Gunpey

After spending a few more days with it (and unlocking 7 or so skins), I’ve gotten a few of the nuances down. Like you have to develop the ability to quickly take a segment from the top and bring it down as far as it will go in like under a second. It takes timing to pull off, but is doable. Also, you want to take advantage of posthumous combos, throwing as many segments into your line as possible during the few seconds that the screen is no longer scrolling... this is also a great time to quickly bring segments which are near the top down to a safer level.

Updates

Too much going on lately to spend a lot of time posting. To sumize though...

Picked up Every Extend Extra and Gunpey to ease my puzzle game fix... and apparently wave my Tetsuya Mizuguchi fanboy flag (though interestingly, i've never played Rez)

I'm really digging both games, Gunpey is more of a lumines "play for a long ass time" sort of experience, while EEE offers more of a quick fix, since it's played in bite-sized levels that take no more then 3 minutes to complete.

Still trying to make time for everything and everyone, damn this was easier when i was a lathargic shut-in

Emergence Day

Based on the amount of shit one usually gets when trying to pick up a game on launch day, I allotted myself most of my lunch hour to begin hunting for Gears of War. I expected harassing clerks about shipping times, I expected to be turned away so that they could "teach me a lesson" about what happens to customers who don't preorder, i expected to be nagged about trade-ins and bullshit magazine subscriptions.

But that was not so.

I quite literally stumbled accross a small electronics store in the area that had fairly recent games in the window, so I figured it was worth checking out. The moment I walked in, the guy behind the counter took one look at me and without missing a beat...
"Gears of War, 360?"

Shit, you mean I didn't even have to ask?

I think i'll be visiting this store more often.

Umm, Wii?

So i've heard that the Wii is playable at the Nintedo World Store in NYC... on HDTVs... with Composite connections.

This prompted a friend of mine to ask, "is this fucking N64?"

Lets face it, the Wii isnt making friends based on looks, but hooking it up to an HDTV using the worst possible connection is going to make is look as bad as it possibly could. I don't know about you, but if i were trying to sell a brand new console, I think I would at the very least do everything I could to make it look nice.

Holiday Crunch

My pocket is damp, I believe it's my wallet crying.

Lets see, Lumines 2, Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, and Tony Hawk's Project 8 all ship this week, they are all games that i'm interested in playing. and speaking of game's that i am intersted in, I still haven't picked up Neverwinter Nights 2, i'm feeding my Phantasy Star Universe habit, have barely scratched the surface of Ultimate Alliance, and Chromehounds is still languishing in the Gamefly envelope.

Oh, and WoW, as well as the Burning Crusade Beta, are still beckoning.

I clearly need a plan.

Phantasy Starring

I've been playing an inordinate amount of Phantasy Star Universe lately. The first true sequel to Sega's 2001 Diablo clone, Phantasy Star Online. My experience with PSO all those years ago was conservatory speaking, fantastic, though more accurately, it was life altering. I came out of that experience with great, long lasting friendships. One friend of mine, who when faced with the necessity to leave New York, actually chose his new home with the help of a friend we met in the PSO community. Indeed, on our first trip down to where he would eventually move, we actually got a ride from Atlanta, half way to Greenville, South Carolina from another friend of ours from that same community who had never met us in person before.

These days though, so many of us have moved on from there, I don't believe many of us from the old guard are playing the new game, but I hope that they are out there.