Sorry, I've sort of officially retired this blog.
visit www.pixelsystems.net

I like oranges

I also got the Orange Box as well, I already own HL2 and HL2:Ep1 for the PC and my PC is capable of running the game probably reasonably well but I wanted the whole package in one spot (DVD).
Some early comments:
Half Life 2 - is starting to show it's age with the texturing but the gameplay is as good and fun as ever, the lock-on effect for the 360 version takes a bit to get used to, to be honest I sort of wish they removed it for the standard control. The hoverboat portions are a LOT easier with lock on though so I was somewhat happy, I found that part sort of frustrating on the PC.
I haven't gotten into EP1 and EP2 yet, I'm playing the game from the start to refresh my memory (and collect achievements)
Portal is awesome, very addictive. It's one of those games where you say "just one more level" and 40 minutes later you're still playing. I did encounter an odd bug here where my savegame was corrupt. Not a big deal but I was worried I'd have to start over. Thankfully I just had to restart the level.
Team Fortress 2 is great, though I only have one match in it so far. It's really well done, the graphics are perfect really. I'm a bit disappointed that there are so few maps and I never did find a class I was any good with but eventually I'll spend more time in here. I'm a bit worried that people will get bored of it and finding matches in here may get difficult if people go back to Halo or other Live titles.

Hayroh Sree

I picked up Halo3 on launch day, I actually was thinking of skipping my preorder, mostly because I really wasn't looking forward to it all that much.. I forced myself to finish Halo2 the week before and I really hated the experience. For some reason the game didn't really grab me, the Halo universe in general to me isn't all that exciting, don't know why. Perhaps because I missed the XBOX1 generation and despised the fact that Bungie got sold out from the PC scene and moved to strictly XBOX.

I finished the campaign storyline and overall was really impressed, initially the game started out really poorly, similar to Halo2 and so I was really dreading the rest of the game but once the vehicle sections started I enjoyed the game a lot more. The coop really shines in the game and my only beef about the coop is there is no drop-in drop out so if anyone quits or lags out the entire game is lost, which really bites. Thankfully playing with friends this rarely happens.
Halo3 is my first experience with Halo online and I actually like it. I'm not really all that good but I can hold my own depending on the game mode (shotty snipers sucks ass).

I have to convince some of my friends to play more competitively/online so we can have games where I actually know everyone on my team, this way I can tolerate all the racist sexist vulgar speech since I actually know all the people yelling it at me.

Too much text

I haven't updated this for a while.
1) I finished Bioshock, I haven't gotten all the achievements but I made it through the main storyline. Overall it's a great game, good length, very interesting story, awesome voice acting. My only beef is the ending which was jarring to me. I sort of changed how I was playing mid-game so the ending I got was opposite to how I was feeling. The game has multiple endings so it will give me incentive to go back and play on hard (get the achievements) and see the alternate ending.
If you haven't tried Bioshock you really need to.

2) I got an old XBOX, I had a ton of problems with it but eventually I got XBMC running on it. Very cool, much better than I expect really. I'm more using it from an interest point of view. I'm not sure I'll keep it but in general it's really impressive.

3) I bought C&C3, Far Cry Instincts, FEAR on Ebay for $50, hopefully the dude mailed it to the correct address as I fucked up on my Paypal payment. I really only wanted C&C3 but considering it's still full price here and the other 2 games got decent reviews I'll play them and maybe trade them in for something else.

4) I had my birthday and my sister bought me a Live Vision camera. I think I'll trade that in for the messenger kit. I got a decent deal from VideoGames Plus which with shipping turns out to be cheaper than buying it from Futureshop if we take the tax into consideration.

4 weeks!?

Wow, a month since I last updated this.
I finished Overlord, I still need to try and get some of the online achievements. Overall I was really happy with the game and will recommend it. It has a good length, decent story, some of the bosses are better than others (final boss was a bit disappointing). Pick up Overlord if you want a different game experience on your 360.

I got back into GRAW2 and started getting the co-op achievements. Great game really and I'm disappointed I hadn't tried some of the coop missions earlier. My disappointment with the coop levels is that it's not really obvious on how to complete some of the levels. Not a huge issue but if you're playing with people who are in the same boat as you you can spend hours trying to finish a level and fail because you didn't complete everything "just so". I still have a few achievements here and I hope some of my friends will actually try the coop because it's really fun with people who aren't asshats

I bought Bioshock and am blown away. What a great game, this is why I play videogames. The voice acting and graphics are the most interesting parts for me. The game seems really long too since I've been playing pretty diligently and considering my prior knowledge about the title I'm surprised I haven't even seen some aspects of the game. This is the kind of game that I worry will disappear if the Wii is successful. I don't like mini-games.. I don't like Japanese-centric games so if games like Bioshock disappear then I will likely retire from gaming.

Now till October

I guess from August on it is going to get expensive for gaming. There are so many good titles coming out that it is going to be difficult to decide what to buy. There are also current titles that I still want to buy so that compounds the issue.

Stranglehold
- I'll likely buy it, I really like the idea of destructible environments, everything I've seen suggests that it will be a good game

The Darkness
- I haven't tried the demo yet but I hope to get it, I may pick it up used instead though considering all the good games this year

C&C3
- Since EA is pretty liberal with their price drops (LOTR as a basis for my theory) I'm hoping I can get a new copy for $39 or less

Bioshock
- must have, there is no question about this title

Medal of Honor : Airborne
- still up in the air, since Infinity Ward abandoned the MOH series it has sucked, everything I've seen of this title looks cool but I'll wait on some reviews first

MotoGP07
- I liked 06 but it had too many performance issues, 07 fixed the issues but the game now feels generic. Not sure how they lost it but I'll be skipping this title

Blue Dragon
- you know how much I LOVE jRPGs (NOT!) no way I'll ever own this game

Flatout : Ultimate Carnage
- I loved the demo, loved the PC title of this game, a friend of a friend has some music on the game's soundtrack. I'll be buying it.

Halo 3
- I'll buy it to say I have all 3 but honestly I am not all that excited for it (I still haven't finished Halo2 to be honest)

Mass Effect
- looks great but I can't play another 70 hour game, Oblivion almost killed me and by end I hated it, so much so I traded it in so I wouldn't have to see it again. Mass Effect looks to be in the same vein.

Jerico
- doubtful, looks too generic

GTAIV
- must buy, I'm a sucker for sandbox games

Half Life 2 : Orange
- must buy, even though I own HL2 and HL2-EP1 for the PC I will buy and play it again on the 360.

Overlord

I really like Overlord, I still have a lot to accomplish in Forza2 but for now Overlord is taking a lot of my free time. The concept for the game is brilliant, though I guess it borrows a lot of thinking from a Nintendo game called Pikmin. I never played Pikmin so for me it's all new and pretty unique.
Some things do bother me though, the control scheme needs some refinement. When trying to select something for action (flag marker, spawn point, item in the world) it becomes pretty difficult to target them, especially when the action is frantic. I'm not sure how they would improve it to be honest, perhaps just simply revising the puzzle to make sure that it's difficult to put each item on the same plane, though even that may be difficult.
I like the humor, the voice acting of Gnarl is really good and funny which is something more games need, light-hearted humor.
I'm not very far in the game I suspect but I'd estimate that I'm about 10 hours in, likely 40% complete the game. I haven't really spent much on upgrading my armor/weapons. I think it will probably be difficult to get all the achievements. Looks like a few people on my friends list have the game so at least I have someone to play against.