Most everyone here knows that I think the band Tool is the greatest band of all time; rock messiahs walking amongst many, many peasants if you will.

So to me, someone who has NEVER been able to get into the music band genre much because I kind of suck at the games, the news that Tool is going to be featured with three songs in the new Guitar Hero: World Tour game has completely changed my perspective.  I'm now going to pluck down $190 for the new game and I'm also going to be getting rid of Rock Band.  That's how much that band and its music means to me.  To get a chance to play instruments like Adam Jones, Danny Carey, Justin Chancellor and sing like Maynard is too good to pass up.  I honestly never thought my favorite band (I've seen them in concert three times and they're the best live band I've ever seen when you combine the quality of the music and the visual art show) would never come to one of these music games.  It was one of the reasons I was so excited about Lips because I thought that game might make it so I could sing any Tool song through my iPod.  See Tool has always been extremely artsy in shying away from any publicity for themselves.  Hell their music videos have never featured the actual band members except their very first one from their EP Opiate.  Well, if you want a taste of what they're like, here are a few of their videos:

Tool - Sober
Tool - Stinkfist

Those are visual masterpieces if you ask me.  Sure, they're freaky, but hell, it was something that drew me into the band.  They were so different from anything else out there.

Judging from some of the comments in that IGN article, I think others probably feel very similarly.  I'm telling you that I was so very bored about the thought of another Guitar Hero game, but an announcement like this made this game shoot to the top of my list of most wanted games.  I would WANT to learn to play the drums in a Tool song and that's always been the missing thing for me from these games.  There are songs I like but nothing that I LOVE.  That changes with Tool coming to Guitar Hero World Tour.  

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So I'm officially going to be losing my battle with time very soon.  I recently downloaded the NHL 09 demo and it is FREAKING awesome.  I recommend that you download it now, even if you aren't a hockey fan.  They have this mode called "Be a Pro" and it's sooooo fun.  I can NOT wait to get my hands on this retail version and get a team full of Gearheads together.  Trust me, I think you're really going to enjoy it.  The basic concept is that you're one person on a team throughout the game.  It's really fun with AI and I can't begin to imagine how much fun it's going to be with friends.

Please stop reading and go download it now.  Sign up for FFF below.  I'm not sure when and if I'm going to be on tomorrow.  My wife broke her ankle in two places on Monday and got put in a cast yesterday so I'm permanently on my daughter's care.  

If I do get on, it will likely be around 9 or 9:30 p.m. PST.  Hope to see you then because, as of next Wednesday, my life is all about NHL 09 until Gears 2 comes out.  Whoo hoo!

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23-Michael Jordan. 13-Bad Luck. 69...

Some numbers just have a certain significance in our culture. $199 is one of them.  That was the price when the PS2 truly soared, eventually hitting over 100,000 consoles sold in just the first month of that price point.

This is also the number of dollars it takes to purchase an Xbox 360 Arcade.

Rumored and now official, the Xbox trio of hardware are all receiving price cuts starting...this Friday!

Xbox 360 Arcade -- $199
Xbox 360 Premium -- $299
Xbox 360 Elite -- $399

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169740

This puts the cheapest version of the Xbox 360 lower than the $250 Wii. How much of a difference do you think this will make, GearHeads? I'm sure a hardware spike is imminent, but can this spike be sustained?

Your thoughts...

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Out of the hurricane of information (no pun intended) coming out of PAX this week comes news about the new Xbox 360 Dashboard.  Excuse me, the "Xbox Experience".  
Coming this fall (still no date), the new Dashboard streams content to your TV in ways that make the old dashboard look...last gen.  

An easy to understand comparison may be that the old Dashboard is a library of information while the Xbox Experience is Wikipedia.  The Experience looks neat, tidy, and downright awesome with an almost 'Apple' flow  and look that had me drooling when I saw the video, which can be found (but was recorded illegally) over at GameVee

Finding content, your friends, and representing yourself has never been so...easy to "Experience."

A highlight of some of the features:

Looking at the game you have in your tray also shows you your achievements in that game, the content for that game available on the marketplace, and more.

Themes transfer over from your old dashboard in a new style- These themes can be previewed live as you hover over each one.

Friends are now graphically represented by someone's avatar (and the old way). When someone is offline, their avatar is dimmed out. When they are online, their avatar is fully colored and shown.

And of course, by the press of a button you can be in a party instantly whether in or out of a game.  

Every single feature in the original dashboard can be pulled up in the new guide.

Words it comes down to:  

Sick. Awesome. Chocolate and Peanut Butter.

Video Link from:  

Xbox360Fanboy Again, the vid wasn't sanctioned by Microsoft, due to the Experience not being at a finished state, so keep that in mind.

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A 50 year old pastor and a 30 year old evangelist spoke with enthusiasm after a church service I attended this past summer.  "Mass Effect just didn't hold my attention, man."  The younger evangelist said.  "If you can just get through the first half, the second is definitely worth it!" argued an older pastor and father of three.  

I just listened in awe as what had just been a discussion about a movie referenced in the sermon had turned into a debate about a Sci-Fi Xbox 360 game.  These weren't high school or college aged kids talking about video games but men who had been in the ministry for over 40 years combined; Men with degrees and families.  After about 40 minutes the discussion turned back the sermon but not before I learned the evangelist actually had two Xbox 360's.  
"Ya, I've found it works as a great evangelism tool." He told me.  Able to connect with youth in a new way the evangelist has youth over frequently to play video games and talk about life.  He went on to tell me about a small group he formed over Xbox Live that has been used as a witnessing tool effectively.

Come to find out, the evangelist is primarily a FPS player but likes the occasional RPG.  Games of choice included COD 4, Oblivion, Bioshock and Halo...on occasion.  The older pastor enjoys the Rainbow Six series, Madden, and COD 4 as well.  

The moral of the story is that as our culture begins to shift, some leadership in the church has identified ways to shift with it, making adjustments along the way.  
Sure, the majority of churches will still look down their nose at video games but the fact that key portions of the church are embracing video games shows the direction the church in general may be headed.

I'm just hoping someday we'll get a game based on Samson, who killed over 1,000 men with nothing but a donkey's skull.

What are your thoughts on the direction some churches are heading in incorporating video games into their strategy? Also, would a church having video game tournaments, giveaway's etc. make you more likely to attend in some capacity?

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Last night was all about getting old friends back together.  I played for the first time in a long time with Blankman, PMS Legend, Jambi Bum and Sai Tyrus.  I had played with aamato and hoot recently, and they were both there.  And I'm not really sure if I've played with Razor Hanzo before.  He was there too.

I will say that even though I'm most definitely ready for Gears 2 to come out because the Gears maps and glitches are starting to feel stale to me.  Don't get me wrong, I still have a blast with the Gearheads, but I'm just not as crazy about it as I was.  You know one of the things I'm most excited about will be getting a team of Gearheads together in Gears 2 and heading out into XBL and beating opposing teams DOWN.  

But I digress.  Last night was, surprisingly, one of the first times I've ever been on aamato's team.  Usually he's killing me with the torque or his deadly shotgun and his bullet proof vest, so it was interesting seeing from his perspective for the first time.

I also had one of my best nights with the shotgun, in particular on War Machine, so I pulled a George Costanza and said, "Thank you, everyone, that's it for me, good night!"  I went out on a high note.  Especially after I pulled the worst Hillary Clinton Award EVER.  I threw a grenade towards the other team and it must've hit the ceiling and bounced back and killed every. single. person. on my team.  I've never seen that before when one grenade killed all three teammates.  That was a first.  All you can do is laugh at that point.  Surprisingly I still wound up with the most points on that map despite the huge subtraction for my "D'OH" moment.

The boom was mostly good to me last night too.  I had a couple of double kills.  Blankman at one point said that Jambi, aamato and I made a pact with the devil because we all wound up with six kills.  6-6-6, the number of the beast FTW.

Sorry about bailing early but I had a lot of work still on my plate for my day job.  Thankfully I'm finally done.  What do you remember from the evening?  

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Yes, Gearheads, it's already here.  The unofficial "end of summer" is coming.  There's this week and then next Friday is the Friday before Labor Day which probably means that tomorrow will probably be a good showing (hopefully) and then next week, maybe not.

I'm hoping to see some people on tomorrow night.  It's been too long since I was able to get in a room with some folks (I'm looking at you, Zoso, Blank and Suns).  I'll probably be on starting around 8:30 p.m. or so PST.  I'll set up a room and fire out some invites.

The good news about the summer ending is that it means that Gears 2 will be here in just a little over two months.  Wooooo hoooooo!  Sign up below and see you tomorrow night.

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Hey Gearheads, we had a bit of a sparse gathering last week, BUT we got a really nice full room for a little while.  I'm hoping to be on for a while tomorrow night but my nephew Ben has made his annual trip out to Southern California.  He might be playing in my place for a little while unless we can finally figure out how to do split screen.

Sign up below.  We're hoping to be on around 8:30 p.m. tomorrow night.  I'll set up a room and send out invites.  Hope to see you then!

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The release of a huge game that has a very long legacy is coming.  Not the 20 years of Madden, but yes, unless you have been living on Mars you know that Madden 09 is coming out this year.  I think it's the first Madden I might skip on in many years.  I find Madden just isn't my kind of game because I don't like to play defense or run the ball.  All I want to do is air it out.

Any way, sorry for digressing.  I wanted to ask the Gearheads whether they felt like all the controversy surrounding the Silicon Knights/Dennis Dyack project that's been in development for something like 10 years, Too Human, will wind up helping or hurting that game at the retail.  The game comes out August 19th.  I've played a little of the demo and while it seems pretty fun in short bursts, it doesn't seem like the kind of game that I would sink hours of my life into.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I will love the game if I wind up with my hands on a retail copy.

But I'm wondering whether you think that ultimately this game will be appealing to the hard core fans it's aimed at.  Let's face it, I don't see a bunch of casual fans snapping this up.  Which is ironic about Dyack's dust-ups with the Neo-Gaf community.  These are the folks who would be plunking down the money for his opus.  So he goes on there and incites a near meltdown by first challenging posters to publicly say that they are either for or against Too Human.  Then he brings it full circle by calling them out on 1up Yours.  Why alienate those who will likely be making the game a success (or failure)?

The controversies have kept the name of the game out there.  I don't think there's a hardcore gamer out there that doesn't know about Too Human and when it is hitting retail.  Course some will reject it because of Dyack's approach alone.  That can be enough of a turnoff for people.  But I'm wondering, do you think that everything surrounding Too Human will help move more copies of a game that might've flown quite low under most people's radars?  Or do you think it will hurt because Dyack hasn't exactly ingratiated himself to the gaming community?  I'm guessing it will sell more copies than it might've originally sold because of all the publicity surrounding it.  But that's just a stab in the dark.

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I had a lot of fun getting back into FFF last night.  I only played for about an hour and a half, but it was a blast.  I got to play with Gearhead Hoot for the first time and was the recipient of one of the funniest friendly kills ever.  It was on Fuel Depot and Hoot and I were the only ones left against I think three Locust.  I was coming around through the warehouse to Hoot's position and to also get more booms.  I was in a roadie run and came running up and was going by Hoot where he blasted my head off with the shottie, mid-roadie run.

Everyone was laughing at that one when I wound up on the lobby.  SweetTea and Robbins were the other ones on my team playing against Really Doe, Aamato, JohnEMidnight and Degrees of Freedom.  I thought we were going to get out collective asses handed to us because Really Doe and aamato tend to be invincible.  And we all know how sneaky JohnE is.  Even with Robbins and his rampant head shot ability.  Still we held our own most of the night, winning I think all but one of the matches.

It was weird playing Gears after not having played it for a long time (I played for a little while last week but before that it had been about three weeks).  The weirdest thing about it was that the boom shot was the most consistent it had been for me.  Possibly ever.  I can only remember two times when the gun didn't do what it was supposed to do which probably explains why I had one of my best evenings of FFF ever.

What did you remember from your evening of FFF?  Highlights?  Lowlights?  Shenanigans?

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What has everyone been playing this week?  You would think with Geometry Wars 2 just released and Halo 3 claiming the top spot on Live again after being out nearly a year now, I'd want to spend some time on my 360.  Not so.  Well, not as much anyway...

I've been playing what was my sisters Nintendo DS almost compulsively in my spare time as I fight through New Super Mario Bro's, Geometry Wars Galaxies and PokeMon Diamond. Yes, PokeMon Diamond.  Am I a loser for playing a portable system more than our beloved Xbox 360? Probably, but playing Nintendogs with my girlfriend rivals just about any gaming experience out there.

I know there was a semi-recent diary about this, but we'll rehash this anways~Fellow DS owners, what are the games I HAVE to get?  

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Man I can't believe that we're eight months into the year already.  That basically means we have literally three months until we're playing Gears of War 2 for FFF instead of the 2006 version.  Can you believe it's that close?  Well, so close and yet so far.

Any way, I'm hoping to be on earlier than last week.  I wound up on a business call last Friday until about 10 p.m. so that's why I wound up on so late.

I'm aiming to be on closer to 8:30 p.m. PST.  I'll set up a room for people to join if I get on early enough.  As always sign up below and I'm hoping to see a bunch of you tomorrow night.  By the way, I usually accept the first invite I get as my rule of thumb if I'm not setting up my own room.  That's why I wound up in Poland's room last week.  It's a matter of whatever invite gets to me first.  I'm not trying to shun anyone.

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