I'm heading out the door in just a few minutes to drive to Boston for the first day of PAX East. I was just wondering how many other CAGs will be attending. What games are you hoping to see/play? I really don't know what's going to be there, but I'm hoping there's a playable demo for South Park: The Stick of Truth. We'll see. So, who else is going?

I'm guessing things are still pretty hectic in the DaddyBoJangles household. Normally when he misses his weekly blog, ZxT Vendetta very ably fills in. Since Friday is almost over and there's no blog up, I'll put down the clipboard, grab my helmet, and run the offense for this week.

Friday.

I'm starting a new job tonight (same company, different position) which has a schedule of four 10 hour nights, followed by 3 day weekends. I haven't had Sundays off in a while; I am SO looking forward to having them off again. I'll be mostly playing Far Cry 3, but I've also been itching to start Mark of the Ninja, which I picked up in XBL's year end sale. We'll see. I'll also be monopolizing the TV Saturday and Sunday watching football. Go Denver and Seattle!

So what are you playing this weekend?

It may seem a bit presumptuous to make a blog post announcing to the world that you're about to start playing a new game, even if that game is a universally loved, epic, all but consensus Game of the Year. I mean, who cares what I'm playing, right? Right. That's not the point of this post, though, or at least not the main point. As I've been preparing to start Skyrim, I've been thinking about the idea of stepping outside of one's gaming "comfort zone", and wondering how often gamers do that. For me, there could scarcely be a game more outside my personal comfort zone than Skyrim.

I've never played any of the Elder Scrolls series, and in fact my RPG experience is limited to... well, let's see.... Mass Effect 2, the Zelda series, and that's about it. Some hardcore RPG fans might argue that those are RPG-lite, or may not consider them part of the genre at all. No, I'm...

to get your 10 point "Turncoat" achievement. Had Jek Porkins not mentioned it in DaddyBoJangles weekly "What are you playing this weekend?" blog the other day, I would have forgotten all about it myself, and been fairly annoyed at myself later, so thanks for the reminder, Jek.

Did this deserve it's own blog post? Probably not. But if this gets even one fellow achievement whore 10 points they would have otherwise missed out on, it will have all been worth it.

Last night I was playing L.A. Noire, and I was going on a vehicle collecting spree. I'd go up to the first car pulled up at a red light, commandeer the vehicle, sit in it, then do the same for all the cars that were now stuck behind the first car. Once the traffic jam I'd caused got bad enough, the A.I. drivers got a little impatient, and this happened...



"It's true what they say- no one likes a backseat driver."

Twice.



"I know the sign said 'Merge', but I don't think this is what it meant."

Bizarre.

So yeah, I'm really looking forward to PAX East this weekend, as I'm sure a lot of my fellow CAGs are. I've never attended a PAX, E3, TGS, or so much as a Comic-Con before, so I don't know exactly what to expect. Well, besides huge crowds and long lines. I live about an hour outside of Boston, but I didn't feel like making the drive both ways each day, so we booked a hotel right near the show. I'm going with my wife and two kids. My son is every bit the videogame addict that I am, but the girls- not so much. I think they'll be going off on their own to do other things for part of the weekend, but my son and I are going to squeeze as much out of PAX as we can.

Who else here is going? I'd love to hear your thoughts about the show, whether you're someone who has been to a million shows like this and can give me some solid advice about what to do (like say, how long before something like the live taping of the Joystiq podcast do you need to get there to be sure of getting...

My copy of Mass Effect 2 has been sitting, waiting to be played for several months now. It has suffered the indignity of being stuffed into a cabinet alongside lesser lights like Dante's Inferno and Dark Sector, just another entry in an ever-growing backlog of games. While most people who own a copy of ME2 have played it, loved it, and put it atop their own personal Best of 2010 lists, mine has gathered dust. Some of you may be saying "Why the hell haven't you played it yet?!" Others of you may be thinking "Because he's a moron." Maybe, but if so, that's still only part of the reason. Since this is the time of year when everyone makes a Top 10 list, or a Top 5 list, I'll make a quick Top 3 list of the other reasons I haven't played it yet.

3. I'm always drawn to the newest thing. I have the attention span of a brain-damaged gnat when it comes to videogames. I'm always looking ahead to what's coming out in the future; right now I'm dying for Portal...

I've officially reached the point where I can not buy any more games for a while. Like most CAGs, I have a backlog. More games than some, less than others, but much bigger than it needs to be to keep me going for a long time. Today is my birthday. Between my wife and kids, and my parents and my brother, I got 3 new games as gifts: Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, and Split/Second. This is great, because I've been wanting to play each of these games for a long time. The problem is, I just bought myself Red Dead Redemption last week, and also picked up Bioshock 2 in the Gamefly sale. I do not exactly fly through my games, so those 5 games could realistically hold me over for months. Oh yeah, and my son bought himself Super Mario Galaxy 2 yesterday as well. It's his game, not mine, but I'll definitely play it at some point.

It's crazy. I've been meaning to get to my copy of Assassin's Creed 2 since I got it from Goozex back in.... January, I think. No luck yet. Same with...

This coming Tuesday, February 23rd, is a day I've been looking forward to for a long, long time. Finally, the release date for Heavy Rain is upon us. Reading other blogs and forum posts on the site about this game, it seems there's a clear division of opinion on CAG when it comes to Heavy Rain. Some people have no interest in it at all. Some are intrigued, but more than happy to wait months for an eventual price drop. Then you have the people who have pre-ordered it, or at least have had it at the top of their personal "Most Wanted" games list almost since the game was first announced. I fall squarely into this last camp. This game has been on my radar for years, and I've been holding off using a Best Buy giftcard I got for Christmas, saving it for my Day 1 purchase of Heavy Rain. That's what makes a decision I came to this morning so agonizing.



I've decided...

If you start playing a new game, and it doesn't grab you right away, how long do you give it to get it's hooks into you? Do you give up on it right away if you're not loving it? Do you plod all the way through a game to the bitter end, even if you don't enjoy the experience? Is there some compromise; a point where you decide you've given a game every opportunity to win you over, but it's just not worth any more of your time? Is it possible to write an interesting blog post consisting of nothing but questions? No, probably not, so I'll stop doing that now.

I play games slowly; as a husband and father with a full-time job, the time I have to devote to my favorite hobby is sometimes less than I'd like. Still, I've been focusing on working through some games in my backlog in recent months, playing games like Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, and Ninja Blade. I wanted to get through as many backlog games as I could before the onslaught of "must...

So I'm leaving for my league's draft in about a half-hour, and I'm up in the air about my first few picks. I'm in a 12 team league, mostly standard scoring, except we award a half-point per reception. 3 points for passing TDs, 6 for any other TD, 1 point for 10 yards rushing or receiving, or per 20 yards passing.

Anyway, I'm one of those guys who ALWAYS goes RB in the first round. This year I'm picking 3rd, and I know Adrian Peterson and Matt Forte are going 1-2. I'm torn between Maurice Jones-Drew, or shaking things up a bit and going WR, either Moss or Fitzgerald (I lean toward Fitz) I'd like to have 1 RB and 2 WRs after my first 3 picks, so I figure I can go elite at RB, then two 2nd-tier type WRs, or elite WR, with maybe someone like Ryan Grant or Kevin Smith possibly, with another good WR.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

I don't know how many CAGs are into fantasy football, but if you are, you know that most leagues will be holding their drafts either this weekend or next weekend. My league will be having it's draft one week from today, and I'm starting to get antsy. I'll be picking 7th out of 12 teams this year, which is unusual for me. It seems like most years I'm either right near the beginning or right near the end. Last year I picked 12th, which was fine with me because I like having the wraparound selection, since we use the serpent draft method.

I won my league's Super Bowl last year, with a healthy dose of luck. Picking in the 12-13 spot, my first two selections were Travis Henry and Laurence Maroney. Really, with choices that bad, I might as well have said "Pass. I'll start picking in Round 3." Well, they weren't bad picks on paper, at the time, but by the middle of the season, both were permanent fixtures on my bench. During the season I picked up both Ryan Grant...

I love Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. No, you don't understand; what I mean to say is that I looooove it, love it with all my gamer's heart. I also hate it with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, but I'll get to that in a minute. First off, let me say this: if you have an XBox Live account and haven't downloaded this game yet, maybe you're on the fence about it because as much as you enjoyed the first one, really, how different can this one be, and maybe you clicked on this blog post to get a review or some opinion, here it is- go buy this game right now. Seriously, right now. Finish reading my blog later. This game is all kinds of incredible, and you owe it to yourself to be playing it. If you haven't downloaded it yet because "it's not your type of game", or you're just not interested in it..... well, you have issues that we're not going to resolve here today, and...

Some of you may have read the blog post I put up a little over a week ago detailing how I was concerned about playing Soul Calibur IV with my 11 year old son when some of the female characters, notably Ivy and Taki, have absurdly huge breasts, and in Ivy's case, hardly any clothes covering them.



The response from commenters was almost unanimously against my point of view, which I more or less expected. However, some of the more thoughtful and articulate comments did lead to much discussion in my house between my wife and me on the subject. Especially John's comment about how making the subject taboo would only make it tougher to talk about with our kids later. For anyone interested, here's the long and the short of it: I've decided to let my son play the game without restrictions on which characters can be used.

Here's the thing- my wife and I have both always been...

So I'm anxiously awaiting the July 29th release of Soul Calibur IV; I've got my PS3 version reserved at Blockbuster (I had $60 worth of BB gift cards lying around) and I can't wait to throw down with Ivy, Kilik, Voldo, and of course Darth Vader. I just really, really, REALLY wish they would stop cartoonishly inflating the breasts of my favorite female characters. I know this isn't exactly news, but it's what's on my mind today, because my 11 year old Star Wars-obsessed son was telling me earlier how he can't wait to play it with me.

I can't wait to play it with him, either, but as a Dad who monitors very carefully what my kids are exposed to in terms of TV, movies, music, and games, I'm disappointed that I'm going to have to set restrictions when we play. Well, of course, I don't "have to". But I've decided I don't want him mesmerized by Sophitia's jumbo jugs as her destructible armor falls off, or Taki's advanced boob physics, complete with distended nipples....

Like there is a good time for a leg cramp, right?

By the way, welcome to my first ever blog post. I'm sure you'll find it gripping and wildly entertaining, and won't at all wish you could have those two minutes back when you've finished reading it. Well, for the few of you still reading, let me get back to my original thought.

If you've never experienced a cramp in your upper thigh, let me assure you, they're somewhere in the neighborhood of getting punched in the balls in terms of pure fun factor. The worst thing about them is that once you get one, you can walk it off, stretch until your leg feels more or less back to normal, but shift your leg the wrong way and it comes screaming back in all it's brutal glory. A cramp in the calf muscle hurts for a few minutes, then goes away. A cramp in the thigh is the gift that keeps on giving.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be going on a dinner and movie date with my wife in a few minutes. My parents have...