In the summer months before it was released, I prepaid for my PS2 so that I could have it for launch day, Thursday October 26, 2000. That August, I got my first job as an IT consultant. On launch day, I was working in San Antonio and my regular Thursday flight back to Chicago got delayed. It was 7:30 PM and pouring down rain at O'Hare, but I was determined to make it to EB Games before they closed at 9. I told the cabbie that I would pay double if he could make it back to my house by 8:15 so that I'd have time to snatch up the console. His cab left the stand like a bullet out of a gun, and though it was the most terrifying cab ride of my life, that cabbie was determined to make an extra $40. At the house at 8:10, I threw money at him, grabbed the keys to my Jeep and tore out onto the street. Sure enough, I made it to the mall at 8:45 and ran to the EB. The female cashier, dressed as Ling Xiaoyu, walked in the back and came out with a big white plastic bag of happy, telling me that it was the last system that they had in the store. I don't really remember the ride home, but I do remember hooking up the PS2 and playing Tekken Tag Tournament for hours and hours until the sun came up and I had to get ready for work.

Pretty good haul, games-wise, for Christmas. I ended up with:

• 360: Kinect w/ Kinect Adventures, Gunstringer, and Fruit Ninja
• 360: Arkham City
• 360: Dead Island
• 360: 4800 MS Points
• PS3: Just Cause 2
• PS3: Driver: SF
• PS3: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Not to mention that I want to play through Skyrim a second time, and Bethesda will start releasing DLC for it fairly soon. I'm about 8% through Arkham City. I could probably blow through it quickly, but I'm sure that I'll waste a ton of time trying to get all of the Riddler puzzles and trophies. I have a feeling that I won't be buying any other games this year. Between work and wife, I just don't have enough time.

I picked up the Kinect since it's on sale at Amazon. I got started with it yesterday, and I really like it. It's kind of gimmicky and I doubt that I'll get that many games for it, but my wife really liked playing Fruit Ninja and I'm a huge fan of the voice recognition. It works surprisingly well.

For anyone who didn't see the quick look, one of the lesser talked-about features with the new 360 dashboard is cloud saving. If you have two internet-connected 360s, your profile can now live on both systems. Additionally, there's an option to turn on cloud saves, which saves your files at MS. When you log into the other system your files are there waiting for you. Unfortunately, marketplace content can't be saved to the cloud which is an issue for Rock Band DLC in particular.

After trying out the cloud saves with Skyrim, I had zero problems with them. The saves are just as quick as offline saves, since they don't get uploaded right away. I have noticed that you're going to add about 20-30 seconds when starting up the game for the 360 to find and download the cloud saves. So that's something to consider. All in all, I'm really happy with the way that it works! Good on ya, MS.

edit: It actually only adds the 20 second cloud save loadup when you've switched consoles. So, for instance, I was playing all day on my main 360 and it didn't need to pull down any cloud saves. It'll only check when I log into my other 360.

I was at the Devon, PA K-Mart yesterday to get some denim shoes and a cammo hat (don't ask). I decided to check out the electronics section, and found The Beatles: Rock Band Limited Edition bundle for $20! My RB2 guitar and drums were crapping out on me, so I made sure to grab that sucker. They had like 4 of them for 360, and also had DJ Hero + turntable for $10, and the Band Hero bundles for $40. Stock up!

Over the weekend, I decided to take on a few of the daedric quests. Specifically, I completed Azura's, Boethia's, Namira's, and Clavicus Vile's quests. The lore of TES states hat the daedra are the evil counterparts to the Nine. While some of Morrowind and Oblivion's quests showed this side of the demon princes, I think that Bethesda's stepped it up in Skyrim.

I didn't kill the dog Barbas to keep the Rueful Axe, figuring that not killing him would get me the Masque of Clavicus Vile. I don't use axes anyway, so that was an easy choice. Still, that was one nasty choice.

I didn't have any issue killing Boethia's followers, or her former champion. However, I do feel really bad that I paid a mercenary to follow me, just so I could stab him in the face. The animation of him becoming bound to the stone was pretty disturbing, and that Boethia uses the dead body right away was pretty eerie. All in all I really liked that quest, but it was still uncomfortable.

The quest that I really had to sit and think about was Namira's quest to kill and eat a priest. I led the priest to the feast, and stood above him, deciding whether to eat him or kill everyone else in the room. I have a no-reload policy for these types of decisions, so I assumed that I would fail the quest if I did not eat him. Ultimately, I want to S-Rank this game, so I decided to go ahead and eat him so I'd get Namira's boon. I ate a dude to get achievement points. That's messed up.

When you get a new title with no raise or benefits. Fuck.

I was on vacation for awhile, but I've been getting some games in:

• Uncharted: Had to quit, so f'ing boring
• Infamous: Getting grindy near the end, but still fun as hell
• Dead Space 2: Oh My God, so good!
• Super Mario 64 DS: I don't care that it's a classic. This game sucks.

I picked up a PS3 in the past few months and started going through a few of the exclusives:

• God of War III: It's God of War alright. I'm getting sick of Kratos.
• Uncharted: I want to like this game, but it's really boring.
• Infamous: It's good: exactly what I want from a superhero game.

I also have played quite a bit of Mortal Kombat since I've blogged last. I really like it, though I feel like it's really unbalanced.

I traded in a few PS2 games that were lying around today, along with some DS games that my wife no longer wanted.  I pre-ordered RB3 and picked up the Pro Cymbals that are running $40.  I've been using the RB2 cymbals for about a year now, and I really liked them.  However, one broke, so I figured that I might as well get the updated set.  After playing for a bit, I can tell you that the new cymbals are awesome!  First off, they are ridiculously quiet.  They make practically no noise at all, which is a welcome change from the plastic-y thump that the old ones had.  Also, the 30 degree tilt on them definitely helps keep me from accidentally getting caught up underneath them (a particular problem that I have on fast songs).  So far, I haven't noticed any cross talk or dropped notes.  I'm definitely looking forward to trying Pro Mode with these. 
 
Speaking of which, I'm interested to see how the hi-hat rolls will be charted for RB3.  I suspect that they'll just stick with the standard red as hi-hat, yellow as snare that they've done in the past.  However, I'd like to see if they chart Pro Mode as yellow hi-hat roll, with the snare being the yellow pad.  Guess we'll see in a week!

 I've picked SSF4 back up after a brief layoff (I was trying to get A-rank in Guitar Hero World Tour...still not there yet).  Yesterday, I got into some ranked mode matches and played against Tyrell Badd, a Cody player.  I admit it; I suck ass at this game, and after reviewing that match, I was worse than usual.  I was trying to get a feel for Adon's anti-air normals, and perhaps a ranked mode match is not the place to do that.  But I still won.  Mr. Badd (if you're nasty) sent me this message after the match:

Name added to youtube list for scrub players. Reason: Lag, massive turtleing. Youtube.com/Mysterbyg