As I write this, I am in my last month of my college career. I have so much to do between now and graduation; to me it seems like college doesn't want to let me go. I want to assure you, I am ready to get the hell out of here haha. My plans after graduation are to move back home to my Mom's house and live there for the time being. I found out last month that I got a job with the Washington Capitals as an Inside Sales Rep, I start May 15th. Welcome to the real world! I'm not sure yet how much I'm going to like it, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be unreal. Okay, I'll be honest... I'm stoked!

My gaming has kinda taken a hit since all of this craziness began. I decided against getting Rock Band, just too much money and not enough time to play it. Yesterday, I decided to splurge and bought Condemned 2; yes I was one of the very few who actually bought and played the first when it originally came out. So far I like it. I also went ahead and reserved a copy of GTA IV. It's been awhile since I actually played a Grand Theft Auto game so I figured what the hell. There isn't much coming out this Summer I'm interested in (with the exception of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith) so GTA it is.

That's all for now! Hope everyone is doing well and, of course, enjoying their beloved 360s!

I finally went and got Rock Band last week. I decided to pick up a used copy of the game to save myself some cash. A funny thing happened while I was jamming out the day I bought it... I broke my whammy bar. So I decided to return the game and just buy the whole thing. This way I get a new guitar and my roommates and I can jam out together (I heard drunk Rock Band is a blast). Anyway, I have to wait 'til after Spring Break to get the set because I don't have the money at the moment. I'd say about 95% of my gaming these days goes towards these rhythm games, I just can't get enough!

As the title says, there isn't a whole lot to report in my gaming life these days. My buddy and I (the losers that we are) put in Guitar Hero II a couple weekends ago and scored over 1,000,000. Then we proceeded to five star every song on Hard on co-op mode in Guitar Hero III and get the 2,000 note streak as well. It's also important to note that we did all of this twice so both of us could have the achievements. Yes... we take pride in our GH skills, and yes... we know we are losers as well haha.

I actually just took a job at Texas Roadhouse near my school to make some extra cash before I graduate in May. I'm hoping to take some of that and put it towards some new games!!! I've been thinking about two in particular: Rock Band and Condemned 2. When I say Rock Band I'm just talking the actual game. I've played with the entire set and to be honest, I just don't like it. I'd take the GH guitar over the Rock Band guitar any day and I don't particularly care for the drums either. My main reason for wanting it is just to play all the awesome songs that are in the game. As for Condemned 2, I really enjoyed the original and I hear this one is going to be even better. Other than those two games the gaming future looks pretty bleak to me. Obviously this Summer things will pick things up but I just need something to tied me over until then.

Happy gaming everyone!

This past Saturday I lost my Dad. He wasn't well by any means of the word but his passing was still quite a shock to me. Part of me is relieved that he is finally at peace but the other still wishes he were here with me. The time I spent with him two weeks ago I will cherish for the rest of my life. Sitting in the box at Mile High Stadium with our heads out the window heckling the Vikings fans below us is a memory I will never forget. Not to mention the time he spent with me and my younger brothers trying his hardest to sing the songs of Rock Band (yes my Dad was a gamer too ). I am going to miss him terribly but I know I now have one hell of a guardian angel looking over me. I love you Dad and I promise to make you proud of me.

Merry Christmas everyone! This year came and went quickly didn't it? Feels like just yesterday I was entering college and now I'm a semester away from being out... scary. Santa was good to me this year but amazingly I didn't get any video games. Okay, honestly I didn't ask for any seeing as how my little bro got about 5 new games one of which, Call of Duty 4, I am in love with. Anyway enough with this... here's what I got:

- RIDE bindings for my new snowboard!
- Contact Harvest (the fourth Halo novel)
- Protect and Defend (Vince Flynn's latest novel)

DVDs:
- The Bourne Ultimatum
- Ratatouille
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Live Free or Die Hard
- Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End

I made out pretty well this year. Like I said, Santa treats me well (or my Mom just loves me a lot haha). So despite the tight budget, here's what I got the family:

Dad - Microsoft optic mouse for the downstairs computer
Sister - Therapeutic Socks (I know this sounds crappy but we agreed not to get each other gifts. I decided to cheat and get her a little something.)
Little Bro - Play and charge kit for his 360 controller. (Mom loves this b/c she doesn't have to keep replenishing his battery supply now.)
Mom - A towel rack for the basement. If only you could've seen the mess in the back room. The biggest pile of towels you've ever seen and with no particular rhyme or reason. Part of this gift was cleaning all of this up and making it actually look nice. I also got her a jar to hold all of the spatulas we have in the house because the drawer she kept them in was overflowing with other things as well.

So Thursday I'm headed down to Williamsburg for my buddy's wedding. He and I were freshman year roommates at Radford and now I'm one of his groomsmen. The wedding is at a winery so I am pretty sure there will be plenty of interesting stories to tell when I return.

On another note. This Saturday when I return, I am catching a flight out to Denver to stay with my Dad and the family out there for New Years. I am pretty excited for a couple reasons, not the least of which is I am going to the Broncos final game of the season. Whether they win or lose is of no concern to me, I just love going to Mile High!

That's it for now. Most likely the next time I post on here I will be back at JMU for the final semester of my collegiate career. Take care everyone and Happy New Year!!!

Well, being an Xbox Live subscriber since day one has finally paid off! I received my 500 free ms points via e-mail the other day and a cool gamer picture to go along with it. I gotta say it feels like its been way more than just five years but I guess when you play video games as much as I do time seems to fly. Here's looking forward to another great five years!

It took me a roughly three days, but I finally beat BioShock. I now know why all of these video game tv shows are giving BioShock Game of the Year. I got so immersed into the world of Rapture, I couldn't put it down. And while it only took me three days, it was at least a solid 8 hours of gameplay (I pretty much started from the beginning).

Kudos to 2K for making such a great video game and while I'm a little ashamed to have waited so long to get into it... later is better than never. While I still feel Halo 3 has a slight upper-hand thanks to the multiplayer, I am now okay with BioShock winning GOTY. It truly is a great game.

Back in August I bought BioShock. Back in August I stopped playing BioShock.

It is because of this, that my only goal over this Christmas break is to beat BioShock. That doesn't mean no Guitar Hero, Call of Duty or Halo... it just means I gotta find out what all the fuss was about over this game. Not only that, I need something different right now and I think BioShock is just what the game doctor ordered.

BTW. The new Halo maps are pretty sweet and I absolutely love the one built for The Forge.

It didn't take me long. I beat Guitar Hero III on Expert! Now while I don't consider myself an elite Guitar Hero, I can definitely hold my own. My next goal is to somehow get past the opening to Through the Fire and Flames on Expert and beat that. I'm pretty confident once I master the opening the rest is cake... I've been practicing.

A strange thing happened this week. I went back to Gears of War. Some of you might ask, "But why on Earth would you do that DnvrBrncs?!?" Well, I'll tell you. Two reasons really: 1) My buddy wants his 10,000 kills so I've been helping him with that... 2) I actually wanted to take a break from Halo 3. What what what?!?! Yeah... I can't really explain it myself. I think the only way I can rationalize my return to Gears is that it is less stressful than Halo 3. For some reason Halo 3 pisses me off some times. Rest assured though... I went back to Halo 3 last night and enjoyed it.

Wow... forgot about this you could say. To keep this post from being pages and pages I'm only going to discuss two games, Halo 3 and Guitar Hero III, that I've been playing countless hours these days.

First Halo 3. Could this be a more complete game? I know... the campaign wasn't the glorious final battle everyone envisioned but it wrapped up the story for the most part, which in my book was good enough. The multiplayer is amazing to say the least and it isn't even the gameplay that has me in awe. The ability to take pictures (and save them on your computer no less) and create movies, not to mention the downloadable map variants and gametypes from Bungie is what has me so wrapped up in this game. Endless hours of Halo 3 will ensue for a long time to come my friends!

Guitar Hero III. I love the track list this time around. The game seems easier with hammer-ons and pull-offs, but harder in terms of song difficulty. I am currently stuck on the 8th tier of songs on Expert... ouch is all I can say. One final comment on this game. Could the achievements be any harder to get??? Good Lord I say!

I'll be back soon... promise.

What a trip! I could write pages on what I did and saw in Boston, unfortunately I don't feel up to it. I will cover a few of the highlights though: visited the original Cheers bar, went to a Red Sox game, saw Gillette Stadium and went to one heck of a wedding. I made good use of the new camera, taking over 450 pictures. Boston was awesome!

In gaming news, I finally got the Seriously achievement! I believe I was around 10,400 kills when it finally gave me credit for it. Hope those of you working towards it don't have the same issues I did.

Finally, I am tied up in reading the final Harry Potter book. I just got it in the mail today and I've already read 100 pages. I plan on being done with it tomorrow evening. I fear the longer I wait to finish it, the more likely one of my friends will ruin the ending for me. So far so good though, a great read as usual.

That's it for now. Until the next blog!

Tomorrow afternoon I'm making my way from Denver to Boston for my cousin's wedding. Essentially it's gonna be one huge drunkfest with my two cousins and all of their friends. We're staying at a hotel/casino Saturday night for the bachelor party and I cannot wait! Also, at some point before the wedding we are going to a Red Sox game which will be my first time in Fenway. Needless to say, there will be plenty of pictures taken (I even bought a new camera for this trip! ). I'm gonna be out there for ten days and my family from home will be there for about five. I'm pretty excited for that too since it's been about a month and a half since I last saw them. It's going to be a great trip and I can't wait!

In other news, I have surpassed the 10,000 kill mark in Gears of War but unfortunately have not gotten the achievement. Why why why did it have to happen to me?!? The only thing I can do now is continue playing until I get it. After scouring the internet for threads on this issue, I found out others with the same problem have gotten it anywhere from a couple 100 more kills to even 10,000 more kills. God help me if I am one of the latter cases.  I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and keep on killing!

Yesterday I decided I was sick of waiting for a new game to play this Summer, so I decided to pick up The Darkness. After putting off all day to play it, I finally decided to pop it in at midnight. I put in a good two hours with the single player game and it reminded me a lot of Condemned (which is a good thing). The game itself is quite enjoyable and there are some pretty cool animations involved with the gameplay. So far, one of my favorite things is the soundtrack. When you hear that music start playing, you know it's time to unleash hell on some helpless bad guys. As far as the multiplayer goes, it seems to be your generic capture the flag/team slayer deal. My only complaint about the online aspect, is its pretty laggy at this point. I don't think Starbreeze counted on so many people actually taking this game online, so with an update or two I imagine the problem will be fixed.

Aside from The Darkness, I've been playing the hell out of Gears of War. My goal has been to put in 200 kills a night. At this point, I'm less than 500 kills away from 10,000. I've been told that for those of us that have been playing it since November, you typically get the Seriously... achievement before 10,000. Unfortunately, one of my good buddies got it after 10,000 and he and I both bought the game at the same time. So really I don't know when I'm expecting to get it, but after every match I am eagerly awaiting to hear that glorious achievement note.

My Rainbow Six campaign is done! Regrettably, I didn't do it on Realistic difficulty... maybe some day. I was kinda ticked off that the game was, "To be continued." It reminded me of the Halo 2 ending, but with fewer emotions involved haha. Will I get the next game? I don't think so... it was fun, but the Tom Clancy games are beginning to take their toll on me (with the exception of the Splinter Cell series). Anyway, I will most likely make a run at some online play in the near future and also do the Terrorist Hunt missions to get some more achievements.

Gears... well, I broke my promise to myself and went back to it. It's hard with nearly all my friends on there not to play. I'm almost at 9,000 kills. Once I get to that, I will probably take a few days just to play and get the Seriously... achievement.

Aegis Wings. Talk about a badass arcade game (and free to boot!). I downloaded this about a month ago and just got around to playing it the other day. It is a ton of fun! Kudos to the intern team that came up with it and Microsoft for making it free.

P.S. - I quit my job! So more gaming baby!!!

I finally started playing Rainbow Six Vegas and I've pretty much given up on Gears. GoW has become such a chore that I don't want anything to do with it for at least a month. I should still be able to get all the achievements (the new ones included) before Halo 3 comes out late September. Anyway, Rainbow Six is one of the hardest games I have played in a while and this is talking Normal difficulty too! I started off playing Realistic and there is just no way... I would end up throwing my controller through the TV or something. Anyway, the game is pretty entertaining to play and the graphics are just amazing. I think I'm a little over half way through the campaign and should have it done in the next week or so. After that I will most likely get going on the GRAW 2 campaign and maybe... just maybe some more Gears.

So this past Wednesday I started working at my Uncle's liquor store. Unfortunately, that's all I've been doing since I started there. No video games, no working on the website... no nothing. While I am making good money, it still sucks. So after today my schedule is hopefully going to be cut down to 3 or 4 days a week max. This will allow me time for everything I've been neglecting. As much as I like money... I like my Xbox 360 even more haha.

Well I finally did it. This morning I sat down and decided I wasn't going to get up until I had beaten Guitar Hero on the Expert Tour. While I only had Hangar 18 and Free Bird to contend with, they were definitely two of the hardest songs I have played on expert difficulty. It only took about an hour or so and I had my achievement unlocked.

So where do I go from here? Well I still want to beat every song on the Hard Tour with five stars. Will it happen? I highly doubt it, but for now I am going to give the game a rest anyway. I need to get back to my hunt for 10,000 in Gears of War and I have a few games I have been meaning to play (Lost Planet, GRAW 2 and Rainbow Six). Count me happy though... that is definitely a proud achievement of mine!

Since getting out to Wyoming I've been pretty busy. Between our Magic the Gathering website and getting adjusted I haven't had much time for gaming. My younger brother has fallen in love with Guitar Hero... go figure. As for me, I've been on and off Gears the past few days (7,469/10,000). In regards to Guitar Hero, I finally beat Psychobilly Freakout on Expert and finished two other songs on the 8th and final block of songs... I'm getting close! Hopefully next week I'll find more time for some gaming.

So tomorrow at approximately 6 a.m. I'm hopping on a plane and headed out West for the Summer. I'll be staying with my Dad and the family out there. Why you ask? Basically to get away from it all for three months. Also, I'm thinking about moving out that way after college so spending three months there will definitely give me a good idea about what I want to do. Rest assured... I will have Xbox Live out there and apparently the connection is better than ever. So there will be plenty of gaming taking place for me this Summer and probably moreso considering where I will be.

So the chaos has begun...

While chilling in the hotel at the beach, I caught a real quick glimpse of the Halo 3 beta in action on MTV. Being the nerd that I am, chills ran down me... not to mention a strong feeling of jealousy towards all those lucky gamers tearing it up in Master Chief's new universe.

Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got home today was surf the web for some info on the beta. From what I have seen and heard, this game is going to be the shit. Despite all of this, I simply cannot bring myself to pay for Crackdown just to play the beta. As a die-hard fan, I woke myself up in the middle of the night to register for the beta through the Halo 3 website (back a few months ago). Unfortunately, I was not one of the lucky ones chosen... So, I will wait. September 25th is not that far off as it is and I have a few games to keep me busy for the time being. To all of you on the beta, know that I am jealous. Every time I check my friends list and see you on there, a pang of jealousy sweeps through me. Enjoy yourselves and I can't wait to give you a beating come September.



BTW. This is from the Old Spice Challenge. I just got my free Fuzion Frenzy 2 and Old Spice t-shirt in the mail the other day. Just thought I'd throw this up there too!