Batman: Arkham City aka Batssassin's Creed meets Metroidvania

Batman: Arkham City had quite an act to follow. Rocksteady's Arkham Asylum took everyone by surprise, offering a solid action-platforming-brawler with tons of well-implemented fanservice that paid tribute to an age old franchise. And all of this from a developer with only one other little known title under its belt. Arkham Asylum was the ultimate sleeper hit.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North Snow Troll Winner!

I gotta admit I was surprised by the turnout on this first contest. It's great to see some new faces around here, as well as some fellow CAG'ers. Seriously, you guys are awesome and your support has been great.

Congrats go out to dragon290513 for winning the statue! While the battle was fierce dragon290513 came out victorious (through sheer luck). Keep your eyes peeled for it in the mail soon!

My thanks to everyone who participated; I'll definitely be doing this again sometime soon...

In fact, I'm doing it right now. Since you guys were great with the comments I'm giving out a couple Uncharted 3 DLC codes for in-game items. Don't forget this is PS3 only but anyone can win. Well, only the fastest will win. First one to comment takes the digital cake!

(PS. I may not get to emailing the winner immediately, but you'll get the codes tonight.)

Lord of the Rings: War in the North Snow Troll Giveaway

DOUBLE UPDATE: By the way, you guys should probably read the next post the contest winner... might be worth checking out.

UPDATE: Contest is over, get ready for the announcement!

Seeing as how the gaming community has been good to me the past few years, particularly cheapassgamer.com, I've decided it's high time I start giving back. I can't begin to think of the countless tips I've read about and helpful comments from random CAG'ers since I joined the site oh-so many years ago. So hopefully some of them are reading this because I've got a nice freebie for commenters.

Why buy the game when you can get the swag for free?

As a side hobby to collecting video games, I often spend as much time hunting down video game promos or pre-order bonus items. Not that fancy downloadable content business, just good ol' fashioned physical items. 

I know that these are rarely ever produced in low enough quantities to be considered "collectible". I'm even aware some of these are just clever marketing promotions. Y'know what? I'm okay with that. I'm just a sucker for clever stuff.

"For once, I'm stuck without a punchline."

It's been a tricky couple of weeks. After recouping from several trips to New York and New Jersey, I thought everything was back on track. I had been gearing up for some interesting posts, not to mention a few overdue changes to the blog. I'm not trying to build this up as an excuse but when my grandmother passed away last week, I really didn't feel like writing.

The Children Are Our Future, But They're All At Gamestop

On the way home from work Monday evening I decided to pop into my local Gamestop. I had a reserve on the Assassin's Creed: Revelations I'd been meaning to cancel, and this seemed like as good a time as any. As I approached the store I saw this kid:

Pictured: A boy who has not and will not know 

the touch of a woman for many, many years.

Monday night was in fact the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This was an especially fantastic coincidence considering I absolutely despise the series itself almost as much as my hatred for its fans. CoD "gamers" are the reason I mute my headset on Xbox Live, and reason this was the last place I needed to be at this moment.

Now beyond the game itself, there is nothing wrong with attending a midnight release. I've been to many in the past, as recent as the Batman: Arkham City and Battlefield 3 releases. They can be exhausting but the trick is to show up shortly before midnight, game already reserved. On the other hand some people found the need to start waiting in line for CoD: MW3 at 6:30pm. By the time I left the store, this folding chair equipped idiot had a solid  five and a half hour wait ahead of him, just to buy the game. A game which will obviously be completely sold out during the next few weeks. Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

A man can dream.

(courtesy ugo.com)

If this kid wanted to actually play the game sooner, he could have gone home and turned on his Xbox 360. All he would have to do is pop in his Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 disc, start up some multiplayer and yell horrible slurs at "noobs". It's the same experience for him, and $60 cheaper. 

Side note to anyone who bought Call of Duty Elite or upgraded to the Hardened Edition just for the Elite: you are among the dumbest people on the planet. You have no idea how many map packs are guaranteed for delivery. And the bonus features for the upgrade to the Elite account? You tell me. I saw the word "premium" three different times but I have no idea what that means. Apparently it's like Facebook for CoD with more videos or something. Kind of like this.

Dumb.

David and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days (in New York) Chapter 2

Ok, enough with the long title nonsense. I hate NYC, Nintendo World Store is awesome, and I bought some scratched Star Fox dog tags. If you didn't read about it earlier do so, because the next sentence won't make a lick of sense.

I owe my wife big time.

David and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days (in New York) Chapter 1

The past two weeks have been busy. Between working 9 to 5 (plus commuting), errands in the evening, and working on costumes for New York Comic Con at the last minute, free time has been a luxury. Hell, even sleep would have been a welcome addition to my daily schedule. Sadly sacrifices were made and promises were broken. I'm still hoping to get a Battlefield 3 hands-on post up sometime before the game launches on Tuesday. Seeing as how I haven't had many hands on any console for awhile I figure I should dig a little deeper into the beta before reporting back. Here's a sneak preview of what I've played so far: It's goddamned awesome. More to come.

49 seconds of disgusting. Thanks EA/DICE.

Despite my hectic schedule there was fun to be had during the weekends. Sure they were busy weekends, involving two perfectly beautiful Saturdays spent in my most hated of cities:

Lost Levels - I'm Not Helping Edition

It can be a little frustrating collecting games. Recently, as seen in some of my older posts, I've been fortunate enough to come across some old Sega Genesis games on the cheap and in decent condition. Never one to pass up on a deal, my Genesis collection has grow significantly in the past few months. The trick is, I don't own a functioning Genesis.

Attention Deficit Gamer - The Roundup

In my absence from posting I celebrated my 28th birthday, and every year I feel the weight of adult responsibility grow and grow. Its seems harder to justify the time spent playing video games at home when there are a hundred things in the back of your mind; upcoming work commitments, bills, car problems, what have you. Luckily, I still have enough common sense to put all that crap on the back burner and lose myself in some sweet, sweet gaming. And with a whopping haul over the birthday and some good finds locally, it's been a good month. I finally tackled a couple of games that were way overdue to by played and completed within a decent timeframe.

Check out my impressions after the jump:

My triumphant return...

Looking back it's been quite awhile since my last post. I guess it's been an odd combination of laziness and... busy-ness(?). In retrospect that doesn't make a lick of sense. Oh well.

Last night was the midnight release of Gears of War 3. I try not to make a habit of attending these affairs, as they tend to draw out the "cream of the crop" of gamers. Now I've played my share of online deathmatches against the gaming community, and I've since made it policy mute all voice chat to avoid listening to the ridiculous comments uttered by some of the dumbest people on the planet. And for some reason, on this night, heading to a public place where these exact people are gathered at once seemed like a good idea.

Stray Sheep Make Great Threads

Taking some time to get back into an old hobby, I finally made another custom video game t-shirt. Years ago I made a ton of shirts using good ol' Photoshop and iron-on transfers, but the quality of the transfer was never that great. Enough washes and the image loses some color and starts cracking. Kind of like those "retro" shirts you see at every mall kiosk, minus the irony. Luckily my wife came across a simple method for stenciling images on plain t-shirts, which we tested a few months ago. Itching for a new design, I knocked this out last night.

I wasn't sure how familiar the image would be, but I really dug the style behind Catherine for Xbox 360 and PS3. The demo was interesting and the game is definitely on my backlog. Once I found a nice wallpaper of the main character, Vincent, all it took was some photoshopping help (thanks Jen!) and a bit of patience with applying the fabric paint. A couple coats later and my new shirt is already enhancing my clearly Herculean physique. I have some more ideas lined up that I can hopefully have ready to show off soon.

-D

Lost Levels IV - I Ran Out of Clever Names Edition

Hey folks, I'm back with more recent finds from local shops. Nothing too fancy, just a bit of nostalgic gaming.  Although I don't know how much fun these games are considering I have yet to pick up an old Sega Genesis or 32X add-on for that matter. Maybe I should stick to classic Saturn games until then. Check out the pics after the jump.

Package from Nintendo Makes My Friday

In the mailbox this afternoon I received a notice from USPS informing me a package had been left at my leasing office. A short walk later I'm back at home with this monster flat envelope (that's my 3DS for scale, hint hint). I knew what was contained inside the minute I saw the package and the Nintendo of America return sticker, so behold, my first ever unboxing post.

Attention Deficit Gamer - IN FUTURISTIC THREE-DEE!

Well, not really 3D.

Netflix just came out on the Nintendo 3DS last week as part of an update to the eShop. Naturally there is some skepticism about the service running on the system, and rightfully so. This isn't a revolutionary update to the handheld, but considering we're talking about the entire Netflix instant catalog running on a handheld without having to pay for an additional data, I'll take it. Here's my take:

Lost Levels III - PC Edition

Nothing gets me excited like a trip back home to my parent's house. I don't travel home too frequently and never for more than a couple days at a time. Besides seeing the folks and reminiscing about the old neighborhood, I usually find some old hidden gems tucked away in my room (or my brother's room for that matter). Recently I collected a nice haul of old PC games dating back to old 5.25" floppy disks all the way up to CD games. I grabbed the best of the bunch, leaving some of the older, beat up boxes behind. I'll try to keep the words to a minimum and let you soak in the glory of PC history.

Attention Deficit Gamer - Duke Nukem Forever

I felt bad as the first previews and reviews for Duke Nukem Forever came in. Honestly, no one wants to believe that a game over a dozen years in the making is a major crapfest. I mean, we weren't expecting perfection or anything. Even so the words coming out of bloggers' mouths have been down right mean. No punches were pulled, no kid gloves in sight. It's almost as if Duke Nukem himself punched the ever-lovin' tar out of his own reviews. Now I know reviewers can get a bit snooty when it comes to game expectations, so I figured it was my duty to give the Duke a chance.

Oh sweet christmas, I really wish I just listened to the reviewers this one time...

Lost Levels II - Expansion Pack

I'm posting another Lost Levels this week, which shouldn't really happen on a regular basis. Granted, I'm not trying to stick to a two-game limit or a set time frame, it's just been working out that way for now. Basically I wanted to expand on my prior post with a little tribute to a collector's edition that really deserved the attention. Hence my oh-so cleverly named post. Expand. Expansion Pack? Get it?

(*sigh*)...just read the full story after the jump.

Lost Levels II

Time for round 2 of updates to my gaming collection. Like the first Lost Levels I have a couple of older, but by no means "classic" games I picked up, generally of the limited edition variety. I found these within the last month since the prior collection post, although I just now got around to snapping some pics. 

The Playlist - May Edition

I haven't really taken the time to talk about the games I'm actually playing and enjoying, and recently there's been a fairly eclectic mix. Even though it's been a season for new releases (Portal 2, Mortal Kombat) I've pretty much avoided these in favor of some older games. Still, that's not to say I haven't sampled some choice new games coming up.

Attention Deficit Gamer - Section 8: Prejudice Demo

Welcome back to another installment of ADG: Attention Deficit Gamer. Up this round is another Xbox Live demo, because I'm sure as most of you know the PSN is still down from last Thursday or Friday (way too long in either case). Why another demo, you may ask? It's cheaper than buying or renting, simple as that. Not only am I an impatient gamer, I'm a cheapskate too.

Section 8: Prejudice is a download only follow-up to Section 8, a rather generic multiplatform shooter that kind of ripped off Tribes, and not in a good way. The original game didn't really strike a chord with me when I tried the first multiplayer demo, which went something like:

"OhmygodohmygodI'mfallingthisissocoooool!!!1!1"

"Oh, now I'm on the ground. And it sucks. When is Halo: Reach launching, again?"

Sufficed to say I never gave the game a second thought, but apparently the folks at TimeGate Studios (who?) did, and now we have Section 8: Prejudice.

Lost Levels

Part of my weekly routine involves a number of trips to local game stores and other oddball thrift stores hunting down old or collectible games. They are always hit or miss situation but every now and there a nice gem pops up. I'm hoping to share these finds with the internets as I find them, probably every couple of months as I amass enough that's worth sharing. 

One of the best places in the northeast, particularly in Massachusetts, for used games in Newbury Comics. You really have to know which locations carry a decent selection of games as each one is a little different. They recently had a 30th anniversary sale that knocked 30% everything in stores, so I knew I had to hit up my closest location for some scrounging. Sure, I managed to find some nice older collector's editions:

Attention Deficit Gamer - Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga

Welcome to the first-ever Attention Deficit Gamer review. This is going to be a bit of an experiment (just like the rest of the blog) wherein I review games and demos, and sum it up as quickly as possible. Usually, it will be due to the fact that I got bored and walked away within 5-10 minutes, distracted by something mildly amusing.


First up is the Xbox Live demo for Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga. Technically I only played the "remastered" Ego Draconis half of the demo, originally released a few months ago. It never really caught my eye, but it was a pretty dull Saturday and I needed something to try early in the morning. Sufficed to say I never made it to the expansion demo, Flames of Vengeance. I'm assuming it's more of the some, but expansionier.

It begins...

I've decided to start a blog, specifically about all things gaming. Quite frankly the majority of my day involves thinking and talking games. Whether I'm hunting down old classics or downloading the latest demos, it's my continuing mission to maximize the amount of games I consume. Unfortunately, there is a ridiculous amount of garbage mixed in with the cream of the crop, so there's going to be a bit of complaining on my part as well. Hopefully this will all evolve into a wonderful creature, so beautiful it makes the gods weep.