I'll actually remember I have this page on a regular basis.

So I haven't been active because frankly I haven't been doing much in the way of gaming lately outside the odd round of Guitar Hero or hopping on WoW for a bit. But over the weekend, two things happened.

1. I bought Warhammer Online. More on this when I feel like talking about it.

2. I bought the X-box Live Arcade release of Banjo-Kazooie.

Why? After all, I still have the N64 game.

Well, quite frankly, Nintendo's joystick design is crap and I don't have a single N64 controller with a thumbstick that isn't totally wobbly. I don't think Banjo-Kazooie would be very fun to play when Banjo can't move faster than a tiptoe.

Most N64 games don't seem to have aged very well. I don't really enjoy playing them. However, there are a handful of exceptions - games that are just plain classic. Games like Majora's Mask, "Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon," and, yes, Banjo-Kazooie. The 360 version was given some minor graphics touch-ups (the 2-D item images like eggs and musical notes are much less pixelated and the models were smoothed out somewhat), but nothing serious. While it looks great, especially for a game as old as it is, there are a few noticable flubs (for instance, half of the texture for Tooty's shirt is missing/blurred), but nothing big enough to detract from the game as a whole.

The game itself has held up really well over the past decade. It's VERY easy, in two hours of play time I cleared the first four worlds with 100%, but that's only to be expected from a game aimed at a young audience and one I've already played myself and learned the ins and outs of. More importantly, I had a blast doing it. The game is so much fun to play through again, I loved the Mumbo transformations, and I'm looking forward to tackling Freezeasy Peak and beyond tomorrow.

My friend let me log in on his Steam account to play Team Fortress 2 (which I sadly do not yet own myself... I really need to get the Orange Box one of these days). I'd never touched the game before, so I made my own server with a 1-person cap to mess around with the character classes. Having done that, I went to the server list to find a server to play on.

Here is the problem I always run into in multiplayer FPS games - finding a server. The vast number of clan servers, the near-complete lack of servers suggesting that newbies are welcome, and the fact that nobody whatsoever was playing on what appeared to be the official servers made it impossible for me to find a game I felt I could join.

Finally, though, I found a server very handily labeled "Noobs welcome" in the name. I died a LOT more often than I caused others to die, but I have to say, it was fun. I spent most of my games as a soldier and, in one CTF match, spent some time as a sniper. I was sniped a few times by someone clear across the field but I made sure to get him back, and in both situations it somehow struck me as funny that snipers were sniping each other.

I'm too tired right now to post much more on the subject, but I'll certainly be playing this game more, either if my friend lets me or once I finally get my hands on the Orange Box to play for myself.

Got a friend over today, we played Guitar Hero 4 for a while. Somehow, though, I managed to break my whammy bar. It got stuck and when I got it unstuck, it was loose and now it doesn't spring back into place. =(

Oh well. I have another guitar luckily, and this one should still be under warranty.

Now let's see if I actually use this space for anything. I'm sure I'm not the only one but I tend to be rather absentminded when it comes to making blog entries. Since one assumes this is supposed to be a gaming blog, though, I might as well use this space to talk about what I've been playing.

Ah, Spore... I've wanted to pick this game up for a while. It's not exactly a complicated game, but it's addicting in its own way. So far I've focused on one save file. I managed to keep the creature phase going long enough to unlock almost every part, which was pretty fun in itself. I'm having an odd time with the space stage, though. I keep everyone as friendly as possible to me, but it's aggravating getting two alerts at once every time two of my allies attack each other.

Not much else going on tonight since I've mostly been in the mood to watch movies. I'll probably end up going to bed early tonight since I couldn't get any sleep at all last night.

Good night.