the game. I don't usually like playing team games with random people, so I never checked it out. Maybe someday I will, and I'll write a review on it then.

My final verdict: This is a great collection of some really fun games. If you see it cheap somewhere and you're looking for a good shooter or a really unique puzzle game, pick it up.

Game review - Lego Rock Band

I love Rock Band. I love the Lego games. So it's only natural that I'd like the idea of them together, and wouldn't you know it, I was right! This game is the more "family friendly" entry into the Rock Band series. It's rated E, as opposed to the other games which are rated T. This does pose one small problem. A good number of the downloadable tracks from other Rock Band games won't work in Lego Rock Band because they've been deemed unsuitable for the E rating. Same goes with the songs from the first Rock Band, if you've transferred them to your hard drive.

The game is also a bit easier than the other Rock Bands. Songs that have, say, a four point difficulty rating on guitar in Rock Band 2 might have five red points (the equivalent of devil heads) in Lego Rock Band. And, of course, all the characters in the game are Lego people. The notes that scroll down the play field are even Lego pieces. Other than these minor differences, this game is pretty much like any other Rock Band.

The tour mode, while still kind of repetitive, is fun, and has a lot of funny moments with your Lego people band. The achievements are pretty easy. With a bit of time, anyone could score 960 points. The flawless instrument achievements in this game aren't restricted to the expert difficulty, you can do them on any setting you want, including the new super-easy setting. The last 40 achievement points that many, including probably me, won't get is to score a perfect solo on The Final Countdown on expert. Very tough. Still, 960 is pretty good. Only the completionists will have a problem with that.

Lastly, there's the song selection. Now, everyone has different tastes in music, especially rock fans. I'm not really going to get into my views on specific songs, though I will say I was mostly happy with the music in this game. The only specific song I'll touch on is the Ghostbusters theme. Two words: freaking awesome.

So, if you like Rock Band then pick this game up. Despite the Lego look it plays just like all the other Rock Band games, just maybe a bit easier.

More Blogger.com issues

Apparently my troubles with Blogger.com stem from my browser, Opera. Opera just had an upgrade, I think to version 10.5, and ever since I've noticed problems with a few different sites.

So, for now, I guess I'll have to use Chrome for my blog. I'm not real big on Chrome just yet. It seems to have a lot of potential, but it's just not there yet. I really dislike the fact that there's no menu bar at the top. You know, "file", "bookmarks", "tools", etc. If there's some way to put it there, I can't find it. And it seems Chrome can't handle RSS feeds just yet, either.

It's a shame that Opera just can't seem to display some websites, because other than that issue it's definitely my browser of choice. I'll just have to hope that Opera can fix its problems soon.

Blogger.com issues

I've been having some issues lately with not being able to log in to Blogger.com, hence the no updates. Looks like that might be resolved now, so expect some updates soon.

Sports news and wrestling

First, a bit of wrestling talk. It seems Impact was on at 8 pm tonight instead of its usual 9 pm slot. I'm pretty sure this was done because of the NCAA Championship game on tonight at 9 (more on that later). I remember now they talked about this numerous times during last week's episode, but of course I forgot. So I only wound up catching the last half of Impact this week. Too bad. I caught the tail end of what looked to have been a doozy of a ladder match between Kurt Angle and Mr. Anderson.

I'm having a serious issue with the direction the Knockout Division is taking lately. Apparently tonight Tara, Daffney, Velvet Skye, and Angelina Love competed in a feast or fired type of match where each had to grab a case suspended above the ring (I missed this part of the show). At the end of the show, they each opened their cases to see what was inside. Now, in a standard feast or fired match, three of the cases will contain various title shots and one will have a pink slip. This match was slightly different. Tara's Knockout Title went into one case, an open contract to set up any match went into another, Tara's pet spider Poison (which had been stolen by Daffney) went into the third, and the final case contained an order for that woman to go to the ring and perform a strip tease.

Angelina got the case with the belt, making her the new Knockout Champ. Tara got Poison back. Velvet got the open contract, which she immediately used to set up a match between her and Angelina (more on that in a minute), and Daffney was ordered to strip. Okay, so here's my dilemma. I think Daffney's smoking hot. Hell, all the Knockouts are really hot, but Daffney's my second favorite (after Christy Hemme), so the idea of her stripping is appealing to me. However, I've always had huge respect for the Knockout Division because they're mostly all very talented wrestlers. Unlike WWE's Divas, these women can really put on a good show and don't have to rely on/resort to the kind of stuff WWE used to always do, like bra and panty matches or lesbian situations. Skin for the sake of skin, basically. In my opinion, TNA and the Knockout Division are better than that, they're above that, and as much as I wouldn't mind seeing skin on those lovely ladies, I really feel like it would take something away from them to have them go that route.

So Daffney reluctantly goes to the ring, and old cliched stripper music starts playing. She takes off her tiny hat and makes some angry faces at the camera, very obviously not wanting to strip, and starts to slowly pull her shoulder straps down when she's attacked by Lacey Von Erich, who's in a robe and lingerie. Lacey beats down Daffney and proceeds to do a strip tease herself. I guess she just wanted the attention. The situation proceeds to breakdown, of course, and all the Knockouts start fighting for various reasons. This is when Velvet calls out Angelina. Thing is, though, she never actually says anything about their match being for the title, like I assumed she would. She challenges Angelina to something she called a leather and lace match. Now, I don't know exactly what that entails, so I might be way off base here, but it sounds dangerously close to a bra and panties match to me. I just don't want to see the Knockout Division become a t&a side show (no pun intended). They're better than that.

Moving on briefly to the world of actual sports. Like I mentioned earlier, the final game of the NCAA Basketball Tournament was tonight. Duke vs. Butler. I missed some of the beginning (what overlapped with Impact) but watched the rest. It was actually a really good, competitive game. Duke won in the end. I've never been a big fan of Duke, and I was pretty disappointed to see that after all the upsets and buzzer beaters in this tournament, a number one seed still won it all. Oh well.

Also, today was Opening Day for my Cincinnati Reds (I capitalized it because it's basically a city-wide holiday in Cincinnati)! I'm very excited to see baseball back, but the Reds got spanked pretty hard by the hated Cardinals. I guess it could've been worse, though. It could've been the Cubs. Here's to hoping the Reds can have a decent season!

R.I.P. Kurt Cobain

I just realized it's April 5th. Sixteen years ago today is the day Kurt Cobain ended his life. So very sad. I can't believe it's been that long already. So go listen to some Nirvana in memory of Kurt.

Movie review - Alice in Wonderland

Holy crap, is this my fourth post today? What's gotten into me?

I actually saw this movie a couple of weeks ago. Sorry for the delay in writing the review. I'm not sure if it's still in the theaters anymore. If it is, though, you should definitely go see it. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp strike gold once again.

This sequel to the original Alice in Wonderland (I wish they had changed the title so people could tell this wasn't a remake) is set something like ten or twelve years later. A now grown up Alice finds her way back to Wonderland with no memory of her first trip. The Red Queen, brilliantly played by Helena Bonham Carter, has everyone cowering in fear. It's up to the Mad Hatter (Depp) and the other familiar Wonderland characters to get Alice to help them fight back. There's a lot of great humor here that pretty much all ages can appreciate. It is Disney, after all. But there's also plenty of stuff that only the adults will catch.

I also want to add, I saw this movie in 3D. Now, with all the 3D movies coming out these days, I got kind of caught up in backlash. I pretty much thought the idea of 3D was a stupid gimmick. Not after actually seeing it, though. The glasses were nice, sturdy things, not the flimsy cardboard junk I expected, and they were big enough to actually fit over my regular glasses comfortably. And the effects were just awesome! Every time the Cheshire Cat was on screen, I wanted to reach up and pet him. He was right in your face! It was very cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing more movies in 3D in the future. **cough*StarWars*cough**

So, again, I apologize for the late review. It may be too late for you to see this in the theater now, and in 3D, but even without the added effects it's still a great movie. Anyone who's a fan of Tim Burton and/or Johnny Depp can't miss this!

An update on TNA

I've decided I won't be doing weekly reviews of Impact anymore. I'm not sure if I'm going to catch the show every week, and I figure there are plenty of other places online people can go to get show results. That said, I will continue to post my opinions on how the company is doing when I can.

The last few weeks, ever since the move to Mondays, have been surprisingly good. I'm really happy with most of the new talent TNA has brought in (they can lose Bubba the Love Sponge right now, though, that guy seriously makes me want to change the channel), and there's been a good ratio between matches and segments. It was really nice to see Jay Lethal back on TV this week.

Keep up the good work, TNA! I'm looking forward to Lockdown.

Game Room update

I felt the need to make another post about Game Room. So far I'm really digging the concept of this game/application. The selection of titles available for it so far is pretty decent, and from what I hear there are supposed to be new games every week. There is, however, one very glaring problem so far. This thing is glitchy as hell! I've had more problems with Game Room than any other 360 game. I've had achievements not unlock for me, only to unlock way later when I'm not sure why. I've had achievements unlock that I shouldn't have gotten (not a bad glitch, admittedly, but still a glitch). I've even had trouble actually buying new games. Worst of all is the challenge system. Trying to send a challenge to a friend is never guaranteed to actually work, and completing a challenge can be even worse. Sometimes after you complete a challenge, the game will attempt to contact the server to let the other players know, but it won't be able to do it, so you'll have no choice but to forfeit the challenge. This is frustrating, to say the least.

I don't want to be too down on this, it's still a very cool idea. I just think Microsoft released it a bit before it was ready. It's desperately in need of a patch. On the bright side, not everybody seems to have these problems. They're only affecting about half of the people I've talked to. So it could be that you won't have any problems. I think I'm going to hold off on playing any more Game Room until a patch is released. Some of you might want to do the same.

I discovered a new web comic

Well, new to me, at least. Apparently this comic has been around since 2003. I guess I was just under a rock, or something, because apparently it's pretty popular. On the off chance that anybody reading this happens to be as oblivious to it as I was, I'd like to point you towards Questionable Content.

Picture Tenchi Muyo or Love Hina, done Western style, with twenty-something indie rock hipsters. And little robots. It's very funny and very well written, you just have to get past the author's music snobbery. There are currently 1600+ comics (which I spent the last couple of days reading) and counting. The site is updated every weekday, which is nice. Go check it out.

Game review - Game Room

Okay, for those of you that are achievement whores and completionists, I want to issue you a warning about the new Xbox Live Arcade game, Game Room.

Game Room is kind of a non-game game, actually. What it is, is a room that you fill up with classic arcade and console games. You can play these games and earn medals and such, and you can go to your friends' arcades or invite them to yours. It's a very interesting idea. The problem is, you have to buy all the games you want to place in your room. With Microsoft points. 240 points a piece, or $3. That's better than standard Live Arcade games, but still adds up if you want to add a lot of games to your room. And you will want to do that, because that's how you earn achievements in Game Room. You have to play a lot of games, earn medals, and unlock new items and themes for your arcade. Depending on how good you are at the games you play, you may have to spend upwards of $70 to get the complete 1,000 achievement points. Yes, I said 1,000.

Now, this on the surface is okay by me. It's not too different from Family Game Night. Some people may not like it, and that's fine, you just don't buy it. But here's the kicker. Game Room is free to download (only the games you add to it cost money), but the moment you load it up you get a five point achievement. There's no going back after that, you can't remove the game from your list. If you're a completionist, you'll have no choice but to buy up a bunch of games to get the rest of the achievements.

Now, personally, I don't have a big problem with this, but I know a lot of people are upset about it, so I wanted to make sure you have all the information beforehand. If you're a completionist, and you're not interested in spending a lot of money on classic games, don't load up Game Room.

On the other hand, if you're like me and you love classic games, check it out. It's a very cool concept.

Concert review - HammerFall

Saturday, March 13th, 2010. Peabody's, Cleveland, Ohio. HammerFall.

I've been waiting a few years now for a chance to see this band, and they didn't disappoint. But before I get into that, let me go over the support bands. There were only two on the bill, but there wound up being five. First up was a band called Erebus. I searched for them on Myspace, and found a handful of other Erebuses (Erebii?), but not the one I saw. They said they were from Ohio, and I can pretty much guarantee you that not a one of them was out of high school. These guys had harsh, screaming vocals. Not usually something I choose to listen to, but decent live, and I'm always impressed with people's ability to keep up those vocals. Their drummer was pretty solid, too, but their guitarists need to keep practicing.

Next was a band called Insignia. I can't seem to find a Myspace for them either. They had more of a straight up rock sound, and their guitarist was really good. He was especially impressive since he was handling both the lead and rhythm parts.

The third band of the night was called Suffer the Wicked. They had a great crunchy metal sound, and a female singer with a strong voice. I'm a little biased, since I usually like female-fronted metal quite a bit, but this was definitely my favorite of the support acts. Check them out.

Next on the bill (and my feet were getting pretty tired at this point) was Wretch. These guys were pure, unadulterated classic thrash metal. Just straight up, bang your head, throw up your horns metal, and it was great!

Lastly came Powerglove. If you grew up in the '80s, you'll love this band. They play heavy metal versions of 8-bit and 16-bit video game music, as well as cartoon theme songs. Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like being in a crowded room full of metalheads, singing along to a metal version of the Transformers theme song. You just have to experience it to understand. And when they played the Zelda theme, I got a big smile on my face that wouldn't go away. Very cool.

But now, the main event of the evening, the headliners, HammerFall! If you've never heard these guys, they're one of the biggest bands in Sweden, and they play power metal. Like I said before, I've been waiting a couple of years for a chance to see these guys. I've seen Blind Guardian and I've seen Edguy, HammerFall was the last of my personal big three of power metal that I needed to see. It was very crowded, and I had been on my feet (standing in virtually the same spot) for about six hours at this point, so I was sore and miserable, but when HammerFall took the stage it just didn't matter anymore. They played almost everything I wanted to hear and sounded great the entire time. I can easily say it was the best show I've seen in about six months. Then again, this was the first show I've seen in six months, so that probably helps, but it really was awesome. If you like metal and get a chance to see this band, do so.

Before I finish up, I just want to add one more thing to anyone out there reading this who happens to be in a band. Especially you unsigned, local acts that get to open up for the big guys that come through on tour. Please, please for the love of God, remember to say your name! And not just once! Say it when you come out, try to drop it once again during your set, then say it again when you're finished! If we like you, we want to know your name so we can look you up! When you only say it once it's too easy to forget, or worse, not hear at all. Then there are those bands that get up on stage, play, and never say their name! Come on, guys! This is your big shot! Promote yourselves!

Anyway, that's my rant. So check out the links I provided for the bands, see if you like them, and go out and see a show for yourself!

Some quick game reviews

Okay, once again sorry for the delay in posting. I had a pretty busy few weeks, but now I've got some time to catch up, so here are some game reviews.

First up, Ghostbusters!

I was very excited about this back when it came out, but at that time my 360 was busted, so I never got around to buying the game. I finally got a chance to play it recently and it was flat out awesome. This game was actually written by Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd, and it's an official part of Ghostbusters canon. Not only that, but it stars the same cast as the movies. Yes, Ackroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson voice the Ghostbusters in this game! So this game is pretty much Ghostbusters 3. If you're a long time fan of these movies this game will be a total treat for you.

As far as the actual gameplay goes, it's pretty great. There's a bit of a learning curve, but once you figure out how to wrangle those ghosts into the traps, you'll be busting like a pro. On the higher difficulties, the game can be quite a challenge. Getting the achievement for beating the game on its highest difficulty was just plain hard, but doing so made me feel really good about my skills. Just as good as beating The Force Unleashed on its highest setting did.

There is online multiplayer for this game, but I didn't play it. It sounded really cool, a lot of different modes where you both co-operate and compete with your fellow players. Problem is, two of the online achievements are currently glitched. They simply can't be unlocked, no matter what you do. So, no K'ing this game. Sorry, achievement whores. But you can still squeeze 800+ points out of the offline achievements.

Next, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

I played the first Lego Star Wars on GameCube. This was Episodes I-III. I ran through the story mode, but never bothered to do anything else. Lego Star Wars II (Episodes IV-VI) I played on my 360, and because of the achievements I finished it 100%. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga was the perfect opportunity for me to revisit Episodes I-III and score some achievements at the same time.

If you've played either of the other Lego Star Wars, then you've already played at least half of this game. But if you love the Lego games and/or Star Wars, and you're looking for 1,000 easy achievement points, you'll want to pick this up. It takes a lot of time to K this game, but it's still easier than Lego Star Wars II. It takes much less money to buy the score multipliers in this game.

At the moment, I'm playing The Orange Box, Lego Rock Band, and Saw, so expect reviews on them soon.

A quick update - 3/18/10

Hey there. I'm still here, just to let anyone who reads this know. I've had a very busy couple of weeks, that's why the updates have been slow. I promise I have some game, movie, and concert reviews coming up.

TNA Impact review - 3/8/10

I just got done watching this, and I have to say wow. I was impressed. If you've been reading my blog, you know that TNA has been disappointing me for the most part since Hulk Hogan took over the show, but tonight was really good.

I hadn't planned on watching it live on Monday night, so I Tivoed it just in case I decided to watch it later. After hearing from my buddy Shin DT that it was a great show, I had to check it out. I was mostly impressed at the amount of matches. It seemed like they were non-stop. And in between the matches, there were actual old-school wrestling segments that consisted of guys talking in the ring to promote their feuds or backstage interviews. No more of this soap opera style garbage of guys having overly long, way too serious conversations in the back rooms. If it's not in the ring or in the interview studio then it shouldn't be on the air. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but that's the way it should usually be.

Now, to the matches. First off we had the main event (yes, I know this is unusual, but they were calling it that) of Hogan and Abyss vs. AJ and Flair. This didn't last too long. After a few minutes the lights went out, Sting appeared, and he beat the crap out of Hogan and Abyss. So the match was ruled no contest and Hogan decided that they would finish it later that night with no disqualifications.

Next we have a great segment in the ring between X-Division Champ Doug Williams, #1 contender Kaz, and Christopher Daniels, all arguing about who best represents the X-Division. Eric Bischoff comes out and tells them if they want to argue about it that bad, they can have a match. The bell rings, and the three of them go at it. Williams wins to retain his title with one of the sickest finishers I've ever seen. I believe he called it the Chaos Theory something or another. I've only seen this move done in video games before, never real life. Williams, from behind, splashed Daniels into the corner, then pulled him backwards into a roll-up, but instead of just pinning him there he kept going, flipped Daniels all the way around and suplexed him! With a bridge! I had to replay it like a dozen times! Insane! It really upped my respect for Doug Williams.

After the match ended, Shannon Moore came running out and attacked Williams, and Bischoff announced that Williams would defend the title against Moore at the next pay-per-view, Destination X. Moore is a really talented guy, but that make-up he wears is just goofy.

Next we had a three way tag match for the held up Knockout Tag Team Championship. It appears Awesome Kong is done with the company, so her and Hamada no longer hold the titles. As a quick side note, I want to say that TNA is making a huge mistake letting Kong go just so they can keep Bubba the Love Sponge. That dude is a piece of human garbage that brings nothing whatsoever to the show. I have to force myself not to change the channel every time I see him. *Ahem!* But I digress.

The match consisted of Taylor and Sarita, Tara and Angelina Love, and the Beautiful People, represented by Velvet Skye and Madison Rayne. Lacey Von Erich was at ringside with them. It was a pretty decent match, but it ended a bit too quickly. Out of nowhere, Daffney slides into the ring with Tara's Knockout Championship belt and clocks Tara! The Beautiful People take advantage of the chaos and score the pin, becoming the new champs. So I suppose this means we'll see a feud now between Tara and Daffney. After the match, the Beautiful People celebrate backstage and declare that Lacey is a champion too, even though she wasn't a part of the match. Maybe TNA will let them decide which two members of the team will defend the belts in each title defense, similar to what the Fabulous Freebirds and Demolition used to do.

Next we were supposed to have a match between the Pope and Desmond Wolfe, but Wolfe attacked Pope during his backstage interview and messed up his ankle, so the match was called off. More on this later.

Now we get Sting vs. a mystery opponent. This match was made directly by Dixie Carter, who vowed to never get involved with match making, after Sting got in her face after the incident with Hogan and Abyss at the start of the show. So Sting goes down to the ring, some strange music starts playing, and the crowd goes nuts. But because the cameramen aren't shooting the entrance ramp, we can't see the video package that is airing and don't know right away who it is. Turns out to be Mr. Monday Night himself, Rob Van Dam! RVD comes rushing out of the crowd and stuns Sting, landing a few quick hits and then his Rolling Thunder finisher to score a really fast pin! After that, though, Sting gets up and whips the crap out of RVD with his bat. Not really the best debut ever for RVD. I mean, sure, he came out and scored a win on Sting, but then proceeds to get his butt kicked. Hard. Hogan even comes out to try and help and Stings whips Hogan as well. I don't like seeing Sting as a heel, but I have to say I do like seeing him beat Hogan down.

Next we get Kevin Nash and Eric Young in the ring calling out Scott Hall and Sean Waltman. Nash says he convinced Hogan to give them a contract, one night only, for a fight at Destination X. Hall and Waltman come out and suggest that if they win, they should be allowed to stay. Eric Bischoff appears on the screen at this point and agrees, but says if Hall and Waltman lose then they have to go away from TNA for good. Hall and Nash shake on this, and EY extends his hand to Waltman, but Waltman sucker punches him for his effort. Instead of the usual farce of security trying to hold everyone back, Bischoff declares that EY and Waltman should be allowed to go at it. Hall and Nash are escorted away, and EY proceeds to whip Waltman in another match that was good, but too short.

Next, a load of soldiers dressed in fatigues come down and line the ramp, followed by Kurt Angle. The soldiers then surround the ring, lumberjack style. Kurt's really going for this whole all-American soldier supporter gimmick, isn't he? Kurt starts cutting a promo on Mr. Anderson, same as we've seen in the previous weeks. This time, though, when Anderson appears on the big screen to fire back, Kurt wastes no time running backstage and attacking him. Angle pulls Anderson out to the ring, where he proceeds to beat him down and let all the soldiers have a turn as well. It was this lumberjack style atmosphere that made this an entertaining segment, to me. After the beatdown, all the soldiers hoisted Angle up on their shoulders and carried him away, while Angle proudly waved an American flag. By the way, I found it ironic that the whole time Anderson was ripping on the military he was wearing a Captain America t-shirt. Angle tried to rip it off of him at one point, but seemed to be having trouble. It being live TV, he abandoned the idea and instead just spit on Anderson.

Next, the low point of the show for me, was Bischoff's continued testing of Jeff Jarrett and Mick Foley. Jarrett had to wrestle a handicap match against Beer Money, and Foley had to referee. Foley tried to help by providing Jarrett with a barbed wire bat, but another ref ran in and stopped it from happening. Beer Money won, and this angle just keeps getting older and older. Enough already.

Lastly, the continuation of our main event, Hogan and Abyss vs. AJ and Flair, no DQ! I swear, Hogan and Flair will die in the ring one day. They're both showing their age a lot worse than ever, both very slow. It's obvious that the younger guys were trying to be careful with them. But, they both still bleed really well. Both of them were wearing the crimson mask by the end of the match. We got to see a cool spot where Hogan and Abyss both Hulked up at the same time, and the match ended with Hogan slinging AJ into a Black Hole Slam from Abyss. After the match, Desmond Wolfe comes running out for some reason to help Flair and AJ, and then the Pope comes limping out to stop him. All six men fight for a few minutes before Jeff Hardy appears! He comes running out to help Hogan as well. The show ended at that point, but I read online that Hogan and his boys chased Flair and the heels out of the ring.

So, we had seven matches if you count both of the Hogan/Abyss vs. Flair/AJ matches separately. Most of them were good matches, though many of them could have gone longer. We had some new feuds started, some good work advancing existing feuds, and a couple of new additions to the show. I just hope that TNA can keep this level of product up. They're going to need to in order to survive on Monday nights.

TNA Impact review - 3/4/10

I skipped Impact last week, but since this was the last Thursday edition of the show I decided to watch it tonight. I wasn't impressed. I'm not going to do a detailed review, because there was hardly anything to review. There were, I think, four or five matches, and all of them were only a few minutes long, with the exception of the main event. One of these matches, Jeff Jarrett vs. Sean Morley, happened in a public restroom that Jarrett was cleaning at the time, and Jarrett didn't even know about it until Morley bust in on him with a referee.

It's just ridiculous what TNA has become in the two months that Hulk Hogan has been running the show. It's become so hard for me to keep interested. There's hardly any wrestling anymore! I may try and watch the first Monday show, I may not. Either way, I doubt I'll stick with it on a weekly basis anymore.

Game review quickies - 3/2/10

Since my 360 had been broken for the better part of last year, I wanted to up my gamerscore a bit now that I have it back. So recently I played a few quick games to do just that. Here are the reviews.

Fight Night Round 3

I'm not big on sports games in general, boxing games in particular, so I have to admit I took the cheap route to the K in this game. Set the game to easy, turn off DQs, then just groin punch your way to victory. You rarely lose a fight this way. The game only has eight achievements and you can get them all in about five hours. An easy K. Now, if you wanted to take the time to learn the game legitimately, it seemed like it could be fun. Using the right stick to control your punches was something I hadn't experienced before. If you like boxing games, you might really dig this if you take the time to learn it. Or, you could do like me, spend a night punching people in the groin and get an easy K.

TMNT

This game was actually more fun than I thought it would be. This is the first Ninja Turtles game I've played since the NES days, so I don't know how they've been lately, but this one is decent. Of course, it still has lots of problems. Publisher Ubisoft put their stink all over this game, giving the Turtles all kinds of Prince-of-Persia-style moves, running up and along walls, swinging from poles and things like that. It's pretty cool, except for that you don't have to push a button to get them to do it, they just do it. As a result, you wind up running all over places you don't mean to, and often off into pits and dying. A lot. Fortunately, there are checkpoints every few minutes, so it's not that big of an issue. The combat is okay, but very simple. The game was obviously intended for a younger audience. The best part is that the twenty-three achievements are all very easy to get. Most of them you get just going through the game, and the ones you don't only require you to replay one level. I got all thousand points in one sitting. Easy K.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

This one will take a bit more time than the others, but it's a fairly easy K as well. It's far from a perfect game, but in the end I still had fun playing this. It was developed by Traveler's Tales, the same folks responsible for the current Lego crossover games (Star Wars, Indy, Batman, etc.) and actually plays pretty similar to them. There are only six levels in this game, each with a number of sub-missions you must complete. The combat kind of sucks. Have you played any of the Lego Star Wars games? You know how when you're controlling a Jedi, and you swing your lightsaber at an enemy directly in front of you, but somehow you still miss? Yeah, this game is like that. It gets pretty annoying, especially because many of the achievements are to kill so many enemies with certain characters. Still, it's not terrible. I managed to get every single player achievement just going through the game. You will likely want to find a guide for this, though, as you have to collect a great number of hidden treasure chests to get all the achievements and some of them are tough to find. There are two co-op achievements. If you have a friend who wants to play with you (either local or online) you can get these easily. If not, just do what I did and find an easy mission in the first level, sign in another controller, and run through that mission the required number of times. Sounds annoying, but it was actually quick and easy to do. Two days playing time, and I have another thousand points for my gamerscore.

Jumper: Griffin's Story

Okay, here's where things get ugly. I actually started playing this game a long time ago. Like at least a year. I got to the end of the third level and got stuck, so I quit and never came back. After playing the games above, I saw this turd sitting on my shelf and figured I'd try and go back to it. There are only twenty achievements in this game, each worth fifty points. I already had a few from before, but ones I still needed included beating the game, beating it very quickly, and beating it without dying. I was not optimistic. But then I figured the game out. See, you have to understand that this is a bad game. Horrible camera, questionable fighting controls, uneven health pickups, etc. The fighting is based around teleportation (this movie is a prequel to the movie Jumper from a few years back, with Sam Jackson and Hayden Christensen), and to attack guys you press a button and teleport to that side of their body and attack. You have to watch this little ring around your targeted enemy's feet and try to press the button that corresponds with the green spot on that ring. If you hit it you build up your meter for power moves. If you hit the red spot on the ring, the enemy will block and counter you. Sounds simple enough, but the enemies always move around, thus moving the position of the ring, thus changing the context of your buttons. You have to think quick, and that gets pretty tough when there are five other enemies all trying to attack you at once. But once you figure out the rhythm, once you get the game down, it starts to get a lot easier. As you progress through the game and upgrade your weapon, it starts to get even more easy. At the end of the game you get a sword that literally cuts through dudes like a hot knife through butter. And the best part is, you can carry all your collectibles, weapon upgrades, and experience over to a new game after you beat it. So, muddle through it once, learn the combat system, and collect all the weapon upgrades, then you can start a new game and basically be unstoppable. On my second run through, I had no problem beating it without dying, and I did it in about a half an hour, too. After that it's just a simple matter of finding the collectibles, and you can use a guide for that. So this game is not an easy K, at first, but if you can force yourself to figure it out the achievements will soon fall into place for you.

So there you have it. Four games that, with a little work and patience, can really pad out your gamerscore. Rent them if you just want easy points, or if you're like me and have a compulsive urge to collect, pick them up on the cheap from your local used game store.

The Winter Olympics

I've always been a big fan of the Olympics. Every two years when they roll around I try to watch as much as I can. I tend to prefer the summer games to the winter, but winter is still cool.

I really enjoyed watching the winter games this time around. Maybe it was because America did so well this time. The winter games aren't always our best. I enjoyed watching curling, even though our teams did terrible, and the hockey was some of the best I'd ever seen. Too bad America couldn't pull out a victory at the end. Silver is okay though, and I suppose it's nice to see Canada win gold in their own national sport.

Congratulations to all the medal winners from Team USA, thanks for putting us on top of the medal count once again!

Now the long wait for London 2012 begins.

Game review - Assassin's Creed II

I loved this game. Straight up loved it. I loved the first one too, and this one just expanded on that. Seriously, I think this is my favorite new series from this generation. Here's my spoiler-free review.

This game picks up right where the first one left off, continuing the story of Desmond Miles. At the beginning of the game, Desmond and Lucy (who now looks a lot less creepy and a lot more like her voice actor, Kristen Bell) break out of the Abstergo building and get back to an Assassin safehouse to do more digging into the past. This time, instead of the Crusades-era Middle East, we visit Desmond's ancestor Ezio from Renaissance Italy.

This game doesn't feature a hub, like the original's Kingdom. Instead you can pay to travel directly to and from any city you've already visited. Yes, pay. There is a money system in this game, and it actually adds a lot to the game. There are a ton of different things you can buy. You can buy an assortment of main weapons and small weapons. As opposed to the standard sword and short blade you had in the first game, you can now pick from a number of different kinds of swords, each with different stats, or even hammers. You can also pick a number of different daggers. There's even a cestus you can buy to give your fists an extra wallop. Aside from the weapons there are a number of different pieces of armor you can buy and a handful of upgrades to your item pouches. Need more throwing knives? Buy a bigger knife belt.

There are other things to buy, also. You can spruce up your home by buying paintings, or change the color of your outfit with various dyes. Or you can choose to spend money improving your home town by renovating the buildings there. The best part is, spending money on most of these things adds to the value of your town and therefore increases your income. If you keep up with it, by the end of the game you'll never want for money. It's very similar to the system used in Fable II.

In fact, I'd say this game is very much like a cross between Fable and Grand Theft Auto. The gameplay itself is pretty much exactly like the first Assassin's Creed, which is to say nearly perfect. The Fable part comes from the money system, and the GTA part comes from the mission structure. In the first game you got your missions directly from the head of the Assassin Order, and you went and carried them out with some help from the local Assassin's Guild. In this game missions pop up on the map and you go to them and start them, very much like GTA.

I loved this game to death, but there are still a few flaws. First, the control is still missing that little bit of polish that would make it perfect. You will wind up running up walls you didn't mean to, or getting stuck climbing structures in spots you shouldn't. It's a minor irritation, but I hope they fix it for the next game. Plus, some of the combat has issues. The timing needed to pull off counters is demanding sometimes, and doing some of the new special moves like throwing sand in people's faces or sweeping people (both of which have achievement associated with them) can be tricky to pull off in actual combat. Also, there's not as much Desmond in this game. There are only three times in the game you get to control him, the beginning, the end, and around the midway point of the game. Some people may find that a plus, but I enjoyed the Desmond breaks in the first game. Each one was like another little clue to what was going on.

Speaking of which, this game features some nasty puzzles! This was one of my favorite parts of the game. Hidden throughout the programming of the Animus are twenty glyphs, placed there by the mysterious Subject 16. Before he died, 16 apparently figured out the truth behind the Pieces of Eden and what the Templars have been doing with them throughout the centuries, and he left the information behind in these glyphs. When you find one, you have to figure out a puzzle, then you're shown a snippet of video. After you finish all twenty puzzles, you get to see the whole video and discover the truth of the Pieces' origins. These twenty puzzles, loaded with information on the Templars' nefarious activities, easily provided the creepiest moments of the game.

I'll say it again: I loved this game. If you liked the first one, you'll definitely like this one too. It's better in almost every way. Now please, please Ubisoft, bring on Assassin's Creed III! I need to know what happens next!

Another quick update

I just wanted to let anyone know who is interested, the reason I haven't updated in almost a week is because I've been glued to Assassin's Creed II. I should be finished with it in a few more days, and I'll post a review for it then. Thanks for your patience.

Quick wrestling update

I only managed to catch a little more than half of Impact again this week, so I'm not going to do a full review. I don't even remember much of what happened. It was good to see Kaz get out of that stupid Suicide costume and return to action as himself. I also really enjoyed seeing Hogan give Abyss his ring and that pep talk. I hope this means the true Monster Abyss will be back soon.

The big news of the week is that starting early next month, Impact will be moving to Mondays! I haven't been a big fan of Raw in almost ten years, but I still seriously doubt that Impact can stand up against them. I see this as a potentially very bad move for TNA. From what I've read around the internet, I think a lot of people agree with me that Hogan is taking the company in the wrong direction, and moving them to Mondays might just sink them for good.

Wouldn't it be crazy if we learned five yeas from now that Hogan was working for Vince McMahon the entire time to run TNA into the ground?

Game review - Gears of War 2

I wasn't a huge fan of the first Gears of War. I thought it was a fun game, but the multiplayer held little interest to me, and as a result I was finished with the game once I completed the campaign. Gears 2, however, seemed like a much better game to me. I can't really explain why, since the two games play almost exactly alike. I just had a lot more fun with Gears 2. Maybe it's because the achievements were a lot easier in Gears 2. I only managed to get 100 points out of the first Gears, but I have 585 so far from Gears 2.

If you haven't bought this game yet and you're interested in it, be sure you get the Game of the Year Edition! It comes with all of the download content, giving you access to like 19 extra multiplayer maps, an extra campaign mission, and 750 more achievement points. I found mine brand new for $30, so it's totally worth it.

I haven't had a chance to play the multiplayer yet, but I have a lot of friends who play it so I'm sure I will soon. I did play the training missions against bots, and it seemed cool. The new Horde mode, which basically pits you against waves and waves of enemies, is very cool but almost impossible to play alone. You need friends for this.

Whichever kind of gamer you are, if you stick mostly to campaign missions or play a lot online, this game has you covered. And for the price it is these days, you can't go wrong. Check it out.

Movie review - 28 Weeks Later

I like zombie movies, but I don't like it when zombies can run, so I never saw 28 Days Later. My buddy Shin DT wanted to watch the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, and he told me I didn't need to see the original to see this one, so I decided to check it out.

Overall it was a decent movie, but I have serious issues with any horror flick where the horror comes about due to sheer stupidity. Apparently the infection from 28 Days Later was wiped out, and London was safe to occupy again. Except that it wasn't really safe, and the government was bringing people back into the city before it was totally cleaned out. Why? Why in God's name would you bring people into a city that was infected with a zombie virus before you were absolutely sure it was totally clean? Why would you, as a civilian, want to move back into such a city?

And of course, the infection breaks out again when two kids sneak out of the military quarantine zone (again, stupid!). But once you get past the stupidity, it becomes a pretty decent zombie flick. Even though the zombies can run. I prefer Romero's shambling horde, but this was good enough that I'll try and check out the original 28 Days Later when I can.

TNA Impact review - 2/11/10

I only managed to catch the last half of Impact this week. I have to say, though, that I don't really feel like I missed much. The news I continue to read about Hogan's thoughts about TNA have me thinking I may have to quit watching. I might wind up following Smackdown instead of TNA, which is kind of a depressing thought. I haven't actively followed a WWE product since 2001. Anyway, on to the review of the half of Impact I managed to catch.

First off we had a handicap match, Angelina Love and Tara vs. the Beautiful People. The Beautiful People win due to their numbers advantage and willingness to fight dirty. The Beautiful People really need to work on their in-ring skills, by the way. They're probably the weakest link in the Knockouts Division right now. Decent match overall, though.

Next came Desmond Wolfe and Hernandez vs. Ken Anderson and Kurt Angle. This match apparently was made because all of these guys will be in the Eight Card Stud Tournament. Anderson and Angle win, though they didn't get along very well. This match was filled with talented wrestlers, but for some reason I found it kind of hard to pay attention to. I don't remember much of the details.

Those were the only two matches I got to see. The rest of the show was filled with more shouting between AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, and the revelation that Eric Bischoff would be the special guest referee at their match. At the end of the show we saw Kurt Angle come to the ring and call out the Band. Scott Hall and Sean Waltman came out and beat Angle down with brass knuckles. Then Hogan came to the ring, acted like he was going to help the Band beat Angle some more, but instead turned on them. The show ended with Hogan helping Angle to his feet. I'm sure this segment would have been more meaningful to me if I had seen the beginning of the show.

Considering this was the Impact before Against All Odds, I would have expected more. I know I only saw half the show, but just two matches? And no real main event, on top of that. Very poor, TNA, very poor. Please don't make me switch to Smackdown. Pick it up, guys!

By the way, just to let you all know ahead of time, I will not be getting Against All Odds. It's pretty rare I order any pay-per-views these days.

1 vs. 100 - 2/10/10

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. We've had some pretty heavy snow lately here in the Cincinnati area, and I haven't really had much to do. Not anything blog-worthy at least.

I have been playing some 1 vs. 100 on Xbox Live, though. After making a handful of top 100 appearances, I managed to actually get into the mob during one of the live shows. I'm the first person I know to get in, so I was pretty happy about that. I made it a little more than halfway through before getting stumped by some question about when the postal service started using zip codes.

Tonight while playing extended play, I set a new personal best. I had a streak of 34, and actually held the number one position for a long time. I wound up missing two questions near the end and got bumped down to sixth place, but I still made the top ten, which is very cool. My brother Sawdust almost made the top ten as well in that game.

By the way, I may have mentioned this before, but my 360 has been broken for some time now. I've sent it away to be fixed, and should be getting it back anytime. So expect me to start posting more game reviews soon. There are a lot of titles I need to catch up on.

Saints steal the Super Bowl

I want to try and be brief here. I know there are a lot of hardcore fans out there with blogs who can dissect this game a lot better than I can. I only have one big problem with the game. At the start of the second half, the Saints kicked an onside kick! What the hell, Saints? So not cool. They have a coin toss at the beginning of the game for a reason. Each half, one team is supposed to get a chance to start with the ball. The Saints took that chance away from the Colts and started both halves with the ball. This was the first time in Super Bowl history that a team kicked an onside kick before the fourth quarter.

Now, I'm not saying things would have been different otherwise. The Saints played well and proved that they were for real. A part of me is very happy to see them get a championship. But they also proved that they didn't mind using cheap tricks and thuggery to get it done. I lost a lot of respect for the Saints, a team I used to really like, after this week. First came the talk of trying to end Peyton Manning's career, the talk of purposefully taking penalties in order to lay hits on Manning, and now comes the trickery in the Super Bowl.

I understand that they did nothing against the rules, but it just came off dirty to me. Very much disrespectful towards their opponents.

So now I guess I just get to wait for baseball season to start. I don't follow the NBA or NHL closely enough to care about what happens with them, though I will try to follow their respective finals. March Madness will be fun to watch, as always, but baseball is what I'm really waiting for. I just hope my Reds can give me a good season.

Colts, you'll get your shot again next year. Just remember, Colts management, that you threw away all those streaks earlier this season in hopes of winning it all. And Bengals, you better be practicing for next season, too! I want another division title!

Sorry if this post rambled a little, I'm just pretty miffed about this game.

Lost and Heroes

I just watched the season premiere of Lost. All three hours of it. Well, to be fair, the first hour was a recap episode. I'm glad they do those occasionally, it really helps to remember everything that's going on.

I've been a fan of Lost since season two. At that time I was working at a video rental place, and we had the season one DVDs there. Since I could take home anything I wanted for free, I figured I'd give it a shot. I was hooked from the first episode. I watched the whole first season, then caught up to what was currently airing in season two by downloading some episodes off the internet. I've had a Tivo season pass for the show ever since then. I'm glad this is going to be the last season, though. The show is still great, and I loved this premiere, but I'm just ready for all the questions to be answered. I sincerely hope that Abrams and Lindelof wrap it all up for us and don't leave any loose ends. Oh, and it looks like Emilie de Ravin and Dominic Monaghan will both be back on the show for this last season, as well. I'm really glad to see that.

Now, as for Heroes, I only have one thing to say. What's up with next week being the season finale? This is February! I haven't been counting the episodes, but I find it hard to believe they're getting in a full 22-26 episode season if they're ending it in February. But at least it'll be one less show to keep up with.

Concert news - 2/5/10

Breaking Benjamin is coming to town! Along with Chevelle, Red, and Thousand Foot Crutch, they will be at the Bank of Kentucky Center down near Northern Kentucky University on March 19th.

Overkill will be in town soon, as well, at Bogart's with Vader, God Dethroned, Warbringer, and Evile. That show is on April 7th.

Super Bowl this weekend

In case you've been under a rock of some kind and didn't know, the Super Bowl is this Sunday. Super Bowl XLIV, between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints.

Living in the Cincinnati corner of Indiana, I'm a Bengals fan first, but a Colts fan second, so I'm pulling for the Colts. I used to like the Saints too, until I heard some of the stuff they were saying this week. Stuff about laying the hits on Peyton Manning, taking penalties to do so if necessary, and how great it would be if they could end his career. Now, I'm all for a team putting pressure on the quarterback, but you don't play dirty! You don't try to hurt anybody, especially the quarterback! How would that make you feel, knowing you only won because you took a team's key player out of the game? **cough*'05-'06Steelers*cough**

Anyway, I think it'll be a good game either way, as long as it's clean. Go Colts!

TNA Impact review and wrestling news - 2/4/10

This may be a long post. Just warning you.

First off, Impact. This was a pretty good Impact, for the the most part. Our first match of the night, at the top of the show no less, was Brutus Magnus and Ken Anderson in an Eight Card Stud tournament qualifier. Anderson won this pretty easily. His push in TNA appears to continue. After that we had Hernandez and Matt Morgan defending the Tag Titles against Team 3D. This was a good match. Team 3D lost due to interference from the Nasty Boys, but after the match Morgan and Hernandez helped 3D fight the Nasties off, and the two teams exchanged fist bumps. Good to see.

Our next match saw Samoa Joe basically squash Jesse Neal. I was glad to see Joe get a strong victory, as he hasn't had one lately, but I didn't like seeing Neal get squashed. I think he could have potential.

Match number four was AJ Styles vs. the Pope, D'Angelo Dinero in a non-title match. This was easily the match of the night. Lots of great action from two crazy guys willing to put it all on the line for the fans. I remember when pretty much every match was like that in TNA. But I digress. Dinero actually managed to steal a win here after countering an attempted suplex with an inside cradle. As soon as the bell rang, Ric Flair dived into the ring and he and a shocked AJ proceeded to beat the pulp out of the Pope. This prompted Samoa Joe to run back out. He came to Pope's defense and eventually the two of them tossed AJ and Flair out of the ring. Joe then got on the mic and called AJ out. He accused AJ of going soft and forgetting what it means to be a warrior. This set up what will hopefully be a great program between these two yet again.

Next we had another Eight Card Stud qualifier, between Kurt Angle and Tomko. Angle won this after multiple German suplexes and application of the ankle lock. This match was not what it could have been. Maybe it was just because I'd just watched the AJ/Pope match, but this seemed slow. Angle looked good, but Tomko needs to tighten his game up. I've been a fan of his ever since he started in TNA, but he seems to have lost a step, and gained a few pounds. A little time in the gym and some extra time in the ring would do him good.

Next we had Tara defending the Knockout Championship against Angelina Love. The match was solid, but I couldn't help but be distracted by the big blur over Tara's chest. Apparently she had a bit of nipple pop out during the match. It was like that for a good half the match and all of the aftermath. Why didn't anyone say something to her? Anyway, Tara won the match, and afterward the Beautiful People came out to attack Angelina. I'm glad they let this match end clean. I expected Angelina to lose because of the Beautiful People. Tara helped Angelina fight the Beautiful People off, and that was pretty much that.

Finally came the main event, our seventh match of the night! I hope the powers that be in TNA decide to give us this many matches on a more regular basis. My only problem is the ridiculous policy of going to commercial during the matches! But anyway, our main event, Kevin Nash vs. Mick Foley. This match came about after a segment earlier in the night where Foley and Bischoff had another argument in the ring. Fighting Nash was basically Foley's punishment. I really hate the wrestler vs. boss angle. I didn't like it when it was Austin vs. McMahon and I still don't like it now, but I suppose it's going to continue as long as Bischoff is holding Abyss's job over Foley's head.

The match, which was no disqualification, was pretty terrible. Now, I'm a huge fan of both Mick Foley and Kevin Nash. Always have been, always will be. I even got to meet Nash once, and he was pretty cool. But these two guys are so broken down that putting them in a match against each other was just a bad idea. There was no one to carry the match. All we got was some sloppy shots with chairs and a barbed wire bat, some minor offense by Foley, and then an out-of-nowhere big boot from Nash. Nash won the match. Afterwards, Hall and Waltman showed up again, but this time they jumped Nash. Not really sure where that's going, since Nash has been the one guy in the company that keeps going to bat for them, but whatever.

Non-match segments included more development of the issues between Angle and Hogan. Apparently Angle believes Hogan asked Hall and Waltman to attack him last week. Of course, Hogan denies this. I wonder if this is leading to an actual program between Angle and Hogan. So far it hasn't looked like Hulk has any interest in getting into the ring in TNA. I'd like to see him wrestle again, but the problem is that ever since he's been in the company, he really hasn't acted at all like Hulk Hogan, or even Hollywood Hogan. He's pretty much just acted like Terry Bollea, and Terry Bollea is kind of an ass.

Overall this was a really good Impact. Lots of quality matches, even though the main event was weak. I'm still very worried about the direction Hogan is taking TNA, though.

Now for some quick tidbits going on in the world of wrestling.

I read a bit of news concerning Hogan's frustration with TNA. Well guess what, Hulk? The fans aren't all dancing in the aisles right now either. Apparently Hogan is upset because he's not being allowed to push everyone he wants to. Dixie Carter has said that she doesn't want any/all of the TNA originals being buried, but Hulk just isn't high on all of them. He said he liked Tomko, because at least Tomko looked like a wrestler. This is not something I like hearing. This makes me think that Hogan feels the same way Vince McMahon does, that all wrestlers should be big men. I don't have a problem with big men, if they can move well, but you have to have smaller guys as well! Look at the success of the X Division. They're mostly all smaller guys, and they're also pretty much what put TNA on the map. Look at how successful the Knockouts have been. With the exception of Awesome Kong and maybe ODB, you couldn't call any of them big men. Big women? Either way, they're all smaller technical or high flying wrestlers, and they often have the highest rated segments of the night. And you can't say that's because they're hot, because if that were all it was then WWE's Divas would be just as highly rated.

And hey, look back further. Look at the success of WCW's Cruiserweight Division! That was so over they made them their own tag division, much like TNA's Knockouts now. I just don't want to see Hogan throwing his weight around and turning TNA into a WWE clone. They're successful because they're different. Big men are fine, but don't hold back smaller guys just because the big men can't keep up.

One last bit, it seems WWE is getting rid of their version of ECW, and I say good riddance. It was actually a good show, the few times I watched it, but I always hated that they had the nerve to call a show ECW. ECW, the real ECW back in the day, was something special. This show that WWE ran on Tuesday nights was decent, but it was not ECW. Apparently WWE plans on replacing the show with a new thing called NXT, for the next generation of wrestlers.

Only one problem with that. There's already a company called NXT Wrestling. They're based out of Scotland, and have been around since 2007, I believe. And NXT out of Scotland uses the next generation gimmick as well. Of course, this won't stop WWE from just doing whatever they want anyway. But when WWE NXT starts airing, just remember that the entire concept of the show is ripped off from another company.

My 1,000th comic!

If any of you read my first handful of posts, you know that I had at the time 999 comic books in my collection, and had talked about ordering my thousandth. Well, here it is! Gambit, vol. 3, #1.



There were five different covers for this comic, the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten variants. I got the ace cover. So now I have one thousand comic books, and I just wanted to share that with you.

George Lucas on The Daily Show

It came to my attention today that George Lucas was on The Daily Show last month. If you didn't see it, or just want to see it again, you can do so here.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
George Lucas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I thought it was a great interview, myself. John Stewart, aside from being funny and very good at his job, is obviously a big Star Wars fan. I especially liked what George had to say about people liking or not liking the new trilogy.

Movie review: Legion

Hey, look, a review for a movie that's actually still in theaters! Cool. Okay, let's get to it.

As far as horror/action movies go, I can't say this movie was bad, but I certainly can't say it was great, either. The very premise of the movie, that God is sick of humanity and decides to kill us all off with angels, is out there at best. Apparently there's a baby about to be born, one that will somehow save mankind, and the angel Michael decides to defy God and come to earth to make sure that baby is born. The other angels, by possessing ordinary humans, are trying to kill the unborn baby, and anyone else who gets in the way. So Michael, the mother, and the people who just happen to be at the diner in the middle of nowhere the mother works at have to defend themselves from the angels until the baby is born. With guns. Lots and lots of guns.

The movie tries to flesh out the other characters, but ultimately fails. Why does the one guy have a hook for a hand? We don't know. Why is one guy going through custody issues, and why does he carry a gun? We never find out. There's a lot of stuff like this. We also never find out exactly what the significance of the baby is. Is he somehow holy? Well, that's doubtful, since the forces of Heaven are trying to kill him. But how, then, is he supposed to lead mankind out of the darkness? Wouldn't that be something God would be down for? At one point in the movie Michael tells another character to "find the prophets," and "learn to read the instructions". There's a brief reference later to the instructions being the angelic tattoos all over Michael's body (and that somehow manage to appear on a human for no apparent reason), but there is no mention at all of any prophets. None. They're not brought up again. Was this something the writers just forgot about? If I buy the inevitable extended director's cut DVD, will this be explained?

And on top of all of that, the dialogue was not great. A lot of unnecessary cursing. I'm not opposed to foul language in a movie, and this was rated R after all, but these lines sounded like they were written by an eight year old kid who just discovered swear words.

All of these problems aside, though, it was still worth a watch. But I wouldn't pay full price in the theater for it. If you can catch a matinee showing, go for it. Or maybe wait for it to hit second run theaters, it probably won't be long now. Or you could just wait for the DVD and rent it. There were some good actors in the movie, and they made the best of what they had to work with. The action scenes were decent, even if there weren't enough. Just don't expect it to be a riveting story. It's basically Terminator with a lot of underdeveloped characters and subplots. And a questionable religious angle.

Oh, I almost forgot. The one really awesome thing about this movie? I saw a trailer for the new A-Team movie in front of it! That looks awesome!

Movie review: Stan Helsing

Stan Helsing is a horror movie spoof, lampooning tons of recent and classic horror films. In the movie, Stan is a video store clerk trying to deliver some videos while on his way to a Halloween party with his friends. They get lost in the sticks and have to go up against parodies of such greats as Freddy, Jason, Pinhead, Chucky, and more. As spoofs go, it's a pretty good one. Lots of great laughs, and some hot women as well. There's one thing all truly great spoofs have in common, and this one is no different. That thing is Leslie Nielsen. His role in this movie is relatively small, but memorable.

If you spot this movie in a five dollar bin somewhere, it's definitely worth picking up. It may even be worth a bit more than that. Or if you are just bored and are looking for something funny to rent, this is a good choice.

Movie review: The Haunting of Molly Hartley

I like horror movies. That is to say, I try to like horror movies. So many of them simply don't live up to their expectations, and this one was no different. The basic premise of the movie was good. Molly's parents made a deal with the forces of evil to save her life as an infant. In return, she would be taken by the evil on her eighteenth birthday. This much I got just out of the commercial. Unfortunately, the movie itself never brought any of this up for at least the first half of the film! For all I knew, I could have been watching any teen drama, as all the movie dealt with was Molly moving to a new school. All of the scares were fairly cheap, people popping out from around corners and that sort of thing, and had nothing to do with the story.

Even when things started to get rolling, they still didn't make much sense. It was never explained what exactly was going to happen to Molly on her birthday, nor was it explained exactly who the people were that were behind it. Was it the devil? Was it witches? Demons? Some cult? You never find out. Even the ending, which I won't spoil for you, wasn't entirely clear.

It's movies like this one that re-enforce my rule when it comes to horror flicks. Always watch them before you buy them! They often turn out to suck.

Pro Bowl results

So I have a confession to make. I did wind up watching most of the Pro Bowl. But it wasn't by choice! I was over at my buddy Shin DT's place, and he was watching the game. The AFC won, which was nice, and it was good to see Chad Ochocinco make some good plays. Too bad he didn't get a chance to score, though. The celebration would have been awesome, I'm sure. I didn't catch who won MVP, but oh well.

Game review - God of War: Chains of Olympus

Right away I know what you're thinking. This game came out quite some time ago, why review it now? Well, because I just now got around to playing it. Hey, it happens. To me, it happens a lot. So get used to reading reviews here on things that have been out for a while. I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who might not have played this game yet, either. So here you go.

Chains of Olympus is the PSP entry into the God of War series. It would have been real easy for Sony to just make a portable version of one of the PS2 God of War games, but instead they took the time to create a wholly original entry into the series. Set before the original God of War, this game sees Kratos as a servant of the Gods, going where they command to act as muscle. While repelling a Persian invasion, Kratos sees the sun fall from the sky, and has to figure out what has happened to Helios, the sun god.

The controls for this game are slightly dumbed down from the PS2 games, to fit with the limited number of buttons on the PSP. This really isn't a problem, though. The game plays just as good as its big brothers do, if not better in some cases. The secondary weapon you get in this game, the Gauntlet of Zeus, allows you to lay some serious beatdowns on your enemies. I'd have to say it's my favorite secondary weapon out of the whole series. In fact, I might even say that this game as a whole is my favorite of the series. The quick time events were a bit more demanding, but other than that I can't think of a real negative for this game. If you're a God of War fan and you own a PSP, you owe it to yourself to get this.

Pro Bowl

The Pro Bowl is this weekend, in case you hadn't heard. Yes, the weekend before the Super Bowl. Is anyone even going to watch it this year? I know I'm not. I'm usually a big fan of the Pro Bowl. It's a great way to say goodbye to the NFL season. But by moving it to the week before the Super Bowl, the NFL virtually guaranteed that many of the best players in the league would be sitting this game out. Sorry fans, I know you voted for Payton Manning, but he's not playing. And why should he? He has a Super Bowl to worry about next week! I wouldn't play either, if I were in his shoes. I don't even blame the guys sitting out who aren't playing in the Super Bowl, guys like Tom Brady or Bret Favre. Hey Bret, you just got stomped hard in the NFC Championship game. Wanna go play a meaningless game with a bunch of B-teamers while you wait to see how well the Saints do against the Colts? No? Didn't think so.

I've heard that the NFL has taken notice of the fan reaction to the moving of the Pro Bowl and has promised to put it back where and when it belongs after this year. I hope this is true. But in the meantime I'm voicing my displeasure in the only way I know how. Well, besides posting about it here, that is. I'm not watching the game.

TNA Impact review - 1/28/10

It's Thursday night, and for me that's wrestling night. I rarely, if ever, watch the WWE shows, but I try to at least keep up with what's going on in TNA. Now that Hulk Hogan is with the company (along with pretty much all of his friends), I've been watching it every week to see if it's going to turn out good. I'm still undecided... On to this week's show!

So apparently Hogan and Bischoff have decided to set up an eight-man tournament to decide the number one contender to the World Title. I'm all for this, I always like a good tournament. So tonight they had two matches to qualify for the tournament. Desmond Wolfe beat Sean Morley, then Hernandez beat Chris Daniels. I'm pretty happy with Morley being in TNA. He was definitely the biggest shock for me when he showed up on the live show at the beginning of the year. I was always a fan of him back in his Val Venis days. Both of these matches were decent.

The next match up was the Beautiful People vs. Tara, Awesome Kong, and Hamada. Pretty cool to see the Knockout Champ, Tara, teaming up with the Knockout Tag Champs. But I can't stand what's become of the Beautiful People. I admit, I hadn't seen the show for a few months before Hogan came in. When I last watched, the Beautiful People were made up of Velvet Sky and Angelina Love, and their gimmick was the girls who know exactly how hot they are and act nasty accordingly. Now, the Beautiful People are Velvet Sky, Madison Rayne, and Lacey Von Erich, and their gimmick has basically become dumb blonds. It's really disappointing. They used to be entertaining, but not so much anymore. On top of that, they keep doing this thing where they tease that they're going to kiss, but then they don't. Now, don't get me wrong. These are three very attractive women, and I'm all for eye candy and skin, but what I've always loved about TNA's women's division is the fact that they didn't have to rely on that kind of stuff. The women in TNA are, mostly, all very talented wrestlers who can put on the same kind of show as the men. Unlike WWE, they don't need to have pillow fights, lingerie matches, or faux-lesbianism, so I hate seeing the Beautiful People resort to that.

As for the actual match, the Beautiful People cheated to win. The match really wasn't so great. Madison Rayne needs to work on her in-ring skills a bit. Lacey was only all right, too, a surprise considering she's a Von Erich. Velvet is carrying them both for now.

Next we had another six-man tag match. Brian Kendrick and the Motor City Machine Guns won out against Amazing Red and Generation Me. Now, this was my first time seeing Generation Me. I don't know who they are or where they came from, but they seem talented. Good teamwork, lots of high flying, very X Division. Problem is their look (that glittery purple trim is not cool) and that name! Generation Me? Whatever, guys. Good match, though.

After the match, the British Invasion came out to the ring. Apparently Rob Terry won the X Division Title shot at the last Feast or Fired match, and he was there to collect. So poor Amazing Red, who just got pretty beat down in the last match, had to defend. However, before the match could start, Brutus Magnus basically forced Terry to give the shot to Doug Williams. So Williams wrestled the match, beat Red, and became the new X Division Champion. All this is just furthering the angle they've been building on for weeks now where Magnus and Williams don't respect Terry, and I'm sure Terry will eventually split off from the British Invasion and go his own way.

Finally, the main event of the night, Ken Anderson vs. Jeff Jarrett. Earlier in the night, Jarrett had told Hogan and Bischoff he was willing to do whatever he needed to to get back into the swing of things. So Bischoff, being the devious little ass that he is, decides to throw Jarrett in with Anderson, who had an open challenge out. Jarrett hasn't wrestled in seven months, so he really wasn't ready for this, but he looked good in the ring. The match was good. In the end, Anderson got the win after hitting Jarrett with a low blow, but both wrestlers came out of the match looking good.

Aside from the actual matches, we got to see more of the Foley/Bischoff feud. Hogan basically gave Foley his job back on the condition he and Bischoff sort out their issues. Bischoff essentially told Foley that Foley would fall in line or Abyss would lose his job. Kind of a stupid angle, but worth it to hear Foley tell a story about how his three year old son took a poop in a tunnel at Chuck E. Cheese.

We also got a segment hyping up the feud between Team 3D and the Nasty Boys. I'm sure this will be a decent feud once the matches actually start, but for now I agree with what 3D said tonight. That is, where have the Nasties been for the past ten years while 3D was out winning titles? That's right, on their butts out of work because no one wanted them. They only have jobs now because they're tight with Hogan. But that's okay, as long as they can work in the ring. We'll have to wait and see.

Angle apologized to Hogan for spitting in his face last week after that recreation of the Montreal Screwjob (Hebner admitted to taking a payment from Ric Flair on that, by the way, and Hogan suspended him). He also announced that he would have a qualifying match to get into the tournament. I guess that's next week. After the segment, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman attacked Angle, seemingly for no reason.

Not a whole lot else happened. More of AJ and Flair, which is really not working well, in my opinion. It's just not AJ's style, pardon the pun. Bischoff called Bobby Lashley into his office to fire him. We'll see where that goes. And Ken Anderson had a funny interview with Christy Hemme. Let me make this clear. I don't like Ken Anderson. He's a good enough wrestler, but I can't stand the character he plays. I don't mean that like, "Ooh, he's a bad guy, I don't like him. I can't wait to see him get beat!" No. I mean it like, "Ugh, not this guy again! Change the channel!" His gimmick, the whole having to announce himself thing, it's just so stupid. I can't for the life of me figure out how he ever got over. But even I have to admit it was really funny seeing him pop back onto the screen after having walked away, right in Christy Hemme's face, to repeat his name again. Oh, and by the way, Christy Hemme? Still the most beautiful woman in wrestling.

Before I finish, I'd just like to add that I don't like what Hogan and Bischoff have done to the Impact Zone. I'm alright with the ring going back to the classic four sides, but it needs to be a bit bigger. The size was my favorite aspect of the six sided ring. Also, I think there needs to be more room around the outside of the ring. I swear, if you had a front row seat I think you might actually be able to reach out and touch the ring apron. And finally, that new ramp has to go! I can't even elaborate on this one, it's just bad! Put it back the way it was!

Alright, so all in all this was a decent Impact. Better than last week's, and way better than the terrible Genesis PPV. TNA has done enough to keep me interested one more week.

Beautiful morning

Have you ever woke up and had something happen that lets you know today is going to be a great day? I'll often go to sleep listening to the classical music station on the radio, WGUC. It helps me relax. Anyway, I woke up this morning and they did something they almost never do. They played Star Wars music! It was the opening titles from Episode I, followed by Duel of the Fates. I had been laying in bed thinking about going back to sleep for a bit, but once I heard that I knew it was time to get up and start my day.

Thanks, WGUC!

Software review - Collectorz.com

As I mentioned in previous posts about my video game and comic book collections, I use software from the site Collectorz.com to keep track of everything. I told you all I would get into more detail about those programs, so here I go.

First, Game Collector. I got this program a few years ago. It cost around $30, but I found it well worth it. Before this, I had been using IGN's online database to keep track of my collection, but they simply didn't have every game I had in their database. Plus, their database was filled with mistakes. When my collection started growing to encompass some pretty offbeat games and systems, I quickly realized I needed another solution. Then I found Game Collector. Game Collector allows you to use a preset database to add your games if you wish, or you can simply enter the information manually however you want. So, when I bought a bunch of games for Chinese handheld Gameking, I could just type their names into the program and add them that way, without having to rely on some database to already have them listed.

But by far, my favorite thing about Game Collector is the customization it allows. You can fill in as much or as little information about the games as you wish, and you can then tell the program how much of that info to actually display in your list. Let me give you an example. Whenever I add a new game to my collection, I always put in the following information: title, platform, developer, publisher, year of release, and rarity value. But if I wanted to, I could add more. A lot more. You can also list things like the number of discs a game uses, what kind of multiplayer support it has, its rating, its genre, review scores, where you bought it, how much you paid, what it's worth, and so on. You can go really deep with it if you want. Or not.

If you like, you can add a picture of both the front and the back of the box. You can then have the program display all your box images for each system in varying sizes. And on top of everything else, there are a number of user created fields, where you can have the program display any information you want. This is useful in the rare case that you want it to display something that it didn't already have built into it. This is how I get the program to display rarity values.

Here's a picture sample of my list.


I have my list sorted alphabetically first by system, then by title within each system. You can also see the developer and publisher fields, the release year, and lastly a user created field I use to display the rarity. On the right side of the screen you see a sidebar. Now, I personally don't use this feature, so I just push it to the side to allow for more room in my title field, but for those that do use it, this is where your box art would show up, along with any description of the game you wrote and any other info you decided to use.

There's one other feature I'd like to touch on. You can go to the Tools dropdown menu and click Statistics to get this great little graph showing you how your collection breaks down. That is, how many games you have for each system. Here.


So, overall I'd totally recommend this program. It's very easy to use, offers an insane amount of customization if you want it, and you can even export your list to a number of different formats to allow you to post it online, or export it to a portable device so you can carry it with you. No more buying a game you already have! My only real gripe about the program is this. It cost $30 when I bought it, and I was okay with this cost, but then a few years later, after receiving many updates for the program, I was told that if I wanted to update to the newest version I would have to pay $30 again. I already payed for the program once, and the new update really wasn't anything special, so I didn't like having to pay for it again. But I did. I'm not sure if this means the program is $60 now, but even if it is I would still recommend getting it to any serious game collector.

Now, Comic Collector. This program features a lot of the same types of customization that Game Collector does. You can add all sorts of info for your comics, if you like. What I really like about this program is their extensive database of comics. With Game Collector, I valued being able enter all the information on my own in any way I liked, but with this program I find it much easier just to use their database. You can search through a ridiculous number of titles. Even some of the most obscure limited series are listed in there. When you find a series you like, you can same add it to a list of your favorites and jump straight to it in the future. From there, you can display a list of every issue of that comic (and sort out the ones you already have), including variant covers and reissues. Then just go down the list, check off the ones you want to add to your collection, and you're done! It makes it so simple. Plus, it adds images of the front and back cover for many comics.

Here's a picture.


This program was also $30, which brings me to one final point I wanted to make. Collectorz.com offers a way to get their software for free. On their page, at least back last year when I got Comic Collector, there was an option to complete a couple of free trial offers for some advertisers, and in exchange you could choose one Collectorz.com program for free. Now, I know what you may be thinking, but it may be worth it to check it out. I got my Comic Collector this way, and all I had to do was sign up for some newsletter, which I later canceled. No money was involved, no giving out my phone number, none of that stuff. You may get lucky and find a similar offer if you're interested.

So, if any of you out there read these reviews and decide you want to try the programs, please let me know what you think.