Themeless Randoms

After an incredible 46 hours, 28 minutes, and 08 seconds, I finally completed GTA4 on the XBOX 360. I bought this game on release night, and have been playing the snot out of it. Why did it take me so long to finish the game? Well, I didn’t just blow through the main story in a few hours, but instead explored everything I could, and took part in as many of the side missions that I could as well. Sometimes I find those to be a little more fun than the actual story missions.

Anyway, I’m still completely blown away that I played that game for more than 46 hours. That is definitely the most time that I’ve poured into any video game, and I hope that I never do that again. Yes the game was fun, and if I had to re-live this summer all over again, I wouldn’t skip GTA4.

Did anyone else feel shocked when they looked at their play time at the end of the game?

And to explain the image above… do you see any correlation between the 46 hours and the unlockable achievement?

I’ve got a new addiction… thankfully its not the kind that costs $10 a pack a day, or causes you to want to cut your skin off… no, its my addiction to Mario Kart on the Wii. Its only been a few weeks since I got the Wii, but Mario Kart has definately seen the most action. At first I thought it was frustrating as it didn’t seem to matter how well you drove, it was how well you threw bananas and turtle shells around, but now I see at as pure and simple fun.

So far I’ve been dominating the single player mode, but am completely average when it comes to online play. I love the online aspect of it, but I’ve yet to finish in the top three in any race I’ve competed in. Oh well, this game is fun… or shall I say swiit?

Looks like Bowser’s looser minions are finally taking a stand at the workplace…

I guess the stars, sun, moons, planets, and whatever else could be lined up, were lined up on Monday this week when I made a trip to Best Buy to pick up a pair of Shure earphones. After finding the earphones I decided to take a lap of the store to see if there was anything else that turned my crank. I headed over to the video game section, and was blown away to see about 9 Nintendo Wii boxes sitting there!

My first reaction was, “I’m totally getting this thing,” but then after adding up the cost etc, I started thinking that if I’m going to blow that kind of cash, that I should just get a PS3 instead since it doubles as a blu-ray player, and that’s something that I’ll eventually need.

I decided that I may need a little consultation on the purchase, so I spoke with the girlfriend who just about flipped when I told her that it was in stock. Obviously she wanted it, so I went and grabbed one, along with another Wiimote, Nunchuck, and some component cables (which turned out to be shit… word of advice, buy the Nintendo ones instead of the $20 cheaper knockoffs… they are garbage).

Before leaving the store I mentioned the purchase to a buddy who told me to grab one for him as well. He said that finding a Wii in a store is like finding diamonds, and demanded that I pick one up for him. We were wondering if they would enforce the one per customer rule at the cash register, but the fat little dude with red curly hair didn’t seem to care at all. 2 Wii’s in hand, I walked out a happy customer.

So far I’ve got to say that this thing is a blast. I picked up Mario Kart and that thing is a good time… the online games are pretty tough as there are apparently secrets about the game that I’ve yet to discover, but in time kiddies, in time. I also picked up Wii Fit, but haven’t opened it up yet. Maybe I’ll give it a rip today and get my yoga on.

Just had a very close call with the Xbox 360. Everyone knows about the dreaded red ring of death, and I just got it… as I knew it was pretty much game over for my console I headed over to xbox.com to try and figure out how to get a new machine. It suggested turning it off and on again, and watching the color of the power supply to see if that indicated anything. Once I turned it on again, no more ring! I just dodged a huge gaming bullet there!

[Update - June 16, 2008, 11:42am]: Well I figured it was too good to be true as I tried to turn on the 360 this morning and play a little GTA. Niko just walked out of his safe house, and wham it froze up. Off and on again a few times and no dodging the red ring of death this time. SHIT! So I called Microsoft and they started the exchange process, but they are having server ‘issues’ right now, so they said to call back in 3-4 hours and they will be able to complete everything. Looks like 3 weeks or so before I’m back on track…

Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh man this is going to be awesome! I’m a huge Metallica fan, and have played One on Guitar Hero III about a million times, and have also played the snot out of the classic DLC on Rock Band. If there is an entire game dedicated to my favorite band, I will definitely be inline for this release… then again, it probably won’t be as wildly popular as GTA4 was last month.

Anyway, here is the song list that I’d love to see included in Guitar Hero Metallica:

• The Four Horsemen
• Seek and Destroy
• For Whom The Bell Tolls
• Fade To Black
• Creeping Death
• Master of Puppets
• Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
• Orion
• Damage Inc.
• One
• Harvester of Sorrow
• Enter Sandman
• The Unforgiven
• The Struggle Within
• Bleeding Me
• The Outlaw Torn
• Fixxxer
• Astronomy
• Whiskey In The Jar
• St. Anger
• The Unnamed Feeling

Well thats quite a list and I’d be ecstatic if all of those were included. Some of those are 100% obvious choices, but a few may need some convincing to squeak in there. Hopefully I’ll get my wish for Guitar Hero Metallica… supposedly due sometime before March 2009.

Holy crap does this ever look cool… I remember RE2 being the first video game to actually scare the crap out of me when those arms broke through the window and grabbed hold… still gives me shivers thinking about it. Anyway, this trailer shows that the new one is going to be AWESOME! No idea when its coming out though…

I was one of those nerds that waited in line last night to get my hands on GTA4 asap. Luckily I pre-ordered so I didn’t have to wait in the 500m long line, and got to jump to 3rd in line. Poor buddy had to wait in line and listen to the “tards” as he called them, talk about their black market arms dealings and stuff.

Anyway, I’ll probably be playing quite a bit so feel free to hit me up on Xbox Live and we can give the multi player a rip!

“During the war, I did some bad things, and bad things happened to us.”

“This pays, and I’m good at it.”

Rockstar released a new Niko Bellic video for Grand Theft Auto 4 this morning. Niko looks like he is going to be the most interesting main character to date… man only a couple more days!

Edit (11:09am): IGN also added a video review. Definitely worth checking out as there is some awesome in game footage.