Monday, December 29, 2008

tell me what have you done?

Another Christmas, gone again. I got some fat loot too-(big ups to the family..cough cough.. Tim Allen..cough.. I mean Santa Claus). That's not what it's about though.

Christmas is about Jesus' birth-and getting together as a family. And what better way to celebrate Christmas as a family than to...play Rock Band. Yep-On Christmas night after eating some dinner and drinking as much of the chocolate from the chocolate fountain as I could hold, my family sat down/stood up/danced like lunatics in the playroom with the help of Rock band. At one point, my Aunt was singing, my dad and uncle were "dueling banjos" on the guitar, and my mom was an arm up on the Def Leppard drummer. And they had fun! Close, but no 5 star though. I then proceeded to put on my shiny new puffer vest, hood up, shades on, and do the best Sabotage since the Beastie Boys did it live.

It was a great Christmas. I am encouraged at the new direction that games are taking-while there are still the games for the hardcore players, games like Rock Band can bring a family closer together than any other Christmas activity I've seen. Video games are shrugging off their negative, dork persona and becoming a fun time for people to spend together-not sit in front of a screen all alone all the time.

Nice post today-I'm sure my good mood won't last long into the work week.

-d0cta ew

currently playing: WoW, NHL 09, Call of Duty:World at War

Readers: Gimme some comments! What are you playing? Did any games bring your family together lately?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Wednesday, some Memphis Gamestop employees pleaded guilty to buying stolen games and reselling them in the used games section. The only thing I can think about is that these idiots

did not profit from the transactions.

Were they just doing it for the good of Gamestop? They believed in the righteous agenda to dominate gamer's wallets and spread elitism with the pre-ordering of just enough copies, when you could walk in to Walmart or Target and get pretty much any game, the day it comes out? I am bewildered that they would risk the strong arm of the law, to not even profit from it. Oh, and btw, the selling of used games has been suspended- so basically there's no reason to shop at Gamestop anymore, anyway.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Xbox Live was down all day yesterday-I assume to do some prep work for the upcoming dashboard update-dubbed The New Xbox Experience.

There's actually a lot of really cool stuff in this update, here's some of my favorites

    • Stream movies from your Netflix queue-I'm joining Netflix JUST for this.


    • Family game night-there will be Xbox live 'gameshows', that happen at a certain time and work very much like a TV gameshow.


    • 8 person party chat-finally, you can create a chat channel and have more than one person in it with you (doh! Why hasn't it always been like this?)



  • So overall, I'm really looking forward to this update. As for now, I'm going to keep hacking away with my bloody sword clenched in the tiny little fist of Blue Knight justice. Castle Crashers is my new favorite on the Xbox Live Arcade, its loads of fun, very accessible (in that you can play for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, and still progress), and easy to learn.

    My girlfriend, definitely not a video game enthusiast, has played with me and picked it up instantly-we have a lot of fun with it. So for all you gamers who have significant others out there (We really do exist!), here's a good game to share the love.




    As for WoW-who else is PSYCHED about the upcoming release of The Wrath of the Lich King? I'm taking a day off work November 13th, I'm going to be..uh..sick.



    -drew
    currently playing: N+, Castle Crashers, Counterstrike:Source

    Monday, September 29, 2008

    Hey everyone! Welcome to

    The Not So Hardcore Gamer

    This is my first post, so I wanted to kind of layout my idea for this site, and go from there.

    I was thinking the other day while I was playing WoW (and asking questions about pretty much everything I come across, even though I've played since release) that I shouldn't feel like a total noob just because I have work and school that keep me from knowing every single little thing about a game. I don't have time to sit and read forums about Warcraft Lore or play Halo 3 for hours to try to find all those damn skulls. I play when I can and I want to enjoy it, not feel like an idiot.

    So I started this blog, and eventually website, to be a community for people like me, who enjoy games, but don't have time in their busy lives to be exalted with every faction, or get every achievement, or play through the latest Star Wars fanboy crap game the day it comes out.

    When I have the full website up and running, look for forums, gamer news, blog updates 3-4 times a week and maybe even a podcast. Let me know if you have some ideas and are interested in being a part of this community, be it a normal visitor or forum moderator.



    Thanks for visiting The Not So Hardcore Gamer!


    -drew
    currently playing: World of Warcraft (WoW), Castle Crashers, Burnout Paradise (MOTORCYCLES! :D)