CheapyD: You might want to get an x-ray and MRI on your back. It took an MRI to determine that I had a ruptured disc and two bulging discs. It was not something in my head. It seems to me the book you read "Mind over Back Pain" takes an interesting look at back pain, but sometimes there is a physical problem.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Over-Ba.../dp/0425175235


I have played sports all my life and have never had an injury so I don't know how I ruptured my back. My doctor said I was born with weak spine and over time it might have all added up. I just recently got my second cortisone shot and it did wonders.

So in summary, the pain may not just be in your head. Get it checked out.


For those wondering why I am talking about this, CheapyD mentioned in the latest podcast that he is having sever back pain.

The classic Ghosts N Goblins was at my local goodwill for 99 cents. It was in pretty good condition. It smelled a little like smoke but almost everything at goodwill has a smell to it. You could tell it had not been played in a while because the pins needed cleaning but I was happy to find this gem because I did not have it for my collection.

This game was released in 1985 and created by Capcom. I remember playing this when I was about 4 or 5 years old at my friend chad’s house. We used to take turns to see how far we could get, we never got passed that first red demon guy. As I play this game as an adult, I find myself falling in love with it again. I believe that this may be to do with my love for it as a child, but I am going to be fair about this review.

The story follows Arthur, who as a child I knew as the guy with the suit. A red demon swoops...

For my first advice post, I wanted to talk about a hole I see men falling into all too often: trying to pick up the girl working a kiosk at the mall.

We've all seen these girls. We're walking along minding our own business and as our eyes lock with them, they beckon for us.

Yes,.. a beautiful girl in the mall, randomly calling you over. You approach, and she's immediately flirting with you, asking questions to find out if you have a girlfriend, and batting her eyes in a way that could even charm Richard Simmons.



Within a minute, she's pushing you with perfume, hand cream, whatever beauty products she happens to be selling. Now,.. if you're a mark,.. you're already glancing over the kiosk at bottles of crap you don't know the first thing about, and planning what you're going to buy to make her happy. After all, this girl likes you, and you don't want...

This will hopefully be an on going series about games that I found and love in the past 6 months and months ahead.



Today is Combat Arms. This is an online FPS game from the fine people at Nexon. If the company sounds familiar, they are responsible for online games such as Maple Story and Audition. Also, like those games, they are free to play and download. I got in on this during the open beta (not sure if it is an official launch yet). I've played alot of free MMOs and online games but this is really smooth. I mean there are a few issues with connections but what online game doesn't? This is better than WarRock as a free online shooter. One thing I love about this: Gun Customization. Need a scope for your AK or a suppressor for your sniper rilfe, you can do that. No specific classes. Mix and match weapons in your arsenal to find that balance. I wouldn't put this against Team Fortress...

Here's the batch of comics I picked up this week:

100 Bullets
Captain Britain and MI13
Hack Slash
Invincible Iron Man
Secret Invasion
Ultimate Origins
Young X-Men

Anybody else following Secret Invasion, and what do you think of it?

I love the PSP. It is the console I use the most. It almost makes me consider that if the PSP2 has dual analogs, I might not buy consoles anymore.

Anyway, here are the top ten things I want to see at E3 for the PSP(in no particular order):

1. PSP Store where I would actually have the ability to download directly from the PSP.
2. Downloadable music/tv/movies/more PS1 games from the PSP store.
3. More Remote Play options and actually making it easier to connect via Remote Play over the internet.
4. RSS text option. I love the podcast rss feed, now please add text rss.
5. Updated browser that has better Flash support.
6. MORE GAMES OF ANY SORT!!!
7. More original Final Fantasy games(and remakes of all the PS1 FF's).
8. New Sly Cooper(to go along with the PS3 version(hopefully!!!)
9. New Metal Gear games/comics
10. Any survival horror games--I loved Silent Hill Origins!! Playing...

Being a 26 year old male, I've had my share of ups and downs in life. Now,.. while there's not a whole lot that I can claim to have mastered,.. I think one thing that I've at least gained enough experience to discuss is dealing with girls.

All too often in my life, I've been "the nice guy". You know, the guy that every girl likes - as a friend. The guy that hears how bad everyone else's relationships are but rarely has one of his own.

I've spent years pondering the phenomena, and after the loss of my most recent girlfriend for reasons largely unknown, I discovered a lot of things about myself and about life.

I've decided that this blog is a good stage for me to try and impart some of my knowledge, and I hope that all guys on this forum who are struggling to understand the fairer sex will put my advice to good use, and perhaps share some of their experiences.

Of course, I'll still be writing about some game stuff too, but I've...

Tomorrow, my vacation officially begins. Time for a little R&R. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to visit my folks up in Kentucky thru the weekend, and Tuesday I'll leave from there to Cherokee, NC to stay at Harrah's Casino on the Indian reservation there. Gonna do a little gambling and a lot of hiking.

I'll take the old laptop (really need to get a new one someday) and check back here ocassionally to say "Hi" I'll try not to laugh at all you suckers still working, but I ain't promising anything.

As for gaming, I'm taking along my DS and gonna put some time into Final Fantasy Tactics A2, and may finally get around to starting the second Phoenix Wright game that has been begging to get played.

Besides the demolition class, for which I have already released a guide, the support class is my most used kit. The support class is the jack-of-all-trades of Battlefield: Bad Company. With support, you've got tools to deal with people both up close and far away and your fairly strong against vehicles. Played well, I think the demolition class is stronger, but the support class is able to excel in a wider variety of situations.

For these reasons, I recommend the support classes to newer players and players that don't like the demolition kit for whatever reason. Since you can heal your self, damage vehicles, and your light-machine-gun (LMG) is effective up close and far away, you'll never be in a situation where you'll be completely screwed due to not having the right equipment.

Check out my video guide for some useful tips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Df2NWhdM0

I'm sure some of you have heard of websites like Kongregate and armor games but if you have not, listen up! These websites are full of free games. You should really check them out if you are in fact a CAG. I think it is very interesting that there are so many decent games for free out there, because this has too, in some way, change the gaming environment.

When I can play a ton of pretty good games for free why would I purchase a game that I wasn't sure about? In some ways these sites can help and hurt the world of gaming. If all of these indie developers are making these games for little or no compensation what does that do to bigger companies? Well I would think it would make them only try and release games they know would sell, rather then trying something new or creating a new type of game, now they will only release Madden every year (not that Madden is a poor game).
I don't know exactly what impact it will have on gaming but I figured I would put that out into...

I thought about naming this post

"King Kong the hardest 1000 achievement points I could ever hope to get".

5 years ago I tried and tried to play No One Lives Forever 2, but the game makes me want to puke. Because it's horrible. Horrible that it's funny and well designed other than a hand that bobs up and down. That hand gives me motion sickness. I went so far as to keep a piece of raw ginger root in my mouth while I played. Some games I've found will let you turn that off thankfully. For NOLF2 it was too late a discovery, because I'm getting nauseous just mentioning that game.

I guess it's more realistic, I guess it's helps increase immersion, I guess nausea is supposed to be a part of the experience.

Now the other problem with all things being relative. The camera (your virtual head) would bob up in down as you run right? So some games decide to make that camera bob as you run but my virtual head does not agree well...

So Pen....I mean Denis Dyack has been in the news because of his 1UP Yours interview where he says that NeoGAF need to be shut down because of the whole board(or almost all of it at least) was trolling on him, a member of that board, making the entire GAF forum in violation of it's own rules. Mr. Dyack is the face of his development team, a public figure in the biz, and in my opinion popular enough that everyone has an opinion on him. From the "One Console Future" to "Too Human" I'll go down the list and tell you what I mean by the whole "pissing his pants" comment.



Wrestling With The One Console Future

I am in firm belief that the one console future idea is the worst thing any of us could wish for. Sure it would be nice to have all games play on one machine but what would it take to get us there? The Answer? A crash of the industry harder than the one in the late 70's/early 80's. Why would it take something like that?...

Started up the license where I'll be using a kart and manual steering (or a bike with manual steering for 100cc)

50cc is still pretty much cake. 2 starred or 3 starred the first three cups I've run. But I did try a 150cc cup and that was a scrap to pull out a win and an A rank. (1st/2nd/1st/2nd on the four courses.) I think I should look at switching to a medium character. Right now I'm using Toad on the Mini Beast.

If you wanna get whooped by me online sometime feel free to hit me up.

The great thing about a buffet is all the choices you have. The bad thing is going to one and stuffing yourself on a work day and then trying to be productive afterwards.

I am a proud owner of all three current generation consoles, Xbox 360, Ps3, and Wii, but I find myself spending almost all of my gaming time on the Xbox 360. I've been trying to evenly spread my gaming hours between the three consoles but no mater what I do I just can't bring myself to put down my 360 controller.

90%

One of the main reasons that I believe I play more Xbox 360 than any other console, is Xbox LIVE. My rant yesterday about little kids on Xbox LIVE, and especially Halo 3, doesn't make me not want to play Xbox LIVE, it may be a crap shoot if you play with strangers, but if you play with your friends it is great. I also think another main reason may be that I have had my Xbox 360 for longer than the other two consoles and it is just what I am used to, and I have more friends on it than the Ps3 and Wii. Also, in my opinion, the 360 has the very best games of all...

When the first LocoRoco dropped on the PSP I scooped it up immediately. I was eager to play past the demo level which I had played numerous times in anticipation of the game's release.

LocoRoco was quirky and unique with a great art style and wonderful soundtrack - all fantastic qualities that when added together normally spell out a surefire win for me. Problem with LocoRoco was, after the demo level there was... nothing.

While the game looked and sounded great, there was a glaring omission of game play. I tapped the L & R buttons sparingly while my Loco's rolled around the level with hardly an enemy or danger in site. Most of the time while 'playing' LocoRoco I sat passively watching my yellow blobs fly through the sky.

This game that I so eagerly awaited turned out to be not much of a game at all. I shook my head in disbelief as review scores tipped the top of the charts. What was I missing? I felt that perhaps there was something wrong...

So SC IV is coming out in a couple of weeks, and after reading the story on Joystiq/PS3 Fanboy that 70% of Amazon buyers are getting the PS3 version it's making me rethink which version I should get.

I'm getting it at Game Crazy so I'll get either the faceplate for the 360 or a system skin for the PS3. Online will be better for the 360, but the PS3 has a MUCH better D-Pad. I refuse to get any 2D fighter on 360, so should I be in the same mindset for a 3D, non-exclusive fighter?

Should I switch to the PS3 version? Should I stay with the 360 version and get the faceplate? Should I stay with the 360 version just to get the faceplate, then trade the game on Goozex and then get the PS3 version there? FYI my 360 is in for repair, dropped it off at the UPS Store on Wednesday.

I have recently decided to play through one RPG at a time. Up until several months ago, the only RPG I had ever beaten was Chrono Cross for the PS1.


The only reason I finished this game is the fact that I had a student at the time(I teach high school history) that came in frequently to talk about videogames. Here is his blog: http://ericosuperbard.livejournal.com/

One game that he loved was Chrono Trigger(the very game that CheapyD had no idea about). He was currently playing Chrono Cross so I decided to play it as well. I really liked the game and always tried to play other RPG's but I would eventually lose interest as another action/adventure game came out.
Here is a pic of Chrono Trigger's box art:


Several months back I decided to try and play one old-school(pre-PS2) RPG at a time and beat it. I have been pretty successful in my endeavor as I have beaten the following games:



...

Well, you've read about my Paypal situation. I just avoided another with Bank of America. I went inside to deposit my check and after I got my receipt I noticed the account number was different. Some how the check number was read as my checking account number in the system and was set to deposit it to that. Just so happened I noticed it before I left and I saved myself some headaches this weekend. The teller corrected it and all should be good. If nothing else, this will push me to direct deposit finally.

...$1.40 after some trade-ins so not bad at all. Now I can finally check out the game that everyone has played and probably moved on from.

One thing I will say is that I absolutely suck at this game. This is my first true console FPS game, excluding the Metroid Prime series, and I have to say that using the dual analog sticks is taking me a long time to get used to. MP3 was as easy as pointing and shooting and trying to get the right sensitivity and finesse on the sticks is pretty hard for me right now. I hate to think of what is going to happen when I go online.