I put this post up before E3 asking what titles you looked forward to the most.

My top five were (Gears 2 was my top game, no doubt and it didn't disappoint):

1.  Killzone 2
   
2.  Alan Wake
   
3.  Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway
   
4.  Far Cry 2
   
5.  Prince of Persia

And here is my new one with the reasons why:

1.  Far Cry 2:  No game looks prettier to me than this one.  And the shooting mechanic looks fantastic.  The setting and trailer that had deceiving your enemies was one of the best I saw.  Also, the live demo looked really cool.

2.  Fallout 3:  God help me, this game looks fantastic.  It looks deep.  The art style is cool and the shooting mechanic looks better than I thought.  Todd Howard didn't seem to have a great demo at first at the Microsoft press conference but the G4 demo was awesome.  Very bloody and using teddy bears as weaponry?  Count me in.  It doesn't seem like a typical RPG.   I hope I'm not disappointed from the shooting mechanics like Mass Effect.

3.  Resident Evil 5:  I liked Resident Evil 4, but I'm not quite the fanboy that many others, including my brother, happened to be.  But the co-op situations looked incredible and damn if Sheva (sp?) isn't the hottest virtual lady to grace video games I've seen.

4. Killzone 2:  They didn't show much because they don't want to upstage Resistance 2. Good thing because Resistance 2 just isn't all that interesting to me and this game is.

5.  Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway:  Yep, this one is still way up there, just barely edging out Prince of Persia for top five.

Let's have yours.

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Hey Gearheads, today is my lovely wife's birthday.  We'll be celebrating on Saturday night.

Happy Birthday, Honey!  Thanks for putting up with all my "special" quirks for 11 plus years.

Any way, go ahead and sign up below for the evening of fragging below.  I'm not sure when I'll be on yet.  Probably around 9 p.m. or so.  I'm hoping to one day soon play a game with Zoso again.

Oh and one final note, for those of you who've been watching G4's coverage of E3 this week, I just want to give my brother major props for being one of the only people who did a hands-on demo of the Gears SP campaign with Adam Sessler WHILE talking about the game.  In other words, he was playing the game while selling it.  Most of the other gaming folks brought up a flunky to play the game while they talked about it.  Props, Cliff, for showing your passion for the game you're creating by actually playing it while selling it.  And BOOOOOOO to the rest of you who didn't.  I think Todd Howard of Bethesda was one of the only other ones who did that with Fallout 3.  Also, Fallout 3 made a much better impression on me on the G4 demo than it did during the MS press conference.  I now think it might very well be my great white hope of RPGs once again.

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So maybe we should bust out of a prison tomorrow night and kill some Locust in order to properly celebrate Bastille Day, which happens to be Monday, July 14th.  Hey, that's the same day E3 opens.  Next week is always awesome in terms of gaming news.  I'm looking forward to all the new videos and footage.  Especially of Gears 2.

Regardless, I'm putting the FFF thread up early this week because I have a pretty busy day ahead of me.  I'm not sure if I can be there tomorrow night or not.  I think I mentioned that I'm going to be traveling a bunch this month and this weekend is one of those weekends.  I'm going to Oakland to cheer for my Oakland Athletics against the hated Anaheim Angels.

So you guys will probably need a host this week without me.  I'm sure you'll have plenty of volunteers to take over hosting duties.  Have fun, Gearheads and I'm hoping to see you next week instead, only I'm also traveling to Austin, Texas that weekend.  I'm just not sure if I can play or not since I'm not sure the timeframe.  Regardless, sign up below and have a blast.

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So I didn't get on until late last night because I assumed that no one would be on.  Most folks had said that they were either working or traveling with loved ones.  I finally decided to jump on around 10:30 when I looked at Gearheads and saw that GearsChrisB was waiting for me to host a room.  D'oh!  My bad, people.

I set it up and we had just a few folks join us in the beginning.  Blank, GearsChrisB, Abe, Suns' two boys (it was a lot of fun playing with them since I hadn't done that in a while) and Machete.  It wasn't long before we were joined by Degrees of Freedom, Jambi, ESuns, gackywacky and PureRageMonger.

We had plenty of boom rocket's red glare and nades bursting in air, giving proof that the Gearheads were still there.

I actually used the Torque Bow more often than boom last night for possibly the first time ever.  And I was pretty successful with it.  My biggest highlight was probably my last game of the night when I was the last one left against both PureRage and gacky.  I torqued PureRage when they were trying to flank me.  I don't think he knew it was coming.  I then worked my way around the sniper bridge to come around and get behind gacky before he knew I was there.  I knew I didn't stand a chance if gacky could see me coming.  I got behind him and blew him apart with the shotgun.  He saw me at the last second and nearly took me out.  That actually helped cap an improbable win for myself, Blank, Suns and GearsChrisB against PureRage, gacky, Jambi and Degrees on Canals.  When we started the match, none of us thought we had a chance.  And I had the extra complication of not being able to talk any more because my wife was angry that I was keeping her up with my talking.  So I basically had to mute myself for the last half an hour.  I apologize to my teammates for that.

Also I probably had the dumb moment of the night, even if it wasn't my fault.  It was on Process and I was shotgunning a guy in front of me over by where the Torque was.  Machete was behind me on my team and suddenly he blew up and it said that I killed him with my shotgun even though he never showed up on my screen.  On my screen he was still behind me.  All I could do was apologize.  Shenanigans.

But Machete made it through.  It is the Home of the Brave.

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I'm not sure how many folks will actually be around this Friday night since I'm sure many of you will be taking family trips and taking advantage of a three-day weekend.  But I will be around for sure.

We're staying in town and won't be going anywhere.  So if you are sticking around, sign up below and we'll have a typically frag-a-licious Friday evening.  Of course Gears will be the game of choice.  I don't anticipate that changing any time soon.

I'll be on starting around 8:30 p.m. PST to host a room.  See you guys then!

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I've already asked everyone what their favorite games of the NOW generation is.

But E3 is right around the corner and I'm really excited to see a bunch of games.  Obviously game number one for me is Gears of War 2.  So that goes without saying.  I think most everyone here is probably more excited about that title than anything else.

I'm wondering what are the five other titles you're most looking forward to seeing during the upcoming E3 extravaganza?  What games are you the most interested to hear and see more about?  Yes, Gears 2 is the top of the list, but what else?

Here is my list:

1.  Killzone 2:  I'm not a fanboy or anything, but everything I've seen and read about Killzone 2 has been fantastic for a while.  I've heard a lot of Sony fanboys claim being more excited about Resistance 2 but the first game was such a letdown for me that I'm just not that excited for it.

2.  Alan Wake:  This is more wishful thinking than anything else.  The scarce information I've seen about it has been stellar and that physics demo they had a few years ago was brilliant.

3.  Brothers in Arms:  Hell's Highway:  This is my sleeper pick for game of the year.  It'll be an up(Road to)hill battle for BiA in a year of stellar Triple A releases, but the early BiA games were brilliant on tech that could do a lot less.  I'm looking forward to what Randy Pitchford and company come up with here.

4.  Far Cry 2:  This game has me so very excited.  It really seems like there is so much detail in the world and that there are infinite ways to take out your enemies. The demos just from the engine are awesome.  I hope they really successfully do something with all that power.

5.  Prince of Persia:  The PoP: Sands of Time game was one of my favorites of last gen.  I played through it a couple of times and just loved it.  I'm hoping to see a lot more about this game.

Now, what is your list?

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My brother took a lot of crap recently for making a comment about Metal Gear Solid 4 being passive entertainment.  I think a lot of people misunderstood what my brother was trying to say when he said that passive entertainment was on its way out.

Now I don't want to speak for him, but to me what he was getting at was the fact that even the most passive forms of entertainment like television and movies where you sit back and just let the story unfold in front of you are becoming more interactive.  The shows that are the most popular are the ones in which you have some kind of interactive component to them.  For example, American Idol and Dancing with the Stars are shows in which America has a direct say in who stays and who goes.  It's not just about sitting back and watching.  Lost is a remarkable phenomenon because people gather online and discuss the theories about what is really happening on the show.  Even watching sports isn't a passive experience anymore as people are gathering in communities like my day job SB Nation's family of blogs to discuss their favorite team's fortunes while they're playing.

So I think Cliff was making a reference to how Web 2.0 and all the other things happening with media now.  The interactivity of Facebook, MySpace.  It's all about our own little corner of interactivity with friends, family and even meeting new people.  XBox Live is another example of this.  Friends Lists.  Home.  XMB's to see what the other people in your life are doing.  

In other words, it's not often about sitting back and turning one of the most interactive medias (video games) into a passive one by making you sit and watch cut scene after cut scene.  Like I said, I'm not speaking for his intentions, but that's what I read into what he was getting at.  That MGS4 was more of a step back towards passive media when most other games are moving towards being much more active, incorporating even quick-time events during what have been passive cut scenes in the past.

I definitely think media has moved more towards interactive rather than the passive.  Blogs, social media sites, even TV shows have moved more towards making everything much more interactive.  Gears is very much all about you being very active in the world and if you aren't, your AI teammates aren't going to get things done.

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So after watching someone chainsaw another player in the middle of a chainsaw duel with another player in the Gears 2 multiplayer videos yesterday (and clearly hearing my brother say, "Wow, I'd NEVER seen that before), I think everyone here is giddy with anticipation over Gears 2.  Is it really about four and a half months away?  <sighs>

Any way, I'm assuming most want to play Gears tomorrow night which is cool with me.  I'll be on starting about 8:30 p.m. PST.  Hopefully everyone will be in a better mood tomorrow night than they were last week.  We had one angry team.  Heh.

I'll do some kegel exercises, yoga, meditation and channeled ESuns to try and manage my anger.  I'm hoping to bring my zen place to FFF ;-)

Sign up below and I'll catch you guys tomorrow.

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Man, I am so amped for FFF this week.  I've been really stressed and busy with work and I'm just looking forward to relaxing with a Fat Tire or two and playing some Gears.

So I don't really have much else to offer other than asking you to sign up below.  I'll be on starting around 8:30 p.m. or so PST.

Can't wait to hang out with my fellow Gearheads and relax a bit.  I'm needing it.

[editor's note, by Blankman] Don't forget that 3Suns & I will be handing out the weekly No-Prize awards on the FFF recap!

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So you have to know that with tomorrow being Friday the 13th that shenaniganary will be in full effect tomorrow night, right?  Start finding your zen place now!

We've had quite a few folks playing the last few weeks.  Enough to almost fill up three whole rooms.  It's been so full that I haven't shared a room with Blankman in probably close to a month now.  I miss you, Blank!

Any way, I'll probably be on around 8:30 p.m. PST or so tomorrow.  Sign up below if you're up for it.  I'll just open up a room as soon as I get on as I have the last couple of weeks.  We seem to have a bunch of guys who are on early and then those who sign on later.  So hopefully we can fill up three rooms in all tomorrow evening.  Maybe we could even get the infamous SweetTea, our fabulous podcast host, to join the fray since he isn't on vacation any more.

Catch up with you tomorrow, boys.

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This Fall, a war is coming to your living room.  No, not the Obama/McCain clash for the Oval Office.  I'm talking about Gears 2 versus Resistance 2.  There's already seemingly some sentiment on a few message boards that people are pulling for Resistance because it's the underdog having sold quite a bit fewer copies than the monstrosity known as Gears.

 VS.  

They were both released right around the same time in 2006 and both received stellar critical reviews.  Gears is at 94 percent on gamerankings.com.  Resistance wound up lower at 87 percent on gamerankings.com.  But Resistance was a launch title.  My personal feeling is that Resistance 1 was nothing special.  I haven't completely beaten the game yet and plan to before Resistance 2 is released, but my personal feeling on what I've played of it is that Resistance was an average shooter.  It had some cool weapons but the laser tag feeling that I occasionally got with Halo (I'm definitely an assault rifle kind of guy when it comes to Halo).  That's also not that much remarkable about the game.  I won't completely slam it especially since I haven't finished it, but it says enough about it that I never finished it in the first place.  Gears sucked me in and wouldn't let me go until I finished it.  It never got old or tedious.

But recently on a podcast for Insomniac Games, they made some references to their co-op system in Resistance 2 and how games who have players have the exact same abilities working together and then splitting off to different paths aren't true cooperative experiences.  I don't want to put words in their mouths, but that seemed like a shot at Gears to me.  Now that may or may not have been the case, but Insomniac also made a comment about doing random eggings of my bro on their last podcast as well when talking about opening up a Raleigh office of Insomniac.  The rivalry is alive and well.  And truthfully, I look forward to playing Resistance 2.  I just don't think it will hold a candle to Gears 2 and it doesn't have anything to do with back-of-the-box features.  To me, it has more to do with the gameplay.  Gears, at least to me, was something new, refreshing and innovative.  There really hadn't been a game like it before in the sense of cover being so prevalent as well as the brutality of the game.

Any way, I'm assuming the PS3 will have quite the momentum going into the end of the year.  By then, MGS4 will have given it an undoubted bump as well as the Blu Ray victory.  So I anticipate PS3 gaining some ground on the 360.

It should be a fascinating Fall.

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Yes, this was closing quote that I left the room with when we ended our room last night.  I think we wound up with three full rooms during FFF, which is quite impressive.

When I got on at about 8:50 p.m., the other two rooms were full so I just decided to open a room and invite a few folks and then just wait.  Well my patience was rewarded when we got sai tyrus and GearsChrisB joined up.  We at first did a two on one dynamic and I practiced with the torque bow which has become my second favorite power weapon in the game.  We were soon joined by Degrees of Freedom, Kenai, Robbins, Grymm and Abe.

And then we had a full room the rest of the night until I signed off.  It's funny too because I said around 9:30 p.m. that I was getting so frustrated with the game that I was going to only play one more game.  Usually that doesn't happen to me until later in the night, but Gears lived up to the shenanigans tag last night.  They were EVERYWHERE.

Flash forward to 11:50 p.m. and I was just about to sign off.  So much for that.  But it was a blast.  One of my favorite moments of the night was when sai put ABE down by the nades on Mansion.  And then he proceeded to shoot ABE in the head while he was downed at least three times.  I, assuming ABE was dead came over to pick up the boom shot he was carrying, but alas, ABE wasn't dead.  He stood up just as I got there and blew me to bits with the shotty.  Massive shenanigans.  But I was actually laughing after that one.

My favorite kill of the night was a one-on-one match with Robbins on Mausoleum where we were facing off between all the stone columns in one of the hallways.  I thought for sure that I was going to get my head popped off as I usually do when facing off with Robbins.  But I timed it perfectly and got Robbins as he was just standing up to denogginize me.

Grymm probably had the sickest kill on me as I was running away from him and he popped my head off a la Really Doe on Fuel Depot that time.

I will say that I've gotten better at the torque bow, so I'm not just that one trick pony any more.  At the same time if Zoso is on my team, that weapon is his baby.  And he knows how to 187 with that bitch.

So what happened in the other rooms?  I know there has to be plenty of stories from that.

By the way, please do NOT forget to download our interview with Dan Hsu. It's got a ton of great Gears 2 info in it.

Blankman's FFF room recap

I posted our room's recap in your original diary post since it was such a long write-up.  I hope that you don't mind, Papi.

The night started out kind of slow.  This FFF didn’t see anywhere near the amount of Gearheads that we had last week. Several of the usual suspects were scattered around in other rooms.  Some rooms had four players while others had five or six.  Many of the guys that hung around until 2:30 A.M (PST) last week signed off earlier than usual.  The room that I hosted on at 7:00 (PST) saw Zoso, amato, rEDChief, Grymm, Tyrus, Seriously Doe, Really Doe, Razor Hanzo, and 3Suns.  Obijuan joined us for an hour while Boxin literally hoped in for two minutes and hopped out. LOL  No problem Boxin, get your groove on.  We’ll hopefully catch you later on during this weekend when you’re sober.  JohnE, Slim, and GearsChris B joined us later on during the later hours of the night.

Some of the highlights of the night were from the Doe boys who had high kill counts as usual.  Seriously Doe went 15 kills with 5 downs on War Machine and Really Doe had 15 kills on Canals; all off-host if that adds insult to injury.  Just sick!  The shottie always seems to work when there’s a “Doe” in your gamertag.  I yelled for JohnE to turn the tide of the battle by grabbing the Torque Bow.  As I made sure that we weren’t being flanked, JohnE managed to Torque the four COGs for a Locust win.  Sweet sticks, but that only worked for one round.  Really Doe made sure that JohnE wasn’t going to have a repeat performance by doing his usual roadie run shottie on two of us to seal the victory at 5 to 4, in favor of the COG.  The majority of the matches were very well balanced.  We were trading wins and losses at 5 to 4 on over a half dozen maps.  Grymm had a sweet headshot on me through the white pickup truck’s window on Gridlock.  He also saved Tyrus’ ass from being handed to him on Bullet Marsh.  Tyrus was just about to finish sawing Razor Hanzo when I was running toward him with the shottie waiting for the animation to end.  Just as the animation ended, Grymm split my head open like a ripe watermelon.  There was one point on Mausoleum where he was on the center altar portion, reloaded his Longshot, and hipshot someone in the head. Ridiculous stuff.  You could actually hear the air being sucked out of the room as multiple gasps escaped from the spectators in the lobby. ;)  Tyrus was ridiculous with the saw as usual and when GearsChrisB got into the room, it seemed like the two of them were trying to square off.  They were trading saws left and right on Garden.  It really is amazing and frustrating at the same time when you play with or against Tyrus.  The guy is really good with the Lancer; I’ll give him that.  Frustrating when you’re on the receiving end, and tough to watch when you’re his teammate.  He’ll have the Lancer out and eventually switch out to the shottie when things start to get really thick.  Mad props to you, Tyrus!

There were two highlights for me during the night.  The first was on Fuel Depot.  I was the last guy on our team and Razor & Really Doe were in hot pursuit.  As they closed the distance as we entered the warehouse, I immediately turned around and aimed for their heads which were still down since they were roadie running.  They must have been right next to each other because I handed them two simultaneous headshots with one aimed shottie blast to seal the win.  Yeah, I know that I was hosting, but that was just badass!  LOL  Really Doe was laughing because he had never seen that before.  Another personal highlight took place on Subway.  I had decided to pick up the Torque Bow more frequently during this week’s FFF to start to learn how to use it.  I had some decent success by sticking/killing about a dozen guys with them.  Well, Obi and I were left downstairs against the Doe Boys.  They were charging me hard as I charged up my Torque.  I knew that I was toast so I stuck it into the ground right in front of me hoping to take away enough of their health for Obi to mop them up.  As I wound up being roadie run shottied, the Torque exploded & damaged them enough for Obi to finish the both of them off.  That led me to start spouting my usual antics by celebrating with “Wooohhh!”  I guess that it was premature because on the next round, all three of them came upstairs and demolished us to win 5 to 3.  Oh well, eventhough it was short-lived, we had a blast on that map.

It was really great to have so much coordinated communication on our teams.  JohnE, Suns, and me were calling out our opponents' locations and kept each teammate informed of what we were doing and when.  That led to a lot of success.  Razor was on our team, but he was pretty much silent due to exhaustion from the work week.  There was one particular example of teamwork that really stood out for me.  Suns and I were the only ones left on Mausoleum.  I had run out of Torque Bows and we were facing a Longshot from Seriously Doe.  I had Suns pick up the Boomshot & as I drew the sniper’s fire bouncing from pillar to pillar, it gave Suns enough time to send a rocket grenade to blow Seriously into smithereens.  Great shot Suns & excellent communication!

Anyways, that’s what happened in our FFF room, I would love to hear about the recap from the other rooms.  Apologies to Papi and the others who sent invites to me & the guys in the room that I was hosting.  Hopefully, we will be able to grab a few games on Saturday & Sunday. :)

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