Okay, November has been a very bleak month as far as site updates go, but I promise it is not because we are slacking off. We are approaching the end of the fall semester for school, and that means getting ready for finals. On top of that, there are a lot of big school projects we are wrapping up which currently have the heaviest pull on our attention. These reasons alone would be sufficient for explaining why we haven’t made very many posts within the past couple of weeks, but neither are the best reason.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King came out on November 17th. In fear of playing it and diverting my focus away from being responsible, I haven’t been bringing my laptop to work. Sure, I could make updates from home, but I don’t think too much about blogging or adding new content unless I’m taking a break at work. So, as you may have guessed, the reason this update is being made is this is the first day in some time I’ve had my laptop at work with me. On that note, I’m off to level my Warrior.

- Joshua

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I was never a big fan of Gears of War for the Xbox360. I thought the single player was somewhat lackluster and the on-line multiplayer was too frantic. I’m not sure why, then, I picked up Gears of War 2 (the limited edition, no less) on day one. I guess after watching most of the promo videos, the developers convinced me the changes being made would be enough to make me want to play it. Thankfully, they weren’t just spewing garbage and they’ve really delivered on their promises.

I really like the single player element this time around. Everything from the environments to the battle sequences feels like they’ve had a makeover and it makes the entire experience so much more enjoyable. In multiplayer, the maps are bigger and it feels like there is more strategy involved instead of the rush and shotgun, rush and shotgun, rush and shotgun “tactic” of the first game. Even the graphics and the sound have been touched up enough so it looks very new and fresh.

Overall, I’m glad I made the purchase. The matchmaking process in multiplayer is currently in a pretty crummy state (it can take upwards of 5 minutes to connect to most matches), but I’m confident Microsoft and Epic will have the bugs ironed out soon. If you are still on the fence about this one, let this serve as one more vote in favor of picking it up.

- Joshua

Filed under gears war xbox 360

In this blog post I mentioned 3 video games I planned on picking up before the end of the year, two of which being must-buys. Well, I picked up Fallout 3 on launch day and I plan to pick up Gears of War 2 tomorrow morning. I’ve scratched Prince of Persia off the list, though. I still think it looks like a game worth playing, but the amount of time I’m currently spending on Fallout 3 coupled with how much time I’m sure I’ll be sinking into Gears of War multiplayer just doesn’t leave room for much of anything else. If anything else happens to be Mirror’s Edge, however, I’ll be making some room.

Mirror’s Edge is a first person platformer that focuses heavily on parkour, a type of freestyle running sport. Ever since I saw initial gameplay videos, it has been on my radar, though barely registering a blip. With the recent release of the demo on Xbox Live and this very awesome trailer, I’ve decided to make it a day one purchase. There is something about the gameplay that is reminiscent of both Crackdown and Skate, two games I enjoyed immensely. Time will tell if it lives up to my expectations.

- Joshua

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