Well home life has been pretty busy lately - my son starts preschool next week, and my daughter is officially crawling (and trying her best to walk like the rest of us).  Now with 2 kids on the move, and playing outside and such I haven’t been gaming, or keeping up with the news anywhere near as much as I have in the past - hopefully I will get into the groove again soon.  Along the same lines of my son going to school (and the extra expense of paying for said school) is part of the reason I haven’t went out and bought any of the newly release games that are oh so tempting.  I still have gamefly, but lately getting the newer releases hasn’t been as easy as it was in the past.

Finally, another reason you might not see me on xbox live might very well be the evil machine better known as the Wii.  Yes as some of you may know I purchased one when my xbox was out for repair, and I have made a very small amount of progress in the Zelda game that I purchased with it.  But thanks to gamefly I have been thoroughly enjoying……

Even though Ymiris will disagree, and say how much of a fool I am, I have really enjoyed the game thus far - I just finished the 3rd chapter last night - so I am nearing the halfway point of the game.

Recently I got Command and Conquer 3 from gamefly as well - so I have been giving that a bit of play time, since I wanted to keep the free copy we gave away on 3fs so badly.  I also picked up track and field from the xbox live arcade - which is a guaranteed way to get a gaming related blister injury.

I am not going to PAX, but wish I was if for nothing else but to meet some gaming related contacts I have worked with or communicate with like http://www.unscripted360.com, the XBLRadio Crew, and of course tipped back a few beers with Feelz Good.

Well I participated in yet another “All Nighter”, boy do I love these things. This one was a bit different then the previous all nighters though because the most that can participate in a single game is 2, (the other two were Gears of War and Lost Planet - so versus mode shooters with more player interaction). In any event me and my buddy Ymiris rolled up our sleeves and hit the streets for some Crackdown fun.

We both have all the gang bosses finished, so all that really is left to do is to create havoc and work on achievements. I had great plans for the night, such as getting the rest of the achievements I am missing - which unfortunately did not actually end up happening - but I did make quite a bit of progress towards my goals. Ymiris on the other hand pulled off 4 new achievements :). I spent most of my time just bouncing from rooftop to rooftop, finishing up some rooftop races, and picking up any orbs that I came across. I probably picked up 75 to 100 agility orbs last night (only about 90 to go!).

Towards the end of our session Ymiris would tell you that I was getting delirious - and honestly I think he is right. I started just saying random sentences, and after I finished, even I couldnt figure out what I was trying to say. I knew it was time to quit when I jumped and before I landed i actually started to fall asleep, I jumped up startled from the rumble of my controller from being shot at, I am not even sure how long I sat there half asleep and probably snoring in my friends ear via my headset.

There were also rumors running around the internet that a new download content (and the final 100 points) would be released during this all nighter, so we were anxiously looking for that - it either didnt happen, or we ended up quitting before it was finally released.

We ended the night with an interesting little glitch which allowed us to drive an invisible car all over Pacific City - nothing is funnier then an invisible exploding car while 2 characters are in it.

Ymiris and I had a bit of fun with the cameras and Crackdown again. Much of it turned out to be total rubbish, but I did record a pretty easy way to get the shot-putter achievement (and actually using that same building you can also get: Body Juggler, Car Juggler, Hazardous Hangtime, Front Flipper, and Driving High.

I am more happy with the results of a video with us just messing around with some rockets - its amazing how far his burning body bounces when its all over..

I find myself really loving this game, and getting distracted even from the task at hand while playing. Ymiris and I were playing co-op last night and we finished the first kingpin, but while we were playing there was plenty of times that we just dropped the task at hand and started bouncing around rooftops to collect those nice shiney orbs.

If that wasn’t enough of a distraction, I happened to come across an interesting vehicle. It was essentially one of those trucks that is used to transport cars from place to place, and it makes a perfect ramp. We must have played with this thing for at least an hour. We set up a bunch of cars (Evil Knievel style) and charged the ramp to jump them. At one time I had a full sized tour bus in the mix. We also set it up to jump a walkway bridge.

We were having a blast, now we just need to come up with a way to video these antics.

Well after having such a blast on New Years for the Gears of War all nighter, I decided to attend the Lost Planet all nighter as well. I havent completed the story yet so I began the night by playing Chapter 7, after completing the boss at the end of the stage I then hopped over for some multiplayer play. This would be the first time I have even loaded versus mode for Lost Planet (besides a little bit of time played on the demos before release).

Ymiris and I played all the different types of online modes that were available, trying to be quick about picking a host that we both had access too, and could play together on. After quite a few rounds of online play (I ended up getting to online level 14 or so) we decided to turn in for the night. I had to go on a road trip to Philadelphia the next day, and Ymiris had to get up early as well. We tried to get some other fellow 3fs members to join in on the fun but it was difficult arranging everyone to join the same host or to find one of us hosting. I do know for a fact that Kanone killed me a number of times though =-)

After being offline for a few minutes, I just couldnt help myself, I loaded up Lost planet one last time and made some progress on Chapter 8. Even after an “all nighter”, I still have plenty to complete in that game =-)

Well I am writing another recap of my gaming - mostly because I feel like I should keep blogging about something and most of the time I just dont keep up with xbox news enough to actually post about that here. My reviews and guides have died down - I will be writing up something in that regards soon I hope.

Last night was a marathon gaming night. I started the night with some Heavy Weapon, first some multiplayer with Heavy Weapon session i gained a couple achievements:

Then I switched gears and played some Gears of War . First I played some of Act 3 on co-op with Antediluvia. After he left for bed I played a couple rounds of versus, and then it was time to switch games again.

Then was about 30 minutes of Enchanted Arms which ended with me forgetting to save, and finding a battle I couldn’t win, so I am in the same place I was before that. Time to change games.

I haven’t given much time to Progect Gotham Racing 3, I still have it from gamefly but I just seem to put it below many of the other games I am playing right now. I picked up a couple of the achievements, all of which were the ones that dont really take any actual gaming effort.

yeah they could have actually spent some time and came up with different pictures, heh.

I ended the night with about 10 minutes of roboblitz, and I was beat so i went to sleep. It was a 4 hour session of straight gaming, more then I usually play thats for sure.

Last night I put a couple more hours into Enchanted Arms, only about 8 hours into the game thus far. Which is tracked by the game itself, but also my Live Eye Profile registers about the same amount of time in game. I also gained my third achievement in the game.

Then once again I joined Ymiris for some Gears of War Co-op. We are almost complete with act 3 on insane. I finished insane a bit ago - but nothing beats a good night of co-op, especially with a friend, and an added side benefit I finally found the checkpoint that I was missing for the final achievement I can recieve for non-versus mode.

Finally just found out I made it into Gamer Speak for participating in the Gears of War All Nighter. Thanks Antediluvia for pointing this out!