I've been pretty inactive on Gamespot for the last few years due to life changes and what not. I don't expect to be active 100% of the time either, but I figure, while I'm here, I might as well update things, especially this three year old blog of mine. HAHA. In other news...maybe it's just me, but Skyrim is taking up MUCH MORE of my time than Oblivion ever did. I've already clocked in about 200 hours on just two characters! O_O I can only imagine how many more hours I will play when I actually decide to make a character for a different race that I haven't played yet.

Within this time period, my Dunmer, Zareth, (first character), joined the Mages, joined the Dark Brotherhood,became the Thane of Solitude,got a few Daedric items, became a Master Illusionist (with all perks) and is at Level 40. He also got an awesome set of Dragonscale armor (which, with a little help from a mannequin glitch, now has duplicates for future followers and...well, to show off in the house. ;) ). He's a sneaky character with 90 in sneaking. Now in my past experience, I haven't messed around with Illusion enough to use it regularly, but it is just too funny to watch characters fight each other, and it comes in handy especially during the big mobs in dungeons that you will encounter in the game. Using a Frenzy spell that was boosted with some perks to allow it to hypnotize higher levels, I was able to cause a group of about five or more enemies (two of which were mages who constantly used, of all the possible spells, FIREBALL), to kill each other off.

My second character, my Altmer, Ryonir, has somewhat similar stats; however he is focused more on Destruction and Conjuration. He has got a lot of good Destruction spells, and is able to conjure frost atronachs and banish other summons. He has Glass armor, which I'm working to replace with dragonscale for him as well when I get the perk and the level.

That's how I've been spending my time with Skyrim lately. My next character will be an Orsimer, because after so much sneaking around I'm ready to just Leeroy Jenkins everything! >:}

Ever since I saw Games for Windows Live and found out that Microsoft would allow Silver members to play online for free, I was very excited to see that some of the games I wanted were supporting it (Gears of War, Halo 2, Lost Planet: CE), but there are not many games on GFW Live at all. Personally, as long as Microsoft doesn't force PC gamers to pay to play, I'm ok with it. I can do fine and well without paying monthly just for online multiplayer achievements in Gears of War that I may never really even get to, seeing as it would take more than a month, which is the free GFW Live Gold trial that comes with the newer Live games.

But another reason I don't plan to pay for GFW Live gold, especially right now, is the fact there are scant to none games that support the damn thing. Why should I pay for a service that doesn't have a decent amount of games backing up the monthly payments? Would I be getting my money's worth? Not with this library. There are plenty of GFW games, but here's another issue: NONE of them have ACHIEVEMENTS like their Live counterparts. You think that Microsoft would include achievements in all of their games, and not just the ones on live. Maybe they could include the Live interface for all the GFW games and maybe add a patch for achievements for some?

I just want something to justify why I'm getting a certain game over the PS3 counterpart, when the PS3 will be coming up with trophies soon, and Microsoft obviously wants to attract their PC gaming audience. So why not have all the games support achievements? Even achievements for Tomb Raider Anniversary on the PC would be nice. At least I'd feel that collecting all those artifacts, unlocking everything without cheating, and time it took to find some of those items would have been put to good use.

I don't think it would kill Microsoft to add achievements to the PC games under the GFW name like they do with the games for Xbox 360. Maybe there's something I'm not taking into account here. Maybe companies are currently unable to add it to the games. Even still, couldn't Microsoft provide the framework for the companies to include it in their games? Or have a download for PC gamers to use once they've gone over the game with the company to create achievements, so that the achievements are already there and ready to be unlocked when the person buys the game?

Maybe I should explain my thought more clearly: Have a Live component download where you can create your account and gamertag outside of a game instead of in it. Microsoft would have the achievements for a specific game ready for said game's launch day, OR the company developing the game would send the achievements to Microsoft to upload on live. Figure something out so that all GFW games that come out now have achievements in them. Seeing as I am not in Microsoft's position, or any of the other companies, I suppose I will never understand. But at least I can ponder, and hope.

What do you think?

~TJ

UPDATE: Here's a list on Wikipedia of GFW games with tallies that state what each game has (Live, Achievements, etc.) Look at this and you'll see how scarce Live PC games with achievements are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Games_for_Windows_titles

However, I am very excited that the upcoming Crysis stand alone expansion will support GFW Live and have achievements. Sweet.

Just got Gears of War for the PC. Feel free to add me.

~TJ

If you've got a PS3 and GTA IV, add my S/N and we can do some multiplayer madness. I wish I got GTA before the game night...figured I'd miss it but oh well. I never laughed so hard in my life when I was playing Multiplayer free mode.

~TJ

After playing through the Beta for a while, I think it's a lot of fun. I had a good first impression of it. The character creation is good, not great, but I'm pretty sure it will be more in depth in the actual game. The graphics look good as well, and the frame rate is pretty steady. The only real problem I had with the Beta was the vibration function.

Yes, MGS Online does have vibration, but it's rarely implemented. The only times I felt the vibration were at the start screen when you enter the connection menu, when you switch weapons in the battlefield, or when someone kills you, to name a few. If the vibration function was used at any other time, i didn't realize i, because I didn't feel anything if there was any vibration at all. Another thing is the vibration is not as strong as some of the other PS3 games out there, like Uncharted, and Tekken 5 Dark Ressurection (especially Tekken for a good example) to name a few. Overall, it is good for a Beta. Hopefully they can iron out all of the wrinkles for the final game, and here's to hoping for a stronger and more often vibration function. I was excited for MGS 4 before the Beta, but now I must get my hands on it. I can't wait!

~TJ

Got an e-mail from the Playstation Underground about a Beta code! I'm downloading the beta now. Woot! I'll let you guys know more info about how the Beta is when I play through it a good amount.

So after 5 good years of service and such from my Dell Dimension 4500, my old computer was recently plagued with one of these most dreaded things possible:

1. Power Supply corruption

2. CPU Issues

3. RAM Memory Module Corruption

Either way, my old computer would suddenly have a high pitched continuous beep in the middle of a program (or no beep at all), restart all of a sudden, and do this for about 5-7 times until I either:

1. Shut down the computer and left it alone

OR

2. Let it run it's course (although it usually ended up with me turning it off).

So here's to the death of a good computer (which I spent more than about 1/2 grand of updates on *cough cough* ) and to the birth of a new XPS. Not complaining; I should not have to upgrade this computer for a VERY long time (and by that time this one will probably kick the bucket as well).

I will finally be able to play games like Bioshock and Crysis. w00t w00t!

~TJ

(One of the many who will never upgrade his computer again)

I can't help but feel that someone at Sony got lazy and dropped the ball for the vibration in the controller in the first place. It's one thing to not even try to put vibration in the controller (that's what it seems like Sony did), but it's another thing to say it's not possible, and then see that another company (cough*Nintendo*cough) did it from the get go. I'm glad Sony patched up things with Immersion and brought back rumble, but I just had to talk about how this came to be in the first place.

Hopefully it was not a sort of money technique to get people to buy the PS3, pay for some Sixaxis controllers (I know some have done so), and then have to pay again for controllers which are basically Sixaxis controllers with vibration. Regardless, finally I can feel the vibration in my favorite PS2/PS1 games. I've missed the vibration for the quickening chains and summons in Final Fantasy XII so much.

~TJ

I could probably say more, but you probably want to see it for yourselves.

~TJ

When I logged on to Gamespot to find out that Volition and THQ were making Red Faction III, I got very excited. Ever since I played the first one, I have loved the series. However, this also made me think of other series from Playstation 1 that I long to see again; Jet Moto, for one. Sadly, I have misplaced my 2nd and 3rd Jet moto, and although I still have my first, the second was better. Right now I'm debating on whether or not to get it off of the playstation store; not a complete loss, since I can play it on both my PS3 and PSP.

Another series I'd like to see return is Blast Chamber. If any of you remember, this was the action game where your character is inside a cube. You have a set amount of time to live, and within that time you must go and recover the golden star at the end to survive by using each side of the chamber. Your character kicks an arrow on each of the walls in the cube that rotate the stage so that the other walls can be turned into floors. A little hard to explain; you'd have to see the gamespace here with the images for yourself to understand what I mean.

You can play up to 4 players. Sure, the explosions were not as drastic and realistic, but with next gen technology, Activision could do so much more with the series. And Jet Moto? Well, if you've been playing the game since you were young, it doesn't seem too hard. I think there also could be a lot more done with next gen capabilities. I would maybe try to e-mail these publishers or something and request or hint at making a new one, but I've been busy.

Anyways, that's all for now. Later!

~TJ