LTN Gamer Update

I haven’t really had any time lately to update this blog. I regret this a lot, and hope to pursue this blog more in the very near future with some better prioritizing of my online activities. This was mainly an update about the stats though. I recently have recieved my 40,000 view to my blog.

40,000 views in only a few months purely from search engines. I never once added this link to outside sides like StumbleUpon or Digg, or posted about it on forums. I did use it in some comments on other sites to help get me some backlinks, but that is it. 40,000 search engine views in less than 6 months is an amazing accomplishment when your blog started within those 6 months as well.

Get ready for some kind of attempt at a daily post. Hopefully I can bump my 500-700 views per day up to 1,000 per day. Comments are always welcome!

Bye Ranked Big Team

Did I scare you? Hope so. According to the last weekly update on Bungie.net if you don’t start playing ranked big team, it will be gone. Over the last few weeks they have done numerous things to improve the playlist. The biggest of which, they fixed the matchmaking so it’s easier to find a match.

What we lose if this goes away? Many of the medals will be impossible to get. We lose several maps in ranked playlists. We won’t be able to mess around in vehicles as much in ranked, and of course, a fun playlist to play with the noobs on your friends list.

So take a few games out of your week to dedicate to ranked big team. You’ll be doing the community a favor by keeping it in. Do you guys not know it’s the double exp month. All 30 days of June is double exp for ranked big team. What a better way to learn to love the game, a month long double exp campaign on it.

Gamers Sue EA Sports

Madden football games had been the best around from the 90’s until early 2000. In 2005 they sought to rid themselves of competition completely by acquiring an exclusive NFL license as the only company with the right to create games based on the United States NFL.

Many gamers from California and Washington D.C. have gone as far as filing law suits against EA. They are claiming that the price of Madden games rose by 70 percent for the Madden 2006 game, the first without competition. The previous one had been cut back to $30.00 due to the NFL 2k sports series. Apparently, EA could have continued to compete with EA by improving game quality or lowering the games price. Instead they sought exclusive rights with the only known football associations in America, the NFL, NCAA, and Arena Football.

They are trying to get restitution and damages to be refunded for all EA football game buyers since the 2005 games, and rid them of their exclusive rights to these football associations.

Halo 3 FFA Tourney

You’ve mastered the game have you? Test your skill against some of the best halo players around in a free for all tourney. It’s free to enter, but I believe there is a prize for the winner. If you are looking for some competition, a good time, or some game film to get tips on how to play better, head on over to H3V Studios today to reserve your spot in this tourney.

G-Unit: Blood on the Sand Interview

The 50 Cent video game franchise is coming out with a sequel to it’s first game. I’m not sure about you guys, but I saw the first game. It was a combination of Saints Row and some typical Gamecube style graphics. I’m not even sure if it was released on the Gamecube. The aiming and the whole interface of the game was just terrible.

The new game, G-Unit: Blood on the Sand will have some very cool new features. Multi-player drop-in and drop-out co-op, interactive counter-kills, driving, and aerial combat. These will add a lot of fun to the actual game simply because, anybody with xbox live knows, it’s way more fun to be able to plug in that mic and talk with a buddy while shooting people in the head.

In a recent interview with MTV, 50 Cent and the creators of the game showed a demonstration of the new game. All of the members of G-Unit in the game agreed that the game was looking great, and a lot better than the previous game. Some of them even remarked that “Blood on the Sand” is “looking as good as Gears of war”.

Whoa, hold on there. Gears of War? Game of the Year Gears of War? The game that captured millions of gamers across the country to spend $60 and countless hours in front of their tv’s neglecting being social and going out? The same game that knocked Halo 2 off it’s pedestal? That is the most biased opinion I’ve ever seen.

They couldn’t possibly have been talking about the game being anywhere near as good as Gears of War. The guy must have been commenting on how much better he looks in Blood on the Sand than the Cole Train looks in Gears. That’s it.

Don’t think about buying this game anytime soon. Save your pennys to pick up a copy of Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. It’s a game you probably don’t own, yet you would enjoy more than this GTA attempted remake.

Rockband MTV DLC

During the Rock Band commercial airing on MTV that is promoting the latest round of MTV2 Rock Band DLC songs, they accidentally show a list of a few songs that nobody was aware were being added to the game. During this commercial, they are quickly scrolling through a set list of songs and on it there are four songs with a “not ready to test” label next to them. These songs were from Nirvana, Machine Head and Nine Inch Nails.  Here are the four songs you catch in the commercial.

• “Aesthetics of Hate” by Machine Head
• “Afterlife” by Avenged Sevenfold
  
• “Breed” by Nirvana
• “Burn” by Nine Inch Nails

Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty 4 continues to attract millions of gamers to it’s online action every week. With this amount of support, you wouldn’t expect a new one coming out soon. You’re in luck though Call of Duty 5, also know as Call of Duty: World at War, is set to release later this year.

The storyline is going back to World War 2, but unlike Call of Duty 3, it will focus more on the battles in the Pacific. They also announced that the storyline will now be co-op so you and a buddy can tag team those evil Germans. (I believe we are the Allies in this, I have nothing against Germans, and naturally the guys shooting at you are evil.)

That’s pretty much all that has been released thus far. Expect to hear more about it as summer rolls around. Call of Duty: World at War will have great competition in knocking off Gears of War 2 and it’s solid fan base. The games are very different, yet share the same gaming base.

Hd or Blu-ray

With the Toshiba-backed HD-DVD format reportedly on the cusp of tumbling into the precipice of defeat at the hands of Blu-ray, yet more rumors have now surfaced suggesting that Microsoft Corp. could be about to join the long list of supporters embracing Sony’s (almost) triumphant platform.

David Richards at Aussie online technology magazine Smart House claims “insiders at Microsoft” in the US have told the site that Microsoft has already configured a standalone Blu-ray player fully compatible with the software giant’s Xbox 360 videogames console.

Moreover, there are also suggestions that Microsoft’s emergent Blu-ray player could well hit retail within the next three months — pursuant to “internal marketing and sales approvals.”

“We would welcome Microsoft to the Blu-ray stable,” said Michael Ephraim, MD of Sony Computer Entertainment, in the Smart House report. “In fact it is quite logical for them as the PS3 has been very successful in driving consumers to Blu-ray. In fact we believe that it has done more to win the format war than traditional Blu-ray players.”

Ephraim went on to say that, given the videogame platform rivalry between Sony and Microsoft, it would be “up to Sony Corporate,” as to whether the American software company was granted a Blu-ray license. “I see no reason why they would not do it,” he added.

This latest rumor comes on the back of Microsoft indicating at the CES show in Las Vegas that adopting Blu-ray as the dominant HD format is something the company is fully prepared for thanks to it offering Xbox 360 customers HD via an external player.

While a standalone Blu-ray player would certainly bolster the Xbox 360’s appeal beside Sony’s PlayStation 3 console, which comes equipped with Blu-ray as standard, the unnamed insiders hold that Microsoft — despite an apparent willingness to adapt its strategy to include Blu-ray — is looking toward HD media downloads as the future.

I have the Hd player and it is nice but the blu-ray would put a whole new meaning to the family movie night.

Team Rockets

Double exp this weekend, team rockets. Is it just me or do they seem to be giving all these weekend games to the not so competitive 10 year olds? No offense, but when is there going to be some serious game types in the weekend playlists? We’ve had this legendary brawl, team rockets, griffball stuff for too long.

Anyways, rockets, what can I saw about them. It does take some skill, just not much. It’s too easy to kill people when they aren’t looking. The hardest part is when it’s a one on one heading at one another. Simply because you have to predict their movements while deciding when to fire. It is pivotal that you either have the last shot, or reload first. Obviously you are one or the other, but here is what I mean. If you are of somewhat close of a distance and your opponent is reloading, you can get pretty close and shoot at the last second guaranteeing that you’ll get them. If you and your opponent shoot at the first time, you need to have been the first and finish reloading. You’ll continue walking towards each other working your way to a better shot. Whoever gets their rocket reloaded fasted will get first shot, and win.

Good luck playing team rockets. I can’t wait until the end of June with four team oddball with three oddballs.

Halo 3: Head to Head

A few days ago Bungie added the head to head playlist to Halo 3’s ranked matchmaking. As updated in the Bungie weekly newsletter there have been some problems getting matches. If your NAT isn’t set to open, or you’ve lost hosting privileges due to very laggy games, you may experience a long wait.

So other than the technical errors, how is it looking? There are a lot of BR related games, and they seem to keep the maps to decently fair and not horrendously big maps. They have added in a few weapons on various places of the map, as well as move others. It leads to a very interesting game play as nobody really knows where the weapons are.

What is up with that stupid red arrow? I mean honestly, how fair is that? Even if the game in a custom game would be a shut out, or close to it, it’s virtually impossible for the better player to be guaranteed the win. Every time they go up one they have to constantly watch their back because you have an arrow over your head. The enemy however knows exactly where you are. It’s just stupid.

That’s just my thoughs, what are your opinions on the new head to head playlist? I’m only a level 3, playing in only 3 games. I don’t like it that much, due to that stupid arrow.