Traveling Thoughts

On Monday, I was at Best Buy and for the first time ever there wasn’t a line of people at the Wii station awaiting their turn. I was excited, I walked up to it, grabbed the controllers I had never even been able to touch before. The game in the console was Super Mario Galaxy. I played through one level (a bit awkwardly) and was hooked. I decided that I needed a Wii and that I needed Super Mario Galaxy. It wasn’t to happen. As I turned around and marched myself backs to the Wii section, some woman was putting the last Wii in her cart. I was a bit bummed.

On Friday, I had “I don’t feel like working syndrome” and took a few minutes in the afternoon to call my favorite GameStop store and see if they had a used one (I asked about the used ones because I thought for sure there’d be no way there was a new one in stock). Stephen, who has been selling me video games for years answered the phone (and if he hadn’t I would’ve asked for him anyways). He told me that there were no used units in stock and said “not new?” Of course I was like (in my head) “NEW!!! I CAN GET A NEW ONE” to him: “Do you have a new one in stock?” Him: “Let me check…we do” Me: “Will you hold it for me?” Him: “Come see me Courtney”

I was so excited after work to go to the store and be able to get a Wii and get Super Mario Galaxy. As of right now there’s not any other game I’d rather be playing more (which is good because I only bought the one game).

I played it a bit last night and a lot to day, I’ve beat some 3 legged robot monster and had to put it down so that I could do some other things. Needless to say, I’m itching to get back to it.

Super Mario Galaxy is a wonderful game in the Mario series that has an excellent sound track (on the main star place it somewhat reminds me of a score that was heard in the movie “The Holiday”). The story line follows the famed Mario story line, The Princess has been capture by Bowser and needs rescuing and Mario goes off to save her. Even playing the same story line over and over again, I never tire of Mario.

The only thing I’m having problems with during gameplay is that Mario has to abide by the laws of gravity and so sometimes you’re running upside down, diagonally, etc…directions I’m not used to…so it’s gonna take some getting used to, but really that’s not a complaint, it’s just a learning curve.

If you haven’t played Super Mario Galaxy yet, and you’re a Mario fan, get out there and get it, you’ll enjoy it.

For some time now I’ve wanted a video gaming chair. Something just perfect for the middle of my bedroom floor. Dad found on in the latest Brookstone Catalog. When I stole the catalog to look at the chairs and I was flipping the pages I found something much more desirable: pinball machines!

It reminded me of the neighbors we had that had a pinball machine and a couple arcade games. If I had a chance to go to their garage I was more than thrilled. 1 quarter could buy me an afternoon of fun…

Over the years I’ve thought about how cool it would be to have a couple arcade machines of my own. They brought me so much fun when I was little. When I was in the hospital when I got diabetes there was a pacman cocktail table in the childrens play area, it was great.

If I could get an arcade machine or two (it’d have to be two cause I’d have to bribe dad) I’d get Arcade Legends for myself (because it’s got 125 games on it) and Golden Tee for dad (which is a recent release as of a month ago, and Monkeys Arcades carries it).

I don’t think that I’ve ever watched video game previews. I mean sure, maybe one or two. I distinctly remember stopping into Game Stop, 2 years before The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess came out and seeing it on TV and saying, I have to have that game. And back when the original gameboy was out, I vaguely remember a commerical for Six Golden Coins (I think Wario showed up in that game for the first time ever).

But today I was over at GameSpot.com looking for a review and there was a thing for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and one thing led to another and BAM! I’m watching video game previews.
They even have the little rating thing like at the movies.

One preview caught my eye because it’s currently my favorite game on my Nintendo DS. Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. I was like, sweet, a new Puzzle Quest game. But that shows how much attention I pay to anything, it was the same game souped up for the XBox Live. But the preview totally rocks, the music is good and after watching the preview, I think they should’ve made it so that we could’ve played the DS version via wi-fi in the same manner. I’m on my way to becoming the ultimate warlord, but it just looks so much more fun in this preview:

If there’s one thing that I’ll never forget from college it would be my managerial accounting professor and how he would go on and on about his son using his (my professor’s) real money to buy WoW gold. He was always real skeptical of the integrity of the people that were selling their WoW gold. He was always concerned that his son was going to end up in a foul business deal and end up loosing his greenbacks in return for nothing…

I really can’t blame that professor. In my opinion trading greenbacks for virtual currency is a dangerous game. Of course, that opinion is fully supported by my lack of knowledge where Game Goods was concerned.

Game Goods exists so that MMORPGs players can trade currency, goods and services. And they specialize in World of Warcraft (WoW). Now, I personally don’t play WoW; simply because I don’t have the time to sit around and do all that has to be done. One of those things being making/earning/mining gold. I’ve sat and watched my friends and it’s not easy to get gold in WoW. So I would be one of those beings that quickly tires of what has to be done to get gold and I would go to Game Goods and buy the WoW gold I thought I needed.

The reason that Game Goods appeals to me (among others) is that I can pay via PayPal. Plus they guarantee you’ll get what you paid for within 1-12 hrs. That sounds like a win to me.

Last night at Server Syde were the tryouts to make the Server Syde Counter Strike: Source team for Paglan X.  The turnout was amazing.  So many people thought they had what it took to make the team.  And many of them really did have what it took to make the team.  The problem is, in terms of being considered for the team, there was so much more to consider than just their frags/death ratio.  It really didn’t matter how good you were in the game, you could’ve had 20 frags and 2 deaths which screams “you’re gonna get pwned if I’m playing” but if you couldn’t play well with the team, communication was lacking, or your attitude sucked, your overall rating would drop.

For 4.5 hrs I watched people, in groups of ten, split into 2 teams of 5 battle it out.  It was amazing for me to see the dynamic of the various teams we randomly put together.  Some of them immeadiately pulled it together and organized a plan of who was doing what and who was covering what areas.  Many of them just played as individuals, doing their own thing while everyone else tried to work as a team.  Some teams split themselves because two leaders tried to rise.  1 leader would take half the team, the other leader the other half, and when it was all said an done and the team lost those two supposed leaders would yell at each other “well if you would listen to the communication that’s going on around you, well if you would learn to play better…”  That type of stuff was being watched for. 

The amount of yelling and stomping and pounding that went on when a player was killed was also being watched as well as for the yelling at their teammates for not covering their backs at the moment that they died.  It’s all in the attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude…

I watched people be pulled together into a team that had maybe never played with the other players and they pulled their acts together so quickly, “i’m yelling strats, i’ll cover this area, you cover this area, we need someone to cover that area” and then I watched teams, where I knew the players had played on teams together and they just couldn’t pull it together, they all wanted the same thing…to win…but they weren’t working towards that goal as one body…it’s all about teamwork…

When it was all said and done, I don’t think that a better team could’ve been pulled together.  Server Syde is going to do well with their CSS team because they can all play well, they all communicate well, they all work well in a team, and their attitudes in general are good.

So, as I’ve previously blogged, I spent Friday night and about 7 hours Saturday (from the afternoon into the night) playing Titan Quest (TQ) at Server Syde.  But today when I was at Target I decided I need to look for the game and see what it was priced at.  Well, I found it, and the price was right $20 so I bought it.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t buy a gaming computer when I bought my laptop and it doesn’t have the resources necessary to run TQ (darn graphics card).  Of course, this really isn’t of any suprise to me, I couldn’t run Rise Of Legends either, for exactly the same reason…so this is where I decide how badly addicted I am…the question becomes, how addicted am I that I go out and buy or build a computer that can play these games that I want to play…