Retro Gaming Suggestions?

In the last few weeks, I've had to line up single player games while we move the 360 downstairs to our "good TV" so that me and the wife have stuff to watch together while we hang out with our little ones... and my oldest son loves Blues Clues and Thomas... anyway it's meant that I don't use my 360 for gaming very much these days, and it's forced me to dust off my older consoles. Besides, we're being prudent with our budget while the missus is out of work, so I have to finally use those other entertainment options that I keep saying I'll use... but don't for one reason or another.

I have 4 others - an Xbox (running XBMC), a chip modded PS1, a PS2 slim, and a Dreamcast. Throw in the usual sites for finding games and I've had a revival of sorts on my older systems.

In particular I've spent a lot of time on the Xbox, since I'm experimenting with XBMC, but I've managed to start those games that I never got to play... and I'm surprised at how well the gameplay holds up, even today. Goes to show you that a good game is a good game no matter WHAT console era you're in.

Does anyone else still keep their old systems around? Have any suggestions on must play games? I am playing Fable (Good side), Manhunt, and GTA: San Andreas. I am particularly impressed with GTA - the soundtrack alone makes it worth full price if you ask me.

Also on my to-do list are:

Ico

Jade Empire

KOTOR II

Grandia II

Skies of Arcadia

Shenmue

Chrono Cross

Bruce Lee in "Enter The Wasteland"

So I like to clear out my saves once I have too many to scroll through to find which of my many characters I want to play... and after too many close brushes with delete death, I finally deleted my main character.

All files gone, including the previous autosaves. I Thought I was deleting some older ones and didn't notice until I was done deleting and I was ready to pull out my main.

SO after reading Jikado's complaints about the lack of ammo (among other things) in the game, and Shadow's claims of suicide as an unarmed player, I decided to reroll my main as an unarmed/melee character.

He's an Asian male named, fittingly, Bruce Lee. And he looks a lot like him too.

After taking on about an hour's worth of Raiders, Dogs, Mole Rats, and Bloatflies, I can tell this will be a challenge... but not impossible. Definitely have to change my run-and-gun style.

While challenging, its also been hilarious so far. I've discovered, at least early on, that the Raiders say some VERY funny things when fighting close... but then I encountered  Raiders with Flamers, and it stopped being funny, because they just destroy me at close range. It forced me to rethink my approach and change my tactics.

At first I wanted to do everything without using ANY guns at all, but I think that's going to be impossible, at least starting out, because between the Flamers and getting swarmed by anything in the early levels you're as good as dead unless you get a decent set of armor first (and really there isn't any better than the Vault pieces at first).

So my plan, which I think is how Bruce Lee would do it anyway, is to just use any ballistic weapons that happen to fall during the course of a fight... but not carry any. I'll have to use my wit and guile to get close enough to start an unarmed fight and win.

It should be fun but man I hate how I got here.

Album Of the Day... Really?

I use Metacritic a lot to get tipped off on new music that I normally wouldn't hear (I like a lot of different genres). Pandora works for music that sounds like something else, but Metacritic is my main source.

Anyway, their highest rated album of all time is a three way tie between Loretta Lynn (and I'm NOT listening to that, I don't care how high it's rated, this guy does not do country), Led Zeppelin's "How The West Was Won", and this album, by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/wilsonbrian/smile?q=Brian%20Wilson

The first review calls it "The greatest triumph in the history of pop music". Others call it "groundbreaking", compare it to Sgt. Pepper, the most important album in the last 30 years, yada yada yada... So of course I had to give it a listen.

And I still don't get it. Nope. But maybe you will, or you do, and you can drop some science on this appparent musical Luddite. I mean, it's not bad, and I read the story behind the album and it's pretty amazing, but maybe it's because I'm not a musician that I can't pick up on how that story has been passed into the music.

1. "Our Prayer/Gee" (Brian Wilson/William Davis and Morris Levy) - 2:09
2. "Heroes and Villains" - 4:53
3. "Roll Plymouth Rock" - 3:48
4. "Barnyard" - 0:58
5. "Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine" (Haven Gillespie and Beasley Smith/Jimmie Davis) - 1:04
6. "Cabin Essence" - 3:27
7. "Wonderful" - 2:07
8. "Song for Children" - 2:16
9. "Child Is Father of the Man" - 2:18
10. "Surf's Up" - 4:07
11. "I'm in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" (Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks/Johnny Mercer and Sadie Vimmerstedt/Brian Wilson) - 1:56
12. "Vega-Tables" - 2:19
13. "On a Holiday" - 2:36
14. "Wind Chimes" - 2:54
15. "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (Brian Wilson) - 2:27
16. "In Blue Hawaii" - 3:00
17. "Good Vibrations" (Tony Asher, Mike Love, and Brian Wilson) - 4:36

Found Out...

And its another boy!

Pros:
- No paying for a wedding
- No cutting off the wang of the first to deflower her
- Hand me downs
 

Cons:
- none

(and for the record, there would be no cons if it were a girl )

I hope to be celebrating over a scotch and some fun with the Community get together. See you then and I expect congratulations and a free kill or two.

Thursday Pics

Rather than bore you with another installment of the AO new players guide (I know - but that went over so well, right?), I'll share some pics from my favorite site on the Intertubes, FailBlog.

GOOOOOOO PATRIOTS! LAWL 

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