So, I took a class last night about the voice over industry. It's something that I have been secretly interested in a for a long time. At the current time in my life I don't think I can really devote enough time and money right now to turn it into a part or full time business, but I thought I would at least start it out as a hobby.

My question for my fellow CAGs that have podcasts is what equipment do you have? I'm looking for suggestions on condenser microphones, an audio interface, and a good (not super expensive) set of headphones.

I've been playing through Uncharted 3 and enjoying every minute of it. Last night I reached the point where we are reunited with Elena. I had thought that in the trailers I had seen for the game that something about her looked different, and now my thoughts are confirmed. I understand that they want her to look more like the actress who plays her (Emily Rose), but I don't understand why they did this. We have come to know and love the Elena from Uncharted 1 and 2 and this change really takes me out of the experience. It's like when a TV or movie series changes an actor playing a character. I'm sure that I will eventually get used to it by the end of the game, but as I said it is very jarring and takes me out of the game because I can't stop focusing on how different she looks. I wonder if it would help me if the explained it away in some fashion.

Alright, i'm just going to level with you. I am a Mac virgin, well I guess not really anymore as I am typing this blog post on a Macbook that was given to me by my father-in-law. It's a four year old Macbook and it runs pretty well. In order to wipe the slate clean I did a wipe and install with the OS disks he gave me. I am no running OS X 10.4.11. I'm pretty sure he had something newer on here before I formatted because the layout looks different. I'm not sure if it was Leopard or Snow Leopard, but I know I would like to get back to one of those. I'm sure there are plenty of Mac users in the CAG community so I turn to you for help.

Am I able to download updates for free? I highly doubt that I could update my OS for free. I see on the Apple Store website that the update for Snow Leopard is $29.99 which doesn't seem to bad. I'm just guessing that it is an update and not the full version. Also, I assume that I can't just jump to the latest version, but maybe I can what do...

Okay fellow CAGs, Black Friday is nearly upon us and I think it is time to finally jump on the Kinect bandwagon. With the Kinect deals at Wal-mart and Target I am trying to determine if my living room will be able to handle the Kinect. Above is a picture of my living room. I know that it is not ideal, but I was curious if the camera is able to be turned or if is stationary. Any suggestions and opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Three day weekend + home alone = Much videogame playing

This weekend my wife took our daughters to visit her parents in North Carolina. While it has been a little lonely here by myself, it has given me plenty of time to play some games. I figured I would not get another chance like this to veg out and play games non stop.

My first gaming goal of the weekend was to platinum Batman: Arkham Asylum. I have been playing through it for a fifth time in anticipation of Arkham City next month. It always bugged me that I only had to get a couple trophies to unlock the 100% and Platinum trophies. I thought that the fighting challenge rooms were impossible, but playing through the game again I really got a good feel for the combat. So I decided to give it another go. Once I got into a rhythm it wasn't so bad. Sure, I spent my entire Sunday morning trying to get three medals in two of the challenge rooms, but I finally got it. It's nice to have some closure (and my second...

So my trigger finger has been itching to play a shooter lately. I looked at my backlog and found two that I had not even touched yet. The first one is Far Cry 2. I picked this up for $10 at Target last year some time after heard Ludwig from Joystiq rave about it. I enjoyed the ability to take on missions without any set parameters and the controls felt pretty good. I'm hoping to put some more time into it when I can.

The second game is BioShock 2. I picked this up for $11 from NewEgg earlier this year. I had never felt the need to play this after the original BioShock, but I thought for the price I would check it out. I know that nothing will top the amazing introduction of Rapture in the first BioShock, but I felt like the opening of this game was kind of a dud. It's still fun to be in the world of Rapture and the duel wielding of plasmids and weapons work well. I went ahead and got the Minerva's Den add-on before even playing the game because it was on sale and had had...

In it's neverending quest to mine old franchises for movie scripts, Hollywood has seen fit to make a movie based on the game Battleship. The only thing I know about this film is the footage I have seen in this trailer. The one thing I don't remember from playing Battleship as a kid were the giant alien ships. Perhaps we were the giant aliens, mercilessly destroying the human naval ships for fun. Or we were trying to take over the planet for any number of reasons. I honestly can't understand why the money was spent to make this movie, and why Liam Neeson and Alexander Skarsgard agreed to be in it.

Trailer: http://www.avclub.com/articles/battleship,59565/

Over the weekend I finished inFAMOUS and was wondering what I should play next. Using my CAG game collection I exported the file and whittled it down to the games that I have not yet beaten. I was trying to determine which game to play next when I came up with this idea. I would look up each's games Metacritic score and sort my list by the scores. With some input from Twitter I have decided to start at the bottom and work my way up the list.

Many of these games I have started and not completed. Some, like Brutal Legend I may start over since it has been so long since I played it and would need a refresher of the game mechanics (I also really like the beginning of the game). I realize that inFAMOUS is on the list. This is because I am doing my "evil" play through and still looking for blast shards. I think I will continue to play it while tackling other games rather than waiting until I reach it on the list.

I'm not sure how I will tackle any new...

Leading up to E3 I can say that there was nothing that I was truly excited about. I already know which games I'm looking forward to in future so I wasn't sure what Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony could do to get me interested. Having watched most all of the three press conferences, in my personal opinion Sony came out on top.

Microsoft

I'll admit after watching the MS conference I would consider getting a Kinect, but probably not until there is a price drop. Since I have a 3 year old daughter I would love to be able to play some of those games with her. I think she would love the Sesame Street game as well as Kinectimals and probably the Disneyland adventure game. A lot of the Kinect features for titles like Ghost Recon Future Soilder and Mass Effect 3 are cool, but not enough to say "I need Kinect for these games". I've heard rumors that Halo Anniversary will be in the $40 range which I would consider purchasing. Overall I know that I'll be getting...

Being in my 30s with two kids and a full time job doesn't leave a lot of time for marathon gaming sessions. Here are my thoughts on some features that games should include.

- Stat tracking

If you have collectable items in your game you need to have some way of letting me know how many I have collected in each level. One culprit that comes to mind in this area is the Wolverine movie game (much better than the movie IMO). I would have no problem tracking down every dog tag in each level if you just told me how many there were per level. This leads into my second feature.

- Level select

If I have finished your game and it contains specific levels, please give me the oppotunity to jump to those levels instead of playing through the entire game again. This will keep your game in my system longer if I am able to easily go back to points in the game to collect those items that I missed.

- Quick Play/Recap Mode
...

Over the weekend I finished Portal 2's single player portion. I think that my brain now has a few extra wrinkles from all the puzzle solving that was contained within. Some puzzles made me forget I was holding a gun that creates portals.

Aside from the sheer value contained in The Orange Box, one of my main reasons for purchasing it was to play Portal. Having finished Portal 2 I thought back to the first time I saw Portal and how amazed I was. I didn't think that I could be as amazed playing the sequel, but I was wrong. The additions to the game made things new and entertaining while still keeping the core greatness of Portal...portals.

Those additions are the three gels used throughout the game. The first is the Repulsion or "bouncy" gel. This allows you to bounce higher to reach ledges. When combined with a long fall you are catapulted into the stratosphere. The second is the Propulsion gel. This gel allows you to gain some extra speed when walking...

In the past to say that Mortal Kombat had a story would be laughable. Well now the joke is on us because the story mode in the new Mortal Kombat is really good (in my opinion). It is a retelling of the events of the first three MK games. It begins at the end of MK Armaggedon (which I didn't play) and things are grim. In an effort to prevent this outcome Raiden sends a message to his past self as a cryptic warning. This allows him to see flashes of things to come and try to prevent them which leads to some pretty entertaining twists in the MK universe.

I have to say I am continually impressed by the graphics of the game. The detailed character models and animations are amazing. The best part is the detialed damage that the character models take. It's always neat to play as Scorpion and at the end of the battle see his mask torn to reveal the skull below. Some of the damage models for other characters are pretty gruesome. Another great thing about the story mode is the seamless...

I told my wife that I was only going to play Mortal Kombat for an hour or so last night. That turned into three hours, and going to bed at midnight.

When I first heard that Mortal Kombat was coming back I was immediately excited. I remembered waiting in line at the arcade only to put in my quarters and get schooled by the better players, but I still kept playing. When I got my Super Nintendo I sunk hours into MK 1, 2, and 3.

My time spent with MK was only in the story mode. I know that the story of fighting games is usually it's weakest point, but this was actually quite entertaining and really well done. It is basically a retelling of the first three MK games, but Raiden has some knowledge of the future and that things aren't going to end well for Earthrealm. The story is broken up into chapters that focus on a single character. What I found most impressive was that there were no loading screens at all. The cutscense and fights flowed together without a hitch....

I made this with my wife and we finished it up today. What do you think?



Charlotte Anne, 8 lbs., 20 " long.

BioShock 2
New - $10.99 from NewEgg

When I first heard that BioShock was getting a sequel I was in the "it doesn't need a sequel crowd". So, I just passed it over until I saw this deal pop up. $11 for a game with free shipping was too good to pass up. I have heard around the Internet that this is an underrated game with a great add-on DLC (Minerva's Den). I was blown away by the awesomeness that is the original BioShock and I'm looking forward to heading back under the sea.


Fallout 3 - GOTY
Used - $16.19 from GameStop

I have never played a Fallout game before, but I hear that this one is pretty good. I decided that for the amount of content for the price that this one was a no brainer.
...

Hello, my name is Ben. I am 30 years old, and I enjoy watching cartoons.



I have only really petitioned for a show to be saved from cancellation once. That show was Arrested Development. Now another show that I enjoy is threatened and for some reason I feel I need to spread the word about it's awesomeness. The show is called Sym-Bionic Titan and it airs on Cartoon Network. The show is created by Genndy Tartakovsky. He has also created other awesome shows such as Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and the animated (non-CG) Star Wars: Clone wars series.

Sym-Bionic Titan follows Ilana, Lance, and Octus (a robot); three aliens who have escaped to Earth from their war torn planet of Galaluna. They blend in with the population as high school students. However, the forces that have invaded their home planet know where they are and send various creatures to capture/kill them. With their alien technology they are able to form a giant robot called...

Life sure has been crazy lately and as a result my game time has been greatly diminished (aside from iPhone gaming). The reason for this is that my wife is 9 days away from her due date of our second child. The past months have been spent getting the house and our lives ready for another addition to our family. I have tried to fit in gaming when I can, but lately I find myself not really caring. By the time I am home from work it is dinner time and then getting my daughter ready for bed. By that time it is 9:00 and I am just to tired to hold a controller in my hand.

When I do have time to fire up a console I have been playing Split/Second on the 360. I grabbed it when it was $20 at Best Buy many moons ago. As I do with most new games I get I play them for a grand total of 20 minutes then get distracted by some other game. Split/Second is good cuz I can fire it up, play a few races or challenges, and then move on to something else. My problem is that I want to finish first...

As I sit here and watch the credits roll on Metroid Other M, I think about the mixed feelings I had playing through the game. While I enjoyed it, I felt that I had played it before on a smaller scale. There were several times in the game that I felt like I was playing a console version of Metroid Fusion (especially a particular boss fight). Now, that isn't a bad thing, but I guess I just wanted more of a new feeling from Other M.

I really enjoyed the first person Metroid games created by Retro Studios and was very excited when Other M was announced. The game looks amazing and I think that Team Ninja did a great job with the graphics. The controls worked well for the most part. Holding the Wiimote sideways like a classic NES controller felt right for the game, but there were times when I would have preferred an analog stick to the d-pad for movement. The biggest frustration I had was pointing the Wiimote at the screen to fire missiles. I wonder if it was ever considered to...

Since it is just the middle of January I still have time to put in my two cents for my favorite games of 2010.

Mass Effect 2
I don't think you'll find anyone who didn't enjoy Mass Effect 2 (now that I've said that I am sure someone will comment on it). The epic space battle against the Collectors and the Reapers was one of the best gaming experiences of 2010. I still have all the DLC downloading and waiting to be played. That should gear me up for Mass Effect 3 later this year.

Red Dead Redemption
I really didn't follow this game until it was released. I figured since it was from the makers of the GTA series it would be a big seller. I had played only a little of Red Dead Revolver, but never finished it. I really thought that an open world western game sounded like a lot of fun, and I was right. My only gripe against the game was the story lull in Mexico. I plan on checking out Undead Nightmare sometime soon and I'm sure it won't dissapoint....

I have not heard much about this from the gaming outlets or a quick browse of the Bungie forums and I thought I would reach (pun intended) out to the CAG community and see if this has happened to anyone else. While playing the campaign I received an achievement that I wanted to learn more about so I hit the guide button. I went on to complete the mission and saved and quit my game. The next time I loaded up the game I was asked to setup my Spartan and given 5000 credits as if I were starting the campaign for the first time. I immediately froze thinking that my progress was gone and that I would have to start from scratch. The strange thing was that my multiplayer progression and armor pieces I had unlocked were still there. I went to the missions select screen and was only shown the first mission. I then went back and chose Resume Campaign and the game started up right where I left off the night before. I quit my game and went to the Internet in search of answers. I only found one post...