Okay, so I've been busy playing Rock Band 2 lately.

What do I think of RB2 in one word? Awesome

Now for some details...

Characters
RB2 does not import your RB1 characters that you have created, which I think is kind of lame, if you can import the music why can't you import the characters? Especially since there isn't a whole lot of difference in the customization of them. Not that I want all my money and items that I’ve unlocked but the name/hometown and all that start up stuff, it’s all the same why not import them? Aside from that I love the new feature that a character isn't tied to a specific instrument now I can play the drums sing or strum it up without having to re-create myself! Big plus!

Tour Mode
I love that the tour is no longer locked down to multiplayer. You can create a band of one person and still play a tour, and have your friends jump in whenever they are around. Big bonus again! The downside to this is: they removed the single player straight thru the track list mode, which made it easy to unlock every song and know when you've unlocked it all. I still keep randomly unlocking songs in RB2 and I have no idea if I’m even close to the end!

Import RB1 Music
I haven’t done this yet, but it’s a great idea, and I plan to soon. I'm just sad that Enter Sandman won't make it across the journey.

Downloaded Music
All of my previously downloaded music shows up immediately, no work needed - that’s a great feature, good job on this one Harmonix!

New Songs
New songs are always a good thing, there's a ton in here, and I’d argue that on the whole the track list is much better in RB2 than it was in RB1.

I love the new things in RB2 although I wouldn't say it’s quite enough to justify the '2' they could have put a little more into it I think, it’s more of an expansion. The price is great if you think in terms of tracks to dollars. You are getting way more music that $60 would buy you in the music store.

of the most pirated games list.

Way to go Maxis..

My PSP was not forgotten this year for my birthday, I received two different games for it: Hot Shots Golf Open Tee and Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core. I'm going to take this time to talk about FFVIICC.

This game is a lot of fun and has lots to do. I’m about 15% complete with the game, but I’d say I’m about 50% of the way thru the main story (I haven't played too many of the missions yet, which count up for a lot of the total percentage of the game.) The combat is refreshing, and engaging, a little bit like the other FF games, but also nothing like them. I really enjoy the combat.

The story is pretty good so far as well, I really like the character of Zak and see a lot of cloud in him. It’s cool doing things that set stuff up for FFVII. Very enjoyable!

The one thing I’m not too keen on is, the DMW. It’s basically a little slot machine that spins over and over in the corner, it gives you little bonuses in combat, and also controls when you level, as well as when your materia levels. It’s pretty silly - they only way to level is to go into combat enough for the random chance for you to get a level.

Other than that, I think this game is quite nice and I plan to play all the way thru it to 100% and then some. Way to go SquareEnix!

So I've been reading reviews, watching videos and staring as screenshots of the newest in the long line of the Soul Calibur/Edge saga. All that I've managed to do in this research is make me want to play the game even MORE. I've always been a fan of the series it’s a quality fighting game, and my favorite of them, with Tekkin being second.

So here I am trying to figure out a way to pick this game up without disturbing the carefully crafted budget of the summer.. when low and behold my father-in-law surprises me with it as an early birthday present! (apparently my obsession had picked up enough attention for my wife to pass the word along.)

Now that I have the SCIV in my possession, and have had a chance to play it for a few hours.. it's time I reveal my true feelings on the game...

AH-MAY-ZING!

This game is EVERYTHING I expected and MORE. It has the standard things you would expect from a Soul Calibur game:

• Fun combat
• Unique Characters
• Cool Weapons
• Horrible Story
• Ring Outs
• Random Guest Characters

 
Then there are a few new things that give the game that little bit more umph:

• Destroyable Armor
• Ultimate Finishing Strikes
• Online Play
• "Tag Team" Style Fighting

I'm sure I’m missing some of it, but seriously - if you have ever enjoyed a Soul Calibur/Edge game you will enjoy this one many times over, if you like a good fighting game - this one will suffice just fine! If you aren't really into the fighting game scene, it can still be fun with some friends around just smashing buttons and trash talking each other.

I highly recommend this game to anybody able to play it.

Bear with me on this, it's going to be a fairly large one...

I’m quite sad to be sitting here writing this, as I’ve been an avid MMO player for the last 8ish years. They have been a big part of my life as I have spent MANY hours playing them, which is very easy to do.

The list of MMO's I’ve played is fairly decent sized and I shall list them all out and say a little something about each one, it seems like a fitting way to say farewell.
They are lsited in chronological order from the initial date i started playing them.

Xenimus
Curse you EJ Thayer! Curse you! For you have created the game that single handedly sparked my interest in MMO's! sure the game was rough and full of PVP jerks, but it was something NEW and FUN. I spent many hours playing this game only to stop when he started charging to play.

Ultima Online
Once Xenimus went to Pay to Play I started looking around for other games like it, not knowing fully what an MMO was yet. UO stepped up as a few of my friends were playing it and they had an extra copy. So I started up an account and made a character.. played for about 2 weeks before I just couldn't stand it any longer. That game was just not for me.

Everquest
So enters Everquest... as my next game to fill the gap left by Xenimus. The gap was filled indeed! I played Everquest quite intensely (and more so than Xenimus) for several years. This is the game that I base my comparison for all other MMO's Sadly my friends started to fade out from the game, and I started to lose interest, as the graphics were becoming dated, and the UI was just too uncomfortable.

Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online popped up while I was still playing EQ. Some of my friends were playing it, and I decided to join them. It was a decent game, but wasn't ready to be released at that point IMO. Too many problems and instance based combat made me lose interest quickly with this game.

Star Wars Galaxies
After I had finally quit playing EQ, I started to have cravings for an MMO again.. and it just happened to be time for SWG to be released. I jumped on this game and enjoyed it very much for several months.. but then my friends started to fade out, and the game started to become more of a job than a game. So I decided to part ways. Luckily I was already gone by the time the NGE popped up.

Runescape
Runescape was basically a filler MMO that helped sustain me till EQ2 came out. It wasn't fun, it wasn't pretty and it really sucked. But it helped me in a dark time (a time with no MMO to play).

Everquest 2
Ah, the big brother to EQ, the game had a little bit of Nostalgia in it, and a lot of new. I LOVED the game but had no friends that played, so I phased in and out for several years. Until I was able to create a guild and build a whole new set of friends to play. Then life happened and I got too busy to play, and many of those people moved on.

World of Warcraft
I played WOW a little bit during my EQ2 times, as well as DDO, LOTRO and EVE. All of these games were played because I had friends that played them, and I didn't have friends that played EQ2. WOW for me was not much fun at all. I played for a few months and could not figure out what it was that the rest of the world enjoyed.

Dungeons and Dragons Online
DDO has to be the worst MMO I’ve ever played. I despised the way it worked, and hated the fact that it was set in Ebberon instead of Forgotten Realms. This saddened me because I’m a huge fan of Dungeons & Dragons.

Lord of the Rings Online
LOTRO was interesting, but not really for me, some say I didn't give it enough of a chance, but I can normally tell fairly early if I’m going to like a game or not. And it just didn't work for me.

EvE Online
EVE was fun for a bit, I LOVED the hugeness of it, and all the different things you could do. I ended up just mining small amounts of stuff and selling it, never really getting into the guts of the game. It started to be a job too early, and I didn't want to keep playing because of it.

And so here I am, about 8 years later, and having several MMO's under my belt. EQ2 is the most recently played of my list, and I just canceled the subscription for it yesterday. I've finally come to the point in my life where what used to be the allure of MMO's is now the thing I dread in them.

I don't want to have to set aside 4-10 hours at a time to play and have fun. I don't want to have to make sure I stay near the same level of my friends that have more time to put into the game. I don't want to grind levels, or skills or whatever they happen to be called. I just want to sit down and have FUN. Something that is not really possible in an MMO. At least in any of the ones I’ve tried.

Thank you for joining me on this sad journey to say farewell to one of my favorite genre’s of games... Maybe sometime down the road there will be a new MMO that will bring me out of "Retirement" but until then, I’ll be playing games that don't require nearly as much of a consistent time investment to enjoy.