Netflix.

I am addicted. A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D.

Before the Next Xbox Experience update, I knew I'd be switching from BallBuster's service. BB continues to be a headache. Every few months, BB changes their terms of service and / or increases the monthly charge.

Netflix allows an unparalleled service. Streaming on the 360. Right now I have almost 15 or 20 movies queued and ready to stream instantly. I'd say it's infinitely better than getting one movie in the mail and exchanging one in-store. Most of the time, the movie you want in the store at BB is unavailable.

Like, Ghostbusters.

Surprisingly, standard definition looks good on a 56" HDTV. It's not great, but on par with renting a standard def DVD.

HD streaming is where I am really amazed. I queued Heroes (hate the show) to see what it looked like. It's strikingly similar to HD quality from DirecTV. It's a little compressed, but very very good.

Here's what you do.

There's a lot of discussion these days about the used sales in gaming. I'm not sure how game developers think they are different from other products, but used product sales is a way of life. You buy it, you can sell it...because you own it.

Ebay wouldn't be possible if you couldn't sell your used merch.

Anyway, devs are implementing new strategies to reward (i.e. punish) the consumer. One way is offering a one time code to download in-game maps, weapons etcetera. That's good. The other way is making the end boss as downloadable content for used game purchasers.

You can imagine where it goes from there.

When purchasing the Guitar Hero World Tour guitar bundle, I noticed the game does not have a barcode. In it's place is the simple phrase, "Not for Resale."

What a simple solution that is. No more gimping games. Developers need not waste extra time and cash on extra maps or features. Make it a one time sale.

Ebay will still flourish with used games, but Gamestop will not have 100 copies of Kameo either.

Or, here's a radical solution:

Make a game people love to play.

Suck my gears.

Gears 2 is bigger, badder and more bad a. But, what is not mentioned is if it's good. No. It's not. The campaign that is...

Multiplayer is fun along with the super-fun horde mode. Four players taking on 50 hordes of Locust enemies is a great way to waste late hours of the night.

The campaign. Ugh. It wouldn't have bothered me as much as it did if Cliffy didn't put emphasis on hiring a film writer to help flesh out the story. You would think it would be fantastic. Heck, maybe even the story would be a little deep. Nope! Incredibly predictable with absolutely horrible dialogue.

Just recently, Cliffy complained about gamers not taking games seriously enough. Well, Gears 2 doesn't help the situation.

It has been 6 days since last use of a nightlight...

Officially back from vacation. The cruise was great fun besides the dreadful night with 50 mph winds hammering the boat. And yes, it was affecting me mentally. Big Time.

I'm pretty good on boats. Never had any problems and no seasickness. No fear.

Being in a massive boat, flipping through tv channels and seeing the scene in Titanic with all the dead people in the sea and having winds rock the boat from left to right frightened me just a little bit. It was enough to make me feel claustrophobic, and at some point that night I lost the ability to breathe. That was until I turned on a nightlight.

Pansy.

Anyway, I get home and realize I have six games on my plate to finish and adding one more this Friday.

Here's the list:
Fable 2, FarCry 2, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Planet, Fallout 3 and Penny Arcade Episode 2. Friday brings Gears of War 2. Not to mention Left 4 Dead next week...

We return at 5:30pm.

I put in Rock Band 2 with wife at 6 something. Then Fable 2 with her soon after that.

She goes to shower and I put on the Mirror's Edge demo. Wonderfully amazing and intuitive. First person experiences will change after that game.

FarCry 2 goes in for an hour. Fallout 3 goes in for an hour. Penny Arcade goes in for an hour.

Head asplodes, and I decide to sleep.

I've decided to make a schedule on which games to play on which days at what time and for how long. You'd think I was dealing with a monumental crisis.

I am.

"You think your mom cares about that?"

As funny as Penny Arcade is, it really offers insight on what might come to fruition. Take their recent comic here for example.



Personally, I'm fine with Sony taking out the song in the game. Granted, this could have been handled differently. Instead of recalling the game and delaying the release, Sony could have the song patched and replaced with another remotely through a mandatory update. This is apparently going to happen with the copies that have leaked into the open anyway...

Back to the comic. PA touched on something important here. Remember the Mass Effect incident? News outlets overreacted to the brief "sex scene." It was hardly gratuitous. It showed nothing.

Grand Theft Auto 4? That was an even bigger phenomena. I remember watching one Glenn Beck broadcast stating players could use a chainsaw to decapitate policemen's heads. No chainsaw in the game. No decapitating. Overreactions galore.

Now we have a seemingly sweet video game, Little Big Planet. It's fully devoted to user generated content. Within a week of the beta, we see some amazing levels. Then we see the idiots creating levels based on 9/11.

Do you think the media will overlook this? No. It will be sensationalized because it makes a "good" story. You can bet it will be exaggerated too when similar levels are created. How much ya wanna bet the phrase, "user generated" will be left out?

Entertain me, please. [That camera is not a soapbox.]

Seriously. Since when do we care what you think politically? Vote or Die failed miserably. It was one of the worst turnouts for younger voters in 2004. Even one of the famous spokespersons, *cough* parishilton *cough*, didn't vote!

Now they're at it again with the 2008 election. Television shows, late night talk shows and variety shows are overwhelmingly biased. It's annoying. I feel like I can't escape reality, be entertained and relax. Instead, these people intend to preach to us daily. This isn't something that blindsided me. I saw it coming. But, I didn't think it would be this terrible.

With the way current media is, it will die a slow horrible death. Local news and 24 hour news will slowly fade away. It's not well informed, and it's found to be false time and time again. Do we ever hear when the news is wrong? Rarely. It's all about ratings. Updates and apologies for errors are never present or found as a small headline buried in a long forgotten cavern within a website. Soon, we will tire from it's current form. Right now, most media outlets are frothing at the mouth for the first Black President. Ratings would go through the roof. That's guaranteed. How much would the first edition of Time magazine's cover be worth in the future? Whatever they can do to ensure that victory will be done. Love the new age politics by the way. Has it changed?

Why do you think games are becoming more popular? Yes, gameplay is making significant improvements. But, does it have anything to do with people tiring from current media? Maybe. That would be an interesting study. I for one play more games because the current media is less entertaining and more about preaching. Go green! Vote Obama! Maybe there are mindless drones that follow these messages. I'm not sure...

Anyway, this is what I'm getting at. The media and Hollywood types have become so poor, so terrible lately that I hope McCain wins by a landslide so they STFU. And then, hopefully, they will go back to what they do best. Entertain.

Resisting two aliens. Star Trek rumblings...

Thirty versus thirty multiplayer sounded good. In reality, not so much.

Insomniac made a few major sacrifices to pull that feature off. Unfortunately, those sacrifices are important to me, and I will be opting out of that purchase. I'm glad these Betas exist, but I'm sure they're also hurting sales. More on that in a moment though.

One of the glaringly obvious sacrifices is the visuals. Not good. Not even remotely good. I'm sure the single player campaign will be fine, but multiplayer is ugly. To me, that's unacceptable. I can deal with the standard 16 versus 16 multiplayer if that guarantees a more polished game.

Now, a word on these beta tests. I can't see how these are good for the developers anymore. Out of the five recent betas I have played, one has kept my interest for a purchase when it's released. I've canceled the other four orders. It's sad, but my wallet is thanking me...

Honestly, I can't be the only one who plays the betas and canceling a purchase. These were games I was planning on buying on release day too.

Meh.

Star Trek. I was never a HUGE fan. My oldest brother was, and I passively watched it. I was never excited for it...

Check out the pictures here. Personally, I hate the actor playing Spock. I despise him in Heroes, and I can't stand his presence anywhere else. He seems like he's trying a little too hard. Definitely looks like Spock though. But, he's an awful actor.

I trust anything JJ Abrams puts his hands on though.