Xbox 360

Well, I have to say I'm tired of getting nickel and dimed by Microsoft. It seems like every time I turnaround I'm getting charged for something that's necessary for the complete gaming experience. I started out buying the $300 console thinking I didn't need 20gb of memory, I mean, who can really use that much space? So I bought a memory card for $40 and was ready to start my gaming. I hook up everything put in my brand new copy of Madden 2007 and turn it on. Wait what, what kind of graphics are these? I thought I payed all that money for the best graphics ever, what's up? So I do a little research online and find out that you need a high definition television in order for your games not to like like total crap. I'm not shelling out $500 for a new high definition television so I decide to stick with my ancient graphics. I'm playing and I'm pretty disappointed with Madden, its supposed to be next gen but it ain't. But I'm doing my thing, playing the franchise when my game stops and says, error disc cannot be read or some bullshit like that. Hmm time for more research and what do I find out. You need a cooling fan to stop it from overheating. How gay. I thought I was done with bulls*** fees but now I have to head over to best buy and pay $40 for a stupid cooling fan. Alright now I have my fan and I'm gaming, I save a couple franchises for later and start superstar mode and what do ya know I'm already out of memory! So I go return my memory card and am able to upgrade no problem to a hard drive. Now I just have a hard drive instead of a wireless controller, head set and some free xbox live like i would have gotten if i would have bought the $400 system. Alright I'm pretty ticked but it'll all blow over once I play some xbox live. i look at the instructions and apparently I need to buy a wifi adapter that goes for $100! What kind of shit is that. But do I really have a choice, not really. So I yet again trudge down to best buy and pay for another add-on. Okay so I set up my account and it's about $4 a month, not as bad as I was expecting. There's the one plus in my xbox 360 adventure. My whole fiasco is done and I'm finally playing my games.

Xbox 360: $300

Wifi Adapter: $100

Hard Drive: $100

Cooling Fan: $40

Xbox live: $48

Wireless Controller: $40

One Pissed Off Customer: Priceless

Total: $628

So even though I was a dumb ass and payed way more than i should, I would have to say that xbox 360 is better because of the extensive list of good games, and the online capabilities.

The Great World of Emulation

For those of you who aren't familiar with emulation, I'm going to give you a rundown on what its about and how to do it. Alright, emulation is basically playing a home console (like the sega genesis or the n64) through your computer. I believe the best one that they have to date is the ps1, but emulation is great for snes games, n64 games, nes games, and many others. Lets start emulating, first thing you need to do is download a program that allows you to emulate the games. Some of my favorites are visualboyadvance which is a game boy advance emulator, and project64 which is an emulator for the n64. Then when you have the program that you need downloaded, go find some games(also known as roms) to play on your emulator. I'll list some sites of where to find emulators and games on the right hand side of my page. After you find your game, unzip it if necessary(usually not, usually plays zipped) then start your emulator and open up your game. Now, if you want a true gaming experience, you can buy a little apadter that allows you to plug in your controller (doesn't matter which one) to the side of your computer (usb) That's about it, its that simple. If you have any questions about plug-ins or anything emulation related, feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you asap.

Gamefly

I recently joined Gamefly about a month and a half ago and so far its been the most inconsistent service I've encountered. In my trial period I was able to get the top games in my game queue and get Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (good game) the day it was released! Needless to say I was pretty happy with the service and all seemed to be going well. Then with the return of Harry Potter and the end of my trial came the wait. I sent back Harry Potter and it only took three days to get to their warehouse so I was extremely pleased. I checked my email Friday morning and found that they had recieved the game. All right I can't wait for my next one. Then Friday passed and no game appeared to have begun the shipping process. So i waited, no big problem. Then Saturday comes and goes and still my next game hasn't shipped. Now I'm pretty pissed cause the post doesn't come on Sunday, so I'm waiting even longer for my game. On Tuesday it finally arrives, so I decide to let it slide cause I have my game and I'm pretty excited to play it. I finish NBA Street Homecourt(my other game)s in about a day (yea its that easy) and send it back to them. Now it gets back to them in again three days and the SAME THING HAPPENS.I wait four days before my game even starts the shipping process! This ticks me off so much that I'm ready to quit the service but I decide that there are a few more games I want to try before I quit and its only costing me 12.95 because of brightspot.tv (watch commercials and you can get up to $10 off gamefly) so not a bad deal eh'. Wrong! Gamefly charges me the regular $22! So I write an e-mail to them explaining my problems and I wait about 3 weeks for them to get back to me. In that time there were no more problems with games, in fact all of them returned with fast track(post office scans them so you can get your games faster) and got here 3 days after I sent my games back. So three days total turnaround time! I accidentally shipped my own game to them and they sent me another slip for the game and are returning my game right now before I even noticed it was gone. Now that's what I call service! And to make things even better gamefly is taking ten dollars off my next bill and my brightspot account is activated so I can get another 10 dollars from off making it a grand total of $2 and my future bills will be 12 dollars! Besides that little hiccup, gamefly has surpassed my expectations and it is a service that I would reccomend to everyone.

Also here's my invite friends link: http://friends.GameFly.com/r/6186b8ac8620102a919d

Madden 2007

WTF.

That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Madden NFL 2007. It's truly the biggest disappointment in the Madden series yet (at least on the xbox 360) and I still can't believe I shelled out 65 bucks to pay for this abomination. I mean c'mon EA you can't keep updating the graphics on the same game and call it new! Wait no, they got rid of a bunch of things too, my mistake. Just about the only thing they did right was get rid of Madden (aka captain obvious) and his commentary.



Al Michaels: Shannon Sharpe makes a beautiful catch, shaking off two defenders on his way to the end zone.


John Madden: "You see, Shannon Sharpe reached out his hands, then caught the ball and avoided that guy because he was going to tackle him. (face fat jiggles and makes us all. throw up a little bit in our mouths) Then Madden spouts more incoherent words and laughs/chokes on his fat.

Al Michaels: Thanks John, now we know why they named a video game franchise after you.



*Phew* Now that I'm done ranting we can get down to why Madden 07' is such a terrible game.


1. No Gang Tackling.
Hmm I didn't know players could only be tackled by one person at a time, that's weird, oh no wait that's madden! How could I forget the terribleness that is single player tackling. C'mon the first madden game I played had single player tackling and that was back in 98'! Talk about porting over the same game.


2. Defense. Clap Clap!
As if single player tackling wasn't bad enough, madden made it impossible to perform open field solo tackles *coughwiderecieverdrillscough*. So basically if any running back or wide receiver gets some daylight, they're gone and your left in the dust watching your friend high step his way to the end zone.


3. Hall of Famers
Fuck you Y.A.Tittle stop pwning my defense. That's not even a real name what the hell is that, some designer throwing himself into the game. It really pisses me off when I go against a team that has Terry Bradshaw at quarterback, Barry Sanders at running back, and 6 hall of fame wide receivers. Its just stupid and there's no way to get rid of them. The only way this could be saved was if we had a fantasy draft but nope, we're stuck with regularness.


4. No Comp!
After about three years of franchise play, you realize that you're on All-Madden and beating guys, 60-7. Why is it that every other teams players just start sucking after a couple years. Is LT really going to drop down to an 86 in three years, I think not! (Wow I just answered my own rhetorical question).


5. No Stadium Options
Personally this really makes me mad. I really liked making my stadium badass and putting LCD TV monitors in every seat and having surround sound in the stadium, it was kind of like a mini business inside the game. Plus its a way to spend all your cash from the Super Bowl. I was hoping that they would create a way to use your own stadium in your franchise but they decided to scrap the idea entirely. Way to go EA!


6. QB Vision
Do you honestly think when Michael Vick looks at the field he sees in 18 degree triangles all the way down the field. Maybe Peyton Manning is actually able to see the whole field (or at least sense it) but that's beside the point. QB vision just becomes a pain in the ass. Sure its more realistic but all the button combos make the game more tedious than it should be. This is something that should be revamped.


7. I'm not really sure. I'm trying to get to ten but this is getting as tedious as the game. I guess this is the end for now.