People that know me, know I have owned every system that has ever been created since the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972 to the next gen. When I was six, we were too poor to purchase the up to date systems, I had to hit the garage sales to find out of date systems. Until I was old enough to catch up with the current systems. My point was there are not much out there that I haven’t played, from the Odyssey to the 3DO to the Wii, PS3 and 360. When people go buy any systems old or new they call me, find out what the pluses and minuses of the system and more importantly what games are worth buying, the games that show off the system or the “have to play” games. Every system has the “have to play” game. The reason to spend the money on that system, the reason to buy that system. Think back, can you remembered why you had to buy the first Playstation was it Final Fantasy? Why did you buy the SNES was it another Mario game or 007? I was wondering why I bought my PS3, there hasn’t been any game on the system to date that had that, I had to have feel. I know the blu-ray was worth it but as a system what was that game that would make me say that this was a great system? I could get any great release on my 360 so what was the big deal about dropping $700 bucks at the time. I have been disappointed until now. Now when someone asks me why do I want a PS3 I have the reason. I found one, Infamous, this game is worth the purchase of my system, yes my blu-ray comes in close second but I have never played a game completely through and then put it back in and played it completely through again, and am currently working on my third since the first Resident Evil. It did something right and to be honest it is a mix of a lot of great games and is hard to explain the attraction. Its a hero game that lets you decide what is right and wrong, based on your path you choose, opens different responses, powers and endings. Open world do what you want and continue the story if you want. Its that game that you didn’t expect to grab you, then 30 hours later your wondering why your hungry, your feet feel asleep and there is water on your floor. You haven’t moved, from that spot and your alternating controllers so you can save your battery life. This game took me by surprise and made me very happy I bought my PS3 and now I can say with pride I own a Playstation 3. For more info on this great game check www.infamousthegame.com

Help me here if you will, OFF SEASON, what does that mean? That is what the gaming community is calling it. When will these developers and marketing guys get it right. I thought for awhile that Ubisoft was catching on with there middle of April release dates, then they go and join the “right time of year release” like the rest of them. I’m not sure about you,  gamers, but my systems run all year around. I figured with EA releasing a good game like Mirrors Edge and not getting the sales they thought it would, maybe, just maybe they would realize that if you release the same game during the year the game will do better, it wont get overlooked by the time of year. Especially EA would get the picture with all there sports titles, I understand that you have to release it just before the season starts but I always buy them there is nothing else released around that time and  I have the money during the “off season”. What releases do we get during this time? Movie titles? Kids Games? Rockstar realized that even though they could compete in the Christmas rush, they didn’t have to, they released earlier in the year and enjoyed great sales even during the rush times and continued to do well. Maybe someone on the inside should let them know that we play all year around, and if your game is released “off season” and if it is a good game we are more likely to buy it “off season” then during the holiday rush. We understand that Christmas is the time to slide your crap games through and hope someone picks it up to jump your sales numbers, but if you have a good game come on we have so many other things our money has to go to. During the holidays we have to be wise with our money, there may be five or six games we want, but will only buy one and rent the rest or miss out on it completely, yes our loss but also yours. If you release “off season” we wouldn’t even hesatate to pick up your game. What else are we playing? The gaming industry knows by now that gamers have very short attention spans, therefor we can get board with a game quickly, the reason for new games in the first place. So why not spread the games out so everyone gets a piece of the pie. DON’T make me choose between five good games, spread them out then I can get them all. I have heard the marketing excuse that the holiday rush is for the kids sake, they want to take the money you would be spending on toys for your kids and buy a game. That don’t make much sense to me, I would rather spend 60.00 on a good game when I’m not pressed by the pressure of the holidays for my son then have watch what I spend around x-mas because my budget is crunched. So get the point gaming industry that there is no ”OFF SEASON” we are gamers that work and work hard to get the things we enjoy, so stop trying to take all my money at X-mas and come get some throughout the year by releasing the good games as the year goes. I would like nothing more to run right out right now and pick up the next Ghost Recon series or buy that Beatles Rock Band, but no I have to wait until you make me choose what I can afford at the time instead of getting my money on both and don’t tell me its because of the development, take the time don’t release this Christmas, I’m OK with waiting untill April next year, just don’t make me go through any more “OFF SEASONS” I actually have time for things like, (gasp) yard work.  I guess I have finished my rant for the day.. If you have any good reasons why the industry should keep it this way or change it I would love to hear it. Until next rant….

Keep Gaming….

ICE

ON LIVE 

Is this the future of gaming, this little device? I seen this and laughed, I have heard of something like this coming to a store near you, and all you have to due is have high speed Internet and thousands of games are at your fingertips. There is no hard drive and no memory unit, just this little thing that plugs into your T.V. and uses your high speed Internet to stream games right into your home. My first thoughts were, I bet this thing only has silly games like Texas Hold’em and Dinner Dash, you know the silly games you play over Yahoo. I was wrong they have games like GTA 4, Burnout Paradise, Fear 2,  Company of Hero’s, Crysis Wars and many others that are great PC and Console games.

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