100th Post! Slowly Going The Way Of The Buffalo?

Did anyone else feel guilty when killing the last buffalo in Red Dead Redemption? As far as achievements go, killing all of the buffalo in the game for 5 gamerscore was pretty grim.

Most games have achievements for killing ‘x’ amount of enemies, but usually these enemies will respawn, or eliminating them is a key part of the storyline. The buffalo in RDR are not going to respawn. After you have killed them all, they are extinct. There were a few achievements in RDR which were rather dark. One has you killing one of every animal in the game, another has you killing & skinning 18 bears, but the most dark achievement would have to be ‘Dastardly’. This one has you tying up a woman, placing her on the train tracks and watching her get ran over by a train. I’m not going to spoil anything, but there are some rather gruesome parts in this game towards the end of the story too.

I am not complaining though, as I think Rockstar have done very well to make me feel any kind of emotion while playing this game. After mowing down heaps of innocent civilians in the ‘No Russian’ level of COD6, I felt nothing: It was a fun level, but I didn’t think twice about doing it (what does that say about me?). Kudos must go to Rockstar for creating a main character which I like, (and am interested in his story) and for adding things like the buffalo achievement, and Dastardly… Anything that references Rocky & Bullwinkle is instant WIN in my book.

Maybe I’m alone in feeling something for the extinct RDR buffalo, but I think it’s a great thing to be this emotionally invested in a game for a change.

An Exciting Week?

This past week has been rather interesting...

Our fine country (not Canuckistan, the other one) got a new Prime Minister, which left mixed feelings for me. While I don't think that Ms. Gillard is a downgrade on Kevin '07, she is my local member for parliament (Werribee Represent, YO!), I'm just not a big fan on the way she got into office. Anyone could see that she was always going to knife Rudd, she was just waiting for the right opportunity. I know we're supposed to vote for the party, and not the leader, but I can't help feel cheated with my vote - nobody voted for Gillard. That being said, I still think she'll do a decent enough job, and will have no worries being the first elected female Prime Minister of Australia.

To get us all into the political groove, Canuckistan has opened the floodgates to the greatest debate of all time: Which Prime Minister candidate would you most like to see in a Speedo? Have your say - Polls close in 2 weeks.

The greatest case of mis-management in history happened this week, with my internet being capped until next Thursday. Apparently 50 gig during peak, and 70 gig during offpeak times wasn't enough for me. Why is this? I'd like to blame not myself, but Optus for their stupid policies. Twenty of the fifty gig used during peak times was not downloads, but fucking uploads! Being with iiNet for the past year, I forgot about Optus' backwards upload policy. I'll have to remember to not leave uTorrent running after downloading - Thats going to kill my up/down ratio!


Since I'm restricted to offline gaming, I've rediscovered my love for the humble Nintendo Wii. It was such an awesome idea on their part to sell classic games on their download platform. I have many classics from the NES, SNES and N64 catalogues. Today's wii-fest kicked off with some Mario Brothers, Super Mario World, and ended with a 3 hour session with Super Mario RPG. That's already alot of Mario, and without even counting Mario Kart, Super Mario 64, and the 2 best retail games on the wii: Super Mario Galaxy, and Paper Mario.

Thats alot of Mario, but I think I'm up to the challenge.

EDIT 1: I forgot to mention the Football World Cup *slaps head*. After a horror opening match against Germany (where the Aussies didn't even try to win), The Australian national team played two great games this week to restore our faith. We got a 1-1 draw with Ghana, a match Australia should've won (despite having Harry Kewell sent off), and then beat Serbia 2-1 to end our tournament on a high.

I am very proud of the Socceroos, and it is a shame that one very bad game overshadowed two very good results.

EDIT 2: FourmoresleepsuntilIgetmyinternetuncapped!

Four Games, Twenty Two Dollars!

Apologies for the noisy-arse photo, but the poor quality of the photo perfectly reflects my purchases last weekend. In the spirit of "having a laugh", I headed to the local GAME store, and checked out their sale.

After searching for hidden gems, and only slightly going over my $20 budget, I left the store slightly embarrassed (Dead or Alive computer boobies will do that), but pleased with the purchases.

I have yet to try them out (Big Bang Theory, and Mad Men dvd's will do that), but will post impressions of my experiences with these games. Will they be twenty two dollars of fun? I hope so, as they have next to zero trade-in value.

Check out Game for yourself, and pick up some *ahem* quality titles. Set yourself a $20 budget, and see if you can better my attempt.

Fun With Red Dead Redemption

During this past week, I have been playing alot of Red Dead Redemption (RDR) online with buddies. Much like Grand Theft Auto 4, the fun for me in this game is just doing random things & making my own fun. In RDR, there are a few multiplayer modes, like deathmatch for example, but I tend to steer clear of those. I am a big fan of the "free roam" mode.

Free roam opens up the whole world map, and throws in upto 16 players. You are free to do what you want, and go where you want. You can roam the countryside on your own, or join up in a posse of your friends. Experience points can be earned by doing things such as killing other players (people not in your posse), or by completing challenges such as hunting wildlife, picking flowers, or by clearing out gang hideouts. Completing the gang hideouts is fun, and is the quickest way to level up. As you level up, you will gain things such as extra weapons, faster horses, and other characters to select.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I love making my own fun. I loved it in Grand Theft Auto, doing such things as running other players over in a helicopter, and RDR certainly has it's many possibilities. One night, my friends and I are trying to kill bears with knives, another night we're doing drive-by shootings in a stagecoach, and in our last session we were killing hundreds of lawmen with the cannons mounted on the castle in Mexico (with a bit of cannoning each other for laughs too).

There is much fun to be had in the RDR free roam modes, and feel free to send off an invite next time you're on. Red Dead Redemption is my favourite flower-picking simulator of all time... Give it a go.

The Stanley Cup Winners Are...

The Chicago Blackhawks. The Blackhawks, with some of the best jerseys in sports, have win the Stanley Cup 48 years after their last win. They beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the sixth game to win the best of 7 series 4-2.

I have mixed feelings about the win by the Blackhawks... I am glad that they have won, as the franchise has so much history (they were one of the original 6 teams in the NHL), and that they play a very entertaining brand of hockey, but the Blackhawks are the team which eliminated the Canucks... TWO years in a row! They're supposed to be the enemy.

Here is a funny Blackhawks tribute song from the Retar Crew for you all to enjoy. It is horribly catchy, and is full of hockey references...



Congratulations to the Blackhawks, hopefully the Canucks can finally win the cup next year. In Canuckistan there are two seasons: 1) Hockey season, and 2) Waiting for Hockey season.

Go Canucks Go!

I Think I Now Need An iPad!

Holy shit! DO WANT!



Portable SNES? Yeah, I'd bring that to work... Am not sure how much work would get done though. While I love the idea of the iPad, I have a laptop. It's very hard for me to justify that purchase.